In Our Town

 BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

 The Court of Boyville, The Real Issue, Stratagems and Spoils

 Illustrations by F. R. Gruger and W. Glackens

 NEW YORK McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. MCMVI

 Copyright 1906 by McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 

 Published April, 1906

 Copyright 1904 by The Century Co. Copyright 1905-1906 by The Curtis Publishing Co. 

[Illustration: He wore his collars so high that he had to order themfrom a drummer]

Contents

 I. SCRIBES AND PHARISEES

 II. THE YOUNG PRINCE

 III. THE SOCIETY EDITOR

 IV. "AS A BREATH INTO THE WIND"

 V. THE COMING OF THE LEISURE CLASS

 VI. THE BOLTON GIRL'S "POSITION"

 VII. "BY THE ROD OF HIS WRATH"

 VIII. "A BUNDLE OF MYRRH"

 IX. OUR LOATHED BUT ESTEEMED CONTEMPORARY

 X. A QUESTION OF CLIMATE

 XI. THE CASTING OUT OF JIMMY MYERS

 XII. "'A BABBLED OF GREEN FIELDS"

 XIII. A PILGRIM IN THE WILDERNESS

 XIV. THE PASSING OF PRISCILLA WINTHROP

 XV. "AND YET A FOOL"

 XVI. A KANSAS "CHILDE ROLAND"

 XVII. THE TREMOLO STOP

 XVIII. SOWN IN OUR WEAKNESS

 XIX. "THIRTY"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

He Wore his Collars so High that He Had to Order Them from a Drummer

Suppressing Nothing "On Account of the Respectability of the PartiesConcerned"

As an Office Joke the Boys Used to Leave a Step-Ladder by Her Desk sothat She Could Climb Up and See How Her Top-Knot Really Looked

And Brought with Him a Large Leisure and a Taste for Society

Sometimes He Thought It was a Report of a Fire and at Other Times ItSeemed Like a Dress-Goods Catalogue

As the Dinner Hour Grew Near She Raged--So the Servants said--Wheneverthe Telephone Rang

"Jim Purdy, Taken the Day He Left for the Army"

He Advertised the Fact that He was a Good Hater by Showing Callers atHis Office His Barrel

He Likes to Sit in the Old Swayback Swivel-Chair and Tell Us His Theoryof the Increase in the Rainfall

And Camped in the Office for Two Days, Looking for Jimmy

Reverend Milligan Came in with a Church Notice

A Desert Scorpion, Outcast by Society and Proud of it

"He Made a Lot of Money and Blew it in"

Went About Town with His Cigar Pointing Toward his Hat-Brim

The Traveling Men on the Veranda Craned Their Necks to Watch Her Out ofSight

Counting the Liars and Scoundrels and Double-Dealers and Villains WhoPass

IN OUR TOWN

I

Scribes and Pharisees

Ours is a little town in that part of the country called the West bythose who live east of the Alleghanies, and referred to lovingly as"back East" by those who dwell west of the Rockies. It is a country townwhere, as the song goes, "you know everybody and they all know you, " andthe country newspaper office is the social clearing-house. 

When a man has published a paper in a country community for many years, he knows his town and its people, their strength and their weakness, their joys and their sorrows, their failings and their prosperity--or ifhe does not know these things, he is on the road to failure, for thisknowledge must be the spirit of his paper. The country editor and hisreporters sooner or later pass upon everything that interests theirtown. 

In our little newspaper office we are all reporters, and we know manyintimate things about our people that we do not print. We know, forinstance, which wives will not let their husbands endorse other men'snotes at the banks. We know about the row the Baptists are having to getrid of the bass singer in their choir, who has sung at funerals forthirty years, until it has reached a point where all good Baptists dreaddeath on account of his lugubrious profundo. Perhaps we should take thistragedy to heart, but we know that the Methodists are having the sametrouble with their soprano, who "flats"--and has flatted for ten years, and is too proud to quit the choir "under fire" as she calls it; and weremember what a time the Congregationalists had getting rid of theirtenor. So that choir troubles are to us only a part of the grist thatkeeps the mill going. 

As the merest incident of the daily grind, it came to the office thatthe bank cashier, whose retirement we announced with half a column ofregret, was caught $3500 short, after twenty years of faithful service, and that his wife sold the homestead to make his shortage good. We knowthe week that the widower sets out, and we hear with remarkable accuracyjust when he has been refused by this particular widow or that, and, when he begins on a school-teacher, the whole office has candy and cigarand mince pie bets on the result, with the odds on the widower five toone. We know the woman who is always sent for when a baby comes to town, and who has laid more good people of the community in their shrouds thanall the undertakers. We know the politician who gets five dollars a dayfor his "services" at the polls, the man who takes three dollars and theman who will work for the good of the cause in the precious hope of ablessed reward at some future county convention. To know these things isnot a matter of pride; it is not a source of annoyance or shame; it ispart of the business. 

Though our loathed but esteemed contemporary, the _Statesman_, speaks ofour town as "this city, " and calls the marshal "chief of police, " we arenone the less a country town. Like hundreds of its kind, our littledaily newspaper is equipped with typesetting machines and is printedfrom a web perfecting press, yet it is only a country newspaper, andknowing this we refuse to put on city airs. Of course we print theafternoon Associated Press report on the first page, under formal headsand with some pretence of dignity, but that first page is the parlour ofthe paper, as it is of most of its contemporaries, and in the otherpages they and we go around in our shirt sleeves, calling people bytheir first names; teasing the boys and girls good-naturedly; ticklingthe pompous members of the village family with straws from time to time, and letting out the family secrets of the community without much regardfor the feelings of the supercilious. 

Nine or ten thousand people in our town go to bed on this kind of mentalpabulum, as do country-town dwellers all over the United States, andalthough we do not claim that it is helpful, we do contend that it doesnot hurt them. Certainly by poking mild fun at the shams--the townpharisees--we make it more difficult to maintain the class lines whichthe pretenders would establish. Possibly by printing the news ofeverything that happens, suppressing nothing "on account of therespectability of the parties concerned, " we may prevent some evil-doersfrom going on with their plans, but this is mere conjecture, and we donot set it down to our credit. What we maintain is that in printing ourlittle country dailies, we, the scribes, from one end of the world tothe other, get more than our share of fun out of life as we go along, and pass as much of it on to our neighbours as we can spare. 

[Illustration: Suppressing nothing "on account of the respectability ofthe parties concerned"]

Because we live in country towns, where the only car-gongs we hear areon the baker's waggon, and where the horses in the fire department workon the streets, is no reason why city dwellers should assume that we arenatives. We have no dialect worth recording--save that some of usWesterners burr our "r's" a little or drop an occasional final "g. " Butyou will find that all the things advertised in the backs of themagazines are in our houses, and that the young men in our towns walkinghome at midnight, with their coats over their arms, whistle the samepopular airs that lovelorn boys are whistling in New York, Portland, SanFrancisco or New Orleans that same fine evening. Our girls are thosepretty, reliant, well-dressed young women whom you see at the summerresorts from Coronado Beach to Buzzard's Bay. In the fall and winterthese girls fill the colleges of the East and the State universities ofthe West. Those wholesome, frank, good-natured people whom you met lastwinter at the Grand Cañons and who told you of the funny performance of"Uncle Tom's Cabin" in Yiddish at the People's Theatre on the East Sidein New York, and insisted that you see the totem pole in Seattle; andthen take a cottage for a month at Catalina Island; who gave you the tipabout Abson's quaint little beefsteak chop-house up an alley in Chicago, who told you of Mrs. O'Hagan's second-hand furniture shop in Charleston, where you can get real colonial stuff dirt cheap--those people are ourleading citizens, who run the bank or the dry-goods store or theflour-mill. At our annual arts and crafts show we have on exhibitionloot from the four corners of the earth, and the club woman who has notheard it whispered around in our art circles that Mr. Sargent ispainting too many portraits lately, and that a certain long-legged modelwhose face is familiar in the weekly magazines is no better than sheshould be--a club woman in our town who does not know of these thingsis out of caste in clubdom, and women say of her that she is giving toomuch time to her church. 

We take all the beautiful garden magazines, and our terra-cotta worksare turning out creditable vases--which we pronounce "vahzes, " you maybe sure--for formal gardens. And though we men for the most part run ourown lawnmowers, and personally look after the work of the college boywho takes care of the horse and the cow for his room, still there are afew of us proud and haughty creatures who have automobiles, and gosnorting around the country scaring horses and tooting terror into theherds by the roadside. But the bright young reporters on our papers donot let an automobile come to town without printing an item stating itsmake and its cost, and whether or not it is a new one or a second-handone, and what speed it can make. At the flower parade in our own littletown last October there were ten automobiles in line, decked with paperflowers and laden with pretty girls in lawns and dimities andlinens--though as a matter of fact most of the linens were only "Indianhead. " And our particular little country paper printed an item to theeffect that the real social line of cleavage in the town lies notbetween the cut-glass set and the devotees of hand-painted china, butbetween the real nobility who wear genuine linen and the base imitationswho wear Indian head. 

In some towns an item like that would make people mad, but we have ourpeople trained to stand a good deal. They know that it costs them fivecents a line for cards of thanks and resolutions of respect, so theynever bring them in. They know that our paper never permits "one who wasthere" to report social functions, so that dear old correspondent hasresigned; and because we have insisted for years on making an item aboutthe first tomatoes that are served in spring at any dinner or reception, together with the cost per pound of the tomatoes, the town has becomeused to our attitude and does not buzz with indignation when we poke arisible finger at the homemade costumes of the Plymouth Daughters whenthey present "The Mikado" to pay for the new pipe-organ. Indeed, so usedis the town to our ways that when there was great talk last winter aboutMrs. Frelingheysen for serving fresh strawberries over the ice cream ather luncheon in February, just after her husband had gone throughbankruptcy, she called up Miss Larrabee, our society editor, on thetelephone and asked her to make a little item saying that thestrawberries served by Mrs. Frelingheysen at her luncheon were notfresh, but merely sun dried. This we did gladly and printed her recipe. So used is this town to our school teachers resigning to get marriedthat when one resigns for any other reason we make it a point toannounce in the paper that it is not for the usual reason, and tell ourreaders exactly what the young woman is going to do. 

So, gradually, without our intending to establish it, a familyvernacular has grown up in the paper which our people understand, butwhich--like all other family vernaculars--is Greek to those outside thecircle. Thus we say:

"Bill Parker is making his eighth biennial distribution of cigars to-dayfor a boy. "

City papers would print it:

"Born to Mr. And Mrs. W. H. Parker, a baby boy. "

Again we print this item:

"Mrs. Merriman is getting ready to lend her fern to the Nortons, June15. "

That doesn't mean anything, unless you happen to know that Mrs. Merrimanhas the prettiest Boston fern in town, and that no bow-window isproperly decorated at any wedding without that fern. In larger towns thesame news item would appear thus:

"Cards are out announcing the wedding of Miss Cecil Norton and Mr. Collis R. Hatcher at the home of the bride's parents, Mr. And Mrs. T. J. Norton, 1022 High street, June 15. "

A plain drunk is generally referred to in our columns as a "guest ofMarshal Furgeson's informal house-party, " and when a group ofdrunk-and-disorderlies is brought in we feel free to say of theirevening diversion that they "spent the happy hours, after refreshments, playing progressive hell. " And this brings us to the consideration ofthe most important personage with whom we have to deal. In what we call"social circles, " the most important personages are Mrs. Julia NealWorthington and Mrs. Priscilla Winthrop Conklin, who keep two hiredgirls and can pay five dollars a week for them when the prevailingprice is three. In financial circles the most important personage isJohn Markley, who buys real-estate mortgages; in political circles themost important personage is Charlie Hedrick who knows the railroadattorneys at the capital and always can get passes for the countydelegation to the State convention; in the railroad-yards the mostimportant personage is the division superintendent, who smokes ten-centcigars and has the only "room with a bath" at the Hotel Metropole. Butwith us, in the publication of our newspaper, the most importantpersonage in town is Marshal Furgeson. 

If you ever looked out of the car-window as you passed through town, youundoubtedly saw him at the depot, walking nervously up and down theplatform, peering into the faces of strangers. He is ever on the outlookfor crooks, though nothing more violent has happened in our county foryears than an assault and battery. But Marshal Furgeson neverrelinquishes his watch. In winter, clad in his blue uniform and campaignhat, he is a familiar figure on our streets; and in summer, without coator vest, with his big silver star on which is stamped "Chief ofPolice, " pinned to his suspender, he may be seen at any point wheretrouble is least likely to break out. He is the only man on the townsite whom we are afraid to tease, because he is our chief source ofnews; for if we ruffle his temper he sees to it that our paper missesthe details of the next chicken-raid that comes under his notice. He canbring us to time in short order. 

When we particularly desire to please him we refer to him as "theauthorities. " If the Palace Grocery has been invaded through the backwindow and a box of plug tobacco stolen, Marshal Furgeson is delightedto read in the paper that "the authorities have an important clew andthe arrest may be expected at any time. " He is "the authorities. " If"the authorities have their eyes on a certain barber-shop on South MainStreet, which is supposed to be doing a back-door beer business, " heagain is "the authorities, " and contends that the word strikes moreterror into the hearts of evil-doers than the mere name, MarshalFurgeson. 

Next in rank to "the authorities, " in the diplomatic corps of theoffice, come our advertisers: the proprietors of the White FrontDry-Goods Store, the Golden Eagle Clothing Store, and the Bee Hive. These men can come nearer to dictating the paper's policy than thebankers and politicians, who are supposed to control country newspapers. Though we are charged with being the "organ" of any of half-a-dozenpoliticians whom we happen to speak of kindly at various times, we havelittle real use for politicians in our office, and a business man whobrings in sixty or seventy dollars' worth of advertising every month hasmore influence with us than all the politicians in the county. This isthe situation in most newspaper offices that succeed, and when any othersituation prevails, when politicians control editors, the newspapersdon't pay well, and sooner or later the politicians are bankrupt. 

The only person in town whom all the merchants desire us to poke fun atis Mail-Order Petrie. Mail-Order Petrie is a miserly old codger who buyseverything out of town that he can buy a penny cheaper than the homemerchants sell it. He is a hard-working man, so far as that goes, andso stingy that he has been accused of going barefooted in the summertime to save shoes. When he is sick he sends out of town for patentmedicines, and for ten years he worked in his truck-garden, fightingfloods and droughts, bugs and blight, to save something like a hundreddollars, which he put in a mail-order bank in St. Louis. When it failedhe grinned at the fellows who twitted him of his loss, and said: "Oh, come easy, go easy!"

A few years ago he subscribed to a matrimonial paper, and one day heappeared at the office of the probate judge with a mail-order wife, who, when they had been married a few years, went to an orphan asylum and gota mail-order baby. We have had considerable sport with Mail-OrderPetrie, and he has become so used to it that he likes it. Sometimes ondull days he comes around to the office to tell us what a bargain he gotat this or that mail-order house, and last summer he came in to tell usabout a great bargain in a cemetery lot in a new cemetery being laid outin Kansas City; he bought it on the installment plan, a dollar down andtwenty-five cents a month, to be paid until he died, and he bragged agreat deal about his shrewdness in getting the lot on those terms. Hechuckled as he said that he would be dead in five years at the most andwould have a seventy-five dollar lot for a mere song. He made us promisethat when that time does come we will write up his obsequies under thehead "A Mail-Order Funeral. " He added, as he stood with his hand on thedoor screen, that he had no use for the preachers and the hypocrites inthe churches in this town, and that he was taking a paper called the"Magazine of Mysteries, " that teaches some new ideas on religion andthat he expects to wind up in a mail-order Heaven. 

And this is the material with which we do our day's work--Mail-OrderPetrie, Marshal Furgeson, the pretty girls in the flower parade, thewise clubwomen, the cut-glass society crowd, the proud owner of theautomobile, the "respectable parties concerned, " the proprietor of theGolden Eagle, the clerks in the Bee Hive, the country crook who aspiresto be a professional criminal some day, "the leading citizen, " whospends much of his time seeing the sights of his country, the collegeboys who wear funny clothes and ribbons on their hats, and thepoliticians, greedy for free advertising. They are ordinary two-leggedmen and women, and if there is one thing more than any other that marksour town, it is its charity, and the mercy that is at the bottom of allits real impulses. 

Our business seems to outsiders to be a cruel one, because we have todeal as mere business with such sacred things as death and birth, themeeting and parting of friends, and with tragedies as well as withcomedies. This is true. Every man--even a piano tuner--thinks hisbusiness leads him a dog's life, and that it shows him only the seamyside of the world. But our business, though it shows the seams, shows usmore of good than of bad in men. We are not cynics in our office; for weknow in a thousand ways that the world is good. We know that at the endof the day we have set down more good deeds than bad deeds, and that thepeople in our town will keep the telephone bell ringing to-morrow, moreto praise the recital of a good action than they will to talk to usabout some evil thing that we had to print. 

Time and again we have been surprised at the charity of our people. Theyare always willing to forgive, and be it man or woman who takes amisstep in our town--which is the counterpart of hundreds of Americantowns--if the offender shows that he wishes to walk straight, a thousandhands are stretched out to help him and guide him. It is not true that aman or woman who makes a mistake is eternally damned by his fellows. Ifone persists in wrong after the first misdeed it is not becausesheltering love and kindness were not thrown around the wrongdoer. Wehave in our town women who have done wrong and have lived down theirerrors just as men do, and have been forgiven. A hundred times in ouroffice we have talked these things over and have been proud of ourpeople and of their humanity. We are all neighbours and friends, andwhen sorrow comes, no one is alone. The town's greatest tragedies haveproved the town's sympathy, and have been worth their cost. 

II

The Young Prince

We have had many reporters for our little country newspaper--some goodones, who have gone up to the city and have become good newspaper men;some bad ones, who have gone back to the livery-stables from which theysprang; and some indifferent ones, who have drifted into the insurancebusiness and have become silent partners in student boarding-houses, taking home the meat for dinner and eating finically at the second tableof life, with a first table discrimination. But of all the boys who havesat at the old walnut desk by the window, the Young Prince gave us themost joy. Before he came on the paper he was bell-boy at the NationalHotel--bell-hop, he called himself--and he first attracted our attentionby handing in personal items written in a fat, florid hand. He seemed tohave second sight. He knew more news than anyone else in town--who hadgone away, who was entertaining company, who was getting married, andwho was sick or dying. 

The day the Young Prince went to work he put on his royal garment--aten-dollar ready-made costume that cost him two weeks' hard work. But itwas worth the effort. His freckled face and his tawny shock of red hairrose above the gorgeous plaid of the clothes like a prairie sunset, andas he pranced off down the street he was clearly proud of his job. Thispride never left him. He knew all the switchmen in the railroad yards, all the girls in the dry-goods stores, all the boys on the grocers'waggons, all the hack-drivers and all the barbers in town. 

These are the great sources of news for a country daily. The reporterwho confines his acquaintance to doctors, lawyers, merchants andpreachers is always complaining of dull days. 

But there was never a dull day with the Young Prince. When he could getthe list of "those present" at a social function in no other way, hecalled up the hired girl of the festal house--we are such a small townthat only the rich bankers keep servants--and "made a date" with her, and the names always appeared in the paper the next day; whereupon theproud hostess, who thought it was bad form to give out the names of herguests, sent down and bought a dozen extra copies of the paper to sendaway to her Eastern kin. He knew all the secrets of the switch shanty. Our paper printed the news of a change in the general superintendent'soffice of the railroad before the city papers had heard of it, and weusually figured it out that the day after the letter denying our storyhad come down from the Superintendent's office the change would beofficially announced. 

One day when the Prince was at the depot "making the train" with hisnotebook in his hand, jotting down the names of the people who got on oroff the cars, the general superintendent saw him, and called the youthto his car. 

"Well, kid, " said the most worshipful one in his teasingest voice, "What's the latest news at the general offices to-day?"

The Young Prince turned his head on one side like a little dog lookingup at a big dog, and replied:

"Well, if you must know it, you're going to get the can, though weain't printing it till you've got a chance to land somewhere else. "

The longer the Prince worked the more clothes he bought. One of his mosteffective creations was a blue serge coat and vest, and a pair of whiteduck trousers linked by emotional red socks to patent-leather shoes. This confection, crowned with a wide, saw-edged straw hat with a blueband, made him the brightest bit of colour on the sombre streets of ourdull town. He wore his collars so high that he had to order them of adrummer, and as he came down street from the depot, riding magnificentlywith the 'bus-driver, after the train had gone, the clerks used to cry:"Look out for your horses; the steam-piano is coming!"

But it didn't affect the Young Prince. If he happened to have time andwas feeling like it, he would climb down over the rear end of the 'busand chase his tormentor into the back of the store where he worked, butgenerally the Young Prince took no heed of the jibes of the envious. Hewas conscious that he was cutting a figure, and this consciousness madehim proud. But his pride did not cut down the stack of copy that helaid on the table every morning and every noon. He couldn't spell and hewas innocent of grammar, and every line he wrote had to be edited, buthe got the news. He was every where. He rushed down the streets after anitem, dodging in and out of stores and offices like a streak of chainlightning having a fit. But it was beneath his dignity to run to fires. When the fire-bell rang, he waited nonchalantly on the corner near thefire-department house, and as the crowds parted to let the horses dashby on the dead run, he would walk calmly to the middle of the street, put his notebook in his pocket, and, as the fire-team plunged by, hewould ostentatiously throw out a stiff leg behind him like the tail of acomet, and "flip" onto the end of the fire-waggon. Then he would turnslowly around, raise a hand, and wiggle his fingers patronisingly at thegirls in front of the Racket Store as he flew past, swaying his bodywith the motion of the rolling, staggering cart. 

Other reporters who have been on the paper--the good ones as well as thebad--have had to run the gauntlet of the town jokers who delight to givegreen reporters bogus news, or start them out hunting impossible items. But the man who soberly told the Young Prince that O. F. C. Taylor wasvisiting at the home of the town drunkard, or that W. H. McBreyer hadaccepted a position in a town drug-store, only got a wink and a grinfrom the boy. Neither did the town wags fool him by giving him a birthannouncement from the wrong family, nor a wedding where there was none. He was wise as a serpent. Where he got his wisdom, no one knows. He hadthe town catalogued in a sort of rogues' directory--the liars and thehonest men set apart from one another, and it was a classification thatwould not have tallied with the church directories nor with the townblue-book nor with the commercial agency's reports. The sheep and thegoats in the Young Prince's record would have been strangers to oneanother if they could have been assembled as he imagined them. But hewas generally right in his estimates of men. He had a sixth sense forsham. 

The Young Prince had the sense to know the truth and the courage towrite it. This is the essence of the genius that is required to make agood newspaper man. No paper has trouble getting reporters who can handin copy that records events from the outside. Any blockhead can go to apublic meeting and bring in a report that has the words "as follows"scattered here and there down the columns. But the reporter who can goand bring back the soul of the meeting, the real truth about it--whatthe inside fights meant that lay under the parliamentary politenesses ofthe occasion; who can see the wires that reach back of the speakers, andsee the man who is moving the wires and can know why he is moving them;who can translate the tall talking into history--he is a real reporter. And the Young Prince was that kind of a youth. He went to the core ofeverything; and if we didn't dare print the truth--as sometimes we didnot--he grumbled for a week about his luck. As passionately as he lovedhis clothes, he was always ready to get them dirty in the interests ofhis business. 

For three years his nimble feet pounded the sidewalks of the town. Heknew no business hours, and ate and slept with his work. He never ceasedto be a reporter--never took off his make-up, never let down from hisexalted part. One day he fell sick of a fever, and for three weeksfretted and fumed in delirium. In his dreams he wrote pay locals, andmade trains, and described funerals, got lists of names for the societycolumn, and grumbled because his stuff was cut or left over till thenext day. When he awoke he was weak and wan, and they felt that theymust tell him the truth. 

The doctor took the boy's hands and told him very simply what theyfeared. He looked at the man for a moment in dumb wonder, and sighed along, tired sigh. Then he said: "Well, if I must, here goes"--and turnedhis face to the wall and closed his eyes without a tremor. 

And thus the Young Prince went home. 

III

The Society Editor

They say that in the newspaper offices of the city men work in ruts;that the editorial writer never reports an item, no matter how much heknows of it; that a reporter is not allowed to express an editorial viewof a subject, even though he be well qualified to speak; but on ourlittle country daily newspaper it is entirely different. We work on theinterchangeable point system. Everyone writes items, all of us getadvertising and job-work when it comes our way, and when one of uswrites anything particularly good, it is marked for the editorial page. The religious reporter does the racing matinée in Wildwood Park, and thefinancial editor who gets the market reports from the feed-store menalso gets any church news that comes along. 

The only time we ever established a department was when we made MissLarrabee society editor. She came from the high school, where hergraduating essay on Kipling attracted our attention, and, after anoffice council had decided that a Saturday society page would be apaying proposition. 

At first, say for six months after she came to the office, Miss Larrabeedevoted herself to the accumulation of professional pride. This pridewas as much a part of her life as her pompadour, which at that time wasso high that she had to tiptoe to reach it. However she managed to keepit up was the wonder of the office. Finally, we all agreed that she mustuse chicken-fence. She denied this, but was inclined to be good-naturedabout it, and, as an office-joke, the boys used to leave a step-ladderby her desk so that she could climb up and see how her top-knot reallylooked. Nothing ruffled her spirits, and we soon quit teasing her andbegan to admire her work. In addition to filling six columns of theSaturday's paper with her society report in a town where a church socialis important enough to justify publishing the names of those who wait onthe tables, Miss Larrabee was a credit to the office. 

[Illustration: As an office joke the boys used to leave a step-ladder byher desk so that she could climb up and see how her top-knot reallylooked]

She was always invited to the entertainments at the homes of theWorthingtons and the Conklins, who had stationary wash-tubs in thebasements of their houses, and who ate dinner instead of supper in theevening; and when she put on what the boys called her trotting harness, her silk petticoats rustled louder than any others at the party. One dayshe suddenly dropped her pompadour and appeared with her hair parted inthe middle and doused over her ears in long, undulating billows. Noother girl in town came within a quarter of an inch of Miss Larrabee'sdare. When straight-fronts became stylish, Miss Larrabee was a verticalmarvel, and when she rolled up her sleeves and organized a country club, she referred to her shoes as boots and took the longest steps in town. But with it all she was no mere clothes-horse. We drilled it into herhead during her first two weeks that "society" news in a country townmeans not merely the doings of the cut-glass set, but that it means aswell the doings of the Happy Hoppers, the Trundle-Bed Trash, the Knightsof Columbus, the Rathbone Sisters, the King's Daughters, the EpworthLeague, the Christian Endeavourers, the Woman's Relief Corps, theLadies' Aid and the Home Missionary Societies, Miss Nelson's DancingClass, the Switchmen's annual ball--if we get their job-work--and everykindred, every tribe, except such as gather in what is known as "kitchensweats" and occasionally send in calls for the police. When MissLarrabee got this into her head she began to groan under her burden, andby the end of the year, though she had great pride in her profession, she affected to loathe her department. 

Weddings were her especial abominations. When the first social cloudappeared on the horizon indicating the approach of a series of showersfor the bride which would culminate in a cloudburst at some stonechurch, Miss Larrabee would begin to rumble like distant thunder and, asthe storm grew thicker, she would flash out crooked chain-lightningimprecations on the heads of the young people, their fathers and mothersand uncles and aunts. By the day of the wedding she would be rolling asteady diapason of polite, decolourised, expurgated, ladylike profanity. 

While she sat at her desk writing the stereotyped account of the event, it was like picking up a live wire to speak to her. As she wrote, wecould tell at just what stage she had arrived in her copy. Thus, if shesaid to the adjacent atmosphere, "What a whopper!" we knew that she hadwritten, "The crowning glory of a happy fortnight of social gatheringsfound its place when----" and when she hissed out, "Mortgaged clear tothe eaves and full of installment furniture!" we felt that she hadreached a point something like this: "After the ceremony the gay partyassembled at the palatial home. " In a moment she would snarl: "I am deadtired of seeing Mrs. Merriman's sprawly old fern and the Bosworth palm. I wish they would stop lending them!" and then we realised that she hadreached the part of her write-up which said: "The chancel rail wasbanked with a profusion of palms and ferns and rare tropical plants. "She always groaned when she came to the "simple and impressive ringceremony. " When she wrote:

"The distinguished company came forward to offer congratulations to thenewly-wedded pair, " she would say as she sharpened her pencil-point:"There's nothing like a wedding to reveal what a raft of common kinpeople have, " and we knew that it was all over and that she was closingthe article with: "A dazzling array of costly and beautiful presents wasexhibited in the library, " for then she would pick up her copy, dog-earthe sheets, and jab them on the hook as she sighed: "Another greatAmerican pickle-dish exhibit ended. "

In the way she did two things Miss Larrabee excited the wonder andadmiration of the office. One was the way that she kept tab on brides. We heard through her of the brides who could cook, and of those who werebeginning life by accumulating a bright little pile of tin cans in thealley. She knew the brides who could do their own sewing and those whocould not. She had the single girl's sniff at the bride who wore hertrousseau season after season, made over and fixed up, and she gave theoffice the benefit of her opinion of the husband in the case who had anew tailor-made suit every fall and spring. She scented young marriedtroubles from afar, and we knew in the office whether his folks wereedging up on her, or her people were edging up on him. If a youngmarried man danced more than twice in one evening with anyone but hiswife, Miss Larrabee made faces at his back when he passed the officewindow, and if she caught a young married woman flirting, Miss Larrabeeregaled us by telling with whom the woman in question had opened a"fresh bottle of emotions. "

The other way in which Miss Larrabee displayed genius for her work wasin describing women's costumes. Three or four times a year, when thereare large social gatherings, we print descriptions of the women's gowns. Only three women in our town, Mrs. Worthington, Mrs. Conklin, and thesecond Mrs. Markley, have more than one new party dress in atwelve-month, and most of the women make a party gown last two or threeyears. Miss Larrabee was familiar with every dress in town. She knew itmade over, and no woman was cunning enough to conceal the truth evenwith a spangled yoke, a chiffon bertha, or a net over-dress; yet MissLarrabee would describe the gown, not merely twice, but half a dozentimes, so that the woman wearing it might send the description to herrelatives back East without arousing their suspicion that she waswearing the same dress year after year. Therefore, whenever MissLarrabee wrote up the dresses worn at a party, we were sure to sell fromfifty to a hundred extra papers. She could so turn a breastpin and ahomemade point-lace handkerchief tucked in the front of a good oldlady's best black satin into "point-lace and diamonds, " that they werealways good for a dozen copies of the paper, and she never overlookedthe dress of the wife of a good advertiser, no matter how plain it mightbe. 

She was worth her wages to the office merely as a compendium of shams. She knew whether the bridal couple, who announced that they would spendtheir honeymoon in the East, were really going to Niagara Falls, orwhether they were going to spend a week with his relatives in Decatur, Illinois. She knew every woman in town who bought two prizes for herwhist party--one to give if her friend should win the prize, and anotherto give if the woman she hated should win. With the diabolical eye of afiend she detected the woman who was wearing the dry-cleaned cast-offclothing of her sister in the city. What she saw the office knew, though she kept her conclusions out of the paper if they would do anyharm or hurt anyone's feelings. No pretender ever dreamed that she wasnot fooling Miss Larrabee. She was willing to agree most sympatheticallywith Mrs. Conklin, who insisted that the "common people" wouldn't beinterested in the list of names at her party; and the only place wherewe ever saw Miss Larrabee's claw in print was in the insistentmisspelling of the name of a woman who made it a point to ridicule thepaper. 

We have had other girls around the office since Miss Larrabee left, butthey do not seem to get the work done with any system. She was not onlyindustrious but practical. Friday mornings, when her work piled up, instead of fussing around the office and chattering at the telephone, she would dive into her desk and bring up her regular list ofadjectives. These she would copy on three slips, carefully dividing thelist so that no one had a duplicate, and in the afternoon each of theboys received a slip with a list of parties, and with instructions toscatter the adjectives she had given him through the accounts of theparties assigned to him--and the work was soon done. There was noscratching the head for synonyms for "beautiful, " "superb" or "elegant. "Miss Larrabee had doled out to each of us the adjectives necessary, and, given the adjectives, society reporting is easy. The editing of the copyis easy also, for one does not have to remember whether or not therefreshments were "delicious" at the Jones party when he sees the wordin connection with the viands at the Smith party. No two parties wereever "elegant" the same week. No two events were "charming. " No twowomen were "exquisitely" gowned. The person who was assigned theadjective "delightful" by Miss Larrabee might stick it in front of aluncheon, pin it on a hostess, or use it for an evening's entertainment. But he could use it only once. And with a list of those present and theadjectives thereunto appertaining, even a new boy could get up a columnin half an hour. She had an artist's pride in the finished work, howevermuch she might dislike the thing in making, and she used to sail down tothe press-room as soon as the paper was out, and, picking up the paperfrom the folder, she would stand reading her page, line upon line, precept upon precept, though every word and syllable was familiar toher. 

During her first year she joined the Woman's State Press Club, but shediscovered that she was the only real worker in the club and neverattended a second meeting. She told us that too many of the women worewhite stockings and low shoes, read their own unpublished short stories, and regarded her wide-shouldered shirtwaist and melodramatic openworkhosiery with suspicion and alarm. 

As the years passed, and wedding after wedding sizzled under her pen, she complained to us that she was beginning to be called "auntie" in toomany houses, and that the stock of available young men who didn't weartheir handkerchiefs under their collars at the dances had dwindled downto three. This reality faces every girl who lives in a country town. Then she is left with two alternatives: to go visiting or to beginbringing them up by hand. 

Miss Larrabee went visiting. At the end of a month she wrote: "It's allover with me. He is a nice fellow, and has a job doing 'Live TopicsAbout Town' here on the _Sun_. Give my job to the little Wheatly girl, and tell her to quit writing poetry, and hike up her dress in the back. My adjectives are in the left-hand corner of the desk under 'WhenKnighthood Was in Flower. ' And do you suppose you could get me and thegrand keeper of the records and seals a pass home for Christmas if I'ddo you a New York letter some time?

"They say these city papers are hog tight!"

IV

"As a Breath into the Wind"

We are proud of the machinery in our office--the two linotypes, the bigperfecting press and the little jobbers. They are endowed by officetraditions with certain human attributes--having their moods andvagaries and tantrums--so we love them as men love children. And this isa queer thing about them: though our building is pocked with windowsthat are open by day seven months in the year, and though the air of thebuilding is clean enough, save for the smell of the ink, yet at night, after the machines have been idle for many hours and are probablyasleep, the place smells like the lair of wild animals. By day they areas clean as machines may be kept. And even in the days when David Lewispetted them and coddled them and gave them the core of his heart, theywere speckless, and bright as his big, brown, Welsh eyes, but the nightstinks of them were rank and beastly. 

David came to us, a stray cat, fifteen years ago. He was too small towrestle with the forms--being cast in the nonpareil mould of hisrace--and so we put him to carrying papers. In school season he seemedto go to school, and in summer it is certain that he put a box on a highstool in the back room, and learned the printer's case, and fed the jobpresses at odd times, and edged on to the pay-roll without ever havingbeen formally hired. In the same surreptitious manner he slipped a cotinto the stockroom upstairs and slept there, and finally had it fittedup as a bedroom, and so became an office fixture. 

By the time his voice had stopped squeaking he was a good printer, andwhat with using the front office for a study at night, and the New Yorkpapers and the magazines for textbooks, he had acquired a good workingeducation. Whereupon he fell in love with two divinities at once--theblonde one working in the Racket Store, on Main Street, and the other, anew linotype that we installed the year before McKinley's firstelection. His heart was sadly torn between them. He never went to bedunder midnight after calling on either of them, and, having the Celt'snatural aptitude to get at the soul of either women or intricatemechanism, in a year he was engaged to both; but naturally enough abrain fever overtook him, and he lay on a cot at the Sisters' Hospitaland jabbered strange things. 

Among other things the priest who sat beside him one day heard Latinverse; whereat the father addressed David in the language of the Churchand received reply in kind. And they talked solemnly about matterstheological for five minutes, David's voice changing to the drone of theliturgist's and his face flushing with uncaged joy. In an hour therewere three priests with the boy, and he spoke in Latin to them withoutfaltering. He discussed abstruse ecclesiastical questions and claimedincidentally to be an Italian priest dead a score of years, and, toprove his claim, described Rome and the Vatican as it was before Leo'sday. Then he fell asleep and the next day was better and knew no Latin, but insisted on reading the note under his pillow which his girl hadsent him. After that he wanted to know how New York stood in theNational League and how Hans Wagner's batting record was, and proceededto get well in short order. 

David resumed his place in the office, and when we put in the perfectingpress he added another string to his bow. The press and the linotype andhis girl were his life's passions, and his position as short-stop in theMaroons, and as snare-drummer in the Second Regiment band, were hisdiversions. He wore clothes well and became president of the ImperialDancing Club--chiefly to please his girl, who desired social position. Aboy with twelve dollars a week in a country town, who will spend adollar or two a month to have his clothes pressed, can accomplish anysocial heights which rise before him, and there is no barrier in ourtown to a girl merely because she presides at the ribbon-counter; which, of course, is as it should be. 

So David became a town personage. When the linotype operator left, wegave David the place. Now he courted only one of his sweethearts bynight, and found time for other things. Also we gave him three dollarsa week more to spend, and the Imperial Club got most of it--generallythrough the medium of the blonde in the Racket Store, who wascultivating a taste for diamonds, and liked to wear flowers at the moreformal dances. 

Now, unless they are about to be married, a boy of twenty may not callon a girl of nineteen in a respectable family, a member of the PlymouthDaughters, and a graduate of the High School, oftener than four nightsin the week, without exciting more or less neighbourly comment; butDavid and the girl were merely going together--as the parlance of ourtown has it--and though they were engaged they had no idea of gettingmarried at any definite time. David thus had three nights in the sevenwhich might be called open. The big press would not receive him bynight, and he spent his love on his linotype by day; so he was lonesomeand longed for the society of his kind. The billiard-hall did not tempthim; but at the cigar-store he met and fell under the spell of HenryLarmy--known of the town as "Old Hen, " though he was not two score yearsgone--and the two began chumming together. 

"Old Hen" worked in a tin-shop, read Ruskin, regarded Debs as a prophet, received many papers devoted to socialism and the New Thought, andbelieved that he believed in no man, no God and no devil. Also he was awoman-hater, and though he never turned his head for a petticoat, preached free-love and bought many books which promised to tell him howto become a hypnotist. At various times, Larmy's category of beliefsincluded the single-tax, Buddhism, spiritualism, and a faith in thecurative properties of blue glass. David and Henry Larmy would sit inthe office of evenings discussing these things when honest people shouldbe in bed. 

Henry never could tell us just how the talk drifted to hypnotism and theoccult, nor when the current started that way. But one of the reporterswho happened to be driven off the street by the rain one night foundHenry and David in the office with a homemade planchette doing queerthings. They made it tell words in the middle of pages of newspapersthat neither had opened. They made it write answers to sums that neitherhad calculated, and they made it give the names of Henry's relativesdead and gone--also those that were living, whom David, who wasoperating it, did not know. The thing would not move for the man, butthe boy's fingers on it made it fly. Some way the triangular boardbroke, and the reporter and Henry were pop-eyed with wonder to see Davidhold his hands above the pencil and make it write, dragging a splinterof board behind it. David yawned five or six times and lay down on theoffice couch, and when he got up a moment later his hands were fingeringthe air, his lips fluttering like the wings of fledglings, and he seemedto be trying some new kind of lingo. He did not look about him, but wentstraight to the table, gripped the air above the pencil with the brokenboard upon it, and the pencil came up and began writing something, evidently in verse. David's face was shiny and smiling the while, buthis eyes were fixed, though his lips moved as they do when one writesand is unused to it. Larmy stared at the boy with open mouth, clearlyafraid of the spectacle that was before him. A night creaking of thebuilding made him jump, and he moistened his lips as the pencil wroteon. When the sheet was filled, the pencil fell and David looked abouthim with a smile and dropping his head on the desk began to yawn. Heseemed to be coming out of a deep sleep, and grinned up blinking: "Gee, I must 'a' gone to sleep on you fellows. I was up late last night. "

Larmy told the boy what had happened, and the three of them looked atthe paper, but could make nothing of it. David shook his head. 

