[Illustration: cover]

 IN A LITTLE TOWN

 BOOKS BY

 RUPERT HUGHES

 IN A LITTLE TOWN Illustrated. Post 8vo

 THE THIRTEENTH COMMANDMENT Illustrated. Post 8vo

 CLIPPED WINGS. Frontispiece. Post 8vo

 WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY? Illustrated. Post 8vo

 THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER. Frontispiece. 16mo

 EMPTY POCKETS. Illustrated. Post 8vo

 * * * * *

 HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK

 [Illustration: Frontispiece]

 In a Little Town

 [Illustration: Title page decoration]

 BY

 RUPERT HUGHES

 [Illustration: Publisher's mark]

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 IN A LITTLE TOWN

 Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers

 Printed in the United States of America

 Published March, 1917

 TO FREDERICK ATHERTON DUNEKA AS AN I-O-U OF HEARTFELT ESTEEM

 CONTENTS

 PAGE

 DON'T YOU CARE! 1

 POP 42

 BABY TALK 73

 THE MOUTH OF THE GIFT HORSE 106

 THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME 141

 AND THIS IS MARRIAGE 173

 THE MAN THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 191

 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN IOWAY 222

 PRAYERS 224

 PAIN 232

 THE BEAUTY AND THE FOOL 262

 THE GHOSTLY COUNSELORS 267

 DAUGHTERS OF SHILOH 285

 "A" AS IN "FATHER" 356

FOREWORD

There are two immortal imbecilities that I have no patience for. 

The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they wereessentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and"Babylons" any more than little towns are Arcadias or Utopias. In factwe are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safelyassumed, that Babylon never was a "Babylon" nor Nineveh a "Nineveh" inthe sense employed by poets and praters without number. Those old citieswere made up of assorted souls as good and as bad and as mixed as now. 

They do small towns a grievous injustice who deny them restlessness, vice, ostentation, cruelty; as they do cities a grievous injustice whodeny them simplicity, homeliness, friendship, and contentment. It is oneof those undeniable facts (which everybody denies) that a city is only alot of small towns put together. Its population is largely made up ofpeople who came from small towns and of people who go back to smalltowns every evening. 

A village is simply a quiet street in the big city of the world. Quaint, sweet happenings take place in the avenues most thronged, and desperateevents come about in sleepy lanes. People are people, chance is chance. 

My novels have mainly concerned themselves with New York, and I havetried therein to publish bits of its life as they appear to such eyesand such mind as I have. Though several of my short stories have beenpublished in single volumes, this is the first group to be issued. Theyare all devoted to small-town people. In them I have sought the same endas in the city novels: to be true to truth, to observe with sympathy andexplain with fidelity, to find the epic of a stranger's existence andshape it for the eyes of strangers--to pass the throb of another heartthrough my heart to your heart. 

The scene of these stories lies pretty close to the core of these UnitedStates, in the Middle West, in the valley of the Mississippi River. Iwas born near that river and spent a good deal of my boyhood in it. 

Though it would be unfair, false, and unkind to fasten these stories onany definite originals, they are centered in the region about the smallcity of Keokuk, Iowa, from which one can also see into Illinois, andinto Missouri, where I was born. Comic poets have found something comicin the name of Keokuk, as in other town names in which the letter "K" isprominent. Why "K" should be so humorous, I can't imagine. The name ofKeokuk, however, belonged to a splendid Indian chief who was friendlyto the early settlers and saved them from massacre. The monument overhis bones in the park, on the high bluff there, now commands one of thenoblest views in the world, a great lake formed in the Mississippi Riverby a dam which is as beautiful as if the Greeks had built it. It was, infact, built by a thousand Greeks who camped there for years. As anengineering achievement it rivals the Assouan dam and as a manufacturerof electricity it is a second to Niagara Falls. But it has not yetmaterially disturbed the rural quality of the country. 

The scenery thereabout is very beautiful, but I guarantee you againstlandscape in these stories. I cannot, however, guarantee that thestories are even based on fact. Yet I hope that they are truth. 

The characters are limited to a small neighborhood, but if they are notalso faithful to humanity in general, then, as we would say out there, "I miss my guess. "

 RUPERT HUGHES. 

IN A LITTLE TOWN

DON'T YOU CARE!

I

When she was told it was a girl, Mrs. Govers sighed. "Well, I never didhave any luck, anyway; so I d' know's I'm supprised. "

Later she wept feebly:

"Girls are easier to raise, I suppose; but I kind of had my heart set onnamin' him Launcelot. " After another interval she rallied to a smile: "Iwas prepared for the worst, though; so I picked out Ellaphine for a namein case he was a her. It's an awful pirty name, Ellaphine is. Don't youthink so?"

"Yes, yes, " said the nurse, who would have agreed to anything then. 

After a time Mrs. Govers resumed: "She'll be an awful pirty girl, Ihope. Is that her makin' all that noise? Give me a glimpse of her, willyou? I got a right, I guess, to see my own baby. Oh, Goshen! Is thathow she looks?" A kind of swoon; then more meditation, followed by acourageous philosophy: "Children always look funny at first. She'lloutgrow it, I expect. Ellaphine is such an elegant name. It ought to bea kind of inducement to grow up to. Don't you think so?"

The nurse, who was juggling the baby as if it were red-hot, mumbledthrough a mustache of safety-pins that she thought so. Mrs. Goversechoed, "I thought so, too. " After that she went to sleep. 

Ellaphine, however, did not grow up elegant, to fit the name. The namegrew inelegant to fit her. During her earliest years the witty littlechildren called her Elephant until they tired of the ingenuity andallowed her to lapse indolently from Ellar to El. 

Mrs. Govers for some years cherished a dream that her ugly ducklingwould develop into a swan and fly away with a fabulously wealthy prince. Later she dwindled to a prayer that she might capture a man who was"tol'able well-to-do. "

The majority of ugly ducklings, however, grow up into uglier ducks, andMrs. Govers resigned herself to the melancholy prospect of the widowedmother of an old maid perennial. 

To the confusion of prophecy, among all the batch of girls who descendedon Carthage about the time of Ellaphine's birth--"out of the nowhereinto the here"--Ellaphine was the first to be married! And she cut outthe prettiest girl in the township--it was not such a small township, either. 

Those homely ones seem to make straight for a home the first thing. Ellaphine carried off Eddie Pouch--the very Eddie of whom his motherused to say, "He's little, but oh, my!" The rest of the people said, "Oh, my, but he's little!"

Eddie's given name was Egbert. Edward was his taken name. He took itafter his mother died and he went to live at his uncle Loren's. Eddiewas sorry to change his name, but he said his mother was not responsibleat the time she pasted the label Egbert on him, and his shy soul couldnot endure to be called Egg by his best friends--least of all by hisbest girl. 

His best girl was the township champion looker, Luella Thickins. Fromthe time his heart was big enough for Cupid to stick a child's-sizearrow in, Eddie idolized Luella. So did the other boys; and as Eddie wasthe smallest of the lot, he was lost in the crowd. Even when Luellanoticed him it was with the atrocious contempt of little girls forlittle boys they do not like. 

Eddie could not give her sticks of candy or jawbreakers, for his uncleLoren did not believe in spending money. And Eddie had no mother to goto when the boys mistreated him and the girls ignored him. A dismal lifehe led until he grew up as far as he ever grew up. 

Eddie reached his twenty-second birthday and was working in UncleLoren's factory--one of the largest feather-duster factories in thewhole State--when he observed a sudden change in Luella's manner. 

She had scared him away from paying court to her, save from a distance. Now she took after him, with her aggressive beauty for a club and herengaging smiles for a net. She asked him to take her to theSunday-school picnic, and asked him what he liked best for her to put infor him. She informed him that she was going to cook it for herself andeverybody said she could fry chicken something grand. So he chose friedchicken. 

He was so overjoyed that it was hard for him to be as solemn about thehouse as he ought to have been, in view of the fact that Uncle Loren hadbeen taken suddenly and violently ill. Eddie was the natural heir to theold man's fortune. 

Uncle Loren was considered close in a town where extravagance was almostimpossible, but where rigid economy was supposed to pile up tremendouswealth. Hitherto it had pained Uncle Loren to devote a penny to anythingbut the sweet uses of investment. Now it suddenly occurred to the oldmiser that he had invested nothing in the securities of New Jerusalem, Limited. He was frightened immeasurably. 

In his youth he had joined the Campbellite church and had been baptizedin the town pond when there was a crust of ice over it which the pastorhad to break with a stick before he immersed Loren. Everybody said thecrust of ice had stuck to his heart ever since. 

In the panic that came on him now he craftily decided to transfer allhis savings to the other shore. The factory, of course, he must leavebehind; but he drafted a hasty will presenting all his money to theCampbellite church under conditions that he counted on to gain him ahigh commercial rating in heaven. 

Over his shoulder, as he wrote, a shadow waited, grinning; and the oldman had hardly folded his last testament and stuffed it into hispillow-slip when the grisly hand was laid on his shoulders and UncleLoren was no longer there. 

II

His uncle's demise cut Eddie out of the picnic with Luella; but she waspresent at the funeral and gave him a wonderful smile. Uncle Loren'sfinal will was not discovered until the pillow-slip was sent to thewash; and at the funeral Eddie was still the object of more or lessdisguised congratulations as an important heir. 

Luella solaced him with rare tact and tenderness, and spoke much of hisloneliness and his need of a helpmate. Eddie resolved to ask her tomarry him as soon as he could compose the speech. 

Some days later Uncle Loren's farewell will turned up, and Eddie fellfrom grace with a thump. The town laughed at him, as people always laughwhen a person--particularly so plump a person as Eddie was--falls hardon the slippery sidewalk of this icy world. 

In his dismay he hastened to Luella for sympathy, but she turned upmissing. She jilted him with a jolt that knocked his heart out of hismouth. He stood, as it were, gaping stupidly, in the middle of thehighway. 

Then Ellaphine Govers came along, picked his heart out of the road, dusted it, and offered it back. He was so grateful that he asked her tokeep it for him. He was so pitiable an object that he felt honored evenby the support of Ellar Govers. 

He went with Ellar quite a lot. He found her very comfortable company. She seemed flattered by his attention. Other people acted as if theywere doing him a favor by letting him stand around. 

He had lost Uncle Loren's money, but he still had a small job at thefactory. Partly to please Ellar and partly to show certain folks that hewas not yet dead, he took her out for a drive behind a livery-stablehorse. It was a beautiful drive, and the horse was so tame that itshowed no desire to run away. It was perfectly willing to stand stillwhere the view was good. 

He let Ellar drive awhile, and that was the only time the horsemisbehaved. It saw a stack of hay, nearly went mad, and tried to climb arail fence; but Ellar yelled at it and slapped the lines at it and gotit past the danger zone, and it relapsed into its usual mood of despair. 

Eddie told Ellar the horse was "attackted with haydrophobia. " And shenearly laughed herself to death and said:

"You do say the funniest things!"

She was a girl who could appreciate a fellow's jokes, and he saw thatthey could have awful good times together. He told her so withoutdifficulty and she agreed that they could, and they were as good asengaged before they got back as far as the fair-grounds. As they cameinto the familiar streets Eddie observed a remarkable change in themanner of the people they passed. People made an effort to attract hiseye. They wafted him salutes from a distance. He encountered such alifting of hats, elaborateness of smiles and flourish of hands, that hesaid to Ellaphine:

"Say, Pheeny, I wonder what the joke is!"

"Me, I guess, " sighed Ellaphine. "They're makin' fun of you for takin'me out buggy-ridin'. "

"Ah, go on!" said Eddie. "They've found out something about me andthey're pokin' fun. "

He was overcome with shame and drove to Ellaphine's house by a sidestreet and escorted the horse to the livery-stable by a back alley. Onhis way home he tried in vain to dodge Luella Thickins, but she headedhim off with one of her Sunday-best smiles. She bowled him over by aneffusive manner. 

"Why, Eddie, you haven't been round to see me for the longest time!Can't you come on over 'safternoon? I'd just love to see you!"

He wondered whether she had forgotten how she had ground his meek heartunder her heel the last time he called. 

She was so nice to him that she frightened him. He mumbled that he wouldcertainly call that afternoon, and got away, wondering what the trickwas. Her smile seemed less pretty than it used to be. 

III

A block farther on Eddie met a man who explained the news, which had runacross the town like oil on water. Tim Holdredge, an idle lawyer who hadnothing else to do, looked into the matter of Uncle Loren's will andfound that the old man, in his innocence of charity and his passion foreconomy, had left his money to the church on conditions that were notaccording to the law. The money reverted to the estate. Eddie was theestate. 

When Tim Holdredge slapped Eddie on the shoulder and explained theresult of what he called "the little joker" in Uncle Loren's will, Eddiedid not rejoice, as Tim had a right to expect. 

Eddie was poisoned by a horrible suspicion. The logic of events ranthrough his head like a hateful tune which he could not shake off:

"When Luella thought I was coming into a pile of money she was nice tome. When she heard I wasn't she was mean to me. Now that my money'scoming to me, after all, she's nice again. Therefore--" But he wasashamed to give that ungallant _ergo_ brain room. 

Still more bewildering was the behavior of Ellaphine. As soon as heheard of his good fortune he hurried to tell her about it. Her motheranswered the door-bell and congratulated him on his good luck. When heasked for Ellar, her mother said, "She was feelin' right poorly, soshe's layin' down. " He was so alarmed that he forgot about Luella, whowaited the whole afternoon all dressed up. 

After supper that night he patrolled before Ellaphine's home and triedto pluck up courage enough to twist that old door-bell again. Suddenlyshe ran into him. She was sneaking through the front gate. He tried totalk to her, but she said:

"I'm in a tur'ble hurry. I got to go to the drug-store and get somechloroform liniment. Mamma's lumbago's awful bad. "

He walked along with her, though she tried to escape him. The firstdrowsy lamp-post showed him that Ellaphine had been crying. It was theleast becoming thing she could have done. Eddie asked whether her motherwas so sick as all that. She said "No"--then changed to "Yes"--and thenstopped short and began to blubber uncouthly, dabbing her eyesalternately with the backs of her wrists. 

Eddie stared awhile, then yielded to an imperious urge to clasp her tohis heart and comfort her. She twisted out of his arms, and snapped, "Don't you touch me, Eddie Pouch!"

Eddie mumbled, inanely, "You didn't mind it this mornin', buggy-ridin'. "

Her answer completely flabbergasted him:

"No; because you didn't have all that money then. "

"Gee whiz, Pheeny!" he gasped. "What you got against Uncle Loren'smoney? It ain't a disease, is it? It's not ketchin', is it?"

"No, " she sobbed; "but we--Well, when you were so poor and all, Ithought you might--you might really like me because I could be ofsome--of some use to you; but now you--you needn't think I'm goin' tohold you to any--anything against your will. "

Eddie realized that across the street somebody had stopped to listen. Eddie wanted to throw a rock at whoever it was, but Ellaphine absorbedhim as she wailed:

"It 'd be just like you to be just's nice to me as ever; but I'm notgoin' to tie you down to any homely old crow like me when you got moneyenough to marry anybody. You can get Luella Thickins back now. You couldmarry the Queen of England if you'd a mind to. "

Eddie could find nothing better to say than, "Well, I'll be dog-on'd!"

While he gaped she got away. 

IV

Luella Thickins cast her spells over Eddie with all her might, but heunderstood them now and escaped through their coarse meshes. She was soresolute, however, that he did not dare trust himself alone in the sametown with her unless he had a chaperon. 

He sent a note to Ellaphine, saying he was in dire trouble and neededher help. This brought him the entree to her parlor. He told her theexact situation and begged her to rescue him from Luella. 

Ellaphine's craggy features grew as radiant as a mountain peak in thesunrise. The light made beautiful what it illumined. She consented atlast to believe in Eddie's devotion, or at least in his need of her; andthe homely thing enjoyed the privilege of being pleaded for and ofyielding to the prayers of an ardent lover. 

She assumed that the marriage could not take place for several years, ifever. She wanted to give Eddie time to be sure of his heart; but Eddiewas stubborn and said:

"Seein' as we're agreed on gettin' married, let's have the wedding rightaway and get it over with. "

When Ellaphine's mother learned that Ellaphine had a chance to marry anheir and was asking for time, Mrs. Govers delivered an oration thatwould have sent Ellaphine to the altar with almost anybody, let aloneher idolized Eddie. 

The wedding was a quiet affair. Everybody in Carthage was invited. Fewcame. People feared that if they went they would have to sendwedding-presents, and Eddie and Ellar were too unimportant to the sociallife of Carthage to make their approval valuable. 

Eddie wore new shoes, which creaked and pinched. He looked twice asuncomfortable and twice as sad as he had looked at his uncle Loren'sobsequies; and he suffered that supreme disenchantment of a too-largecollar with a necktie rampant. 

In spite of the ancient and impregnable theory that all brides arebeautiful, was there ever a woman who looked her best in the uniform ofapproaching servitude? In any case, Ellaphine's best was not good, andshe was at her worst in her ill-fitting white gown, with the veil askew. Her graceless carriage was not improved by the difficulty of keepingstep with her escort and the added task of keeping step with the music. 

The organist, Mr. Norman Maugans, always grew temperamental when heplayed Mendelssohn's "Wedding March, " and always relieved its monotonouscadence with passionate accelerations and abrupt retardations. That madewalking difficult. 

When the minister had finished with the couple and they moved down theaisle to what the paper called the "Bridle March, by Lohengrin, " Mr. Maugans always craned his neck to see and usually put his foot on thewrong pedal, with the startling effect of firing a cannon at thedeparting guests. 

He did not crane his neck, however, to see Mr. And Mrs. Pouch depart. They were too commonplace entirely. He played the march with suchdoleful indifference that Eddie found the aisle as long as the distancefrom Marathon to Athens. Also he was trying to walk so that his pinchingshoes would not squeak. 

At the end of the last pew Eddie and Ellaphine encountered LuellaThickins leaning out into the aisle and triumphantly beautiful in herfinest raiment. Her charms were militant and vindictive, and her smileplainly said: "Uh-huh! Don't you wish you'd taken me instead of thatthing you've hitched up with for life?"

Eddie gave her one glance and found her hideous. Ellaphine lowered hereyelids in defeat and slunk from the church, thinking:

"Now he's already sorry that he married me. What can he see in me tolove? Nothing! Nothing!"

When they clambered into the carriage Eddie said, "Well, Mrs. Pouch, give your old husband a kiss!"

Ellaphine shrank away from him, however, crying again. He was hurt andpuzzled until he remembered that it is the business of brides to cry. He held her hand and tried to console her for being his victim, andimagined almost every reason for her tears but the true one. 

The guests at the church straggled to Mrs. Govers's home, drawn by thecall of refreshments. Luella was the gayest of them all. People wonderedwhy Eddie had not married her instead of Ellaphine. Luella heard someone say, "What on earth can he see in her?"

Luella answered, "What on earth can she see in him?" It was hardlyplaying fair, but Luella was a poor loser. She even added, to clinch it, "What on earth can they see in each other?"

That became the town comment on the couple when there was any comment atall. Mainly they were ignored completely. 

Eddie and Ellar were not even honored with the usual outburst of theignoblest of all sports--bride-baiting. Nobody tied a white ribbon tothe wheel of the hack that took them to the depot. Old shoes had notbeen provided and rice had been forgotten. They were not pelted orsubjected to immemorial jokes. They were not chased to the train, andtheir elaborate schemes for deceiving the neighbors as to the place oftheir honeymoon were wasted. Nobody cared where they went or how longthey stayed. 

They returned sheepishly, expecting to run a gantlet of humor; butpeople seemed unaware that they had been away. They settled down intothe quiet pool of Carthage without a splash, like a pair of mud-turtlesslipping off a log into the water. Even the interest in Eddie'sinheritance did not last long, for Uncle Loren's fortune did not lastlong--not that they were spendthrift, for they spent next to nothing;but money must be fed or it starves to death. Money must grow or wither. 

V

Eddie found that his uncle's reputation for hard dealing had been acondition of his success. He soon learned that the feather-dusterfactory could be run at a profit only by the most microscopic care. Wages must be kept down; hours kept up; the workers driven every minute, fined if they were late, nagged if they dawdled. Profit could be wrungfrom the trade only by ugly battles with dealers and purchasers. Rawmaterial had to be fought down, finished product fought up; bills duefought off, accounts fought in; the smallest percentage of a percentagewrestled for. 

Eddie was incapable of such vigilant hostility toward everybody. Thefactory almost immediately ceased to pay expenses. Eddie was prompt tomeet debts, but lenient as a collector. The rest of his inheritancefared no better. Eddie was an ideal mortgagee. The first widow wept himout of his interest in five tears. Having obliged her, he could hardlydeny the next person, who had money but wanted more, "to carry out a bigdeal. "

Eddie first gained a reputation for being a kind-hearted gentleman and aChristian, and later a notoriety for being an easy mark. Eddie overheardsuch comment eventually, and it wounded him as deeply as it bewilderedhim. Bitterer than the contempt for a hard man is the contempt for asoft man who is betrayed by a vice of mercy. Eddie was hopelesslyaddicted to decency. 

Uncle Loren had been a miser and so close that his nickname had impliedthe ability to skin a flint. People hated him and raged against him; butit suddenly became evident that they had worked hard to meet their billspayable to him. They had sat up nights devising schemes to gain cash forhim. He was a cause of industry and thrift and self-denial. He paid poorwages, but he kept the factory going. He squeezed a penny until theeagle screamed, but he made dusters out of the tail feathers, and he wasplanning to branch out into whisk brooms and pillows when, in the wordsof the pastor, he was "called home. " The pastor liked the phrase, as itdid not commit him to any definite habitat. 

Eddie, however, though he worked hard and used thrift, and, withEllaphine's help, practised self-denial, found that he was not so big aman as the small man he succeeded. He increased the wages and cut downthe hours, and found that he had diminished the output of everythingexcept complaints. The men loafed shamelessly, cheated him of the energyand the material that belonged to him, and whined all the time. Hisdebtors grew shiftless and contemptuous. 

It is the irony, the meanness, of the trade of life that virtue mayprove vicious in effect; and viciousness may produce good fruit. Figs dogrow from thistles. 

For a time the Pouch couple attracted a great deal of attention from thepeople of Carthage--the sort of attention that people on shore devote toa pair of capsized canoeists for whom nobody cares to risk his life. 

Luella Thickins had forced the note of gaiety at the wedding, but shesoon grew genuinely glad that Eddie had got away. She began to believethat she had jilted him. 

VI

People who wondered what Mr. And Mrs. Pouch saw in each other could notrealize that he saw in her a fellow-sufferer who upheld him with herlove in all his terrors. She was everything that his office wasnot--peace without demand for money; glowing admiration and raptures ofpassion. 

What she saw in him was what a mother sees in a crippled child that runshome to her when the play of the other boys is too swift or too rough. She saw a good man, who could not fight because he could not slash andtrample and loot. She saw what the Belgian peasant women saw--a littlecottage holder staring in dismay at the hostile armies crashing abouthis homestead. 

The only comfort Eddie found in the situation was the growingrealization that it was hopeless. The drowsy opiate of surrender beganto spread its peace through his soul. His torment was the remorse ofproving a traitor to his dead uncle's glory. The feather-dustery thathad been a monument was about to topple into the weeds. Eddie writhed atthat and at his feeling of disloyalty to the employees, who would beturned out wageless in a small town that was staggering under the burdenof hard times. 

He made a frantic effort to keep going on these accounts, but the battlewas too much for him. He could not imagine ways and means--he knewnothing of the ropes of finance. He was like a farmer with a scytheagainst sharpshooters. Ellaphine began to fear that the struggle wouldbreak him down. One night she persuaded him to give up. 

She watched him anxiously the next morning as his fat little body, bulging with regrets, went meekly down the porch steps and along thewalk. The squeal of the gate as he shoved through sounded like a groanfrom his own heart. He closed the gate after him with the gentle care hegave all things. Then he leaned across it to wave to his Pheeny. It waslike the good-by salute of a man going to jail. 

Ellaphine moped about the kitchen, preparing him the best dinner shecould to cheer him when he came home at noon. To add a touch of graceshe decided to set a bowl of petunias in front of him. He loved thehomely little flowers in their calico finery, like farmers' daughters ata picnic. Their cheap and almost palpable fragrancy delighted him whenit powdered the air. She hoped that they would bring a smile to him atnoon, for he could still afford petunias. 

She was squatting by the colony aligned along the walk, and her bigsunbonnet hid her unbeautiful face from the passers-by and theirs fromher, when she caught a glimpse of Luella Thickins coming along, gigglingwith the banker's son. Luella put on a little extra steam for thebenefit of Ellaphine, who was glad of her sunbonnet and did not look up. 

Later there came a quick step, thumping the boardwalk in a rhythm shewould have recognized but for its allegrity. The gate was opened with asweep that brought a shriek from its old rheumatic hinge, and waspermitted to swing shut with an unheeded smack. Ellaphine feared it wassomebody coming with the haste that bad news inspires. Something awfulhad happened to Eddie! Her knees could not lift her to face the eviltidings. She dared not turn her head. 

Then she heard Eddie's own voice: "Pheeny! Pheeny, honey! Everything'sall right!"

Pheeny spilled the petunias and sat down on them. Eddie lifted her upand pushed his glowing face deep into her sunbonnet, and kissed her. 

Luella Thickins was coming back and her giggling stopped. She and thebanker's son, who were just sauntering about, exchanged glances ofdisgust at the indecorous proceeding. Later Luella resumed her giggleand enjoyed hugely her comment:

"Ellar looks fine in a sunbonnet! The bigger it is, the better shelooks. "

VII

Meantime Eddie was supporting his Pheeny into the house. His path wasstrewn with petunias and she supposed he had some great victory toannounce. He had; but he was the victim. 

The conqueror was the superintendent of the factory, Jabez Pittinger, who had survived a cycle of Uncle Loren's martinetism with lessresentment than a year of Eddie's lenience. But Eddie is tellingEllaphine of his glorious achievement:

"You see, I went to the fact'ry feeling like I was goin' to my grave. "

"I know, " she said; "but what happened?"

"I just thought I'd rather die than tack up the notice that we weregoing to shut down and turn off those poor folks and all. "

"I know, " said Ellaphine; "but tell me. "

"Well, finally, " Eddie plodded along, "I tried to draw up the'nouncement with the markin'-brush; but I just couldn't make theletters. So I called in Jabe Pittinger and told him how it was; and Isays to him: 'Jabe, I jest naturally can't do it m'self. I wisht you'dsend the word round that the factory's goin' to stop next Sat'd'y. ' Ithought he'd show some surprise; but he didn't. He just shot a splashof tobacco-juice through that missin' tooth of his and says, 'I wouldn'tif I's you. ' And I says, 'Goodness knows I hate to; but there's no wayout of it. ' And he wopsed his cud round and said, 'Mebbe there is. ''What do you mean?' I says. And he says, 'Fact is, Eddie'--he alwayscalled me Mr. Pouch or Boss before, but I couldn't say anything to him, seeing--"

"I know!" Ellaphine almost screamed. "But what'd he say? What's theupshot?"

Eddie went on at his ox-like gait. "'Well, ' he says, 'fact is, Eddie, ' he says, 'I been expectin' this, and I been figgerin' if theywasn't a way somewhere to keep a-runnin', ' says he; 'and I been talkin'to certain parties that believes as I do, that the fault ain't with thefeather-duster business, but with the way it's run, ' he says. 'Peoplegotter have feather dusters, ' he says; 'but they gotter be gave to 'emright. ' O' course I knew he was gettin' at me, but I was in no p'sitionto talk back. "

"Oh, please, Eddie!" Ellaphine moaned. "Please tell me! I'm goin' crazyto know the upshot of it, and I smell the pie burnin'--it's rhubob, too. "

"You got rhubob pie for dinner to-day?" Eddie chortled. "Oh, crickety, that's fine!"

He followed her into the kitchen and helped her carry the things to thedining-room, where they waited on each other in alternate dashes andclashes of "Lemme get it!" and "You set right still!"

Eventually he reached the upshot, which was that Mr. Pittinger thoughthe might raise money to run the factory if Eddie would give him thecontrol and drop out. Eddie concluded, with a burst of rapture: "I'm sotickled I wisht I could telegraft poor Uncle Loren that everything's allright!"

VIII

It was an outrageous piece of petty finance on high models, and iteuchred Eddie out of everything he had in the world except his illusionthat Jabez was working for the good of the factory. 

Eddie always said "The Fact'ry" in the tone that city people use whenthey say "The Cathedral. "

Ellaphine saw through the wiles of Jabez and the measly capitalists hehad bound together, and she was ablaze with rage at them and with pityfor her tender-hearted child-husband; but she did not reveal theseemotions to Eddie. 

She encouraged him to feast on the one sweetmeat of the situation: thatthe hands would not be turned off and the factory would keep open doors. In fact, when doubt began to creep into his own idle soul and a feelingof shame depressed him, as the butt of the jokes and the pity that theneighbors flung at him, Ellaphine pretended to be overjoyed at thetriumph he had wrested from defeat. 

And when he began to chafe at his lack of occupation, and to fret abouttheir future, she went to the factory and invaded the office where theusurper, Jabez Pittinger, sat enthroned at the hallowed desk, tossingcopious libations of tobacco-juice toward a huge new cuspidor. Shedemanded a job for Eddie and bullied Jabez into making him a bookkeeper, at a salary of forty-five dollars a month. 

Thus, at last, Eddie Pouch found his place in the world. There aresoldiers who make ideal first sergeants and are ruined and ruinous assecond lieutenants; and there are soldiers who are worthless as firstsergeants, but irresistible as major-generals. Eddie was a born firstsergeant, a routine man, a congenital employee--doomed, like fire, to bea splendid servant and a disastrous master. 

Working for himself, he neglected every opportunity. Working foranother, he neglected nothing. Meeting emergencies, tricking creditorsand debtors, and massacring competitors were not in his line; but whenit came to adding up columns of figures all day, making out bills, drawing checks for somebody else to sign, and the Santa Claus functionof stuffing the pay-roll into the little envelopes--Eddie was there. Shrewd old Jabez recognized this. He tried him on a difficult collectiononce--sent him forth to pry an ancient debt of eighteen dollars andthirty-four cents out of the meanest man in town, vice Uncle Loren. Eddie came back with a look of contentment. 

"Did you git it?" said Jabez. 

"Well, you see, it was like this: the poor feller--"

"Poor heller! Did you git it?"

"No; he was so hard up I lent him four dollars. "

"What!"

"Out of my own pocket, o' course. "

Jabez remarked that he'd be hornswoggled; but he valued the incident andadded it to the anecdotes he used when he felt that he had need tojustify himself for playing Huerta with his dreamy Madero. 

IX

After that the most Jabez asked of Eddie was to write "Please remit" or"Past due" on the mossier bills. Eddie preferred an exquisite poem hehad copied from a city creditor: "This account has no doubt escaped yournotice. As we have several large obligations to meet, we should greatlyappreciate a check by return mail. "

Eddie loved that. There was a fine chivalry and democracy about it, asone should say: "We're all debtors and creditors in this world, and webig fellows and you little fellows must all work together. "

Life had a regularity now that would have maddened a man more ambitiousthan Eddie or a woman more restless than Ellaphine. Their worldwas like the petunia-garden--the flowers were not orchids ortelegraph-pole-stemmed roses; but the flower faces were joyous, theirfrocks neat, and their perfume savory. 

Eddie knew just how much money was coming in and there was no temptationto hope for an increase. They knew just how much time they had, and oneday was like another except that along about the first of every monthEddie went to the office a little earlier and went back at night to getout the bills and adjust his balances. 

On these evenings Ellaphine was apt to go along and sit with him, knitting thick woolen socks for the winter, making him shirts ornightgowns, or fashioning something for herself or the house. Herloftiest reach of splendor was a crazy quilt; and her rag carpets werehighly esteemed. 

On Sundays they went to church in the morning and again in the evening. Prayer-meeting night saw them always on their way to the place where thechurch bell called: "Come! Come!"

Sometimes irregular people, who forgot it was prayer-meeting night, would be reminded of it by seeing Eddie and Ellar go by. They went soearly that there was time for the careless to make haste with theirbonnets and arrive in time. 

It was a saying that housewives set their kitchen clocks by Eddie'stransits to and from the factory. At any rate, there was no end to theoccasions when shiftless gossips, dawdling on their porches, weresurprised to see Eddie toddle homeward, and scurried away, cackling:

"My gracious! There goes Eddie Pouch, and my biscuits not cut out!"

X

The whole year was tranquil now for the Pouches, and the halcyon broodedunalarmed in the waveless cove of their life. There were no debtors tobe harassed, no creditors to harass them. They paid cash foreverything--at least, Ellaphine did; for Eddie turned his entireforty-five dollars over to her. She was his banker and his steward. 

She could not persuade him to smoke, or to buy new clothes before theold ones grew too shabby for so nice a man as a bookkeeper is apt to be. He did not drink or play cards or billiards; he did not belong to anylodge or political organization. 