"Not on your life, " he laughed. "What do you fellers take me for--aphonograph having the D. T. 's, or a mimeograph with a past? Uh-huh! Notfor little David! Why--say, that is some kind of Dutch!"

The reporter knew enough to know that it was Latin, but his High Schooldays were five years behind him, and he could not translate it. TheLatin professor at the college, however, said that it seemed to be animitation of Ovid. 

And the next time the reporter saw a light in the office window he brokeinto the seance. When the boy and his girl were not holding down thesofa at her father's home, or when there was no dance at the ImperialClub hall, nor any other social diversion, David and Larmy and thereporter would meet at the office and dive into things too deep forHoratio's philosophy. 

Their favourite theme was the immortality of the soul, and when theywere on this theme David would get nervous, pace up and down the office, and finally throw himself on the lounge and begin to yawn. Whereupon acontrol, or state of mind, or personality that called itself FraGuiseppi would rise to consciousness and dominate the boy. Larmy and thereporter called it "father, " and talked to it with considerablejocularity, considering that the father claimed they were talking to aghost. It would do odd things for them; go into rooms where David hadnever been: describe their furnishings and occupants accurately; readthe numbers on watches of prominent citizens, which the reporter wouldverify the next day; and pretend to bring other departed spirits intothe room to discuss various matters. Larmy had a pleasant social chatwith Karl Marx, and had the spirits hunting all over the kingdom-comefor Tom Paine and Murat. But the messenger either could not find them, or the line was busy with someone else, so these worthies neverappeared. 

Still, this must be said of the "father, " that it had a philosophy oflife, and a distinct personality far deeper and more charming and insome way sweeter than David's; that it talked with an accent, which tothe hearers seemed Italian, and in a voice that certainly could not havebeen the boy's by any trick of ventriloquism. One night in their talksLarmy said:

"'Father, ' you say you believe that the judgments of God are just--howdo you account for the sufferings, the heartaches, the sorrows, themisery that come in the wake of those judgments? Here is a great railwayaccident that strikes down twenty people, renders some cripples forlife, kills others. Here is a flood that sweeps away the property ofgood men and bad men. Is that just? What compensation is there for it?"

The "father" put his chin in one hand and remained silent for a time, asone deep in thought; then he replied:

"That is--what you call--life. That is what makes life, life; whatmakes it different from the existence we know now. All your misfortunes, your hardships, your joys, all your miseries and failures andtriumphs--these are the school of the soul which you call life. It is apreparation for the hereafter. "

And David waking knew nothing of the thing that possessed him sleeping. When they told him, he would smoke his cigarette, and make reply that hemust have had 'em pretty bad this time, or that he was glad he wasn'tthat "buggy" when he was awake. 

David's talent soon became known in the office. We used to call it hisspook, but only once did we harness it to practical business and thatwas when old Charley Hedrick, the local boss, was picking a candidatefor the Legislature. The reporter and Larmy asked the "father" one nightif it could get us connected with Mr. Hedrick. It said it would try; itneeded help. And there appeared another personality with which they weremore or less familiar, called the Jew. The Jew claimed to be a literaryman, and said it would act as receiver while the father acted astransmitter on Hedrick. Then they got this one-sided telephonicconversation in a thick, wheezy voice that was astonishingly likeHedrick's:

"Harmony--hell, yes; we're always getting the harmony and theWorthington state bank gets the offices. " Then a pause ensued. "Well, let'em bolt. I'm getting tired of giving up the whole county ticket tothem fellows to keep 'em from bolting. " After another pause, he seemedto answer someone: "Oh, Bill?--you can't trust him! He's played bothsides in this town for ten years. What I want isn't a man to satisfythem, but just this once I want a man who won't be even under thesuspicion of satisfying them. I want a fellow to satisfy me. " The otherside of the telephone must have spoken, for this came: "Well, then, we'll bust their damn bank! Did you see their last statement: cash downto fifteen per cent. And no dividends on half a million assets for ayear and a half? Something's rotten there. They're a lot of 'toads in apoisoned tank, ' as old Browning says. If they want a fight, they canhave it. " After the silence he replied: "I tell you fellows they can'tafford a fight. And, anyway, there'll never be peace in this town tillwe get things on the basis of one bank, one newspaper, one wife and onecountry, and the way to do that is to get out in the open and fight. IfI've got as much sense as a rabbit I say that Ab Handy is the man, andwhether I'm right or wrong I'm going to run him. " He seemed to retort tosome objector: "Yes, and the first thing you know he'd come charging upto the Speaker's desk with a maximum freight-rate bill, or a stock-yardsbill--and where would I be? I tell you he won't stand hitched. He'llswell up like a pizened pup, and you couldn't handle him. Where'd any ofus be, if the Representative from this county got to pawing the air forreform? I know Jake as though I'd been through him with a lantern. "There must have been a discussion of some kind among the others, for alengthy interim followed; then the voice continued: "Elect him?--ofcourse we can elect him. I can get five hundred from the State Committeeand we can raise that much down here. This is a Republican year, and wecould elect Judas Iscariot against any of the eleven brethren this yearon the Republican ticket, and I tell you it's Ab. You fellows can do asyou please, but I'm going to run Ab. "

Then, being full of political curiosity rather than impelled by a desirefor psychological research, the reporter slipped out and waited in astairway opposite the Exchange National Bank building until the light inHedrick's law office was extinguished. Then he saw old Charley and hishenchmen come out, one at a time, look cautiously up and down the streetand go forth in different, devious ways. The story in our paper the nextday of the candidacy of Ab Handy threw consternation into the ranks ofthe enemy. We had printed the conversation as it had occurred, afterwhich five men publicly contended that one of their number was atraitor. 

The summer browned the pastures, and the coming of autumn broughttrouble for David Lewis, president of the Imperial Dancing Club, short-stop for the Maroons, snare-drummer in the band, and operator oflinotypes. We who are at the period of life where love is a harvestforget the days of the harrow, and are prone to smile at the season ofthe seeding. We do not know that the heaviest burden God puts on ayoung soul is a burden of the heart. A travelling silk-salesman, with ahaughty manner and a two-hundred-dollar job, saw the blonde in theRacket Store and began calling at her father's home like the captain ofan army with banners. David, being only an armour-bearer at fifteendollars a week, found heartbreak in it all for him. A girl of twenty isso much older than a boy of twenty-one that the blonde began to assume amaternal attitude toward the boy, and he took to walking afield onSundays, looking at the sky in agony and asking his little"now-I-lay-me" God, what life was given to him for. He fabricated alegend that she was selling herself for gold, and when the haughtymanner and the blonde sped by David's window behind jinglingsleigh-bells that winter, David, sitting at the machine, got back proofsfrom the front office that looked like war-maps of a strange country. Moreover he let his matrices go uncleaned until they were beardy aswheat and the bill of repairs on the machine had begun to rise like acat's back. 

All of this may seem funny in the telling, but to see the littleWelshman's heart breaking in him was no pleasant matter. The girls inthe office pitied the boy, and hoped the silk-drummer would break herheart. The town and the Imperial Club, whereof David was much beloved, took sides with him, and knew his sorrow for their own. As for theblonde, it was only nature asserting itself in her; so David got backhis little chip diamonds, and his bangle bracelet, and his copy of"Riley's Love Songs, " and there was the "mist and the blinding rain" forhim, and the snow of winter hardened on the sidewalks. 

To console himself, the boy traded for a music-box, which he set goingwith a long brass lever. Its various tunes were picked in holes oncircular steel sheets, which were fed into the box and set whirling withthe lever. At night when Larmy wasn't enjoying what David called aspook-fest, the boy would sit in the office by the hour and listen tohis music-box. He must have played "Love's Golden Dream Is Past" ahundred lonesome times that winter (it had been their favouritewaltz--his and the girl's--at the Imperial Club), and it was a safeguess that if the boys in the office, as they passed the box at noon, would give the lever a yank, from the abdomen of the contrivance thewaltz song would begin deep and low to rumble and swell out with all thesimulation of sorrow that a mechanical soul may express. 

As the winter deepened, Larmy and the reporter and the "father" had moreand more converse. The "father" explained a theory of immortality whichdid not interest the reporter, but which Larmy heard eagerly. It saidthat science would resolve matter into mere forms of motion, which areexpressions of divine will, and that the only place where this divinewill exists in its pure state, eluding the so-called material state, isin the human soul. Further, the "father" explained that this soul, ordivine will, exists without the brain, independent of brain tissue, asmay be proved by the accepted phenomena of hypnotism, where the soul iscommanded to leave the body and see and hear and feel and know thingswhich the mere physical organs can not experience, owing to theinterposition of space. The "father" said that at death the Divine Willcommands the ripened seed of life to leave the body and assumeimmortality, just as that Will commands the seeds of plants and thesperm of animals to assume their natural functions. The Thing thattalked through David's lips said that the body is the seed-pod of thesoul, and that souls grow little or much as they are planted andenvironed and nurtured by life. All this it said in many nights, whileLarmy wondered and the reporter scoffed and stuck pins in David to seeif he could feel them. And the boy wakened from his dreams always tosay: "Gimme a cigarette!" and to reach over and pull the lever of hismusic-box, and add: "Perfessor, give us a tune! Hen, the professor sayshe won't play unless you give me a cigarette for him. "

One night, after a long wrangle which ended in a discourse by the"father, " a strange thing happened. Larmy and It were contending as towhether It was merely a hypnotic influence on the boy, of someone livingwhom they did not know, or what It claimed to be, a disembodied spirit. By way of diversion, the reporter had just run a binder's needle underone of the boy's finger-nails to see whether he would flinch. Then theVoice that was coming from David's mouth spoke and said: "I will showyou something to prove it;" and the entranced boy rose and went to theback room, while the two others followed him. 

He turned the lever that flashed the light on his linotype, and set thelittle motor going. He lifted up the lid of the metal-pot, to see if thefire was keeping it molten. Then the boy sat at the machine with hishands folded in his lap, gazing at the empty copy-holder out of deadeyes. In a minute--perhaps it was a little longer--a brass matrixslipped from the magazine and clicked down into the assembler; in asecond or two another fell, and then, very slowly, like the ticks of agreat clock, the brasses slipped--slipped--slipped into their places, and the steel spaces dropped into theirs. A line was formed, while theboy's hands lay in his lap. When it was a full line he grabbed thelever, that sent the line over to the metal-pot to be cast, and his handfell back in his lap, while the dripping of the brasses continued andthe blue and white keys on the board sank and rose, although no fingertouched them. 

Larmy squinted at the thing, and held his long, fuzzy, unshaven chin inhis hand. When the second line was cast the reporter broke the silencewith: "Well, I'll be damned!" And the Voice from David's mouth replied:"Very likely. " And the clicking of the brasses grew quicker. 

Seven lines were cast and then the boy got up and went back to the couchin the front room, where he yawned himself, apparently, through threestrata of consciousness, into his normal self. They took a proof of whathad been cast, but it was in Latin and they could not translate it. David himself forgot about it the next day, but the reporter, beingimpressed and curious, took the proof to the teacher of Latin at thecollege, who translated it thus: "_He shall go away on a long journeyacross the ocean, and he shall not return, yet the whole town shall seehim again and know him--and he shall bring back the song that is in hisheart, and you shall hear it. _"

The next week the "Maine" was blown up, and in the excitement thetroubles of David were forgotten in the office. Moreover, as he had towork overtime he put his soul deeper into the machine, and his nervestook on something of the steel in which he lived. The Associated Pressreport was long in those days, and the paper was filled with local newsof wars and rumours of wars, so that when the call for troops came inthe early spring, the town was eager for it, and David could not waitfor the local company to form, but went to Lawrence and enlisted withthe Twentieth Kansas. He was our first war-hero for thirty years, andthe town was proud of him. Most of the town knew why he went, and therewas reproach for the blonde in the Racket Store, who had told the girlsit would be in June and that they were going East for a wedding trip. 

When David came back from Lawrence an enlisted man, with a week in whichto prepare for the fray, the Imperial Club gave him a farewell dance ofgreat pride, in that one end of Imperial Hall was decorated for theoccasion with all the Turkish rugs, and palms, and ferns, andpiano-lamps with red shades, and American flags draped from the electricfixtures, and all the cut-glass and hand-painted punch-bowls that thegirls of the T. T. T. Club could beg or borrow; and red lemonade andraspberry sherbet flowed like water. Whereat David Lewis was so pleasedthat he grew tearful when he came into the hall and saw the splendourthat had been made for him. But his soul, despite his gratitude to theboys and girls who gave the party, was filled with an unutterablesadness; and he sat out many dances under the red lamp-shades with thevarious girls who had been playing sister to him; and the boys to whomthe girls were more than sisters were not jealous. 

As for the blonde, she beamed and preened and smiled on David, but hername was not on his card, and as the silk-salesman was on the road, shehad many vacant lines on her programme, and she often sat alone by acard-table shuffling the deck that lay there. The boy's eyes were deadwhen they looked at her and her smile did not coax him to her. Once whenthe others were dancing an extra David sat across the room from her, andshe went to him and sat by him, and said under the music:

"I thought we were always going to be friends--David?" And after he hadparried her for a while, he rose to go away, and she said: "Won't youdance just once with me, Dave, just for old sake's sake before you go?"And he put down his name for the next extra and thought of how long ithad been since the last June dance. Old sake's sake with youth may meansomething that happened only day before yesterday. 

The boy did not speak to his partner during the next dance but wentabout debating something in his mind; and when the number was ended hetripped over to the leader of the orchestra, whom he had hired fordances a score of times, and asked for "Love's Golden Dream Is Past" asthe next "extra. " It was his waltz and he didn't care if the whole townknew it--they would dance it together. And so when the orchestra beganhe started away, a very heart-broken, brown-eyed, olive-skinned littleWelshman, who barely touched the finger-tips of a radiant, overdevelopedblonde with roses in her cheeks and moonlight in her hair. She wouldhave come closer to him but he danced away and only hunted for her soulwith his brown Celtic eyes. And because David had asked for it and theyloved the boy, the old men in the orchestra played the waltz over andover again, and at the end the dancers clapped their hands for anencore, and when the chorus began they sang it dancing, and the boyfound the voice which cheered the "Men of Harlech, " the sweet, cadentvoice of his race, and let out his heart in the words. 

When he led her to a seat, the blonde had tears on her eyelashes as shechoked a "good-by, Dave" to him, but he turned away without answeringher and went to find his next partner. It was growing late and the crowdsoon went down the long, dark stairway leading from Imperial Hall, intothe moonlight and down the street, singing and humming and whistling"Love's Golden Dream, " and the next day they and the town and the bandcame down to the noon train to see the conquering hero go. 

It was lonesome in the office after David went, and his music-box in thecorner was dumb, for we couldn't find the brass lever for it, though theprinters and the reporters hunted in his trunk and in every place theycould think of. But the lonesomest things in the world for him were themachines. The big press grew sulky and kept breaking the web, and hislinotype took to absorbing castor-oil as if it were a kind of hasheesh. The new operator could run the new machine, but David's seemed to resentfamiliarity. It was six months before we got things going straight afterhe left us. 

He wrote us soldier letters from the Presidio, and from mid-ocean, andfrom the picket-line in front of Manila. One afternoon the messenger-boycame in snuffling with a sheet of the Press-report. David's name wasamong the killed. Then we turned the column rules on the first page andgot out the paper early to give the town the news. Henry Larmy broughtin an obituary, the next day, which needed much editing, and we printedit under the head "A Tribute from a Friend, " and signed Larmy's name toit. 

The boy had no kith or kin--which is most unusual for a Welshman--andso, except in our office, he seemed to be forgotten. A month went by, the season changed, and changed again, and a year was gone, when theGovernment sent word to Larmy--whom the boy seemed to have named forhis next friend--that David's body would be brought back for burial ifhis friends desired it. So in the fall of 1900, when the Presidentialcampaign was at its height, the conquering hero came home, and we gavehim a military funeral. The body came to us on Labor Day, and in ouroffice we consecrated the day to David. The band and the militia companytook him from the big stone church where sometimes he had gone toSunday-school as a child, and a long procession of townsfolk woundaround the hill to the cemetery, where David received a salute of guns, and the bugler played taps, and our eyes grew wet and our hearts weretouched. Then we covered him with flowers, whipped up the horses andcame back to the world. 

That night, as it was at the end of a holiday, the Republican Committeehad assigned to our town, for the benefit of the men in the shops, oneof the picture-shows that Mark Hanna, like a heathen in his blindness, had sent to Kansas, thinking our State, after the war, needed a spur toits patriotism in the election. The crowd in front of the post-officewas a hundred feet wide and two hundred feet long, looking at thepictures from the kinetoscope--pictures of men going to work in millsand factories; pictures of the troops unloading on the coast of Cuba;pictures of the big warships sailing by; pictures of Dewey's flagshipcoming up the Hudson to its glory; pictures of the Spanish ships lyingcrushed in Manila harbour. 

Larmy and the reporter were sitting kicking their heels on the stonesteps of the post-office opposite the screen on which the pictures wereflickering. Some they saw and others they did not notice, for their talkwas of David and of the strange things he had shown to them. 

"How did you ever fix it up in your mind?" asked Larmy. 

"I didn't fix it up. He was too many for me, " was the reporter's answer. 

"The little rooster couldn't have faked it up?" questioned Larmy. 

"No--but he might have hypnotised us--or something. "

"Yes--but still, he might have been hypnotised by something himself, "suggested Larmy, and then added: "That thing he did with thelinotype--say, wasn't that about the limit? And yet nothing has come ofthat prophecy. That's the trouble. I've seen dozens of those things, andthey always just come up to the edge of proving themselves, but alwaysjump back. There is always----"

"My God, Larmy, look--look!" cried the reporter. 

And the two men looked at the screen before them, just as the backwardsway of the crowd had ceased and horror was finding a gasping voice uponthe lips of the women; for there, walking as naturally as life, out ofthe background of the picture, came David Lewis with his dark sleevesrolled up, his peaked army hat on the back of his head, a bucket in hishand, and as he stopped and grinned at the crowd--between thelightning-flashes of the kinetoscope--they could see him wave his freehand. He stood there while a laugh covered his features, and he put hishand in his pocket and drew out a key-ring, which he waved, holding itby some long, stemlike instrument. Then he snapped back into nothing. 

And the operator of the machine, being in a hurry to catch theten-thirty train, went on with his picture-show and gave us PresidentMcKinley and Mark Hanna sitting on the front steps of the home inCanton, then followed the photograph of the party around the big tablesigning the treaty of peace. As the crowd loosened and dissolved, Larmyand the reporter stood silently waiting. Then, when they could get awaytogether, the reporter said:

"Come, let's go over to the shop and think about this thing. "

When they opened the office door, the rank odour of the machinery cameto them with sickening force. They left the front door open and raisedthe windows. The reporter began using a chisel on the top of a littlebox with a Government frank on it, that had been placed upon themusic-box in the corner. 

"We may as well see what David sent home, " he grunted, as he jerked atthe stubborn nails, "anyway, I've got a theory. "

Larmy was smoking hard. "Yes, " he replied after a time; "we might aswell open it now as any time. The letter said all his things would befound there. I guess he didn't have a great deal. Poor little devil, there was no one much to get things for but you fellows and maybe me, ifhe thought of us. "

By this time the box was opened, and the reporter was scooping thingsout upon the floor. There was an army uniform, that had something clinkyin the pockets, and wrapped in a magenta silk handkerchief was a carvedpiece of ivory. In a camera plate-box was a rose, faded and crumbly, achip-diamond ring, a bangle bracelet, a woman's glove and a photograph. These Larmy looked at as he smoked. They meant nothing to him, but thereporter dived into the clothes for the clinky things. He came up with abunch of keys, and on it was the long brass lever which unlocked themusic in the box. 

"Here, " he said as he jingled the keys, "is the last link in our chain. "And he rose and went over to the box, uncovered it, and jabbed in thelever with a nervous hand. There was a rolling and clinking inside. Then, slowly, a harmony rose, and the tinkling that came from the boxresolved itself into a melody that filled the room. It was strong andclear and powerful, and seemed to have a certain passion in it that mayhave been struck like flint fire from the time and the place and thespirit of the occasion. The two men stared dumbly as they listened. Thesound rose stronger and stronger; over and over again the song repeateditself; then very gently its strength began to fail; and finally it sankinto a ghostly tinkle that still carried the melody till it faded intosilence. 

"That, " said the reporter, "is the song that was in his heart--'Love'sGolden Dream. ' I'm satisfied. "

"The last link, " shuddered Larmy. "That which seemed corporeal hasmelted 'as a breath into the wind. '"

The reporter shovelled the debris into the box, pushed it under a desk, and the two men hurried to close the office. As they stood on thethreshold a moment, while the reporter clicked the key in the lock, apaper rustled and they heard a mouse scamper across the floor inside theempty room. 

"Let's go home, " shivered Larmy. They started north, which was the shortway home, but Larmy took hold of his companion's arm and said: "No, let's go this way: there's an electric light here on the corner, andit's dark down there. "

And so they turned into the white, sputtering glare and walked onwithout words. 

V

The Coming of the Leisure Class

We all are workers in our town, as people are in every small town. It isalways proper to ask what a man does for a living with us, for none ofus has money enough to live without work, and until the advent ofBeverly Amidon, our leisure class consisted of Red Martin, the gambler, the only man in town with nothing to do in the middle of the day; andthe black boys who loafed on the south side of the bank building throughthe long afternoons until it was time to deliver the clothes which theirwives and mothers had washed. Everyone else in town works, and, excepting an occasional picnic, there is no social activity among themen until after sundown. But five years ago Beverly Amidon came to town, and brought with him a large leisure and a taste for society which madehim easily the "glass of fashion and the mould of form" not only in ourlittle community, but all over this part of the State. Beverly and hismother, who had come to make their home with her sister, in one of thebig houses on the hill, had money. How much, we had no idea. In a smalltown when one has "money" no one knows just how much or how little, butit must be over fifteen thousand dollars, otherwise one is merely "wellfixed. "

[Illustration: And brought with him a large leisure and a taste forsociety]

But Beverly was a blessing to our office. We never could have filled thesociety column Saturday without him, for he was a continuous socialperformance. He was the first man in town who dared to wear a flanneltennis suit on the streets, and he was a whole year ahead of the otherboys with his Panama hat. It was one of those broad-brimmed Panamas, full of heart-interest, that made him look like a romantic barytone, andwhen under that gala façade he came tripping into the office in hiswhite duck clothes, with a wide Windsor tie, Miss Larrabee, the societyeditor, who was the only one of us with whom he ever had any business, would pull the string that unhooked the latch of the gate to her sectionof the room and say, without looking up: "Come into the garden, Maud. "To which he made invariable reply: "Oh, Miss Larrabee, don't be sosarcastic! I have a little item for you. "

The little item was always an account of one of his social triumphs. Andthere was a long list of them to his credit. He introduced ping-pong; hegave us our first "pit party"; he held the first barn dance given in thecounty; his was our first "tacky party"; and he gave the firstprogressive buggy ride the young people had ever enjoyed, and sevengirls afterward confessed that on the evening of that affair he hadn'tbeen in the buggy with them five minutes before he began driving withone hand--and his right hand at that. Still, when the crowd assembledfor supper at Flat Rock, the girls didn't hold his left handiworkagainst him, and they admitted that he was just killing when he put onone of their hats and gave an imitation of a girl from Bethany Collegewho had been visiting in town the week before. Beverly was always thelife of the company. He could make three kinds of salad dressing, twokinds of lobster Newburgh and four Welsh rarebits, and was often thesole guest of honour at the afternoon meetings of the T. T. T. Girls, before whom he was always willing to show his prowess. Sometimes hegave chafing-dish parties whereat he served ginger ale and was realdevilish. 

He used to ride around the country bare-headed with two or three girlswhen honest men were at work, and he acquired a fine leather-colouredtan. He tried organising a polo club, but the ponies from the deliverywaggons that were available after six o'clock did not take trainingwell, and he gave up polo. In making horse-back riding a socialdiversion he taught a lot of fine old family buggy horses a number ofmincing steps, so that thereafter they were impossible in the familyphaeton. He thereby became unpopular with a number of the heads offamilies, and he had to introduce bridge whist in the old married set toregain their favour. This cost him the goodwill of the preachers, and hegave a Japanese garden party for the Epworth League to restore himselfin the church where he was accustomed to pass the plate on Sundays. MissLarrabee used to call him the first aid to the ennuied. But the YoungPrince, who chased runaways teams and wrote personal items, neverreferred to him except as "Queen of the Hand-holders. " For fun we onceprinted Beverly Amidon's name among those present at a Mothers' Leaguemeeting, and it was almost as much of a hit in the town as the time weput the words, "light refreshments were served and the evening was spentin cards and dancing, " at the close of an account of a social meeting ofthe Ministerial Alliance. 

The next time Beverly brought in his little item he stopped long enoughto tell us that he thought that the people who laughed at our obviousmistake in the list of guests of the Mothers' League were rather coarse. One word brought on two, and as it was late in the afternoon, and thepaper was out, we bade Beverly sit down and tell us the story of hislife, and his real name; for Miss Larrabee had declared a dozen timesthat Beverly Amidon sounded so much like a stage name that she waswilling to bet that his real name was Jabez Skaggs. 

Beverly's greatest joy was in talking about his social conquests inTiffin, Ohio; therefore he soon was telling us that there was so muchculture in Tiffin, such a jolly lot of girls, so many pleasant homes, and a most extraordinary atmosphere of refinement. He rattled along, telling us what great sport they used to have running down to Clevelandfor theatre-parties, and how easy it was to 'phone to Toledo and get thenicest crowd of boys one could wish to come over to the parties, and howTiffin was famous all over that part of Ohio for its exclusive familiesand its week-end house-parties. 

The Young Prince sat by listening for a time and then got up and leanedover the railing around Miss Larrabee's desk. Beverly was confiding tous how he got up the sweetest living pictures you ever saw and took themdown to Cleveland, where they made all kinds of money for the King'sDaughters. He told what gorgeous costumes the girls wore and whatstunning backgrounds he rigged up. The Young Prince winked at MissLarrabee as he straightened up and started for the door. Then he letfly: "Were you Psyche at the Pool in that show, or a Mellin's FoodBaby?"

But Beverly deigned no reply and a little later in the conversationremarked that the young men in this town were very bad form. He thoughtthat he had seen some who were certainly not gentlemen. He reallydidn't see how the young ladies could endure to have such persons intheir set. He confided to Miss Larrabee that at a recent lawn-party hehad come upon a young man, who should be nameless, with his arm about ayoung woman's waist. 

"And, Miss Larrabee, " continued Beverly in his solemnest tones, "A youngman who will put his arm around a girl will go further--yes, MissLarabee--much further. He will kiss her!" Whereat he nodded his head andshook it at the awful thought. 

Miss Larrabee drew in a shocked breath and gasped:

"Do you really think so, Mr. Amidon? I couldn't imagine such a thing!"

He had a most bedizened college fraternity pin, which he was foreverlending to the girls. During his first year in town, Miss Larrabee toldus, at least a dozen girls had worn the thing. Wherefore she used tocall it the Amidon Loan Exhibit. 

He introduced golf into our town, and was able to find six men to joinhis fifteen young ladies in the ancient sport. Two preachers, a youngdentist and three college professors were the only male creatures whodared walk across our town in plaid stockings and knickerbockers, andcertainly it hurt their standing at the banks, for the town frowned ongolf, and confined its sport to baseball in the summer, football in theautumn, and checkers in the winter. 

That was a year ago. In the autumn something happened to Beverly, and hehad to go to work. There was nothing in our little town for him, so hewent to Kansas City. He did not seem to "make it" socially there, for hewrote to the girls that Kansas City was cold and distant and thateverything was ruled by money. He explained that there were some nicepeople, but they did not belong to the fast set. He was positivelyshocked, he wrote, at what he heard of the doings at the CountryClub--so different from the way things went in Tiffin, Ohio. 

For a long time we did not hear his name mentioned in the office. Finally there came a letter addressed to Miss Larrabee. In it Beverlysaid that he had found his affinity. "She is not rich, " he admitted, "but, " he added, "she belongs to an old, aristocratic, Southern family, through reduced circumstances living in retirement; very exclusive, veryhaughty. I have counted it a privilege to be constantly associated withpeople of such rare distinction. Her mother is a grand dame of the oldschool who has opened her home to a few choice paid guests who feel, asI do, that it is far more refreshing socially to partake of the gracioushospitality of her secluded home than to live in the noisy, vulgarhotels of the city. It was in this relation at her mother's home that Imet the woman who is to join her lot with mine. " Thereafter followed thedate and place of the wedding, a description of the bride's dress, anaccount of her lineage back to the "Revolutionary Georgia Governor ofthat name, " and fifty cents in stamps for extra papers containing anaccount of the wedding. 

In time we hope to teach our young men to roll down their shirt-sleevesin the summer, our girls to wear their hats, our horses to quit prancingin the shafts of the family buggy. In time bridge whist will wear itselfout, in time our social life will resume its old estate, and the ownersof the five dress-suits in town will return to their former distinction. In time caste lines set by the advent of the leisure class will beobliterated, and it will be no longer bad form for the dry-goods clerkto dance with the grocery clerk's wife at the Charity Ball. But, comewhat may, we shall always know that there was a time in the socialhistory of our town when we danced the two-step as they dance it inTiffin, Ohio, and wore knee-breeches and plaid stockings, and quit workat four o'clock. Those were great days--"the glory that was Greece, thegrandeur that was Rome. "

VI

The Bolton Girl's "Position"

When she said she would like to "accept a position" with our paper, itwas all over between us. After that we knew that she was at least highlyimprobable if not entirely impossible. But then we might have expectedas much from a girl who called herself Maybelle. There is, however, thismuch to be said in Maybelle's favour: she was persistent. She did notlet go till it thundered! We could have stood it well enough if she hadlimited her campaign for a job on the paper to an occasional call at theoffice. But she had a fiendish instinct which told her who were thefriends we liked most to oblige: the banker, for instance, who carriedour overdrafts, the leading advertiser, the chairman of the printingcommittee of the town council--and she found ways to make them ask if wecouldn't do something for Miss Bolton. She could teach school; indeed, she had a place in the Academy. But she loathed school-teaching. Shehad always felt that, if she could once get a start, she could make aname for herself. 

She had written something that she called "A Critique on Hamlet, " whichshe submitted to us, and was deeply pained when we told her that wedidn't care for editorial matter; that what our paper needed was thenames of the people in our own country town and county, printed as manytimes a day or a week or a month as they could be put into type. Wetried to tell her that more important to us than the influence of theCeltic element on our national life and literature was the fact thatJohn Jones of Lebo--that is to say, red John, as distinguished fromblack John--or Jones the tinner, or Jones of the Possum Hollersettlement was in town with a load of hay. "Other papers, " we explainedcarefully, while she looked as sympathetic and intelligent as a collie, "other papers might be interested in the radio-activity of uranium X;they might care to print articles on the psychological phenomena ofmobs"--to which she snapped eager agreement with her eyes--"others, with entire propriety, might be interested in inorganic evolution"--andshe cheeped "yes, yes" with feverish intensity--"but in our little localpaper we cared only for the person who could tell our readers with themost delicacy and precision how many spoons Mrs. Worthington had toborrow for her party, who had the largest number of finger-bowls intown, what Mrs. Conklin paid for the broilers she served at her partylast February, and the name of the country woman who raised them, andwhy it was that all the women failed to make Jennie's recipe forsunshine cake work when they tried it. " Such are the things thatinterest our people, and he, she or it who can turn in two or threecolumns a day of items setting forth these things in a good-natured way, so that the persons mentioned will only grin and wonder who told it, isgood for ten dollars of our money every Saturday night. 

Maybelle thought it was such interesting work, and her eyes floated intears of happiness at the thought of such joy. If she could only have achance! It would be just lovely--simply grand, and she knew she could doit! Something in her innermost soul thrilled with a tintinabulation thatmade her quiver with anticipation. Whereupon she went out and came backin three days with five sheets of foolscap on which she had written anarticle beginning: "When Memory draws aside the curtains of her magicchamber, revealing the pictures meditation paints, and we see throughthe windows of our dreams the sweet vale of yesterday, lying outside andbeyond; when stern Ambition, with relentless hand, turns us away fromall this to ride in the sombre chariot of Duty--then it is thatentrancing Pleasure beckons us back to sit by Memory's fire and sip ourtea with Maiden meditation. " What it was all about no one ever foundout; but the Young Prince at the local desk who read it clear throughsaid that sometimes he thought that it was a report of a fire and atother times it seemed like a dress-goods catalogue. It would have madefour columns. As he put the roll back in the drawer the Young Princerose and paced grandly out. At the front door he stopped and said:"You'll never make anything out of her--she's a handholder! When a girlbegins to get corns on her hands, I notice she has mush on the brain!"

[Illustration: Sometimes he thought it was a report of a fire and atother times it seemed like a dress-goods catalogue]

But Maybelle returned, and we went all over the same ground again. Weexplained that what we wanted was short items--two or three lineseach--little references to home doings; something telling who hascompany, who is sick, who is putting shingles on the barn or an "L" onthe house. And she said "Oh, yes!" so passionately that it seemed asthough she would bark or put her front feet on the table. One felt liketaking her jaws in his hands and pulling her ears. 

The next time she came in she said that if we would just try her--giveher something to do--she was sure she could show us how well she coulddo it. On a venture, and partly to get rid of her, we sent her to thedistrict convention of the Epworth League to write up the openingmeeting. About noon of the next day she brought in three sermons, andsaid that she didn't get the list of officers nor the names of the choirbecause they were all people who lived here and everyone knew them. Thenwe explained in short, simple sentences that the sermons were of novalue, and that the names were what we desired. She dropped her eyes andsaid meekly "Oh!" and told us how sorry she was. Also she said that ifit wasn't for a meeting of the T. T. T. Girls that afternoon she wouldgo back and get the names. When she went out, the Young Prince, sittingby the window with his pencil behind his ear and his feet on the table, said: "I bet she can make the grandest fudge!" "And such lovely angelfood, " put in Miss Larrabee, who was busy writing up the Epworth Leagueconvention. 

Miss Bolton's name was always among the lists we printed of the guestsat the Entre Nous Card Club, the Imperial Dancing Club, the "Giddy YoungThings" Club, the Art Club and the Shakespeare Club. But when she cameto the office she was full of anxiety at the frivolity of society. Shesaid that she so longed for intellectual companionship that she feltsometimes as if she must fly to a place where she could find a soul thatwould feel in unison with the infinite that thrilled her being. Far beit from her to wish to coin the pulsations of her soul, but papa andmamma did need her help so. She accented papa and mamma on the lastsyllable and leaned forward and looked upward like a shirtwaist Madonna. But writing locals someway didn't appeal to her. She wondered if wecould use a serial story. And then she went on: "Oh, I have some of thesweetest things in my head! I know I could write them. They just tinglethrough my blood like wine. I know I could write them--such sublimethings--but when I sit down to put them on paper something always comesup that prevents my going on with them. There are dozens whirlingthrough my brain begging to be written. There is one about the earl whohas imprisoned the young princess in a dungeon, and her lover, a knightof the cross, comes home from a crusade and is put in the cell next toher. A bird that she has been feeding through her prison window takes alock of her golden hair to the window where her lover is looking outacross the beautiful world, not knowing that she, too, has fallen intothe earl's clutches. And, oh, yes! there is another about Cornelia wholived in a moated tower, and all the dukes and lords and kings in theland had laid suit to her hand, and she could find none who came up toher highest ideal, so she set them a task--and, oh, a lot more aboutwhat they did; I haven't thought that out--but anyway she married thered duke Wolfang who spurned her task and took her by night with hisretainers away from the tower, saying her love was his Holy Grail and toget her was the object of his pilgrimage. Oh, it's just grand. "

No, we don't use serials and when we do we buy them in stereotypedplates by the pound. This made Miss Bolton droop, with anotherdisappointed "Oh. " The grain of the world seems so coarse when one looksat it closely. 

We did not see Miss Bolton at the office for a long time after the dukeabducted the lady in the moated grange, but we received a poem signed M. B. "To Dan Cupid, " and another on "My Heart of Fire. " Also there came ananonymous communication in strangely familiar fat vertical handwritingto the effect that "some people in this town think that if a young ladyhas a gentleman friend call on her more than twice a week it is theirbusiness to assume a courtship. They should know that there are soulson this earth whose tendrils reach into the infinite beyond the grossmateriality of this mundane sphere to a destiny beyond the stars. " Atthe bottom of the page were the words: "Please publish and oblige asubscriber. "

The next that we heard of Miss Bolton was that she was running pink andblue baby-ribbon through her white things, and was expecting a linenshower from the T. T. T. Girls, a silver shower from the "Giddy YoungThings, " a handkerchief shower from the Entre Nous girls, and a kitchenshower from the Imperial Club. Miss Larrabee, the society editor, beganto hate Miss Bolton with the white-hot hate which all society editorsturn on all brides. Miss Larrabee was authority for the statement thatMaybelle had used five hundred yards of baby-ribbon--pink and blue andwhite and yellow--in her trousseau, and that she was bestowing the samepassionate fervour on her hemstitching and tucking that she had wastedon literature; that she was helping papa and mamma by shouldering thebiggest wedding on them since the Tomlinsons went into bankruptcy aftertheir firework ceremonial. Miss Larrabee said that Papa Bolton'slivery-stable was burning up so fast that she wanted to call out thefire department, and that Mamma Bolton made her think of thepatent-medicine testimonials we printed from "poor tired women. "

The day of the wedding the blow came. A very starched-up little boy withstrawberry juice frescoed around his mouth brought in a note fromMaybelle and a tightly-rolled manuscript tied with blue baby-ribbon. Inthe note she said that she thought it would be so romantic to "write upher own wedding--recalling the dear, dead days when she was a neophytein letters. " We handed the manuscript to Miss Larrabee, from whom, asshe read, came snorts: "'Drawing-room!' Huh! 'Music-room. ' Heavens toBetsy! 'Peculiar style of beauty!' Oh, joy! 'Looked like a wood-nymph inthe morn. ' Wouldn't that saturate you! 'The Apollo-like beauty of thegroom. '" Miss Larrabee groaned as she rose, and putting her raincoat onthe floor by her chair she exclaimed: "Do you people know what I amgoing to do? I have got to lie right down here and have a fit!"

VII

"By the Rod of His Wrath"

Saturday afternoons, when the town is full, and farmers are coming in tothe office to pay their subscriptions for the _Weekly_, it is our habit, after the paper is out, to sit in the office and look over Main Street, where perhaps five hundred people are milling, and consider with oneanother the nature of our particular little can of angle-worms and itsrelation to the great forces that move the world. The town often seemsto us to be dismembered from the earth, and to be a chunk of humanitydrifting through space by itself, like a vagrant star, forgotten of thelaw that governs the universe. Go where our people will, they findchange; but when they come home, they look out of the hack as they ridethrough town, seeing the old familiar buildings and bill-boards andstreet-signs, and say with surprise, as Mathew Boris said after a busyand eventful day in Kansas City, where he had been marketing hissteers: "Well, the old town seems to keep right on, just the same. "

The old men in town seem always to have been old, and though themiddle-aged do sometimes step across the old-age line, the young menremain perennially young, and when they grow fat or dry up, and theirhair thins and whitens, they are still called by their diminutive names, and to most of us they are known as sons of the old men. Here a newhouse goes up, and there a new store is built, but they rise slowly, andeveryone in town has time to go through them and over them and criticisethe architectural taste of the builders, so that by the time a buildingis finished it seems to have grown into the original consciousness ofthe people, and to be a part of their earliest memories. We send ourchildren to Sunday-school, and we go to church and learn how God'srewards or punishments fell upon the men of old, as they were faithfulor recreant; but we don't seem to be like the men of old, for we areneither very good nor very bad--hardly worth God's while to sort us overfor any uncommon lot. Only once, in the case of John Markley, did theLord reach into our town and show His righteous judgment. And thatjudgment was shown so clearly through the hearts of our people that verylikely John Markley does not consider it the judgment of God at all, butthe prejudice of the neighbours. 