The outgo of money was as regular as the income--so much for thecontribution-basket on Sundays; so much for the butcher; so much for thegrocer; so much for the coal-oil lamps. The baker got none of theirmoney and the druggist little. 

A few dollars went now and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods, which Pheeny made up; and Eddie left an occasional sum at thePantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers whenthe seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. AsEddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was ratherhis shoes than his pantaloons that felt the wear and tear of attrition. 

And yet, in spite of all the tender miserhood of Ellaphine and theasceticism of Eddie, few of the forty-five dollars survived the thirtydays' demands. Still, there was always something for the savings-bank, and the blessing on its increment was that it grew by exactions fromthemselves--not from their neighbors. 

The inspiration of the fund was the children that were to be. The fundhad ample time for accretion, since the children were as late as Neveris. 

Such things are not discussed, of course, in Carthage. And nobody knewhow fiercely they yearned. Nobody knew of the high hopes that flared andfaded. 

After the first few months of marriage Eddie had begun to call Pheeny"Mother"--just for fun, you know. And it teased her so that he kept itup, for he liked a joke as well as the next fellow. Before people, ofcourse, she was "Pheeny, " and, on very grand occasions, "the wife. ""Mrs. Pouch" was beyond him. But once, at a sociable, he called acrossthe room, "Say, mother!"

He was going to ask her whether she wanted him to bring her a piece ofthe "chalklut" cake or a hunk of the "cokernut, " but he got no farther. Nobody noticed it; but Eddie and Pheeny were consumed with shame andslunk home scarlet. Nobody noticed that they had gone. 

Time went on and on, and the fund grew and grew--a little coral reef ofpennies and nickels and dimes. The amusements of the couple werepetty--an occasional church sociable was society; a revival period wasdrama. They never went to the shows that came to the Carthage OperaHouse. They did not miss much. 

Eddie wasted no time on reading any fiction except that in the newscolumns of the evening paper, which a boy threw on the porch in atwisted boomerang every afternoon, and which Eddie untwisted and readafter he had wiped the dishes that Pheeny washed. 

Ellaphine spent no money on such vanities as novels or short stories, but she read the edifying romances in the Sunday-school paper and anoccasional book from the Sunday-school library, mainly about childrenwhose angelic qualities gave her a picture of child life that would havecontrasted strongly with what their children would have been if they hadhad any. 

Their great source of literature, however, was the Bible. Soon aftertheir factory passed out of their control and their evenings ceased tobe devoted to riddles in finance, they had resolved to read the Biblethrough, "from kiver to kiver. " And Eddie and Ellaphine found that achapter read aloud before going to bed was an excellent sedative. 

They had not invaded Genesis quite three weeks before the evening whenit came Eddie's turn to read aloud the astonishing romance of Abram, whobecame Abraham, and of Sarai, who became Sarah. It was very excitingwhen the child was promised to Sarah, though she was "well stricken inage. " Eddie smiled as he read, "Sarah laughed within herself. " ButPheeny blushed. 

Ellaphine was far from the ninety years of Sarah, but she felt that thepromise of a son was no laughing matter. These poignant hopes and awfuldenials and perilous adventures are not permitted to be written about orprinted for respectable eyes. If they are discussed it must be withlaughing ribaldry. 

Even in their solitude Eddie and Pheeny used modest paraphrases andbreathed hard and looked askance, and made sure that no one overheard. They whispered as parents do when their children are abed up-stairs. 

The neighbors gave them hardly thought enough to imagine the loftytrepidation of these thrilling hours. The neighbors never knew of themerciless joke Fate played on them when, in their ignorance, theybelieved the Lord had sent them a sign. They dwelt in a fools' paradisefor a long time, hoarding their glorious expectations. 

At length Pheeny grew brazen enough to consult the old and peevishDoctor Noxon; and he laughed her hopes away and informed her that sheneed never trouble herself to hope again. 

That was a smashing blow; and they cowered together under the shadow ofthis great denial, each telling the other that it did not matter, sincechildren were a nuisance and a danger anyway. 

They pretended to take solace in two current village tragedies--thedeath of the mayor's wife in childbed and the death of the minister'sson in disgrace; but, though they lied to each other lovingly, they wereneither convincing nor convinced. 

XI

Year followed year as season trudged at the heel of season. The onlydifference it made to them was that now Ellaphine evicted weeds from thepetunia-beds, and now swept snow from the porch and beat the broom outon the steps; now Eddie carried his umbrella up against the sun or rainand mopped his bald spot, and now he wore his galoshes through the slushand was afraid he had caught a cold. 

The fund in the bank went on growing like a neglected garden, but it wasgrowing for nothing. Eddie walked more slowly to and from the office, and Pheeny took a longer time to set the table. She had to sit down agood deal between trips and suffered a lot of pain. She said nothingabout it to Eddie of evenings, but it grew harder to conceal herweakness from him when he helped her with the Sunday dinner. 

Finally she could not walk to church one day and had to stay at home. Hestayed with her, and their empty pew made a sensation. Eddie fought atPheeny until she consented to see the doctor again--on Monday. 

The doctor censured her for being foolish enough to try to die on herfeet, and demanded of Eddie why they did not keep a hired girl. Eddiehad never thought of it. He was horrified to realize how heartless andnegligent he had been. He promised to get one in at once. 

Pheeny stormed and wept against the very idea; but her protests ended onthe morning when she could not get up to cook Eddie's breakfast for him. He had to get his own and hers, and he was late at the office for thefirst time in years. Two householders, seeing him going by, looked attheir clocks and set them back half an hour. 

Jabez spoke harshly to Eddie about his tardiness. It would never do toignore an imperfection in the perfect. Eddie was Pheeny's nurse thatnight and overslept in the morning. It would have made him late again ifhe had stopped to fry an egg or boil a cup of coffee. He ranbreakfastless to his desk. 

After that Pheeny consented to the engagement of a cook. They tried fiveor six before they found one who combined the traits of being bothenduring and endurable. 

Eddie was afraid of her to a pitiful degree. She put too much coffee inhis coffee and she made lighter bread than Pheeny did. 

"There's no substance to her biscuits!" Eddie wailed, hoping to comfortPheeny, who had leisure enough now to develop at that late date herfirst acquaintance with jealousy. 

XII

The cook was young and vigorous, and a hired man on a farm might havecalled her good-looking; but her charms did not interest Eddie. His soulwas replete with the companionship of his other self--Pheeny; and ifDelia had been as sumptuous a beauty as Cleopatra he would have beenstill more afraid of her. He had no more desire to possess her than toown the Kohinoor. 

And Delia, in her turn, was far more interested in the winks andflatteries of the grocer's boy and the milkman than in any conquest ofthe fussy little fat man, who ate whatever she slammed before him andnever raised his eyes. 

Pheeny, however, could not imagine this. She could not know how secureshe was in Eddie's heart, or how she had grown in and about his souluntil she fairly permeated his being. 

So Pheeny lay up in the prison of her bed and imagined vain things, interpreting the goings-on down-stairs with a fantastic cynicism thatwould have startled Boccaccio. She did not openly charge Eddie withthese fancied treacheries. She found him guilty silently and silentlyacquitted him of fault, abjectly asking herself what right she had todeny him all acquaintance with beauty, hilarity, and health. 

She remembered her mother's eternal moan, "All men are alike. " Shedramatized her poor mouse of a husband as a devastating Don Juan; andthen forgave him, as most of the victims of Don Juan's ruthless piraciesforgave him. 

She suffered hideously, however. Eddie, seeing the deep, sad look of hereyes as they studied him, wondered and wondered, and often asked herwhat the matter was; but she always smiled as a mother smiles at a childthat is too sweet to punish for any mischief, and she always answered:"Nothing! Nothing!" But then she would sigh to the caverns of her soul. And sometimes tears would drip from her brimming lids to her pillow. Still, she would tell him nothing but "Nothing!"

Finally the long repose repaired her worn-out sinews and she grew wellenough to move about the house. She prospered on the medicine of a newhope that she should soon be well enough to expel the third person whomade a crowd of their little home. 

And then Luella Thickins came back to town. Luella had married longbefore and moved away; but now she came back a widow, handsome insteadof pretty, billowy instead of willowy, seductive instead of spoony, andwith that fearsome menace a widow carries like a cloud about her. 

Eddie spoke of meeting her "down-town, " and in his fatuous innocenceannounced that she was "as pirty as ever. " If he had hit Pheeny with ahatchet he would have inflicted a less painful wound. 

XIII

Luella's presence cast Pheeny into a profounder dismay than she had everfelt about the cook. After all, Delia was only a hired girl, whileLuella was an old sweetheart. Delia had put wicked ideas into Eddie'shead and now Luella would finish him. As Ellaphine's mother had alwayssaid, "Men have to have novelty. "

The Lord Himself had never seen old Mr. Govers stray an inch aside fromthe straight path of fidelity; but his wife had enhanced him with alifelong suspicion that eventually established itself as historicalfact. 

Pheeny could find some excuse for Eddie's Don Juanity with the commonclay of Delia, especially as she never quite believed her own beliefs inthat affair; but Luella was different. Luella had been a rival. Themerest courtesy to Luella was an unpardonable affront to every sacredright of successful rivalry. 

The submerged bitternesses that had gathered in her soul like bubbles atthe bottom of a hot kettle came showering upward now, and her heartsimmered and thrummed, ready to boil over if the heat were not removed. 

One day, soon, Luella fastened on Eddie as he left the factory to gohome to dinner. She had loitered about, hoping to engage the eye ofJabez, who was now the most important widower in town. Luella hadelected him for her next; but he was away, and she whetted her wits onEddie. She walked at his side, excruciating him with her glib memoriesof old times and the mad devotion he had cherished for her then. 

He felt that it was unfaithful of him even to listen to her, but hecould not spur up courage enough to bolt and run. He welcomed the sightof his own gate as an asylum of refuge. To his horror, Luella stoppedand continued her chatter, draping herself in emotional attitudes anditalicizing her coquetries. Her eyes seemed to drawl languorous wordsthat her lips dared not voice; and she committed the heinous offense ofplucking at Eddie's coat-sleeve and clinging to his hand. Then shewalked on like an erect cobra. 

Eddie's very back had felt that Pheeny was watching him from one of thewindows or from all the windows; for when, at last, he achieved the rudevictory of breaking away from Luella and turned toward the porch, everywindow was a somber eye of reproach. 

He would not have looked so guilty if he had been guilty. He shuffledinto the house like a boy who comes home late from swimming; and when hecalled aloud "Pheeny! Oh, Pheeny!" his voice cracked and his throat wasuncertain with phlegm. 

He found Pheeny up-stairs in their room, with the door closed. Heclosed it after him when he went in. He feigned a care-free joy at thesight of her, and stumbled over his own foot as he crossed the room andput his arms about her, where she sat in the big rocking-chair; but shebrushed his arms aside and bent her cheek away from his pursed lips. This startled him, and he gasped:

"Why, what's the matter, honey? Why don't you kiss me?"

"You don't want to kiss me, " she muttered. 

"Why don't I?" he exclaimed. 

"Because I'm not pirty. I'm not young. I'm not round or tall. I haven'tgot nice clothes or those terrible manners that men like in women. You're tired of me. I don't blame you; but you don't have to kiss me, and you don't want to. "

It was a silly sort of contest for so old a couple; but their souls feltas young as childhood, or younger, and this debate was all-important. Hecaught at her again and tried to drag her head to his lips, pleadinginanely:

"Of course I want to kiss you, honey! Of course I do! Please--pleasedon't be this way!"

But she evaded him still, and glared at him as from a great distance, sneering rather at herself than him and using that old byword ofLuella's:

"What can you see in me?" Suddenly she challenged him: "Who do you kisswhen you kiss me?"

He stared at her for a while as if he were not sure who she was. Then hesat down on the broad arm of her chair and took one of her hands inhis--the hand with the wedding-ring on it--and seemed to talk to thehand more than to her, lifting the fingers one after another andstudying each digit as though it had a separate personality--as perhapsit had. 

XIV

"Who do I kiss when I kiss you? That's a funny question!"

He laughed solemnly. Then he made a very long speech, for him; and shelistened to it with the attention due to that most fascinating ofthemes, the discussion of oneself by another. 

"Pheeny, when I was about knee-high to a grasshopper I went over to playin Tim Holdredge's father's orchard; and when I started for home therewas a big dawg in old Mrs. Pittinger's front yard, and it jumped roundand barked at me. I guess it was just playing, because, as I remember itnow, it was wagging its tail, and afterward I found out it was only acocker spaniel; but I thought it was a wolf and was going to eat me. Ibegun to cry, and I was afraid to go backward or to go forward. And byand by a little girl came along and asked me what I was crying about, and I said, 'About the dawg!' And the little girl said: 'O-oh! He's big, ain't he?' And I said, 'He's goin' to eat one of us all up!' And thelittle girl said: 'Aw, don't you care! You take a-holt of my hand andI'll run past with you; and if he bites he'll bite me first and you cangit away!' She was as scared as I was, but she grabbed my hand and wegot by without being et up. Do you remember who that little girl was?"

The hand in his seemed to remember. The fingers of it closed on his amoment, then relaxed as if to listen for more. He mused on:

"I wasn't very big for my size even then, and I wasn't very brave ever. I didn't like to fight, like the other boys did, and I used to rathertake a lickin' than give one. Well, one day I was playin' marbles withanother boy, and he said I cheated when I won his big taw; but I didn't. He wanted to fight, though, and he hit me; and I wouldn't hit back. Hewas smaller than what I was, and he give me a lot of lip and dared me tofight; and I just couldn't. He said I was afraid, and so did the otherboys; and I guess I was. It seemed to me I was more afraid of hurtin'somebody else than gettin' hurt myself; but I guess I was just plainafraid. The other boys began to push me round and call me a cowardycalf, and I began to cry. I wanted to run home, but I was afraid tostart to run. And then a little girl came along and said: 'What's thematter, Eddie? What you cryin' for?' And I said, 'They're all pickin' onme and callin' me cowardy calf!' And she said: 'Don't you care! You comeright along with me; and if one of 'em says another word to you I'llscratch their nasty eyes out!' Do you remember that, Pheeny?"

Her other hand came forward and embraced his wrist. 

"And another time you found me cryin'. I was a little older, and I'dstudied hard and tried to get my lessons good; but I failed in theexam'nations, and I was goin' to tie a rock round my neck and jump inthe pond. But you said: 'Aw, don't you care, Eddie! I didn't pass inmine, either!'

"And when I wanted to go to college, and Uncle Loren wouldn't send me, Ididn't cry outside, but I cried inside; and I told you and you said:'Don't you care! I don't get to go to boardin'-school myself. '

"And when I was fool enough to think I liked that no-account LuellaThickins, and thought I'd go crazy because her wax-doll face wouldn'tsmile for me, you said: 'Don't you care, Eddie! You're much too good forher. I think you're the finest man in the country. '

"And when the baby didn't come and I acted like a baby myself, you said:'Don't you care, Eddie! Ain't we got each other?'

"Seems like ev'ry time I been ready to lay down and die you've beenthere with your old 'Don't you care! It's going to be all right!'

"Just last night I had a turrible dream. I didn't tell you about it forfear it would upset you. I dreamed I got awful sick at the office. Icouldn't seem to add the figures right and the old desk wabbled. FinallyI had to leave off and start for home, though it was only a quarter oftwelve; and I had to set down on Doc Noxon's horse-block and onHoldredge's wall to rest; and I couldn't get our gate open. And you runout and dragged me in, and got me up-stairs somehow, and sent Deliaaround for the doctor. 

"Doc Noxon made you have a trained nurse, but I couldn't stand her; andI wouldn't take medicine from anybody but you. I don't suppose I wasdreamin' more 'n a few minutes, all told; but it seemed like I laidthere for weeks, till one day Doc Noxon called you out of the room. Icouldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard you let out one horriblescream, and then I heard sounds like he was chokin' you, and you keptsayin': 'Oh no! No! No!'

"I tried to go and help you, but I couldn't lift my head. By and by youcome back, with your eyes all red. Doc Noxon was with you and he calledthe nurse over to him. You come to me and tried to smile; and you said:

"'Well, honey, how are you now?'

"Then I knew what the doctor had told you and I was worse scared thanwhen the black dawg jumped at me. I tried to be brave, but I never couldseem to be. I put out my hands to you and hollered:

"'Pheeny, I'm goin' to die! I know I'm goin' to die! Don't let me go!I'm afraid to die!'"

Now the hands clenched his with a frenzy that hurt--but beautifully. And he kissed the wedding-ring as he finished:

"And you dropped down to me on the floor by the bed and took myhands--just like that. And you whispered: 'Don't you care, honey! I'llgo with you. Don't you care!'

"And the fever seemed to cool out of me, and I kind of smiled and wasn'tafraid any more; and I turned my face to you and kissed you--like this, Pheeny. 

"Why, you've been cryin', haven't you? You mustn't cry--you mustn't! Allthose girls I been tellin' you about are the girl I kiss when I kissyou, Pheeny. There couldn't be anybody as beautiful as you are to me. 

"I ain't 'mounted to much; but it ain't your fault. I wouldn't have'mounted to anything at all if it hadn't been for you, Pheeny; and Ibeen the happiest feller in all this world--or I have been up to now. I'm awful lonedsome just now. Don't you s'pose you could spare me akiss?"

She spared him one. 

Then the cook pounded on the door and called through in a voice thatthreatened to warp the panels: "Ain't you folks ever comin' down todinner? I've rang the bell three times. Everything's all cold!"

But it wasn't. Everything was all warm. 

POP

I

They made a handsome family group, with just the one necessary elementof contrast. 

Father was the contrast. 

They were convened within and about the big three-walled divan which, according to the fashion, was backed up against a long library-table inwhat they now called the living-room. It had once been the sitting-roomand had contained a what-isn't-it and a sofa like an enormous baldcaterpillar, crowded against the wall so that you could fall off onlyone side of it. 

It was a family reunion and unexpected. Father was not convened with therest, but sat off in the shadow and counted the feet sticking out fromthe divan and protruding from the chairs. He counted fourteen feet, including his wife's and excluding his own. All the feet wereexpensively shod except his own. 

Three of the children had come home for a visit, and father, glad as hewas to see them, had a vague feeling that they had been brought in bysome other motive than their loudly proclaimed homesickness. He waswilling to wait until they disclosed it, for he had an idea what it wasand he was always glad to postpone a payment. It meant so much lessinterest to lose. Father was a business man. 

Father was also dismally computing the addition to the grocery bills, the butchery bills, and livery bills, and the others. He was figuringout the added expense of the dinner, with roast beef now costing as muchas peacocks' tongues. He had raised a large family and there was not adyspeptic in the lot--not even a banter. 

They had been photographed together the day before and the proof hadjust come home. Father was not in the picture. It was a handsomepicture. They admitted it themselves. They had urged father to comealong, but he had pleaded his business, as usual. As they studied thepicture they would glance across at father and realize how little thepicture lost by his absence. It lost nothing but the contrast. 

While they were engaged each in that most fascinating ofemployments--studying one's own photograph--they were all waiting forthe dining-room maid to appear like a black-and-white sketch and crisplyannounce that dinner was served. They had not arrived yet at having aman. Indeed, that room could still remember when a frowsy, blowsy hiredgirl was wont to stick her head in and groan, "Supper's ready!"

In fact, mother had never been able to live down a memory of the timewhen she used to put her own head in at a humbler dining-room door andcall with all the anger that cooks up in a cook: "Come on! What we got'son the table!" But mother had entirely forgotten the first few months ofher married life, when she would sing out to father: "Oh, honey, help meset the table, will you? I've a surprise for you--something you like!"

This family had evolved along the cycles so many families gothrough--from pin feathers to paradise plumes--only, the male bird hadfailed to improve his feathers or his song, though he never failed tobring up the food and keep the nest thatched. 

The history of an American family can often be traced by its monumentsin the names the children call the mother. Mrs. Grout had begun as--justone Ma. Eventually they doubled that and progressed from the accent onthe first to the accent on the second ma. Years later one of theinarticulate brats had come home as a collegian in a funny hat, and Mamahad become Mater. This had lasted until one of the brattines came homeas a collegienne with a swagger and a funny sweater. And then her Latintitle was Frenchified to _Mère_--which always gave father a shock; forfather had been raised on a farm, where only horses' wives were calledby that name. 

Father had been dubbed Pop at an early date. Efforts to change thistitle had been as futile as the terrific endeavors to keep him frompropping his knife against his plate. He had been browbeaten out ofusing the blade for transportation purposes, but at that point he hadsimply ceased to develop. 

Names like Pappah, Pater, and _Père_ would not cling to him; they felloff at once. Pop he was always called to his face, whether he werereferred to abroad as "the old man, " "the governor, " or "our dearfather. "

The evolution of the Grout family could be traced still more clearly inthe names the parents had given the children. The eldest was a daughter, though when she grew up she dropped back in the line and became ever somuch younger than her next younger brothers. She might have fallen stillfarther to the rear if she had not run up against another daughter whohad her own age to keep down. 

The eldest daughter, born in the grim days of early penury, had beengrimly entitled Julia. The following child, a son, was soberly called byhis father's given and his mother's maiden names--John Pennock Grout, orJno. P. , as his father wrote it. 

A year or two later there appeared another hostage. Labeling him was amatter of deep concern. John urged his own father's name, William; butthe mother wafted this away with a gesture of airy disgust. There was ahired girl in the kitchen now and mother was reading a good many novelsbetween stitches. She debated long and hard while the child waitedanonymous. At length she ventured on Gerald. She changed that two orthree times and the boy had a narrow escape from Sylvester. He cameperilously near to carrying Abélard through an amused world; but sheharked back to Gerald--which he spelled Jerrold at times. 

Then two daughters entered the family in succession and were stampedBeatrice--pronounced Bay-ah-treat-she by those who had the time and theenergy--and Consuelo, which Pop would call Counser-eller. 

By this time Julia had grown up and was beginning at finishing-school. She soon saw that Julia would never do--never! She had started with ahandicap, but she caught up with the rest and passed them gracefully byingeniously altering the final _a_ to an _e_, and pronouncing itZheelee. 

Her father never could get within hailing distance of the French _j_ and_u_, and teetered awkwardly between Jilly and Jelly. He was apt to relaxsickeningly into plain Julia--especially before folks, when he wasnervous anyway. Only they did not say "before folks" now; the Groutsnever said "before folks" now--they said, "In the presence of guests. "

By the time the next son came the mother was shamelessly literary enoughto name him Ethelwolf, which his school companions joyously abbreviatedto Ethel, overlooking the wolf. 

Ethelwolf was the last of the visitors. For by this time _Mère_ hadaccumulated so many absolutely unforgivable grievances against herabsolutely impossible husband that she felt qualified for that crown ofcomfortable martyrhood, that womanly ideal, "a wife in name only"--andonly that "for the sake of the children. "

By this time the children, too, had acquired grievances against Pop. Themore refined they grew the coarser-grained he seemed. They could notpulverize him in the coffee-mill of criticism. He was as hopeless inideas as in language. It was impossible to make him realize that thebest is always the cheapest; that fine clothes make fine people; thatpetty economies are death to "the larger flights of the soul"; and thatparents have no right to have children unless they can give them whatother people's children have. 

If John Grout complained that he was not a millionaire the youngerGrouts retorted that this was not their fault, but their misfortune; andit was "up to Pop" to do the best he could during what _Mère_ was nowcalling their "formative years. " The children had liberal ideas, artistic and refined ideals; but Pop was forever talking poor, alwayssplitting pennies, always dolefully reiterating, "I don't know where themoney is coming from!"

It was so foolish of him, too--for it always came from somewhere. Thechildren went to the best schools, traveled in Europe, wore as goodclothes as anybody--though they did not admit this, of course, withinfather's hearing, lest it put false notions into his head; and the sonsmade investments that had not yet begun to turn out right. 

Parents cannot fool their children long, and the Grout youngsters hadlearned at an early date that Pop always forked over when he was naggedinto it. Any of the children in trouble could always write or telegraphhome a "must have, " and it was always forthcoming. There usuallyfollowed a querulous note about "Sorry you have to have so much, but Isuppose it costs a lot where you are. Make it go as far as you can, forI'm a little pinched just now. " But this was taken as a mere detail--anunfortunate paternal habit. 

That was Pop's vice--his only one and about the least attractive ofvices. It was harrowing to be the children of a miser--for he must havea lot hoarded away. His poor talk, his allusions to notes at the bankand mortgages and drafts to meet, were just bogies to frighten them withand to keep them down. 

It was most humiliating for high-spirited children to be somisunderstood. Pop lacked refined tastes. It was a harsh thing to say ofone's parent, but when you came right down to it Pop was a hopelessplebeian. 

Pop noticed the difference himself. He would have doubted that thesemagnificent youngsters could be his own if that had not implied acriticism of his unimpeachable wife. So he gave her all the credit. For_Mère_ was different. She was well read; she entertained charmingly; sheloved good clothes, up-to-the-minute hats; she knew who was who andwhat was what. She was ambitious, progressive. She nearly took up Frenchonce. 

But Pop was shabby. Pop always wore a suit until it glistened and hischildren ridiculed him into a new one. As for wearing evening dress, inthe words of Gerald they "had to blindfold him and back him into hissoup-and-fish, even on the night the Italian Opera Company came totown. "

Pop never could take them anywhere. A vacation was a thing of horror tohim. It was almost impossible to drag him to a lake or the sea, and itwas quite impossible to keep him there more than a few days. Hisbusiness always called him home. 

And such a business! Dry-goods!--and in a small town. 

And such a town, with such a name! To the children who knew their Parisand their London, their New York and their Washington, a visit home waslike a sentence to jail. It was humiliating to make a good impression onacquaintances of importance and then have to confess to a home townnamed Waupoos. 

People either said, "I beg your pardon!" as if they had not heard itright, or they laughed and said, "Honestly?"

The children had tried again and again to pry Pop out of Waupoos, but heclung to it like a limpet. He had had opportunities, too, to move hisbusiness to big cities, but he was afraid to venture. He was fairly sureof sustenance in Waupoos so long as he nursed every penny; but he couldnever find the courage to transplant himself to another place. 

The worst of his cowardice was that he blamed the children--at least, hesaid he dared not face a year or two of possible loss lest they mightneed something. So he stayed in Waupoos and managed somehow to keep thefamily afloat and the store open. 

When _Mère_ revolted and longed for a glimpse of the outer world healways advised her to take a trip and have a good time. He always saidhe could afford that much, and he took an interest in seeing that shehad funds to buy some city clothes with; but he never had funds enoughto go along. 

That was one of mother's grievances. Pop bored her to death at home andshe wanted to scream every time he mentioned his business--it was soselfish of him to talk of that at night when she had so much to tell himof the misbehavior of the servants. But, greatly as he annoyed her roundthe house, she cherished an illusion that she would like him in a hotel. 

She had tried to get him to read a certain novel--a wonderful bookmercilessly exposing the curse of modern America; which is the men'shabit of sticking to their business so closely that they give their poorwives no companionship. They leave their poor wives to languish at homeor to go shopping or gossiping, while they indulge themselves in theluxuries of vibration between creditor and debtor. 

In this novel, and in several others she could have named, the poorwife naturally fell a prey to the fascinations of a handsome devil withdark eyes, a motor or two, and no office hours. 

_Mère_ often wondered why she herself had not taken up with somehandsome devil fully equipped for the entertainment of neglected wives. 

If she had not been a member of that stanch American womanhood to whichthe glory of the country and its progress are really due, she might havestartled her husband into realizing too late, as the too-late husbandsin the novels realized, that a man's business is a side issue and thatthe perpetuation of romance is the main task. Her self-respect was allthat held _Mère_ to the home; that and--whisper!--the fact that nohandsome devil with any kind of eyes ever tried to lure her away. 

When she reproached Pop and threatened him he refused to be scared. Hepaid his wife that most odious of tributes--a monotonous trust in herloyalty and an insulting immunity to jealousy. Almost worse was hismonotonous loyalty to her and his failure to give her jealousy anyexcuse. 

They quarreled incessantly, but the wrangles were not gorgeouslydramatic charges of intrigue with handsome men or painted women, followed by rapturous make-ups. They were quarrels over expenditures, extravagances, and voyages. 

_Mère_ charged Pop with parsimony and he charged her with recklessness. She accused him of trying to tie them down to a village; he accused herof trying to drive him to bankruptcy. She demanded to know whether hewanted his children to be like children of their neighbors--clerks insmall stores, starveling tradespeople and wives of little merchants. Heanswered that she was breeding a pack of snobs that despised theirfather and had no mercy on him--and no use for him except as a lemon tosqueeze dry. She answered with a laugh of scorn that lemon was a goodword; and he threw up his hands and returned to the shop if the warbroke out at noon, or slunk up to bed if it followed dinner. 

This was the pattern of their daily life. Every night there was a newtheme, but the duet they built on it ran along the same formulas. 

The children sided with _Mère_, of course. In the first place, she was apoor, downtrodden woman; in the second, she was their broker. Her jobwas to get them things. They gave her the credit for what she got them. They gave Pop no praise for yielding--no credit for extracting somehowfrom the dry-soil of an arid town the money they extracted from him. They knew nothing of the myriad little agonies, the ingenuity, thetireless attention to detail, the exquisite finesse that make successpossible in the mêlée of competition. Their souls were above trade andits petty nigglings. 

Jno. P. , who was now known as J. Pennock, was aiming at a milliondollars in New York, and his mother was sure that he would get it nexttime if Pop would only raise him a little more money to meet anirritating obligation or seize a glittering opportunity. Pop alwaysraised the money and J. Pennock always lost it. Yet Pennock was afinancier and Pop was a village merchant. And now Pen had come homeunexpectedly. He was showing a great interest in Pop's affairs. 

Gerald was home also unexpectedly. He was an artist of the mostwonderful promise. None of his promises was more wonderful than those hemade his father to repay just one more loan--to tide him over until hesold his next picture; but it never sold, or it sold for a mere song. Gerald solaced himself and _Mère_ solaced him for being ahead of histime, unappreciated, too good for the public. She thanked Heaven thatGerald was a genius, not a salesman. One salesman in the family wasenough!

And Gerald had beaten Pen home by one train. He had greeted Pen somewhatcoldly--as if Pen were a trespasser on his side of the street. And whenit was learned that Julie had telegraphed that she would arrive the nextday, both the brothers had frowned. 

Pop had sighed. He was glad to see his wonderful offspring, but he hadalready put off the grocer and the butcher--and even his life-insurancepremium--because he had an opportunity by a quick use of cash to obtainthe bankrupt stock of a rival dealer who had not nursed his pennies asPop had. It was by such purchases that Pop had managed to keep his storealive and his brilliant children in funds. 

He had temporarily drawn his bank account down to the irreducibleminimum and borrowed on his securities up to the insurmountable maximum. It was a bad time for his children to tap him. But here they were--Jno. P. , Jerry, and Julia--all very unctuous over the home-coming, and yetall of them evidently cherishing an ulterior idea. 

He watched them lounging in fashionable awkwardness. They were brilliantchildren. And he was as proud of them as he was afraid of them--and forthem. 

II

If the children looked brilliant to Pop he did not reflect theirrefulgence. As they glanced from the photographer's proof to Pop theywere not impressed. They were not afraid of him or for him. 

His bodily arrangement was pitifully gawky; he neither sat erect norlounged--he slumped spineless. Big spectacles were in style now, butPop's big spectacles were just out of it. His face was like a parchmentthat had been left out in the rain and had dried carelessly in deep, stiff wrinkles--with the writing washed off. 

Ethelwolf, the last born, had no ulterior idea. He always spent hismonthly allowance by the second Tuesday after the first Monday, andsulked through a period of famine and debt until the next month. It wasnow the third Tuesday and he was disposed to sarcasm. 

"Look at Pop!" he muttered. "He looks just like the old boy they put inthe cartoons to represent The Common People. "

"He's the Beau Brummel of Waupoos, all right!" said Bayahtreatshe, whowas soon returning to Wellesley. And Consuelo, who was preparing forVassar, added under her breath, "Mère, can't you steal up on him andswipe that already-tied tie?"

Had Pop overheard, he would have made no complaint. He had known thetime when they had thrown things at him. The reverence of Americanchildren for their fathers is almost as famous as the meekness ofAmerican wives before their husbands. Yet it might have hurt Pop alittle to see Mother shake her head and hear her sigh:

"He's hopeless, children! Do take warning from my misfortune and becareful what you marry. "

Poor _Mère_ had absolutely forgotten how proud she had been when JohnnieGrout came courting her, and how she had extracted a proposal before heknew what he was about, and had him at the altar before he was ready tosupport a wife in the style she had been accustomed to hope for. Sheremembered only the dreams he had not brought true, the harsh realitiesof their struggle upward. She had worked and skimped with him then. Nowshe was like a lolling passenger in a jinrikisha, who berates the shabbycoolie because he stumbles where the roads are rough and sweats wherethey are steep. 