When we have been talking over the case of John Markley in the office wehave generally ended by wondering whether God--or whatever one cares tocall the force that operates the moral laws, as well as those that inour ignorance we set apart as the physical laws of the world--whetherGod moves by cataclysm and accidents, or whether He moves with blessingor chastisement, through human nature as it is, in the ordinary businessof the lives of men. But we have never settled that in our office anymore than they have in the great schools, and as John Markley, game tothe end, has never said what he thought of the town's treatment of him, it will never be known which side of our controversy is right. 

Years ago, perhaps as long ago as the drought of seventy-four, men begancalling him "Honest John Markley. " He was the fairest man in town, andhe made money by it, for when he opened his little bank Centennial year, which was the year of the big wheat crop, farmers stood in line half anhour at a time, at the door of his bank, waiting to give him theirmoney. He was a plain, uncollared, short-whiskered man, brown-haired andgrey-eyed, whose wife always made his shirts and, being a famous cook intown, kept him round and chubby. He referred to her as "Ma, " and shecalled him "Pa Markley" so insistently that when we elected him StateSenator, after he made his bank a National bank, in 1880, the town andcounty couldn't get used to calling him Senator Markley, so "Pa Markley"it was until after his Senatorial fame had been forgotten. Theirchildren had grown up and left home before the boom of the eightiescame--one girl went to California and the boy to South America;--andwhen John Markley began to write his wealth in six figures--which isalmost beyond the dreams of avarice in a town like ours--he and his wifewere lonely and knew little what to do with their income. 

They bought new furniture for the parlour, and the Ladies' MissionarySociety of the First Methodist Church, the only souls that saw it withthe linen jackets off, say it was lovely to behold; they boughteverything the fruit-tree man had in his catalogue, and their five acreson Exchange Street were pimpled over with shrubs that never bloomed andwith trees that never bore fruit. He passed the hat in church--being abrother-in-law to the organisation, as he explained; sang "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching" at Grand Army entertainments, and alwaysas an encore dragged "Ma" out to sing with him "Dear, Dear, What Can theMatter Be. " She was a skinny, sharp-eyed, shy little woman in her latefifties when the trouble came. She rose at every annual meeting of thechurch to give a hundred dollars but her voice never lasted until shegot through announcing her donation, and she sat down demurely, blushingand looking down her nose as though she had disgraced the family. Shehad lost a brother in the war, and never came further out of mourningthan purple flowers in her bonnet. She bought John Markley's clothes, sothat his Sunday finery contained nothing giddier than a grey made-uptie, that she pinned around the collars which her own hands had ironed. 

Slowly as their fortune piled up, and people said they had a million, his brown beard grizzled a little, and his brow crept up and up and hisgirth stretched out to forty-four. But his hands did not whiten orsoften, and though he was "Honest John, " and every quarter-section ofland that he bought doubled in value by some magic that he only seemedto know, he kept the habits of his youth, rose early, washed at thekitchen basin, and was the first man at his office in the morning. Atnight, after a hard day's work he smoked a cob-pipe in the basement, where he could spit into the furnace and watch the fire until nineo'clock, when he put out the cat and bedded down the fire, while "Ma"set the buckwheat cakes. They never had a servant in their house. 

We used to see John Markley pass the office window a dozen times a day, a hale, vigorous man, whose heels clicked hard on the sidewalk as hecame hurrying along--head back and shoulders rolling. He was a powerful, masculine, indomitable creature, who looked out of defiant, cold, unblinking eyes as though he were just about to tell the whole world togo to hell! The town was proud of him. He was our "prominent citizen, "and when he was elected president of the district bankers' association, and his name appeared in the papers as a possible candidate for UnitedStates Senator or Minister to Mexico or Secretary of the Interior, wewere glad that "Honest John Markley" was our fellow-townsman. 

And then came the crash. Man is a curious creature, and, even if he isnine parts good, the old Adam in him must burn out one way or another inhis youth, or there comes a danger period at the height of his middlelife when his submerged tenth that has been smouldering for years flaresup and destroys him. Wherefore the problem which we have never been ableto solve, though we have talked it over in the office a dozen times:whether John Markley had begun to feel, before he met the Hobart woman, that he wasn't getting enough out of life for the money he had investedin it; or whether she put the notion in his head. 

It is scarcely correct to speak of his having met her, for she grew upin the town, and had been working for the Markley Mortgage andInvestment Company for half-a-dozen years before he began to notice her. From a brassy street-gadding child of twelve, whose mother crowded herinto grown-up society before she left the high school, and let her spellher name Ysabelle, she had grown into womanhood like a rank weed; hadmarried at nineteen, was divorced at twenty-one, and having tried musicteaching and failed, china painting and failed, she learned stenographyby sheer force of her own will, with no instruction save that in herbook, and opened an office for such work as she could get, while aimingfor the best job in town--the position of cashier and stenographer forthe Markley Mortgage Company. It took her three years to get in andanother year to make herself invaluable. She was big and strong, did thework of two men for the pay of one, and for five years John Markley, whosaw that she had plenty of work to do, did not seem to know that she wason earth. But one day "Alphabetical" Morrison, who was in our officepicking up his bundle of exchanges, looked rather idly out of thewindow, and suddenly rested his roving eyes upon John Markley and Mrs. Hobart, standing and talking in front of the post office. The man at thedesk near Morrison happened to be looking out at that moment, and he, too, saw what Morrison saw--which was nothing at all, except a manstanding beside a woman. Probably the pair had met in exactly the sameplace at exactly the same time, and had exchanged an idle word daily forfive years! and no one had noticed it, but that day Morrisonunconsciously put his hand to his chin and scratched his jaw, and hiseyes and the man's at the desk beside him met in a surprisedinterrogation, and Morrison's mouth and nose twitched, and the other mansaid, as he turned his face into his work, "Well, wouldn't that getyou!"

The conversation went no further. Neither could have said what he saw. But there is something in every human creature--a survival of our jungledays, which lets our eyes see more than our consciousness records inlanguage. And these men, who saw Markley and the woman, could not havedefined the canine impression which he gave them. Yet it was there. Thevolcano was beginning to smoke. 

It was a month later before the town saw the flames. During that timeJohn Markley had been walking to and from his midday dinner with IsabelHobart, had been helping her on and off with her wraps in the office, and had been all but kicking up the dirt behind him and barking aroundher, as the clerks there told us, without causing comment. An honest manalways has such a long start when he runs away from himself that no onemisses him until he is beyond extradition. Matters went along thus fornearly a year before the woman in the cottage on Exchange Street knewhow they stood. And that speaks well of our town; for we are not a meantown, and if anyone ever had our sympathy it was Mrs. Markley, as shewent about her quiet ways, giving her missionary teas, looking after thepoor of her church, making her famous doughnuts for the socials, doingher part at the Relief Corps chicken-pie suppers, digging her club paperout of the encyclopædia, and making over her black silk the third timefor every day. If John Markley was cross with her in that time--and theneighbours say that he was; if he sat for hours in the house withoutsaying a word, and grumbled and flew into a rage at the least rufflingof the domestic waters--his wife kept her grief to herself, and evenwhen she left town to visit her daughter in California no one knew whatshe knew. 

A month passed, two months passed, and John Markley's name had become aby-word and a hissing. Three months passed, a year went by, and stillthe wife did not return. And then one day Ab Handy, who sometimesprepared John Markley's abstracts, came into our office and whispered tothe man at the desk that there was a little paper filed in the courtwhich, under the circumstances, Mr. Markley would rather we would say aslittle about as is consistent with our policy in such cases. Handydidn't say what it was, and backed out bowing and eating dirt, and wesent a boy hot-foot to the court-house to find out what had been filed. The boy came back with a copy of a petition for divorce that had beenentered by John Markley, alleging desertion. John Markley did not facethe town when he brought his suit, but left for Chicago on theafternoon train, and was gone nearly a month. The broken little womandid not come back to contest the case, and the divorce was granted. 

The day before his marriage to Isabel Hobart, John Markley shaved offhis grizzled brown beard, and showed the town a face so strong andcunning and brutal that men were shocked; they said that she wished tomake him appear young, and the shave did drop ten years from hiscountenance; but it uncovered his soul so shamelessly that it seemedimmodest to look at his face. Upon the return from the wedding trip, theemployees of the Markley Mortgage Company, at John Markley's suggestion, gave a reception for the bride and groom, and the Lord laid the firstvisible stripe on John Markley while he stood with his bride for threehours, waiting for the thousand invited guests who never came. "Alphabetical" Morrison, who owed John Markley money, and had to go, told us in the office the next day that John Markley in evening clothes, with his great paunch swathed in a white silk vest, smirking like agorged jackal, showing his fellow-townsmen for the first time hiscoarse, yellow teeth and his thin, cruel lips, looked like some horriblecartoon of his former self. Colonel Morrison did not describe the bride, but she passed our office that day, going the rounds of the dry-goodsstores, giggling with the men clerks--a picture of sin that made men wettheir lips. She was big, oversexed, and feline; rattling in silks, withan aura of sensuousness around her which seemed to glow like a coal, without a flicker of kindness or shame or sweetness, and which all thetown knew instinctively must clinker into something black and ugly asthe years went by. 

So the threshold of the cottage on Exchange Street was not darkened byour people. And when the big house went up--a palace for a country town, though it only cost John Markley $25, 000--he, who had been so reticentabout his affairs in other years, tried to talk to his old friends ofthe house, telling them expansively that he was putting it up so thatthe town would have something in the way of a house for publicgatherings; but he aroused no responsive enthusiasm, and long before thebig opening reception his fervour had been quenched. Though we are acurious people, and though we all were anxious to know how the inside ofthe new house looked, we did not go to the reception; only the sociallyimpossible, and the travelling men's wives at the Metropole, whom Mrs. Markley had met when she was boarding during the week they moved, gathered to hear the orchestra from Kansas City, to eat the Topekacaterer's food, and to fall down on the newly-waxed floors of theMarkley mansion. But our professional instinct at the office told usthat the town was eager for news of that house, and we took threecolumns to write up the reception. Our description of the place beganwith the swimming pool in the cellar and ended with the ballroom in thethird story. 

It took John Markley a long time to realise that the town was done withhim, for there was no uprising, no demonstration, just a gradualloosening of his hold upon the community. In other years his neighbourshad urged him and expected him to serve on the school-board, of which hehad been chairman for a dozen years, but the spring that the big housewas opened Mrs. Julia Worthington was elected in his place. At the Junemeeting of the Methodist Conference a new director was chosen to fillJohn Markley's place on the college board, and when he cancelled hisannual subscription no one came to ask him to renew it. In the fall hisparty selected a new ward committeeman, and though Markley had beentreasurer of the committee for a dozen years, his successor was namedfrom the Worthington bank, and they had the grace not to come to Markleywith the subscription-paper asking for money. It took some time for thesense of the situation to penetrate John Markley's thick skin; whereuponthe fight began in earnest, and men around town said that John Markleyhad knocked the lid off his barrel. He doubled his donation to thecounty campaign fund; he crowded himself at the head of everysubscription-paper; and frequently he brought us communications toprint, offering to give as much money himself for the library, or theProvident Association, or the Y. M. C. A. , as the rest of the town wouldsubscribe combined. He mended church roofs under which he never hadsat; he bought church bells whose calls he never heeded; and paid thegreater part of the pipe-organ debts in two stone churches. ColonelMorrison remarked in the office one day that John Markley was raisingthe price of popular esteem so high that none but the rich could affordit. "But, " chuckled the Colonel, "I notice old John hasn't got a corneron it yet, and he doesn't seem to have all he needs for his own use. "The wrench that had torn open his treasure chest, had also loosened JohnMarkley's hard face, and he had begun to smile. He became as affable asa man may who has lived for fifty years silent and self-contained. Hebeamed upon his old friends, and once or twice a week he went the roundsof the stores making small purchases, to let the clerks bask in hissunlight. 

If a new preacher came to town the Markleys went to his church, and Mrs. Markley tried to be the first woman to call on his wife. 

All the noted campaign speakers assigned to our town were invited to bethe Markleys' guests, and Mrs. Markley sent her husband, red necktied, high-hatted and tailor-made, to the train to meet the distinguishedguest. If the man was as much as a United States Senator, Markley hiredthe band, and in an open hack rode in solemn state with his prizethrough the town behind the tinkling cymbals, and then, with muchpunctility, took the statesman up and down Main Street afoot, into allthe stores and offices, introducing him to the common people. At suchtimes John Markley was the soul of cordiality; he seemed hungry for akind look and a pleasant word with his old friends. About this time hisdefiant eyes began to lose their boring points, and to wander and huntfor something they had lost. When we had a State convention of thedominant party, the Markleys saw to it that the Governor and all theimportant people attending, with their wives, stopped in the big house. The Markleys gave receptions to them, which the men in our town darednot ignore, but sent their wives away visiting and went alone. Thisfamiliarity with politicians probably gave the Markleys the idea thatthey might help their status in the community if John Markley ran forGovernor. He announced his candidacy, and the Kansas City papers, whichdid not appreciate the local situation, spoke well of him; but his boomdied in the first month, when some of his old friends called at the backroom of the bank to tell him that the Democrats would air his familyaffairs if he made another move. He looked up pitiably into Ab Handy'sface when the men were done talking and said: "Don't you suppose they'llever quit? Ain't they no statute of limitation?" And then he arose andstood by his desk with one arm akimbo and his other hand at his templeas he sighed: "Oh hell, Ab--what's the use? Tell 'em I'm out of it!"

Mrs. Markley seems to have shut him out of the G. A. R. , thinking maybethat the old boys and their wives were not of her social level, orperhaps she had some idea of playing even with them, because their wiveshad not recognised her; but she shut away much of her husband's socialcomfort when she barred his comrades, and they in turn grew hardertoward him than they were at first. As the Markleys entered their secondyear, Mrs. Markley alone in the big house, with only the new people fromthe hotel to eat her dinners, and with only the beer-drinking crowd fromthe West Side to dance in the attic ballroom, had much time to think, and she bethought her of the lecturers who were upon the college lecturecourse, whereupon John Markley had to carve for authors and explorers, and an occasional Senator or Congressman, who, after a hard evening'swork on the platform, paid for his dinner and lodging by sitting up on agilded high-backed and uncomfortable chair in the stately reception-roomof the Markley home, talking John Markley into a snore, before Isabellet them go to bed. Isabel sent the accounts of these affairs to theoffice for us to print, with the lists of invited guests, who neveraccepted. And the town grinned. 

At the end of two years John Markley's fat wit told him that it was alosing fight. He had been dropped from the head of the Merchants'Association; he was cut off from the executive committee of the Fair; hewas not asked to serve on the railroad committee. His old friends, whomhe asked over to spend the evening at his house, always had goodexcuses, which they gave him later over the telephone, and their wives, who used to call him by his first name, scarcely recognised him on thestreet. He quit coming to our office with pieces for the paper tellingthe town his views on this or that local matter; and gradually gave upthe fight for his old place on the school board. 

The clerks in the Markley Mortgage Company office say that he fell intoa moody way, and would come to the office and refuse to speak to anyonefor hours. Also, as the big house often glowed until midnight for adance of the socially impossible who used the Markley ballroom, rentfree, as a convenience, John Markley grew to have a sleepy look by day, and lines came into his red, shaved face. He grew anxious about hishealth, and a hundred worries tightened his belt and shook his great fathand, just the least in the world, and when through some gossip that hiswife brought him from the kitchen he felt the scorn of an old friendburn his soul like a caustic, for many days he would brood over it. Finally care began to chisel down his flinty face, to cut the fat fromhis bull neck, so that the cords stood out, and, through staring inimpotent rage and pain at the ceiling in the darkness of the night, redrims began to worm around his eyes. He was not sixty years old then, and he had lashed himself into seventy. 

However his money-cunning did not grow dull. He kept his golden touchand his impotent dollars piled higher and higher. The pile must havemocked Isabel Markley, for it could bring her nothing that she wanted. She stopped trying to give big parties and receptions. Her socialefforts tapered down to little dinners for the new people in town. Butas the dinner hour grew near she raged--so the servants said--wheneverthe telephone rang, and in the end she had to give up even the dinnerscheme. 

[Illustration: As the dinner hour grew near she raged--so the servantssaid--whenever the telephone rang]

So there came a time when they began to take trips to the seashore andthe mountains, flitting from hotel to hotel. In the office we knew whenthey changed quarters, for at each resort John Markley would see thereporters and give out a long interview, which was generally prefaced bythe statement that he was a prominent Western capitalist, who hadrefused the nomination for Governor or for Senator, or for whateverIsabel Markley happened to think of; and papers containing theseinterviews, marked in green ink, came addressed to the office in herstylish, angular hand. During grand opera season one might see theMarkleys hanging about the great hotels of Chicago or Kansas City, he atired, sleepy-faced, prematurely old man, who seemed to be counting thehours till bed-time, and she a tailored, rather overfed figure, with afreshly varnished face and unhealthy, bright, bold eyes, walkingslightly ahead of her shambling companion, looking nervously about herin search of some indefinite thing that was gone from her life. 

One day John Markley shuffled into our office, bedizened as usual, andfumbled in his pocket for several minutes before he could find the copyof the _Mexican Herald_ containing the news of his boy's death in VeraCruz. He had passed the time of life for tears, yet when he asked us toreprint the item he said sadly: "The old settlers will rememberhim--maybe. I don't know whether they will or not. " He seemed a pitifulfigure as he dragged himself out of the office--so stooped and weazened, and so utterly alone, but when he turned around and came back upon somesecond thought, his teeth snapped viciously as he snarled: "Here, giveit back. I guess I don't want it printed. They don't care for me, anyway. "

The boys in his office told the boys in our office that the old man wascross and petulant that year, and there is no doubt that Isabel Markleywas beginning to find her mess of pottage bitter. The women around town, who have a wireless system of collecting news, said that the Markleysquarrelled, and that she was cruel to him. Certain it is that she beganto feed on young boys, and made the old fellow sit up in his eveningclothes until impossible hours, for sheer appearance sake, while his bedwas piled with the wraps of boys and girls from what our paper calledthe Hand-holders' Union, who were invading the Markley home, eating theMarkley olives and canned lobster, and dancing to the music of theMarkley pianola. Occasionally a young travelling man would be spoken ofby these young people as Isabel Markley's fellow. 

Mrs. Markley began to make fun of her husband to the girls of thethird-rate dancing set whose mothers let them go to her house; also, shereviled John Markley to the servants. It was known in the town that shenicknamed him the "Goat. " As for Markley, the fight was gone from him, and his whole life was devoted to getting money. That part of his brainwhich knew the accumulative secret kept its tireless energy; but hisemotions, his sensibilities, his passions seemed to be either atrophiedor burned out, and, sitting at his desk in the back room of the MortgageCompany's offices, he looked like a busy spider spinning his web of goldaround the town. It was the town theory that he and Isabel must havefought it out to a finish about the night sessions; for there came atime when he went to bed at nine o'clock, and she either lighted up andprepared to celebrate with the cheap people at home, or attached one ofher young men, and went out to some impossible gathering--generallywhere there was much beer, and many risqué things said, and the womenwere all good fellows. And thus another year flew by. 

One night, when the great house was still, John Markley grew sick and, in the terror of death that, his office people say, was always with him, rose to call for help. In the dark hall, feeling for an electric-lightswitch, he must have lost his way, for he fell down the hard oakstairs. It was never known how long he lay there unable to move one-halfof his body, but his wife stood nearly an hour at the front door thatnight, and when she finally switched on the light, she and the man withher saw Markley lying before them with one eye shut and with half hisface withered and dead, the other half around the open eye quiveringwith hate. He choked on an oath, and shook at her a gnarled bare arm. Her face was flushed, and her tongue was unsure, but she laughed ashrill, wicked laugh and cried: "Ah, you old goat; don't you double yourfist at me!"

Whereupon she shuddered away from the shaking figure at her feet andscurried upstairs. And the man standing in the doorway, wondering whatthe old man had heard, wakened the house, and helped to carry JohnMarkley upstairs to his bed. 

It was nearly three months before he could be wheeled to his office, where he still sits every day, spinning his golden web and filling hissoul with poison. They say that, helpless as he is, he may live for ascore of years. Isabel Markley knows how old she will be then. Athousand times she has counted it. 

To see our town of a summer twilight, with the families riding abroadbehind their good old nags, under the overhanging elms that meet aboveour newly-paved streets, one would not think that there could exist inso lovely a place as miserable a creature as John Markley is; or asIsabel, his wife, for that matter. The town--out beyond Main Street, which is always dreary and ugly with tin gorgons on the cornices--thetown is a great grove springing from a bluegrass sod, with porch boxesmaking flecks of colour among the vines; cannas and elephant ears andfoliage plants rise from the wide lawns; and children bloom like movingflowers all through the picture. 

There are certain streets, like the one past the Markley mansion, uponwhich we make it a point always to drive with our visitors--show streetswe may as well frankly call them--and one of these leads down a wide, handsome street out to the college. There the town often goes in itsbest bib and tucker to hear the lecturers whom Mrs. Markley feeds. Lastwinter one came who converted Dan Gregg--once Governor, but for tenyears best known among us as the town infidel. The lecturer explainedhow matter had probably evolved from some one form--even the elementscoming in a most natural way from a common source. He made it plain thatall matter is but a form of motion; that atoms themselves are dividedinto ions and corpuscles, which are merely different forms of electricalmotion, and that all this motion seems to tend to one form, which is thespirit of the universe. Dan said he had found God there, and, althoughthe pious were shocked, in our office we were glad that Dan had foundhis God anywhere. While we were sitting in front of the office one fineevening this spring, looking at the stars and talking of Dan Gregg's Godand ours, we began to wonder whether or not the God that is the spiritof things at the base of this material world might not be indeed thespirit that moves men to execute His laws. Men in the colleges to-daythink they have found the moving spirit of matter; but do they know Hiswonderful being as well as the old Hebrew prophets knew it who wrotethe Psalms and the Proverbs and the wisdom of the Great Book. Thatbrought us back to the old question about John Markley. Was it God, moving in us, that punished Markley "by the rod of His wrath, " that usedour hearts as wireless stations for His displeasure to travel through, or was it the chance prejudice of a simple people? It was late when webroke up and left the office--Dan Gregg, Henry Larmy, the reporter, andold George. As we parted, looking up at the stars where our ways dividedout under the elms, we heard, far up Exchange Street, the clatter of thepianola in the Markley home, and saw the high windows glowing like lostsouls in the night. 

VIII

"A Bundle of Myrrh"

One of the first things that a new reporter on our paper has to learn isthe kinology of the town. Until he knows who is kin to whom, and how, areporter is likely at any time to make a bad break. Now, the kinology ofa country town is no simple proposition. After a man has spent ten yearswriting up weddings, births and deaths, attending old settlers' picnics, family reunions and golden weddings, he may run into a new line of kinthat opens a whole avenue of hitherto unexplainable facts to him, showing why certain families line up in the ward primaries, and whycertain others are fighting tooth and toe-nail. 

The only person in town who knows all of our kinology--and most of thatin the county, where it is a separate and interminable study--is "Aunt"Martha Merryfield. She has lived here since the early fifties, and was aPerkins, one of the eleven Perkins children that grew up in town; andthe Perkinses were related by marriage to the Mortons, of whom there areover fifty living adult descendants on the town-site now. So one beginsto see why she is called "Aunt Martha" Merryfield. She is literally auntto over a hundred people here, and the habit of calling her aunt hasspread from them to the rest of the population. 

She lives alone in the big brick house on the hill, though her childrenand grandchildren and great-grandchildren are in and out all day andmost of the night, so that she is not at all lonesome. She is the onlyperson to whom we can look for accurate information about local history, and when a man dies who has been at all prominent in affairs of the townor county or State, we always call up "Aunt" Martha on the 'phone, orsend a reporter to her, to learn the real printable and unprintabletruth about him. She knows whom he "went with" before he was married, and why they "broke off, " and what crowd he associated with in the earlydays; how he got his money, and what they used to "say" about him. If afamily began putting on frills, she can tell how the head of the housegot his start by stealing "aid" sent to the grasshopper sufferers andopening a store with the goods. If a woman begins speaking of the hiredgirl as her "maid, " contrary to the vernacular rules of the town, AuntMartha does not hesitate to bring up the subject of the flour-sackunderwear which the woman wore when she was a girl during the drought of'60. 

Aunt Martha used to bring us flowers for the office table, and it washer delight to sit down and take out her corn-knife--as she calledit--and go after the town shams. She has promised a dozen times to writean article for the paper, which she says we dare not print, entitled"Self-made Women I Have Known. " She says that men were always braggingabout how they had clerked, worked on farms, dug ditches and whackedmules across the plains before the railroads came; but that their wivesinsisted that they were princesses of the royal blood. She says she isgoing to include in her Self-made Women only those who have worked out, and she maintains that we will be surprised at the list. 

Her particular animosity in the town is Mrs. Julia Neal Worthington. Aunt Martha told us that when Tim Neal came to town he had a brogue youcould scrape with a knife and an "O" before his name you could hoop ahogshead with. "And that woman, " exclaimed Aunt Martha, when she wasunder full sail, "that woman, because she has two bookcases in the frontroom and reads the book-reviews in the _Delineator_, thinks that she iscultured. When her folks first came to town they were as poor as Job'sturkey, which was not to their discredit--everyone was poor in thosedays. The old man Neal was as honest an old Mick as you'd meet in aday's journey, or at a fair, and he used to run a lemonade and peanutstand down by the bank corner. But his girls, who were raised on it, until they began teaching school, used to refer to the peanut stand as'papa's hobby, ' pretend that he only ran it for recreation, and say:'Now _why_ do you suppose papa enjoys it?--We just can't get him to giveit up!' And now Julia is president of the Woman's Federation, hasstomach trouble, has had two operations, and is suffering untold agonieswith acute culturitis. And yet, " Aunt Martha would say through abeatific smile, "she's a good-enough woman in many ways, and I wouldn'tsay anything against her for the world. "

Once Miss Larrabee, the society editor, brought back this from a visitto Aunt Martha: "I know, my dear, that your paper says there are nocliques and crowds in society in this town, and that it is sodemocratic. But you and I know the truth. We know about society in thistown. We know that if there ever was a town that looked like a side ofbacon--streak of lean and streak of fat all the way down--it is thisblessed place. Crowds?--why, I've lived here over fifty years and it wasalways crowds. 'Way back in the days when the boys used to pick us upand carry us across Elm Creek when we went to dances, there were crowds. The girls who crossed on the boys' backs weren't considered quite properby the girls who were carried over in the boys' arms. And they didn'tdance in the same set. "

Miss Larrabee says she looked into the elder woman's eyes to find whichcrowd Aunt Martha belonged to, when she flashed out:

"Oh, child, you needn't look at me--I did both; it depended on who waslooking! But, as I was saying, if anyone knows about society in thistown, I do. I went to every dance in town for the first twenty-fiveyears, and I have made potato salad to pay the salary of every Methodistpreacher for the past thirty years, and I ought to know what I'm talkingabout. " There was fire enough to twinkle in her old eyes as she spoke. "Beginning at the bottom, one may say that the base of society is thelittle tads, ranging down from what your paper calls the AmalgamatedHand-holders, to the trundle-bed trash just out of their kissing games. It's funny to watch the little tads grow up and pair off and see howbravely they try to keep in the swim. I've seen ten grandchildren getout and I've a great-grandchild whose mother will be pushing her outbefore she is old enough to know anything. When young people get marriedthey all say they're not going to be old-marriedy, and they hang on tothe dances and little hops until the first baby comes. Then they don'tget out to the dances much, but they join a card club. "

In her dissertation on the social progress of young married people, AuntMartha explained that after the second year the couple go only to thebig dances where everyone is invited, but they pay more attention tocards. The young mother begins going to afternoon parties, and has theother young married couples in for dinner. Then, before they know it, they are invited out to receptions and parties, where little tadspreside at the punch-bowls and wait on table, and are seen and notheard. Aunt Martha continued:

"By the time the second baby comes they take one of two shoots--eithergo in for church socials or edge into a whist club. In this town, Ithink, on the whole, that the Congregational Whist Club is younger andgayer than the Presbyterian Whist Club, but in most towns theEpiscopalians have the really fashionable club. Of course, these clubsnever call themselves by the church names, but they are generally madeup along church lines--except we poor Methodists and Baptists--we haveto divide ourselves out among the others to keep the preacher from goingafter us. "

Aunt Martha's eyes danced with the mischief in her heart as she went on:"Now, if after the second baby comes, the young parents begin to feellike saving money, and being someone at the bank, they join the churchand go in for church socials, which don't take so much time or money asthe whist clubs and receptions. The babies keep coming and the youngpeople keep on improving their home, moving from the little house to thebig house; the young man's name begins to creep into lists of directorsat the bank, and they are invited out to the big parties, and she goesto all the stand-up and 'gabble-gobble-and-git' receptions. As they growolder, they are asked with the preachers and widows for the first nightof a series of parties at a house to get them out of the way and overwith before the young folks come later in the week. When they get to apoint where the young folks laugh and clap their hands at little pudgydaddy when he dances 'Old Dan Tucker' at the big parties in the brickhouses, it's all up with them--they are old married folks, and the nextstep takes them to the old folks' whist club, where the bankers' wivesand the insurance widows run things. That is the inner sanctuary, theholy of holies in the society of this town. "

After a pause Aunt Martha added: "You'd think, to hear these chosenpeople talk, that the benighted souls who go to missionary teas, Woman'sRelief Corps chicken-pie suppers, and get up bean-dinners for the churchon election day, live on another planet. Yet I guess we're all made ofthe same kind of mud. 

"That reminds me of the Winthrops. When they came here, back in thesixties, it happened to be Fourth of July, and the band was out playingin the grove by the depot. Mrs. Winthrop got off the train quite grandlyand bowed and waved her hand to the band, and the Judge walked over andgave the band leader five dollars. They said afterward that they feltdeeply touched to find a raw Western town so appreciative of the comingof an old New England family, that it greeted them with a band. BeforeMrs. Winthrop had been here three weeks she called on me, 'as one of thefirst ladies of the town, ' she said, to organise and see if we couldn'tbreak up the habit of the hired girls eating at the table with thefamily. " Aunt Martha smiled and her eyes glittered as she added: "Afterthey organised, the titled aristocracy of this town did their own workand sent the washing out for a year or more. "

The talk drifted back to the old days, and Aunt Martha got out herphotograph-album and showed Miss Larrabee the pictures of those whom shecalled "the rude forefathers of the village, " in their quaint oldcostumes of war-times. In the book were baby pictures of middle-agedmen and women, and youthful pictures of the old men and women ofthe town. But most interesting of all to Miss Larrabee were thedaguerreotypes--quaint old portraits in their little black boxes, framedin plush and gilt. The old woman brought out picture after picture--herhusband's among the others, in a broad beaver hat with a high chokertaken back in Brattleboro before he came to Kansas. She looked at it fora long minute, and then said gaily to Miss Larrabee: "He was a handsomeboy--quite the beau of the State when we were married--Judge of theDistrict Court at twenty-four. " She held the case in her hand and wenton opening the others. She came to one showing a moustached and goateedyouth in a captain's uniform--a slim, straight, soldierly figure. As shepassed it to Miss Larrabee Aunt Martha looked sidewise at her, saying:"You wouldn't know him now. Yet you see him every day, I suppose. " Afterthe girl shook her head, the elder woman continued: "Well, that's JimPurdy, taken the day he left for the army. " She sighed as she said: "Letme see, I guess I haven't happened to run across Jim for ten years ormore, but he didn't look much like this then. Poor old Jim, they tell mehe's not having the best time in the world. Someway, all the old-timersthat are living seem to be hard up, or in bad health, or unhappy. Itdoesn't seem right, after what they've done and what they've gonethrough. But I guess it's the way of life. It's the way life gets evenwith us for letting us outlive the others. Compensation--as Emersonsays. "

[Illustration: "Jim Purdy, taken the day he left for the army"]

Miss Larrabee came down the lilac-bordered walk from the stately oldbrick house, carrying a great bouquet of sweet peas and nasturtiums andpoppies and phlox, a fleeting memory of some association she had in hermind of Uncle Jimmy Purdy and Aunt Martha kept tantalising her. Shecould not get it out of the background of her consciousness, and yet itrefused to form itself into a tangible conception. It was associatedvaguely with her own grandmother, as though, infinite ages ago, hergrandmother had said something that had lodged the idea in the girl'shead. 

When the occasion made itself, Miss Larrabee asked her grandmother thequestion that puzzled her, and learned that Martha Perkins and Jim Purdywere lovers before the war, and that she was wearing his ring when hewent away--thinking he would be back in a few weeks with the Rebellionput down. In his first fight he was shot in the head and was in thehospital for a year, demented; when he was put back in the ranks he wascaptured and his name given out among the killed. In prison his dementiareturned and he stayed there two years. Then for a year after hisexchange he followed the Union Army like a dumb creature, and not untiltwo years after the close of the war did the poor fellow drift homeagain, as one from the dead--all uncertain of the past and unfitted forthe future. 

And his sweetheart drank her cup alone. The old settlers say that shenever flinched nor shrank, but for years, even after her marriage to theJudge, the young woman kept a little grave covered with flowers, thatbore the simple words: "Martha, aged five months and three days. " Theysay that she did not lose her courage and that she bent her head for noone. But the war brought her neighbours so many sorrows that Martha'strouble was forgotten, the years passed and only the old people of thecommunity know about the little grave beside the Judge's and theirlittle boy's. Jimmy Purdy grew into a smooth-faced, unwrinkled, ratherblank-eyed old man, clerking in the bookstore for a time, serving asCity Clerk for twenty years, and later living at the Palace Hotel on hispension. He worshipped Aunt Martha's children and her children'schildren, but he never saw her except when they met in some casual way. She was married when he came back from the war, and if he ever knew heragony he never spoke of it. Whenever he talked of the events before thewar, his face wore a troubled, baffled look, and he did not seem toremember things clearly. He was a simple old man with a boyish face andheart who was confused by the world growing old around him. 

One day they found him dead in his bed. And Miss Larrabee hurried out toAunt Martha's to get the facts about his life for the paper. It was abright October morning as she went up the walk to the old brick house, and she heard someone playing on the piano, rolling the chords after thegrandiose manner of pianists fifty years ago. A voice seemed to besinging an old ballad. As the girl mounted the steps the voice came moredistinctly to her. It was quavering and unsure, but with a moan ofpassion the words came forth:

 "As I lay my heart on your dead heart, --Douglas, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true----"

Suddenly the voice choked in a groan. As she stood by the open door MissLarrabee could see in the darkened room the figure of an old womanracked with sobs on a great mahogany sofa, and on the floor beside herlay a daguerreotype, glinting its gilt and glass through the gloom. 

The girl tiptoed across the porch, down the steps through the garden andout of the gate. 

IX

Our Loathed but Esteemed Contemporary

No one remembers a time when there were not two newspapers in ourtown--generally quarrelling with each other. Though musicians anddoctors and barbers are always jealous of their business rivals, andthough they show their envy more or less to their discredit, editors areso jealous of one another, and so shameless about it, that theprofession has been made a joke. Certainly in our town there is adeep-seated belief that if one paper takes one side of any question, even so fair a proposition as street-paving, the other will take theopposing side. 

Of course, our paper has not been contrary; but we have noticed a goodmany times--every one in the office has noticed it, the boys and girlsin the back-office, and the boys and girls in the front-office--thatwhenever we take a stand for anything, say for closing the stores atsix o'clock, the General swings the _Statesman_ into line against it. Ifhe has done it once he has done it fifty times in the last ten years;and, though we have often felt impelled to oppose some of the schemeswhich he has brought forward, it has been because they were bad for thetown, and perhaps because, even though they did seem plausible, we knewthat the unscrupulous gang that was behind these schemes would in someway turn them into a money-making plot to rob the people. We never couldsee that justification in the _Statesman_'s position. To us it seemedmerely pigheadedness. But the passing years are teaching us toappreciate the General better, and each added year is seeming to make usmore tolerant of his shortcomings. 

Counting in the three years he was in the army, he has been running the_Statesman_ for forty-five years, and for thirty-five years he wasmaster of the field. For thirty years this town was known as General A. Jackson Durham's town. He ran the county Republican conventions, andcontrolled the five counties next to ours, so that, though he couldnever go to Congress himself, on account of his accumulation of enemies, he always named the successful candidate from the district, and for ageneration held undisturbed the selection of post-masters within hissphere of influence. In State politics he was more powerful than anyCongressman he ever made. Often he came down to the State Conventionwith blood in his eye after the political scalp of some politician whohad displeased him, and the fight he made and the disturbance hestarted, gave him the name of Old Bull Durham. On such occasions, hewould throw back his head, shut his eyes and roar his wrath at hisopponents in a most disquieting manner, and when he returned home, whether he had won or lost his fight, his paper would bristle for two orthree weeks with rage, and his editorial page would be full of luridarticles written in short exclamatory sentences, pocked with italics, capital letters and black-faced lines. 

[Illustration: He advertised the fact that he was a good hater byshowing callers at his office his barrel]

For General A. Jackson Durham was a fire-eater and was proud of it. Headvertised the fact that he was a good hater by showing his barrel tocallers at his office. In that barrel he had filed away everydisreputable thing that he had been able to find against friend or foe, far or near, and when the friend became a foe, or the foe becametroublesome, the General opened his barrel. He kept also an officeblacklist, on which were written the names of the men in town that werenever to be printed in the _Statesman_. When we established our littlehandbill of a newspaper, he made all manner of fun of our "dish-rag, " ashe called it, and insisted on writing so much about our paper thatpeople read it to see what we had to say. Other papers had made themistake of replying to the General in kind, and people had soon tired ofthe quarrel and dropped the new quarrelling paper for the old one. TheState never had seen the General's equal as a wrangler; but we did notfight back, and there was only a one-sided quarrel for the people totire of. We grew and got a foothold in the town, but the General neveradmitted it. He does not admit it now, though his paper has been cutdown time and again, and is no larger than our little dish-rag was inthe beginning. But he still maintains his old assumption of the powerthat departed years ago. He walked proudly out of the County Conventionthe day that it rode over him, and he still begins the names of the newparty leaders in the county in small letters to show his contempt forthem. 

The day of his downfall in the County Convention marked the beginning ofhis decline in State politics. When it was known that his county wasagainst him, people ceased to fear him and in time new leaders came inthe State whom he did not know even by sight; but the General did notrecognise them as leaders. To him they were interlopers. He sent hispaper regularly to the old leaders, who had been shoved aside as he hadbeen, and wrote letters to them urging them to arouse the people tothrow off the chains of bossdom. Five years ago he and a number oflonesome and forgotten ones, who formerly ruled the State with an ironhand, and whose arrogance had cost the party a humiliating defeat, organised the "Anti-Boss League, " and held semi-annual conventions atthe capital. They made long speeches and issued long proclamations, andcalled vehemently upon the people to rend their chains, but some way thepeople didn't heed the call, and the General and his boss-busters, asthey were called, began to have hard work getting their "calls" and"proclamations" and "addresses" into the city papers. The reportersreferred to them as the Ancient Order of Has-Beens, and wounded theGeneral's pride by calling him Past Master of the Grand Lodge of Hons. He came home from the meeting of the boss-busters at which this insulthad been heaped upon him and bellowed like a mad bull for six months, using so much space in his paper that there was no room at all for localnews. 

In the General's idea of what a newspaper should contain; news does notcome first, and he does not mind crowding it out. He believes that anewspaper should stand for "principles. " The _Statesman_ was startedduring the progress of the Civil War, when issues were news, and theGeneral has never been able to realize that in times of peace people buya newspaper for its news and not for its opinions. He never couldunderstand our attitude toward what he called "principles. " When thetown was for free silver, we were for the gold standard, and we neverexerted ourselves particularly for a high tariff, and when the Generalsaw our paper grow in spite of its heresies, he was amazed, andexpressed his amazement in columns of vitriolic anger. Because we oftenignored "issues" and "principles" and "great basic and fundamentalideas, " as he called his contentions on the silver and tariff questions, for lists of delegates at conventions, names of pupils at the countyinstitute, and winners of prizes at the fair, he was filled with alarmfor the future of the noble calling of journalism. 