Julie spoke up in answer to her mother's word of caution:

"There's one thing better than being careful what you marry--and that'snot marrying at all!"

The rest of them were used to Julie's views; but Pop, who had paidlittle heed to them, almost collapsed from his chair. Julie went on:

"Men are all alike, Mère. They're very soft-spoken when they come tomake love; but it's only a bluff to make us give up our freedom. Beforewe know it they drag us up before another man, a preacher, and make usswear to love, honor, and obey. They kill the love, make the honorimpossible, and the obey ridiculous. Then they coop us up at home andexpect us to let them run the world to suit themselves. They've beenrunning it for thousands of years--and look at the botch they've made ofit! It's time for us to take the helm. "

"Go to it, sis, " said Ethelwolf. "I care not who makes the laws so longas I can break them. "

"Let your sister alone!" said _Mère_. "Go on, Julie!"

"I've put it all in the address I read before the Federation last week, "said Julie. "It was reported at length in one of the papers. I've got aclipping in my handbag here somewhere. "

She began to rummage through a little condensed chaos of handkerchiefs, gloves, powder-puff, powdery dollar bills, powdery coins, loose bits ofpaper, samples, thread, pins, buttons--everything--every-whichway. 

J. Pennock laughed. "Pipe what's going to run the world! Better get afew pockets first. "

"Don't be a brute, Pen!" said _Mère_. 

At last Julie found the clipping she sought and, shaking the powder fromit, handed it to her mother. 

"It's on the strength of this speech that I was elected delegate to theinternational convention at San Francisco, " she said. 

"You were!" _Mère_ gasped, and Beatrice and Consuelo exclaimed, "Ripsnorting!"

"Are you going?" said _Mère_ when she recovered from her awe. 

"Well, it's a pretty expensive trip. That's why I came home--to seeif--Well, we can take that up later. Tell me how you like the speech. "

_Mère_ mumbled the report aloud to the delighted audience. Pop heardlittle of it. He was having a chill. It was very like plain ague, but hecredited it to the terror of Julie's mission home. All she wanted him todo was to send her on a little jaunt to San Francisco! The tyrant, asusual, was expected to finance the rebellion. 

When _Mère_ had finished reading everybody applauded Julie except Pop. _Mère_ overheard his silence and rounded on him across the aristocraticreading-glass she wielded. 

"Did you hear that?"

Pop was so startled that he answered, "Uh-huh!"

"Didn't you think it was splendid?" _Mère_ demanded. 

"Uh-huh!" said Pop. 

"What didn't you like about it?"

"I liked it all first-rate. Julie is a smart girl, I tell you. "

_Mère_ scented his evasion, and she would never tolerate evasions. Sherepeated:

"What didn't you like about it?"

"I liked all I could understand. "

"Understand!" snapped _Mère_, who rarely wasted her culture on Pop. "What didn't you understand? Could anything be clearer than this?Listen!" She read in an oratorical voice:

"'Woman has been for ages man's mere beast of burden, his householddrudge. Being a wife has meant being a slave--the only servant withoutwages or holiday. But the woman of to-day at last demands that theshackles be stricken off; she demands freedom to live her life her ownway--to express her selfhood without the hampering restrictions imposedon her by the barbaric customs inherited from the time of thecave-man. '"

_Mère_ folded up the clipping and glared defiance at the cave-manslumped in the uneasy chair. 

"What's clearer than that?" she reiterated. 

Pop was at bay. He was like a desperate rabbit. He answered:

"It's clear enough, I guess; but it's more than I can take in. Seems tome the women folks are hollering at the men folks to give 'em what themen folks have never been able to get for themselves. "

It was peevish. Coming from Pop, it amounted to an outburst, a riot, amutiny. Such a tendency was dangerous. He must be sharply repressed atonce--as a new servant must be taught her place. _Mère_ administered thenecessary rebuke, aided and abetted by the daughters. The sons did notrally to their father's defense. He was soon reduced to submission, buthis apology was further irritation:

"I'm kind of rattled like. I ain't feeling as chipper as usual. ""Chipper" was bad enough, but "ain't" was unendurable! They rebuked himfor that and he put in another irrelevant plea: "I had a kind of sickspell at the store. I had to lay down. "

"Lie down!" Beatrice corrected. 

"Lie down, " he accepted. "But as soon as I laid down--"

"Lay down!"

"Lay down--I had chills and shootin' pains; and I--"

"It's the weather, " _Mère_ interrupted, impatiently. "I've had aheadache all day--such a headache as never was known! It seemed as ifhammers were beating upon my very brain. It was--"

"I'm not feeling at all well myself, " said Consuelo. 

There was almost a tournament of rivalry in describing sufferings. 

Pop felt as if he had wakened a sleeping hospital. He sank back ashamedof his own outburst. He rarely spoke of the few ailments he couldafford. When he did it was like one of his new clerks pulling a bolt ofgoods from the shelf and bringing down a silken avalanche. 

The clinic was interrupted by the crisp voice of Nora: "Dinner isserved!"

Everybody rose and moved to the door with quiet determination. Pop alonefailed to rise. _Mère_ glowered at him. He pleaded: "I don't feel verygood. I guess I'd better leave my stummick rest. "

The children protested politely, but he refused to be moved and _Mère_decided to humor him. 

"Let him alone, children. It won't hurt him to skip a meal. "

They said: "Too bad, Pop!"--"You'll be all right soon, " and went out andforgot him. 

Pop heard them chattering briskly. It was polite talk. If slang wereused it was the very newest. He gleaned that Pen and Gerald wereopposing Julie's mission to San Francisco on the ground of the expense. He smiled bitterly to hear that word from them. He heard Julie's retort:

"I suppose you boys want the money yourselves! Well, I've got firsthavers at Pop. I saw him first!"

At about this point the conversation lost its coherence in Pop's ears. It was mingled with a curious buzzing and a dizziness that made him griphis chair lest it pitch him to the floor. Chills, in which his boneswere a mere rattlebox, alternated with little rushes of prairie fireacross his skin. Throes of pain wrung him. 

Also, he was a little afraid--he was afraid he might not be able to getto the store in the morning. And important people were coming! He had tomake the first payment on the invoice of that bankrupt stock. Asemiannual premium was overdue on his life insurance. The month of gracehad nearly expired, and if he failed to pay the policy would lapse--nowof all times! He had kept it up all these years; it must not lapse now, for he was going to be right sick. He wanted somebody to nurse him: hismother--or that long-lost girl he had married in the far past. 

His shoes irked him; his vest--what they wanted called hiswaistcoat--was as tight as a corset. He felt that he would be safer inbed. He'd better go up to his own room and stretch out. He rose withextraordinary difficulty and negotiated a swimming floor on swayinglegs. 

The laughter from the dining-room irritated him. He would be better offup-stairs, where he could not hear it. The noise in his ears was all hecould stand. He attained the foot of the stairs and the flight of stepsseemed as long and as misty as Jacob's Ladder. And he was no angel!

The Grouts lingered at dinner and over their black coffee and tobaccountil it was time to dress for the reception at Mrs. Alvin Mitnick's, atwhich Waupoos society would pass itself in review. The later you gotthere the smarter you were, and most people put off dressing until thelast possible minute in order to keep themselves from falling asleepbefore it was time to start. 

The Grouts, however, were eager to go early and get it over with. Theyloved to trample on Waupoos traditions. As they drifted into the hallthey found it dark. They shook their heads in dismal recognition of afamiliar phenomenon, and Ethelwolf groaned:

"Pop has gone up-stairs. You can always trace Pop. Wherever he haspassed by the lights are out. "

"He has figured out that by darkening the halls while we are at dinnerhe saves nearly a cent a day, " _Mère_ groaned. 

"If Pop were dying he'd turn out a light somewhere because he wouldn'tneed it. " And Ethelwolf laughed. 

But _Mère_ groaned again: "Can you wonder that I get depressed? Now, children, I ask you--"

"Poor old Mère! It's awful!"--"Ghastly!"--"Maddening!"

They gathered round her lovingly, echoing her moans. They started up thedark stairway, Consuelo first and turning back to say to Beatrice:

"Pop can cut a penny into more slices than--" Then she screamed andstarted back. 

Her agitation went down the stairway through the climbing Grouts like acold breeze. What was it? She looked close. A hand was just visible onthe floor at the head of the stairs. She had stepped on it. 

III

Pop had evidently reached the upper hall, when the ruling passionburning even through his fever had led him to grope about for theelectric switch. His last remaining energy had been expended for aneconomy and he had collapsed. 

They switched the light on again; they were always switching on currentsthat he switched off--and paid for. They found him lying in a crumpledsprawl that was awkward, even for Pop. 

They stared at him in bewilderment. They would have said he was drunk;but Pop never drank--nor smoked--nor played cards. Perhaps he was dead!

This thought was like a thunderbolt. There was a great thumping in thebreasts of the Grouts. 

Suddenly _Mère_ strode forward, dropped to her knees and put her hand onPop's heart. It was not still--far from that. She placed her cold palmon his forehead. His brow was clammy, hot and cold and wet. 

"He has a high fever!" she said. 

Then, with a curious emotion, she brushed back the scant wet hair;closed her eyes and felt in her bosom a sudden ache like the turning ofa rusty iron. She felt young and afraid--a young wife who finds her manwounded. 

She looked up and saw standing about her a number of tall ladies andgentlemen--important-looking strangers. Then she remembered that theyhad once been nobodies. She felt ashamed before them and she said, quickly:

"He's going to be ill. Telephone for the doctor to come right away. Andyou girls get his bed ready. No, you'd better put him in my room--itgets the sunlight. And you boys fill the ice-cap--and the hot-water bagand--hurry! Hurry!"

The specters vanished. She was alone with her lover. She was drying hisforehead with her best lace handkerchief and murmuring:

"John honey, what's the matter! Why, honey--why didn't you tell me?"

Then a tall gentleman or two returned and one of them said:

"Better let us get him off the floor, Mère. "

And the big sons of the frail little man picked him up and carried himinto the room and pulled off his elastic congress gaiters, and his coatand vest, and his detached cuffs, and his permanently tied tie, and hisridiculous collar. 

Then _Mère_ put them out, and when the doctor arrived Pop was in bed inhis best nightshirt. 

The doctor made his way up through the little mob of terrified children. He found Mrs. Grout vastly agitated and much ashamed of herself. She didnot wish to look sentimental. She had reached the Indian-summer modestyof old married couples. 

The doctor went through the usual ritual of pulse-feeling andtongue-examining and question-asking, while Pop lay inert, with a littlethermometer protruding from his mouth like a most inappropriatecigarette. 

The doctor was uncertain yet whether it were one of the big fevers orpneumonia or just a bilious attack. Blood-tests would show; and hescraped the lobe of the ear of the unresisting, indifferent old man, andtook a drop of thin pink fluid on a bit of glass. The doctor tried toreassure the panicky family, but his voice was low and important. 

IV

The brilliant receptions and displays that _Mère_ and the children hadplanned were abandoned without regret. All minor regrets were lost inthe one big regret for the poor old, worn-out man up-stairs. 

There was a dignity about Pop now. The lowliest peasant takes on majestywhen he is battling for his life and his home. 

There was dismay in all the hearts now--dismay at the things they hadsaid and the thoughts and sneers; dismay at the future without thisshabby but unfailing provider. 

The proofs of the family photograph lay scattered about the living-room. Pop was not there. They had smiled about it before. Now it lookedominous! What would become of this family if Pop were not there?

The house was filled with a thick sense of hush like a heavy fog; butthoughts seemed to be all the louder in the silence--jumbled thoughts ofselfish alarm; filial terror; remorse; tenderness; mutual rebuke; dreadof death, of the future, of the past. 

The day nurse and the night nurse were in command of the house. The onlyevents were the arrivals of the doctor, his long stops, his whisperedconferences with the nurses, and the unsatisfactory, evasive answers hegave as the family ambushed him at the foot of the stairs on his wayout. 

Meanwhile they could not help Pop in his long wrestle. They had drainedhis strength and bruised his heart while he had his power, and now thathe needed their help and their youth they could not lend him anything;they could not pay a single instalment on the mortgages they hadincurred. 

They could only stand at the door now and then and look in at him. Theycould not beat off one of the invisible vultures of fever and pain thathovered over him, swooped, and tore him. 

They could not even get word to him--not a message of love or ofrepentance or of hope. His brain was in a turmoil of its own. His whitelips were muttering delirious nonsense; his soul was fluttering fromscene to scene and year to year, like a restless dragon-fly. He wasyoung; he was old; he was married; he was a bachelor; he was at home;he was in his store; he was pondering campaigns of business, slicingpennies or making daring purchases; he was retrenching; he wasadvertising; but he was afraid always that he might sink in the bog ofcompetition with rival merchants, with creditors, debtors, bankers, withhis wife, his children, his neighbors, his ideals, his businessaxioms----

"Ain't the moon pirty to-night, honey! Gee! I'm scared of that preacher!What do I say when he says, 'Do you take this woman for your'--Thepay-roll? I can't meet it Saturday. How am I going to meet the pay-roll?I don't see how we can sell those goods any cheaper, but we got to getrid of 'em. My premium! My premium! I haven't paid my premium! What'llbecome of the children? Three cents a yard--it's robbery! Eight cents ayard--that's givin' it away! Don't misunderstand me, Sally. It's my wayof making love. I can't say pirty things like some folks can, but I canthink 'em. My premium--the pay-roll--so many children! Couldn't they dowithout that? I ain't a millionaire, you know. Every time I begin to getahead a little seems like one of the children gets sick or introuble--the pay-roll! Three cents a yard--the new invoice--I can't buymyself a noo soot. The doctor's bills! I ain't complaining of 'em; butI've got to pay 'em! Let me stay home--I'd rather. I've had a hard day. My premium! Don't put false notions in their heads! The pay-roll! Don'tscold me, honey! I got feelings, too. You haven't said a word of loveto me in years! I'll raise the money somehow. I know I'm close; butsomebody's got to be--the pay-roll--so many people depending on me. Somany mouths to feed--the children--all the clerks--the delivery-wagondrivers--the advertising bills--the pay-roll--the children! I ain't asyoung as I was--honey, don't scold me!"

The ceaseless babbling grew intolerable. Then it ceased; and the stuporthat succeeded was worse, for it meant exhaustion. The doctor grew moregrave. He ceased to talk of hope. He looked ashamed. He tried to throwthe blame from himself. 

And one dreadful day he called the family together in the living-room. Once more they were all there--all those expensively shod feet; thosewell-clothed, well-fed bodies. In the chair where Pop had slumped thedoctor sat upright. He was saying:

"Of course there's always hope. While there's life there's always hope. The fever is pretty well gone, but so is the patient. The crisis lefthim drained. You see he has lived this American business man's life--noexercise, no vacations, no change. The worst of it is that he seems tohave given up the fight. You know we doctors can only stand guardoutside. The patient has to fight it out inside himself. It's a veryserious sign when the sick man loses interest in the battle. Mr. Groutdoes not rally. His powerful mind has given up. "

In spite of themselves there was a general lifting of the brows ofsurprise at the allusion to Pop's poor little footling brain as apowerful mind. Perhaps the doctor saw it. He said:

"For it was a powerful mind! Mr. Grout has carried that store of hisfrom a little shop to a big institution; he has kept it afloat in a dulltown through hard times. He has kept his credit good and he has givenhis family wonderful advantages. Look where he has placed you all! Hewas a great man. "

When the doctor had gone they began to understand that the town hadlooked upon Pop as a giant of industry, a prodigal of vicariousextravagance. They began to feel more keenly still how good a man hewas. While they were flourishing like orchids in the sun and air, he hadgrubbed in the earth, sinking roots everywhere in search of moisture andof sustenance. Through him, things that were lowly and ugly and cheapwere gathered and transformed and sent aloft as sap to make flowers ofand color them and give them velvet petals and exquisite perfume. 

They gathered silently in his room to watch him. He was white and still, hardly breathing, already the overdue chattel of the grave. 

They talked of him in whispers, for he did not answer when they praisedhim. He did not move when they caressed him. He was very far away anddrifting farther. 

They spoke of how much they missed him, of how perfect a father he hadbeen, competing with one another in regrets and in praise. Back of allthis belated tribute there was a silent dismay they did not give voiceto--the keen, immediately personal reasons for regret. 

"What will become of us?" they were thinking, each in his or her ownterrified soul. 

"I can't go back to school!"

"This means no college for me!"

"I'll have to stay in this awful town the rest of my life!"

"I can't go to San Francisco! The greatest honor of my life is takenfrom me just as I grasped it. "

"I had a commission to paint the portrait of an ambassador atWashington--it would have been the making of me! It meant a lot ofmoney, too. I came home to ask Pop to stake me to money enough to liveon until it was finished. "

"My business will go to smash! I'll be saddled with debts for the restof my life. If I could have hung on a little longer I'd have reached theshore; but the bank wouldn't lend me a cent. Nobody would. I came hometo ask Pop to raise me some cash. I counted on him. He never failed mebefore. "

"What will become of us all?"

There was a stir on the pillow. The still head began to rock, the throatto swell, the lips to twitch. 

_Mère_ ran to the bedside and knelt by it, laying her hand on theforehead. A miracle had been wrought in the very texture of his brow. He was whispering something. She put her ear to his lips. 

"Yes, honey. What is it? I'm here. "

She caught the faint rustling of words. It was as if his hovering soulhad been eavesdropping on their thoughts. Perhaps it was merely that hehad learned so well in all these years just what each of them would bethinking. For he murmured:

"I've been figuring out--how much the--funeral will cost--you knowthey're awful expensive--funerals are--of course I wouldn't wantanything fancy--but--well--besides--and I've been thinking the childrenhave got to have so many things--I can't afford to--be away from thestore any longer. I ain't got time to die! I've had vacation enough!Where's my clothes at?"

They held him back. But not for long. He was the most irritatinglyimpatient of convalescents. In due course of time the family wasredistributed about the face of the earth. Ethelwolf was at preparatoryschool; Beatrice and Consuelo were acquiring and lending luster atWellesley and Vassar; Gerald was painting a portrait at Washington; andJ. Pennock was like a returned Napoleon in Wall Street. 

Pop was at his desk in the store. All his employees had gone home. Hewas fretfully twiddling a telegram from San Francisco:

Julie's address sublime please telegraph two hundred more love

MERE. 

Pop was remembering the words of the address: "Woman has been for agesman's mere beast of burden. .. . Being a wife has meant being a slave. "

Pop could not understand it yet. But he told everybody he met about thefirst three words of the telegram, and added:

"I got the smartest children that ever was and they owe it all to theirmother, every bit. "

BABY TALK

I

The wisest thing Prof. Stuart Litton was ever caught at was the thing hewas most ashamed of. He had begun to accumulate knowledge at an age whenmost boys are learning to fight and to explain at home how they gottheir clothes torn. He wore out spectacles almost as fast as hisbrothers wore out copper-toed boots; but he did not begin to acquirewisdom until he was just making forty. Up to that time, if the serpentis the standard, Professor Litton was about as wise as an angleworm. 

He submerged himself in books for nearly forty years; and then--in thewords of Leonard Teed--then he "came up for air. " This man Teed was thecomplete opposite of Litton. For one thing he was the liveliest youngstudent in the university where Litton was the solemnest old professor. Teed had scientific ambitions and hated Greek and Latin, which Littonfelt almost necessary to salvation. Teed regarded Litton and his Latinas the sole obstacles to his success in college; and, though Litton wastoo much of a gentle heart to hate anybody, if he could have hatedanybody it would have been Teed. A girl was concerned in one of theirearliest encounters, though Litton's share in it was as unromantic aspossible. 

Teed, it seems, had violated one of the rules at Webster University. Hehad chatted with Miss Fannie Newman--a pretty student in the Woman'sCollege--after nine o'clock; nay, more, he had sat on a campus benchbidding her good night for half an hour, and, with that brilliantmathematical mind of his, had selected the bench at the greatestpossible distance from the smallest cluster of lampposts. 

On this account he was haled before the disciplinary committee of thefaculty. Litton happened to be on that committee. Teed made the bestfight he could. He showed himself a Greek--in argument at least--and, like an old sophist, he tried to prove, first, that he was not on thecampus with the girl and never had spooned with her; second, that if hehad been there and had spooned with her it was too dark for them to beseen; and third, that he was engaged to the girl, anyway, and had aright to spoon with her. 

The accusing witness was a janitor whom Teed had played various jokes onand had neglected to appease with tips. Teed submitted him to a fiercecross-examination; forced him to admit that he could not see the lovingcouple and had identified them solely by their voices. Teed demandedthe exact words overheard; and, as often happens to the too-ardentcross-examiner, he got what he asked for and wished he had not. Thejanitor, blushing at what he remembered, pleaded:

"You don't vant I should say it exectly vat I heered?"

"Exactly!" Teed answered in his iciest tone. 

"Vell, " the janitor mumbled, "it vas such a foolish talk as--but--vell, ven I come by I hear voman's voice says, 'Me loafs oo besser as oo loafsme!'"

Teed flushed and the faculty sat forward. 

"Den I hear man's voice says, 'Oozie-voozie, mezie-vezie--' Must I got totell it all?"

"Go on!" said Teed, grimly; and the old German mopped his brow withanguish and snorted with rage: "'Mezie-vezie loafs oozie-vooziebestest!'"

The purple-faced members of the faculty were hanging on to their ownsafety-valves to keep from exploding--all save Professor Litton, whofelt that his hearing must be defective. Teed, fighting in the lastditch, said:

"But such language does not prove the identity of the--er--participants. You said you knew positively. "

The janitor, writhing with disgust and indignation, went on:

"Ven I hear such nonsunse I stop and listen if it is two people escapetfrom de loonatic-houze. And den young voman says, 'It doesn't loaf itsFannie-vannie one teeny-veeny mite!' And young man says, 'So sure myname is Lennie Teedie-veedie, little Fannie Newman iss de onliest gerl Iever loafed!'"

The cross-examiner crumpled up in a chair, while the members of thefaculty behaved like children bursting with giggles in church--all saveLitton, who had listened with increasing amazement and now leanedforward to demand of the janitor:

"Mr. Kraus, you don't mean to say that two of our students actuallydisgraced this institution with conversation that would be appropriateonly to a nursery?"

Mr. Kraus thundered: "De talk of dose stoodents vould disgrace denursery! It vas so sickenink I can't forget ut. I try to, but I keeprememberink Oozie-voozie! Mezie-vezie!"

Mr. Kraus was excused in a state of hydrophobic rage and Teed withdrewin all meekness. 

Litton had fallen into a stupor of despair at the futility of learning. He remained in a state of coma while the rest of the committee laughedover the familiar idiocies and debated a verdict. Two of the professors, touched by some reminiscence of romance, voted to ignore the incident asa trivial commonplace of youth. Two others, though full of sympathy forTeed--Miss Fannie was very pretty--voted for his suspension as anecessary example, lest the campus be overrun by duets in lovers' Latin. The result was a tie and Litton was roused from his trance to cast thedeciding vote. 

Now Professor Litton had read a vast amount about love. The classics arefull of its every imaginable version or perversion; but Litton had seenit expressed only in the polished phrases of Anacreon, Bion, Propertius, and the others. He had not guessed that, however these men polishedtheir verses, they doubtless addressed their sweethearts with all theimbecility of sincerity. 

Litton's own experience gave him little help. In his late youth he hadthought himself in love twice and had expressed his fiery emotions in aLatin epistle, an elegy, and a number of very correct Alcaics. Theypleased his teacher, but frightened the spectacles off one bookish youngwoman, and drove the other to the arms of a prescription clerk, who knewno Latin except what was on his drug bottles. 

Litton had thenceforward been wedded to knowledge. He had read nearlyeverything ancient, but he must have forgotten the sentence of PubliliusSyrus: "Even a god could hardly love and be wise. " He felt no mercy inhis soft heart for the soft-headed Teed. He was a worshiper of languagefor its own sake and cast a vote accordingly. 

"I do not question the propriety of the conduct of these young people, "he said. "Mr. Teed claims to be engaged to the estimable young woman. "

"Ah!" said Professor Mackail, delightedly. 

Teed was the brightest pupil in his laboratory and he had voted foracquittal. His joy vanished as Professor Litton went on:

"But"--he spoke the word with emphasis--"but waiving all questions ofpropriety, I do feel that we should administer a stinging rebuke to theuse of such appallingly infantile language by one of our students. Surely a man's culture should show itself, above all, in the addresseshe pays to the young lady of his choice. What vanity to build andconduct a great institution of learning, such as this aims to be, andthen permit one of its pupils to express his regard for a student fromthe Annex in such language as even Mr. Kraus was reluctant to quote:'Mezie-wezie loves oozie-woozie bestest!'--if I remember rightly. Really, gentlemen, if this is permitted we might as well change theuniversity to a kindergarten. For his own sake I vote that Mr. Teed begiven six months of meditation at home; and I trust that the faculty ofthe Woman's College will have a similar regard for its ideals and thewelfare of the misguided young woman. "

Professor Mackail protested furiously, but his advocacy only embitteredLitton--for Mackail was the leader of the faction that had tried foryears to place Webster University in line with others by removing Latinand Greek from the position of required studies. 

Mackail and his crew pretended that French and German, or science, wereappropriate substitutes for the classic languages in the case of thosewhose tastes were not scholastic; but to Litton it was a religion thatno man should be allowed to spend four years in college without atleast rubbing up against Homer, Æschylos, Vergil, and Horace. 

As Litton put it: "No man has a right to an Alma Mater who doesn't knowwhat the words mean; and nobody has a right to graduate without knowingat least enough Latin to read his own diploma. "

This old war had been fought with all the bitterness and professionaljealousies of scholarship, which rival those of religion and exceedthose of the stage. For yet a while Litton and his followers hadvanquished opposition. He little dreamed what he was preparing forhimself in punishing Teed. 

Teed accepted his banishment with poor grace, but a magnificentdetermination to come back and graduate. The effect of his punishmentwas shown when, after six months of rustic meditation, he set out forthe university, leaving behind him his Fannie, who had been too timid toreturn to the scene of her discomfiture. Teed's good-by words ransomething like this:

"Bess its ickle heartums! Don't se care! Soonie as Teedle-weedle getsgraduated he'll get fine job and marry his Fansy-pansy very first sing. "Then he kissed her "Goo'byjums"--and went back with the face of aRegulus returning to be tortured by the enemy. 

II

Teed had a splendid mind for everything material and modern, but hecould not and would not master the languages he called dead. Hismistranslations of the classics were themselves classics. They sent theother students into uproars; but Litton saw nothing funny in them. Whenhe received Teed's examination papers he marked them with a pitilessexactitude. 

Teed reached the end of his junior year with a heap of conditions in theclassics. Litton insisted that he should not be allowed to graduateuntil he cleaned them up. This meant that Teed must tutor all throughhis last vacation or carry double work throughout his senior year--whenhe expected to play some patriotic or Alma-Matriotic football. 

Teed had no intention of enduring either of these inconveniences; hetrusted to fate to inspire him somehow with some scheme for attaininghis diploma without delay. His future job depended on his diploma--andhis girl depended on his job. 

He did not intend to be kept from either by any ancient authors. He hadnot the faintest idea how he was going to bridge that chasm--but, as hewrote his Fansy-pansy, "Love will find the way. "

While Teed was taking thought for the beginning of his life-work Littonwas completing his--or at least he thought he was. With the splendiddevotion of the scholar he had selected for his contribution to humanwelfare the best possible edition of the work least likely to be read byanybody. A firm of publishers had kindly consented to print it--atLitton's expense. 

Litton would donate a copy to his own university; two or three collegelibraries would purchase copies out of respect to the learned professor;and Litton would give away a few more. The rest would stand in anundisturbed stack of increasing dust, there to remain unread as longperhaps as the myriads of Babylonian classics that Assurbani-pal hadcopied in brick volumes for his great library at Nineveh. 

Professor Litton had chosen for his life-work a recension of theponderous epic in forty-eight books that old Nonnus wrote in Egypt, thelabyrinthine Dionysiaka describing the voyage of Bacchus to India andback. 

A pretty theme for an old water-drinker who had never tasted wine! ButLitton toiled over the Greek text, added copious notes as to minutevariants, appallingly learned prolegomena, an index, and finally anEnglish version in prose. He had begun to translate it into hexameters, but he feared that he would never live to finish it. It was hard enoughfor a man like Litton to express at all the florid spirit of an authorwhose theme was "the voluptuous phalanxes" of Bacchus' army--"the heroicrace of such unusual warriors; the shaggy satyrs; the breed of centaurs;the tribes of Sileni, whose legs bristle with hair; and the battalionsof Bassarids. "

He had kept at it all these years, however, and it was ready now for theeyes of a world that would never see it. He had watched it through thecompositors' hands, keeping a tireless eye on the infinite nuisance ofGreek accents. He had read the galley proofs, the page proofs, and nowat last the black-bordered foundry proofs. He scorned to write thebastard "O. K. " of approval and wrote, instead, a stately "Imprimatur. "He placed the proofs in their envelope and sealed it with lips thattrembled like a priest's when giving an illuminated Gospel a ritualkiss. 

The hour was late when Professor Litton finished. He stamped thebrown-paper envelope and went down the steps of the boarding-house thathad been for years his nearest approach to a home. He left the preciousenvelope on the hall-tree, whence it would be taken to the post-officefor the first mail. 

Feeling the need of a breath of air, he stepped out on the porch. It wasa spring midnight and the college roofs were wonderful under thequivering moon--or _tremulo sub lumine_, as he remembered it. And heremembered how Quintus Smyrnæus had said that the Amazon queen walkedamong her outshone handmaidens, "as when, on the wide heavens, among thestars, the divine Selene moves pre-eminent among them all. "

He thought of everything in terms of the past; yet, when he heard, mingled with the vague murmur of the night, a distant song of befuddledcollegians, among whose voices Teed's soared pre-eminent above the key, he was not pleasantly reminded of the tipsy army of Dionysus. He wasrevolted and, returning to his solitude, closed an indignant door onthe disgrace. 

Poor old Litton! His learning had so frail a connection with the lifeabout him! Steeped in the classics and acquainted with the minutestdetails of their texts, he never caught their spirit; never seemed torealize that they are classics because their authors were so close tolife and imbued them with such vitality that time has not yet renderedthem obsolete. 

He had hardly suspected the mischief that is in them. A more innocentman could hardly be imagined or one more versed in the lore of evil. Persons who believe that what is called immoral literature has adebasing effect must overlook such men as Litton. He dwelt among thoseGreek and Roman authors who excelled in exploiting the basest emotionsand made poems out of putridity. 

He read in the original those terrifying pages that nobody has everdared to put into English without paraphrase--the polished infamies ofMartial; the exquisite atrocities of Theocritus and Catullus. Yet thesebooks left him as unsullied as water leaves a duck's back. They infectedhim no more than a medical work gives the doctor that studies it thediseases it describes. The appallingly learned Professor Litton was ababe in arms compared with many of his pupils, who read little--or withthe janitor, who read nothing at all. 

And now, arrived at a scant forty and looking a neglected fifty, short-sighted, stoop-shouldered and absent-minded to a proverb, he casta last fond look at the parcel containing his translation of the Bacchicepic and climbed the stairs to his bachelor bedroom, took off his shabbygarments, and stretched himself out in the illiterate sleep of a tiredfarm-hand. 

Just one dream he had--a nightmare in which he read a printed copy ofhis work, and a wrongly accented enclitic stuck out from one of thepages like a sore thumb. He woke in a cold sweat, ran to his duplicateproofs, found that his text was correct--and went back to bed contented. 

Of such things his terrors and his joys had consisted all his years. 

III

The next morning he felt like a laborer whose factory has closed. Everyday would be Sunday hereafter until he got another job. In this unwontedsloth he dawdled over his porridge, his weak tea, and his morning paper. 

Head-lines caught his eyes shouting the familiar name of JoelBrown--familiar to the world at large because of the man's tremendoussuccess and relentless severity in business. Brown fell in love with oneof those shy, sly young women who make a business of millionaires. Hefell out with a thud and his Flossie entered a suit for breach ofpromise, submitting selected letters of Brown's as proofs of his guileand of her weak, womanly trust. 

The newspapers pounced on them with joy, as cats pounce and purr oncatnip. The whole country studied Brown's letters with the rapture ofeavesdropping. Such letters! Such oozing molasses of sentiment! Suchelephantine coquetry! Joel weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds andcalled himself Little Brownie and Pet Chickie!

This was the literature that the bewildered Litton found in the firstpaper he had read carefully since he came up for air. One of the lettersran something like this:

 Angel of the skies! My own Flossie-dovelet! Your Little Brownie has not seenest thee for a whole half a day, and he is pining, starving, famishing, perishing for a word from your blushing liplets. Oh, my Peaches and Cream! Oh, my Sugar Plum! How can your Pet Chickie live the eternity until he claspeths thee again this evening? When can your Brownie-wownie call you all his ownest only one? Ten billion kisses I send you from

 Your own, owner, ownest

 Pet Chickie-Brownie. 

 x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The X's, Flossie explained, indicated kisses--a dozen to an X. 