Long ago we quit making fun of him. One day we wrote an articlereferring to him as "the old man, " and it was gossiped among theprinters that he was cut to the heart. He did not reply to that, andalthough a few days later he referred to us as thieves and villains, wenever had the heart to tease him again, and now every one around theoffice has instructions to put "General" before his name whenever it isused. Probably this cheers him up. At least it should do so, for inspite of his pride and his much advertised undying wrath, he is in trutha tender-hearted old man, and has never been disloyal to the town. It isthe apple of his eye. His fierceness has always been more forpublication than as an evidence of good faith. He likes to think that heis unforgiving and relentless, but he has a woman's heart. He fought therenomination of Grant for a third term most bitterly, but when the oldcommander died, the boys in the _Statesman_ office say that Durhamsniffled gently while he wrote the obituary, and when he closed with thewords "Poor Grant, " he laid his head on the table and his frame shook inreal sorrow. 

Most of the subscribers have left his paper, and few of the advertisersuse it, but what seems to hurt him worst is his feeling that the townhas gone back on him. He has given all of his life to this town; he hasspent thousands of dollars to promote its growth; he has watched everyhouse on the town-site rise, and has made an item in his paper about it;he has written up the weddings of many of the grandmothers andgrandfathers of the town; he has chronicled the birth of their childrenand children's children. The old scrapbooks are filled with kind thingsthat the General has written. Old men and old women scan these wrinkledpages with eyes that have lost their lustre, and on the rusty clippingspasted there fall many tears. In this book many a woman reads the littleverse below the name of a child whom only she and God remember. In someother scrapbook a man, long since out of the current of life, reads thestory of his little triumph in the world; in the family Bible is aclipping from the _Statesman_--yellow and crisp with years--that tellsof a daughter's wedding and the social glory that descended upon thehouse for that one great day. So, as the General goes about the streetsof the town, in his shiny long frock-coat and his faded campaign hat, men do not laugh at him, nor do they hate him. He is the old buffalo, horned out of the herd. 

The profession of newspaper making is a young man's profession. The timewill come when over at our office there will be a shrinkage. Even nowour leading citizens never go away from town and talk to other newspapermen that they do not say that if someone would come over here and starta bright, spicy newspaper he could drive us out of town and make money. The best friends we have, when they talk to newspaper men in other townsare not above saying that our paper is so generally hated that it wouldbe no trouble to put it out of business. That is what people said of theGeneral in the eighties. They do not say it now. 

For the fight is over with him. And he is walking on an old battlefield, reviewing old victories, not knowing that another contest is wagingfurther on. Sometimes the boys in the _Statesman_ office get their moneySaturday night, and sometimes they do not. If they do not, the Generalgrandly issues "orders" on the grocery stores. Then he takes his pen inhand and writes a stirring editorial on the battle of Cold Harbor, andcloses by enquiring whether the country is going to forget the grandprinciples that inspired men in those trying days. 

In the days when the _Statesman_ was a power in the land, editorialslike this were widely quoted. He was department commander of the G. A. R. At a time when such a personage was as important in our State as theGovernor. The General's editorials on pensions were read before thePensions Committee in Congress and had much weight there, and even inthe White House the General's attitude was reckoned with. When herallied the old soldiers to any cause the earth trembled, but now theGeneral's editorials pass unheeded. When he calls to "the men whodefended this country in one great crisis to rise and rescue her again, "he does not understand that he is speaking to a world of ghosts, andthat his "clarion note" falls on empty air. The old boys whom he wouldarouse are sleeping; only he and a little handful survive. Yet to himthey still live; to him their power is still invincible--if they wouldbut rally to the old call. He believes that some day they will rally, and that the world, which is now going sadly wrong, will be set right. With his hands clasped behind him, looking through his steel-rimmedglasses, from under his shaggy brows, he walks through a mad world, waiting for it to return to reason. In his fiery black eyes one may seea puzzled look as he views the bewildering show. He is confused, butdefiant. His head is still high; he has no thought of surrender. So, dayafter day, he riddles the bedlam about him with his broadsides, in thehourly hope of victory. 

It was only last week that the General was in Jim Bolton's livery stableoffice asking Jim if he had any old ledgers, that the _Statesman_ officemight have. He explained that he tore off their covers, cut them up andused the unspoiled sheets for copy-paper. In Bolton's office he met afarmer from the Folcraft neighbourhood in the southern end of thecounty, who hadn't seen the General for half-a-dozen years. "Why--helloGeneral, " exclaimed the farmer with unconcealed surprise, as thoughaddressing one risen from the dead. "You still around here? What are youdoing now?" The old man tucked the ledger under his arm, straightened upwith great dignity, and tried not to wince under the blow. He put onehand in his shiny, frayed, greenish-black frock-coat, and replied withquiet dignity, "I am following my profession, sir--that of ajournalist. " And after fixing the farmer with his piercing black eyesfor a moment, the General turned away and was gone. 

When we do something to displease him, he turns all his guns on us, though probably his foreman has to borrow paper from our office to getthe _Statesman_ out. The General regards us as his natural prey and hisforeman regards our paper stock as his natural forage--but they use solittle that we do not mind. 

Once a new bookkeeper in our office saw the General's old account forpaper. She sent the General a statement, and another, and in the thirdshe put the words: "Please remit. " The day after he had received theinsult the General stalked grandly into the office with the amount ofmoney required by the bookkeeper. He put it down without a word andwalked over to the desk where the proprietor was working. 

"Young man, " said the General, as he rapped with his cane on the desk. "I was talking to-day with a gentleman from Norwalk, Ohio, who knew yourfather. Yes, sir; he knew your father, and speaks highly of him, sir. Iam surprised to hear, sir, that your father was a perfect gentleman, sir. Good-morning, sir. "

And with that the General moved majestically out of the office. 

X

A Question of Climate

Colonel Morrison had three initials, so the town naturally called him"Alphabetical" Morrison, and dropped the "Colonel. " He came to our partof the country in an early day--he used to explain that they caught himin the trees, when he was drinking creek water, eating sheep-sorrel, andrunning wild with a buffalo tail for a trolley, and that the first thingthey did, after teaching him to eat out of a plate, was to set him atwork in the grading gang that was laying out the Cottonwood and WalnutRivers and putting the limestone in the hills. He was one of theoriginal five patriots who laid out the Corn Belt Railroad from theMississippi to the Pacific, and was appointed one of that committee totake the matter to New York for the inspection of capitalists--and be itsaid to the credit of Alphabetical Morrison that he was the only personin the crowd with money enough to pay the ferryman when he reached theMissouri River, though he had only enough to get himself across. But inspite of that the road was built, and though it missed our town, it wasbecause we didn't vote the bonds, though old Alphabetical went throughthe county, roaring in the schoolhouses, bellowing at the crossroads, and doing all that a good, honest pair of lungs could do for the cause. However, he was not dismayed at his failure, and began immediately toorganise a company to build another road. We finally secured a railroad, though it was only a branch. 

Over his office door he had a sign--"Land Office"--painted on the falseboard front of the building in letters as big as a cow, and the firstour newspaper knew of him was twenty years ago, when he brought in anorder for some stationery for the Commercial Club. At that time we hadnot heard that the town supported a Commercial Club--nor had anyone elseheard of it, for that matter--for old Alphabetical was the president, and his bookkeeper, with the Miss dropped off her name, was secretary. But he had a wonderfully alluring letterhead printed, and seemed to getresults, for he made a living while his competitors starved. Later, whenhe found time, he organised a real Commercial Club, and had himselfelected president of it. He used to call meetings of the club to discussthings, but as no one cared much for his monologues on the future of thetown, the attendance was often light. He issued circulars referring toour village as "the Queen City of the Prairies, " and on the circularswas a map, showing that the Queen City of the Prairies was "the railroadaxis of the West. " There was one road running into the town; the othersold Alphabetical indicated with dotted lines, and explained in afoot-note that they were in process of construction. 

He became possessed of a theory that a canning factory would pay in theQueen City of the Prairies, and the first step he took toward buildingit was to invest in a high hat, a long coat and white vest, and a pairof mouse-coloured trousers. With these and his theory he went East andreturned with a condition. The canning factory went up, but the railroadrates went wrong, and the factory was never opened. Alphabeticalblinked at it through his gold-rimmed glasses for a few weeks, and thenorganised a company to turn it into a woollen mill. He elected himselfpresident of that company and used to bring around to our paper, noticesof directors' meetings, and while he was in the office he would insistthat we devoted too much space to idle gossip and not enough to thecommercial and industrial interests of the Queen City. 

At times he would bring in an editorial that he had written himself, highly excitable and full of cyclonic language, and if we printed itAlphabetical would buy a hundred copies of the paper containing it andsend them East. His office desk gradually filled with woodcuts and zincetchings of buildings that never existed save in his own dear old head, and about twice a year during the boom days he would bring them aroundand have a circular printed on which were the pictures showing theimaginary public buildings and theoretical business thoroughfares of theQueen City. 

The woollen mill naturally didn't pay, and he persuaded some Easterncapitalists to install an electric plant in the building and put astreetcar line in the town, though the longest distance from one side ofthe place to the other was less than ten blocks. But Alphabetical wasenthusiastic about it, and had the Governor come down to drive the firstspike. It was gold-plated, and Alphabetical pulled it up and used it fora paper-weight in his office for many years, and it is now the onlyreminder there is in town of the street railway, except a hard ridge ofearth over the ties in the middle of Main Street. When someone twittedhim on the failure of the street railway he made answer:

"Of course it failed; here I go pawing up the earth, milking out thesurplus capital of the effete East, and building up this town--and whathappens? Four thousand old silurian fossils comb the moss on the northside of 'em, with mussel shell, and turn over and yawp that oldAlphabetical is visionary. Here I get a canning factory and nobody eatsthe goods; I hustle up a woollen factory, and the community quitswearing trousers; I build for them a streetcar line to haul them to andfrom their palatial residences, and what do the sun-baked human mudturtles do but all jump off the log into the water and hide from themcars like they were chariots of fire? What this town needs is notfactories, nor railroads, nor modern improvements--Old Alphabetical canget them--but the next great scheme I go into is to go down to theriver, get some good red mud, and make a few thousand men who will buildup a town. "

It has been fifteen years and over since Colonel Morrison put on hislong coat and high hat and started for the money markets of the East, seeking whom he might devour. At the close of the eighties the Coloneland all his tribe found that the stock of Eastern capitalists who wereready to pay good prices for the fine shimmering blue sky and bracingozone of the West was running low. It was said in town that the Colonelhad come to the end of his string, for not only were the doors ofcapital closed to him in the East, but newcomers had stopped looking forfarms at home. There was nothing to do but to sit down and swapjack-knives with other land agents, and as they had taken most of theagencies for the best insurance companies while the Colonel was ondress parade, there was nothing left for him to do but to run forjustice of the peace, and, being elected, do what he could to make histenure for life. 

Though he was elected, more out of gratitude for what he had tried to dofor the town than because people thought he would make a fair judge, hegot no further than his office in popular esteem. He did not seem towear well with the people in the daily run and jostle of life. Duringthe forty years he has been in our town, he has lived most of the timeapart from the people--transacting his business in the East, or locatingstrangers on new lands. He has not been one of us, and there werestories afloat that his shrewdness had sometimes caused him to thrust atoe over the dead-line of exact honesty. In the town he never helped usto fight for those things of which the town is really proud: ourschools, the college, the municipal ownership of electric lights andwaterworks, the public library, the abolition of the saloon, and all ofthe dozen small matters of public interest in which good citizens take apride. Colonel Morrison was living his grand life, in his tailor-madeclothes, while his townsmen were out with their coats off making ourtown the substantial place it is. So in his latter days he is oldAlphabetical Morrison, a man apart from us. We like him well enough, andso long as he cares to be justice of the peace no one will object, forthat is his due. But, someway, there is no talk of making him CountyClerk; and there is a reason in everyone's mind why no party names himto run for County Treasurer. He has been trying hard enough for tenyears to break through the crust of the common interests that he has solong ignored. One sees him at public meetings--a rather wistful-looking, chubby-faced old man--on the edge of the crowd, ready to be called outfor a speech. But no one calls his name; no one cares particularly whatold Alphabetical has to say. Long ago he said all that he can say to ourpeople. 

The only thing that Alphabetical ever organised that paid was a family. In the early days he managed to get a home clear of indebtedness and wasshrewd enough to keep it out of all of his transactions. Tow-headedMorrisons filled the schoolhouse, and twenty years later there were somany of his girls teaching school that the school-board had to make aruling limiting the number of teachers from one family in the cityschool, in order to force the younger Morrison girls to go to thecountry to teach. In these days the girls keep the house going andAlphabetical is a notary public and a justice of the peace, which keepshis office going in the little square board building at the end of thestreet. But every day for the past ten years he has been coming to ouroffice for his bundle of old newspapers. These he reads carefully, andsometimes what he reads inspires him to write something for our paper onthe future of the Queen City, though much oftener his articles areretrospective. He is the president of the Old Settlers' Society, andonce or twice a year he brings in an obituary which he has written forthe family of some of the old-timers. 

One would think that an idler would be a nuisance in a busy place, but, on the contrary, we all like old Alphabetical around our office. For heis an old man who has not grown sour. His smooth, fat face has not beenwrinkled by the vinegar of failure, and the noise that came from hislusty lungs in the old days is subsiding. But he has never forgivenGeneral Durham, of the _Statesman_, for saying of a fight betweenAlphabetical and another land agent back in the sixties that "those whoheard it pronounced it the most vocal engagement they had ever known. "That is why he brings his obituaries to us; that is why he does us thehonour of borrowing papers from us; and that is why, on a dullafternoon, he likes to sit in the old sway-back swivel-chair and tell ushis theory of the increase in the rainfall, his notion about theinfluence of trees upon the hot winds, his opinion of the disappearanceof the grasshoppers. Also, that is why we always save a circus-ticketfor old Alphabetical, just as we save one for each of the boys in theoffice. 

[Illustration: He likes to sit in the old sway-back swivel-chair andtell us his theory of the increase in the rainfall]

One day he came into the office in a bad humour. He picked up a countrypaper, glanced it over, threw it down, kicked from under his feet a dogthat had followed a subscriber into the room, and slammed his hat intothe waste-basket with considerable feeling as he picked up a New Yorkpaper. 

"Well--well, what's the matter with the judiciary this morning?"someone asked the old man. 

He did not reply at once, but turned his paper over and over, apparentlylooking for something to interest him. Gradually the revolutions of hispaper became slower and slower, and finally he stopped turning the paperand began reading. It was ten or fifteen minutes before he spoke. Whenhe put down the paper his cherubic face was beaming, and he said:

"Oh--I know I'm a fool, but I wish the Lord had sent me to live in atown large enough so that every dirty-faced brat on the street wouldn'tfeel he had a right to call me 'Alphabetical'! Dammit, I've done thebest I could! I haven't made any alarming success. I know it. There's noneed of rubbing it in on me. "--He was silent for a time with his handson his knees and his head thrown back looking at the ceiling. Almostimperceptibly a smile began to crack his features, and, when he turnedhis eyes to the man at the desk, they were dancing with merriment, as hesaid: "Just been reading a piece here in the _Sun_ about the influenceof climate on human endeavour. It says that in northern latitudes thereis more oxygen in the air and folks breathe faster, and their bloodflows faster, and that keeps their livers going. Trouble with me hasalways been climate--sluggish liver. If I had had just a little moreoxygen floating round in my system, the woollen mill would still berunning, the street-cars would be going, and this town would have hadforty thousand inhabitants. My fatal mistake was one of latitude. But"--and he drawled out the word mockingly--"but I guess if the Lordhad wanted me to make a town here he would have given me a differentkind of liver!" He slapped his knees as he sighed: "This is a funnyworld, and the more you see of it the funnier it gets. " The old mangrinned complacently at the ceiling for a minute, and before getting outof his chair kicked his shoe-heels together merrily, wiped his glassesas he rose, put his bundle of papers under his arm, and left the officewhistling an old, old-fashioned tune. 

XI

The Casting Out of Jimmy Myers

It seemed a cruel thing to do, but we had to do it. For ours isordinarily a quiet office. We have never had a libel suit. We have hadfewer fights than most newspaper offices have, and while it hardly maybe said that we strive to please, still in the main we try to get onwith the people, and tell them as much truth as they are entitled to forten cents a week. Naturally, we do our best to get up a sprightly paper, and in that the Myers boy had our idea exactly. He was industrious; morethan that, he tried with all his might to exercise his best judgment, and no one could say that he was careless; yet everyone around theoffice admitted that he was unlucky. He was one of those persons whoalways have slivers on their doors, or tar on the knocker, whenopportunity comes their way; so his stay in the office was marked by aseries of seismic disturbances in the paper that came from under hisdesk, and yet he was in no way to blame for them. 

We took him from the college at the edge of town. He had been runningthe college paper for a year, and knew the merchants around town fairlywell; and, since he was equipped as far as education went, he seemed tobe a likely sort of a boy for reporter and advertising solicitor. 

One of the first things that happened to him was a mistake in an itemabout the opera house. He said that a syndicate had taken a lien on it. What he meant was a lease, and as he got the item from a man who didn'tknow the difference, and as the boy stuck to it that the man had saidlien and not lease, we did not charge that up to him. A few days laterhe wrote for a town photographer a paid local criticising someone whowas going around the county peddling picture-frames and taking ordersfor enlarged pictures. That was not so bad, but it turned out that thepedlar was a woman, and she came with a rawhide and camped in the officefor two days waiting for Jimmy, while he came in and out of the backdoor, stuck his copy on the hook by stealth, and travelled only in thealleys to get his news. One could hardly say that he was to blame forthat, either, as the photographer who paid for the item didn't say thepedlar was a woman, and the boy was no clairvoyant. 

[Illustration: And camped in the office for two days, looking for Jimmy]

One dull day he wrote a piece about the gang who played poker at nightin Red Martin's room. Jimmy said he wasn't afraid of Red, and he wasn't. The item was popular enough, and led to a raid on the place, whichdisclosed our best advertiser sitting in the game. To suppress his namemeant our shame before the town; to print it meant his--at our expense. It was embarrassing, but it wasn't exactly the boy's fault. It was justone of those unfortunate circumstances that come up in life. However, the advertiser aforesaid began to hate the boy. 

He must have been used to injustice all his life, for there was avertical line between his eyes that marked trouble. The line deepened ashe went further and further into the newspaper business; for, generallyspeaking, a person who is unlucky has less to fear handling dynamitethan he has writing local items on a country paper. 

A few days after the raid on the poker-room Jimmy, who had acquired aparticularly legible hand, wrote: "The hem of her skirt was trimmed withpink crushed roses, " and he was in no way to blame for the fact that theprinter accidentally put an "h" for a "k" in skirt, though the woman'shusband chased Jimmy into a culvert under Main Street and kept him theremost of the forenoon, while the cheering crowd informed the injuredhusband whenever Jimmy tried to get out of either end of his prison. 

The printer that made the mistake bought Jimmy a new suit of clothes, wemanaged to print an apology that cooled the husband's wrath, and for tendays, or perhaps two weeks, the boy's life was one round of joy. Everything was done promptly, accurately and with remarkableintelligence. He whistled at his work and stacked up more copy than theprinters could set up in type. No man ever got in or out of town withouthaving his name in our paper. Jimmy wrote up a railroad bond electionmeeting so fairly that he pleased both sides, and reported a murdertrial so well that the lawyers for each side kept the boy's pockets fullof ten-cent cigars. The vertical wrinkle was fading from his forehead, when one fine summer morning he brought in a paid item from a hardwaremerchant, and went blithely out to write up the funeral of the wife of aprominent citizen. He was so cheerful that day that it bothered him. 

He told us in confidence that he never felt festive and gay thatsomething didn't happen. He was not in the building that evening whenthe paper went to press, but after it was printed and the carriers hadleft the office he came in, singing "She's My Sweetheart, I'm Her Beau, "and sat down to read the paper. 

Suddenly the smile on his face withered as with frost, and he handed thepaper across the table to the bookkeeper, who read this item:

 DIED--MRS. LILLIAN GILSEY. 

 Prepare for the hot weather, my good woman. There is only one way now; get a gasoline stove, of Hurley & Co. , and you need not fear any future heat. 

And it wasn't Jimmy's fault. The foreman had merely misplaced a headline, but that explanation did not satisfy the bereaved family. 

Jimmy was beginning to acquire a reputation as a joker. People refusedto believe that such things just happened. They did not happen beforeMr. James Myers came to the paper--why should they begin with his comingand continue during his engagement? Thus reasoned the comforters of theGilseys, and those interested in our downfall. The next day the_Statesman_ wrote a burning editorial denouncing us "for an utter lackof all sense of common decency" that permitted us "to violate thesacredest feeling known to the human heart for the sake of getting aribald laugh from the unthinking. " We were two weeks explaining that theerror was not the boy's fault. People assumed that the mistake could nothave occurred in any well-regulated printing office, and it didn't seemprobable that it could occur--yet there it was. But Jimmy wasn't toblame. He suffered more than we did--more than the bereaved family did. He went unshaven and forgot to trim his cuffs or turn his collar. Hehated to go on the streets for news, and covered with the officetelephone as much of his beat as possible. 

The summer wore away and the dog days came. The Democratic Statecampaign was about to open in our town, and orators and statesmenassembled from all over the Missouri valley. There was a lack of flagsat the dry-goods stores. The Fourth of July celebration had taken allthe stock. The only materials available were some red bunting, somewhite bunting, and some blue bunting with stars dotted upon it. Withthis bunting the Committee on Reception covered the speakers' stand, wrapping the canopy under which the orators stood in the solid coloursand the star-spangled blue. It was beautiful to see, and the pride ofthe window-dresser of the Golden Eagle Clothing Store. But the oldsoldiers who walked by nudged one another and smiled. 

About noon of the day of the speaking the City Clerk, who wore thelittle bronze button of the G. A. R. , asked Jimmy if he didn't wantsomeone to take care of the Democratic meeting. Jimmy, who hatedpolitics, was running his legs off to get the names of the visitors, andwas glad to have the help. He turned in the contributed copy withoutreading it, as he had done with the City Clerk's articles many timesbefore, and this is what greeted his horrified eyes when he read thepaper:

 "UNDER THE STARS & BARS"

 Democracy Opens Its State Campaign Under the Rebel Emblem To-day A Fitting Token Treasonable Utterances Have a Proper Setting

And then followed half a column of most violent abuse of the Democratswho had charge of the affair. Jimmy did not appear on the street thatnight, but the next morning, when he came down, the office was crowdedwith indignant Democrats "stopping the paper. "

We began to feel uneasy about Jimmy. So long as his face was in theeclipse of grief there seemed to be a probability that we would have notrouble, but as soon as his moon began to shine we were nervous. 

Jimmy had a peculiar knack of getting up little stories of the town--notexactly news stories, but little odd bits that made people smile withoutrancour when they saw their names in the quaintly turned items. One dayhe wrote up a story of a little boy whose mother asked him where he gota dollar that he was flourishing on his return with his father from avisit in Kansas City. The little boy's answer was that his father gaveit to him for calling him uncle when any ladies were around. It wasmerrily spun, and knowing that it would not make John Lusk, the boy'sfather, mad, we printed it, and Jimmy put at the head of it a foolishlittle verse of Kipling's. Miss Larrabee, at the bottom of her societycolumn, announced the engagement of two prominent young people in town. The Saturday paper was unusually readable. But when Jimmy came in afterthe paper was out he found Miss Larrabee in tears, and the foremanleaning over the counter laughing so that he couldn't speak. It wasn'tJimmy's fault. The foreman had done it--by the mere transposition of alittle brass rule separating the society news from Jimmy's story withthe Kipling verse at the head of it. The rule tacked the Kipling verseonto Miss Larrabee's article announcing the engagement. Here is the wayit read:

"This marriage, which will take place at St. Andrew's Church, will unitetwo of the most popular people in town and two of the best-knownfamilies in the State. 

 "_And this is the sorrowful story Told as the twilight fails, While the monkeys are walking together, Holding each other's tails!_"

Now, Jimmy was no more to blame than Miss Larrabee, and many peoplethought, and think to this day, that Miss Larrabee did it--and did it onpurpose. But for all that it cast clouds over the moon of Jimmy'scountenance, and it was nearly a year before he regained his merryheart. He was nervous, and whenever he saw a man coming toward theoffice with a paper in his hand Jimmy would dash out of the room toavoid the meeting. For an hour after the paper was out the ringing ofthe telephone bell would make him start. He didn't know what was goingto happen next. 

But as the months rolled by he became calm, and when Governor Antrobusdied, Jimmy got up a remarkably good story of his life and achievements, and though there was no family left to the dear old man to buy extracopies, all the old settlers--who are the hardest people in the worldto please--bought extra copies for their scrapbooks. We were proud ofJimmy, and assigned him to write up the funeral. That was to be a "dayof triumph in Capua. " There being no relatives to interfere, the lodgesof the town--and the Governor was known as a "jiner"--had vied with oneanother to make the funeral the greatest rooster-feather show ever givenin the State. The whole town turned out, and the foreman of our office, and everyone in the back room who could be spared, was at the Governor'sfuneral, wearing a plume, a tin sword, a red leather belt, or a sash ofsome kind. We put a tramp printer on to make up the paper, and toldJimmy to call by the undertaker's for a paid local which the undertakerhad written for the paper that day. 

Jimmy's face was beaming as he snuggled up to his desk at three o'clockthat afternoon. He said he had a great story--names of the pall-bearers, names of the double sextette choir, names of all the chaplains of allthe lodges who read their rituals, names of distinguished guests fromabroad, names of the ushers at the church. Page by page he tore off hiscopy and gave it to the tramp printer, who took it in to the machines. Trusting the foreman to read the proof, Jimmie rushed out to get from aUnited States Senator who was attending the funeral an interview on thesugar scandal, for the Kansas City _Star_. 

The rest of us did not get back from the cemetery until the carriers hadleft the office, and this is what we found:

"The solemn moan of the organ had scarcely died away, like a quiveringsob upon the fragrant air, when the mournful procession of citizensbegan filing past the flower-laden bier to view the calm face of theirbeloved friend and honoured townsman. In the grief-stricken hush thatfollowed might be heard the stifled grief of some old comrade as hepaused for the last time before the coffin. 

"At this particular time we desire to call the attention of our readersto the admirable work done by our hustling young undertaker, J. B. Morgan. He has been in the city but a short time, yet by his efficientwork and careful attention to duty, he has built up an enviablereputation and an excellent custom among the best families of the city. All work done with neatness and dispatch. We strive to please. 

"When the last sad mourner had filed out, the pall-bearers took up theirsorrowful task, and slowly, as the band played the 'Dead March in Saul, 'the great throng assembled in the street viewed the mortal remains ofGovernor Antrobus start on their last long journey. "

Of course it wasn't Jimmy's fault. The "rising young undertaker" hadpaid the tramp printer, who made up the forms, five dollars to work hispaid local into the funeral notice. But after that--Jimmy had to go. Public sentiment would no longer stand him as a reporter on the paper, and we gave him a good letter and sent him onward and upward. He tookhis dismissal decently enough. He realised that his luck was againsthim; he knew that we had borne with him in all patience. 

The day that he left he was instructing the new man in the ways of thetown. Reverend Frank Milligan came in with a church notice. Jimmy tookthe notice and began marking it for the printer. As the door behind himopened and closed, Jimmy, with his head still in his work, called acrossthe room to the new man: "That was old Milligan that just wentout--beware of him. He will load you up with truck about himself. Herings in his sermons; trots around with church social notices that oughtto be paid for, and tries to get them in free; likes to be referred toas doctor; slips in mean items about his congregation, if you don'twatch him; and insists on talking religion Saturday morning when you aretoo busy to spit. More than that, he has an awful breath--cut him out;he will make life a burden if you don't--and if you do he will go to theold man with it, and say you are not treating him right. "

[Illustration: Reverend Milligan came in with a church notice]

There was a rattling and a scratching on the wire partition betweenJimmy and the door. Jimmy looked up from his work and saw the sprightlylittle figure of Parson Milligan coming over the railing like a monkey. He had not gone out of the door--a printer had come in when it openedand shut. And then Jimmy took his last flying trip out of the back doorof the office, down the alley, "toward the sunset's purple rim. " It wasnot his fault. He was only telling the truth--where it would do the mostgood. 

XII

"'A Babbled of Green Fields"

Our town is set upon a hillside, rising from a prairie stream. Fortyyears ago the stream ran through a thick woodland nearly a mile wide, and in the woodland were stately elms, spreading walnut trees, shapelyoaks, gaunt white sycamores, and straight, bushy hackberries, that shooktheir fruit upon the ice in spots least frequented by skaters. Along thedraws that emptied into the stream were pawpaw trees, with their tenderfoliage, and their soft wood, which little boys delighted to cut forstick horses. Beneath all these trees grew a dense underbrush ofbuckeyes, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and little red winterberries called Indian beads by the children. Wild grapevines, "poison"grapes, and ivies of both kinds wove the woods into a mass of summergreen. In the clearings and bordering the wood grew the sumach, thatflared red at the very thought of Jack Frost's coming. In these woodsthe boys of our town--many of whom have been dead these twentyyears--used to lay their traps for the monsters of the forest, andtrudged back from the timber before breakfast, in winter, bringing homeredbirds, and rabbits and squirrels. Sometimes a particularly doughtywoodsman would report that there were wildcat tracks about his trap; butnone of us ever saw a wildcat, though Enoch Haver, whose father's fatherhad heard a wildcat scream, and had taught the boy its cry, would hidein a hollow sycamore and screech until the little boys were terrifiedand would not go alone to their traps for days. In summer, boys, usuallyfrom the country, or from a neighbouring town, caught 'coons, anddragged them chained through alleys for our boys to see, and 'Dory Painehad an owl which was widely sought by other boys in the circus andmenagerie line. The boys of our town in that day seemed to live in thewood and around the long millpond, though little fellows were afraidthat lurking Indians or camping gypsies might steal them--a boy'ssuperstition, which experience has proved too good to be true. Theyfared forth to the riffle below the dam, which deepens in the shadeunder the water elm; this was the pool known as "baby hole, " despised ofthe ten-year-olds, who plunged into the deepest of the thicket and cameout at the limekiln, where all day long one might hear "so-deep, so-deep, so-deep, " and "go-round, go-round, go-round, " until schoolcommenced in the fall. Then the rattle of little homemade wagons, andthe shrilling of boy voices might be heard all over the wilderness, andthe black-stained hands of schoolboys told of the day of the walnutharvest. It was nearly a mile from the schoolhouse to the woods, and yeton winter afternoons no school-ma'am could keep the boys from usingschool hours to dig out the screw-holes and heel-plates of their bootsbefore wadding them with paper. At four o'clock a troop of boys wouldburst forth from that schoolhouse so wildly that General Durham of the_Statesman_, whose office we used to pass with a roar, always looked upfrom his work to say: "Well, I see hell's out for noon again. "

In the spring the boys fished, and on Saturdays go, up the river ordown, or on either side, where one would, one was never out of sight ofsome thoughtful boy, sitting either on a stump or on a log stretchinginto the stream, or squatting on a muddy bank with his worm can besidehim, throwing a line into the deep, green, quiet water. Always it was tothe woods one went to find a lost boy, for the brush was alive withfierce pirates, and blood-bound brother-hoods, and gory Indian fighters, and dauntless scouts. Under the red clay banks that rose above thesluggish stream, robbers' caves, and treasure houses, and freebooters'dens, were filled with boys who, five days in the week and six hours aday, could "_amo amas amat, amamus amatus amant_" with the best of them. On Sundays these same boys sat with trousers creeping above the wrinklesat the ankles of their copper-toed, red-topped boots, recited goldentexts, sang "When He Cometh, " and while planning worse for their ownlittle brothers, read with much virtuous indignation of little Joseph'swicked brothers, who put him in a pit. After Sunday School was overthese highly respected young persons walked sedately in their bestclothes over the scenes of their Saturday crimes. 

They say the woods are gone now. Certainly the trees have been cut awayand the underbrush burned; cornfields cover the former scenes ofvalorous achievement; but none the less the woods are there; each nookand cranny is as it was, despite the cornfields. Scattered about the sadold earth live men who could walk blindfolded over the dam, across themillrace, around the bend, through the pawpaw patch to the grapevinehome of the "Slaves of the Magic Tree;" who could find their trail underthe elder bushes in Boswell's ravine, though they should come--as theyoften come--at the dead of night from great cities and from mountaincamps and from across seas, and fore-gather there, in the smoke and dirtof the rendezvous to eat their unsalted sacrificial rabbit. They canfollow the circuitous route around John Betts's hog lot, to avoid theenemy, as easily to-day as they could before the axe and the fire andthe plough made their fine pretence of changing the landscape. And whenJoe Nevison gets ready to signal them from his seat high in the crotchof the oak tree across the creek, the "Slaves of the Tree" will come andobey their leader. They say that the tree is gone, and that Joe is gone, but we know better; for at night, when the Tree has called us, and wehear the notes from the pumpkin-stem reed, we come and sit in thebranches beneath him and plan our raids and learn our passwords, andswear our vengeance upon such as cross our pathway. There may have beena time when men thought the Slaves of the Tree were disbanded; indeed itdid seem so, but as the years go by, one by one they come wanderingback, take their places in the branches of the magic tree, swing far outover the world like birds, and summon again the _genius loci_ who hasslept for nearly forty years. 

Of course we knew that Joe would be the first one back; he didn't carewhat they said--even then; he registered his oath that it made nodifference what they did to him or what the others did, he would neverdesert the Tree. He commanded all of us to come back; if not by day thento gather in the moonlight and bring our chicken for the altar and oureggs for the ceremony, and he promised that he would be there. We wereyears and years in obeying Joe Nevison. Many of us have had longjourneys to go; and some of us lead little children by the hand as wecreep up the hollow, crawl through the gooseberry bushes, and 'coon thelog over the chasm to our meeting place. But we are nearly all therenow; and in the moonlight, when the corn seems to be waving over a widefield, a tree springs up as by magic and we take our places again as ofold. 

Many years have passed since Marshal Furgeson stood those seven Slavesof the Magic Tree in line before the calaboose door and made themsurrender the feathered cork apple-stealers and the sacred chickenhooks. In those years many terrors have ridden the boys who have goneout into the world to fight its dragons and grapple with its gorgons;but never have those boys felt any happiness so sweet as that whichrested on their hearts when they heard the Marshal say, "Now you boysrun on home--but mind you if I ever----" and he never did--except JoeNevison. Once it was for boring a hole in the depot platform andtapping a barrel of cider; once it was for going through a window in theHustler hardware store and taking a box of pocketknives and tworevolvers, with which to reward his gang, and finally, when the boy wasin the midst of his teens, for breaking into the schoolhouse and burningthe books. Joe's father always bought him off, as fathers always can buyboys off, when mothers go to the offended person and promise, and beg, and weep. So Joe Nevison grew up the town bad boy--defiant of law, reckless and unrestrained, with the blood of border ruffianism in hisveins and the scorn of God and man and the love of sin in his heart. Theweek after he left town, and before he was twenty, his father paid for"Red" Martin's grey race horse, which disappeared the night Joe's bedwas found empty. In those days the Nevisons had more money than most ofthe people in our town, but as the years went by they began to losetheir property, and it was said that it went in great slices to Joe, tokeep him out of the penitentiary. 

We knew that Joe Nevison was in the West. People from our town, who seemto swarm over the earth, wrote back that they had met Joe in DodgeCity, in Leoti, in No-Man's-Land, in Texas, in Arizona--wherever therewas trouble. Sometimes he was the hired bad man of a desert town, whosebusiness it was to shoot terror into the hearts of disturbers from rivaltowns; sometimes he was a free lance--living the devil knows how--alwaysdressed like a fashion-plate of the plains in high-heeled boots, widefelt hat, flowing necktie, flannel shirt and velvet trousers. They saythat he did not gamble more than was common among the sporting men ofhis class, and that he never worked. Sometimes we heard of himadventuring as a land dealer, sometimes as a cattleman, sometimes as amining promoter, sometimes as a horseman, but always as the sharper, whorides on the crest of the forward wave of civilization, leaving a townwhen it tears down its tents and puts up brick buildings, and thenappearing in the next canvas community, wherein the night is filled withmusic, and the cares that infest the day are drowned in bad whiskey orwinked out with powder and shot. And thus Joe Nevison closed histwenties--a desert scorpion, outcast by society and proud of it. As hepassed into his thirties he left the smoky human crystals that formed onthe cow trails and at the mountain gold camps. Cripple Creek became tooeffete for him, and an electric light in a tent became a target he couldnot resist; wherefore he went into the sage brush and the short grass, seeking others of his kind, the human rattlesnake, the ranging coyoteand the outlawed wolf. Joe Nevison rode with the Dalton gang, raidedranches and robbed banks with the McWhorters and held up stages as alone highwayman. At least, so men said in the West, though no one couldprove it, and at the opening of Lawton he appeared at the head of a bandof cutthroats, who were herded out of town by the deputy United Statesmarshals before noon of the first day. Not until popular government wasestablished could they get in to open their skin-game, which was betterand safer for them than ordinary highway faring. At Lawton our peoplesaw Joe and he asked about the home people, asked about the boys--theold boys he called them--and becoming possessed of a post-officeaddress, Joe wrote a long letter to George Kirwin, the foreman of ouroffice. We call him old George, because he is still under forty. Joebeing in an expansive mood, and with more money on his clothes than hecared for, sent old George ten dollars to pay for a dollar Joe hadborrowed the day he left town in the eighties. We printed Joe's letterin our paper, and it pleased his mother. That was the beginning of aregular correspondence between the rover and the home-stayer. GeorgeKirwin, gaunt, taciturn, and hard-working, had grown out of the dreamy, story-loving boy who had been one of the Slaves of the Magic Tree andinto a shy old bachelor who wept over "East Lynne" whenever it came tothe town opera house, and asked for a lay-off only when Modjeskaappeared in Topeka, or when there was grand opera at Kansas City. But heruled the back office with an iron hand and superintended the MissionSunday-School across the track, putting all his spare money intoChristmas presents for his pupils. After that first letter that camefrom Joe Nevison, no one had a hint of what passed between the two men. But a month never went by that Joe's letter missed. When Lawton beganto wane, Joe Nevison seemed to mend his wayward course. He moved toSouth McAlester and opened a faro game--a square game they said itwas--for the Territory! This meant that unless Joe was hard up every manhad his chance before the wheel. Old George took the longest trip of hislife, when we got him a pass to South McAlester and he put on his blackfrock coat and went to visit Joe. All that we learned from him was thatJoe "had changed a good deal, " and that he was "taking everything in thedrug store, from the big green bottle at the right of the front doorclear around past the red prescription case, and back to the big bluebottle at the left of the door. " But after George came home the MissionSunday-School began to thrive. George was not afraid of tainted money, and the school got a new library, which included "Tom Sawyer" and"Huckleberry Finn, " as well as "Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates" forthe boys, and all the "Pansy" books for the girls. It was a quaint oldlot of books, and George Kirwin was nearly a year getting it together. Also he bought a new stove for his Sunday-School room, and a lot ofpictures for the church walls, among others "Wide Awake and FastAsleep, " "Simply to Thy Cross, " and "The Old Oaken Bucket. " He gave tothe school a cabinet organ with more stops than most of the childrencould count. 

[Illustration: A desert Scorpion, outcast by society and proud of it]

A year ago a new reporter brought in this item: "Joseph Nevison, ofSouth McAlester, I. T. , is visiting his mother, Mrs. Julia Nevison, at234 South Fifth Street. "

We sent the reporter out for more about Joe Nevison and at noon GeorgeKirwin hurried down to the little home below the tracks. From these twosearchers after truth we learned that Joe Nevison's mother had broughthim home from the Indian Territory mortally sick. Half-a-dozen of us whohad played with him as boys went to see him that evening, and found awan, haggard man with burned-out black eyes, lying in a clean white bed. He seemed to know each of us for a moment and spoke to us through hisdelirium in a tired, piping voice--like the voice of the little boy whohad been our leader. He called us by forgotten nicknames, and he hummedat a tune that we had not heard for a score of years. Then he piped out"While the Landlubbers Lie Down Below, Below, Below, " and followed thatwith "Green Grass Growing all Around, all Around, " and that with thesong about the "Tonga Islands, " his voice growing into a clearer alto ashe sang. His mother tried to quiet him, but he smiled his dead smile ather through his cindery eyes, shook his head and went on. When he hadlain quiet for a moment, he turned to one of us and said: "Dock, I'mgoin' up and dive off that stump--a back flip-flop--you dassent!" Prettysoon he seemed to come up snuffing and blowing and grinning and said, "Last man dressed got to chaw beef. " Then he cried: "Dock's it--Dock'sit; catch 'im, hold him--there he goes--duck him, strip him. O well, lethim go if he's go'n' to cry. Say, boys, I wish you fellers'd come overt' my stick horse livery stable--honest I got the best hickory horse youever see. Whoa, there--whoa now, I tell you. You Pilliken Dunlevy let meharness you; there, put it under your arm, and back of your neck--no Iain't go'n' to let you hold it--I'll jerk the tar out of you if youdon't go. Whe-e-e that's the way to go, hol--hold on, whoa there. Backup. Let's go over to Jim's and run on his track. Say, Jim, I got thebest little pacer in the country here--get up there, Pilliken, " and heclucked and sawed his arms, and cracked an imaginary whip. When Georgecame in, the face on the bed brightened and the treble voice said:"Hello Fatty--we've been waitin' for you. Now let's go on. What you gotin your wagon--humph--bet it's a pumpkin. Did old Boswell chase you?"and then he laughed, and turned away from us. His trembling hands seemedto be fighting something from his face. "Bushes, " whispered Enoch Haver, and then added, "Now he's climbing up the bank of the ravine. " And wesaw the lean hands on the bed clutch up the wall, and then the voicebroke forth: "Me first--first up--get away from here, Dock--I saidfirst, " and we could see his hands climbing an imaginary tree. 

His face glowed with the excitement of his delirium as he climbed, andthen apparently catching his breath he rested before he called out: "I'mcomin' down, clear the track for old Dan Tucker, " and from theconvulsive gripping of his hands and arms and the hysterical intake ofhis breath we who had seen Joe Nevison dive from the top of the oldtree, from limb to limb to the bottom, knew what he was doing. His heartwas thumping audibly when he finished, and we tried to calm him. For awhile we all sat about him in silence--forgetting the walls that shut usin, and living with him in the open, Slaves of the Magic Tree. Then oneby one we left and only George Kirwin stayed with the sick man. 

Joe Nevison had lived a wicked life. He had been the friend andcompanion of vile men and the women whom such men choose, and they hadlived lives such as we in our little town only read about--and do notunderstand. Yet all that night Joe Nevison roamed through the woods bythe creek, a little child, and no word passed his lips that could havebrought a hint of the vicious life that his manhood had known. 

In that long night, while George Kirwin sat by his dying friend, listening to his babble, two men were in the genii's hands. They put offtheir years as a garment. Together they ran over the roofs of buildingson Main Street that have been torn down for thirty years; they playedin barns and corncribs burned down so long ago that their very site isin doubt; they romped over prairies where now are elm-covered streets;and they played with boys and girls who have lain forgotten in littlesunken graves for a quarter of a century, out on the hill; or theycalled from the four winds of heaven playmates who left our town at atime so remote that to the watcher by the bed it seemed ages ago. Thegames they played were of another day than this. When Joe began crying"Barbaree, " he summoned a troop of ghosts, and the pack went scamperingthrough the spectre town in the starlight; and when that game had tiredhim the voice began to chatter of "Slap-and-a-kick, " and"Foot-and-a-half, " and of "Rolly-poley, " and of the ball games--"Scrub, "and "Town-ball, " and "Anteover, " each old game conjuring up spirits fromits own vasty deep until the room was full of phantoms and the watcher'smemory ached with the sweet sorrow of old joys. 

George Kirwin says that long after midnight Joe awakened from a doze, fumbling through the bedclothes, looking for something. Finally hecomplained that he could not find his mouth-harp. They tried to make himforget it, but when they failed, his mother went to the bureau andpulling open the lower drawer found a little varnished box; under theshaded lamp she brought out a sack of marbles, a broken bean-shooter, with whittled prongs, a Barlow knife, a tintype picture of a boy, andthe mouth-organ. This she gave to the hands that fluttered about theface on the pillow. He began to play "The Mocking Bird, " opening andshutting his bony hands to let the music rise and fall. When he closedthat tune he played "O the Mistletoe Bough, " and after that over andover again he played "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground. " When he droppedthe mouth-harp, he lay very still for a time, though his lips movedincessantly. The morning was coming, and he was growing weak. But whenhis voice came back they knew that he was far afield again; for he said, "Come on, fellers, let's set down here under the hill and rest. It's along ways back. " When he had rested he spoke up again, "Say, fellers, what'll we sing?" George tried him with a gospel hymn, but Joe wouldhave none of it, and reviled the song and the singer after the fashionof boys. In a moment he exclaimed: "Here--listen to me. Let's singthis, " and his alto voice came out uncertainly and faintly: "Wrap Me upin My Tarpaulin Jacket. "

George Kirwin's rough voice joined the song and the mother listened andwept. Other old songs followed, but Joe Nevison, the man, never woke up. It was the little boy full of the poetry and sweetness of a child atplay, the boy who had turned the poetry of his boyish soul into a lifeof adventure unchecked by moral restraint, whose eyes they closed thatmorning. 

And George Kirwin explained to us when he came down to work thatafternoon, that maybe the bad part of Joe Nevison's soul had shrivelledaway during his sickness, instead of waiting for death. George told usthat what made him sad was that a soul in which there was so much thatmight have been good had been stunted by life and was entering eternitywith so little to show for its earthly journey. 

When one considers it, one finds that Joe Nevison wasted his life mostmiserably. There was nothing to his credit to say in his obituary--nogood deed to recount and there were many, many bad ones. Moreover, thesorrow and bitterness that he brought into his father's last days, andthe shame that he put upon his mother, who lived to see his end, made itimpossible for our paper to say of him any kind thing that would nothave seemed maudlin. 

Yet at Joe Nevison's funeral the old settlers, many of them broken inyears and by trouble, gathered at the little wooden church in the hollowbelow the track, to see the last of him, though certainly not to pay hima tribute of respect. They remembered him as the little boy who hadtrudged up the hill to school when the old stone schoolhouse was theonly stone building in town; they remembered him as he was in the dayswhen he began to turn Marshal Furgeson's hair grey with wild pranks. They remembered the boy's childish virtues, and could feel the remorsethat must at times have gnawed his heart. Also these old men and womenknew of the devil of unbridled passion that the child's father had putinto Joe's blood. And when he started down the broad road they had seenhis track beyond him. So as the little gathering of old people filedthrough the church door and lined up on the sidewalk waiting for themourners to come out, we heard through the crowd white haired mensighing: "Poor Joe; poor fellow. " Can one hope that God's forgivenesswill be fuller than that!

XIII

A Pilgrim in the Wilderness

A few years ago we were getting out a special edition of our paper, printed on book-paper, and filled with pictures of the old settlers, andwe called it "the historical edition. " In preparing the historicaledition we had to confer with "Aunt" Martha Merrifield so often thatGeorge Kirwin, the foreman, who was kept trotting to her withproof-slips and copy for her to revise, remarked, as he was making upthe last form of the troublesome edition, that, if the recording angelever had a fire in his office, he could make up the record for our townfrom "Aunt" Martha's scrapbook. In that big, fat, crinkly-leafed book, she has pasted so many wedding notices and birth notices and deathnotices that one who reads the book wonders how so many people couldhave been born, married and died in a town of only ten thousandinhabitants. One evening, while the historical edition was growing, areporter spent the evening with "Aunt" Martha. The talk drifted back tothe early days, and "Aunt" Martha mentioned Balderson. To identify himshe went to her scrapbook, and as she was turning the pages she said:

"In those days of the early seventies, before the railroad came, whenthe town awoke in the morning and found a newly arrived covered waggonnear a neighbour's house, it always meant that kin had come. If atschool that day the children from the house of visitation bragged abouttheir relatives, expatiating upon the power and riches that they leftback East, the town knew that the visitors were ordinary kin; but if thechildren from the afflicted household said little about the visitors andevidently tried to avoid telling just who they were, then the town knewthat the strangers were poor kin--probably some of "his folks"; for itwas well understood that the women in this town all came from highconnections 'back East' in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa. Newcomerssometimes wondered how such a galaxy of princesses and duchesses andladyships happened to marry so far beneath their station. 

"But the Dixons had no children, so when a covered waggon drove up totheir place in the night, and a fussy, pussy little man with a dingy, stringy beard, appeared in the Dixons' back yard in the morning, lookingafter the horses hitched to the strange waggon; the town had to waituntil the next week's issue of the _Statesman_ to get reliable newsabout their prospective fellow-citizen. " With that "Aunt" Martha openedher scrapbook and read a clipping from the _Statesman_, under the head, "A Valuable Acquisition to Our City. " It ran:

"It has been many months since we have been favoured with a call from socultured and learned a gentleman as the Hon. Andoneran P. Balderson, late of Quito, Hancock County, Iowa, who has finally determined tosettle in our midst. Cramped by the irritating conventionalities of aneffete civilisation, Colonel Balderson comes among us for that largerfreedom and wider horizon which his growing powers demand. He comes withthe ripened experience of a jurist, a soldier, and a publicist, and, when transportation facilities have been completed between this and theMissouri River, Judge Balderson will bring to our little city hismagnificent law library; but until then he will be found over the EliteOyster Bay, where he will be glad to welcome clients and others. 

"Having participated in the late War of the Rebellion, as captain inCompany G of Colonel Jennison's famous and invincible army of theborder, Colonel Balderson will give special attention to pensionmatters. He also will set to work to obtain a complete set of abstracts, and will be glad to give advice on real-estate law and the practice ofeminent domain, to which subject he has given deep study. All businessdone with neatness and despatch. 

"Before leaving Iowa, and after considerable pressure, Judge Baldersonconsented to act as agent for a number of powerful Eastern fireinsurance companies, and has in contemplation the establishment of theSouthwestern distributing point for the Multum in Parvo Farm GateCompany, of which corporation Colonel Balderson owns the patent rightfor Kansas. This business, however, he would be willing to dispose of toproper parties. Terms on application. 

"The colonel desires us to announce that there will be a meeting of theveterans of the late war at the schoolhouse next Saturday night, for thepurpose of organising a society to refresh and perpetuate the sacredmemories of that gigantic struggle, and to rally around the old flag, touch shoulders again, and come into a closer fellowship for benevolent, social, and other purposes. The judge, on that occasion, will deliverhis famous address on the 'Battle of Look Out Mountain, ' in which battleColonel Balderson participated as a member of an Iowa regiment. Admission free. Silver collection to defray necessary expenses. "

Accompanying this article was a slightly worn woodcut of the colonel inhis soldier garb, a cap with the top drawn forward, the visor low overhis eyes, and a military overcoat thrown gaily back, exposing hisshoulder. The picture showed the soldier in profile, with a fiercemilitary moustache and a stubby, runty goatee, meant to strike terror tothe civilian heart. 

From "Aunt" Martha we learned that before Judge Balderson had been intown a week he had dyed his whiskers and had taken command of our forcesin the county-seat war then brewing. During the judge's first month inthe county the campaign for the county-seat election was opened, and hecanvassed the north end of the county for our town, denouncing, withelaborate eloquence, as horse thieves, mendicants, and renegades fromjustice, the settlers in the south end of the county who favoured therival town. The judge organised a military company and picketed thehills about our town day and night against a raid from the Southenders;and, having stirred public passion deeply, he turned his pickets looseon the morning of election day to set prairie fires all over the southend of the county to harass the settlers who might vote for the rivaltown and keep them away from the polls fighting fire. 

Our people won; "the hell-hounds of disorder and anarchy"--as JudgeBalderson called the rival townspeople--were "rebuked by the stern handof a just and terrible Providence. " Balderson was a hero, and our peoplesent him to the legislature. "Aunt" Martha added:

"He went to Topeka in his blue soldier clothes, his campaign hat, andbrass buttons; but he came back, at the first recess, in diamonds andfine linen, and the town sniffed a little. " Having learned this much ofBalderson our office became interested in him, and a reporter was set towork to look up Balderson. The reporter found that according to Wilder's"Annals, " Balderson hustled himself into the chairmanship of therailroad committee and became a power in the State. The next timeColonel "Alphabetical" Morrison came to the office he was asked forfurther details about Balderson. The Colonel told us that when thelegislature finally adjourned, very proud and very drunk, in the bedlamof the closing hours, Judge Balderson mounted a desk, waved the Starsand Stripes, and told of the Battle of Look Out Mountain. ColonelMorrison chuckled as he added: "The next day the _State Journal_ printedhis picture--the one with the slouching cap, the military moustache, thefierce goatee, and the devil-may-care cape--and referred to the judge as'the silver-tongued orator of the Cottonwood, ' a title which began toamuse the fellows around town. "

Naturally he was a candidate for Congress. Colonel Morrison says thatBalderson became familiarly known in State politics as Little Baldy, and was in demand at soldiers' meetings and posed as the soldier'sfriend. 

Wilder's "Annals" records the fact that Balderson failed to go toCongress, but went to the State Senate. He waxed fat. We learned that hebought a private bank and all the books recording abstracts of title toland in his county, and that he affected a high silk hat when he went toChicago, while his townsmen were inclined to eye him askance. The lackof three votes from his home precinct kept him from being nominatedlieutenant-governor by his party, but Colonel Morrison says thatBalderson soon took on the title of governor, and was unruffled by hisdefeat. The Colonel describes Balderson as assuming the air of a kind ofsacred white cow, and putting much hair-oil and ointment andfrankincense upon his carcass. Other old settlers say that in those dayshis dyed whiskers fairly glistened. And when, at State conventions, inthe fervour of his passion he unbent, unbuttoned his frock-coat, grabbedthe old flag, and charged up and down the platform in an oratoricalfrensy, it seemed that another being had emerged from the greasy littleroll of adipose in which "Governor" Balderson enshrined himself. Hisclimax was invariably the wavering battle-line upon the mountain, theflag tottering and about to fall, "when suddenly it rises and goesforward, up--up--up the hill, through the smoke of hell, and full andfair into the teeth of death, with ten thousand cheering, maddenedsoldiers behind it. And who carried that flag--who carried that flag?"he would scream, in a tremulous voice, repeating his question over andover, and then answer himself in tragic bass: "The little corporal ofCompany B!" And, "Who fell into the arms of victory that great day, withfour wounds upon his body? The little corporal of Company B!" It ishardly necessary to add that Governor Balderson was the little corporal. 

After the failure of his bank, when rumour accused him of burning thecourt-house that he might sell his abstracts to the county at a fabulousprice, he called a public meeting to hear his defence, and repeated tohis townsmen that query, "Who carried the flag?" adding in a hoarsewhisper: "And yet--great God!--they say that the little corporal is anin-cen-di-ary. Was this great war fought in vain, that tr-e-e-sin shouldlift her hydra head to hiss out such blasphemy upon the boys who worethe blue?"

However, the evidence was against him, and as our people had long sincelost interest in the flag-bearer, the committee gave him five minutes toleave. He returned three minutes in change and struck out over the hilltowards the west, afoot, and the town knew him no more forever. 

Where Balderson went after leaving town no one seems to know. The earthmight have swallowed him up. But in 1882 someone sent a marked copy ofthe _Denver Tribune_ to the _Statesman_ office, the _Statesman_reprinted it, and "Aunt" Martha filed it away in her book. Here is it:

"Big Burro Springs, Colorado, September 7th (Special). --Three men werekilled yesterday in a fight between the men at Jingle-bob ranch and asurveying party under A. P. Balderson. The Balderson party consisted offour men, among whom was 'Rowdy' Joe Nevison, the famous marshal ofLeoti, Kansas. They were locating a reservoir site which Balderson hastaken up on Burro Creek for the Balderson Irrigation Company and forsupplying the Look Out Townsite Company with water. These areBalderson's schemes, and, if established, will put the Jingle-bob ranchpeople out of business, as they have no title to the land on which theyare operating. The remarkable part of the fight is that which Baldersontook in it. After two of his men had been killed and the owner of theJingle-bob ranch had fallen, Balderson and his two remaining men cameforward with hands up, waving handkerchiefs. The Jingle-bob peoplerecognised the flag of truce, and Balderson led his men across the creekto the cow-camp. Just as he approached close enough to the man who hadthe party covered, Balderson yelled, 'Watch out--back of you!' and, asall the captors turned their heads, Balderson knocked the pistol fromthe hand of the only man whose weapon was pointed at the Baldersonparty, and the next moment the cow-men looked into the barrels of thesurveyors' three revolvers, and were told that if they budged a hairthey would be killed. Balderson then disarmed the cow-men, and, afterpassing around the drinks, hired the outfit as policemen for the townof Look Out. It is said that he has given them two thousand dollarsapiece in Irrigation Company stock, has promised to defend them if theyare charged with the murder of the two surveyors, and has given eachcow-man a deed to a corner lot on the public square of the prospectiveBalderson town. Deputy Sheriff Crosby from this place went over toarrest Balderson, charged with killing D. V. Sherman of the Jingle-bobproperty, and, after asking for his warrant, Balderson took it, put itin his pocket, advised the deputy to hurry home, and, if he found anycoyotes or jack-rabbits that couldn't get out of his way fast enough, not to stop to kill them, but shoo them off the trail and save time. "

They say in Colorado that Balderson became an irrigation king. It iscertain that he raised half a million dollars in New York for his damand ditches. He built the "Look Out Opera House, " and decorated it ingilded stucco and with red plush two inches deep. Morrison contributedthis anecdote to the office Legend of Balderson: "He was in Florida inhis private car when they finished the opera house. When he came backand saw a plaster bust of Shakespeare over the proscenium arch, he wavedhis cane pompously and exclaimed: 'Take her down! Bill Shakespeare isall right for the effete East, but out here he ain't deuce high with thelittle corporal of Company B. '" So in Shakespeare's niche is aplaster-cast of a soldier's face with the slouch-cap, the militarymoustache, and the goatee of great pride, after the picture that onceadorned the columns of the _Statesman_. For a time they talked ofBalderson for United States Senator, and, at the laying of thecorner-stone of the capitol, the Denver papers spoke of the masterlyoration of former Governor Balderson of Kansas, whose marvellousword-painting of the Battle of Look Out Mountain held the vast audiencespellbound for an hour. A few months later a cloudburst carried away theBig Burro dam, and times went bad, and the stockholders in Balderson'scompany, who would have rebuilt the dam, could not find Balderson whenthey needed him, and certain creditors of the company, hitherto unknown, appeared, and Balderson faded away like a morning star. 

Here is a part of the narrative that George Kirwin got from JoeNevison: Joe began with the coal strike at Castle Rock, Wyoming, in1893, when the strikers massed on Flat Top Mountain and day after daywent through their drill. He told a highly dramatic story of thestoutish little man of fifty-five, with a fat, smooth-shaven face, whopounded that horde of angry men into some semblance of military order. All day the little man, in his shrunken seersucker coat and greasy whitehat, would bark orders at the men, march and counter-march them, and gothrough the manual of arms, backward and forward and seven hands round. When the battle with the militia came, the strikers charged down FlatTop and fought bravely. The little man in the seersucker coat stayedwith them, snapping orders at them, damning them, coaxing them. And whenthe deputies gathered up the strikers for the trial in court two monthslater, the little man was still there. He was prospecting on agopher-hole somewhere up in the hills, and was trying to get his wildcatmine listed on the Salt Lake Mining Exchange. No one gave bond for thelittle man in the seersucker coat, and he went to jail. He wasBalderson. He seemed to give little heed to the trial, and sat with thestrikers rather stolidly. Venire after venire of jurymen was gonethrough. At last an old man wearing a Loyal Legion button went into thejury-box. Balderson saw him; they exchanged recognising glances, andBalderson turned scarlet and looked away quickly. He nudged an attorneyfor the strikers and said: "Keep him, whatever you do. "

After the evidence was all in and the attorneys were about to make theirarguments, Balderson and one of the lawyers for the strikers were alone. 

"They told me to take the part about you, Balderson; you were in theUnion Army, weren't you?"

Balderson looked at the floor and said:

"Yes; but don't say anything about it. "

The lawyer, who knew Balderson's record, was astonished. He had made hiswhole speech up on the line that Balderson as an old soldier wouldappeal to the sympathies of the jury. Over and over the lawyer pressedBalderson to know why nothing should be said of his soldier record, andfinally in exasperation the lawyer broke out:

"Lookee here, Baldy; you're too old to get coy. I'm going to make myspeech as I've mapped it out, soldier racket and all. I guess you'vetaken enough trips up Look Out Mountain to get used to the altitude bythis time. "

The lawyer started away, but Balderson grabbed him and pulled him back. "Don't do it; for God's sake, don't do it! There's a fellow on that jurythat's a G. A. R. Man; we were soldiers together; he knows me from awayback. Talk of Iowy; talk of Kansas; talk of anything on God's greenearth, but don't talk soldier. That man would wade through hell for meneck deep on any other basis than that. " Balderson's voice wasquivering. He added: "But don't talk soldier. " Balderson slumped, withhis head in his hands. The attorney snapped at him:

"Weren't you a soldier?"

"Yes; oh, yes, " Balderson sighed. 

"Didn't you go up Look Out Mountain?"

"Oh, yes--that, too. "

There was a silence between the men. The lawyer rasped it with, "Well, what then?"

"Well--well, " and the tousled little man sighed so deeply his sigh wasalmost a sob, and lifted up the eyes of a whipped dog to thelawyer's--"after that I got in the commissary department--and--and--wasdishonourably discharged. " He rubbed his eyes with his fingers a momentand then grinned foxily: "Ain't that enough?"

Roosevelt is a mining-camp in Idaho. It is five days from a morningpaper, and the camp is new. It is a log town with one street and nosociety, except such as may gather around the big box-stove at JohnnieConyer's saloon. A number of ladies and two women lived in the camp, afew tin-horn "gents, " and about two hundred men. It is a seven months'snow-camp, where men take their drama canned in the phonograph, theirfood canned, their medicine all out of one bottle, and their morals"without benefit of clergy. " Across the front of one of thecanvas-covered log store-rooms that fringe the single street a clothsign is stretched. It reads, "Department Store, " and inside a dancehall, a saloon, and a gambling-place are operating. A few years ago, when Colonel Alphabetical Morrison was travelling through the West on aland deal for John Markley, business took him to Roosevelt, and he foundBalderson, grey of beard, shiny of pate, with unkempt, ratty back hair;he was watery-eyed, and his red-veined skin had slipped down from hisonce fat face into draperies over his lean neck and jowls. He was in thedealer's chair, running the game. 

The statute of limitations had covered all his Kansas misdeeds, and henodded affably as his old acquaintance came in. Later in the day the twomen went to Mrs. Smith's boarding-house to take a social bite. They satin front of the log-house in the evening, Balderson mellow andreminiscent. 

"Seems to me this way: I ain't cut out for society as it is organised. Ido all right in a town until the piano begins to get respectable and therules of order are tucked snugly inside the decalogue, then I slip mybelt, and my running gear doesn't track. I get a few grand and noblethoughts, freeze to 'em, and later find that the hereditaryappurtenances thereunto appertaining are private property of someoneelse, and there is nothing for me to do but to stand a lawsuit orvanish. I have had bad luck, lost my money, lost my friends, lost myconscience, lost everything, pretty near"--and here he turned his wateryeyes on his friend with a saw-toothed smile and shook his depletedabdomen, that had been worn off climbing many hills--"I've losteverything, pretty near, but my vermiform appendix and my table ofcontents, and as like as not I'll find some feller's got themcopyrighted. " He heaved a great sigh and resumed, "I suppose I could 'a'stood it all well enough if I had just had some sort of faith, somereligious consolation, some creed, or god, or something. " He sighedagain, and then leered up: "But, you know--I'm so damned skeptic!"

Last spring, according to the Boisé, Idaho, papers, "Governor" Baldersonand two other old soldiers celebrated Memorial Day in Roosevelt. Theygot a muslin flag as big as the flap of a shirt, from heaven knowswhere, and in the streets of Roosevelt they hoisted this flag on thehighest pine pole in all the Salmon River Mountains. There wereelaborate ceremonies, and to the miners and gamblers and keepers ofwildcat mines in the mountains assembled, "Governor" Balderson toldeloquently of the Battle of Look Out Mountain. And Colonel Morrison whoread the account smiled appreciatively and pointed out to us the exactstage in the proceedings where Balderson demanded to know who carriedthe flag. There was long and tumultuous applause at the climax. 

We also read in the Boisé papers that at the fall election in Rooseveltthey made Balderson justice of the peace, which, as Colonel Morrisonexplained, was a purely honorary office in a community where every manis his own court and constable and jury and judge; but the Colonel saidthat Balderson was proud of official distinction, and probably leviedmild tribute from the people who indulged in riotous living, bycompelling them to buy drink-checks redeemable only at his departmentstore. 

It was from the Boisé papers that we had the final word from Balderson. A message came to Roosevelt this spring that an outfit, thirty milesaway at the head of Profile Creek, was sick and starving. It was adangerous trip to the rescue, for snowslides were booming on everysouthern hillside. Death would literally play tag with the man who daredto hit the trail for Profile. Balderson did not hesitate a moment, butfilled his pack with provisions, put a marked deck and some loaded dicein his pocket, and waved Roosevelt a cheery good-by as he struck outover the three logs that bridge Mule Creek. He was bundled to the chinin warm coats, and on his way met Hot Foot Higgins coming in fromProfile. Balderson seems to have given Higgins his warmest coat beforethe snow-slide hit them. It killed them both. Hot Foot died instantly, but Balderson must have lived many hours, for the snow about his bodywas melted and in his pocket they found Hot Foot's watch. 

They buried him near the trail where they found him, and, stuck in acandle-box, over the heap of stones above him, flutters lonesomely inthe desolation of the mountain-side the little muslin rag that was oncea flag. They call the hill on which he sleeps "Look Out Mountain. "

Late this spring the mail brought to the office of the Boisé_Capital-News_ a battered woodcut half a century old. When the _News_came to our office we saw the familiar soldier's face in profile, witha cap drawn over the eyes, with a waving moustache and a fierce goatee, and across the shoulders of the figure a military cape thrown backjauntily. With the old cut in the Boisé paper was an article which theeditor says in a note was written in a young woman's angularhandwriting, done in pencil on wrapping-paper. The article told, inspelling unspeakable, of the greatness and goodness of "Ex-GovernorBalderson of Kansas. " It related that he was ever the "friend to thefriendless"; that, "with all his worldly honours, he was modest andunassuming"; that "he had his faults, as who of us have not, " but thathe was "honest, tried and true"; and the memorial closed with the words:"Heaven's angel gained is Roosevelt's hero lost. "

XIV

The Passing of Priscilla Winthrop

What a dreary waste life in our office must have been before MissLarrabee came to us to edit a society page for the paper! To be sure wehad known in a vague way that there were lines of social cleavage in thetown; that there were whist clubs and dancing clubs and women's clubs, and in a general way that the women who composed these clubs made up ourbest society, and that those benighted souls beyond the pale of theseclubs were out of the caste. We knew that certain persons whose nameswere always handed in on the lists of guests at parties were what wecalled "howling swells. " But it remained for Miss Larrabee to sort outten or a dozen of these "howling swells" who belonged to the strictestsocial caste in town, and call them "howling dervishes. " Incidentally itmay be said that both Miss Larrabee and her mother were dervishes, butthat did not prevent her from making sport of them. From Miss Larrabeewe learned that the high priestess of the howling dervishes of oursociety was Mrs. Mortimer Conklin, known by the sisterhood of the mosqueas Priscilla Winthrop. We in our office had never heard her called bythat name, but Miss Larrabee explained, rather elaborately, that unlessone was permitted to speak of Mrs. Conklin thus, one was quite beyondthe hope of a social heaven. 

In the first place, Priscilla Winthrop was Mrs. Conklin's maiden name;in the second place, it links her with the Colonial Puritan stock ofwhich she is so justly proud--being scornful of mere Daughters of theRevolution--and finally, though Mrs. Conklin is a grandmother, hermaiden name seems to preserve the sweet, vague illusion of girlhoodwhich Mrs. Conklin always carries about her like the shadow of a dream. And Miss Larrabee punctuated this with a wink which we took to be aquotation mark, and she went on with her work. So we knew we had beenlistening to the language used in the temple. 

Our town was organised fifty years ago by Abolitionists from NewEngland, and twenty years ago, when Alphabetical Morrison was gettingout one of the numerous boom editions of his real estate circular, heprinted an historical article therein in which he said that PriscillaWinthrop was the first white child born on the town site. Her father wasterritorial judge, afterward member of the State Senate, and after tenyears spent in mining in the far West, died in the seventies, therichest man in the State. It was known that he left Priscilla, his onlychild, half a million dollars in government bonds. 

She was the first girl in our town to go away to school. Naturally, shewent to Oberlin, famous in those days for admitting coloured students. But she finished her education at Vassar, and came back so much of ayoung lady that the town could hardly contain her. She married MortimerConklin, took him to the Centennial on a wedding trip, came home, rebuilt her father's house, covering it with towers and minarets andsteeples, and scroll-saw fretwork, and christened it Winthrop Hall. Sheerected a store building on Main Street, that Mortimer might have aluxurious office on the second floor, and then settled down to theserious business of life, which was building up a titled aristocracy ina Kansas town. 

The Conklin children were never sent to the public schools, but had agoverness, yet Mortimer Conklin, who was always alert for the call, could not understand why the people never summoned him to any office ofhonour or trust. He kept his brass signboard polished, went to hisoffice punctually every morning at ten o'clock, and returned home todinner at five, and made clients wait ten minutes in the outer officebefore they could see him--at least so both of them say, and there wereno others in all the years. He shaved every day, wore a frock-coat and ahigh hat to church--where for ten years he was the only male member ofthe Episcopalian flock--and Mrs. Conklin told the women that altogetherhe was a credit to his sex and his family--a remark which was passedabout ribaldly in town for a dozen years, though Mortimer Conklin neverknew that he was the subject of a town joke. Once he rebuked a man inthe barber shop for speaking of feminine extravagance, and told the shopthat he did not stint his wife, that when she asked him for money healways gave it to her without question, and that if she wanted a dresshe told her to buy it and send the bill to him. And we are such a politepeople that no one in the crowded shop laughed--until Mortimer Conklinwent out. 

Of course at the office we have known for twenty-five years what the menthought of Mortimer, but not until Miss Larrabee joined the force did weknow that among the women Mrs. Conklin was considered an oracle. MissLarrabee said that her mother has a legend that when Priscilla Winthropbrought home from Boston the first sealskin sacque ever worn in town shegave a party for it, and it lay in its box on the big walnut bureau inthe spare room of the Conklin mansion in solemn state, whileseventy-five women salaamed to it. After that Priscilla Winthrop was thetown authority on sealskins. When any member of the town nobility had anew sealskin, she took it humbly to Priscilla Winthrop to pass judgmentupon it. If Priscilla said it was London-dyed, its owner pranced awayon clouds of glory; but if she said it was American-dyed, its ownercrawled away in shame, and when one admired the disgraced garment, themartyred owner smiled with resigned sweetness and said humbly: "Yes--butit's only American-dyed, you know. "

No dervish ever questioned the curse of the priestess. The only time arevolt was imminent was in the autumn of 1884 when the Conklins returnedfrom their season at Duxbury, Massachusetts, and Mrs. Conklin took upthe carpets in her house, heroically sold all of them at the second-handstore, put in new waxed floors and spread down rugs. The town uprose andhooted; the outcasts and barbarians in the Methodist and BaptistMissionary Societies rocked the Conklin home with their merriment, andten dervishes with set faces bravely met the onslaughts of the savages;but among themselves in hushed whispers, behind locked doors, thefaithful wondered if there was not a mistake some place. However, whenPriscilla Winthrop assured them that in all the best homes in Bostonrugs were replacing carpets, their souls were at peace. 

All this time we at the office knew nothing of what was going on. Weknew that the Conklins devoted considerable time to society; butAlphabetical Morrison explained that by calling attention to the factthat Mrs. Conklin had prematurely grey hair. He said a woman withprematurely grey hair was as sure to be a social leader as a spottedhorse is to join a circus. But now we know that Colonel Morrison's viewwas a superficial one, for he was probably deterred from going deeperinto the subject by his dislike for Mortimer Conklin, who invested aquarter of a million dollars of the Winthrop fortune in the Wichitaboom, and lost it. Colonel Morrison naturally thought as long as Conklinwas going to lose that money he could have lost it just as well at homein the "Queen City of the Prairies, " giving the Colonel a chance to win. And when Conklin, protecting his equities in Wichita, sent a hundredthousand dollars of good money after the quarter million of bad money, Colonel Morrison's grief could find no words; though he did findlanguage for his wrath. When the Conklins draped their Oriental rugs forairing every Saturday over the veranda and portico railings of thehouse front, Colonel Morrison accused the Conklins of hanging out theirstamp collection to let the neighbours see it. This was the only side ofthe rug question we ever heard in our office until Miss Larrabee came;then she told us that one of the first requirements of a howling dervishwas to be able to quote from Priscilla Winthrop's Rug book from memory. The Rug book, the China book and the Old Furniture book were the threesacred scrolls of the sect. 

All this was news to us. However, through Colonel Morrison, we hadreceived many years ago another sidelight on the social status of theConklins. It came out in this way: Time honoured custom in our townallows the children of a home where there is an outbreak of socialrevelry, whether a church festival or a meeting of the Cold-Nosed WhistClub, to line up with the neighbour children on the back stoop or in thekitchen, like human vultures, waiting to lick the ice-cream freezer andto devour the bits of cake and chicken salad that are left over. ColonelMorrison told us that no child was ever known to adorn the back yard ofthe Conklin home while a social cataclysm was going on, but that whenMrs. Morrison entertained the Ladies' Literary League, children from theholy Conklin family went home from his back porch with their facessmeared with chicken croquettes and their hands sticky with jellycake. 

This story never gained general circulation in town, but even if it hadbeen known of all men it would not have shaken the faith of thedevotees. For they did not smile when Priscilla Winthrop began to referto old Frank Hagan, who came to milk the Conklin cow and curry theConklin horse, as "François, the man, " or to call the girl who did thecooking and general housework "Cosette, the maid, " though every one ofthe dozen other women in town whom "Cosette, the maid" had worked forknew that her name was Fanny Ropes. And shortly after that the homes ofthe rich and the great over on the hill above Main Street began to fillwith Lisettes and Nanons and Fanchons, and Mrs. Julia Neal Worthingtoncalled her girl "Grisette, " explaining that they had always had aGrisette about the house since her mother first went to housekeeping inPeoria, Illinois, and it sounded so natural to hear the name that theyalways gave it to a new servant. This story came to the office throughthe Young Prince, who chuckled over it during the whole hour he consumedin writing Ezra Worthington's obituary. 

Miss Larrabee says that the death of Ezra Worthington marks such adistinct epoch in the social life of the town that we must set downhere--even if the narrative of the Conklins halts for a moment--how theWorthingtons rose and flourished. Julia Neal, eldest daughter of ThomasNeal--who lost the "O" before his name somewhere between the docks ofDublin and the west bank of the Missouri River--was for ten yearsprincipal of the ward school in that part of our town known as"Arkansaw, " where her term of service is still remembered as the "reignof terror. " It was said of her then that she could whip any man in theward--and would do it if he gave her a chance. The same manner whichmade the neighbours complain that Julia Neal carried her head too high, later in life, when she had money to back it, gave her what the women ofthe State Federation called a "regal air. " In her early thirties shemarried Ezra Worthington, bachelor, twenty year her senior. EzraWorthington was at that time, had been for twenty years before, andcontinued to be until his death, proprietor of the Worthington Poultryand Produce Commission Company. He was owner of the stock-yards, president of the Worthington State Bank, vice-president, treasurer andgeneral manager of the Worthington Mercantile Company, and owner of fivebrick buildings on Main Street. He bought one suit of clothes every fiveyears whether he needed it or not, never let go of a dollar until theGoddess of Liberty on it was black in the face, and died rated "As$350, 000" by all the commercial agencies in the country. And the firstthing Mrs. Worthington did after the funeral was to telephone to thebank and ask them to send her a hundred dollars. 

The next important thing she did was to put a heavy, immovable granitemonument over the deceased so that he would not be restless, and thenshe built what is known in our town as the Worthington Palace. It makesthe Markley mansion which cost $25, 000 look like a barn. TheWorthingtons in the lifetime of Ezra had ventured no further into thesocial whirl of the town than to entertain the new Presbyterian preacherat tea, and to lend their lawn to the King's Daughters for a social, sending a bill in to the society for the eggs used in the coffee and thegasoline used in heating it. 

To the howling dervishes who surrounded Priscilla Winthrop theWorthingtons were as mere Christian dogs. It was not until three yearsafter Ezra Worthington's death that the glow of the rising Worthingtonsun began to be seen in the Winthrop mosque. During those three yearsMrs. Worthington had bought and read four different sets of the besthundred books, had consumed the Chautauqua course, had prepared anddelivered for the Social Science Club, which she organised, five papersranging in subject from the home life of Rameses I. , through a Survey ofthe Forces Dominating Michael Angelo, to the Influence of EsotericBuddhism on Modern Political Tendencies. More than that, she had beenelected president of the City Federation of Clubs, and, being a delegateto the National Federation from the State, was talked of for the StateFederation Presidency. When the State Federation met in our town, Mrs. Worthington gave a reception for the delegates in the WorthingtonPalace, a feature of which was a concert by a Kansas City organist onthe new pipe-organ which she had erected in the music-room of her house, and despite the fact that the devotees of the Priscilla shrine said thatthe crowd was distinctly mixed and not at all representative of our bestsocial grace and elegance, there is no question but that Mrs. Worthington's reception made a strong impression upon the best localsociety. The fact that, as Miss Larrabee said, "Priscilla Winthrop wasso nice about it, " also may be regarded as ominous. But the women wholent Mrs. Worthington the spoons and forks for the occasion weredelighted, and formed a phalanx about her, which made up in numbers whatit might have lacked in distinction. Yet while Mrs. Worthington was inEurope the faithful routed the phalanx, and Mrs. Conklin returned fromher summer in Duxbury with half a carload of old furniture from HarrisonSampson's shop and gave a talk to the priestesses of the inner templeon "Heppelwhite in New England. "

Miss Larrabee reported the affair for our paper, giving the small listof guests and the long line of refreshments--which includedalligator-pear salad, right out of the Smart Set Cook Book. Moreover, when Jefferson appeared in Topeka that fall, Priscilla Winthrop, who hadmet him through some of her Duxbury friends in Boston, invited him torun down for a luncheon with her and the members of the royal family whosurrounded her. It was the proud boast of the defenders of the Winthropfaith in town that week, that though twenty-four people sat down to thetable, not only did all the men wear frock-coats--not only did UncleCharlie Haskins of String Town wear the old Winthrop butler's liverywithout a wrinkle in it, and with only the faint odour of mothballs tomingle with the perfume of the roses--but (and here the voices of thefollowers of the prophet dropped in awe) not a single knife or fork orspoon or napkin was borrowed! After that, when any of the sisterhood hadoccasion to speak of the absent Mrs. Worthington, whose house wasfilled with new mahogany and brass furniture, they referred to her asthe Duchess of Grand Rapids, which gave them much comfort. 