The jury laughed Little Brownie out of court after pinning atwenty-five-thousand-dollar verdict to his coat-tail. The nation electedhim the Pantaloon of the hour and pounded him with bladders andslap-sticks. 

Professor Litton had heard nothing of the preliminary fanfare of thesuit. As he read of it now he was too much puzzled to be amused. Heread with the same incredulity he had felt when he heard the janitorquote Teed's remarks to his fiancée. Litton called his landlady'sattention to the remarkable case. She had been reading it, with greedyglee, every morning. She had had such letters herself in her betterdays. She felt sorry for poor Mr. Brown and sorrier for the poorprofessor when he said:

"Poor Mr. Brown must have gone quite insane. Nobody could have built upsuch wealth without brains; yet nobody with brains could have writtensuch letters. Ergo, he has lost his brains. "

"You'll be late to prayers, " was all the landlady said. She treatedLitton as if he were a half-witted son. And he obeyed her, forsook hisunfinished tea and hurried away to the chapel. Thence he went to hisclass-room, where Teed achieved some further miracles of mistranslation. Litton thought how curious it was that this young man, of whom hisscientific professor spoke so highly, should have fallen into the samedelirium of amorous idiocy as the famous plutocrat, Joel Brown. 

When the class was dismissed he sank back in his chair by the class-roomwindow. It was wide ajar to-day for the first time since winter. April, like an early-morning housemaid, was throwing open all the windows ofthe world. Litton felt a delicious lassitude; he was bewildered withleisure. A kind of sweet loneliness fell on him. He had made noprovision for times like these. 

He sat back and twiddled his thumbs. His eyes roved lazily about thecampus. The wind that fluttered the sparse forelock on his overweeningforehead hummed in his ears. It had a distance in it. It brought softcadences of faint voices from the athletic field. They seemed to comefrom no place nearer than the Athenian Academe. 

Along the paths of the campus a few women were sauntering, for thestudents and teachers in the Women's Annex had the privilege of thelibraries, the laboratories, and lecture-rooms. 

Across Litton's field of view passed a figure that caught his eye. Absently he followed it as it enlarged with approach. He realized thatit was Prof. Martha Binley, Ph. D. , who taught Greek over there in theAnnex. 

"How well she is looking!" he mused. 

The very thought startled him, as if some one had spoken unexpectedly. He wondered that he had noticed her appearance. After the window-sillblotted her from view he still wondered, dallying comfortably with thereverie. 

IV

There was a knock at his door and in response to his call the dooropened--and she stood there. 

"May I come in?" she said. 

"Certainly. "

Before he knew it some impulse of gallantry hoisted him to his feet. Helifted a bundle of archeological reviews from a chair close to his deskand waited until she sat down. The chair was nearer his than herealized, and as Professor Binley dropped into it she was so close thatProfessor Litton pushed his spectacles up to his forehead. 

It was the first time she had seen his eyes except through glassesdarkly. She noted their color instantly, woman-like. They were not dull, either, as she had imagined. A cloying fragrance saluted his nostrils. 

"What are the flowers you are wearing, may I ask?" he said. He hardlyknew a harebell from a peony. 

"These are hyacinths, " she said. "One of the girls gave them to me. Ijust pinned them on. "

"Ah, hyacinths!" he murmured. "Ah yes; I've read so much about them. Sothese are hyacinths! Such a pretty story the Greeks had. You rememberit, no doubt?"

She said she did; but, schoolmaster that he was, he went right on:

"Apollo loved young Hyacinthus--or Huakinthos, as the Greeks calledit--and was teaching him to throw the discus, when a jealous breeze blewthe discus aside. It struck the boy in the forehead. He fell dead, andfrom his blood this flower sprang. The petals, they said, were markedwith the letters Ai, Ai!--Alas! Alas! And the poet Moschus, youremember, in his 'Lament for Bion, ' says:

 "Nun huakinthe lalei ta sa grammata kai pleon aiai!

"Or, as I once Englished it--let me see, I put it into hexameters--itwas a long while ago. Ah, I have it!"

And with the orotund notes a poet assumes when reciting his own words, he intoned:

 "Now, little hyacinth, babble thy syllables--louder yet--Aiai! Whimper with all of thy petals; a beautiful singer has perished. "

Professor Binley stared at him in amazement and cried: "Charming!Beautiful! Your own translation, you say?"

And he, somewhat shaken by her enthusiasm, waved it aside. 

"A little exercise of my Freshman year. But to get back toour--hyacinths: Theocritus, you remember, speaks of the 'letteredhyacinth. ' May I see whether we can find the words there?"

He bent forward to take and she bent forward to give the flowers. Herhair brushed his forehead with a peculiar influence; and when theirfingers touched he noted how soft and warm her hand was. He flushedstrangely. She was flushed a little, too, possibly fromembarrassment--possibly from the warmth of the day, with its insinuationof spring. 

He pulled his spectacles over his eyes in a comfortable discomfiture andpeered at the flowers closely. And she peered, too, breathing foolishlyfast. When he could not find the living letters he shook his head andfelt again the soft touch of her hair. 

"I can't find the words--can you? Your eyes are brighter than mine. "

She bent closer and both their hands held the flowers. He looked downinto her hair. It struck him that it was a remarkably beautiful idea--awoman's hair--especially hers, streaked as it was with white--silkensilver. When she shook her head a snowy thread tickled his noseamusingly. 

"I can't find anything like it, " she confessed. 

Then he said: "I've just remembered. Theocritus calls the hyacinthblack--_melan_--and so does Vergil. These cannot be hyacinths at all. "

He was bitterly disappointed. It would have been delightful to meet theflower in the flesh that he knew so well in literature. Doctor Marthaanswered with quiet strength:

"These are hyacinths. "

"But the Greeks--"

"Didn't know everything, " she said; "or perhaps they referred to anotherflower. But then we have dark-purple hyacinths. "

"Ah!" he said. "Sappho speaks of the hyacinth as purple--_porphuron_. "

Thus the modern world was reconciled with the Greek and he felt easier;but there was a gentle forcefulness about her that surprised him. Hewondered whether she would not be interested in hearing about hisedition of Nonnus. He assumed that she would be, being evidentlyintelligent. So he told her. He told her and told her, and she listenedwith almost devout interest. He was still telling her when the studentsin other classes stampeded to lunch with a many-hoofed clatter. Whenthey straggled back from lunch he was still telling her. 

It was not until he was interrupted by an afternoon class of his ownthat he realized how long he had talked. He apologized to ProfessorBinley; but she said she was honored beyond words. She had come to askhim a technical question in prosody, as from one professor to another;but she had forgotten it altogether--at least she put it off to anothervisit. She hastened away in a flutter, feeling slightly as if she hadbeen to a tryst. 

Litton went without his lunch that day, but he was browsing on memoriesof his visitor. He had not talked so long to a woman since he couldremember. This was the only woman who had let him talk uninterruptedlyabout himself--a very superior woman, everybody said. 

When he went to his room that night he was still thinking of hyacinthsand of her who had brought them to his eyes. 

He knocked from his desk a book. It fell open at a page. As he picked itup he noted that it was a copy of the anonymous old spring rhapsody, the_Pervigilium Veneris_, with its ceaselessly reiterated refrain, "To-morrow he shall love who never loved before. " As he fell asleep itwas running through his head like a popular tune: _Cras amet qui nunquamamavit; quique amavit cras amet_. 

It struck him as an omen; but it did not terrify him. 

V

Professor Martha called again to ask her question in verse technic. Theanswer led to further talk and the consultation of books. She was atrifle nearsighted and too proud to wear glasses, so she had to bendclose to the page; and her hair tickled his nose again foolishly. 

Conference bred conference, and one day she asked him whether she woulddare ask him to call. He rewarded her bravery by calling. She lived in adormitory, with a parlor for the reception of guests. Male students wereallowed to call on only two evenings a week. Litton did not call onthose evenings; yet the fact that he called at all swept through thetown like a silent thunderbolt. The students were mysteriously apprisedof the fact that old Professor Litton and Prof. Martha Binley weresitting up and taking notice. To the youngsters it looked like aflirtation in an old folks' home. 

Litton's very digestion was affected; his brain was in a whirl. He wasthe prey of the most childish alarms; gusts of petulant emotion sweptthrough him if Martha were late when he called; he was mad with jealousyif she mentioned another professor. 

She was growing more careful of her appearance. A new youth had come toher. She took fifteen years off her looks by simply fluffing her hairout of its professorial constriction. Professor Mackail noticed it andmentioned to Professor Litton that Professor Binley was looking ever somuch better. 

"She's not half homely for such an old maid!" he said. 

Professor Litton felt murder in his heart. He wanted to slay thereprobate twice--once for daring to observe Martha's beauty and once forhis parsimony of praise. 

That evening when he called on Martha he was tortured with a sullenmood. She finally coaxed from him the astounding admission that hesuspected her of flirting with Mackail. She was too new in love torecognize the ultimate compliment of his distress. She was horrified byhis distrust, and so hurt that she broke forth in a storm of tears anddenunciation. Their precious evening ended in a priceless quarrel ofamazing violence. He stamped down the outer steps as she stamped up theinner. 

For three days they did not meet and the university wore almost visiblemourning for its pets. Poor Litton had not known that the human heartcould suffer such agony. He was fairly burned alive with loneliness andresentment--like another Hercules blistering in the shirt of Nessus. AndMartha was suffering likewise as Jason's second wife was consumed inthe terrible poisoned robe that Medea sent her. 

One evening a hollow-eyed Litton crept up the dormitory steps and askedthe overjoyed maid for Professor Binley. When she appeared he caught herin his arms as if she were a spar and he a drowning sailor. They made uplike young lovers and swore oaths that they would never quarrelagain--oaths which, fortunately for the variety of their futureexistence, they found capable of infinite breaking and mending. 

Each denied that the other could possibly love each. He decried himselfas a stupid, ugly old fogy; and she cried him up as the wisest and mostbeautiful and best of men. Since best sounded rather weak, she calledhim the bestest; and he did not charge the impossible word against heras he had against Teed. He did not remember that Teed had ever used suchlanguage. Nobody could ever have used such language, because nobody wasever like her!

And when she said that he could not possibly love a homely, scrawny oldmaid like her, he delivered a eulogy that would have struck Aphrodite, rising milkily from the sea, as a slight exaggeration. And as for oldmaid, he cried in a curious blending of puerility and scholasticism:

"Old maid, do you say? And has my little Margy-wargles forgotten whatSappho said of an old maid? We'd have lost it if some old scholiast onthe stupid old sophist Hermogenes hadn't happened to quote it toexplain the word glukumalon--an apple grafted on a quince. Sappho saidthis old maid was like--let me see!--'like the sweet apple that blusheson the top of the bough--on the tip of the topmost; and theapple-gatherers forgot it--no, they did not forget it; they just couldnot get it!' And that's you, Moggles mine! You're an old maid becauseyou've been out of reach of everybody. I can't climb to you; so you'regoing to drop into my arms--aren't you?"

She said she supposed she was. And she did. 

Triumphantly he said, "Hadn't we better announce our engagement?"

This threw her into a spasm of fear. "Oh, not yet! Not yet! I'm afraidto let the students all know it. A little later--on Commencement Daywill be time enough. "

He bowed to her decision--not for the last time. 

For a time Litton had taken pleasure in employing his learning in theservice of Martha's beauty. He called her classic names--_Meæ Deliciæ_, or _Glukutate_, or _Melema_. A poem that he had always thought the lastword in silliness became a modest expression of his own emotions--thepoem in which Catallus begs Lesbia, "Give me a thousand kisses, then ahundred, then a thousand more, then a second hundred; then, when we havemade up thousands galore, we shall mix them up so that we shall notknow--nor any enemy be able to cast a spell because he knows--how manykisses there are. "

His scholarship began to weary her, however, and it began to seem anaffectation to him; so that he was soon mangling the English language inspeech and in the frequent notes he found it necessary to send his idolon infinitely unimportant matters that could not wait from after lunchto after dinner. 

She coined phrases for him, too, and his heart rejoiced when sheachieved the epoch-making revision of Stuart into Stookie-tookie! He hadthought that Toodie was wonderful, but it was a mere stepping-stone toStookie-tookie. 

Her babble ran through his head like music, and it softened his heart, so that almost nothing could bring him to earth except the recitationsof Teed, who crashed through the classics like a bull in a china-shopor, as Litton's Greeks put it, like an ass among beehives. 

During those black days when Litton had quarreled with Martha he hadfiercely reminded Teed that only a month remained before his finalexaminations, and warned him that he would hold him strictly to account. No classics, no diploma!

Teed had sulked and moped while Litton sulked and moped; but when Littonwas reconciled to Martha the sun seemed to come out on Teed's cloudedworld, too. He took a sudden extra interest in his electrical studiesand obtained permission to work in the laboratory overtime. He obtainedpermission even to visit the big city for certain apparatus. And hewrote the despondent, distant Fannie Newman that there would "shortlybe something doing in the classics. "

VI

One afternoon Professor Litton, having dismissed his class--in which hewas obliged to rebuke Teed more severely than usual--fell to rememberinghis last communion with Martha, the things he had said--and heard! Hewondered, as a philologist, at the strange prevalence of the "oo" soundin his love-making. It was plainly an onomatopoeic word representingthe soul's delight. Oo! was what Ah! is to the soul in exaltation andOh! to the soul in surprise. If the hyacinths babbled _Ai, Ai!_ theroses must murmur Oo! Oo!

The more he thought it over, the more nonsense it became, as all wordsturn to drivel on repetition; but chiefly he was amazed that even lovecould have wrought this change in him. In his distress he happened tothink of Dean Swift. Had not that fierce satirist created a dialect ofhis own for his everlastingly mysterious love affairs?

Eager for the comfort of fellowship in disgrace he hurried to thelibrary and sought out the works of the Dean of St. Patrick's. And inthe "Journal to Stella" he found what he sought--and more. Expressionsof the most appalling coarseness alternated with the most insipidtendernesses. 

The old dean had a code of abbreviations: M. D. For "My dear, " Ppt. For"Poppet, " Pdfr. For "Poor dear foolish rogue, " Oo or zoo or loo stoodfor "you, " Deelest for "Dearest, " and Rettle for "Letter, " and Dallarsfor "Girl, " Vely for "Very, " and Hele and Lele for "Here and there. "Litton copied out for his own comfort and Martha's this passage. 

 Do you know what? When I am writing in my own language I make up my mouth just as if I was speaking it: "Zoo must cly Lele and Hele, and Hele aden. Must loo mimitate Pdfr. , pay? Iss, and so la shall! And so leles fol ee rettle. Dood mollow. "

And Dean Swift had written this while he was in London two hundred yearsbefore, a great man among great men. With such authority back of himLitton returned to his empty class-room feeling as proud as Gulliver inLilliput. A little later he was Gulliver in Brobdingnag. 

Alone at his desk, with none of his students in the seats before him, hetook from his pocket--his left pocket--a photograph of Prof. MarthaBinley. It had been taken one day on a picnic far from the spying eyesof pupils. Her hair was all wind-blown, her eyes frowned gleamingly intothe sun, and her mouth was curled with laughter. 

He sat there alone--the learned professor--and talked to this snapshotin a dialogue he would have recently accepted as a perfect examinationpaper for matriculation in an insane-asylum. 

"Well, Margy-wargy, zoo and Stookie-tookie is dust like old DeanSwiffikins, isn't we?"

There was a rap on the door and the knob turned as he shot thephotograph into his pocket and pretended to be reading a volume ofBacchylides--upside down. The intruder was Teed. Litton was too muchstartled and too throbbing with guilt to express his indignation. Hestammered:

"We-well, Teed?" He almost called him teed-leums, his tongue had socaught the rhythm of love. 

Teed came forward with an ominous self-confidence bordering oninsolence. There was a glow in his eye that made his former tyrantquail. 

"Professor, I'd like a word with you about those conditions. I wishyou'd let me off on 'em. "

"Let you off, T-Teed?"

"Yes, sir. I can't get ready for the exams. I've boned until my skull'scracked and it lets the blamed stuff run out faster than I can cram itin. The minute I leave college I expect to forget everything I'velearned here, anyway; so I'd be ever so much obliged if you'd just passme along. "

"I don't think I quite comprehend, " said Litton, who was beginning toregain his pedagogical dignity. 

"All you've gotta do, " said Teed, "is to put a high enough mark on mypapers. You gimme a special examination and I'll make the best stab Ican at answering the questions; then you just shut one eye and mark itjust over the failure line. That'll save you a lot o' time and fix mehunky-dory. "

Litton was glaring at him, hearing the uncouth "gimme" and "gotta, " andwondering that a man could spend four years in college and scrape offso little paint. Then he began to realize the meaning of Teed'sproposal. His own honor was in traffic. He groaned in suffocation:

"Do you dare to ask me to put false marks on examination-papers, sir?"

"Aw, Professor, what's the dif? You couldn't grind Latin and Greek intome with a steel-rolling machine. Gimme a chance! There's a little girlwaiting for me outside and a big job. I can't get one without theother--and I don't get either unless you folks slip me the sheepskin. "

"Impossible, sir! Astounding! Insulting! Impossible!"

"Have a heart, can't you?"

"Leave the room, sir, at once!"

"All right!" Teed sighed, and turned away. At the door he paused tomurmur, "All right for you, Stookie-tookie!"

Litton's spectacles almost exploded from his nose. 

"What's that?" he shrieked. 

Teed turned and came back, with an intolerable smirk, straight to thedesk. He leaned on it with odious familiarity and grinned. 

"Say, Prof, did you ever hear of the dictagraph?"

"No! And I don't care to now. "

"You ought to read some of the modern languages, Prof! Dictagraph comesfrom two perfectly good Latin words: dictum and graft--well, you'll know'em. But the Greeks weren't wise to this little device. I got part of ithere. "

He took from his pocket the earpiece of the familiar engine oflatter-day detective romance. He explained it to the horribly fascinatedLitton, whose hair stood on end and whose voice stuck in his throat inthe best Vergilian manner. Before he quite understood its black magicLitton suspected the infernal purpose it had been put to. His wrath hadmelted to a sickening fear when Teed reached the conclusion of hisuninterrupted discourse:

"The other night I was calling on a pair of girls at the dormitory whereyour--where Professor Binley lives. They pointed out the sofa near thefireplace where you and the professoress sit and hold hands and makegoogoo eyes. "

There was that awful "oo" sound again! Litton was in an icyperspiration; but he was even more afraid for his beloved, precioussweetheart than for himself--and that was being about as much afraid asthere is. Teed went on relentlessly, gloating like a satyric mask:

"Well, I had an idea, and the girls fell for it with a yip of joy. Thenext evening I called I carried a wire from my room across to thatdormitory and nobody paid any attention while I brought it through awindow and under the carpet to the back of the sofa. And there itwaited, laying for you. And over at my digs I had it attached to aphonograph by a little invention of my own. 

"Gosh! It was wonderful! It even repeated the creak of those old, rustysprings while you waited for her. And when she came--well, anyway, Igot every word you said, engraved in wax, like one of those old poets ofyours used to write on. "

Litton was afraid to ask evidence in verification. Teed supplied theunspoken demand:

"For instance, the first thing she says to you is: 'Oh, there you are, my little lover! I thought you'd never come!' And you says, 'Did it missits stupid old Stookie?' And she says: 'Hideously! Sit down, honeyheart. ' And splung went the spring--and splung again! Then she says:'Did it have a mis'ble day in hateful old class-room? Put its boo'fulhead on Margy-wargy's shojer. ' Then you says--"

"Stop!" Litton cried, raising the only missile he could find, aninkstand. "Who knows of this infamy besides you?"

"Nobody yet--on my word of honor. "

"Honor!" sneered Litton, so savagely that Teed's shameless leer vanishedin a glare of anger. 

"Nobody yet! The girls are dying to hear and some of the fellows knewwhat I was up to; but I was thinking that I'd tell 'em that the blamedthing didn't work, provided--provided--"

"Provided?" Litton wailed, miserably. 

"Provided you could see your way clear to being a little careless withyour marks on my exam-papers. "

Litton sat with his head whirling and roaring like a coffee-grinder. Amultitude of considerations ran through and were crushed intopowder--his honor; her honor; the standards of the university; thestandards of a lover; the unimportance of Teed; the all-importance ofMartha; the secret disloyalty to the faculty; the open disloyalty to hisbest-beloved. He heard Teed's voice as from far off:

"Of course, if you can't see your way to sparing my sweetheart'sfeelings I don't see why I'm expected to spare yours--or to lie to thefellows and girls who are perishing to hear how two professors talk whenthey're in love. "

Another long pause. Then the artful Teed moved to the door and turnedthe knob. Litton could not speak; but he threw a look that was like agrappling-iron and Teed came back. 

"How do I know, " Litton moaned, "how do I know that you will keep yourword?"

"How do I know that you'll keep yours?" Teed replied, with the insolenceof a conqueror. 

"Sir!" Litton flared, but weakly, like a sick candle. 

"Well, " Teed drawled, "I'll bring you the cylinders. I'll have to trustyou, as one gentleman to another. "

"Gentleman!" Litton snarled in hydrophobic frenzy. 

"Well, as one lover to another, then, " Teed laughed. "Do I get mydiploma?"

Litton's head was so heavy he could not nod it. 

"It's my diploma in exchange for your records. Come on, Professor--be asport! And take it from me, it's no fun having the words you whisper ina girl's ear in the dark shouted out loud in the open court. And minewere repeated in a Dutch dialect! I got yours just as they came fromyour lips--and hers. "

That ended it. Litton surrendered, passed himself under the yoke;pledged himself to the loathsome compact, and Teed went to fetch theprice of his degree of Bachelor of Arts. 

Litton hung dejected beyond feeling for a long while. His heart waswhimpering _Ai, Ai!_ He felt himself crushed under a hundred differentcrimes. He felt that he could never look up again. Then he heard a softtap at the door. He could not raise his eyes or his voice. He heard thedoor open and supposed it was Teed bringing him the wages of his shame;but he heard another voice--an unimaginably beautiful, tragically tendervoice--crooning:

"Oo-oo! Stookie-tookie!"

He looked up. How radiant she was! He could only sigh. She came acrossto him as gracefully and lightly as Iris running down a rainbow. She wasmurmuring:

"I just had to slip over and tell you something. "

"Well, Martha!" he sighed. 

She stopped short, as if he had struck her. 

"'Martha'? What's the matter? You aren't mad at me, are you, Stookie?"

"How could I be angry with you, Marg--er--Martha?"

"Then why don't you call me Margy-wargleums?"

He stared at her. Her whimsical smile, trembling to a piteously prettyhint of terror, overwhelmed him. He hesitated, then shoved back hischair and, rising, caught her to him so tightly that she gasped out, "Oo!" There it was again! He laughed like an overgrown cub as he cried:

"Why don't I call you Margy-wargleums? Well, what a darned fool I'd benot to! Margy-wargleums!"

To such ruin does love--the blind, the lawless, the illiteratechild--bring the noblest intelligences and the loftiest principles. 

THE MOUTH OF THE GIFT HORSE

I

The town of Wakefield was--is--suffering from growing pains--fromingrowing pains, according to its rival, Gatesville. 

Wakefield has long been guilty of trying to add a cubit to its statureby taking thought. Established, like thousands of other pools left inthe prairies by that tidal wave of humanity sweeping westward in themiddle of the last century, it passed its tenth thousand with a rush;then something happened. 

For decades the decennial census dismally tolled the same knell offifteen thousand in round numbers. The annual censuses but echoed thereverberations. A few more cases of measles one year, and the populationlapsed a little below the mark; an easy winter, and it slipped a littleabove. No mandragora of bad times or bad health ever quite brought it solow as fourteen thousand. No fever of prosperity ever sent thetemperature quite so high as sixteen thousand. 

The iteration got on people's nerves till a commercial association wasformed under the name of the Wide-a-Wakefield Club, with a motto of"Boom or Bust. " Many individuals accomplished the latter, but the townstill failed of the former. The chief activity of the club was in theline of decoying manufacturers over into Macedonia by various bribes. 

Its first capture was a cutlery company in another city. Thoughapparently prosperous, it had fallen foul of the times, and itspresident adroitly allowed the Wide-a-Wakefield Club to learn that, if abuilding of sufficient size were offered rent free for a term of years, the cutlery company might be induced to move to Wakefield and conductits business there, employing at least a hundred laborers, year in, yearout. 

There was not in all Wakefield a citizen too dull to see the individualand collective advantage of this hundred increase. It meant moneyin the pocket of every doctor, lawyer, merchant, clothier, boarding-house-keeper, saloon-keeper, soda-water-vender--whom not?

Every establishment in town would profit, from the sanatorium to the"pantatorium"--as the institution for the replenishment of trousers waselegantly styled. 

Commercial fervor rose to such heights in Wakefield that in no time atall enough money was subscribed to build a convenient factory and topurchase as many of the shares of cutlery stock as the amiable presidentcared to print. In due season the manufacture of tableware and penknivesbegan, and the pride of the town was set aglow by the trade-markstamped on every article issued from the cutlery factory. It was aningenious emblem--a glorious Cupid in a sash marked "Wakefield, "stabbing a miserable Cupid in a sash marked "Sheffield. "

It was Sheffield that survived. In fact, the stupid English cityprobably never heard of the Wakefield Cutlery Company. Nor did Wakefieldhear of it long. For the emery dust soon ceased to glisten in the airand the steel died of a distemper. 

It was a very real shock to Wakefield, and many a boy that had beenmeant for college went into his father's store instead, and many a girlwho had planned to go East to be polished stayed at home and polishedher mother's plates and pans, because the family funds had been investedin the steel-engravings of the cutlery stock certificates. They werevery handsome engravings. 

Hope languished in Wakefield until a company from Kenosha consented totransport its entire industry thither if it could receive a buildingrent free. It was proffered, and it accepted, the cutlery works. For aseason the neighboring streets were acrid with the aroma of thepassionate pickles that were bottled there. And then its briny deepsceased to swim with knobby condiments. A tin-foil company abode awhile, and yet again a tamale-canning corporation, which in its turn sailed onto the Sargasso Sea of missing industries. 

Other factory buildings in Wakefield fared likewise. They were butlodging-houses for transient failures. The population swung with thetide, but always at anchor. The lift which the census received from anartificial-flower company, employing seventy-five hands, was canceled bythe demise of a more redolent pork-packing concern of equal pay-roll. People missed it when the wind blew from the west. 

But Wakefield hoped on. One day the executive committee of theWide-a-Wakefield Club, having nothing else to do, met in executivesession. There were various propositions to consider. All of them werewritten on letter-heads of the highest school of commercial art, and allof them promised to endow Wakefield with some epoch-making advantage, provided merely that Wakefield furnish a building rent free, tax free, water free, and subscribe to a certain amount of stock. 

The club regarded these glittering baits with that cold and clammy gazewith which an aged trout of many-scarred gills peruses some newfangledspoon. 

But if these letters were tabled with suspicion because they offered toomuch for too little, what hospitality could be expected for a letterwhich offered still more for still less? The chairman of the committeewas Ansel K. Pettibone, whose sign-board announced him as a "practicalhouse-painter and paper-hanger. " He read this letter, head-lines andall:

MARK A. SHELBY     JOHN R. SHELBY     LUKE B. SHELBY

SHELBY PARADISE POWDER COMPANY

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. , U. S. A. 

MAKES WASHDAY WELCOME. SIDESTEP SUBSTITUTES. WIDE-A-WAKEFIELD CLUB, Wakefield:

 DEAR SIRS, --The undersigned was born in your city, and left same about twenty years ago to seek his fortune. I have finally found it after many ups and downs. Us three brothers have jointly perfected and patented the famous Paradise Powder. It is generally conceded to be the grandest thing of its kind ever put on the market, and, in the words of the motto, "Makes Washday Welcome. " Ladies who have used it agree that our statement is not excessive when we say, "Once tried, you will use no other. "

 It is selling at such a rate in the East that I have a personal profit of two thousand dollars a week. We intend to push it in the West, and we were talking of where would be the best place to locate a branch factory at. My brothers mentioned Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, Denver, and such places, but I said, "I vote for Wakefield. " My brothers said I was cracked. I says maybe I am, but I'm going back to my old home town and spend the rest of my life there and my surplus money, too. I want to beautify Wakefield, and as near as I can remember there is room for improvement. It may not be good business, but it is what I want to do. And also what I want to know is, can I rely on the co-operation of the Wide-a-Wakefield Club in doing its share to build up the old town into a genuine metropolis? Also, what would be the probable cost of a desirable site for the factory?

 Hoping to receive a favorable reply from you at your earliest convenience, Yours truly, LUKE B. SHELBY. 

The chairman's grin had grown wider as he read and read. When he hadfinished the letter he tossed it along the line. Every member read itand shook with equal laughter. 

"I wonder what kind of green goods he sells?" said Joel Spate, the ownerof the Bon-Ton Grocery. 

"My father used to say to me, " said Forshay, of the One-Price Emporium, "whatever else you do, Jake, always suspicion the fellow that offers yousomething for nothing. There's a nigger in the woodpile some'eres. "

"That's so, " said Soyer, the swell tailor, who was strong on secondthought. 

"He says he's goin' to set up a factory here, but he don't ask for rentfree, tax free, light free--nothin' free, " said the practicalhouse-painter. 

"What's the name again?" said Spate. 

"Shelby--Luke B. Shelby, " answered Pettibone. "Says he used to live heretwenty years ago. Ever hear of him? I never did. "

Spate's voice came from an ambush of spectacles and whiskers: "I'velived here all m' life--I'm sixty-three next month. I don't remember anysuch man or boy. "

"Me, neither, " echoed Soyer, "and I'm here going on thirty-five year. "

The heads shook along the line as if a wind had passed over a row ofwheat. 

"It's some new dodge for sellin' stock, " suspicioned One-Price Forshay, who had a large collection of cutlery certificates. 

"More likely it's just a scheme to get us talking about his ParadisePowder. Seems to me I've had some of their circulars, " said Bon-TonSpate. 

Pettibone, the practical chairman, silenced the gossip with a brisk, "What is the pleasure of the meeting as regards answering it?"

"I move we lay it on the table, " said Eberhart of the Furniture Palace. 

"I move we lay it under the table, " said Forshay, who had a keen senseof humor. 

"Order, gentlemen! Order, " rapped Pettibone, as the room rocked with thelaughter in which Forshay led. 

When sobriety was restored it was moved, seconded, and passed that thesecretary be instructed to send Shelby a copy of the boom number of theWakefield _Daily Eagle_. 

And in due time the homesick Ulysses, waiting a welcome from Ithaca, received this answer to his letter:

 LUKE B. SHELBY, Springfield, Mass. 

 SIR, --Yours of sixteenth inst. Rec'd and contents noted. In reply to same, beg to state are sending last special number _Daily Eagle_, giving full information about city and sites. 

 Yours truly, JOEL SPATE, _Secy. Exec. Comm. _

Shelby winced. The hand he had held out with pearls of price had beenbrushed aside. His brothers laughed. 

"We said you were cracked. They don't want your old money or yoursociety. Go somewheres where they do. "

But Luke B. Shelby had won his success by refusing to be denied, and hehad set his heart on refurbishing his old home town. The instinct ofplace is stronger than any other instinct in some animals, and Shelbywas homesick for Wakefield--not for anybody, any house, or any street inparticular there, but just for Wakefield. 

Without further ado he packed his things and went. 

II

There was no brass band to meet him. At the hotel the clerk read hisname without emotion. When he required the best two rooms in the hotel, and a bath at that, the clerk looked suspicious:

"Any baggage?"

"Three trunks and a grip. "

"What line do you carry? Will you use the sample-room?"

"Don't carry any line. Don't want any sample-room. "

He walked out to see the town. It had so much the same look that itseemed to have been embalmed. Here were the old stores, the old signs, apparently the same fly-specked wares in the windows. 

He read Doctor Barnby's rusty shingle. Wasn't that the same swaybackedhorse dozing at the hitching-post?

Here was the rough hill road where he used to coast as a child. Therestood Mrs. Hooker on the lawn with a hose, sprinkling the street, thetrees, the grass, the oleander in its tub and the moon-flower on theporch. He seemed to have left her twenty years ago in that attitude withthe same arch of water springing from the nozzle. 

He paused before the same gap-toothed street-crossing of yore, and hestarted across it as across the stepping-stones of a dry stream. Araw-boned horse whirled around the corner, just avoiding his toes. Itwas followed by a bouncing grocery-wagon on the side of whose seatdangled a shirt-sleeved youth who might have been Shelby himself a scoreof years ago. 

Shelby paused to watch. The horse drew up at the home of DoctorStillwell, the dentist. Before the wagon was at rest the delivery-boywas off and half-way around the side of the house. Mrs. Stillwell openedthe screen door to take in the carrots and soap and washing-powderShelby used to bring her. Shelby remembered that she used washing-powderthen. He wondered if she had heard of the "Paradise. "

As he hung poised on a brink of memory the screen door flapped shut, thegrocery-boy was hurrying back, the horse was moving away, and the boyleaped to his side-saddle seat on the wagon while it was in motion. Thedelivery-wagons and their Jehus were the only things that moved fast inWakefield, now as then. 