But joy is short-lived. When Mrs. Worthington came back from Europe andopened her house to the City Federation, and gave a colouredlantern-slide lecture on "An evening with the Old Masters, " servingpunch from her own cut-glass punch bowl instead of renting thehand-painted crockery bowl of the queensware store, the old dull paincame back into the hearts of the dwellers in the inner circle. Then justin the nick of time Mrs. Conklin went to Kansas City and was operated onfor appendicitis. She came back pale and interesting, and gave her cluba paper called "Hospital Days, " fragrant with iodoform and Henley'spoems. Miss Larrabee told us that it was almost as pleasant as anoperation on one's self to hear Mrs. Conklin tell about hers. And theythought it was rather brutal--so Miss Larrabee afterward told us--whenMrs. Worthington went to the hospital one month, and gave her famousDelsarte lecture course the next month, and explained to the women thatif she wasn't as heavy as she used to be it was because she had hadeverything cut out of her below the windpipe. It seemed to the templepriestesses that, considering what a serious time poor dear PriscillaWinthrop had gone through, Mrs. Worthington was making light of seriousthings. 

There is no doubt that the formal rebellion of Mrs. Worthington, Duchessof Grand Rapids, and known of the town's nobility as the Pretender, began with the hospital contest. The Pretender planted her siege-gunsbefore the walls of the temple of the priestess, and prepared forbusiness. The first manoeuvre made by the beleaguered one was to give aluncheon in the mosque, at which, though it was midwinter, freshtomatoes and fresh strawberries were served, and a real authoress fromBoston talked upon John Fiske's philosophy and, in the presence of theadmiring guests, made a new kind of salad dressing for the fresh lettuceand tomatoes. Thirty women who watched her forgot what John Fiske'stheory of the cosmos is, and thirty husbands who afterward ate thatsalad dressing have learned to suffer and be strong. But that saladdressing undermined the faith of thirty mere men--raw outlanders to besure--in the social omniscience of Priscilla Winthrop. Of course theydid not see it made; the spell of the enchantress was not over them; butin their homes they maintained that if Priscilla Winthrop didn't knowany more about cosmic philosophy than to pay a woman forty dollars tomake a salad dressing like that--and the whole town knows that was theprice--the vaunted town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, with its oldfurniture and new culture, which Priscilla spoke of in such repressedecstasy, is probably no better than Manitou, Colorado, where they gettheir Indian goods from Buffalo, New York. 

Such is the perverse reasoning of man. And Mrs. Worthington, havinglived with considerable of a man for fifteen years, hearing echoes ofthis sedition, attacked the fortification of the faithful on its weakestside. She invited the thirty seditious husbands with their wives to abeefsteak dinner, where she heaped their plates with planked sirloin, garnished the sirloin with big, fat, fresh mushrooms, and topped off themeal with a mince pie of her own concoction, which would make a manleave home to follow it. She passed cigars at the table, and after theguests went into the music-room ten old men with ten old fiddlesappeared and contested with old-fashioned tunes for a prize, after whichthe company danced four quadrilles and a Virginia reel. The men threwdown their arms going home and went over in a body to the Pretender. Butin a social conflict men are mere non-combatants, and their surrenderdid not seriously injure the cause that they deserted. 

The war went on without abatement. During the spring that followed thewinter of the beefsteak dinner many skirmishes, minor engagements, ambushes and midnight raids occurred. But the contest was not decisive. For purposes of military drill, the defenders of the Winthrop faithformed themselves into a Whist Club. _The_ Whist Club they called it, just as they spoke of Priscilla Winthrop's gowns as "the black and whiteone, " "the blue brocade, " "the white china silk, " as if no other blackand white or blue brocade or white china silk gowns had been created inthe world before and could not be made again by human hands. So, in thelanguage of the inner sanctuary, there was "The Whist Club, " to theexclusion of all other possible human Whist Clubs under the stars. Whensummer came the Whist Club fled as birds to the mountains--savePriscilla Winthrop, who went to Duxbury, and came home with a brasswarming-pan and a set of Royal Copenhagen china that were set up as holyobjects in the temple. 

But Mrs. Worthington went to the National Federation of Women's Clubs, made the acquaintance of the women there who wore clothes from Paris, began tracing her ancestry back to the Maryland Calverts--on hermother's side of the house--brought home a membership in the Daughtersof the Revolution, the Colonial Dames and a society which referred toCharles I. As "Charles Martyr, " claimed a Stuart as the rightful king ofEngland, affecting to scorn the impudence of King Edward in sitting onanother's throne. More than this, Mrs. Worthington had secured thepromise of Mrs. Ellen Vail Montgomery, Vice-President of the NationalFederation, to visit Cliff Crest, as Mrs. Worthington called theWorthington mansion, and she turned up her nose at those who worshippedunder the towers, turrets and minarets of the Conklin mosque, and playedthe hose of her ridicule on their outer wall that she might have itspotless for a target when she got ready to raze it with her big gun. 

The week that Ellen Vail Montgomery came to town was a busy one for MissLarrabee. We turned over the whole fourth page of the paper to her for adaily society page, and charged the Bee Hive and the White Front DryGoods store people double rates to put their special sale advertisementson that page while the "National Vice, " as the Young Prince called her, was in town. For the "National Vice" brought the State President and twoState Vices down, also four District Presidents and six District Vices, who, as Miss Larrabee said, were monsters "of so frightful a mien, thatto be hated need but to be seen. " The entire delegation of visitingstateswomen--Vices and Virtues and Beatitudes as we called them--wereentertained by Mrs. Worthington at Cliff Crest, and there was so muchFederation politics going on in our town that the New York _Sun_ tookfive hundred words about it by wire, and Colonel Alphabetical Morrisonsaid that with all those dressed-up women about he felt as though he wasliving in a Sunday supplement. 

The third day of the ghost-dance at Cliff Crest was to be the day of thebig event--as the office parlance had it. The ceremonies began atsunrise with a breakfast to which half a dozen of the captains and kingsof the besieging host of the Pretender were bidden. It seems to havebeen a modest orgy, with nothing more astonishing than a new gold-bandchina set to dishearten the enemy. By ten o'clock Priscilla Winthrop andthe Whist Club had recovered from that; but they had been asked to theluncheon--the star feature of the week's round of gayety. It is just aswell to be frank, and say that they went with fear and trembling. Panicand terror were in their ranks, for they knew a crisis was at hand. Itcame when they were "ushered into the dining-hall, " as our paper sograndly put it, and saw in the great oak-beamed room a table laid on thepolished bare wood--a table laid for forty-eight guests, with a doilyfor every plate, and every glass, and every salt-cellar, and--here themosque fell on the heads of the howling dervishes--forty-eightsoup-spoons, forty-eight silver-handled knives and forks; forty-eightbutter-spreaders, forty-eight spoons, forty-eight salad forks, forty-eight ice-cream spoons, forty-eight coffee spoons. Little did itavail the beleaguered party to peep slyly under the spoon-handles--theword "Sterling" was there, and, more than that, a large, severely plain"W" with a crest glared up at them from every piece of silver. Theservice had not been rented. They knew their case was hopeless. And sothey ate in peace. 

When the meal was over it was Mrs. Ellen Vail Montgomery, in herthousand-dollar gown, worshipped by the eyes of forty-eight women, whoput her arm about Priscilla Winthrop and led her into the conservatory, where they had "a dear, sweet quarter of an hour, " as Mrs. Montgomeryafterward told her hostess. In that dear, sweet quarter of an hourPriscilla Winthrop Conklin unbuckled her social sword and handed it tothe conqueror, in that she agreed absolutely with Mrs. Montgomery thatMrs. Worthington was "perfectly lovely, " that she was "delighted to beof any service" to Mrs. Worthington; that Mrs. Conklin "was sure no oneelse in our town was so admirably qualified for "National Vice" as Mrs. Worthington, " and that "it would be such a privilege" for Mrs. Conklinto suggest Mrs. Worthington's name for the office. And then Mrs. Montgomery, "National Vice" and former State Secretary for Vermont ofthe Colonial Dames, kissed Priscilla Winthrop and they came forthwet-eyed and radiant, holding each other's hands. When the company hadbeen hushed by the magic of a State Vice and two District Virtues, Priscilla Winthrop rose and in the sweetest Kansas Bostonese told theladies that she thought this an eminently fitting place to let thevisiting ladies know how dearly our town esteems its most distinguishedtownswoman, Mrs. Julia Neal Worthington, and that entirely without hersolicitation, indeed quite without her knowledge, the women of ourtown--and she hoped of our beloved State--were ready now to announcethat they were unanimous in their wish that Mrs. Worthington should beNational Vice-President of the Federation of Women's Clubs, and thatshe, the speaker, had entered the contest with her whole soul to bringthis end to pass. Then there was hand-clapping and handkerchief wavingand some tears, and a little good, honest Irish hugging, and in thetwilight two score of women filed down through the formal garden ofCliff Crest and walked by twos and threes into the town. 

There was the usual clatter of home-going wagons; lights winked out ofkitchen windows; the tinkle of distant cow-bells was in the air; on MainStreet the commerce of the town was gently ebbing, and man and natureseemed utterly oblivious of the great event that had happened. Thecourse of human events was not changed; the great world rolled on, whilePriscilla Winthrop went home to a broken shrine to sit among thepotsherds. 

XV

"And Yet a Fool"

The exchanges that come to a country newspaper like ours become familiarfriends as the years pass. One who reads these papers regularly comes toknow them even in their wrappers, though to an unpracticed eye thewrappers seem much alike. But when he has been poking his thumb throughthe paper husks in a certain pile every morning for a score of years, heknows by some sort of prescience when a new paper appears; and, when thepile looks odd to him, he goes hunting for the stranger and is not happyuntil he has found it. 

One morning this spring the stranger stuck its head from the bottom ofthe exchange pile, and when we had glanced at the handwriting of theaddress and at the one-cent stamp on the cover we knew it had beenmailed to us by someone besides the publisher. For the newspaper "hand"is as definite a form of writing as the legal hand or the doctor's. Thepaper proved to be an Arizona newspaper full of saloon advertising, restaurant cards, church and school meeting notices, local items aboutthe sawmill and the woman's club, land notices and paid items from wooldealers. On the local page in the midst of a circle of red ink was theannouncement of the death of Horace P. Sampson. Every month we getnotices like this, of the deaths of old settlers who have gone to theends of the earth, but this notice was peculiar in that it said:

"One year ago our lamented townsman deposited with the firm of Cross &Kurtz, the popular undertakers and dealers in Indian goods and generalmerchandise, $100 to cover his funeral expenses, and another hundred toprovide that a huge boulder be rolled over his grave on which he desiredthe following unusual inscription: '_Horace P. Sampson, Born Dec. 6, 1840, and died ----. " And is not this a rare fellow, my lord? He's goodat anything and yet a fool. _"'"

We handed the paper to Alphabetical Morrison, who happened to be in theoffice at the time, pawing through the discarded exchanges in thewaste-basket, looking for his New York _Sun_, and, after ColonelMorrison had read the item, he began drumming with his finger-nails onthe chair-seat between his knees. His eyes were full of dreams and noone disturbed him as he looked off into space. Finally he sighed:

"And yet a fool--a motley fool! Poor old Samp--kept it up to the end! Itake it from the guarded way the paper refers to his faults, 'as who ofus have not, ' that he died of the tremens or something like that. " TheColonel paused and smiled just perceptibly, and went on: "Yet I see thathe was a good fellow to the end. I notice that the Shriners and the Elksand the Eagles and the Hoo-hoos buried him. Nary an insurance order inhis! Poor old Samp; he certainly went all the gaits!"

We suggested that Colonel Morrison write something about the deceasedfor the paper, but though the Colonel admitted that he knew Sampson"like a book, " there was no persuading Morrison to write the obituary. 

"After some urging and by way of compromise, " he said, "I'm perfectlywilling to give you fellows the facts and let you fix up what youplease. "

Because the reporters were both busy we called the stenographer, and hadthe Colonel's story taken down as he told it--to be rewritten into anobituary later. And it is what he said and not what we printed aboutSampson that is worth putting down here. The Colonel took the bigleather chair, locked his hands behind his head, and began:

"Let me see. Samp was born, as he says, December 6, 1840, in Wisconsin, and came out to Kansas right after the war closed. He was going tocollege up there, and at the second call for troops he led the wholesenior class into forming a company, and enlisted before graduation andfought from that time on till the close of the war. He was a captain, Ithink, but you never heard him called that. When he came here he'd beenadmitted to the bar and was a good lawyer--a mighty good lawyer for thattime--and had more business 'n a bird pup with a gum-shoe. He was just aboy then, and, like all boys, he enjoyed a good time. He drank more orless in the army--they all did 's far as that goes--but he kept it up ina desultory way after he came here, as a sort of accessory to his mainbusiness of life, which was being a good fellow. 

"And he was a good fellow--an awful good fellow. We were all young then;there wasn't an old man on the town-site as I remember it. We use toload up the whole bunch and go hunting--closing up the stores and takingthe girls along--and did not show up till midnight. Samp would alwayshave a little something to take under his buggy-seat, and we would wetup and sing coming home, with the beds of the spring-wagons so full ofprairie chickens and quail that they jolted out at every rut. Samp wouldalways lead the singing--being just a mite more lubricated than the restof us, and the girls thought he was all hunkey dorey--as they used tosay. 

[Illustration: "He made a lot of money and blew it in"]

"He made a lot of money and blew it in at Jim Thomas's saloon, buyingdrinks, playing stud poker, betting on quarter horses, and lending itout to fellows who helped him forget they'd borrowed it. And--say intwo or three years, after the chicken-hunting set had married off, andbegun in a way to settle down--Samp took up with the next set coming on;he married and got the prettiest girl in town. We always thought that hemarried only because he wanted to be a good fellow and did not wish tobe impolite to the girl he'd paired off with in the first crowd. Stillhe didn't stay home nights, and once or twice a year--say, election orFourth of July--he and a lot of other young fellows would go out and tipover all the board sidewalks in town, and paint funny signs on the storebuildings and stack beer bottles on the preacher's front porch, andraise Ned generally. And the fellows of his age, who owned the storesand were in nights, would say to Samp when they saw him coming downabout noon the next day:

"'Go it when you're young Samp, for when you're old you can't. ' And hewould wink at 'em, give 'em ten dollars apiece for their damages andjolly his way down the street to his office. 

"Now, you mustn't get the idea that Samp was the town drunkard, for henever was. He was just a good fellow. When the second set of youngfellows outgrew him and settled down, he picked up with the third, andhis wife's brown alpaca began to be noticed more or less among thewomen. But Samp's practice didn't seem to fall off--it only changed. Hedidn't have so much real estate lawing and got more criminal practice. Gradually he became a criminal lawyer, and his fame for wit andeloquence extended over all the State. When a cowpuncher got in troublehis folks in the East always gave Samp a big fee to get the boy out, andhe did it. When he went to any other county-seat besides our own to trya case, the fellows--and you know who the fellows are in a town--thefellows knew that while Samp was in town there would be something goingon with 'fireworks in the evening. ' For he was a great fellow for a goodtime, and the dining-room girls at the hotel used to giggle in thekitchen for a week after he was gone at the awful things he would say to'em. He knew more girls by their first names than a drummer. "

Colonel Morrison chuckled and crossed his fat legs at the ankles as hecontinued, after lighting the cigar we gave him:

"Well, along in the late seventies we fellows that he started out withgot to owning our own homes and getting on in the world. That was thetime when Samp should have been grubbing at his law books, but nary agrub for him. He was playing horse for dear life. And right there thefellows all left him behind. Some were buying real estate forspeculation; some running for office; some starting a bank; and otherslending money at two per cent. A month, and leading in theprayer-meeting. So Samp kind of hitched up his ambition and took theslack out of his habits for a few months and went to the legislature. They say that he certainly did have a good time, though, when he gotthere. They remember that session yet up there, and call it the year ofthe great flood, for the nights they were filled with music, as the poetsays, and from the best accounts we could get the days were devoid ofease also, and how Mrs. Sampson stood it the women never could find out, for, of course, she must have known all about it, though he wouldn'tlet her come near Topeka. He began to get pursy and red-faced, and wasclicking it off with his fifth set of young fellows. It took a big slugof whisky to set off his oratory, but when he got it wound up he surelycould pull the feathers out of the bird of freedom to beat scandalous. But as a stump speaker you weren't always sure he'd fill the engagement. He could make a jury blubber and clench its fists at the prosecutingattorney, yet he didn't claim to know much law, and he did turn over allthe work in the Supreme Court to his partner, Charley Hedrick. Then, when Charley was practising before the Supreme Court and wasn't here tohold him down, Samp would get out and whoop it up with the boys, quoteShakespeare and make stump speeches on dry-goods boxes at midnight, andput his arms around old Marshal Furgeson's neck and tell him he was theblooming flower of chivalry. Also women made a fool of him--more orless. 

"Where was I?" asked Colonel Morrison of the stenographer when she hadfinished sharpening her pencil. "Oh, yes, along in the eighties camethe boom, and Samp tried to get in it and make some money. He seems tohave tried to catch up with us fellows of his age, and he began toplunge. He got in debt, and, when the boom broke, he was still living ina rented house with the rent ten months behind; his partnership was goneand his practice was cut down to joint-keepers, gamblers, and thefarmers who hadn't heard the stories of his financial irregularitiesthat were floating around town. 

"Yet his wife stuck to him, forever explaining to my wife that he wouldbe all right when he settled down. But he continued to soak up alittle--not much, but a little. He never was drunk in the daytime, but Iremember there used to be mornings when his office smelled pretty sour. I had an office next to his for a while and he used to come in and talkto me a good deal. The young fellows around town whom he would like torun with were beginning to find him stupid, and the old fellows--exceptme--were busy and he had no one to loaf with. He decided, I remember, several times to brace up, and once he kept white shirts, cuffs andcollars on for nearly a year. But when Harrison was elected, he filledup from his shoes to his hat and didn't go home for three days. One dayafter that, when he had gone back to his flannel shirts and dirtycollars, he was sitting in my office looking at the fire in the big boxstove when he broke out with:

"'Alphabetical--what's the matter with me, anyway? This town sends mento Congress; it makes Supreme Court judges of others. It sends fellowsto Kansas City as rich bankers. It makes big merchants out of groceryclerks. Fortune just naturally flirts with everyone in town--but never awink do I get. I know and you know I'm smarter than those jays. I canteach your Congressman economics, and your Supreme judge law. I canthink up more schemes than the banker, and can beat the merchant in anykind of a game he'll name. I don't lie and I don't steal and I ain'tstuck up. What's the matter with me, anyway?'

"And of course, " mused Colonel Morrison as he relighted the butt of hiscigar, "of course I had to lie to him and say I didn't know. But I did. We all knew. He was too much of a good fellow. His failure to get onbothered him a good deal, and one day he got roaring full and went upand down town telling people how smart he was. Then his pride left him, and he let his whiskers grow frowsy and used his vest for a spittoon, and his eyes watered too easily for a man still in his forties. 

"He went West a dozen years ago, about the time of Cleveland's secondelection, expecting to get a job in Arizona and grow up with thecountry. His wife was mighty happy, and she told our folks and the restof the women that when Horace got away from his old associates in thistown she knew that he would be all right. Poor Myrtle Kenwick, theprettiest girl you ever saw along in the sixties--and she was throughhere not long ago and stayed with my wife and the girls--a broken oldwoman, going back to her kinfolk in Iowa after she left him. PoorMyrtle! I wonder where she is. I see this Arizona paper doesn't sayanything about her. "

Colonel Morrison read over the item again, and smiled as he proceeded:

"But it does say that he occupied many places of honour and trust inhis former home in Kansas, which seems to indicate that whisky made oldSamp a liar as well as a loafer at last. My, my!" sighed the Colonel ashe rose and put the paper on the desk. "My, my! What a treacherousserpent it is! It gave him a good time--literally a hell of a good time. And he was a good fellow--literally a damned good fellow--'damned fromhere to eternity, ' as your man Kipling says. God gave him every talent. He might have been a respected, useful citizen; no honour was beyondhim; but he put aside fame and worth and happiness to play with whisky. My Lord, just think of it!" exclaimed the Colonel as he reached for hishat and put up his glasses. "And this is how whisky served him: broughthim to shame, wrecked his home, made his name a by-word, and lured himon and on to utter ruin by holding before him the phantom of a goodtime. What a pitiful, heart-breaking mocker it is!" He sighed a longsigh as he stood in the door looking up at the sky with his handsclasped behind him, and said half audibly as he went down the steps:"And whoso is deceived thereby is not wise--not wise. 'He's good atanything--and yet a fool'!"

That was what Colonel Morrison gave the stenographer. What we made forthe paper is entirely uninteresting and need not be printed here. 

XVI

A Kansas "Childe Roland"

One of the wisest things ever said about the newspaper business was saidby the late J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska. He declared that anewspaper's enemies were its assets, and the newspaper's liabilities itsfriends. This is particularly true of a country newspaper. For instance, witness the ten-years' struggle of our own little paper to get rid ofthe word "Hon. " as a prefix to the names of politicians. Everyone intown used to laugh at us for referring to whippersnapper statesmen as"Honourable"; because everyone in town knew that for the most part thesewhippersnappers were entirely dishonourable. It was easy enough to stopcalling our enemies "Hon. , " for they didn't dare to complain; but if wedropped the title even from so mangy a man as Abner Handy, within a weekCharley Hedrick would happen into the office with twenty or thirtydollars' worth of legal printing, and after doing us so important afavour would pause before going out to say:

"Boys, what you fellows got against Ab Handy?" And the ensuing dialoguewould conclude from old Charley: "Well, I know--I know--but Ab likes it, and it really isn't much, and I know he's a fool about it; I don't carein my own case, but if you can do it I kind of wish you would. Ab'sfunny that way; he's never given up. He's like the fellow old Browningtells about who has 'august anticipations, of a dim splendour ever onbefore, ' and when you fellows quit calling him 'Hon. ' it makes himblue. "

And old Charley would grow purple with a big, wheezy, asthmatic laugh, and shake his great six-foot hulk and toddle out leaving us vanquished. For though the whole town reviles Abner Handy, Charley Hedrick stilllooks after him. 

It was said for thirty years that Handy did old Charley's dirty work inpolitics, but we knew many of the mean things that Handy did wereunjustly charged to Hedrick. People in a small community are apt to puttwo and two together and make five. Much of the talk about the alliancebetween Hedrick and Handy is, of course, down-right slander; everylawyer who tries lawsuits for forty years in a country town is bound tomake enemies of small-minded people, many of whom occupy large places inthe community, and a small-minded man, believing that his enemy is avillain, makes up his facts to suit his belief, and then peddles hisstory. It is always just as well to discount the home stories on an oldlawyer ninety-five per cent. If they are bad; and seventy per cent. Ifthey are good--for he may have saved the fellow who is telling them fromthe penitentiary. But Abner Handy was never enough of a lawyer to comewithin this rule. Indeed they used to say that he was not admitted tothe bar, at all, but that when he came to town, in 1871, he erased hisdead brother's name on a law diploma and substituted his own. Still, hepractised on the law--as Simon Mehronay used to say of Handy--and fortwenty years carried an advertisement in Eastern farm journalsproclaiming that his specialty was Kansas collections. He never took asa fee less than ninety-five per cent. Of the amount he collected. Thatwas the advantage which he had as a lawyer, which advantage inspiredColonel Alphabetical Morrison to proclaim that a lawyer's diploma isnothing but a license to steal; upon hearing which Charley Hedrick sentback to the Colonel the retort that it would take two legal diplomasworking day and night to keep up with the Colonel's more or less honestendeavours. 

Now Ab Handy was a lean coyote, who was forever licking his bruises, andsome ten years later he tried to run for the school board solely to getthe Colonel's daughters dismissed as school-teachers. It was his boastthat he never forgot a foe; and for twenty years after Hedrick savedHandy from going to jail for robbing a cattleman of a thousand dollarsin "Red" Martin's gambling-room, the only good thing the town knew ofHandy was that he never forgot a friend. 

During that twenty years whenever, to further his ends in a primary orin an election, Charley Hedrick needed the votes of the rough elementthat gathered about our little town, Abner Handy, card-sharper andjack-leg lawyer, would go forth into the byways and alleys and gatherthem in. For this service, when Hedrick carried the county--which wasabout four times out of five--Handy was rewarded by being put on thedelegation to the State convention. Thus he made his beginning in Statepolitics. The second time that he attended a State convention Handyswelled up in his Sunday clothes, and by reason of his slightacquaintance with the manipulators of State politics, began to patronisethe other members of our delegation--good, honest men, whose contemptfor him at home was unspeakable; but when they huddled like sheep in thestrange crowd at the convention they often accepted Handy as a guide inimportant matters. In talking with the home delegation Handy very soonbegan speaking of the convention leaders familiarly as "Jim" and "Dick"and "Tawm" and "Bill, " and sometimes Handy brought one of thesedignitaries to the rooms of our delegation and introduced him to ourpeople with a grand flourish. Every time the legislature met, Ab Handywas a clerk in it, and, if he was a clerk of an important committeelike the railroad committee or the committee on the calendar, heinvariably came home with a few hundred dollars, three suits of clothesand a railroad pass. No one but Charley Hedrick could live with him forsix months afterward. 

It was when he returned from one of these profitable sessions that AbnerHandy and Nora Sinclair were married. The affinity between them wasthis: his good clothes and proud manner caught her; and her socialposition caught him. Everyone in town knew, however, that Nora Sinclairhad been too smart for Handy. She had him hooked through the gillsbefore he knew that he was more than nibbling at the bait. The townconcurred with Colonel Morrison--our only townsman who travelled widelyin those days--when he put it succinctly: "Ab Handy is Nora Sinclair'slast call for the dining-car. "

Her influence on Abner Handy and his life was such that it is necessaryto record something of the kind of a woman she was before he met her. Awoman of the right sort might have made a man of Handy, even that latein life. Strong, good women have made weak men fairly strong, but suchwomen were never girls like Nora. She was a nice enough little girluntil she became boy-struck--as our vernacular puts it. Her motherthought this development of the child was "so cute, " and told callersabout the boys who came to see Nora--before she was twelve. In thosedays, and in some old-fashioned families in our town, little girls wereasked to run out to play when the neighbours had to be discussed. ButMrs. Sinclair claimed Nora was "neither sugar nor salt nor anybody'shoney, " and everything was talked over before the child. We knew at theoffice from Colonel Morrison that his little girls did not play at theSinclairs'. Her mother put long dresses and picture hats upon her andpushed her out into society, and the whole town knew that Nora was amature woman, in all her instincts, by the time she was sixteen. Hermother, moreover, was manifestly proud that the child wasn't "one ofthose long-legged, gangling tom-boy girls, who seem so backward" andwear pigtails and chew slate pencils and dream. 

The gilded youths who boarded at the Hotel Metropole began to noticeher. That pleased her mother also, and she said to the mothers of otherlittle girls of Nora's age who were climbing fences and wiping dishes:"You know Nora is so popular with the gentlemen. " When the girl wasseventeen she was engaged. She kept a town fellow and had a collegefellow. She acquired a "gentleman friend" in Kansas City who gave herexpensive presents. These her mother took great joy in displaying, andnever objected when he stayed after eleven o'clock; for she thought hewas "such a good catch" and such a "swell young man. " But Nora shooedhim off the front porch in the summer following, because he objected toher having two or three other eleven o'clock fellows. She said he was"selfish, and would not let her have a good time. " At nineteen she knewmore about matters that were none of her business than most women knowon their wedding day, and the boys said that she was soft. Every timethat Nora left town she came back with two or three correspondents. Sheperfumed her stationery, used a seal, adopted all the latest frills, and learned to write an angular hand. At twenty she was going with theyoung married set, and was invited out to the afternoon card clubs. Shewas known as a dashing girl at this time, and travelling men in threeStates knew about her. Her mother used to send personal items to ouroffice telling of their exalted business positions and announcing theirvisits to the Sinclair home. There was more or less talk about Nora in aquiet way, but her mother said that "it is because the other girls don'tknow how to wear their clothes as well as Nora does, " and that "when agirl has a fine figure--which few enough girls in this town have, Heavenknows--why, she is a fool if she doesn't make the most of herself. "

Then, gradually, Nora went to seed. She became a faded, hard-facedwoman, and all the sisters in town warned their brothers against her. She was invited out only when there was a crowd. She took up with theboys of the younger set, and the married women of her own age called herthe kidnapper. She was a social joke. About once a year a strange manwould show up in her parlour, and she kept up the illusion about beingengaged. But in the office we shared the town's knowledge that her harpwas on the willows. She was massaging her face at twenty-six and hermother was sniffing at the town and saying that there were no socialadvantages to be had here. She and the girl went to the Lakes everysummer, and Nora always came home declaring that she had had the time ofher life, and that she met so many lovely gentlemen. But that was allthere was to it, and in the end it was Abner Handy or no one. 

After their wedding, Nora and Abner Handy set about the business ofmaking politics pay. That is a difficult thing to do in a country town, where every voter is a watchdog of the county and city treasuries. Abnergave up his gambling, he and his wife joined all the lodges in town, andshe dragged him into that coterie of people known as Society. She joineda woman's club, and was always anxious to be appointed on the solicitingcommittee when the women had any public work to do; so when the libraryneeded books, or the trash cans at the street corners needed paint, orthe park trees needed trimming, or the new hospital needed an additionalbed, or the band needed new uniforms, Mrs. Handy might be seen on thestreets with two or three women of a much better social status than shehad, making it clear that she was a public-spirited woman and that shemoved in the best circles. Whereupon Abner Handy got work in thecourt-house--as a deputy, or as a clerk, or as an under-sheriff, or as ajuror--and when the legislature met he went to Topeka as a clerk. 

No one knew how they lived, but they did live. Every two years they gavea series of parties, and the splendour of these festivals made the townexclaim in one voice: "Well, _how_ do they do it?" But Mrs. Handy, whowas steaming the wrinkles out of her face, and assuming more or lesskittenish airs in her late thirties, never offered the town anexplanation. "Hers not to answer why, hers not to make reply, hers butto do and dye" was the way Colonel Morrison put it the day after Mrs. Handy swooped down into Main Street with a golden yellow finish on herhair. She walked serenely between Mrs. Frelinghuysen and Mrs. PriscillaWinthrop Conklin. They were begging for funds with which to furnish arest room for farmers' wives. And when they bore down on our office, Colonel Morrison folded his papers in his bosom and passed them on thethreshold as one hurrying to a fire in the roof of his own house. It wasinteresting to observe, when the Federation Committee called on us thatday, that Mrs. Handy did all the talking. She was as full of airs andgraces as an actress, and ogled with her glassy eyes, and put on a sweetbabyish innocence of the ways of business and of men--as though men werea race apart, greatly to be feared because they ate up little girls. Butshe got her dollar before she left the office, and George Kirwin, whohappened to be in the front room at the time waiting for a proof, saidhe thought that the performance and the new hair were worth the price. 

Five years passed and in each year Mrs. Handy had found some artificialway of deluding herself that she was cheating time. Then CharleyHedrick, who needed a vote in the legislature, and was too busy to gothere himself, nominated Abner Handy and elected him to a seat in thelower house. The thing that Hedrick needed was not important--merelythe creation of a new judicial district which would remove an obnoxiousdistrict judge in an adjoining county from our district, and leave ourcounty in a district by itself. Hedrick hated the judge, and Hedrickused Handy's vote for trading purposes with other statesmen desiringsimilar small matters and got the district remade as he desired it. 

When the Handys started to Topeka for the opening of the session, theybegan to inflame with importance as the train whistled for the junctioneast of town, and by the time they actually arrived at Topeka they wereso highly swollen that they could not get into a boarding-house door, but went to the best hotel, and engaged rooms at seven dollars a day. The town gasped for two days and then began to laugh and wink. Two weeksafter their arrival at the State capital, Abner Handy had been madechairman of the joint committee on the calendar, second member of thejudiciary committee and member of the railroad committee, and Mrs. Handyhad established credit at a Topeka dry-goods store and was going itblind. She gave her hair an extra dip, and used to come sailing downthe corridors of the hotel in gorgeous silk house-gowns with ridiculoustrains, and never appeared at breakfast without her diamonds. Before thesession was well under way she had been to Kansas City to have her faceenameled and had told the other "ladies of the hotel, " as the wives ofmembers of the legislature stopping at the hotel were called, thatTopeka stores offered such a poor selection; she confided to them thatMr. Handy always wore silk nightshirts, and that she was unable to findanything in town that he would put on. She regarded herself as acharmer, and made great eyes at all the important lobbyists, to whom sheput on her baby voice and manner and said that she thought politics werejust simply awful, and added that if she were a man she would show themhow honest a politician could be, but she wasn't, and when Abner triedto explain it to her it made her head ache, and all she wanted him to dowas to help his friends, and she would add coyly: "I'm going to see thathe helps you--whatever he does. "

Every bill that had a dollar in it was held at the bottom of thecalendar until satisfactory arrangements were made with Abner Handy andhis friends. When the legislative buccaneers under the black flag, sailed after an insurance company, their bill remained at the bottom ofthe calendar in one house or the other until Ab Handy had been seen, andno one could find out why. And so, in spite of our dislike of the man, our paper was forced to acknowledge that Handy was a house leader. Although he had never had a dozen cases above the police court, he cameback at the end of the session with the local attorneyship of tworailroads, and was chairman of a house committee to investigate thetaxes paid by the railroads in the various counties. This gave him ayear's work, so he rented an office in the Worthington block and hired astenographer. Of course, we knew in town how Ab Handy had made hismoney. But he paid so many of his old debts, and dispensed so manyfavours with such a lordly hand, that it was hard to stir localsentiment against him. He donned the clothes of a "prominent citizen, "and in discussing public affairs assumed an owlish manner that impressedhis former associates, and fooled stupid people, who began to believethat they had been harbouring a statesman unawares. But Charley Hedrickonly grinned when men talked to him of the rise of Handy, and replied tothe complaints of the scrupulous that Ab was no worse than he had alwaysbeen, and if he was making it pay better, no one was poorer for hisprosperity but Ab himself, and added: "Certainly he is a sincerespender. " One day when Handy appeared on the street in a particularlyfiery red necktie, Hedrick got him in a crowd, and began: "Just for ahandful of silver he left us--just for a riband to stick in his coat. "And when the crowd laughed with the joker, Hedrick continued in histhick, gravy-coated voice: "Old Browning's the boy. You fellows thatwant Shakespeare can have him; but Ab here knows that I take a littledash of Browning in mine. Since Ab's got to be a statesman, he's boughtall of Webster's works and is learning 'em by heart. But"--and hereHedrick chuckled and shook his fat sides before letting out the jokewhich he enjoyed so much--"I says to Ab: as old Browning says, what does'the fine felicity and flower of wickedness' like you need withWebster; what you want to commit to memory is the penal statutes. " Andhe threw back his head and gurgled down in his abdomen, while the crowdroared and Handy showed the wool in his teeth with a dog-like grin. 

No other man in town would have dared that with Handy after he became astatesman; but we figured it out in the office that old Charley Hedrickwas merely exhibiting his brand on Ab Handy to show the town that histitle to Handy was still good. For though there was considerable of theKing Cole about Hedrick--in that he was a merry old soul--he was alwaysking, and he insisted on having his divine right to rule the politics ofthe county unquestioned. That was his vanity and he knew it, and was notashamed of it. 

He was the best lawyer in the State in those days, and one of the bestin the West. Ten months in the year he paid no attention to politics, pendulating daily between his house and his office. Often, beingpreoccupied with his work, he would go the whole length of Main Streetspeaking to no one. When a tangled case was in his mind he would enterhis office in the morning, roll up his desk top, and dig into his workwithout speaking to a soul until, about the middle of the morning, hewould look up from his desk to say as though he had just left offspeaking: "Jim, hand me that 32 Kansas report over there on the table. "When he worked, law books sprang up around him and sprawled over hisdesk and lay half open on chairs and tables near him until he had foundhis point; then he would get up and begin rollicking, slamming bookstogether, cleaning up his debris and playing like a great porpoise withthe litter he had made. At such times--and, indeed, all the time unlesshe was in what he called a "legal trance"--Hedrick was bubbling withgood spirits, and when he left his office for politics he could get outin his shirt-sleeves at a primary and peddle tickets, or nose up anddown the street like a fat ferret looking for votes. So when Abner Handyannounced that he desired to go to the State Senate, to fill anunexpired term for two years, he had Hedrick behind him to give strengthand respectability to his candidacy. Between the two Handy won. That wasbefore the days of reform, when it was supposed to be considerable of avirtue for a man to stand by his friend; and, being a lawyer, Hedricknaturally had the lawyer's view that no man is guilty until the jury isin, and its findings have been reviewed by the supreme court. 

So Senator and Mrs. Senator Handy--as the town put it--went to Topeka asgrandly as ever "Childe Roland to the dark tower came"--to use Hedrick'slanguage. "No one ever has been able to find out what Roland was up towhen he went to the dark tower, but, " continued Hedrick, "with Ab andhis child-wonder it will be different. She isn't taking all that specialscenery along in her trunks for nothing. Ab has stumbled on to thisgreat truth--that clothes may not make the man, but they make thecrook!"

Handy drew a dark brow when he became a Senator, and made a point oftrying to look ominous. He carried his chin tilted up at an angle offorty-five degrees, and spoke of the most obvious things with an air ofmystery. He never admitted anything; his closest approach to committinghimself on even so apparent a proposition as the sunrise, was that ithad risen "ostensibly"; he became known to the reporters as "OldOstensible. "

It was his habit to tiptoe around the Senate chamber whispering to otherSenators, and then having sat down to rise suddenly as though some greatimpulse had come to him and hurry into the cloakroom. He inherited thechairmanship of the railroad committee, and all employees came to himfor their railroad passes; so he was the god of the blue-bottle flies ofpolitics that feed on legislatures, and buzz pompously about the capitoldoing nothing, at three dollars a day. In that session Handy was for the"peepul. " He patronised the State Shippers' Association, and told theircommittee that he would give them a better railroad bill than they wereasking. His practice was to commit to memory a bill that he was about tointroduce and then go into his committee-room, when it was full ofloafers, and pretend to dictate it offhand to the stenographer, sectionby section without pausing. It was an impressive performance, and gainedHandy the reputation of being brainy. But we at home who knew Handywere not impressed; and, in our office, we knew that he was the same AbHandy who once did business with a marked deck; who cheated widows andorphans; who sold bogus bonds; who got on two sides of lawsuits, andwhose note was never good at any bank unless backed by blackmail. 

When the session closed Abner Handy came home, a statesman with views onthe tariff, and ostentatiously displayed his thousand-dollar bills. TheHandys spent the summer in Atlantic City, and Abner came home wearingNew York clothes of an exaggerated type, and though he never showed itin our town, they used to say that he put on a high hat when the trainwhistled for Topeka. Also we heard that the first time Mrs. Handyappeared at the political hotel in her New York regalia, adorned withspangles and beads and cords and tassels, the "ladies of the hotel" saidthat she was "fixed up like a Christmas tree"--a remark that we in theoffice coupled with Colonel Morrison's reflection when he spoke of Ab's"illustrated vests. " At the meeting of the State Federation of Woman'sClubs, Mrs. Handy first flourished her lorgnette, and came home withher wedding ring made over on a pattern after the prevailing style. About this time she made her famous remark to "Aunt" Martha Merrifieldthat she didn't think it proper for a woman to go through her husband'smoney with too sensitive a nose; she said that men must work and womenmust weep, and that she for one would not make the work of her husbandany harder by criticising it with her silly morals. 

As for Abner Handy, it would have made little difference to him thenwhether she or anyone else had tried to check his career; for he wascultivating a loud tone of voice and a regal sweep to his arms. Healways signed himself on hotel registers Senator Handy, and the helpabout the Topeka hotels began to mark him for their hate, for he wasinsolent to those whom he regarded as his inferiors. But ColonelMorrison used to say that he wore his vest-buttons off crawling to thosein authority. He took little notice of the town. He referred to us as"his people" in a fine feudal way, and went about town with his cigarpointing toward his hat brim and his eyes fixed on something in the nextblock. He became the attorney for a number of crooked promotion schemes, and the diamond rings on his wife's fingers crowded the second joint. Hehad telegraph and express franks, railway and Pullman passes in suchquantities that it made his coat pocket bulge to carry them. Often hewould spread out these evidences of his shame on his office table, toawe the local politicians, and in so far as they could influence thetown opinion, they promulgated the idea that if Ab Handy was ascoundrel--and of course he was--he was a smart scoundrel. So he came tothink this himself. 

[Illustration: Went about town with his cigar pointing toward hishat-brim]

Mrs. Handy threw herself into the work of the City Federation withpassionate zeal. Also she kept up her lodge connections, and explainedto the women, whom she considered of a higher social caste than thelodge women, that she was "doing it to help Mr. Handy. " She did a littlechurch work for the same reason, but her soul was in the Federation, forit insured her social status as neither lodge nor church could do. Soshe put herself under the protecting seal-lined wing of Mrs. Julia NealWorthington who on account of her efforts to clean the streets we atthe office had been taught by Colonel Morrison to know as the Joan ofthe trash-cans. And Miss Larrabee, our society reporter, told us thatMrs. Handy was the only woman in town who did not smile into herhandkerchief when Mrs. Worthington, who had trained down to one hundredand ninety-seven pounds five and three-eighths ounces, gave her courseof lectures on delsarte before the Federation. 

It was Mrs. Handy who encouraged Mrs. Worthington to open her salon. Butas there were lodge meetings the first three nights in the week, andprayer-meetings in the middle of the week, and as the choirs met forpractice, and the whist clubs met for business the last of the week, thesalon did not seem to take with the town, and so was discontinued. ThenMrs. Worthington and Mrs. Handy sought other fields. And the first fieldthey stumbled into was the court-house square. For fifty years thefarmers near our town had been hitching at the racks provided by thecounty commissioners. But Mrs. Worthington decided that the time hadcome for a change and that the town was getting large enough to takedown the hitching-racks. So, as chairman of the Municipal Improvementsection of the City Federation, Mrs. Worthington began war on thehitching-racks. At the Federation meetings for three months there werereports from committees appointed to interview the councilmen; reportsof committees to interview the county commissioners--who were obdurate;reports of committees to lease new ground for the hitching rack stands;reports of the legal committee; reports of the sanitary committee, andthrough it all Mrs. Worthington rose at every meeting and declared thatthe hitching racks must be destroyed. And as she was rated inBradstreet's report at nearly half a million dollars, her words had muchforce. 

The town was beginning to stir itself. The merchants were with thewomen--because the women bought the dry goods and groceries--and weforgot about the farmers. To all this milling among the people Handy wasoblivious, for he was stepping like a hen in high oats, with his eyes ona seat in Congress. Matters of mere local importance did not concernhim. The railroads were for him, and the stars in their courses seemedto him to be pointing his way to Washington. He knew of thehitching-rack trouble only when he had to go with Mrs. Handy to thedinners at the Worthington home given to the councilmen and their wives, who were lukewarm on the removal proposition. 

In the spring before the election of 1902 Mrs. Worthington had amajority in the council, and one Saturday night the hitching-racks weretaken down by the street commissioner. And within a week the town was onthe verge of civil war, for the farmers of the county rose as one manand demanded the blood of the offenders. But Abner Handy knew nothing ofthe disturbance. The county attorney had the street commissioner and hismen arrested for trespassing upon county property; farmers threatened toboycott the town. But Abner Handy's ear was attuned to higher things. Merchants who had signed the petition asking the council to remove theracks began to denounce the removal as an act of treason. But AbnerHandy conferred with State leaders on great questions, and the cityattorney, who was a candidate for county attorney that fall, did notdare to defend the street commissioner. The council got stubborn, andColonel Morrison, before whom as justice of the peace the case was to betried, fearing for the professional safety of his three daughters in thetown schools and his four daughters in the county schools, took a tripto his wife's people, and told us he was enlisted there for "ninety daysor during the war"; and still Abner Handy looked at the green hillsafar. 

We are generally accounted by ourselves a fearless newspaper; but herewe admitted that the situation required discretion. So we straddled it. We wrote cautious editorials in carefully-balanced sentences demandingthat the people keep cool. We advised both sides to realise that onlygood sense and judgment would straighten out the tangle. We demandedthat each side recognise the other's rights and made both sides angry, whereas General Durham, of the _Statesman_, made his first popularstroke in a dozen years by insisting, in double leads and italics, thatthe tariff on hides was a divine institution, and that humanity calledupon us to hold the Philippines. Charley Hedrick knew better thananyone else in town what a tempest was rising. He might have warnedHandy, but he did not; for Handy had reached a point in his career wherehe considered that a mere county boss was beneath his confidence. Morethan that, Hedrick had refused to indorse Handy's note at the bank. Handy needed money, and being a shorn lamb, the wind changed in hisdirection in this wise:

In the midst of the furore that week, Mrs. Worthington gave an eveningreception for the Federation and its husbands at her mansion, fed themsumptuously, and, after Mrs. Handy had tapped a bell for silence, Mrs. Worthington rose in her jet and passementerie and announced that ourtown had come to a crisis in its career; that we must now decide whetherwe were going to be a beautiful little city or a cow pasture. She saidthat beauty was as much an essential to life as money and that we wouldbe better off with more beauty and less trade, and that with thecourt-house square a mudhole the town could never rise to any realconsequence. As the men of the town seemed to be moral cowards, she wasgoing to enlist the women in this war, and as the first step in hercampaign she proposed to hire the Honourable Abner Handy to assist thecity attorney in fighting this case, and as a retainer she wouldherewith and now hand him her personal check for five hundred dollars. Whereat the women clapped their hands, their husbands winked at oneanother, and "there was a sound of revelry by night. " The check was puton a silver card-tray by Mrs. Worthington and set on a table in themidst of the company waiting for Handy to come forward and take it. After the town had looked at the check, Mrs. Handy seemed to cut hisleashes and Abner went after it. He was waiting at the Worthington bankthe next morning at nine o'clock to cash it--and all the town saw thatalso. 

Whereupon the town grinned broadly that evening when it read in the_Statesman_ a most laudatory article about "our distinguishedfellow-townsman. " The article declared that it was "the duty of the hourto send Honourable Abner Handy to the halls of Congress. " The_Statesman_ contended that "Judge Handy had been for a lifetime thedefender of those grand and glorious principles of freedom andprotection and sound money for which the Grand Old Party stood. " TheGeneral proclaimed that "it shall be not only a duty, but a pleasure, for our citizens to lay aside all petty personal and factional quarrelsand rally round the standard of our noble leader in this great contest. "

If Handy ever went to the city attorney's office to look after Mrs. Worthington's lawsuit, no one knew it. He smiled wisely when asked howthe suit was progressing, and one day John Markley--who during the lifeof Ezra Worthington, hated him with a ten-horse-power hate and loaded itonto his widow's shoulders and the Worthington bank which sheinherited--John Markley called Handy into the back room of the MarkleyMortgage Company, and, when Handy passed the cashier's window going out, he cashed a check signed by John Markley for a thousand dollars on whichwas inscribed "for legal services in assisting the county attorney inthe hitching rack case. "

Handy had arrived at a point where he feared nothing. He seemed tobelieve that he lived a charmed life and never would get caught. Hebought extra copies of the _Statesman_, which was booming him forCongress, and sent them over the Congressional District by thethousands. He went to Topeka in his high silk hat and his New Yorkclothes, gave out interviews on the causes of the flurry in the moneymarket, and, desiring further advertisement, gave a banquet for thenewspaper men of the capital which cost him a hundred dollars. So hebecame a great man. At home he assumed a patronising air to the peopleabout Charley Hedrick. And one night in Smith's cigar store, just to betalking, he said that he didn't get so much of Mrs. Worthington's moneyas people thought, for part of it had to go to "square old CharleyHedrick. " Hedrick was John Markley's attorney, and he had taken anactive part in helping the county attorney prosecute the streetcommissioners. Naturally Handy's remark stirred up the town. It was twoweeks, however, in getting to Hedrick, and when it came the man turnedblack and seemed to be swallowing a pint of emotional language before hespoke. And there Abner Handy's doom was sealed; though Hedrick did notmake the sentence public. 

Now, it is well known in our county that the country people are slow towrath. They were two months finding out beyond a question of doubt thatAbner Handy had accepted Mrs. Worthington's money to act against them, but when they knew this there was no hope for Handy among them. They area quiet people, and make no noise. For a month, only Charley Hedrick andthe grocers and the hardware men, with whom the farmers trade, knew thetruth about Handy's standing in the county. Hedrick bided his time. TheHandy boom for Congress was rolling over the district, and the_Statesman_ italics were becoming worn, and its exclamation pointsbattered in the service, when one day Handy stalked up to Hedrick'soffice, imperiously beckoned Hedrick into the private room, and blurtedout:

"Charley, I got to have some more money--need it in my business. Can'tyou touch old John Markley for me again--say for about five hundred onthat hitching rack case? Sister Worthington is kind of wanting me to getaction on her case. "

Hedrick was dumb with rage, but Handy thought it was acquiescence. Hewent on:

"You just step down to the bank and say: 'John, I've noticed Ab Handyactin' kind of queer about that hitching rack case. ' That's all you needsay, and pretty soon I'll step in and say: 'John, I don't see how I canhelp doin' something for Aunt Julia Worthington. ' And I believe I cantap him for five hundred more easy enough. I got an idea he is mightilyin earnest about beating her in that suit. "

When Hedrick got his breath, which was churning and wheezing in histhroat, he cut Handy's sentence off with:

"You human razor-back shoat--you swill-barrel gladiator, why--why--I--I----" And Hedrick sparred for wind and went on beforeHandy realised the situation. "Ab Handy, I spat on the dust and breathedinto the chaff that made you, and put you on the mud-sills of hell todry, and I've got a right to turn you back into fertiliser, and I'mgoing to do it. Git out of here--git out of this office, or I----"

And the hulking form of Hedrick fell on the bag of shaking bones thatwas Handy and battered him through the latched door into the crowdedouter office; and Handy picked himself up and ran like a wolf, turningat the door to show his teeth before he scampered through the hall andscurried down the stairs. As Hedrick came puffing out of the broken doorhis coat snagged on a splinter. He grinned as he unfastened himself:

"Well, the snail seems to be on the thorn; the lark certainly is on thewing. 

 "_God's in his heaven. All's right with the world!_"

And he batted his eyes at the group of loafing local statesmen in hisoffice as he viewed the wreckage, and went to the telephone and ordereda carpenter, without wasting any words on the crowd. 

We decided long ago that the source of Hedrick's power in politics waswhat we called his "do it now" policy. All politicians have schemes. Hedrick puts his through before he talks about them. If he has an ideathat satisfies his judgment, he makes it a reality in the quickestpossible time. That is why the fellows around town who hate Hedrick callhim the rattlesnake, and those who admire him call him the Wrath ofGod. When he put up the telephone receiver he reached for his hat andbolted from the office under a full head of steam. He went directly toJohn Markley's back office, got the check that Markley had given toHandy, dictated a letter in the anteroom of Markley's office to a KansasCity plate-maker, inclosed fifty dollars as he passed the draft counter, and, as he swung by the post-office he mailed the Handy check withinstructions to have ten photographic half-tone cuts made of the checkand mailed back to Hedrick in four days. 

Then he went to Mrs. Worthington, told her his story, as a lawyer putshis case before a jury--had her raging at Ab Handy--and got an order onthe bank for the check she had given to Handy. This also he sent to theplate-maker, and in an hour was back at his desk dictating a half-pageadvertisement to go into every Republican weekly newspaper in thedistrict. He sent that advertisement out with the half-tone cuts Mondaymorning, and it appeared all over the district that week. Theadvertisement was signed by Hedrick, and began:

"Browning has a poem made after visiting a dead house, and in it hedescribes the corpse of a suicide, and says 'one clear, nice, coolsquirt of water o'er the bust, ' is the 'right thing to extinguish lust. 'And I desire this advertisement to be 'one clear, nice, cool squirt ofwater' over the political remains of Honourable Abner Handy, toextinguish if possible his fatal lust for crooked money. " After thisfollowed the story of Handy's perfidy in the hitching rack case, apetition in disbarment proceedings, and the copy of the warrant for hisarrest charged with a felony in the case sworn to by Hedrick himself. But the effective thing was the pictures, showing both sides of the twochecks, each carefully inscribed by the two makers "for legal servicesin the hitching rack case, " and each check indorsed by Handy in his big, brazen signature. 

Hedrick saw to it also that, on the day the country papers printed hisadvertisement, the Kansas City and Topeka papers printed the wholestory, including the casting out of Handy from Hedrick's office. It didHandy little good to go to Topeka in his flashy clothes and give out afestive interview asking his friends to suspend judgment, and sayingthat he would try his case in the courts and not in the newspapers. Itwas contended by the newspapers that if Handy had an honest defence, itwould lose no weight in court by being printed in the newspapers; andhis enemies in the Congressional fight pushed the charges against Handyso relentlessly that the public faith in him melted like an April snow, and when the delegates to the Congressional convention were named, ourown county instructed its delegates against Handy. The farmers opposedhim for taking the case against them, and the town scorned him for hisperfidy. No one who was not paid for it would peddle his tickets at theprimaries, so Handy, with his money all spent, went home on the night ofthe local primaries a whipped dog. They said around town that all thewhipped dog got at home was a tin can; for it is certain that atdaylight Handy was down on Main Street viciously drunk, flourishing arevolver with which he said he was going to kill Charley Hedrick andthen himself. They took the pistol from him, and then he wept and saidhe was going to jump in the river, but no one followed him when hestarted toward the bridge, and he fell asleep in the shade of the piers, where he was found during the morning, washed up and sent home sober. 

One of the curious revelations of society's partnership in crime was theway the grocers and butchers who despised Ab Handy's method, but sharedhis gains when he succeeded, stopped giving him credit when he failed. At the end of the first year after the primary wherein he was defeated, the Handys could not get a dime's worth of beefsteak without the dime. And dimes were scarce. By that time Handy was wearing his flashy NewYork clothes for every day--frayed and spotted and rusty. Histemperament changed with his clothes, from the oily optimism of successto the sodden pessimism of utter failure; which inspired ColonelMorrison, returning after the hitching rack case had been settled infavour of the town, to remark, speaking of Handy, that "an optimist is aman who isn't caught, and is cheering to keep up his courage, and apessimist is one who has been caught and thinks it will be but aquestion of time until his neighbours are found out too. "

Mrs. Worthington, who was a necessary witness in the disbarmentproceedings and the criminal proceedings against Handy, always went toEurope when the cases were called; so rather than put a woman in jailfor contempt of court, the court dismissed the proceedings against Handyand he was not allowed to be even a martyr. One morning about a year anda half after Handy's defeat, when Hedrick opened his office door, hefound Handy there with his fingers clutching the chair arms and his eyesfixed on the floor. The man was breathing audibly, and seemed to bestruggling with a great passion. Hedrick and Handy had not spoken sincethey came through the panels of the door together, but Hedrick went tothe miserable creature, touched him gently on the shoulder, and motionedhim into the private office. There, with his eyes still on the floor, Handy told Hedrick that the end of the rope had been reached. 

"I had to come down without any breakfast thismorning--because--they--they ain't anything in the house for her to fix. And there ain't any show for dinner. Next week, Red Martin has promisedme some money he's goin' to get from Jim Huddleson; but they ain't asoul in town but you I can come to now"; and Handy raised his eyes fromthe floor in canine self-pity as he whined--"and she's making life ahell for me!" When Hedrick opened his desk and got out his check-book, he smiled as he fancied he could detect about Handy's body the faintresemblance of a wagging tail. He made the check for fifty dollars andgave it to Handy saying, "Oh, well, Ab--we'll let bygones be bygones. "

Handy snapped at it and in an instant was gone. 

That afternoon Hedrick met Handy sailing down Main Street in his oldmanner. His head was erect, his eyes were sparkling, his big, rough, statesman's voice was bellowing abroad, and his thumbs were in thearmholes of his vest. He walked straight to Hedrick and led him by thecoat lapel into a dark stairway. There was an air of deep mystery aboutHandy and when he put his arm on Hedrick to whisper in his ear, Hedrick, smelling the statesman's breath heavy with whiskey and onionsand cloves and cardamon seeds and pungent gum, heard this:

"Say, Charley, I'm fooling 'em--I've got 'em all fooled. They think I'mpoor. They think I ain't got any money. But old Ab's too smart for them. I've got lots of money--all I want--all anyone could want--wealth beyondthe dreams of avar--of av--avar--avar'ce, as John Ingalls used to say. Just look at this!" And with that Handy pulled from his inside coatpocket a roll of one and two-dollar bills, that seemed to Hedrick torepresent fifty dollars less the price of about ten drinks. "Looka-here, " continued Handy, "ol' Ab's got 'em all fooled. Don't you sayanything about it; but ol' Ab's goin' to make his mark. " And he shookHedrick's hand and took him down to the street, and shook it again andagain before prancing grandly down the sidewalk. 

For three years Mrs. Handy's boarding-house has been one of the mostexclusive in our town. They say that she pays Mr. Handy for mowing thelawn and helping about the rough work in the kitchen, and that he sleepsin the barn and pays her for such meals as he eats. Sometimes a newboarder makes the mistake of paying the board money to Handy, and heappears on Main Street ostentatiously jingling his silver and towardevening has ideas about the railroad situation. On election days andwhen there is a primary Handy drives a carriage and gathers up hiscronies in the fifth ward, who, like him, are not so much in evidence asthey were ten years ago. 

It was only last week that Hedrick was in our office telling us ofHandy's "wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. " He paused when he hadfinished the story, cocked his head on one side, and squinted at theceiling as he said:

"For three long, weary, fruitless years I've searched the drug-stores ofthis town for the brand of liquor Ab had that day. I believe if I hadtwo drinks of that I could write better poetry than old Browninghimself. "

Whereupon Hedrick shook himself out of the office in a gentle wheesylaugh. 

XVII

The Tremolo Stop

Our business has changed greatly since Horace Greeley's day. And, although machines have come into little offices like ours, the greatestchanges have come in the men who do the work in these offices. In theold days--the days before the great war and after it--printers andeditors were rarely leading citizens in the community. The editor andthe printer were just coming out of the wandering minstrel stage ofsocial development, and the journeyman who went from town to townseeking work, and increasing his skill, was an important factor in thecraft. One might always depend upon a tramp printer's coming in whenthere was a rush of work in the office, and also figure on one of thetourists in the office leaving when he was needed most. 

From the ranks of this wayward class came the old editors and reporters;they were postgraduates from the back room of newspaper offices andthey brought to the front room their easy view of life. Some of theseitinerant writing craftsmen had professional fame. There was Peter B. Lee, who had tramped the country over, who knew Greeley and Dana andPrentice and Bob Burdett and Henry Watterson, and to whom the cub incountry offices looked with worshipful eyes. There was "Old Slugs"--theprinter who carried his moulds for making lead slugs, and who, under theinfluence of improper stimulants, could recite stirring scenes from thetragedies of Shakespeare. There was Buzby--old Buzby, who went aboutfrom office to office leaving his obituary set up by his own hand, conveying the impression that at last the end had come to a misspentlife. Then there was J. N. Free--the "Immortal J. N. , " as he calledhimself, a gaunt, cadaverous figure in broad hat and linen duster, withhair flowing over his shoulders, who stalked into the offices atunseemly hours to "raise the veil" of ignorance and error, and "relievethe pressure" of psychic congestion in a town by turning upon it thebatteries of his mind. 

They were a dear lot of old souls out of accord with the world aboutthem, ever seeking the place where they would harmonise. They might havestepped out of Dickens's books or Cruikshank's pictures, and, when onerecalls them now, their lineaments seem out of drawing and impossible inthe modern world. And yet they did live and move in the world that was, and the other day when we were looking over the files we came across thework of Simon Mehronay, --the name which he said was spelled Dutch andsounded Irish, --and it does not seem fair to set down the stories of theothers who have made our office traditions without giving some accountof him. 

For to us he was the most precious of all the old tribe of journalisticaborigines. He came to the office one bright April day with red mud onhis shoes that was not the mud of our river bottoms, and we knew that hehad ridden to town "blind baggage"--as they say of men who steal theirway--from the South. The season was ripe for the birds to come North andit was the mud of Texas that clung to him. His greeting as he strodethrough the front room not waiting for a reply was "How's work?" Andwhen the foreman told him to hang up his coat, he found a stick, got a"chunk of copy, " and was clicking away at his case three minutes fromthe time he darkened the threshold of the office. 

There he sat for two weeks--the first man down in the morning and thelast to quit at night--before anyone knew whence he came or whither hewas bound. He had a little "false motion, " the foreman said, andclattered his types too audibly in the steel stick, but as he got up agood string of type at the end of the day and furnished his own chewingtobacco, he created no unfavourable comment in the office. He was a baldlittle man, with a fringe of hair above the greasy velvet collar of hiscoat, with beady, dancing black eyes, and black chin whiskers and amoustache that often needed dyeing. It was the opinion of the foremanand the printers that Mehronay's weakness was liquor, though thatopinion did not arise from anything that he said. For during the firsttwo weeks we did not hear him say much, but in the years that followed, his mild little voice that ever seemed to be teetering on the edge ofthe laugh into which he fell a score of times during an hour, became afamiliar sound about the office, and the soft, flabby little hand whichthe other printers laughed about, during the first week of hisemployment with us, has rested on most of the shoulders in the shopguiding us through many sad ways. 

In those days there were only three of us in the front room. All thebookkeeping and collecting and reporting and editorial writing were doneby the three, and it happened that one morning near the first of themonth, when the books needed attention, no one had heard the performanceof "Hamlet" given by Thomas Keene at the opera house the night before, and no one about the paper could write it up. Wherefore there wasperturbation; but in an hour this came from the back room set up in typeand proved in the galley:

"There were more clean shaves in town last night than have been seenhere for a long time. Everyone who wears cuffs and a necktie got a'twice-over' and was 'out amongst 'em. ' In the gallery of the operahouse roosted the college faculty and the Potter boy who holds theCottonwood Valley belt as the champion lay-down collar swell, and nearhim was Everett Fowler, who was making his first public appearance inhis new parted spring whiskers, and was the observed of all observers. Colonel Alphabetical Morrison, with his famous U-shaped hair-cut, lentthe grace of his presence to the dress circle. The first MethodistChurch was represented by Brother-in-law John Markley, who is wearing anew flowered necktie, sent by his daughter in California (if you mustknow), and General Durham of the _Statesman_ says that when theorchestra played 'Turkey in the Straw, ' and Bill Master began to shakethe sand-box--which is a new wrinkle in musical circles in ourtown--John Markley's feet began to wiggle until people thought this washis 'chill day. ' After 'Turkey in the Straw, ' the orchestra struck upsomething quick and devilish, which Charley Hedrick, who played thesnare drum at Gettysburg, and is therefore entitled to speak on musicalsubjects, says was 'The Irish Washerwoman. ' After this appropriateoverture the curtain rose and the real show began. 

"Mr. Keene's Hamlet is not so familiar to our people as his RichardIII. , but it gave great satisfaction; for it is certainly a MethodistHamlet from the clang of the gong to the home-stretch. The town neverhas stood for Mr. Lawrence Barrett's Unitarian Hamlet, and the highchurch Episcopal Hamlet put on the boards last winter by Mr. FrederickPaulding was distinctly disappointing. One of the most searching scenesin the play was enacted when Ophelia got the power and had to be carriedout to the pump. The Chicago brother who plays the ghost has a greatvoice for his work. He brought many souls to a realizing sense that theyare sin-stricken and hair-hung over the fiery pit. The groans and amensfrom the sanctified in the audience were a delicate compliment to hishistrionic ability. The queen seems to have been a Presbyterian, and theking a Second Day Adventist of an argumentative type. And they were notpopular with the audience, but the boy preacher who did Laertes wasexceedingly blessed with the gift of tongues. Brother Polonius seems tohave been a sort of presiding elder, and, when his exhortation rose, thechickens in Mike Wessner's coop, in the meat-market downstairs, gave uphope of life and lay down to be cut up and fried for breakfast. Theperformance was a great treat and, barring the fact that some switchmen, thinking Ophelia was full, giggled during the mad scene, and the furtherfact that someone yelled, 'Go for his wind, Ham!' during the fencingscene, the evening with Shakespeare's weirdest hero was a distinctcredit to Mr. Keene, his company and our people. "

We wrote a conventional report of the performance, and printedMehronay's account below it, under the caption FROM ANOTHER REPORTER, and it made the paper talked about for a week. Now in our town Keene wasa histrionic god of the first order, and so many church people came tothe office to "stop the paper" that circulation had a real impetus. Wehave never had a boom in subscription that did not begin with a lot ofangry citizens coming in to stop the paper. It became known about townwho wrote the Keene article, and Mehronay became in a small way a publiccharacter. We encouraged him to write more, so every morning the firstproof slips that came in began to have on them ten or a dozen shortitems of Mehronay's writing. There was a smile in every one of them, andif he wrote more than ten lines there was a laugh. It was Mehronay whoreferred to Huddleson's livery-stable joint--where the old soaks gottheir beer in a stall and salted it from the feed-box--as "a gildedpalace of sin. " It was Mehronay who wrote the advertisement of theChinese laundryman and signed his name "Fat Sam Child of the Sun, Brother of the Moon and Second Cousin by marriage to all the Stars. " Itwas Mehronay who took a galley of pi which the office devil had set upfrom a wrecked form, and interspersed up and down the column ofmeaningless letters "Great applause"--"Tremendous cheering"--Cries of"Good, good!--that's the way to hit 'em!"--"Hurrah for Hancock"--and ranit in the paper as a report of Carl Schurz's speech to theGerman-American League at the court-house. It was Mehronay who put theadvertisement in the paper proclaiming the fact that General Durham ofthe _Statesman_ office desired to purchase a good second-hand fiddle, and explaining that the owner must play five tunes on it in front of the_Statesman_ office door before bringing it in. Mehronay originated thefiction that there was an association in town formed to insure itsmembers against wedding invitations which, in case of loss, paid theafflicted member a pickle dish or a napkin ring, to present as hisoffering to the bride. 

Mehronay started a mythical Widowers' Protective Foot-racing Society, and the town had great sport with the old boys whose names he used sowittily that it transcended impudence. Mehronay got up a long list ofhusbands who wiped dishes when the family was "out of a girl, " as ourpeople say, and organised them into a union to strike for their altarsand their kitchen fires. When we sent him out to write up a fire, however, he generally forgot the amount of insurance and the extent ofthe loss, but he told all about the way the crowd tried to boss the firedepartment; and if we sent him out to gather the local markets, he madesuch a mess of it that we were a week straightening matters up. Figuresdidn't mean anything to Mehronay. When the bank failed, he tried towrite something about it, but mixed the assets and the liabilities sohopelessly that we had to keep him busy with other things, so that hewould have no time to touch the bank story. They used to say around townthat when he laid down a piece of money, however large, on a storecounter he never waited for his change, but be it said to the credit ofmost of the merchants that they would save it for Mehronay and give itto him on his next visit to the store, when he would be as joyful as achild. 

Gradually he left the back room and became a fixture in the frontoffice. He wrote locals and editorials and helped with the advertising, drawing for this the munificent salary of fifteen dollars a week, whichshould have kept him like a prince; but it did not--though what he didwith his money no one knew. He bought no new clothes, and never buttonedthose he had. Before sending him out on the street in the morning, someone in the office had to button him up, and if it was a galaday--say circus day, or the day of a big political pow-wow--we had toput a clean paper collar on Mehronay above his brown wool shirt andshove out the dents in his derby hat--a procedure which he called"making a butterfly of fashion out of an honest workin' man. " He sleptin the press-room, on a bed which he rolled up and stowed behind thepress by day, and in the evening he consorted with the goddess ofnicotine--as he called his plug tobacco--and put in his time at his deskwith a lead pencil and a pad of white paper writing copy for the nextday's issue. Nothing delighted him so much as a fictitious personage orsituation which held real relations with local events or home people. One of the best of his many inventions was a new reporter who, accordingto Mehronay's legend, had just quit work for a circus where he had beenemployed writing the posters. Mehronay's joy was to write up a localoccurrence and pretend that the circus poster-writer had written it andthat we had been greatly bothered to restrain his adjectives. A few daysafter the Sinclair-Handy wedding--a particularly gorgeous affair in oneof the stone churches, which had been written up by the bride's mother, as the whole town knew, in a most disgusting manner--Mehronay satchuckling in his corner, writing something which he put on the copy-hookbefore going out on his beat. It was headed A DAZZLING AFFAIR and it ranthus:

"For some time we have realised that we have not been doing full justiceto the weddings that occur in this town; we have been using a repressedand obsolete style which is painful to those who enter into the joyousspirit of such occasions, and last night's wedding in the family of thepatrician Skinners we assigned to our gentlemanly and urbane Mr. J. Mortimer Montague, late of the publicity department of the world-famedRobinson Circus and Menagerie. The following graceful account from Mr. Montague's facile pen is the most accurate and satisfactory report of anuptial event we have ever recorded in these columns. "

And thereafter followed this:

"Last evening, just as the clock in the steeple struck nine, a vastconcourse of the beauty and the chivalry of our splendid city, composingwealth beyond the dreams of the kings of India and forming a galaxy onlyexcelled in splendour by the knightly company at the Field of the Clothof Gold, assembled to witness the marriage of Miss May Skinner and Mr. John Fortesque. The great auditorium was a bower of smilax andchrysanthemums, bewildering, amazing, superb in its verdant labyrinth. As the clock was striking the hour, the ten-thousand-dollar pipe-organfilled the edifice with strains of most seductive, entrancing music, played by Miss Jane Brown, the only real left-handed organist in thecivilised world. Then came the wedding party, magnificent, radiant, resplendent with the glittering jewels of the Orient, dazzling withgorgeousness, stupefying and miraculous in its revelation of beauty. There were six handsome ushers--count them--six, ten bridesmaids--ten--abevy of real, live, flower-bearing fairies, captured at an immenseoutlay of time and money in far Caucasia. The bride's resplendentcostume and surpassing beauty put the blush upon the Queen of Sheba, made Hebe's effulgence fade as the moon before the sun; and as the longcourtly train of knights errant and ladies-in-waiting passed thepopulace, they presented a regal spectacle, never equalled since theproud Cleopatra sailed down the perfumed lotus-bearing Nile in hergilded pageant to meet Marc Antony, while all the world stood agape atthe unheard-of triumph. 

"To describe the bride's costume beggars the English language; and humanimagination falls faint and feeble before the Herculean task. From theeverlasting stars she stole the glittering diamonds that decked heralabaster brow and hid them in the Stygian umbrage of her hair. From thefleecy, graceful cloud she snared the marvellous drapery that floatedlike a dream about her queenly figure, and from the Peri at Heaven'sgate she captured the matchless grace that bore her like an enchantedwraith through the hymeneal scene. 

"The array of presents spread in the throne-room of the Skinner palacehas been unexcelled in lavish expenditure of fabulous and recklessprodigal wealth anywhere in the world. Golden tokens literally strewedthe apartment, merely as effulgent settings for the mammoth, appalling, maddening array of jewels and precious stones, sunbursts and pearlswithout price, that gleamed like a transcendent electrical display inthe hypnotising picture. "

There was more of the same kind, but it need not be set down here. However, it should be said that nothing we ever printed in the paperbefore or since set the town to laughing as did that piece. We havecalls to-day for papers containing the circus-poster wedding, and it wasprinted over two decades ago. 

It was Mehronay's first great triumph in town; then the expectedhappened. For three days he did not appear at the office and wesuspected the truth--that by day he slept the sleep of the unjust in theloft of Huddleson's stable and by night he vibrated between the Eliteoyster parlour, where he absorbed fabulous quantities of soup, and RedMartin's gambling-room, where he disported himself most festively beforethe gang assembled there. The morning of the fourth day Mehronayappeared--but not at his desk. We found him sitting glumly on his stoolat the case in the back room, clicking the types, with his hat over hiseyes and the smile rubbed off his face. 

We were a month coaxing Mehronay back in to the front room. Hisself-respect grew slowly, but finally it returned, and he sat at hisdesk turning off reams of copy so good that the people read the paper upone side and down the other hunting for his items. He is the only man wehave ever had around the paper who could write. Everyone else we haveemployed has been a news-gatherer. But Mehronay cared little for what wecall news. He went about the town asking for news, and getting more orless of it, but the way he put it was much more important than the thingitself. He had imagination. He created his own world in the town, andput it in the paper so vividly that before we realised it the whole townwas living in Mehronay's world, seeing the people and events about themthrough his merry countenance. No one ever referred to him as Mr. Mehronay, and before he had been on the street six months he was callingpeople by their first names, or by nicknames, which he tagged onto them. He was so fatherly to the young people that the girls in the Bee Hive, or the White Front, or the Racket Store used to brush his clothes whenthey needed it, if we in the office neglected him, and smooth his backhair with their pocket combs, and he--never remembering the name of theparticular ministering angel who fixed him up--called one and all ofthem "darter, " smiled a grateful smile like an old dog that is petted, and then went his way. The girls in the White Front Drygoods Store gavehim a cravat, and though it was made up, he brought it every morning inhis pocket for them to pin on. He was as simple as a child, and, like achild, lived in a world of unrealities. He swore like a mule driver, andyet he told the men in the back room that he could never go to sleepwithout getting down and saying his prayers, and the only men with whomhe ever quarrelled were a teacher of zoölogy at the College, who is anevolutionist, and Dan Gregg, the town infidel. 

One morning when we were sitting in the office before going out to thestreet for the morning's grist, Mehronay dog-eared a fat piece of copyand jabbed it on the hook as he started for the door. 

"My boy was drunk last night, " he said. "Me and his mother felt so badover it that I gave him a pretty straight talk this morning. There itis. "

The office dropped its jaw and bugged its eyes. 

"Oh, yes, " he continued. "Didn't you know I had a boy? He's been thebest kind of a boy till here lately. I can see his mother don't like itand his sister's worried too. " His face for a second wore an expressionof infinite sadness, and he sighed even while the smile came back on theface he turned to us from the door as he said: "Sometimes I think he isstudying law with old Charley Hedrick and sometimes I think he is in thebank with John Markley; but he is always with me, and was such a decentboy when I had him out to the College. But I saw him with Joe Nevisonlast night, and I knew he'd been drinking. "

With that he closed the door behind him and was gone. This was thearticle that Mehronay left on the hook:

"Your pa was downtown this morning, complaining about his 'old trouble, 'that crick in his back that he got loading hay one hot day in HuronCounty, Ohio, 'before the army. ' The 'old trouble, ' as you willremember, bothers your pa a good deal, and your ma thinks that hisfather must have been a pretty hard-hearted man to let him work so hardwhen he was a boy. Your pa likes to have you and your ma think that whenhe was a boy he did nothing but work and go to prayer-meeting and goaround doing noble deeds out of the third reader, but a number of theold boys of the Eleventh Kansas, who knew your pa in the sixties, areprepared to do a lot of forgetting for him whenever he asks it. Thetruth about your pa's 'old trouble' is that he was down at FortLeavenworth just after the close of the war, and after filling up onlaughing-water at a saloon, he got into a fight with the bartender, waskicked out of the saloon, and slept in the alley all night. That was hislast whizz. He took an invoice of his stock and found that he had someof the most valuable experiences that a man can acquire, and hestraightened up and came out here and grew up with the country. Your mamet him at a basket-meeting, and she thought he was an extremely piousyoung man, and they made a go of it. 

"So, Bub, when you think that by breathing on your coat sleeve to killthe whisky you can fool your pa, you are wrong. Your pa in his day atethree carloads of cardamon seeds and cloves and used listerine by thebarrel. He knew which was the creaky step on the stairs in his father'shouse and used to avoid it coming in at night, just as you do now, andhe knows just what you are doing. More than that, your pa speaks fromthe bitterest kind of experience when he pleads with you to quit. It isno goody-goody talk of a mutton-headed old deacon that he is giving you;it has taken him a year to get his courage up to speak to you, and everyword that he speaks is boiled out of an agony of bitter memories. Heknows where boys that start as you are starting end if they don't turnback. Your pa turned, but he recollects the career of the Blue boys, whoare divided between the penitentiary, the poor-house and the southwestcorner of hell; he recalls the Winklers--one dead, one a porter in asaloon in Peoria, one crazy; and he looks at you, and it seems to himthat he must take you in his arms as he did when you were a little childin the prairie fire, and run to safety with you. And when he talks toyou with his bashful, halting speech, you just sit there and grin, andcut his heart to its core, for he knows you do not understand. 

"It's rather up to you, Bub. In the next few months you will have todecide whether or not you are going to hell. Of course the 'vilestsinner may return' at any point along the road--but to what? Toshattered health; to a mother heart-broken in her grave; to a wifedamned to all eternity by your thoughtless brutality; and to childrenwho are always afraid to look up the alley, when they see a group ofboys, for fear they may be teasing you--you, drunk and dirty, lying inthe stable filth! To that you will 'return, ' with your strength spent, and your sportive friends, gone to the devil before you, and your chancein life frittered away. 

"Just sit down and figure it out, Bub. Of course there are a lot of goodfellows on the road to hell; you will have a good time going; but you'llbe a long time there. You'll dance and play cards and chase out nights, and soak your soul in the essence of don't-give-a-dam-tiveness, andyou'll wonder, as you go up in the balloon, what fun there is in walkingthrough this sober old earth. Friends--what are they? The love ofhumanity--what is it? Thoughtfulness to those about you? Gentility--Whatare these things? Letteroll--letteroll! But as you drop out of theballoon, the earth will look like a serious piece of landscape. 

"When you are old, the beer you have swilled will choke your throat; thewomen you have flirted with will hang round your feet and make youstumble. All the nights you have wasted at poker will dim your eyes. Thegarden of the days that are gone, wherein you should have plantedkindness and consideration and thoughtfulness and manly courage to doright, will be grown up to weeds, that will blossom in your patches andin your rags and in your twisted, gnarly face that no one will love. 

"Go it, Bub! don't stop for your pa's sake; you know it all. Your pa ismerely an old fogy. Tell him you can paddle your own canoe. But when youwere a little boy, a very little boy, with a soft, round body, your paused to take you in his arms and rub his beard--his rough, stubby, three-days' beard--against your face and pray that God would keep youfrom the path you are going in. 

"And so the sins of the father, Bub--but we won't talk of that. "

Three months later, when the Methodists opened their regular winterrevival, Mehronay, becoming enraged at what he called the tin-hornclothes of the travelling evangelist conducting the meetings, began tomake fun of him in the paper; and, as a revivalist in a church is asacred person while the meetings are going on, we had to kill Mehronay'sitems about the revival; whereupon, his professional pride being hurt, Mehronay went forth into the streets, got haughtily drunk, and struttedup and down Main Street scattering sirs and misters and madams about solavishly that men who did not appreciate his condition thought he hadgone mad. That night he went to the revival, and sat upon the back seatalone, muttering his imprecations at the preacher until the singingbegan, when the heat of the room and the emotional music mellowed hispride, and he drowned out the revivalist's singing partner with aclear, sweet tenor that made the congregation turn to look at him. Mehronay knew the gospel hymns by heart, as he seemed to know his NewTestament, and the cunning revivalist kept the song service going for anhour. When Mehronay was thoroughly sober there was a short prayer, andthe singer on the platform feelingly sang "There Were Ninety and Nine"with an adagio movement, and Mehronay's face was wet with tears and herose for prayers. 

He came to the office chastened and subdued next morning and wrote anaccount of the revival so eulogistic that we had to tone it down, andfor a week he went about damning, with all the oaths in the pirate'slog, Dan Gregg and the College professor who taught evolution. But noone could coax him back to the revival. As spring came we thought thathe had forgotten the episode of his regeneration, and perhaps he hadforgotten it, but the Saturday before Easter he put on the copy-hook anEaster sermon that made us in the office think that he had added anotherdream to his world. It was a curious thing for Mehronay to write;indeed, few people in town realised that he did write it; for he hadbeen rollicking over town on his beat every day for months after therevival, and half the pious people in town thought he shammed hisemotion the night he came to the church merely to mock them and theirrevivalist. But we in the office knew that Mehronay's Easter sermon hadcome as the offering of a contrite heart. It is in so many scrapbooks inthe town that it should be reprinted here that the town may know thatMehronay wrote it. It read:

"The celebration of Easter is the celebration of the renewal of lifeafter the death that prevails in winter. People of many faiths observe aspring festival of rejoicing, and of prayer for future bounty. Probablythe Easter celebration is like that at Christmas and Thanksgiving--asurvival of some ancient pagan rite that men established out ofoverflowing hearts, rejoicing at the end of a good season and prayingfor favour at the beginning of a new one. 