Shelby drifted back to the main street and found the Bon-Ton Grocerywhere it had been when he deserted the wagon. The same old vegetablesseemed to be sprawling outside. The same flies were avid at thestrawberry-boxes, which, he felt sure, the grocer's wife had arranged asalways, with the biggest on top. He knew that some Mrs. Spate had sodistributed them, if it were not the same who had hectored him, for oldSpate had a habit of marrying again. His wives lasted hardly so long ashis hard-driven horses. 

Shelby paused to price some of the vegetables, just to draw Spate intoconversation. The old man was all spectacles and whiskers, as he hadalways been. Shelby thought he must have been born with spectacles andwhiskers. 

Joel Spate, never dreaming who Shelby was, was gracious to him for thefirst time in history. He evidently looked upon Shelby as a new-comerwho might be pre-empted for a regular customer before Mrs. L. Bowers, the rival grocer, got him. It somehow hurt Shelby's homesick heart to beunrecognized, more than it pleased him to enjoy time's topsy-turvy. Herehe was, returned rich and powerful, to patronize the taskmaster who hadworked him hard and paid him harder in the old years. Yet he dared notproclaim himself and take his revenge. 

He ended the interview by buying a few of the grocer's horrible cigars, which he gave away to the hotel porter later. 

All round the town Shelby wandered, trying to be recognized. But age andprosperity had altered him beyond recall, though he himself knew almostevery old negro whitewash man, almost every teamster, he met. He wassurer of the first names than of the last, for the first names had beenmost used in his day, and it surprised him to find how clearly herecalled these names and faces, though late acquaintances escaped hismemory with ease. 

The women, too, he could generally place, though many who had beenshort-skirted tomboys were now heavy-footed matrons of embonpoint withchildren at their skirts, children as old as they themselves had beenwhen he knew them. Some of them, indeed, he recognized only by thechildren that lagged alongside like early duplicates. 

As he sauntered one street of homely homes redeemed by the opulence oftheir foliage, he saw coming his way a woman whose outlines seemed butthe enlargement of some photograph in the gallery of remembrance. Beforeshe reached him he identified Phoebe Carew. 

Her mother, he remembered, had been widowed early and had eked out ameager income by making chocolate fudge, which the little girl peddledabout town on Saturday afternoons. And now the child, though she must bethirty or thereabouts, had kept a certain grace of her youth, a wistfulprettiness, a girlish unmarriedness, that marked her as an old maid byaccident or choice, not by nature's decree. 

He wondered if she, at least, would pay him the compliment ofrecognition. She made no sign of it as she approached. As she passed helifted his hat. 

"Isn't this Miss Phoebe Carew?"

Wakefield women were not in danger from strangers' advances; she pausedwithout alarm and answered with an inquiring smile:

"Yes. "

"You don't remember me?"

She studied him. "I seem to, and yet--"

"I'm Luke Shelby. "

"Luke Shelby! Oh yes! Why, how do you do?" She gave him her beautifulhand, but she evidently lacked the faintest inkling of his identity. Time had erased from recollection the boy who used to take her slidingon his sled, the boy who used to put on her skates for her, the boy whoused to take her home on his grocery-wagon sometimes, pretending that hewas going her way, just for the benizon of her radiant companionship, her shy laughter. 

"I used to live here, " he said, ashamed to be so forgettable. "My motherwas--my stepfather was A. J. Stacom, who kept the hardware-store. "

"Oh yes, " she said; "they moved away some years ago, didn't they?"

"Yes; after mother died my stepfather went back to Council Bluffs, wherewe came from in the first place. I used to go to school with you, Phoebe--er--Miss Carew. Then I drove Spate's delivery-wagon for awhile before I went East. "

"Oh yes, " she said; "I think I remember you very well. I'm very glad tosee you again, Mr. --Mr. Stacom. "

"Shelby, " he said, and he was so heartsick that he merely lifted his hatand added, "I'm glad to see you looking so well. "

"You're looking well, too, " she said, and smiled the gracious, emptysmile one visits on a polite stranger. Then she went her way. In hislonely eyes she moved with a goddess-like grace that made clouds of theuneven pavements where he stumbled as he walked with reverted gaze. 

He went back to the hotel lonelier than before, in a greater lonelinessthan Ulysses felt ending his Odyssey in Ithaca. For, at least, Ulysseswas remembered by an old dog that licked his hand. 

Once in his room, Shelby sank into a patent rocker of most uncomfortableplush. The inhospitable garishness of a small-town hotel's luxuryexpelled him from the hateful place, and he resumed the streets, taking, as always, determination from rebuff and vowing within himself:

"I'll make 'em remember me. I'll make the name of Shelby the biggestname in town. "

On the main street he found one lone, bobtailed street-car waiting atthe end of its line, its horse dejected with the ennui of its career, the driver dozing on the step. 

Shelby decided to review the town from this seedy chariot; but thedriver, surly with sleep, opened one eye and one corner of his mouthjust enough to inform him that the next "run" was not due for fifteenminutes. 

"I'll change that, " said Shelby. "I'll give 'em a trolley, and open carsin summer, too. "

He dragged his discouraged feet back to the hotel and asked when dinnerwould be served. 

"Supper's been ready sence six, " said the clerk, whose agile toothpickproclaimed that he himself had banqueted. 

Shelby went into the dining-room. A haughty head waitress, zealouslychewing gum, ignored him for a time, then piloted him to a table wherehe found a party of doleful drummers sparring in repartee with a damselof fearful and wonderful coiffure. 

She detached herself reluctantly and eventually brought Shelby a suppercontained in a myriad of tiny barges with which she surrounded his platein a far-reaching flotilla. 

When he complained that his steak was mostly gristle, and that he didnot want his pie yet, Hebe answered:

"Don't get flip! Think you're at the Worldoff?"

Poor Shelby's nerves were so rocked that he condescended to complain tothe clerk. For answer he got this:

"Mamie's all right. If you don't like our ways, better build a hotel ofyour own. "

"I guess I will, " said Shelby. 

He went to his room to read. The gas was no more than darkness madevisible. He vowed to change that, too. 

He would telephone to the theater. The telephone-girl was forever inanswering, and then she was impudent. Besides, the theater was closed. Shelby learned that there was "a movin'-pitcher show going"! He went, and it moved him to the door. 

The sidewalks were full of doleful loafers and loaferesses. Men placedtheir chairs in the street and smoked heinous tobacco. Girls and womendawdled and jostled to and from the ice-cream-soda fountains. 

The streets that night were not lighted at all, for the moon was abroad, and the board of aldermen believed in letting God do all He could forthe town. In fact, He did nearly all that the town could show of charm. The trees were majestic, the grass was lavishly spread, the sky wasdivinely blue by day and angelically bestarred at night. 

Shelby compared his boyhood impressions with the feelings governing hismind now that it was adult and traveled. He felt that he had grown, butthat the town had stuck in the mire. He felt an ambition to lift it andenlighten it. Like the old builder who found Rome brick and left itmarble, Shelby determined that the Wakefield which he found of plank heshould leave at least of limestone. Everything he saw displeased him andurged him to reform it altogether, and he said:

"I'll change all this. And they'll love me for it. "

And he did. But they--did they?

III

One day a greater than Shelby came to Wakefield, but not to stay. It wasno less than the President of these United States swinging around thecircle in an inspection of his realm, with possibly an eye to thenearing moment when he should consent to re-election. As his specialtrain approached each new town the President studied up its statisticsso that he might make his speech enjoyable by telling the citizens thethings they already knew. He had learned that those are the thingspeople most like to hear. 

His encyclopædia informed him that Wakefield had a population of aboutfifteen thousand. He could not know how venerable an estimate this was, for Wakefield was still fifteen thousand--now and forever, fifteenthousand and insuperable. 

The President had a mental picture of just what such a town of fifteenthousand would look like, and he wished himself back in the White House. 

He was met at the train by the usual entertainment committee, which inthis case coincided with the executive committee of the Wide-a-WakefieldClub. It had seemed just as well to these members to elect themselves asanybody else. 

Mr. Pettibone, the town's most important paper-hanger, was againchairman after some lapses from office. Joel Spate, the Bon-Ton Grocer, was once more secretary, after having been treasurer twice and presidentonce. The One-Price Emporium, however, was now represented by theyounger Forshay, son of the founder, who had gone to the inevitableGreenwood at the early age of sixty-nine. Soyer, the swell tailor, hadyielded his place to the stateliest man in town, Amasa Harbury, president of the Wakefield Building and Loan Association. And Eberhart, of the Furniture Palace, had been supplanted by Gibson Shoals, the bankcashier. 

To the President's surprise the railroad station proved to be, insteadof the doleful shed usual in those parts, a graceful edifice ofmetropolitan architecture. He was to ride in an open carriage, ofcourse, drawn by the two spanking dapples which usually drew the hearsewhen it was needed. But this was tactfully kept from the President. 

There had been some bitterness over the choice of the President'scompanions in the carriage, since it was manifestly impossible for theentire committee of seven to pile into the space of four, though youngForshay, who had inherited his father's gift of humor, volunteered toride on the President's lap or hold him on his. 

The extra members were finally consoled by being granted the nextcarriage, an equipage drawn by no less than the noble black geldingsusually attached to the chief mourners' carriage. 

As the President was escorted to his place he remarked that atrolley-car was waiting at the station. 

"I see that Wakefield boasts an electric line, " he beamed. 

"Yes, " said Pettibone, "that's some of Shelby's foolishness. "

A look from Spate silenced him, but the President had not caught theslip. 

The procession formed behind the town band, whose symphony sufferedsomewhat from the effort of the musicians to keep one eye on the musicand throw the other eye backward at the great visitor. 

"What a magnificent building!" said the President as the parade turned acorner. Nobody said anything, and the President read the name aloud. "The Shelby House. A fine hotel!" he exclaimed, as he lifted his hat tothe cheers from the white-capped chambermaids and the black-coatedwaiters in the windows. They were male waiters. 

"And the streets are lighted by electricity! And paved with brick!" thePresident said. "Splendid! Splendid! There must be very enterprisingcitizens in Gatesville--I mean Wakefield. " He had visited so many towns!

"That's a handsome office-building, " was his next remark. "It's quitemetropolitan. " The committee vouchsafed no reply, but they could seethat he was reading the sign:

THE SHELBY BLOCK:SHELBY INDEPENDENT TELEPHONE COMPANYSHELBY'S PARADISE POWDER COMPANYSHELBY ARTESIAN WELL COMPANYSHELBY PASTIME PARK COMPANYSHELBY OPERA HOUSE COMPANYSHELBY STREET RAILWAY COMPANY

The committee was not used to chatting with Presidents, and even thepractical Pettibone, who had voted against him, had an awe of him in theflesh. He decided to vote for him next time; it would be comforting tobe able to say, "Oh yes, I know the President well; I used to take longdrives with him--once. "

There were heartaches in the carriage as the President, who commented onso many things, failed to comment on the banner of welcome overPettibone's shop, painted by Pettibone's own practical hand; or thegaily bedighted Bon-Ton Grocery with the wonderful arrangement oftomato-cans into the words, "Welcome to Wakefield. " The Building andLoan Association had stretched a streamer across the street, too, andthe President never noticed it. His eyes and tongue were caught away bythe ornate structure of the opera-house. 

"Shelby Opera House. So many things named after Mr. Shelby. Is he thefounder of the city or--or--"

"No, just one of the citizens, " said Pettibone. 

"I should be delighted to meet him. "

Three votes fell from the Presidential tree with a thud. 

Had the committee been able to imagine in advance how Shelbyisms wouldobtrude everywhere upon the roving eye of the visitor, whose one aim wasa polite desire to exclaim upon everything exclaimable, they might havelaid out the line of march otherwise. 

But it was too late to change now, and they grew grimmer and grimmer asthe way led to the stately pleasure-dome which Shelby Khan had decreedand which imported architects and landscape-gardeners had established. 

Here were close-razored lawns and terraces, a lake with spoutingfountains, statues of twisty nymphs, glaring, many-antlered stags andcouchant lions, all among cedar-trees and flower-beds whose perfumessaluted the Presidential nostril like a gentle hurrah. 

Emerging through the trees were the roofs, the cupola and ivy-boweredwindows of the home of Shelby, most homeless at home. For, after all hismunificence, Wakefield did not like him. The only tribute the people hadpaid him was to boost the prices of everything he bought, from land tolabor, from wall-paper to cabbages. And now on the town's great day hehad not been included in any of the committees of welcome. He had beenleft to brood alone in his mansion like a prince in ill favor exiled tohis palace. 

He did not know that his palace had delighted even the jaded eye of thefar-traveled First Citizen. He only knew that his fellow-townsmensneered at it with dislike. 

Shelby was never told by the discreet committeemen in the carriage thatthe President had exclaimed on seeing his home:

"Why, this is magnificent! This is an estate! I never dreamedthat--er--Wakefield was a city of such importance and such wealth. Andwhose home is this?"

Somebody groaned, "Shelby's. "

"Ah yes; Shelby's, of course. So many things here are Shelby's. You mustbe very proud of Mr. Shelby. Is he there, perhaps?"

"That's him, standing on the upper porch there, waving his hat, "Pettibone mumbled. 

The President waved his hat at Shelby. 

"And the handsome lady is his wife, perhaps?"

"Yes, that's Mrs. Shelby, " mumbled Spate. "She was Miss Carew. Used toteach school here. "

Phoebe Shelby was clinging to her husband's side. There were tears inher eyes and her hands squeezed mute messages upon his arm, for she knewthat his many-wounded heart was now more bitterly hurt than in all hisknowledge of Wakefield. He was a prisoner in disgrace gazing through thebars at a festival. 

He never knew that the President suggested stopping a moment tocongratulate him, and that it was his own old taskmaster Spate whoventured to say that the President could meet him later. Spate couldrise to an emergency; the other committeemen thanked him with theireyes. 

As the carriage left the border of the Shelby place the President turnedhis head to stare, for it was beautiful, ambitiously beautiful. Andsomething in the silent attitude of the owner and his wife struck adeeper note in the noisy, gaudy welcome of the other citizens. 

"Tell me about this Mr. Shelby, " said the President. 

Looks were exchanged among the committee. All disliked the task, butfinally Spate broke the silence. 

"Well, Mr. President, Shelby is a kind of eccentric man. Some folks sayhe's cracked. Used to drive a delivery-wagon for me. Ran away and triedhis hand at nearly everything. Finally, him and his two brothersinvented a kind of washing-powder. It was like a lot of others, but theyknew how to push it. Borrowed money to advertise it big. Got it startedtill they couldn't have stopped it if they'd tried. Shelby decided tocome back here and establish a branch factory. That tall chimney is it. No smoke comin' out of it to-day. He gave all the hands a holiday inyour honor, Mr. President. "

The President said: "Well, that's mighty nice of him. So he's come backto beautify his old home, eh? That's splendid--a fine spirit. Too manyof us, I'm afraid, forget the old places when ambition carries us awayinto new scenes. Mr. Shelby must be very popular here. "

There was a silence. Mr. Pettibone was too honest, or too something, tolet the matter pass. 

"Well, I can't say as to that, Mr. President. Shelby's queer. He's verypushing. You can't drive people more 'n so fast. Shelby is awful fussy. Now, that trolley line--he put that in, but we didn't need it. "

"Not but what Wakefield is enterprising, " Spate added, anxiously. 

Pettibone nodded and went on: "People used to think the old bobtailedhorse-car--excuse my language--wasn't much, but the trolley-cars are along way from perfect. Service ain't so very good. People don't ride on'em much, because they don't run often enough. "

The President started to say, "Perhaps they can't run oftener becausepeople don't ride on 'em enough, " but something counseled him tosilence, and Pettibone continued:

"Same way with the electric light. People that had gas hated to change. He made it cheap, but it's a long way from perfect. He put in anindependent telephone. The old one wasn't much good and it wasexpensive. Now we can have telephones at half the old price. But resultis, you've got to have two, or you might just as well not have one. Everybody you want to talk to is always on the other line. "

The President nodded. He understood the ancient war between the simplelife and the strenuous. He wished he had left the subject unopened, butPettibone had warmed to the theme. 

"Shelby built an opery-house and brought some first-class troupes here. But this is a religious town, and people don't go much to shows. In thefirst place, we don't believe in 'em; in the second place, we've beenbit by bad shows so often. So his opery-house costs more 'n it takes in. 

"Then he laid out the Pastime Park--tried to get up games and things;but the vacant lots always were good enough for baseball. He tried toget people to go out in the country and play golf, too; but it was toomuch like following the plow. Folks here like to sit on their porcheswhen they're tired. 

"He brought an automobile to town--scared most of the horses to death. Our women folks got afraid to drive because the most reliable old nagstried to climb trees whenever Shelby came honking along. He built two orthree monuments to famous citizens, but that made the families of otherfamous citizens jealous. 

"He built that big home of his, but it only makes our wives envious. It's so far out that the society ladies can't call much. Besides, theyfeel uneasy with all that glory. 

"Mrs. Shelby has a man in a dress-suit to open the door. The rest ofus--our wives answer the door-bell themselves. Our folks are kind ofafraid to invite Mr. And Mrs. Shelby to their parties for fear they'llcriticize; so Mrs. Shelby feels as if she was deserted. 

"She thinks her husband is mistreated, too; but--well, Shelby'seccentric. He says we're ungrateful. Maybe we are, but we like to dothings our own way. Shelby tried to get us to help boost the town, as hecalls it. He offered us stock in his ventures, but we've got taken in sooften that--well, once bit is twice shy, you know, Mr. President. SoWakefield stands just about where she did before Shelby came here. "

"Not but what Wakefield is enterprising, " Mr. Spate repeated. 

The President's curiosity overcame his policy. He asked one morequestion:

"But if you citizens didn't help Mr. Shelby, how did he manage allthese--improvements, if I may use the word?"

"Did it all by his lonesome, Mr. President. His income was immense. Buthe cut into it something terrible. His brothers in the East began to rowat the way he poured it out. When he began to draw in advance they weregoin' to have him declared incompetent. Even his brothers say he'scracked. Recently they've drawn in on him. Won't let him spend his ownmoney. "

A gruesome tone came from among Spate's spectacles and whiskers:

"He won't last long. Health's giving out. His wife told my wife, theother day, he don't sleep nights. That's a bad sign. His pride is set onkeepin' everything going, though, and nothing can hold him. He wants thestreet-cars to run regular, and the telephone to answer quick, even ifthe town don't support 'em. He's cracked--there's nothing to it. "

Amasa Harbury, of the Building and Loan Association, leaned close andspoke in a confidential voice:

"He's got mortgages on 'most everything, Mr. President. He's borrowed onall his securities up to the hilt. Only yesterday I had to refuse him asecond mortgage on his house. He stormed around about how much he'd putinto it. I told him it didn't count how much you put into a hole, it washow much you could get out. You can imagine how much that palace of hiswould bring in this town on a foreclosure sale--about as much as a whiteelephant in a china-shop. "

"Not but what Wakefield is enterprising, " insisted Spate. 

The lust for gossip had been aroused and Pettibone threw discretion tothe winds. 

"Shelby was hopping mad because we left him off the committee ofwelcome, but we thought we'd better stick to our own crowd ofrepresent'ive citizens. Shelby don't really belong to Wakefield, anyway. Still, if you want to meet him, it can be arranged. "

"Oh no, " said the President. "Don't trouble. "

And he was politic--or politician--enough to avoid the subjectthenceforward. But he could not get Shelby out of his mind that night ashis car whizzed on its way. To be called crazy and eccentric and to besuspected, feared, resisted by the very people he longed tolead--Presidents are not unaware of that ache of unrequited affection. 

The same evening Shelby and Phoebe Shelby looked out on their park. The crowds that had used it as a vantage-ground for the pageant had allvanished, leaving behind a litter of rubbish, firecrackers, cigar stubs, broken shrubs, gouged terraces. Not one of them had asked permission, had murmured an apology or a word of thanks. 

For the first time Phoebe Shelby noted that her husband did not takenew determination from rebuff. His resolution no longer made aspringboard of resistance. He seemed to lean on her a little. 

IV

The perennially empty cutlery-works gave the Wide-a-Wakefield Club norest. Year after year the anxiously awaited census renewed the old noteof fifteen thousand and denied the eloquent argument of increasedpopulation. The committee in its letters continued to refer toWakefield as "thriving" rather than as "growing. " Its ingeniouslyevasive circulars finally roused a curiosity in Wilmer Barstow, amanufacturer of refrigerators, dissatisfied with the taxes and freightrates of the city of Clayton. 

Barstow was the more willing to leave Clayton because he had sufferedthere from that reward which is more unkind than the winter wind. Heloved a woman and paid court to her, sending her flowers at everypossible excuse and besetting her with gifts. 

She was not much of a woman--her very lover could see that; but he lovedher in his own and her despite. She was unworthy of his jewels as of hisinfatuation, yet she gave him no courtesy for his gifts. She behaved asif they bored her; yet he knew no other way to win her. The moreindifference she showed the more he tried to dazzle her. 

At last he found that she was paying court herself to a younger man--aselfish good-for-naught who made fun of her as well as of Barstow, andwho borrowed money from her as well as from Barstow. 

When Barstow fully realized that the woman had made him not only her ownbooby, but the town joke as well, he could not endure her or the placelonger. He cast about for an escape. But he found his factory notrifling baggage to move. 

It was on such fertile soil that one of the Wide-a-Wakefield circularsfell. 

It chimed so well with Barstow's mood that he decided at least to lookthe town over. 

He came unannounced to make his own observations, like the spies sentinto Canaan. The trolley-car that met his train was rusty, paintless, forlorn, untenanted. He took a ramshackle hack to the best hotel. Itssign-board bore this legend: "The Palace, formerly ShelbyHouse--entirely new management. "

He saw his baggage bestowed and went out to inspect the factory buildingdescribed to him. The cutlery-works proved smaller than his needs, andit had a weary look. Not far away he found a far larger factory, idle, empty, closed. The sign declared it to be the Wakefield Branch of theShelby Paradise Powder Company. He knew the prosperity of that firm andwondered why this branch had been abandoned. 

In the course of time the trolley-car overtook him, and he boarded it asa sole passenger. 

The lonely motorman was loquacious and welcomed Barstow as the AncientMariner welcomed the wedding guest. He explained that he made but fewtrips a day and passengers were fewer than trips. The company kept itgoing to hold the franchise, for some day Wakefield would reach sixteenthousand and lift the hoodoo. 

The car passed an opera-house, with grass aspiring through the chinks ofthe stone steps leading to the boarded-up doors. 

The car passed the Shelby Block; the legend, "For Rent, apply to AmasaHarbury, " hid the list of Shelby enterprises. 

The car grumbled through shabby streets to the outskirts of the town, where it sizzled along a singing wire past the drooping fences, thesagging bleachers, and the weedy riot of what had been apleasure-ground. A few dim lines in the grass marked the ghost of abaseball diamond, a circular track, and foregone tennis-courts. 

Barstow could read on what remained of the tottering fence:

HELBY'S PAST ARK

When the car had reached the end of the line Barstow decided to walkback to escape the garrulity of the motorman, who lived a lonely life, though he was of a sociable disposition. 

Barstow's way led him shortly to the edge of a curious demesne, orrather the débris of an estate. A chaos of grass and weeds thrust eventhrough the rust of the high iron fence about the place. Shrubs that hadonce been shapely grew raggedly up and swept down into the tall andragged grass. A few evergreen trees lifted flowering cones like funeralcandles in sconces. What had been a lake with fountains was a great, cracked basin of concrete tarnished with scabious pools thick with thedead leaves of many an autumn. 

Barstow entered a fallen gate and walked along paths where his feetslashed through barbaric tangles clutching at him like fingers. As heprowled, wondering what splendor this could have been which was somisplaced in so dull a town and drooping into so early a neglect, birdstook alarm and went crying through the branches. There were litheescapes through the grass, and from the rim of the lake ugly toadsplounced into the pool and set the water-spiders scurrying on theirfrail catamarans. 

Two bronze stags towered knee-deep in verdure; one had a single antler, the other none. A pair of toothless lions brooded over their lostdignity. Between their disconsolate sentry, mounted flight on flight ofmarble steps to the house of the manor. It lay like an old frigatestorm-shattered and flung aground to rot. The hospitable doors wereplanked shut, the windows, too; the floors of the verandas were brokenand the roof was everywhere sunken and insecure. 

At the portal had stood two nymphs, now almost classic with decay. Oneof them, toppling helplessly, quenched her bronze torch in weeds. Hersister stood erect in grief like a daughter of Niobe wept into stone. 

The scene somehow reminded Barstow of one of Poe's landscapes. It wasthe corpse of a home. Eventually he noticed a tall woman in black, seated on a bench and gazing down the terraces across the dead lake. Barstow was tempted to ask her whose place this had been and what itshistory was, but her mien and her crêpe daunted him. 

He made his way out of the region, looking back as he went. When heapproached the most neighboring house a grocery-wagon came flying downthe road. Before it stopped the slanted driver was off the seat andhalf-way across the yard. In a moment he was back again. Barstow calledout:

"Whose place is that?"

"Shelby's. "

"Did he move away?"

But the horse was already in motion, and the youth had darted after, leaping to the side of the seat and calling back something which Barstowcould not hear. 

Shelby, who had given the town everything he could, had even endowed itwith a ruins. 

When Barstow had reached the hotel again he went in to his supper. Ahead waitress, chewing gum, took him to a table where a wildly coiffeddamsel brought him a bewildering array of most undesirable foods in aflotilla of small dishes. 

After supper Barstow, following the suit of the other guests, took achair on the sidewalk, for a little breeze loafed along the hot street. Barstow's name had been seen upon the hotel register and the executivecommittee of the Wide-a-Wakefield Club waited upon him in an augustbody. 

Mr. Pettibone introduced himself and the others. They took chairs andhitched them close to Barstow, while they poured out in alternatestrains the advantages of Wakefield. Barstow listened politely, but theempty factory and the dismantled home of Shelby haunted him and made adismal background to their advertisements. 

It was of the factory that he spoke first:

"The building you wrote me about and offered me rent-free looks a littlesmall and out of date for our plant. I saw Shelby's factory empty. CouldI rent that at a reasonable figure, do you suppose?"

The committee leaped at the idea with enthusiasm. Spate laughed throughhis beard:

"Lord, I reckon the company would rent it to you for almost the price ofthe taxes. "

Then he realized that this was saying just a trifle too much. They beganto crawfish their way out. But Barstow said, with unconviction:

"There's only one thing that worries me. Why did Shelby close up hisParadise Powder factory and move away?"

Pettibone urged the reason hastily: "His brothers closed it up for him. They wouldn't stand any more of his extravagant nonsense. They shut downthe factory and then shut down on him, too. "

"So he gave up his house and moved away?" said Barstow. 

"He gave up his house because he couldn't keep it up, " said AmasaHarbury. "Taxes were pretty steep and nobody would rent it, of course. It don't belong in a town like Wakefield. Neither did Shelby. "

"So he moved away?"

"Moved away, nothin', " sneered Spate. "He went to a boardin'-house anddied there. Left his wife a lot of stock in a broken-down street-carline, and a no-good electric-light company, and an independent telephonesystem that the regulars gobbled up. She's gone back to teachin' schoolagain. We used our influence to get her old job back. We didn't think weought to blame her for the faults of Shelby. "

"And what had Shelby done?"

They told him in their own way--treading on one another's toes in theiranxiety; shutting one another up; hunching their chairs together in atangle as if their slanders were wares they were trying to sell. 

But about all that Barstow could make of the matter was that Shelby hadbeen in much such case as his own. He had been hungry for humangratitude, and had not realized that it is won rather by accepting thanby bestowing gifts. 

Barstow sat and smoked glumly while the committee clattered. He hardlyheard what they were at such pains to emphasize. He was musing upon aphilosophy of his father's:

"There's an old saying, 'Never look a gift horse in the mouth. ' Butsayings and doings are far apart. If you can manage to sell a man ahorse he'll make the best of the worst bargain; he'll nurse the nag andfeed him and drive him easy and brag about his faults. He'll overlookeverything from spavin to bots; he'll learn to think that a hamstrunghind leg is the poetry of motion. But a gift horse--Lord love you! Ifyou give a man a horse he'll look him in the mouth and everywhere else. The whole family will take turns with a microscope. They'll kick becausehe isn't run by electricity, and if he's an Arabian they'll roast himbecause he holds his tail so high. If you want folks to appreciateanything don't give it to 'em; make 'em work for it and pay forit--double if you can. "

 * * * * *

Shelby had mixed poetry with business, had given something for nothing;had paid the penalty. 

THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

I

The old road came pouring down from the wooded hills to the westward, flowed round the foot of other hills, skirting a meadow and a pond, andthen went on easterly about its business. Almost overhanging the road, like a mill jutting upon its journeyman stream, was an aged house. Stillolder were the two lofty oaks standing mid-meadow and imaged again inthe pond. Younger than oaks or house or road, yet as old as Scriptureallots, was the man who stalked across the porch and slumped into achair. He always slumped into a chair, for his muscles still rememberedthe days when he had sat only when he was worn out. Younger than oaks, house, road, or man, yet older than a woman wants to be, was the womanin the garden. 

"What you doin', Maw?" the man called across the rail, though he couldsee perfectly well. 

"Just putterin' 'round in the garden. What you been doin', Paw?"

"Just putterin' 'round the barn. Better come in out the hot sun and restyour old back. "

Evidently the idea appealed to her, for the sunbonnet overhanging themeek potato-flowers like a flamingo's beak rose in air, as she stooderect, or as nearly erect as she ever stood nowadays. She tossed a fewuprooted weeds over the lilac-hedge, and, clumping up the steps of theporch, slumped into a chair. Chairs had once been her luxury, too. Shecarried a dish-pan full of green peas, and as her gaze wandered over thebeloved scene her wrinkled fingers were busy among the pods, shellingthem expertly, as if they knew their way about alone. 

The old man sighed, the deep sigh of ultimate contentment. "Well, Maw, as the fellow says in the circus, here we are again. "

"Here we are again, Paw. "

They always said the same thing about this time of year, when theywearied of the splendid home they had established as the capital oftheir estate and came back to the ground from which they had sprung. James Coburn always said:

"Well, Maw, as the fellow says in the circus, here we are again. "

And Sarah Gregg Coburn always answered:

"Here we are again, Paw. "

This place was to them what old slippers are to tired feet. Here theyput off the manners and the dignities their servants expected of them, and lapsed into shabby clothes and colloquialisms, such as they had beenused to when they were first married, long before he became the masterof a thousand acres, of cattle upon a hundred hills, of bloodedthoroughbreds and patriarchal stallions, of town lots and a bank, andof a record as Congressman for two terms. This pilgrimage had become asort of annual elopement, the mischief of two white-haired runaways. Nowthat the graveyard or the city had robbed them of all their children, they loved to turn back and play at an Indian-summer honeymoon. 

This year, for the first time, Maw had consented to the aid of a "hiredgirl. " She refused to bring one of the maids or the cook from the bighouse, and engaged a woman from the village nearest at hand--and thentried to pretend the woman wasn't there. It hurt her to admit thetriumph of age in her bones, but there was compensation in the privilegeof hearing some one else faintly clattering over the dish-washing ofevenings, while she sat on the porch with Paw and watched the sunsettrail its gorgeous banners along the heavens and across the little toysky of the pond. 

It was pleasant in the mornings, too, to lie abed in criminal indolence, hearing from afar the racket of somebody else building the fire. Afterbreakfast she made a brave beginning, only to turn the broom and thebedmaking over to Susan and dawdle about after Paw or celebrate matinsin the green aisles of the garden. But mostly the old couple justpretended to do their chores, and sat on the porch and watched theclouds go by and the frogs flop into the pond. 

"Mail come yet, Maw?"

"Susan's gone for it. "

He glanced up the road to a sunbonneted figure blurred in the glare, andsniffed amiably. "Humph! Country's getting so citified the morningpapers are here almost before breakfast's cleared off. Remember when weused to drive eleven mile to get the _Weekly Tribune_, Maw?"

"I remember. And it took you about a week to read it. Sometimes you gotone number behind. Nowadays you finish your paper in about fiveminutes. "

"Nothing much in the papers nowadays except murder trials and divorcecases. I guess Susan must have a mash on that mail-carrier. "

"I wish she'd come on home and not gabble so much. "

"Expectin' a letter from the boy?"

"Ought to be one this morning. "

"You've said that every mornin' for three weeks. I s'pose he's so busyin town he don't realize how much his letters mean to us. "

"I hate to have him in the city with its dangers--he's so reckless withhis motor, and then there's the temptations and the scramble for money. I wish Stevie had been contented to settle down with us. We've gotenough, goodness knows. But I suppose he feels he must be a millionaireor nothing, and what you've made don't seem a drop in the bucket. "

The old man winced. He thought how often the boy had found occasion todraw on him for help in financing his "sure things" and paying up thelosses on the "sure things" that had gone wrong. Those letters had beensent to the bank in town and had not been mentioned at home, except nowand then, long afterward, when the wife pressed the old man too hardabout holding back money from the boy. Then he would unfold a fewfigures. They dazed her, but they never convinced her. 