"To the Christian world Easter symbolises a Divine tragedy. The comingof Easter, as it is set forth in the Great Book, is a most powerfulstory; it is the story of one of the deepest passions that may move thehuman heart--the passion of father-love. 

"Once there lived in the desert a man and his little child--a verylittle boy, who sometimes was a bad little boy, and who did not do as hewas told. On a day when the father was away about his business thechild, playing, wandered out on the desert and was lost. From home thedesert beckoned the little boy; it seemed fair and fine to adventure in. When the boy had been gone for many hours the father returned and couldnot find him, and knew that the child was lost. But the father knew thedesert; he knew how it lured men on; he knew its parching thirst; heknew its thorns and brambles, and its choking dust and the heat thatbeats one down. 

"And when he saw that the boy was lost his heart was aflame withanguish; he could all but feel the desert fire in the little boy'sblood, the cactus barbs in the bleeding little feet, and the greatlonesomeness of the desert in the little boy's heart; and as from afarthe man heard a wailing little voice in his ears calling, 'Father, father!' like a lost sheep. But it was only a seeming, and the housewhere the little boy had played was silent. 

"Then the father went to the desert, and neither the desert firemurmuring at his brow, nor the sand that filled his mouth, nor thestones and prickles that cut his feet, nor the wild beasts that lurkedupon the hillsides, could keep out of his ears the bleat of that littlechild's voice crying 'Father, father!' When the night fell, still andcold and numbing, the father pressed on, calling to the child in hisagony; for he thought it was such a little boy, such a poor, lonesome, terror-stricken little boy out in the desert, lost and in pain, cryingfor help, with no one to hear. 

"And wandering so, the father died, with his heart full of unspeakablewoe. But they found the wayward child in the light of another day. Andhe never knew what his father suffered, nor why his father died, nor didhe understand it all till he had grown to a man's stature, and then heknew; and he tried to live his days as his father had lived, and to laydown his life, if need be, for his friend. 

"This is the Easter story that should come to every heart. The Christthat came into the desert of this weary life, and walked here foot-sore, heart-broken and athirst, came here for the love that was in His heart. Who put it there--whether the God that gave Shakespeare his brain andWagner his harmonies, gave Christ His heart--or whether it was the Godthat paints the lily and moves the mountains in their labours--itmatters not. It is one God, the Author and First Cause of all things. Itis His heart that moves our own hearts to all their aspirations, to allthe benevolence that the wicked world knows; it is His mind that is mademanifest in our marvels of civilisation; it is His vast, unknowable planthat is moving the nations of the earth. 

"Whether it be spirit or law or tendency or person--what matter?--it isour Father, who went to the desert to find His sheep. "

All day Saturday, in order to square himself with the printers who setup his sermon, and to rehabilitate himself in the graces of the othersabout the office who knew of his weakness, Mehronay turned in the gayestlot of copy that he had ever written. There was an "assessment call ofthe Widowers' Protective Association to pay the sad wedding loss ofBrother P. R. Cullom, of the Bee Hive, " whose wedding was announced inthe society column; there was a card of thanks from Ben Pore to thosewho had come with their sympathy and glue to nurse his wooden Indianwhich had blown down and broken the night before, and resolutions ofrespect for the same departed brother, in most mocking language, fromthe Red Men's Lodge. There was an item saying seven different varietiesof Joneses and three kinds of Hugheses were in town from Lebo--the Welshsettlement; there was a call for the uniformed rank of head waiters tomeet in regalia at Mrs. Larrabee's reception, signed by the three men intown who were known to have evening clothes, and there was a meeting ofthe anti-kin society announced to discuss the length of timeAlphabetical Morrison's new son-in-law should be allowed to visit theMorrisons before the neighbours could ask when he was going to leave. But when the paper was out Mehronay got a dozen copies from the pressand sent them away in wrappers which he addressed, and the piece hisblue pencil marked was none of these. 

For many days after Mehronay wrote his Easter sermon the gentle, low, beelike hum that he kept up while he was at work followed the tunes ofgospel hymns, or hymns of an older fashion. We always knew when toexpect what he called a "piece" from Mehronay--which meant an articleinto which he put more than ordinary endeavour--for his bee-song wouldgrow louder, with now and then an intelligible word in it, and if it wasto be an exceptional piece Mehronay would whistle. When he began writingthe music would die down, but when he was well under sail on his"piece, " the steam of his swelling emotions would set his chin to goinglike the lid of a kettle, and he would drone and jibber the words as hewrote them--half audibly, humming and sputtering in the pauses while hethought. Scores of times we have seen the dear old fellow sitting at hisdesk when a "piece" was in the pot, and have gathered the men aroundback of his chair to watch him simmer. When it was finished he wouldwhirl about in his chair, as he gathered up the sheets of paper andshook them together, and say: "I've writ a piece here--a damn goodpiece!" And then, as he put the copy on the hook and got his hat, hewould tell us in most profane language what it was all about--quotingthe best sentences and chuckling to himself as he went out onto thestreet. 

As the spring filled out and became summer we noticed that Mehronay wassinging fewer gospel hymns and rather more sentimental songs than usual. And then the horrible report came to the office that Mehronay had beenseen by one of the printers walking by night after bed-time under theState Street elms with a woman. Also his items began to indicate acloser knowledge of what was going on in society than Mehronay naturallycould have. In the fall we learned through the girls in the Bee Hivethat he had bought a white shirt and a pair of celluloid cuffs. Thisrumour set the office afire with curiosity, but no one dared to teaseMehronay. For no one knew who she was. 

Not until late in the fall, when Madame Janauschek came to the operahouse to play "Macbeth, " did Mehronay uncover his intrigue. Then forthe first time in his three years' employment on the paper he asked fortwo show tickets! The entire office lined up at the opera house--most ofus paying our own way, not to see the Macbeths, but to see Mehronay'sRomeo and Juliet. The office devil, who was late mailing the papers thatnight, says that about seven o'clock Mehronay came in singing "Jean, Jean, my Bonnie Jean, " and that he went to his trunk, took out hiscelluloid cuffs, a new sky-blue and shell-pink necktie that none of ushad seen before, a clean paper collar--and the boy, who probably wasmistaken, swears Mehronay also took his white shirt--in a bundle whichhe proudly tucked under his arm and toddled out of the office whistlinga wedding march. An hour later, dressed in this regalia and a new blacksuit, buttoned primly and exactly in a fashion unknown to Mehronay, heappeared at the opera house with Miss Columbia Merley, spinster, teacherof Greek and Hellenic philosophy at the College. The office force askedin a gasp of wonder: "Who dressed him?" Miss Merley--late in herforties, steel-eyed, thin-chested, flint-faced and with hair knotted sotightly back from her high stony brow that she had to take out twohairpins to wink--Miss Merley might have done it--but she had no kith orkin who could have done it for her, and certainly the hand that smoothedthe coat buttoned the vest, and the hand that buttoned the vest put onthe collar and tie, and as for the shirt----

But that was an office mystery. We never have solved it, and no one hadthe courage to tease Mehronay about it the next morning. After that weknew, and Mehronay knew that we knew, that he and Miss Merley went tochurch every Sunday evening--the Presbyterian church, mind you, wherethere is no foolishness--and that after church Mehronay always spentexactly half an hour in the parlour of the house where his divinityroomed. A whole year went by wherein Mehronay was sober, and did notlook upon the wine when it was red or brown or yellow or any othercolour. Now when he "writ a piece" there was frequently something in itdefending women's rights. Also he severed diplomatic relations with thegirl clerks in the White Front and the Bee Hive and the Racket, andbought a cane and aspired to some dignity of person. But Mehronay'sheart was unchanged. The snows of boreal affection did not wither orfade his eternal spring. The sap still ran sweet in his veins and thebees still sang among the blossoms that sprang up along his path. He waseveryone's friend, and spoke cheerily to the dogs and the horses, andwas no more courteous to the preachers and the bankers, who are our mostworshipful ones in town, than to the men from Red Martin'sgambling-room, and even the woman in red, whom all the town knows butwhom no one ever mentions, got a kind word from Mehronay as they metupon the street. He always called her sister. 

And so another year went by and Mehronay's "pieces" made the circulationgrow, and we were prosperous. It became known about town long before weknew it in the office that if Mehronay kept sober for three years shewould have him, and when we finally heard it he was on the last half ofthe third year and was growing sombre. "In the Cottage by the Sea" washis favourite song, and "Put Away the Little Playthings" also was muchin his throat when he wrote. We thought, perhaps--and now we know--thathe was thinking of a home that was gone. The day before Mehronay'swedding a child died over near the railroad, and on the morning he wasto be married we found this on the copy hook when we came down to openthe office, after Mehronay had gone to claim his bride:

"A ten-line item appeared in last night's paper, away down in onecorner, that brought more hearts together in a common bond--the bond offear and sympathy and sorrow--than any other item has done for a longtime. The item told of the death, by scarlet fever, of little FlossieYengst. Probably the child was not known outside of her little group ofplaymates; her father and mother are not of that advertised clique knownof men as prominent people; he is an engineer on the Santa Fé, and themother moves in that small circle of friends and neighbours whichcircumscribes American motherhood of the best type. And yet last night, when that little ten-line item was read by a thousand firesides in thistown, thousands and thousands of hearts turned to that desolate home bythe track, and poured upon it the benediction of their sympathies. Thathome was the meeting-place where rich and poor, great and weak, good andbad, stood equals. For there is something in the death of a littlechild, something in its infinite pathos, that makes all human creaturesmourn. Because in every heart that is not a dead heart, calloused to alljoy or sorrow, some little child is enshrined--either dead orliving--and so child-love is the one universal emotion of the soul, andchild-death is the saddest thing in all the world. 

"A child's soul is such a small thing, and the world and the systems ofworlds, and the infinite stretches of illimitable space, are so wide fora child's soul to wander in, that, sane as we may be, stolid as we maytry to be, we think in imagery, and the figure of little feet settingoff on the far track to the end of things, hunting God, wrings ourheart-strings and makes our throats grip and our eyelids quiver. 

"And then a child dying, leaving this good world of ours, seems to havehad so small a chance for itself. There is something in all of usstruggling against oblivion, striving vainly to make some real impresson the current of time, and a child, dying, can only clutch the handsabout it and go down--forever. It seems so merciless, so unfair. Perhapsthat is why, all over the world, the little graves are cared for best. It is to the little graves that we turn in our keenest anguish and notto the larger mounds; to the little graves that our hearts are drawn inour hours of triumph. And so the child, though dead, lives its appointedtime and dies only in the fullness of its years. The little shoes, thelittle dresses, the 'little tin soldiers covered with rust, ' and thememories sweeter than dreams of a honeymoon, these are life'simmortelles that never fade. And though men and women come and go uponthe earth, though civilisations may wither and pass, these little imagesremain; and the sun and the stars, which see men come and go, may seethese little idols before which every creature bows, and the sun andstars, knowing no time, may think these children's relics are alsoeternal. 

"It is a desperately lonely home, that Yengst home, with the little girlgone away on a long journey; but how tight and close other fathers andmothers hugged their little ones last night when their hearts came backfrom the house of sorrow. And the little ones, feeling no fear, unconscious of the pang of terror that was shooting through the soulsabout them--the children played on, and maybe, before dropping to sleep, wondered a little at anxious looks they saw in grown-up eyes. 

"This is the faith of a little child, curious but implicit, in thegoodness of those things outside one's self. And 'of such is the Kingdomof Heaven. '"

A day or so after the wedding someone said to him: "Mehronay, sometimesyour pieces make me cry, " and he replied with all the fine sincerity ofhis heart showing in his eyes: "Yes--and if you only knew how they makeme cry! Sometimes when I have written one like--like that--I go to mybed and sob like a child. " He turned and walked away, but he came intothe office whistling "The Dutch Company. "

After his wedding we made brave, in a sly way, to rail at Mehronay abouthis love affair, and he took it good-naturedly. He knew the situationjust as it was; his sense of humour allowed him no false view of thematter. One afternoon when the paper was out, George Kirwin, theforeman, and one of the reporters and Mehronay were in the back roomleaning against the imposing-stones looking over the paper, when Kirwinsaid: "Say, Mehronay, how did you get yourself screwed up to ask her?"

It was spoken in a joke. The two young men were grinning, but Mehronaylooked at the floor in a study as he said:

"Well, to be honest--damfino if I ever did--just exactly. " He smiledreflectively in a pause and continued: "Nearest I remember was one nightwe was sitting with our feet on the base-burner and I looked up andsays, 'Hell's afire, Commie'--I called her that for short--'why in thedevil don't a fine woman like you get married? She got up and come overto where I was a-sitting and before I could say Lordamighty, she put herhand on my shoulder and says real soft and solemn: 'I'll just be damnedif I don't believe I will. '"

He did not smile when he looked up, but sighed contentedly as he addedreverently: "And so, by hell, she did!" If Columbia Merley Mehronay hadknown this language which her husband's innocent inadvertence put intoher mouth she would have strangled him--even then. 

We did not have Mehronay with us more than a year after his wedding. Mrs. Mehronay knew what he was worth. She asked for twenty-five dollarsa week for him, and when we told her the office could not afford it shetook him away. They went to New York City, where she peddled his piecesabout town until she got him a regular place. There they have livedhappily ever after. Mehronay brings his envelope home every Saturdaynight, and she gives him his carfare and his shaving-money and puts therest where it will do the most good. When the men from our office go toNew York--which they sometimes do--they visit with Mehronay at hisoffice, and sometimes--if there is time for due and proper notice of thefunction in writing--there is an invitation to dinner. Mehronay fondleshis old friends as a child fondles its playmates and he takes eagerpleasure in them, but she that was Columbia Merley all but searchestheir pockets for the tempter. 

Mehronay has never broken his word. He knows if he does break it shewill tear him limb from limb and eat him raw. So he goes to his work, writes his pieces, hums his gentle bee-song--so that men do not like toroom with him at the office--and has learned to keep himself fairly wellbuttoned up in the great city. But Miss Larrabee that was--who used toedit the society page for our paper, but who now lives in New York--toldus when she was home that as she was walking down Fourth Avenue onewinter day when the street was empty, she saw Mehronay standing beforethe window of a liquor store looking intently at the display of bottledgoods before him. When he saw her half a block away he turned from herand shuffled rapidly down the street, clicking his cane nervously. 

It was not for him!

XVIII

Sown in Our Weakness

When one comes to know an animal well--say a horse or a cow or adog--and sees how sensibly it acts, following the rules of conduct laiddown by the wisdom of its kind, one cannot help wondering how muchhappier, and healthier, and better, human beings would be if they usedthe discretion of the animals. For ages men have been taught what isgood for their bodies and their minds and their souls. There has been noquestion about the wisdom of being temperate and industrious and honestand kind; and the folly of immoderation and laziness and chicanery andmeanness is so well known that a geometrical proposition has not beenmore definitely proved. Yet only a few people in any community observethe rules of life, and of these few no one observes them all; and somisery and pain and poverty and anguish are as a pestilence among men, and they wonder why they are living in such a cruel world. It was EliMartin who, back in the seventies, won the prize in the Bethelneighbourhood for reciting more chapters of the Old Testament than anyother child in Sunday-school; and the old McGuffey's Reader that he usedon week-days was filled with moral tales; but someway when it came toapplying the rules he had learned, and the moral that the storiespointed, Eli Martin lacked the sense of a dog or a horse. Once, when thepaper contained an account of one of Red Martin's police courtescapades, George Kirwin recalled that, when we offered a prize duringthe Christmas season of 1880, for the best essay by a child undertwelve, it was Ethelwylde Swaney who won the prize with an essay on theWeakness of Vanity; and she married Eli Martin when she and the wholetown knew what he was. 

Naturally one would suppose that two persons so full of theoreticalwisdom would have applied it, and that in applying it they would havebeen the happiest and most useful people in all the town; but insteadthey were probably the most miserable people in town, and Mrs. Martin, whom we knew better than Red, because she once had worked in the office, was forever bemoaning what she called her "lot, " though we knew for manyyears that her "lot" was not the result of the fates against her, butmerely the inevitable consequence of her temperament. 

Before we put in linotypes and set our type by machinery it was set bygirls. Usually we employed half-a-dozen, who came from the town highschool. They kept coming and going, as girls do who work in countrytowns, getting married in their twenties or finding something betterthan printing, and it is likely that in ten years as many as fifty girlshave worked in the office, and be it said to the credit of thegirls--which cannot be said of so many of the boys and men who haveworked in the shop--that they were girls we were proud of--all butEthelwylde Swaney. 

She that we called the Princess worked in the office less than twoyears, but the memory of her still lingers, though hardly could one saylike "the scent of the roses"; for the Princess was not merely a poorcompositor, she was the kind that would make mistakes and blame othersfor them, and that kind never learns. Though she ran away to marry RedMartin--which was her own mistake--this habit of blaming others for herfaults was so strong that she never forgave her mother for making thematch. We know in our office that Mrs. Swaney did not dream that thegirl was even going with Red Martin until they were married. Yet theMartin neighbours for twenty years have blamed Mrs. Swaney. When thePrincess was in the office we found out that the truth wasn't in her;also we discovered that she was lazy and that she cried too easily. Right at the busy hour in the afternoon we used to catch her with a typein her fingers and her hand poised in the air, looking off into spacefor a minute at a time, and when we spoke to her she would put her headon her case and cry softly; and the foreman would have to apologisebefore she would go back to work. Even then she would have to take thebroken piece of looking-glass that she kept in her capital "K" box andmake an elaborate toilet before settling down. Moreover, though she wasonly seventeen, much of the foreman's time was spent chasing dirty-facedlittle boys away from her case, and if some boy didn't have his elbow inher quad box, she was off her stool visiting either with some othergirl, or standing by the stove drying her hands--she was eternallydrying her hands--and talking to one of the men. In all the year and ahalf that she was in the office the Princess never learned how to helpherself. When she had to dump her type, she had to call some man fromhis work to help her--and then there would be more conversation. 

But we kept her and were patient with her on account of her father, JohnSwaney, a hard-working man who was trying to make something of thePrincess, so we put up with her perfumery and her powder rags and herroyal airs, and did all we could to teach her the difference between acomma and a period--though she never really learned; and we were stillpatient with her, even when she deliberately pied a lot of type afterbeing corrected for some piece of carelessness or worse. We made dueallowances for the Rutherford temper, which her father warned us not toarouse. Nevertheless, her mother came to the office one winter day inher black straw hat with a veil around it, and with the coat she hadworn for ten years, to tell us that she was afraid working in the shopwould hurt her daughter's social standing. So the Princess walked outthat night in a gust of musk--in her picture hat and sweeping cloak, with bangles tinkling and petticoat swishing--and the office knew her nomore forever. 

About the time that the Princess left the office to improve her socialstanding, Eli Martin and his big mule team came to town from the Bethelneighbourhood. He was as likely a looking red-headed country boy as youever saw. We were laying the town waterworks pipes that year, and Eliand his team had work all summer. On the street he towered above theother men several inches in height, and he looked big and muscular andmasculine in his striped undershirt and blue overalls, as he worked withhis team in the hot sun. Of course, the Princess would not have seen himin those days. Her nose was seeking a higher social level, and theclerks in the White Front dry-goods store formed the pinnacle of hersocial ideal. But Eli Martin was naturally what in our parlance we calla ladies' man, and he was not long in learning that the wide-brimmedblack hat, the ready-made faded green suit and the red string necktiewhich had swept the girls down before him in the Bethel neighbourhoodwould accomplish little in town. So when winter came, and work with histeam was hard to get, he sold his mules and bedecked himself in finelinen. He had a few hundred dollars saved up, so he lived in the cabbagesmells of the Astor House, and fancied that he was enjoying therefinements of a great city. Time hung heavily upon him, and at night hejoined the switchmen and certain young men of leisure in the town in amore or less friendly game of poker in the rooms at the head of the darkstairway on South Main Street. 

When spring came the young man had no desire and little need to go backto work, for by that time he was known as Lucky Red. In a year thesunburn left him and he grew white and thin. He went to Kansas City fora season, and became known among gamblers as far west as Denver; but hewas only a tin-horn gambler in the big cities, while in our town he wasat the head of his profession, so he came back and opened a room of hisown. He came back in a blaze of glory; to wit: a long grey frock coatwith trousers to match, pleated white shirts studded with blindingdiamonds, a small white hat dented jauntily on three sides, a mattedlump of red hair on the back of his head and a dashing red curl combedextravagantly low on his forehead. Before he left town for his foreigntour Red Martin used to hang about the churches Sunday evenings, peeringthrough the blinds and making eyes at the girls; but upon his return hehad risen to another social level. He had acquired a cart with redwheels and a three-minute horse; so he dropped from his social list thegirls who "worked out" and made eyes at those young women who lived athome, gadding around town evenings, picking up boys on the street andforever talking about their "latest. "

It was the most natural thing in the world that Red and the Princessshould find each other, and six months before the elopement we heardthat the Princess was riding about the country with him in thered-wheeled cart. For after she left the office in one way and anotherwe had kept track of the girl--sometimes through her father, who, beinga carpenter, was frequently called to the office to fix up a door or awindow; sometimes through the other girls in the office, and sometimesthrough Alphabetical Morrison, whose big family of girl school-teachersmade him a storage battery of social information. 

It seems that the Rutherford temper developed in the Princess as shegrew older. Mrs. Swaney was Juanita Sinclair; her father was amild-mannered little man, who went out of doors to cough, but her motherwas a Rutherford--a big, stiff-necked, beer-bottle-shaped woman, whobossed the missionary society until she divided the church. John Swaney, who is not a talkative man, once got in a crowd at Smith's cigar-storewhere they were telling ghost stories, and his contribution to thehorror of the occasion was a relating of how, when they were foolingwith tables, trying to make them tip at his house one night at a familyreunion, the spirit of Grandma Rutherford appeared, split the table intokindling, dislocated three shoulder-blades and sprained five wrists. Itwas this Rutherford temper that the Princess wore when she slouchedaround the house in her mother-hubbard with her hair in papers. Thegirls in the office used to say that if her mother over-cooked thePrincess's egg in the morning she would rise grandly from the breakfasttable, tipping over her chair behind her, and rush to her room "to havea good cry, " and the whole family had to let the breakfast cool whilethey coaxed her down. That was the Rutherford temper. Also, when theytried to teach her to cook, it was the Rutherford temper that broke thedishes. Colonel Morrison once told us that when the Princess thought itwas time to give a party, the neighbours could see the Rutherford temperbegin wig-wagging at the world through the Princess's proud head, andthere was nothing for her father to do but to kill the chickens, runerrands all day to the grocery store, and sit in the cellar freezingcream, and then go to the barn at night to smoke. It was known in theneighbourhood that the Princess dragged her shoestrings until noon, andthat her bed was never in the memory of woman made up in the daytime. Weare Yankees in our town, and these things made more talk to the girl'sdiscredit than the story that she was keeping company with Red Martin!

But we at the office saw in the proud creature that passed our window sograndly nothing to indicate her real self. The year that Red Martin cameback to town the Princess used to turn into Main Street in an afternoon, wearing the big black hat that cost her father a week's hard work, looking as sweet as a jug of sorghum and as smiling as a basket ofchips. Though women sniffed at her, the men on the veranda of the HotelMetropole craned their necks to watch her out of sight. She jingled withchains and watches and lockets and chatelaines, carried more rings thana cane rack, and walked with the air of the heroine of the society dramaat the opera house. When she was on parade she never even glanced towardour office, where she had jeopardised her social position. She barelyquivered a recognising eye-brow at the girls who had worked with her, and they had their laugh at her, so matters were about even. But theoffice girls say that, after the Princess eloped with Red Martin, shewas glad to rush up and shake hands with them. For we know in our townthat the princess business does not last more than ten days or two weeksafter marriage; it is a trade of quick sales, short seasons and smallprofits. The day that the elopement was the talk of the town, ColonelAlphabetical Morrison was in the office. He said that he rememberedJuanita Sinclair when she was a princess and wore Dolly Varden clothesand was the playfullest kitten in the basketful that used to turn out tothe platform dances on Fourth of July, and appear as belles of thesuppers given for the Silver Cornet Band just after the war. "But, "added the Colonel, "this town is full of saffron-coloured old girls withwiry hair and sun-bleached eyes, who at one time or another were in theprincess business. Not only has every dog his day, but eventually everykitten becomes a cat. "

[Illustration: The traveling men on the veranda craned their necks towatch her out of sight]

From the night of the charivari when Red Martin handed the boys twentydollars--the largest sum ever contributed to a similar purpose in thetown's history--he and the Princess began to slump. The sloughing off ofthe veneer of civilisation was not rapid, but it was sure. The firstpair of shoes that Red bought after his wedding were not patent leather, and, though the porter of his gambling place blacked them every morning, still they were common leather, and the boy noticed it. Likewise, thePrincess had her hat retrimmed with her old plumes the fall after herwedding, bought no new clothes, and wore her giddy spring jacket, thinas it was, all winter, and after the second baby came no human beingever saw her in anything but a wrapper, except when she was on MainStreet. 

The neighbours said she wore a wrapper so that she could have free useof her lungs, for when Red and the Princess opened a family debate, theneighbours had to shut the doors and windows and call in the children. Notwithstanding all the names that she called him in their lung-testingevents, there was no question about her love for the man. For, after thefirst year of her marriage, though she lost interest in her clothes andceased calling for the "fashion leaf" at the dress-goods counter in theWhite Front, and let her hair go stringy, we around our office knew thatthe Princess was only a child, who some way had lost interest in her oldtoys. When God gives babies to children, the children forget their otherdolls, and the Princess, when the babies came, put away her other dolls, and played with the toys that came alive. And she spanked them andfondled them and scolded them with the same empty-headed vanity that sheused to devote to her clothes. 

Red Martin was one of the Princess's dearest dolls, and she and thebabies were his toys; but, being a boy, he did not care for them so muchwith the paint rubbed off, yet he did not neglect them. Instead, heneglected himself. When the babies began to put grease spots on hisclothes, he did not clean them, and about the time his wife quitpowdering, when she came to Main Street, he stopped wearing collars. Shegrew fat and frowsy, and her chief interest in life seemed to be toover-dress her children, and sometimes Red Martin encouraged her bybringing home the most extravagant suits for the boys, and sometimes heabused her when the bills came in for things which she had bought forthe children, and asked why she did not buy something half-wayrespectable-looking to wear herself. After each of their furiousquarrels she would go over the neighbourhood the next day and tell theneighbours that her mother had married her to a gambler, and ask themwhat a gambler's wife could expect. If any neighbour woman agreed withMrs. Martin about her husband or her position Mrs. Martin would becomeangry and flounce out of the house, but if the women spoke kindly of herhusband she would berate him and weep, and assure them that she hadrefused the banker, or the proprietor of the Bee Hive, or anyone elsewho seemed to make her story possible. 

By the time that the third baby was old enough to carry his baby sisterand the fifth baby was in the crib, Red Martin's face had begun to growpurple. He lost the gambling-room which was once his pride; it wasoperated by a youth with a curly black moustache, whose clothes recalledthe days of Red's triumph. Red was only a dealer, and his trousers werefrayed at the bottom and he shaved but once a week. Then the Princessused to come slinking up Main Street at night carrying a pistol underher coat to use if she found the woman with him. Who the woman was theneighbours never knew, but the Princess gave them to understand thatthey would be surprised if she told them. It was her vanity to pretendthat the woman was a society leader, as she called her, but the boysaround the poker-dive knew that Red Martin's days as a heart-breakerwere gone. For what whisky and cocaine and absinthe could do for Red tohurry his end they were doing, but a man is a strong beast, and it takesmany years to kill him. Also, the Lord saves men like Red for horribleexamples, letting them live long that He may not have to waste others;but women seem to have God's pity and He takes them out of their miserymore quickly than He takes men. With the coming of the seventh baby thePrincess died. When the news came to the office that she was gone wewere not sorry, for life had held little for her. Her looks were gone;her health was gone; her dreams were smudged out--pitiful and wretchedand sordid as they were, even at the best. Yet for all that GeorgeKirwin took down to the funeral a wreath which the office force boughtfor her. 

To know George Kirwin casually one would say he never saw anything butthe types and machinery in the back room of our office. When he wentamong strangers he seemed to be looking always at his hands or studyinghis knees, and his responses to those whom he did not know were "yea, yea, " and "nay, nay"; but that night he told us more about the funeralof the Princess than all the reporters on the paper would have learned. He told us how the pitiful little parlour with its advertising chromosand its soap-prize lamp was filled with the women who always come tofunerals in our town--funerals being their only diversion; how they satin the undertaker's chairs with their handkerchiefs carefully folded andin their hands during the first part of the service, waiting for BrotherHopper to tell about his mother's death, which he never fails to do atfunerals, though the elders have spoken to him about it, as all the townknows; how Red Martin, shaved for the occasion, and, in a borrowed suitof clothes, stood out by the well and did not come into the house duringthe services; how only the elder children sat in the front room with theother mourners, and how the prattle of the little ones in the kitchenran through the parson's prayer with heart-breaking insistence. 

George seemed to think that the poverty-stricken little makeshifts tobring beauty into the miserable home and keep up the appearance of akind of gentility--perhaps for the children--was the best thing he everknew about the Princess, and he said that he was glad that he went tothe funeral for the geraniums in the crêpe paper covered tomato cans, the cheap lace curtains at the windows, and the hair-wreath inheritancefrom the Swaneys, made him think that the best of the Princess mighthave survived all the rack and calamity of the years. 

When the funeral left the house the neighbour women came and put it inorder, and there was a better supper waiting for the father and thechildren than they had eaten for many years. And then, after the disheswere put away, the neighbours left; and for what he tried to do and befor the motherless brood just that one night, God will put down a goodmark for Eli Martin--even though the man failed most sadly. 

When he went back to the gambling-room the next night, where he wasporter; men tried not to swear while he was in earshot, and the next daythey swore only mild oaths around him, out of respect for his grief, butthe day after they forgot their compunctions, and, within a week, RedMartin seemed to have forgotten, too. In time, the family was scatteredover the earth--divided among kin, and adopted out, and as the town grewolder its conscience quickened and the gambling-room was closed, whereupon Red Martin went to Huddleston's livery stable, where he workedfor enough to keep him in whisky and laudanum, and ate only when someonegave him food. 

He grew dirty, unkempt, and dull-witted. Disease bent and twisted himhideously. When he was too sick to work, he went to the poor-house, andcame back weak and pale to sit much in the sun on the south side of thebuilding like a sick dog. When he is lying about the street drunk, little boys poke sticks at him and flee with terror before him when hewakes to blind rage and stumbles after them. It is hard to realise thatthis disgusting, inhuman-looking creature is the Red Martin of twentyyears ago, who, in his long grey frock coat, patent leather shoes, whitehat and black tie, walked serenely up the steps of the bank the day itfailed, tapped on the door-pane with his revolver barrel, and, when aman came to answer, made him open, and backed out with his revolver inone hand and his diamonds and money in the other. He does not recall inany vague way the Red Martin who gave the town a month's smile when hesaid, after losing all his money on election, that he had learned neverto bet on anything that could talk, or had less than four legs. That RedMartin has been dead these many years; perhaps he was no more worthythan this one who hangs on to life, and bears the name and the disgracethat his dead youth made inevitable. 

How strange it is that a man should wreck himself, and blight those ofhis own blood as this man has done! He knew what we all know about lifeand its rules. He had been told, as we all are told in a thousand ways, that bad conduct brings sorrow to the world, and that pain andwretchedness are the only rewards of that behaviour which men call sin. And yet there he is, sitting on his hunkers near the stable, with God'sstamp of failure all over his broken, battered body--put there by RedMartin's own hands. But George Kirwin, who often thinks with a kindlierspirit than others, says we are Red Martin's partners in iniquity, forwe all lived here with him, maintaining a town that tolerated gamblingand debauchery, and that, in some way, we shall each of us suffer as Redhas suffered, insomuch as each has had his share in a neighbour's shame. 

We tell George that he is getting old, though he is still on the brightside of forty, because he likes to come down town of evenings and hold aparliament with Henry Larmy and Dan Gregg and Colonel Morrison. Sometimes they hold it in the office and settle important affairs. Amonth ago they settled the immortality of the soul, and the other night, returning to their former subject, the question came up: "What willbecome of Red Martin when he goes to Heaven?" Dan contended that thepoor fellow is carrying around his own little blowpipe hell as he goesthrough life. George Kirwin maintained that Red Martin will enter thenext world with the soul that died when his body began to live inwickedness; that there must have been some imperishable good in him as aboy, and that Heaven, or whatever we decide to call the next world, mustbe full of men and women like Red Martin--some more respectable thanhe--whose hell will be the unmasking of their real selves in the worldwhere we "shall know as we are known. " While we were sitting in judgmenton poor Red Martin, in toddled Simon Mehronay, who is visiting in townfrom New York in the company of the vestal virgin who had, as heexpressed it, snatched him as a brand from the burning. Mehronay hasbeen gone from town nearly twenty years, and until they told him he didnot know how Red Martin had fallen. When he heard it, Mehronay sighedand tears came into his dear old eyes, as he put his hand on ColonelMorrison's arm and said:

"Poor Red! Poor Red! A decent, brave, big-hearted chap! Why, he's takenwhisky away from me a dozen times! He's won my money from me to keep itover Saturday night. Why, I'm no better than he is! Only they've caughtRed, and they haven't caught me. And when we stand before thejudgment-seat, I can tell a damnsight more good things about Red than hecan about me. I'm going out to find him and get him a square meal. "

And so, while we were debating, Mehronay went down the Jericho roadlooking for the man who was lying there, beaten and bruised and waitingfor the Samaritan. 

XIX

"Thirty"

In the afternoon, between two and three o'clock, the messenger boy fromthe telegraph office brings over the final sheet of the day's report ofthe Associated Press. Always at the end is the signature "Thirty. " Thattells us that the report is closed for the day. Just why "Thirty" shouldbe used to indicate the close of the day's work no one seems to know. Itis the custom. They do so in telegraph offices all over the country, andin the newspaper business "Thirty" stands so significantly for the endthat whenever a printer or a reporter dies his associates generally feelcalled upon to have a floral emblem made with that figure in the centre. It is therefore entirely proper that these sketches of life in a countrytown, seen through a reporter's eyes, should close with that symbolicword. But how to close? That is the question. 

Sitting here by the office window, with the smell of ink in one'snostrils, with the steady monotonous clatter of the linotypes in theears, and the whirring of the shafting from the press-room in thebasement throbbing through one's nerves, with the very materialrealisation of the office around one; we feel that only a small part ofit, and of the life about it, has been set down in these sketches. Passing the office window every moment is someone with a story thatshould be told. Every human life, if one could know it well andtranslate it into language, has in it the making of a great story. It isbecause we are blind that we pass men and women around us, heedless ofthe tragic quality of their lives. If each man or woman could understandthat every other human life is as full of sorrows, of joys, of basetemptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own, which he thinks sopeculiarly isolated from the web of life, how much kinder, how muchgentler he would be! And how much richer life would be for all of us!Life is dull to no one; but life seems dull to those dull persons whothink life is dull for others, and who see only the drab and greyshades in the woof that is woven about them. 

Here in our town are ten thousand people, and yet these sketches havetold of less than two score of them. In the town are thousands of othersquite as interesting as these of whom we have written. A few minutes agoJim Bolton rode by on his hack. There is no reason why others should beadvertised of men and Jim left out; for Jim is the proudest man in town. 

He came here when the town was young, and was president of theAnti-Horse-Thief League in the days before it became an emeritusinstitution, when it was a power in politics and named the Sheriff as amatter of right and of course. Jim has never let the fact that he kept alivery-stable and drove a hack interfere with his position as leadingcitizen. He keeps a livery-stable, because that is his business, and hedrives a hack because he cannot trust such a valuable piece of propertyin the hands of the boy. But when the street fair is to be put on, orthe baseball team financed, or when the Baptist Church needs a new roof, or the petitions are to be circulated for a bond election, Jim Boltongets down from his hack, puts on his crystal slipper and is theCinderella of the occasion. That is why, when young men go in Jim's hackto take young women to parties and dances, they always invite Jim in tosit by the fire and get warm while the girls are primping. That is why, when young Ben Mercer, just home from five years at Harvard, offered Jima "tip" over the usual twenty-five-cent fare, Jim quietly took off hiscoat and whipped young Ben where he stood--and the town lined up for anhour, each man eager for the privilege of contributing ten cents to thepopular subscription to pay old Jim's fine and costs in police-court. 

Following Jim Bolton on his hack past the office window came BillHarrison, once extra brakeman on the Dry Creek Branch, just promoted tobe conductor on the main line, and so full of vainglory in his exaltedposition that he wears his brass buttons on freight trains. Bill's wifesigns his pay-check and doles out his cigar money, a quarter at a time, and when he asks for a dollar, she looks at him as if she suspected himof leading a double life. It is her ambition to live in Topeka, for"there are so many conductors in Topeka, " she says, "that society is notso mixed"--as it is in our town, where she complains that the switchmenand the firemen and the student-brakemen dominate society. Once a cigarsalesman from Kansas City got on Bill's train and offered a lead dollarfor fare. 

"I can't take this, " protested Bill, emphasising the "I, " because hisjob was new. 

"Well, then, you might just turn that one over to the company, "responded the drummer. 

And when the head-brakeman told it in the yards, Bill had to fuss withhis wife for two days to get money for a box of cigars to stop thetrouble. 

As these lines were being written, Miss Littleton came into the officewith a notice for the Missionary Society. She has been teaching schoolin town for thirty years and is not so cheerful as she was once. For along time the board has considered dismissing her; but it continues tochange her around from building to building and from room to room, andto keep her out of sheer pity; and she knows it. There is tragedy enoughin her story to fill a book. Yet she looks as humdrum as you please, andsmiles so gaily as she puts down her notice, that one thinks perhaps sheis trying to dispel the impression that she is cross and impatient withchildren. 

On the other side of the street, upstairs in his dusty real estateoffice, with tin placards of insurance companies on the wall, and gaudycalendars tacked everywhere, Silas Buckner stands at the window countingthe liars and scoundrels, and double-dealers and villains, and thievesand swindlers who pass. Since Silas was defeated for Register of Deedshe has become a pessimist. He has soured on the town, and when he sees aman, Silas thinks only of the evil that man has done. Silas knows allmen's weaknesses, forgets their strength, and looking down from thewindow hates his fellow-creatures for the wrong they have done him, orthe wickedness that he knows of them. He has never given our reporters akindly item of news since he was turned down, but if there is adiscreditable story on any citizen going around we hear it first fromSilas, and if we do not print it he says we have taken hush money. Ifwe have to print it, he says we are stirring up strife. Seeing him overthere, looking down on the town which to him is accursed, we have oftenthought how weary God must be looking at the world and knowing so muchbetter than Silas the weakness and iniquity of men. Sometimes we havewondered if sin is really as important as Silas thinks it is, for withSilas sin is a blot that effaces a man's soul. But maybe God sees sinonly as a blemish that men may overcome. Perhaps God is not sodiscouraged with us as Silas is. But life is a puzzle at most. 

[Illustration: Counting the liars and scoundrels and double-dealers andvillains who pass]

Last night Aaron Marlin died. He had lived for ninety years in thisworld, and had seen much and suffered much, and has died as a childturns to sleep. It was quiet and still at his home among the elms as helay in his coffin. The mourners spoke in low and solemn tones, and theblinds were drawn as if death were shy. As he lay there in the greathush that was over the house, there passed before it on the sidewalk twowho spoke as low as the mourners, though they were oblivious to thehouse of death. They trod slowly, and a great calm was on their souls. One of the scribes who sets down these lines stood in the shadow of thedoorway pine-tree and saw the lovers passing; he felt the silence andthe sorrow behind the door he was about to enter; and there he stoodwondering--between Death and Love--the End and the Beginning of God'sgreat mystery of Life. Now, with the sense of that great mystery uponhim, with all of this pied skein of life about him, he puts down hispen, and looks out of the window as the thread winds down the street. 

For "Thirty" is in for the day. 

THE END