Who ever convinced a woman? Persuaded? Yes, since Eve! Convinced? Notyet!

It hurts a man's pride to hear his wife impliedly disparage his ownachievements in contrast with his son's. Not that he is jealous of hisson; not that he does not hope and expect that the boy will climb topeaks he has never dared; not that he would not give his all and bendhis own back as a stepping-stone to his son's ascension; but just thatcomparisons are odious. This disparagement is natural, though, to wives, for they compare what their husbands have done with what their sons aregoing to do. 

It was an old source of peevishness with Paw Coburn, and he was moved tosay--answering only by implication what she had unconsciously implied, and seeming to take his theme from the landscape about them:

"When my father died all he left me was this little--bungalow they'dcall it nowadays, I suppose, and a few acres 'round it. You remember, Maw, how, when the sun first came sneakin' over that knob off to theleft, the shadow of those two oaks used to just touch the stone wall onthe western border of father's property, and when the sun was justcrawlin' into bed behind those woods off yonder the shadow of the oaksjust overlapped the rail fence on the eastern border? That's all myfather left me--that and the mortgage. That's all I brought you home to, Maw. I'm not disparaging my father. He was a great man. When he left hisown home in the East and came out here all this was woods, woods, woods, far as you can see. Even that pond wasn't there then. My father clearedit all--cut down everything except those two oak-trees. He used to callthem the Twin Oaks, but they always seemed to me like man and wife. Ikind o' like to think that they're you and me. And like you and methey're all that's left standin' of the old trees. They were big trees, too, and those were big days. "

The greatness of his thoughts rendered him mute. He was a plain man, buthe was hearing the unwritten music of the American epic of the ax andthe plow, the more than Trojan war, the more than ten years' war, against forests and savages. His wife brought him back fromhyper-Homeric vision to the concrete. 

"Thank Heaven, Susan's finished gossipin' and started home. "

The mail-carrier in his little umbrellaed cart was vanishing up thehill, and the sunbonnet was floating down the road. The sky was anunmitigated blue, save for a few masses of cloud, like piles of newfleece on a shearing-floor. Green woods, gray road, blue sky, paleclouds, all were steeped in heat and silence so intense it seemed thatsomething must break. And something broke. 

Appallingly, abruptly, came a shattering crash, a streak of blindingfire, an unendurable noise, a searing blast of blaze as if the sun hadbeen dynamite exploded, splintering the very joists of heaven. The wholeair rocked like a tidal wave breaking on a reef; the house writhed inall its timbers. Then silence--unbearable silence. 

The old woman, made a child again by a paralytic stroke of terror, foundherself on her knees, clinging frantically to her husband. The cheekburied in his breast felt the lurch and leap of his pounding heart. Manlike, he found courage in his woman's fright, but his hand quiveredupon her hair; she heard his shaken voice saying:

"There, there, Maw, it's all over. "

When he dared to open his eyes he was blinded and dazed like thestricken Saul. When he could see again he found the world unchanged. Thesky was still there, and still azure; the clouds swam serenely; the roadstill poured down from the unaltered hills. He tried to laugh; it was asickly sound he made. 

"I guess that was what the fellow calls a bolt from the blue. I've oftenheard of 'em, but it's the first I ever saw. No harm's done, Maw, except to Susan's feelings. She's pickin' herself up out the dust andhurryin' home like two-forty. I guess the concussion must have knockedher over. "

The old woman, her heart still fluttering madly, rose from her kneeswith the tremulous aid of the old man and opened her eyes. She couldhardly believe that she would not find the earth an apocalyptic ruin ofuprooted hills. She breathed deeply of the relief, and her eyes ranalong the remembered things as if calling the roll. Suddenly her eyespaused, widened. Her hand went out to clutch her husband's arm. 

"Look, Paw! The oaks, the oaks!"

The lightning had leaped upon them like a mad panther, rending theirbranches from them, ripping off great strips of bark, and leaving long, gaping wounds, dripping with the white blood of trees. The lesser of thetwo oaks had felt the greater blow, and would have toppled to the groundhad it not fallen across its mate; and its mate, though grievouslyriven, held it up, with branches interlocking like cherishing arms. 

To that human couple the tragedy of the trees they had looked upon asthe very emblems of stability was pitiful. The old woman's eyes swamwith tears. She made no shame of her sobs. The old man tried to comforther with a commonplace:

"I was readin' only the other day, Maw, that oaks attract the lightningmore than any other trees, " and then he broke down. "Father alwayscalled 'em the Twin Oaks, but I always called 'em you and me. "

The panic-racked Susan came stumbling up the steps, gasping withexperiences. But the aged couple either did not hear or did not heed. With old hand embracing old hand they sat staring at the rapine of thelightning, the tigerish atrocity that had butchered and mutilated theirbeloved trees. Susan dropped into Mrs. Coburn's lap what mail shebrought and hurried inside to faint. 

The old couple sat in a stupor long and long before Mrs. Coburn foundthat she was idly fingering letters and papers. She glanced down, and afamiliar writing brought her from her trance. 

"Oh, Paw, here's a letter from the boy! Here's a letter from Stevie. Andhere's your paper. "

He took the paper, but did not open it, turning instead to ask, "Whatdoes the boy say?"

With hands awkwardly eager she ripped the envelope, tore out the letter, and spread it open on her lap, then pulled her spectacles down from herhair, and read with loving inflection:

 "MY DARLING MOTHER AND DAD, --It is simply heinous the way I neglect to write you, but somehow the rush of things here keeps me putting it off from day to day. If remembrances were letters you would have them in flocks, for I think of you always and I am homesick for the sight of your blessed faces. 

 "I should like to come out and see you in your little old nest, but business piles up about me till I can't see my way out at present. I do wish you could run down here and make me a good long visit, but I suppose that is impossible, too. There are two or three big deals pending that look promising, and if any one of them wins out I shall clean up enough to be a gentleman of leisure. The first place I turn will be home. My heart aches for the rest and comfort of your love. 

 "Write me often and tell me how you both are, and believe me, with all the affection in the world, "Your devoted son, "STEPHEN. "

She pushed her dewy spectacles back in her gray hair and pressed theletter to her lips; she was smiling as only old mothers smile overletters from their far-off children. The man's face softened, too, withthe ache that battle-scarred fathers feel, thinking of their sons in thethick of the fight. Then he unfolded his paper, set his glasses on hisbig nose, and pursed his lips to read what was new in the world atlarge. His wife sat still, just remembering, perusing old files and backnumbers of the gazettes of her boy's past, remembering him from herfirst vague thrill of him to his slow youth, to manhood, and the lastgood-by kiss. 

Nothing was heard from either of them for a long while, save the creakof her chair and the rustle of his paper as he turned to the pagerecording the results in the incessant Gettysburgs over the prices ofcorn, pork, poultry, butter, and eggs. They were history to him. Hecould grow angry over a drop in December wheat, and he could glow at asign of feverishness in oats. To-day he was profoundly moved to readthat October ribs had opened at 10. 95 and closed at 11. 01, anddepressed to see that September lard had dropped from 11. 67 to 11. 65. 

As he turned the paper his eye was caught by the head-lines of an oldand notorious trial at law, and he was confirmed in his wrath. Hegrowled:

"Good Lord, ain't that dog hung yet?"

"What you talkin' about, Paw?"

"I was just noticin' that the third trial of Tom Carey is in full swingagain. It's cost the State a hundred thousand dollars already, and thescoundrel ain't punished yet. "

"What did he do, Paw?"

The old man blushed like a boy as he stammered: "You're too young toknow all he did, Maw. If I told you, you wouldn't understand. But itended in murder. If he'd been a low-browed dago they'd have had himrailroaded to Jericho in no time. But the lawyers are above the law, andthey've kept this fellow from his deserts till folks have almost forgotwhat it was he did. It's disgraceful. It makes our courts thelaughing-stock of the world. It gives the anarchists an excuse forsaying that there's one law for the poor and another for the rich. "

After the thunder of his ire had rolled away there was a gentle murmurfrom the old woman. "It's a terrible thing to put a man to death. "

"So it is, Maw, and if this fellow had only realized it he'd have keptout of trouble. "

"He was excited, most likely, and out of his head. What I mean is, it'sa terrible thing for a judge and a jury to try a man and take his lifeaway from him. "

"Oh, it's terrible, of course, Maw, but we've got to have laws to holdthe world together, ain't we? And if we don't enforce 'em, what's theuse of havin' 'em?"

Silence and a far-away look on the wrinkled face resting on the wrinkledhand and then a quiet question:

"Suppose it was our Steve?"

"I won't suppose any such thing. Thank God there's been no stain on anyof our family, either side; just plain hard-workin' folks--no crazyones, no criminals. "

"But supposing it was our boy, Paw?"

"Oh, what's the use of arguin' with a woman! I love you for it, Maw, but--well, I'm sorry I spoke. "

He returned to his paper, growling now and then as he read of some newquibble devised by the attorneys for the defense. As softly and assurreptitiously as it begins to rain on a cloudy day, she was crying. Heturned again with mock indignation. 

"Here, here! What you turning up about now?"

"I want to see my boy. I'm worried. He may be sick. He'd never let usknow. "

The old man tried to cajole her from her forebodings, tried to reasonthem away, laugh them away. At last he said, with a poor effort atgruffness:

"Well, for the Lord's sake, why don't you go? He's always askin' us tocome and see him. I'm kind o' homesick for a sight of the boy m'self. You haven't been to town for a month of Sundays. Throw a few things in avalise and I'll hitch up. We'll just about make the next train from thevillage. "

She needed no coercion from without. She rose at once. As she opened thesqueaky screen-door he was clumping down the steps. He paused to callback:

"Oh, Maw!"

"Yes, Paw!"

"Better tuck in a jar of those preserves you been puttin' up. The boyalways liked those better 'n most anything. Don't wrap 'em in mynightshirt, though. "

She called out, "All right, " and the slap of the screen-door was echoeda moment later by a similar sound in the barn, accompanied by the oldman's voice:

"Give over, Fan. "

II

The elevator-boy hesitated. "Oh, yes-sum, I got a pass-key, all right, but I can't hahdly let nobody in Mista Coburn's 'pahtment 'thout hisawdas. "

"But we're his mother and father. "

"Of co'se I take yo' wud for that, ma'am, but, you see, I can't hahdlylet nobody--er--um'm--thank you, sir--well, I reckon Mista Coburn mightbe mo' put out ef I didn't let you-all in than ef I did. "

The elevator soared silently to the eighth floor, and there all threedebarked. The boy was so much impressed with the tip the old man hadslipped him that he unlocked the door, put the hand-baggage into theroom, snapped the switch that threw on all the lights, and said, "Thankyou, sir, " again as he closed the door. 

Paw opened it to give the boy another coin and say: "Don't you let onthat we're here. It's a surprise. "

The boy, grinning, promised and descended, like an imp through a trap. 

The old couple stood stock-still, hesitating to advance. So manyfeelings, such varied timidities, urged them forward, yet held themback. It was the home of the son they had begotten, conceived, tended, loved, praised, punished, feared, prayed for, counseled, provisioned, and surrendered. Years of separation had made him almost a stranger, andthey dreaded the intrusion into the home he had built for himself, remote from their influence. Poor, weak, silly old things, with aboy-and-girlish gawkishness about them, the helpless feeling ofuninvited guests!

"You go first, Paw. "

And Paw went first. On the sill of the drawing-room he paused and swepta glance around. He would have given an arm to be inspired with somescheme for whisking his wife away or changing what she must see. But shewas already crowding on his heels, pushing him forward. There was noretreat. He tried to laugh it off. 

"Well, here we are at last, as the fellow doesn't say in the circus. "

There was nothing to do but sit down and wait. The very chairs were ofan architecture and upholstery incongruous to them. They knew somethingof luxury, but not of this school. There was nowhere for them to lookthat something alien did not meet their eyes. So they looked at thefloor. 

"It gets awful hot in town, don't it?" said Paw, mopping his beadedforehead. 

"Awful, " said Maw, dabbing at hers. 

Eventually they heard the elevator door gride on its grooves. All theway in on the train they had planned to hide and spring out on the boy. They had giggled like children over the plot. It was rather theirprearrangement than their wills that moved them to action. Automaticallythey hid themselves, without laughter, rather with a sort of guiltyterror. They found a deep wardrobe closet and stepped inside, drawingthe door almost shut. 

They heard a key in the lock, the click of a knob, the sound of a doorclosed. Then a pause. They had forgotten to turn off the lights. Hurrying footsteps, loud on the bare floor, muffled on the rugs. Howwell they knew that step! But there was excitement in its rhythm. Theycould hear the familiar voice muttering unfamiliarly as the footstepshurried here and there. He came into the room where they were. Theycould hear him breathe now, for he breathed heavily, as if he had beenrunning. From place to place he moved with a sense of restless stealth. At length, just as they were about to sally forth, he hurried forwardand flung open their door. 

Standing among the hanging clothes, the light strong on their faces, they seemed to strike him at first as ghosts. He stared at them aghast, and recoiled. Then the old ghosts smiled and stepped forward with openarms. But he recoiled again, and his welcome to his far-come, heart-hungry parents was a groan. 

They saw that he had a revolver in his hand. His eyes recurred to it, and he turned here and there for a place to lay it, but seemed unable tolet it go. His mother flung forward and threw her arms about him, herlips pursed to kiss him, but he turned away with lowered eyes. Hisfather took him by the shoulders and said:

"Why, what's the matter, boy? Ain't you glad to see your Maw--and me?"

For answer he only breathed hard and chokingly. His eyes went to therevolver again, then roved here and there, always as if searching for aplace to hide it. 

"Give that thing to me, Steve, " the old man said. And he took it in hishands, forcing from the cold steel the colder fingers that clung as iffrozen about the handle. 

Once he was free of the weapon, the boy toppled into a chair, his motherstill clasping him desperately. 

The old man knew something about firearms. He found the spring, brokethe revolver, and looked into the cylinder. In every chamber was theround eye of a cartridge. Three of them bore the little scar of thefiring-pin. 

Old Coburn leaned hard against the wall. He looked about for a place tohide the horrible machine, but he, too, could not let go of it. Hismouth was full of the ashes of life. He would have been glad to dropdead. But beyond the sick, clammy face of his son he saw the face of hiswife, an old face, a mother's face, witless with bewilderment. The oldman swallowed hard. 

"What's happened, Steve? What's been goin' on?"

The young man only shook his head, ran his dry tongue along his lips, tore a piece of loose skin from the lower one with his teeth, andbreathed noisily through nostrils that worked like a dog's. He pushedhis mother's hands away as if they irked him. The old man could havestruck him to the ground for that roughness, but the prayers in themother's eyes restrained him. 

"Better tell us, Steve. Maybe we might help you. "

The young man's head worked as if he were gulping at a hard lump; hislips moved without sound, his gaze leaped from place to place, lightingeverywhere but on his father's waiting, watching eyes, and always comingback to the revolver with a loathing fascination. At last he spoke, in awhisper like the rasp of chafed husks:

"I had to do it. He deserved it. "

The mother had not seen the nicks on the cartridges, but she needed nosuch evidence. She wailed:

"You don't mean that you--no--no--you didn't k-kill-ill-ill--"

The word rattled in her throat, and she went to the floor like atoppling bolster. It was the old man that lifted her face from the rug, ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. The son just wavered inhis chair and kept saying:

"I had to do it. He was making her life a--"

"Her life?" the old man groaned, looking up where he knelt. "Thenthere's a woman in it?"

"Yes, it was for her. She's had a hard time. She's been horriblymisunderstood. She may have been indiscreet--still she's a noble womanat heart. Her husband was a vile dog. He deserved it. "

But the old man's head had dropped as if his neck were cracked. He sawwhat it all meant and would mean. He would have sprawled to the floor, but he caught sight of the pitiful face of his old love still white withthe half-death of her swoon. He clenched his will with ferocity, resolving that he must not break, could not, would not break. He laid ahand on his son's knee and said, appealingly, in a low tone, as if hewere the suppliant for mercy:

"Better not mention anything about--about her--the woman you know, Steve--before your mother, not just now. Your mother's kind of poorlythe last few days. Understand, Steve?"

The answer was a nod like the silly nodding of a toy mandarin. 

It was a questionable mercy, restoring the mother just then from thebliss of oblivion, but she came gradually back through a fog of daze tothe full glare of fact. Her thoughts did not run forward upon thescandal, the horror of the public, the outcry of all the press; she hadbut one thought, her son's welfare. 

"Did anybody see you, Steve?"

"No. I went to his room. I don't think anybody s-saw me--yes, maybe theman across the hall did. Yes, I guess he saw me. He was at his door whenI came out. He looked as if he sus-suspected-ed me. I suppose he heardthe shots. And probably he s-saw the revol-ver. I couldn't seem to letit drop--to le-let it drop. "

The mother turned frantic. "They'll come here for you, Stevie. They'llfind it out. You must get away--somewhere--for just now, till we canthink up something to do. Father will find some way of making everythingall right, won't you, Paw? He always does, you know. Don't be scared, myboy. We must keep very calm. " Her hands were wavering over him in apalsy. "Where can he go, Paw? Where's the best place for him to go? I'lltell you, Steve. Is your--your car anywhere near?"

"It's outside at the door. I came back in it. "

She got to her feet, and her urgency was ferocious. "Then you get rightin this minute and go up to the old place--the little old house oppositethe pond. Go as fast as you can. You know the place--where we livedbefore you were born. There's two big oak-trees st-standing there, and apond just across the road. You go there and tell Susan--what shall hetell Susan, father? What shall he tell Susan? We'll stay here, and--andwe'll bribe the elevator-boy to say you haven't come home at all, and ifthe po-po-lice come here we'll say we're expecting you, but we haven'tseen you for ever so long. Won't we, Paw? That's what we'll say, won'twe, Paw?"

The old man stood up to the lightning like an old oak. Trees do not run. They stand fast and take what the sky sends them. Old Coburn shook hiswhite hair as a tree its leaves in a blast of wind before he spoke. 

"Steve, my boy, I don't know what call you had to do this, but it's nouse trying to run away and hide. They'll get you wherever you go. Thetelegraph and the cable and the detectives--no, it's not a bit of use. It only makes things look worse. Put on your hat and come with me. We'llgo to the police before they come for you. I'll go with you, and I'llsee you through. "

But flight, not fight, was the woman's one hope. She was wild withresistance to the idea of surrender. Her panic confirmed the young manin his one impulse--to get away. He dashed out into the hall, and whenthe father would have pursued, the mother thrust him aside, hurriedpast, and braced herself against the door. He put off her clinging, clutching hands as gently as he might, but she resisted like a tigressat bay, and before he could drag her aside they heard the iron-barreddoor of the elevator glide open and clang shut. And there they stood inthe strange place, the old man staggered with the realization of thefuture, the old woman imbecile with fear. 

What harm is it the honest oaks do, that Heaven hates them so and itslightnings search them out with such peculiar frenzy?

III

Having no arenas where captive gladiators and martyrs satisfy the publiclonging for the sight of bleeding flesh and twitching nerve, the peopleof our day flock to the court-rooms for their keenest excitements. 

The case of "The People _vs. _ Stephen Coburn" had been an intenselypopular entertainment. This day the room was unusually stuffed with menand women. At the door the officers leaned like buttresses against thethrust of a solid wall of humanity. Outside, the halls, the stairs, andthe sidewalk were jammed with the mob crushing toward the door for asight of the white-haired mother pilloried in the witness-box andfighting with all her poor wits against the shrewdest, calmest, fiercestcross-examiner in the State. 

In the jury-box the twelve silent prisoners of patience sat in awe oftheir responsibilities, a dozen extraordinarily ordinary, conspicuouslyaverage persons condemned to the agony of deciding whether they shouldconsign a fellow-man to death or release a murderer among theirfellow-men. 

Next the judge sat Sarah Coburn, her withered hands clenched bonily inthe lap where, not so many years ago, she had cuddled the babe that wasnow the culprit hunted down and abhorred. The mere pressure of his firstfinger had sent a soul into eternity and brought the temple of his ownhome crashing about his head. 

Next the prisoner sat his father, veteran now with the experience thatruns back to the time when the first father and mother found the firstfirst-born of the world with hands reddened in the blood of the earliestsacrifice on the altar of Cain. 

People railed in the street and in the press against the law's delaywith Stephen Coburn's execution and against the ability of a rich fatherto postpone indefinitely the vengeance of justice. Old Coburn had forcedthe taxpayers to spend vast sums of money. He had spent vaster sumshimself. The public and the prosecution, his own enormously expensivelawyers, his son and his very wife, supposed that he still had vast sumsto spend. It was solely his own secret that he had no more. He had builthis fortune as his father had built the stone wall along his fields, digging each boulder from the ground with his hands, lugging it acrossthe irregular turf and heaving it to its place. Every dollar of his hadits history of effort, of sweat and ache. And now the whole wall wasgone, carried away in wholesale sweeps as by a landslide. 

In his business he had been so shrewd and so close that people had said, "Old Coburn will fight for five days for five minute's interest on fivecents. " When his son's liberty was at stake he signed blank checks, hetold his lawyers to get the best counsel in the nation. He did not ask, "How much?" He asked, "How good?" Every technical ruse that could beemployed to thwart the prosecution he employed. He bribed everybodybribable whose silence or speech had value. Dangerous witnesses wereshipped to places whence they could not be summonsed. Blackmailers andblackguards fattened on his generosity and his fear. 

The son, Stephen Coburn, had gone to the city, warm-hearted, young, venturesome, not vicious, had learned life in a heap, sowed his wildoats all at once, fallen among evil companions, and drifted by easystages into an affair of inexcusable ugliness, whence he seemed unableto escape till a misplaced chivalry whispered him what to do. He hadfound himself like Lancelot with "his honor rooted in dishonor" and"faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. " But Stephen Coburn was noLancelot, any more than his siren was a Guinevere or her slain husband aKing Arthur. He was simply a well-meaning, hot-headed, madly enamouredyoung fool. The proof of this last was that he took a revolver to hisGordian knot. Revolvers, as he found too late, do not solve problems. They make a far-reaching noise, and their messengers cannot be recalled. 

His parents had not known the city phase of their son. They had knownthe adorable babe he had been, the good boy weeping over a broken-wingedrobin tumbled from a nest, running down-stairs in his bare feet for onemore good-night kiss, crying his heart out when he must be sent away toschool, remembering their birthdays and abounding in gentle graces. Thiswas the Stephen Coburn they had known. They believed it to be the real, the permanent, Stephen Coburn; the other was but the victim of atransient demon. They could not believe that their boy would harm theworld again. They could not endure the thought that his repentance andhis atonement should be frustrated by a dishonorable end. 

The public knew only the wicked Stephen Coburn. His crime had been hisentrance into fame. All the bad things he had done, all the bad peoplehe had known, all the bad places he had gone, were searched out andpublished by the detectives and the reporters. To blacken StephenCoburn's repute so horribly that the jurors would feel it theirinescapable duty to scavenge him from the offended earth, that was theeffort of the prosecution. To prevent that blackening was one of themost vital and one of the most costly features of the defense. To denythe murder and tear down the web of circumstantial evidence as fast asthe State could weave it was another. 

The Coburn case had become a notorious example of that peculiarlyAmerican institution, the serial trial. The first instalment had endedin a verdict of guilty. It had been old Coburn's task to hold up hiswife and his son in the collapse of their mad despair, while he managedand financed the long, slow struggle with the upper courts till he wrungfrom them an order for a new trial. This had ended, after weeks oftorment in the court-room and forty-eight hours of almost unbearablesuspense, in a disagreement of the jury. The third trial found theprosecution more determined than ever, and acquainted with all themethods of the defense. The only flaw was the loss of an importantwitness, "the man across the hall, " whom impatient time had carried offto the place where subpoenas are not respected. His deposition and histestimony at the previous trials were as lacking in vitality as himself. 

And now once more old Coburn must carry everything upon his back, achinglike a world-weary Atlas who dares not shift his burden. But now he wasthree years weaker, and he had no more money to squander. His house, hisacres, the cattle upon his hills, his blooded thoroughbreds, hispatriarchal stallions, his town lots, his bank-building, his bonds andstocks, all were sold, pawned as collateral, or blanketed withmortgages. 

As he had comforted his wife when they had witnessed the bolt from theblue, so now he sat facing her in her third ordeal. Only now she was noton the home porch, but in the arena. He could not hold her hands. Nowshe dared not close her eyes and cry; it was not the work of onethunderbolt she had to see. Now, under the darting questions of thecourt-examiner, she was like a frightened girl lost in the woods andgroping through a tempest, with lightning thrusts pursuing her on everyside, stitching the woods with fire like the needle in a sewing-machinestabbing and stabbing at the dodging shuttle. 

The old woman had gone down into the pit for her son. She had been ledthrough the bogs and the sewers of vice. Almost unspeakable, almostunthinkable wickedness had been taught to her till she had become deeplyversed in the lore that saddens the eyes of the scarlet women ofBabylon. But still her love purified her, and almost sanctified thestrategy she practised, the lies she told, the truths she concealed, theplots she devised with the uncanny canniness of an old peasant. Peoplenot only felt that it was her duty to fight for her young like a madshe-wolf, but they would have despised her for any failure of sacrifice. 

She sat for hours baffling the inquisitor, foreseeing his wiles byintuition, evading his masked pitfalls by instinct. She was terriblyafraid of him, yet more afraid of herself, afraid that she would breakdown and become a brainless, weeping thing. It was the sincerity of herfight against this weakness that made her so dangerous to theprosecuting attorney. He wanted to compel her to admit that her son hadconfessed his deed to her. She sought to avoid this admission. She hadnot guessed that he was more in dread of her tears than of her guile. Hewas gentler with her than her own attorneys had been. At all costs hefelt that he must not succeed too well with her. 

The whole trial had become by now as academic as a game of chess, to allbut the lonely, homesick parents. The prosecuting attorney knew that themother was not telling the truth; the judge and the jury knew that shewas not telling the truth. But unless this could be geometricallydemonstrated the jury would disregard its own senses. Yet the prosecutorknew that if he succeeded in trapping the mother too abruptly into anyadmission dangerous to her son she would probably break down and cry herdreary old heart out, and then those twelve superhuman jurors would weepwith her and care for nothing on earth except her consolation. 

The crisis came as crises love to come, without warning. The questionhad been simple enough, and the tone as gentle as possible: "You havejust stated, Mrs. Coburn, that your son spoke to you in his apartmentthe day he is alleged to have committed this act, but I find that at thefirst and second trials you testified that you did not see him in hisapartment at all. Which, please, is the correct statement?"

In a flash she realized what she had done. It is so hard to build anddefend a fortress of lies, and she was very old and not very wise, tiredout, confused by the stare of the mob and the knowledge that every wordshe uttered endangered the life she had borne. Now she felt that she hadundone everything. She blamed herself for ruining the work of years. Shesaw her son led to death because of her blunder. Her answer to thequestion and the patient courtesy of the attorney was to throw her handsinto the air, toss her white head to and fro, and give up the battle. The tears came like a gush of blood from a deep wound; they pouredthrough the lean fingers she pressed against her gaunt cheeks, and sheshook with the dry, weak weeping of senility and utter desolation. Thenher old arms yearned for him as when a babe. 

"I want my boy! I want my boy!"

 * * * * *

The judge grew very busy among his papers, the prosecuting attorneyswallowed hard. The jurymen thought no more of evidence and of thestability of the laws. They all had mothers, or memory-mothers, and theyonly resolved that whatever crime Stephen Coburn might have committed, it would be a more dastardly crime for them to drive their twelvedaggers into the aching breast that had suckled him. On the instant thetrial had resolved itself into "The People _vs. _ One Poor Old Mother. "The jury's tears voted for them, and their real verdict was surging upin one thought:

"This white haired saint wants her boy: he may be a black sheep, but shewants him, and she shall have him, by--" whatever was each juryman'sfavorite oath. 

When the judge had finished his charge the jury stumbled on oneanother's heels to get to their sanctum. There they reached a verdict soquickly that, as the saying is, the foreman was coming back into thecourt-room before the twelfth man was out of it. Amazed at their ownunanimity, they were properly ashamed, each of the other eleven, fortheir mawkish weakness, and their treachery to the stern requirements ofhigher citizenship. But they went home not entirely unconsoled by theold woman's cry of beatitude at that phrase, "Not Guilty. "

She went among them sobbing with ecstasy, and her tears splashed theirhands like holy water. It was all outrageously illegal, and sentimental, and harmful to the sanctity of the law. And yet, is it entirelydesirable that men should ever grow unmindful of the tears of oldmothers?

IV

The road came pouring down from the wooded hills, and the house facedthe pond as before. But there was a new guest in the house. Up-stairs, in a room with a sloping wall and a low ceiling and a dormer window, sata young man whose face had been prominent so long in the press and inthe court-room that now he preferred to keep away from human eyes. So hesat in the little room and read eternally. He had acquired the habit ofbooks in the whitewashed cell where he had spent the three of his yearsthat should have been the happiest, busiest, best of all. He readanything he could find now--old books, old magazines, old newspapers. Finally he read even the old family Bible his mother had toted into hisroom for his comfort. It was a bulky tome with print of giant size andpictures of crude imagery, with here and there blank pages for recordingbirths, deaths, marriages. Here he found the names of all his brothersand sisters, and all of them were entered among the deaths. The mannersof the deaths were recorded in the shaky handwriting of fresh grief:Alice Anne, scarlet fever; James Arthur, Jr. , convulsions; AndrewMorton, whooping-cough; Cicely Jane, typhoid; Amos Turner, drownedwhile saving his brother Stephen's life; Edward John, killed in trainwreck. 

Sick at heart, he turned away from the record, but the book fell open ofitself at a full-page insert of the Decalogue, illuminated by someartless printer with gaudy splotches of gold, red and blue and greeninitials, and silly curlicues of arabesque, as if the man had beenignorant of what they meant, those ten pillars of the world. 

Stephen smiled wanly at the bad taste of the decoration, till one lineof fire leaped from the text at him, "Thou Shalt Not Kill. " But heneeded no further lessoning in that wisdom. He retreated from theaccusing page and went to lean against the dormer window and look outupon the world from the jail of his past. No jury could release him fromthat. Everywhere he looked, everywhere he thought, he saw evidence ofthe penalty he had brought upon his father and mother, more than uponhimself and his future. He knew that his father's life-work had beenruined, and that his honorable career would be summed up in theremembrance that he was the old man who bankrupted himself to save hisson from the gallows. He knew that this very house, which remained asthe last refuge, was mortgaged again as when his father and mother hadcome into it before he was born. The ironic circle was complete. 

Down-stairs he could hear the slow and heavy footsteps of his father, and the creak of the chair as he dropped heavily into it. Then he heardthe screen-door flap and heard his mother's rocking-chair begin itsseesaw strain. He knew that their tired old hands would beclasped and that their tired old eyes would be staring off at thelightning-shattered oaks. He heard them say, just about as always:

"What you been doin', Paw?"

"Just putterin' 'round the barn. What you been doin', Maw?"

"Just putterin' 'round the kitchen gettin' supper started. I wentup-stairs and knocked at Stevie's door. He didn't answer. Guess he'sasleep. "

"Guess so. "

"It seems awful good, Paw, to be back in this old place, don't it?--youand me just settin' here and our boy safe and sound asleep up-stairs. "

"That's so. As the fellow says in the circus, here we are again, Maw. "

"Here we are again, Paw. "

AND THIS IS MARRIAGE

His soul floated upward from the lowermost depths of oblivion, slowly, as a water-plant, broken beneath, drifts to the surface. And then he wasawake and unutterably afraid. 

His soul opened, as it were, its eyes in terror and his fleshly eyelidswent ajar. There was nothing to frighten him except his own thoughts, but they seemed to have waited all ready loaded with despair for theinstant of his waking. 

The room was black about him. The world was black. He had left thewindow open, but he could not see outdoors. Only his memory told himwhere the window was. Never a star pinked the heavens to distinguish it. He could not tell casement from sky, nor window from wall, nor wall fromceiling or floor. He was as one hung in primeval chaos before light hadbeen decreed. 

He could not see his own pillow. He knew of it only because he felt itwhere it was hot under his hot cheek. He could not see the hand heraised to push the hair from his wet brow. He knew that he had a handand a brow only from their contact, from the sense of himself in them, from the throb of his pulse at the surface of himself. 

He felt almost completely disembodied, poised in space, in infinitegloom, alone with complete loneliness. As the old phrase puts it, he wasall by himself. 

The only sound in his universe, besides the heavy surf of his own bloodbeating in his ears, was the faint, slow breathing of his wife, asleepin the same bed, yet separated from him by a sword of hostility thatkept their souls as far apart as planets are. 

He laughed in bitter silence to think how false she was to the devotedlove she had promised him, how harsh her last words had been and howstrange from the lips that used to murmur every devotion, everylove-word, every trust. 

He wanted to whirl on her, shake her out of the cowardly refuge ofsleep, and resume the wrangle that had ended in exhaustion. 

He wanted to gag her so that she would hear him out for once and notbreak into every phrase. He wanted to tell her for her own good in oneclear, cold, logical, unbroken harangue how atrocious she was, howfutile, fiendish, heartless. But he knew that she would not listen tohim. Even if he gagged her mouth her mind would still dodge and buffethim. How ancient was the experience that warned a man against argumentwith a woman! And that wise old saw, "Let sleeping dogs lie, " referredeven better to wives. He would not let her know that he wasawake--awake, perhaps, for hours of misery. 

This had happened often of late. It had been a hard week, day after dayof bitter toil wearing him down in body and fraying his every nerve. 

His business was in a bad way, and he alone could save it, and he couldsave it only by ingenuity and inspiration. But the inspiration, he wassure, would not come to him till he could rest throughout. 

Sleep was his hope, his passion, food, drink, medicine. He was heavilypledged at the bank. He could borrow no more. The president hadthreatened him if he did not pay what was overdue. Bigger businessesthan his were being left to crash. A financial earthquake was rockingevery tower in the world. 

Though he needed cash vitally to further his business, there was asharper and sharper demand upon him from creditors desperately harriedby their own desperate creditors. He must find with his brain some newsource of cash. He must fight the world. But how could he fight withoutrest? Even pugilists rested between rounds. 

He had not slept a whole night for a week. To-night he had gone to bedsternly resolved on a while of annihilation. Anything for the briefsweet death with the morning of resurrection. 

And then she had quarreled with him. And now he was awake, and he feltthat he would not sleep. 

He wondered what the hour was. He was tempted to rise and make a lightand look at his watch, but he felt that the effort and the blow of theglare on his eyes might confirm his insomnia. He lay and wondered, consumed with curiosity as to the hour--as if that knowledge could be ofvalue. 

By and by, out of the stillness and the widespread black came theslumbrous tone of a far-off town clock. Three times it rumored in theair as if distance moaned faintly thrice. 

Three o'clock! He had had but two hours' sleep, and would have no more!And he needed ten! To-morrow morning--this morning!--he must join battlefor his very existence. 

He lay supine, trying not to clench a muscle, seeking to force hissurrender to inanition; but he could not get sleep though he imploredhis soul for it, prayed God for it. 

At length he ceased to try to compel slumber. He lay musing. It is astrange thing to lie musing in the dark. His soul seemed to tug andwaver outside his body as he had seen an elephant chained by one leg ina circus tent lean far away from its shackles, and sway and put itstrunk forth gropingly. His soul seemed to be under his forehead, pushingat it as against a door. He felt that if he had a larger, freer foreheadhe would have more soul and more room for his mind to work. 

Then the great fear came over him again. In these wakeful moods hesuffered ecstasies of fright. 

He was appalled with life. He felt helpless, bodyless, doomed. 

On his office wall hung a calendar with a colored picture showingfishermen in a little boat in a fog looking up to see a great Atlanticliner just about to run them down. So the universe loomed over him now, rushed down to crush him. The other people of the world were asleep intheir places; his creditors, his rivals were resting, gaining strengthto overwhelm him on the morrow, and he must face them unrefreshed. 

He dreamed forward through crisis after crisis, through bankruptcy, disgrace, and mortal illness. He thought of his family, the childrenasleep in their beds under the roof that he must uphold like an Atlas. Poor little demanding, demanding things! What would become of them whentheir father broke down and was turned out of his factory and out of hishome? How they would hamper him, cling to him, cry out to him not to letthem starve, not to let them go cold or barefoot, not to turn themadrift. 

Yet they did not understand him. They loved their mother infinitelymore. She watched over them, played with them, cuddled and kissed them, while he had to leave the house before they were up, and came home atnight too fagged to play their games or endure their noise. And if theywere to be punished, she used him as a threat, and saved them up for himto torment and denounce. 

They loved her and were afraid of him. Yet what had she done for them?She had conceived them, borne them, nourished them for a year at most. Thereafter their food, their shelter, their clothes, their education, their whole prosperity must come from their father. Yet the verynecessities of the struggle for their welfare kept him from giving themthe time that would win their favor. They complained because he did notbuy them more. They were discontented with what they had, and covetousof what the neighbors' children had, even where it was less than theirown. 

He busied himself awhile at figuring out how much, all told, hischildren's upbringing had cost him. The total was astounding. If he hadhalf of that sum now he would not be fretting about his pay-roll or hisnotes. He would triumph over every obstacle. Next he made estimate ofwhat the children would cost him in the future. As they grew theirexpenses grew with them. He could not hope for the old comfort of sons, when they made a man strong, for nowadays grown sons must be started inbusiness at huge cost with doubtful results and no intention of repayingthe investment. And daughters have to be dressed up like holidaypackages, expensive gifts that must be sent prepaid and may be returned, collect. 

He could see nothing but vanity back of him and a welter of cost ahead. He could see no hope of ever catching up, of ever resting. His only restwould come when he died. 

If he did not sleep soon he would assuredly die or go mad. Perhaps hewas going mad already. He had fought too long, too hard. He would beginto babble and giggle soon and be led away to twiddle his fingers andtalk with phantoms. He saw himself as he had seen other witless, slavering spectacles that had once been human, and a nausea of fearcrushed big sweat out of his wincing skin. 

Better to die than to play the living burlesque of himself. Better todie than to face the shame of failure, the shame of reproach andridicule; the epitaph of his business a few lines in the small type of"Business Troubles. " Better to kill himself than risk the danger ofgoing mad and killing perhaps his own children and his wife. He knew aman once, a faithful, devoted, gentle struggler with the world, whom asudden insanity had led to the butchery of his wife and three littleboys. They found him tittering among his mangled dead, and calling thempet names, telling the shattered red things that he had wrought God'swill upon them. 

What if this should come to him! Better to end all the danger of that byremoving himself from the reach of mania or shame. It would be the finalproof of his love for his flock. And they would not think bitterly ofhim. All things are forgiven the dead. They would miss him and rememberthe best of him. 

They would appreciate what they had cost him, too, when they no longerhad him to draw on. He felt very sorry for himself. Grown man as he was, he was driven back into infancy by his terrors, and like a pouting, supperless boy, he wanted to die to spite the rest of the family andwin their apologies even if he should not hear them. 

He wondered if, after all, his wife would not be happier to be rid ofhim. No, she would regret him for one thing at least, that he left herwithout means. 

Well, she deserved to be penniless. Why should she expect a man to killhimself for her sake and leave her a wealthy widow to buy some otherman? Let her practise then some of the economies he had vainly begged ofher before. If she had been worthy of his posthumous protection shewould not have treated him so outrageously at a time of such stress asthis. 

She knew he was dog-tired, yet she allowed him to be angered, and sheknew just what themes were sure to provoke his wrath. So she had harpedon these till she had rendered him to a frenzy. 

They had stood about or paced the floor or dropped in chairs and foughtas they flung off their clothes piecemeal. She had combed and brushedher hair viciously as she raged, weeping the unbeautiful tears of wrath. But he had not had that comfort of tears; his tears ran down the insideof his soul and burned. She goaded him out of his ordinaryself-control--knew just how to do it and reveled in it. 

No doubt he had said things to her that a gentleman does not say to alady, that hardly any man would say to any woman. He was startled toremember what he had said to her. He abhorred the thought of suchthings coming from his lips--and to the mother of his children. But theblame for these atrocities was also hers. She had driven him frantic;she would have driven a less-dignified man to violence, to blows, perhaps. And she had had the effrontery to blame him for driving herfrantic when it was she that drove him. 

Finally they had stormed themselves out, squandered their vocabulariesof abuse, and taken resort to silence in a pretended dignity. That is, she had done this. He had relapsed into silence because he realized howimpervious to truth or justice she was. Facts she would not deal in. Logic she abhorred. Reasoning infuriated her. 

And then in grim, mutual contempt they had crept into bed and lain asfar apart as they could. He would have gone into another room, but shewould have thought he was afraid to hear more of her. Or she would havecome knocking at the door and lured him back only to renew the war atsome appeal of his to that sense of justice he was forever hoping tofind in her soul. 

He was aligned now along the very edge of the mattress. It was childishof her to behave so spitefully, but what could he do except repay her inkind? She would not have understood any other behavior. She had turnedher back on him, too, and stretched herself as thin as she could asclose to the edge as she could lie without falling out. 

What a vixen she was! And at this time of all when she should have beengentle, soothing. Even if she had thought him wrong and misinterpretedhis natural vehemence as virulence, she should have been patient. Whatwas a wife for but to be a helpmeet? She knew how easily his temper wasassuaged, she knew the very words. Why had she avoided them?

And she was to blame for so many of his problems. Her bills and herchildren's bills were increasing. She took so much of his time. Sheneeded so much entertaining, so much waiting on, so much listening to. Neither she nor the children produced. They simply spent. In a crisisthey never gave help, but exacted it. 

In business, as in a shipwreck, strong and useful men must step back andsacrifice themselves that the women and children might be saved--forother men to take care of. And what frauds these women were! Allallurement and gentleness till they had entrapped their victims, thenfiends of exaction, without sympathy for the big work of men, withoutinterest in the world's problems, alert to ridiculous suspicions, reckless with accusations, incapable of equity, and impatient ofeverything important. 

Marriage was a trap, masking its steel jaws and its chain under flowers. What changelings brides were! A man never led away from the altar thewoman he led thither. Before marriage, so interested in a man's serioustalk and the business of his life! After marriage, unwilling to listento any news of import, sworn enemies of achievement, putting aningrowing sentiment above all other nobilities of the race. 

And his wife was of all women the most womanish. She had lost what earlygraces she had. In the earlier days they had never quarreled. That is, of course, they had quarreled, but differently. They had left each otherseveral times, but how rapturously they had returned. And then she hadcraved his forgiveness and granted hers without asking. She had alwaysforgiven him for what he had not done, said, or thought, or for thethings he had done and said most justly. But there had been a charmabout her, a sweet foolishness that was irresistible. 

In the dark now he smiled to think how dear and fascinating she had beenthen. Oh, she had loved him then, had loved the very faults she hadimagined in him. Perhaps after he was dead she would remember him withher earlier tenderness. She would blame herself for making him theirascible, hot-tempered brute he had been--perhaps--at times. 

And now he had slain and buried himself, and his woe could burrow nofarther down. His soul was at the bottom of the pit. There was no otherway to go but upward, and that, of course, was impossible. 

As he wallowed in the lugubrious comfort of his own post-mortem revengehe wished that he had left unsaid some of the things he had said. Quelled by the vision of his wife weeping over him and repenting hercruelties, they began to seem less cruel. She was absolved by remorse. 

He heard her sobbing over his coffin and heard her recall her ferociouswords with shame. His white, set face seemed to try to console her. Heheard what he was trying to tell her in all the gentle understanding ofthe tomb:

"I said worse things, honey. I don't know how I could have used suchwords to you, my sweetheart. A longshoreman wouldn't have called afishwife what I called you, you blessed child. But it was my love thattormented me. If a man had quarreled with me, we'd have had a knock-downand drag-out and nothing more thought of it. If any woman but you haddenounced me as you did I'd have shrugged my shoulders and not careda--at all. 

"It was because I loved you, honey, that your least frown hurt me so. But I didn't really mean what I said. It wasn't true. You're the best, the faithfulest, the prettiest, dearest woman in all the world, and youwere a precious wife to me--so much more beautiful, more tender, moredevoted than the wives of the other men I knew. I will pray God to bringyou to me in the place I'm going to. I could not live without youanywhere. "

This was what he was trying to tell her, and could not utter a word ofit. He seemed to be lying in his coffin, staring up at her throughsealed eyelids. He could not purse his cold lips to kiss her warm mouth. He could not lift an icy hand to bless her brow. They would come soonto lay the last board over his face and screw down the lid. She wouldscream and fight, but they would drag her away. And he could not answerher wild cries. He could not go to her rescue. He would be lifted in thebox from the trestles and carried out on the shoulders of other men, andslid into the waiting hearse; and the horses would trot away with him, leaving her to penury, with her children and his at the mercy of themerciless world, while he was lowered into a ditch and hidden undershovelfuls of dirt, to lie there motionless, useless, hideously idleforever. 

This vision of himself dead was so vivid that his heart jumped in hisbreast and raced like a propeller out of water. The very pain and theterror were joyful, for they meant that he still lived. 

Whatever other disasters overhung him, he was at least not dead. Bettera beggar slinking along the dingiest street than the wealthiestRothschild under the stateliest tomb. Better the sneers and pity of theworld in whispers about his path than all the empty praise of the mostresounding obituary. 

The main thing was to be alive. Before that great good fortune allmisfortunes were minor, unimportant details. And, after all, he was notso pitiable. His name was still respected. His factory was stillrunning. Whatever his liabilities, he still had some assets, not leastof them health and experience and courage. 

But where had his courage been hiding that it left him whimperingalone? Was he a little girl afraid of the dark, or was he a man?

There were still men who would lend him money or time. What if he was introuble? Were not the merchant princes of the earth sweating blood?There had been a rich men's panic before the poor were reached. Noweverybody was involved. 

After all, what if he failed? Who had not failed? What if he fellbankrupt?--that was only a tumble down-stairs. Could he not pick himselfup and climb again? Some of the biggest industries in the world hadpassed through temporary strain. The sun himself went into eclipse. 

If his factory had to close, it could be opened again some day. Or evenif he could not recover, how many better men than he had failed? To becrushed by the luck of things was no crime. There was a glory of defeatas well as of victory. 

The one great gleaming truth was that he was still alive, still in thering. He was not dead yet. He was not going to die. He was going to getup and win. 

There was no shame in the misfortunes he had had. There was no disgracein the fears he had bowed to. All the nations and all the men in themwere in a night of fear. But already there was a change of feeling. Thedarker the hour, the nearer the dawn. The worse things were, the soonerthey must mend. 

People had been too prosperous; the world had played the spendthriftand gambled too high. But economy would restore the balance for thetoilers. What had been lost would soon be regained. 

Fate could not down America yet. And he was an American. What was it"Jim" Hill had said to the scare-mongers: "The man who sells the UnitedStates short is a damned fool. " And the man who sells himself short is adamneder fool. 

 * * * * *

Thus he struggled through the bad weather of his soul. The clouds thathad gathered and roared and shuttled with lightnings had emptied theirwrath, and the earth still rolled. The mystery of terror was subtlyaltered to a mystery of surety. 

Lying in the dark, motionless, he had wrought out the miracle ofmeditation. Within the senate chamber of his mind he had debated andpondered and voted confidence in himself and in life. 

His eyes, still open, still battling for light, had found none yet. Theuniverse was still black. He could not distinguish sky from window, norcasement from ceiling. Yet the gloom was no longer terrible. Theuniverse was still a great ship rushing on, but he was no longer amidget in a little cockleshell about to be crushed. He was a passengeron the ship. The night was benevolent, majestic, sonorous with music. The sea was glorious and the voyage forward. 

And now that his heart was full of good news, he had a wild desire torush home with it to her who was his home. How often he had left her inthe morning after a wrangle, and hurried back to her at night bearingglad tidings, the quarrel forgotten beyond the need of any treaty. Andshe would be there among their children, beaming welcome from her bigeyes. 

And she was always so glad when he was glad. She took so much blame onherself; though how was she to blame for herself? Yet she took no creditto herself for being all the sweet things she was. She was the flowersand the harvest, and the cool, amorous evening after the hard day wasdone. And he was the peevish, whining, swearing imbecile that chose awoman for wife because she was a rose and then clenched her thorns andcomplained because she was not a turnip. 

He felt a longing to tell her how false his croakings had been in thatold dead time so long ago as last night. But she was asleep. And sheneeded sleep. She had been greatly troubled by his troubles. She hadbeen anxious for him and the children. She had so many things to worryover that never troubled him. She had wept and been angry because shecould not make him understand. Her very wrath was a way of crying: "Ilove you! You hurt me!"

He must let her sleep. Her beauty and her graces needed sleep. It washis blessed privilege to guard her slumbers, his pride to house her welland to see that she slept in fabrics suited to the delicate fabric ofher exquisite body. 

But if only she might chance to be awake that he might tell her howsorry he was that he had been weak and wicked enough to torment her withhis baseless fears and his unreasonable ire. At least he must touch herwith tenderness. Even though she slept, he must give her the benedictionof one light caress. 

He put his hand out cautiously toward her. He laid his fingers gently onher cheek. How beautiful it was even in the dark! But it was wet! withtears! Suddenly her little invisible fingers closed upon his hand likegrape tendrils. 

But this did not prove her awake. So habited they were to each otherthat even in their sleep their bodies gave or answered such endearments. 

He waited till his loneliness for her was unendurable, then he breathed, softly:

"Are you asleep, honey?"

For answer she whirled into his bosom and clenched him in her arms andwept--in whispers lest the children hear. He petted her tenderly andkissed her hair and her eyelids and murmured:

"Did I wake you, honey?"

"No, no!" she sobbed. "I've been awake for hours. "

"But you didn't move!"

"I was afraid to waken you. You need your rest so much. I've beenthinking how hard you work, how good you are. I'm so ashamed of myselffor--"

"But it was all my fault, honey. "

"Oh no, no, my dear, my dear!"

He let her have the last word; for an enormous contentedness filled hisheart. He drew the covers about her shoulder and held her close andbreathed deep of the companionship of the soul he had chosen. Hebreathed so deeply that his head drooped over hers, his cheek upon herhair. The night seemed to bend above them and mother them and say tothem, "Hush! hush! and sleep!"

There are many raptures in the world, and countless beautiful moments, and not the least of them is this solemn marriage in sleep of the manand woman whose days are filled with cares, and under whose roof atnight children and servants slumber aloof secure. 

While these two troubled spirits found repose and renewal, locked eachin the other's arms, the blackness was gradually withdrawn from the air. In the sky there came a pallor that grew to a twilight and became aradiance and a splendor. And night was day. It would soon be time forthe father to rise and go forth to his work, and for the mother to riseto the offices of the home. 

THE MAN THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

I

In the tame little town of Hillsdale he seemed the tamest thing of all, Will Rudd--especially appropriate to a kneeling trade, a shoe clerk byelection. He bent the pregnant hinges to anybody soever that entered theshop, with its ingenious rebus on the sign-board:

[Illustration: CLAY KITTREDGE and Emporium Nobby Footwear]

He not only untied the stilted Oxfords or buttoned in the archinginsteps of those who sat in the "Ladies' and Misses' Dept. , " which wasthe other side of the double-backed bench whose obverse was the "Gents'Dept. , " but also he took upon the glistening surface of his trousers themuddy soles of merchants, the clay-bronzed brogans of hired men, thecowhide toboggans of teamsters, and the brass-toed, red-kneed boots oflittle boys ecstatic in their first feel of big leather. 

Rudd was a shoe clerk to be trusted. He never revealed to a soul thatMiss Clara Lommel wore shoes two sizes too small, and when she bit herlip and blenched with agony as he pried her heel into the protestingdongola, he seemed not to notice that she was no Cinderella. 

And one day, when it was too late, and Miss Lucy Posnett, whose peoplelived in the big brick mansard, realized that she had a hole in herstocking, what did Rudd do? Why, he never let on. 

Stanch Methodist that he was, William Rudd stifled _in petto_ the factthat the United Presbyterian parson's wife was vain and bought little, soft black kids with the Cuban heel and a patent-leather tip to theopera toe! The United Presbyterian parson himself had salved his ownvanity by saying that shoes show so plainly on the pulpit, and it wasbetter to buy them a trifle too small than a trifle too large, but--umm!--er, hadn't you better put in a little more of that powder, Mr. Rudd? I have on--whew!--unusually thick socks to-day. 

Clay Kittredge, Rudd's employer, valued him, secretly, as a man whobrought in customers and sold them goods. But he never mentioned thisto his clerk lest Rudd be tempted to the sin of vanity, andincidentally to demanding an increase in that salary which had remainedthe same since he had been promoted from delivery-boy. 

Kittredge found that Rudd kept his secrets as he kept everybody's else. Professing church member as he was, Rudd earnestly palmed off shopwornstock for fresh invoices, declared that the obsolete Piccadillies whichKittredge had snapped up from a bankrupt sale were worn on all the bestfeet on Fifth Avenoo, and blandly substituted "just as good" foradvertised wares that Kittredge did not carry. 

Besides, when no customer was in the shop he spent the time at the backwindow, doctoring tags--as the King of France negotiated the hill--bymarking up prices, then marking them down. 

But when he took his hat from the peg and set it on his head, he put onhis private conscience. Whatever else he did, he never lied or cheatedto his own advantage. 

And so everybody in town liked William Rudd, and nobody admired him. Hewas treated with the affectionate contempt of an old family servant. Buthe had his ambitions and great ones, ambitions that reached past himselfinto the future of another generation. He felt the thrill that stirs theacorn, fallen into the ground and hidden there, but destined to fatheran oak. His was the ambition beyond ambition that glorifies the seed inthe loam and ennobles the roots of trees thrusting themselves downwardand gripping obscurity in order that trunks and branches, flowers andfruits, pods and cones, may flourish aloft. 

Eventually old Clay Kittredge died, and the son chopped the "Jr. "curlicue from the end of his name and began a new régime. The oldKittredge had sought only his own aggrandizement, and his son was hisson. The new Clay Kittredge had gone to public school with Rudd and theycontinued to be "Clay" and "Will" to each other; no one would ever havecalled Rudd by so demonstrative a name as "Bill. "

When Clay second stepped into his father's boots--and shoes--he began toenlarge the business, hoping to efface his father's achievements by hisown. The shop gradually expanded to a department store for covering allportions of the anatomy and supplying inner wants as well. 

Rudd was so overjoyed at not being uprooted and flung aside to die thathe never observed the shrewd irony of Kittredge's phrase, "You mayremain, Will, with no reduction of salary. "

To have lost his humble position would have frustrated his dream, for hewas doing his best to build for himself and for Her a home where theycould fulfil their destinies. He cherished no hope, hardly even adesire, to be a great or rich man himself. He was one of thenest-weavers, the cave-burrowers, the home-makers, who prepare the wayfor the greater than themselves who shall spring from themselves. 

He was of those who become the unknown fathers of great men. And so, ona salary that would have meant penury to a man of self-seeking tastes, he managed to save always the major part of his earning. At the bank hewas a modest but regular visitor to the receiving-teller, and almost atotal stranger to the paying-teller. 

His wildest dissipation being a second pipeful of tobacco before he wentto bed--or "retired, " as he would more gently have said it--heeventually heaped up enough money and courage to ask Martha Kellogg tomarry him. Martha, who was the plainest woman in plain Hillsdale, accepted William, and they were made one by the parson. The wedding wasaccounted "plain" even in Hillsdale. 

The groomy bridegroom and the unbridy bride spent together all the timethat Rudd could spare from the store. He bought for her a little framehouse with a porch about as big as an upper berth, a patch of grass witha path through it to the back door, some hollyhocks of startling color, and a highly unimportant woodshed. It spelled HOME to them, and theywere as happy as people usually are. He did all he could to please her. At her desire he even gave up his pipe without missing it--much. 

Mrs. Martha Rudd was an ambitious woman, or at least restless anddiscontented. Having escaped her supreme horror, that of being an oldmaid, she began to grow ambitious for her husband. She nagged him for awhile about his plodding ways, the things that satisfied him, the salaryhe endured. But it did no good. Will Rudd was never meant to put bootsand spurs on his own feet and splash around in gore. He was for carpetslippers, round-toed shoes, and on wet days, rubbers; on slushy days heeven descended to what he called "ar'tics. "

Not understanding the true majesty of her husband's long-distancedreams, and baffled by his unresponse to her ambitions for him, Marthagrew ambitious for the child that was coming. She grew frantically, fantastically ambitious. Here was something William Rudd could respondto. He could be ambitious as Cæsar--but not for himself. He was agroundling, but his son should climb. 

Husband and wife spent evenings and evenings debating the future of thechild. They never agreed on the name--or the alternative names. For itis advisable to have two ready for any emergency. But the future wasrosy. They were unanimous on that--President of the United States, mebbe; or at least the President's wife. 

Mrs. Rudd, who occasionally read the continued stories in the eveningpaper, had happened on a hero named "Eric. " She favored that name--orGwendolynne (with a "y"), as the case might be. In any event, thechild's future was so glowing that it warmed Mrs. Rudd to asking oneevening, forgetful of her earlier edict:

"Why don't you smoke your pipe any more, Will?"

"I'd kind o' got out of the habit, Marthy, " he said, and added, hastily, "but I guess I'll git back in. "

Thereafter they sat of evenings by the lamp, he smoking, she sewingthings--holding them up now and then for him to see. They looked almosttoo small to be convincing, until he brought home from the store a pairof shoes--"the smallest size made, Marthy, too small for some of thedolls you see over at Bostwick's. "

It was the golden period of his life. Rudd never sold shoes so well. People could hardly resist his high spirits. Anticipation is a greatthing--it is all that some people get. 

To be a successful shoe clerk one must acquire the patience of Jobwithout his gift of complaint, and Rudd was thoroughly schooled. So hewaited with a hope-lit serenity the preamble to the arrival ofhis--her--their child. 

And then fate, which had previously been content with denying himcomforts and keeping him from luxuries, dealt him a blow in the face, smote him on his patient mouth. The doctor told him that the little bodyof his son had been born still. After that it was rather a stupor ofdespair than courage that carried him through the vain struggle for lifeof the worn-out housewife who became only almost a mother. It seemedmerely the logical completion of the world's cruelty when the doctorlaid a heavy hand on his shoulder and walked out of the door, withoutleaving any prescription to fill. Rudd stood like a wooden Indian, toodazed to understand or to feel. He opened the door to the undertaker andwaited outside the room, just twiddling his fingers and wondering. Hisworld had come to an end and he did not know what to do. 

At the church, the offices of the parson, and the soprano's voice frombehind the flowers, singing "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me"--Marthy'sfavorite hymn--brought the tears trickling, but he could not believethat what had happened had happened. He got through the melancholy honorof riding in the first hack in the shabby pageant, though the townlooked strange from that window. He shivered stupidly at the first sightof the trench in the turf which was to be the new lodging of his family. He kept as quiet as any of the group among the mounds while thebareheaded preacher finished his part. 

He was too numb with incredulity to find any expression until he heardthat awfulest sound that ever grates the human ear--the first shovelfulof clods rattling on a coffin. Then he understood--then he woke. When hesaw the muddy spade spill dirt hideously above her lips, her cheeks, herbrow, and the little bundle of futile flesh she cuddled with a rigid armto a breast of ice--then a cry like the shriek of a falling tree splithis throat and he dropped into the grave, sprawling across the casket, beating on its denying door, and sobbing:

"You mustn't go alone, Marthy. I won't let you two go all by yourselves. It's so fur and so dark. I can't live without you and the--the baby. Wait! Wait!"

They dragged him out, and the shovels concluded their venerable task. Hewas sobbing too loudly to hear them, and the parson was holding him inhis arms and patting his back and saying "'Shh! 'Shh!" as if he were achild afraid of the dark. 

The sparse company that had gathered to pay the last devoir to theunimportant woman in the box in the ditch felt, most of all, amazementat such an unexpected outburst from so expectable a man as William Rudd. There was much talk about it as the horses galloped home, much talk inevery carriage except his and the one that had been hers. 

Up to this, the neighbors had taken the whole affair with that splendidphilosophy neighbors apply to other people's woes. Mrs. Budd Granger hadsaid to Mrs. Ad. Peck when they met in Bostwick's dry-goods store, atthe linen counter:

"Too bad about Martha Rudd, isn't it? Plain little body, but nice. Meantwell. Went to church regular. Yes, it's too bad. I don't think theyought to put off the strawb'ry fest'val, though, just for that, do you?Never would be any fun if we stopped for every funeral, would there?Besides, the strawb'ry fest'val's for charity, isn't it?"

The strawberry festival was not put off and the town paper said that "apleasant time was had by all. " Most of the talk was about Will Rudd. The quiet shoe clerk had provided the town with an alarm, anastonishment. He was most astounded of all. As he rode back to the framehouse in the swaying carriage he absolutely could not believe that suchhopes, such plans, could be shattered with such wanton, wastefulcruelty. That he should have loved, married, and begotten, and that thenew-made mother and the new-born child should be struck dead, nullified, returned to clay--such things were too foolish, too spendthrift, tobelieve. 

It is strange that people do not get used to death. It has come tonearly every being anybody has ever heard of; and whom it has not yetreached, it will. Every one of the two billions of us on earth to-dayexpects it to come to him, and (if he have them) to his son, hisdaughter, his man-servant, his maid-servant, his ox, his ass, thestranger within his gates, the weeds by the road. Kittens and kingdoms, potato-bugs, plants, and planets--all are on the visiting-list. 

Death is the one expectation that never fails to arrive. But it comesalways as a new thing, an unheard-of thing, a miracle. It is thecommonest word in the lexicon, yet it always reads as a _hapaxlegomenon_. It is like spring, though so unlike. For who ever believedthat May would emerge from March this year? And who ever remembers thatviolets were suddenly abroad on the hills last April, too?

William Rudd ought to have known better. In a town where funerals weresocial events dangerously near to diversion, he had been unusuallyfrequent at them. For he belonged to the local chapter of the Knights ofPythias, and when a fellow-member in good standing was forced to resign, William Rudd donned his black suit, his odd-looking cocked hat with theplume, and the anachronous sword, which he carried as one would expect ashoe clerk to carry a sword. The man in the hearse ahead went to nofurther funerals, stopped paying his dues, made no more noise at thebowling-alley, and ceased to dent his pew cushion. Somebody got his jobat once and, after a decent time, somebody else probably got his wife. The man became a remembrance, if that. 

Rudd had long realized that people eventually become dead; but he hadnever realized death. He had been an oblivious child when his mother andfather had taken the long trip whose tickets read but one way, and hadleft him to the grudging care of an uncle with a large enough family. 

And now his own family was obliterated. He was again a single man, thatfamiliar thing called a widower. He could not accept it as a fact. Hedenied his eyes. He was as incredulous as a man who sees a magician playsome old vanishing trick. He had seen it, but he could not understand itenough to believe it. When the hack left him at his house he found itemptier than he could have imagined a house could be. Marthy was not onthe porch, or in the settin'-room, the dinin'-room, the kitchen, oranywhere up-stairs. The bed was empty, the stove cold. The lamp had notbeen filled. The cruse of his life was dry, the silver cord loosened, the pitcher broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern. 

As he stumbled about filling the lamp, and covering his hands withkerosene, he wondered what he should do in those long hours between theclosing of the shoe-shop of evenings and its opening of mornings. Menbehave differently in this recurring situation. Some take to drink, orreturn to it. Rudd did not like liquor; at least he did not think hewould have liked it if he had ever tasted it. Some take to gambling. Rudd did not know big casino from little, though he had once almostacquired a passion for checkers--the give-away game. Some submergethemselves in money-getting. Rudd would not have given up the serenecertainty of his little salary for a speculator's chance to clean up amillion, or lose his margin. 

If only the child had lived, he should have had an industry, anambition, a use. 

Widowers have occasionally hunted consolation with the same sex thatsent them grief. Rudd had never known any woman in town as well as hehad known Martha, and it had taken him years to find courage to proposeto her. The thought of approaching any other woman with intimateintention gave him an ague sweat. 

And how was he to think of taking another wife? Even if he had not beenso confounded with grief for his helpmeet as to believe her the onlywoman on earth for him, how could he have accosted another woman when hehad only debts for a dowry?

Death is an expensive thing in every phase. The event that robbed Ruddof his wife, his child, his hope, had taken also his companion, hiscook, his chambermaid, his washerwoman, the mender of his things; and intheir place had left an appalling monument of bills. The only people hehad permitted himself to owe money to were the gruesome committee thatbrought him his grief; the doctor, the druggist, the casket-maker, thesexton, and the dealer in the unreal estate who sold the tiny lots inthe sad little town. 

His soul was too bruised to grope its way about, but instinct told himthat bills must be paid. Instinct automatically set him to work clearingup his accounts. For their sakes he devoted himself to a strictereconomy than ever. He engaged meals at Mrs. Judd's boarding-house. Heresolved even to rent his home. But, mercifully, there was no one intown to take the place. In economy's name, too, he put away hispipe--for one horrible evening. The next day he remembered how Marthyhad sung out, "Why don't you smoke your pipe any more, Will?" and he hadanswered: "I'd kind o' got out of the habit, Marthy, but I guess I'llgit back in. " And Lordy, how she laughed! The laughter of the dead--itmade a lonely echo in the house. 

Gradually he found, as so many dismal castaways have found, that thereis a mystic companionship in that weed which has come out of thevegetable world, as the dog from among the animals, to make fellowshipwith man. Rudd and his pipe were Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday onthe desert island of loneliness. They stared out to sea; and imagined. 

Remembering how Martha and he used to dream about the child, in thetobacco twilight, and how they planned his future, Rudd's soul learnedto follow the pipe smoke out from the porch, over the fence and todisappear beyond the horizons of the town and the sharp definition ofthe graveyard fence. He became addicted to dreams, habituated to dealingin futurities that could never come to pass. 

Being his only luxury on earth, by and by they became his necessities, realities more concrete than the shoes he sold or the board walk heplodded to and from his store. 

One Sunday Rudd was present at church when Mr. And Mrs. Budd Grangerbrought their fourth baby forward to be christened. The infant bawledand choked and kicked its safety-pins loose. Rudd was sure that Ericnever would have misbehaved like that. Yet Eric had been denied thesacred rite. 

This reminded Rudd how many learned theologians had proved by rigidlogic that unbaptized babies are damned forever. He spent days of horrorat the frightful possibility, and nights of infernal travel acrossgridirons where babies flung their blistered hands in vain appeal tofar-off mothers. He could not get it from his mind until, one evening, his pipe persuaded him to erect a font in the temple of his imagination. 

He mused through all the ritual, and the little frame house seemed tothrill as the vague preacher enounced the sonorous phrase:

"I baptize thee Eric--in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and ofthe Holy Ghost. "

Marthy was there, too, of course, but it was the father that held thebaby. And the child did not wince when the pastor's fingers moistenedthe tiny brow. He just clasped a geranium-petal hand round Rudd's thumband stared at the sacrament with eyes of more than mortal understanding. 

The very next day Mrs. Ad. Peck walked into the store, proud as apeahen. She wanted shoes for her baby. The soles of the old pair wereintact, but the stubby toes were protruding. 

"He crawls all over the house, Mr. Rudd! And he cut his first toothto-day, too. Just look at it. Ain't it a beauty?"

In her insensate conceit she pried the child's mouth apart as if he werea pony, to disclose the minute peak of ivory. It was nothing to makesuch a fuss over, Rudd thought, though he praised it as if it were asnow-capped Fuji-yama. 

That night Eric cut two teeth. And Marthy nearly laughed her head off. 

Rudd did not talk aloud to the family he had revened from the grave. Hehad no occult persuasions. He just sat in his rocker and smoked hard andimagined hard. He imagined the lives of his family not only as theymight have been, but as they ought to have been. He was like a spectatorat a play, mingling belief and make-belief inextricably, knowing it alluntrue, yet weeping, laughing, thrilling as if it were the very image offact. 

All mothers and some fathers have a sad little calendar in their hearts'cupboards where they keep track of the things that might have been. "October fifth, " they muse. "Why, it's Ned's birthday! He'd have beentwenty-one to-day if he'd lived. He'd have voted this year. Decembertwenty-third? Alice would have been coming home from boarding-schoolto-day if--July fourth? Humph! How Harry loved the fireworks! But he'dbe a Senator now and invited to his home town to make a speech in thepark to-day if--" If! If!

Everybody must keep some such if-almanac, some such diary of prayersdenied. That was all Rudd did; only he wrote it up every evening. Hewould take from the lavender where he kept them the little things Marthahad sewed for the child and the little shoes he had bought. The warmbody had never wriggled and laughed in the tiny trousseau, the littleshoes had never housed pink toes, but they helped him to pretend untilthey became to him things outgrown by a living, growing child. Hecherished them as all parents cherish the first shoes and the firstlinens and woolens of their young. 

Marthy and Eric Rudd lived just behind the diaphanous curtain of thepipe smoke, or in the nooks of the twilight shadow, or in the heart ofthe settin'-room stove. 

The frame house had no fireplace, and in its lieu he was wont to openthe door of the wood-stove, lean forward, elbows on knees, and gaze intothe creamy core of the glow where his people moved unharmed and radiant, like the three youths conversing in the fiery furnace. 

In the brief period allotted them before bedtime they must needs livefast. The boy grew at an extraordinary rate and in an extraordinarymanner, for sometimes Rudd performed for him that feat which God Himselfseems not to achieve in His world; he turned back time and brought onyesterday again, or reverted the year before last, as a reaper may pauseand return to glean some sheaf overlooked before. 

For instance, Eric was already a strapping lad of seven spinning throughschool at a rate that would have given brain fever to a less-giftedyoungster, when, one day, Farmer Stebbins came to the Emporium with afour-year-old chub of a son who ran in ahead of his father, kicked hisshoes in opposite directions and yelled, to the great dismay of an oldmaid in the "Ladies' and Misses' Dept. ":

"Hay, mister, gimme pair boots 'ith brass toes!"

The father, after a formulaic pretense of reproving the lad, explained:

"We'll have to excuse him, Rudd; it's his first pair of boots. "

Rudd's heart was sore within him, and he was oppressed with guilt. Hehad never bought Eric his first pair of brass-toed boots! And he a shoeclerk!

So that night Eric had to be reduced several years, brought out ofschool, and taken to St. Louis. Rudd knew what an epoch-making eventthis was, and he wanted Eric to select from a larger stock than themeager and out-of-date supply of Kittredge's Emporium--though thisadmission was only for Rudd's own family. The thumb-screw could not havewrung it from him for the public. 

There was a similar mix-up about Eric's first long trousers which Ruddlikewise overlooked. He accomplished the Irish miracle of the tightboots. Eric had worn his breeches a long while before he put them on forthe first time. 

To the outer knowledge of the stranger or the neighbor, William Rudd'semployer had all the good luck that was coming to him, and all of Rudd'sbesides. They were antitheses at every point. 

Where Rudd was without ambition, importance, family, or funds, Kittredgewas the richest man in town, the man of most impressive family, andeasily the leading citizen. People began to talk him up for Congressman, maybe for Senator. He had held all the other conspicuous offices in hischurch, his bank, his county. You could hardly say that he had ever runfor any office; he had just walked up and taken it. 

Yet Rudd did not envy him his record or his family. Clay Kittredge hadchildren, real children. The cemetery lodged none of them. Yet one ofthe girls or boys was always ill or in trouble with somebody; Mrs. Kittredge was forever cautioning her children not to play with Mrs. So-and-so's children and Mrs. So-and-so would return the compliment. Thetown was fairly torn up with these nursery Guelph and Ghibelline wars. 

Rudd compared the wickednesses of other people's children with theperfections of Eric. Sometimes his evil genius whispered a bitterthought that if Eric had lived to enter the world this side of thetobacco smoke, he, too, might have been a complete scoundrel inknee-breeches, instead of the clean-hearted, clear-skinned, studious, truthful little gentleman of light and laughter and love that he was. But Rudd banished the thought. 

Eric was never ill, or only ill enough at times to give the parents alittle of the rapture of anxiety and of sitting by his bedside holdinghis hand and brushing his hair back from a hot forehead. Eric never wasimpolite, or cruel to an animal, or impudent to a teacher, or backwardin a class. 

And Rudd's wife differed from Kittredge's wife and wives in general--andindeed from the old Martha herself--in staying young and growing moreand more beautiful. The old Martha had been too shy and too cognizant ofthe truth ever to face a camera; and Rudd often regretted that he ownednot even a bridal photograph such as the other respectable married folksof Hillsdale had on the wall, or in a crayon enlargement on an uneasyeasel. He had no likeness of Martha except that in his heart. Butthereby his fancy was unshackled and he was enabled to imagine hersweeter, fairer, every day. 

It was the boy alone that grew; the mother, having become perfect, remained stationary in charm like the blessed Greeks in theasphodel-fields of Hades. 

About the time Eric Rudd outgrew the public schools of Hillsdale andgraduated from the high school with a wonderful oration of his ownwriting called "Night Brings Out the Stars, " Kittredge announced thathis eldest son would go to Harvard in the fall. Rudd determined thatEric should go to Yale. He even sent for catalogues. Rudd was appalledto see how much a person had to know before he could even get intocollege. And then, this nearly omniscient intellect was called aFreshman!

The prices of rooms, of meals, of books, of extra fees, the estimatedallowances for clothing and spending-money dazed the poor shoe clerk andnearly sent Eric into business. But, fortunately, the brier pipe came tothe rescue with an unexpected legacy from an unsuspected uncle. 

The four years of college life were imagined with a good deal ofelision and an amount of guesswork that would have amused a janitor. ButRudd and Martha were chiefly interested in the boy's vacations at home, and their own trips to New Haven, and the letters of approval from theprofessors. 

Eric had an athletic career seldom equaled since the days of Hercules. For Eric was a champion tennis-player, hockey-player, baseballist, boxer, swimmer, runner, jumper, shot-putter. And he was the bestquoit-thrower in the New Haven town square. Rudd had rather dim notionsof some of the games, so that Eric was established both as center rushof the football team and the cockswain in the crew. 

He was also a member of all the best fraternities. He was a "Bones" manin his Freshman year, and in his Sophomore year added the other Seniorsocieties. And, of course, he stood at the head of all hisclasses--though he never condescended to take a single red apple to aprofessor. 

The boy's college life lasted Rudd a thousand and one evenings. It wasin beautiful contrast with the career of Kittredge's children, some ofwhom were forever flunking their examinations, slipping back a year, requiring expensive tutors, acquiring bad habits, and getting into debt. Almost the only joy Kittredge had of them was in telegraphing them moneyin response to their telegrams for money--they never wrote. Theirvacations either sent them scurrying on house parties or otherexcursions. Or if they came home they were discontented with house andparents. They corrected Kittredge's grammar, though his State accountedhim an orator. They corrected Mrs. Kittredge's etiquette, thoughHillsdale looked up to her as a social arbitrix. 

Kittredge poured a deal of his disappointment into Rudd's ear, becausehis hard heart was broken and breaking anew every day, and he had totell somebody. He knew that his old clerk would keep it where he keptall the secrets of his business, but he never knew that Rudd still had achild of his own, forging ahead without failure. Rudd could givecomfort, for he had it to spare, and he was empty of envy. 

It was a ghastly morning when Kittredge showed Rudd a telegram sayingthat his eldest son, Thomas, had thrown himself in front of a trainbecause of the discovery that his accounts were wrong. Kittredge hadfound him a place in a New York bank, but the gambling fever had seizedthe young fellow. And now he was dead, in his sins, in his shame. Divescried out to Lazarus:

"It's hell to be a father, Will. It's an awful thing to bring childreninto the world and try to carry 'em through it. It's not a man's job. It's God's. "

At times like these, and when Rudd heard from the tattlers, or read inthe printed gossip of the evening paper concerning the multifariouswickednesses of the children of men about the earth, he felt almost gladthat his boy had never lived upon so plague-infected a world. But in thesoothe of twilight the old pipe persuaded him to a pleasanter view ofhis boy, alive and always doing the right thing, avoiding the evil. 

His motto was, "Eric would have done different. " He was sure of that. Itwas his constant conclusion. 

After graduating from an imaginary Yale Eric went to an imaginarylaw-school in New York City--no less. Then he was admitted to thatimaginary bar where a lawyer never defends an unrighteous cause, neverloses a case, yet grows rich. And, of course, like every other Americanboy that dreams or is dreamed of, in good time he had to becomePresident. 

Eric lived so exemplary a life, was so busy in virtue, so unblemished offault, that he could not be overlooked by the managers of thequadrennial national performance, searching with Demosthenes' lanternfor a man against whom nothing could be said. They called Eric fromprivate life to be headliner in their vaudeville. 

Rudd had watched Kittredge clambering to his success, or ratherwallowing to it through a swamp of mud. All the wrong things Kittredgehad ever done, and their name was legion, were hurled in his path. Hisfamily scandals were dug up by the double handful and splashed in hisface. Against his opponent the same methods were used. It was like arace through a marsh; and when Kittredge reached his goal in the Senatehe was so muck-bemired, his heart had been so lacerated, the nakednessof his past so exposed, that his laurel seemed more like a wreath ofpoison ivy. And once mounted on his high post, he was an even bettertarget than when he was on the wing. 

Against Eric's blameless life the arrows of slander were like darts shottoward the sun. They fell back upon the archers' heads. That was alively night in the tobacco lagoon when the election returns came in andState after State swung to Eric's column. Rudd made it as nearlyunanimous as he could without making it stupid. The solid South he leftunbroken; he just brought it over to Eric en bloc. For Eric, it seems, had devised what everybody else has looked for in vain, a solution ofthe negro problem to satisfy both North and South--and the negroes. Unfortunately the details have been lost. 

Marthy was there, of course; she rode in the same hack with their boy. Some of the politicians and the ex-President wanted to get in, but Ericsaid:

"My mother and father ride with me or I won't be President. "

That settled 'em. Eric even wanted to ride backward, too, but Will, ashis father, insisted; and of course Eric obeyed, though he wasPresident. And the weather was more like June than March, no blizzardsdelaying trains and distributing pneumonia. 

Once the administration was begun, the newspapers differed strangely intheir treatment of Eric from their attitude toward other ChiefMagistrates, from Washington down. Realizing that Eric was an honorableman trying to do the right thing by the people, no editor or cartoonistdreamed of accusing him of an unworthy motive or an unwise act. As forthe tariff labyrinth, a matter of some trouble to certain Presidentspulled in all directions at once by warring constituencies, Eric settledthat in a jiffy. And the best of it was that everybody was satisfied, importers and exporters; East, West, and Middle; farmers, manufacturers, lumbermen, oilmen, painters--everybody. 

And when his first term was ended the Democrats and Republicans, realizing that they had at last found a perfectly wise and honorableruler, nominated him by acclamation at both conventions. The result wasdelightful; both parties elected their candidate. 

Marthy and Will sat with Eric in the carriage at the second inaugural, too. There was an argument again about who should ride backward. Ruddsaid:

"Eric, your Excellency, these here crowds came to see you, and you oughtto face 'em. As your dad I order you to set there 'side of your mother. "

But Eric said, "Dad, your Majesty, the people have seen me often enough, and as the President of these here United States I order you to setthere 'side of your wife. "

And of course Rudd had to do it. Folks looked very much surprised to seehim and there was quite a piece in the papers about it. 

To every man his day's work and his night's dream. Will Rudd has poornourishment of the former, but he is richly fed of the latter. Hisfailures and his poverty and the monotony of his existence are publicknowledge; his dream is his own triumph and the greater for being hissecret. 

The Fates seemed to go out of their way to be cruel to Will Rudd, but hebeat them at their own game. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos kept Jupiterhimself in awe of their shears, and the old Norns, Urdur, Verdandi, andSkuld, ruined Wotan's power and his glory. But they could not touch theshoe clerk. They shattered his little scheme of things to bits, but herebuilt it nearer to his heart's desire. He spread a sky about hisprivate planet and ruled his little universe like a tribal god. He, alone of all men, had won the oldest, vainest prayer that was ever saidor sung: "O God, keep the woman I love young and beautiful, and grantour child happiness and success without sin or sorrow. "

If, sometimes, the imagination of the matter-of-fact man wavers, and theugliness of his loneliness overwhelms him, thrusts through his dreamlike a hideous mountainside when an avalanche strips the barren crags oftheir fleece; and if he then breaks down and calls aloud for his childand his wife to be given back to him from Out There--these panics arealso his secret. Only the homely sitting-room of the lonely frame houseknows them. He opens the door of the wood-stove or follows his pipesmoke and rallies his courage, resumes his dream. The next morning seeshim emerge from his door and go briskly to the shop as always, whetherhis path is through rain or sleet, or past the recurrent lilacs thathave scattered many a purple snow across his sidewalk since thebankruptcy of his ambitions. 

He would have been proud to be the unknown father of a great man. He wasnot permitted to be the father even of a humble man. Yet being deniedthe reality, he has taken sustenance in what might have been, and hasturned "the saddest words of tongue or pen" into something almost sweet. If his child has missed the glories of what might have been, he hasescaped the shames that might have been, and the bruises and heartachesand remorses that must have been, that always have been. That is theincreasing consolation a bitter world offers to those who love and havelost. That was Rudd's solace. And he made the most of it; added to it adream. He was a wise man. 

After he paid his sorrowful debts his next slow savings went to thebuilding of a monument for his family. It is one of the handsomestshafts in the cemetery. If Rudd could brag of anything he would brag ofthat. The inscription took a long time to write. You could tell that byits simplicity. And you might notice the blank space left for his ownname when all three shall be together again. 

Rudd is now saving a third fund against the encroaching time when heshall be too feeble to get up from his knees after he has dropped uponthem to unlace somebody's sandal. Lonely old orphans like Rudd mustprovide their own pensions. There is a will, however, which bequeathswhatever is left of his funds to an orphan home. Being a sonless father, he thinks of the sons who have no fathers to do for them what he was sofain to do for his. It is not a large fund for these days when rich mentoss millions as tips to posterity, but it is pretty good for a shoeclerk. And it will mean everything to some Eric that gets himself reallyborn. 

If you drop in at the Emporium and ask for a pair of shoes or boots, orslippers or rubbers, or trees or pumps, and wait for old Rudd to getround to you, you will be served with deference, yet with a pride ofoccupation that is almost priestly. And you will probably buy something, whether you want it or not. 

The old man is slightly shuffly in his gaiters. His own elastics areless resilient than once they were. If you ask for anything on the topshelf he is a trifle slow getting the ladder and rather ratchety inclambering up and down, and his eyes are growing so tired that he mayoffer you a 6D when you ask for a 3A. 

But, above all things, don't hurt his pride by offering to help him tohis feet if he shows some difficulty in rising when he has performed hisgenuflexion before you. Just pretend not to notice, as he would pretendnot to notice any infirmity or vanity of yours. It is his vanity to bestill the best shoe clerk in town--as he is. There is a gracioussatisfiedness about the old man that radiates contentment and makes youcomfortable for the time in most uncomfortable shoes. And as old Ruddsays:

"You'll find that the best shoe is the one that pinches at first andhurts a little; in time it will grow very comfortable and still bebecoming. "

That is what Rudd says, and he ought to know. 

In these days he is so supremely comfortable in his old shoes that hisown fellow-clerks hardly know what to make of him. If they onlyunderstood what is going on in his private world they would realize thatEric is about to be married--in the White House. The boy was so busy forthe country and loved his mother so that he had no time to go sparkin'. 

But Marthy got after him and said: "Eric, they're goin' to make youPresident for the third term. Oh, what's that old tradition got to dowith it? Can't they change it? Well, you mark my words, like as notyou'll settle down and live in the White House the rest of your life. You'd ought to have a wife, Eric, and be raisin' some childern tocomfort your declining years. What would Will and me have done withoutyou? I'm gettin' old, Eric, and I'd kind o' like to see how it feels tobe a grandmother, before they take me out to the--"

But that was a word Rudd could never frame even in his thoughts. 

Eric, being a mighty good boy, listened to his mother, as always. AndMarthy looked everywhere for an ideal woman, and when she found one, Eric fell in love with her right away. It is not every child that is sodutiful as that. 

The marriage is to take place shortly and Rudd is very busy with thedetails. He will go on to Washington, of course--of evenings. In fact, the wedding is to be in the evening, so that he won't have to miss anytime at the shop. There are so many people coming in every day andasking for shoes, that he wouldn't dare be away. 

Martha is insisting on Will's buying a dress soot for the festivities, but he is in doubt about that. Martha, though, shall have the finestdress in the land, for she is more beautiful even than Eric's bride, andshe doesn't look a day older than she did when she was a bride herself. A body would never guess how many years ago that was. 

The White House is going to be all lit up, and a lot of big folks willbe there--a couple of kings, like as not. There will be fried chickenfor dinner and ice-cream--mixed, maybe, chocolate and vanella, andp'raps a streak of strawb'ry. And there will be enough so's everybodycan have two plates. Marthy will prob'ly bake the cake herself, if shecan get that old White House stove to working right. 

Rudd has a great surprise in store for her. He's going to tell a goodone on Marthy. At just the proper moment he's going to lean over--Lord, he hopes he can keep his face straight--and say, kind of offhand:

"Do you remember, Marthy, the time when you was makin' littlebaby-clothes for the President of the United States here, and you saysto me--you see, Eric, she'd made me quit smokin', herself, but she plumbforgot all about that--and she says to me, s'she, 'Why don't you smokeyour pipe any more, Will?' she says. And I says, 'I'd kind o' got out ofthe habit, Marthy, ' s'I, 'but I guess I'll git back in, ' s'I. I said itright off like that, 'I guess I'll git back in!' s'I. Remember, Marthy?"

THE HAPPIEST MAN IN IOWAY

 Jes' down the road a piece, 'ith dust so deep It teched the bay mare's fetlocks, an' the sun So b'ilin' hot, the peewees dassn't peep, Seemed like midsummer 'fore the spring's begun! An' me plumb beat an' good-for-nothin'-like An' awful lonedsome fer a sight o' you . .. I come to that big locus' by the pike, An' she was all in bloom, an' trembly, too, With breezes like drug-store perfumery. I stood up in my sturrups, with my head So deep in flowers they almost smothered me. I kind o' liked to think that I was dead . .. An' if I hed 'a' died like that to-day, I'd 'a' b'en the happiest man in Ioway. 

 For what's the use't o' goin' on like this? Your pa not 'lowin' me around the place . .. Well, fust I knowed, I'd give' them blooms a kiss; They tasted like Good-Night on your white face. I reached my arms out wide, an' hugged 'em--say, I dreamp' your little heart was hammerin' me! I broke this branch off for a love-bo'quet; 'F I'd b'en a giant, I'd 'a' plucked the tree! The blooms is kind o' dusty from the road, But you won't mind. So, as the feller said, "When this you see remember me"--I knowed Another poem; but I've lost my head From seein' you! 'Bout all that I kin say Is--"I'm the happiest man in Ioway. "

 Well, comin' 'long the road I seen your ma Drive by to town--she didn't speak to me! An' in the farthest field I seen your pa At his spring-plowin', like I'd ought to be. But, knowin' you'd be here all by yourself, I hed to come; for now's our livin' chance! Take off yer apern, leave things on the shelf-- Our preacher needs what th' feller calls "romance. " 'Ain't got no red-wheeled buggy; but the mare Will carry double, like we've trained her to. Jes' put a locus'-blossom in your hair An' let's ride straight to heaven--me an' you! I'll build y' a little house, an' folks'll say: "There lives the happiest pair in Ioway. "

PRAYERS

God leaned forward in His throne and bent His all-seeing gaze upon oneof the least of the countless suns. A few tiny planets spun slowly aboutit like dead leaves around a deserted camp-fire. 

Almost the smallest of these planets had named itself the Earth. Theglow of the central cinder brightened one side and they called that Day. And where the shadow was was Night. 

The creeping glimmer of Day woke, as it passed, a jangle in shops andfactories, a racket and hurry of traffic, war and business, which thecoming of the gloom hushed in its turn. As God's eyes pierced the shadowthey found, between the dotted lines of street-lamps and under the roofswhere the windows glimmered--revelry or solemnity. In denser shadowsthere was a murmur of the voices of lovers and of families at peace orat war. 

The All-hearing heard no chaos in this discord, but knew each instrumentand understood each melody, concord, and clash. Loudest of all were thesilences or the faint whimperings of those who knelt by their beds andbent their brows toward their own bosoms, communing with the variousselves that they interpreted as the one God. He knew who prayed forwhat, and He answered each in His own wisdom, knowing that He would seemto have answered none and knowing why. 

Among the multitudinous prayers one group arrived at His throne fromseparate places, but linked together by their contradictions. He heardthe limping effort to be formal as before a king or a court of justice. He heard the anxious fear break through the petition; He heard theselfish eagerness trembling in the pious phrases of altruism. Heunderstood. 

I. A MAN'S VOICE

Our Father which art in heaven let me come back to Thy kingdom. Bless mywife Edith and our little Marjorie and give them to me again. I am notworthy of them; I have sinned against them and against Thee. I have beendrunken, adulterous, heartless, but from this night I will be goodagain. I will try with all my soul, and with Thy help I will succeed. Teach me to be strong. Forgive me my trespasses and help Edith toforgive them. Make my wife beautiful in my sight and make all thoseother beautiful faces ugly in my eyes so that I shall see only Edith asI used to. 

Grant me freedom from the wicked woman who will not let me go; don't letRose carry out her threats; don't let her wreck my home; make herunderstand that I am doing my duty; make her love some one else; makeher forget me. How can I be true to my sin and true to Thee! Help meout of these depths, O Lord, that I may walk in the narrow path andescape destruction. 

To-morrow I am going back to my wife and my child with words of love andhumility on my lips. 

Give me back my home again, O God. Amen. 

II. A WOMAN'S VOICE

Let me come to Thee again, dear Father, and do not reject my prayer. Forgive me for what I shall do to-night. Take care of my little Marjorieand save her from the temptations that have overwhelmed me. Thou aloneknowest how hard I have tried to live without love, how long I havewaited for John to come back to me. Thou only hast seen me strugglingagainst the long loneliness. Thou alone canst forgive, for Thou hastseen me refuse to be tempted with love. Thou hast heard my cries in thelong, long nights. Thou knowest that I have been true to my husband whowas not true to me. Thou hast seen me put away the happiness that Frankhas offered me and asked of me. And now if I can endure no longer, if Igive myself to him, more for his sake than mine, let me bear thepunishment, not Frank; let me bear even the punishment John has earned. I am what Thou hast made me, Lord. If it be Thy pleasure that I shallburn in the fires forever, then let Thy will be done; for I can live nolonger without Frank. Thou mayest refuse to hear my prayers, but Icannot refuse to hear his. Forgive me if I leave my beloved child alone. She is safer with Thee than with me. Perhaps her father will be good toher now. Perhaps he will turn back to her if I am away. And help methrough the coming years to be true to Frank. He needs me, he loves me, he is braving the wrath of the world and of heaven for my sake. 

Help us, Lord, to find in our new life the peace and the virtue that wasnot in the old and bless and guard my motherless little Marjorie, O God, and save her from the fate that overwhelmed her mother for her father'sfault. I am leaving her asleep here in Thy charge, O God. When she wakesin the morning let Thy angels comfort her and dry her tears. Let me nothear her crying for me, or I shall kill myself. I cannot beareverything. I have endured more than my strength can endure. Help me, OLord, and forgive me for my sin--if sin it is. Amen. 

III. A MAN'S VOICE

God, if You are in heaven, hear me and help me. I have not prayed formany years. My voice is strange to You. My prayer may offend You, but itrushes from my heart. 

I am about to do what the world calls hideous crime--to steal anotherman's wife and carry her to another country where we may have peace. Iloved Edith before her husband loved her. I love her better than Johnever loved her. I can't stand it. I can't stand it any longer to see herdeserted in her beauty, and despised and weeping in loneliness, wastingher love on a dog who squandered his heart on a vile woman. I can't goon watching her die in a living hell. I have sold all my goods andgotten all I could save into my safe so that we may sever all ties withthis heartless love. If what we are about to do offends Thee, then letme suffer for her. She has suffered enough, enough, enough!

And keep her husband from following us, lest I kill him. Keep her frommourning too much for her child--his child. Give her a little happiness, O God. Take bitter toll from my heart afterward, but give us a littlehappiness now. Grant us escape to-night and safety and a littlehappiness for her. And then I shall believe in Thee again and livehonorably in Thy sight. Amen. 

IV. A WOMAN'S VOICE

Dear God in heaven, what shall I do? He has abandoned me, John hasturned against me at last. Has denounced me as wicked, and hateful, hasaccused me of wrecking his life and breaking his wife's heart--as if shehad a heart, as if I had not saved him from despair, as if I had notsacrificed my name, my hopes, on earth and in heaven to make him happy. 

O God, why hast Thou persecuted me so fiercely always? What made Youhate me so? Why didn't You give me a decent home as a child? Why did Youthrow me into the snares of those vile men? Why did You make mebeautiful and weak and trusting? Why didn't You make me ugly andsuspicious and hateful so that I could be good?

And now, now that I am no longer a girl, now that the wrinkles arecoming, and the fat and the dullness, why didst Thou throw me into theway of this man who promised to love me forever, who promised me andpraised me and called me his real wife, only to tire of me and tear myhands away and go back to her?

But don't let him have her, don't let him be happy with her, while Igrovel here in shame! I can't bear the thought of that, I can't imaginehim in her arms telling her how good she is and how bad I was. I'drather kill them both. Isn't that best, O Lord--to kill them both--tokill her, anyway? Then I can kill myself and he will be sorry. Don't lethim have both of us, O God. Am I going mad, or do I hear Thy voicetelling me to act? Yes, it is Thy voice. Thou hast answered. I will doas Thou dost command. Perhaps he is going there to-night. I will go tothe house and wait in the shadow and when he comes to the door and shecomes to meet him I will shoot her and myself, and then he shall bepunished as he should be. 

I thank Thee, God, for showing me the way. Guide my arm and my heart anddon't let me be afraid to die or to make her die. Forgive my sins andtake me into Thy peace, O God, for I am tired of life and the wickednessof the world. Amen. Amen. 

V. A CHILD'S VOICE

Our Father which art in he'v'm, hallowed be Dy name. Dy king'm come. Dywill be done in earf as it is in he'v'm. Give us dis day our daily breadand forgive an'--an' forgive Marjorie for bein' a bad chile an' gettingso s'eepy, and b'ess papa an' b'ing him home to mamma an'--an'trespasses as--tres-passes 'gainst us. King'm, power, and glory forever. Amen. 

VI. AN OLD WOMAN'S VOICE

--and give my poor Edith strength and let her find happiness again inthe return of her husband. Let her forget his wrongs and forgive themand live happily in her old age as I have done with my husband. I thankThee for helping me through those cruel years. Thou alone couldst havehelped me and now all would be happiness if only Edith had happiness, but for the mercies Thou hast vouchsafed make me grateful. 

VII. AN OLD WOMAN'S VOICE

--and help my poor Rose to be a good girl to her old mother and keep herout of trouble and make her send me some more money, for I'm so sickand tired and the rent's comin' due and I need a warm coat for thewinter, and I've had a hard life and many's the curse You've put uponme, but I'm doing my best and I'm all wore out. 

VIII. A MAN'S VOICE

Fergimme, O Gawd, if it makes Thou mad fer to be prayed to by a sneakin'boiglar, but help me t'roo dis one job and I'll go straight from now on, so help me. Don't let dis guy find me crackin' his safe, so's I won'thave to kill 'im. Help me make a clean getaway and I'll toin over a nooleaf, I will. I'll send money to me mudder, and I'll go to choichreg'lar and I'll never do nuttin' crooked again. On'y dis one time, OGawd. 

 * * * * *

God closed His eyes and smiled the sorrowful smile of the All-knowing, the All-pitying, the Unknown, the Unpitied, and He said to Him who satat His side:

"They call these Prayers! They will wonder why I have not finished thetasks they set Me nor accepted the bribes they offered. And to-morrowthey will rebuke Me as a faithless, indolent servant who hasdisobeyed!"

PAIN

I

"How much more bitter, dearly beloved, are the anguishes of the soulthan any mere bodily distress! When the heart under conviction of sinfor the violation of one of God's laws writhes and cries aloud inrepentance and remorse, then, ah, then, is true suffering. What are thefleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to thesoul's despair? Nothing! Noth--"

The clergyman's emphatic fist did not thump the Scriptures the secondtime. He checked it in air; for a woman stood up straight and stared athim straight. Her thin mouth seemed to twist with a sneer. He thought heread on her lips words not quite uttered. He read:

"You fool! You fool!"

Then Miss Straley sidled from the family pew to the aisle and marched upit and out of the church. 

Doctor Crosson was shocked doubly. The woman's action was an outrageupon the holy composure of the Sabbath, and it would remind everybodythat he was an old lover of Irene Straley's. 

The neatly arranged congregational skulls were disordered now, somestill tilted forward in sleep, some tilted back to see what the pastorwould do, some craned round to observe the departer, some turned inwardin whispering couples. 

Such a thing had never happened before in all the parsoning of DoctorCrosson--the D. D. Had been conferred on him by the small theologicalinstitute where he had imbibed enough dogmas in two years to last him alifetime. 

Some of his dogmas were so out of fashion that he felt them a trifleshabby even for village wear. He had laid aside the old red hell-firedogma for a new one of hell-as-a-state-of-mind. He was expounding thatdoctrine this morning again. He had never heard any complaint of it. Buthis mind was so far from his memory that he hardly knew what he had justuttered. He wondered what he could have said to offend Miss Straley. 

But he must not stand there gaping and wondering before his gaping andwondering congregation. He must push on to his _lastly's_. His mindretraced his words, and he repeated:

"What are the fleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone andflesh, to the soul's despair? Nothing! As I said before--nothing!"

And then he understood why Irene Straley had walked out. The realizationderanged him so that only the police-force every one has among hisfaculties coerced him into going on with his sermon. 

It was a good sermon. It was his own, too; for at last he had paid thefinal instalment on the clergyman's library which contained a thousandsermons as aids to overworked, underinspired evangelists. He had builtthis discourse from well-seasoned timbers. He had used it in two pulpitswhere he had visited, and now he was giving it to his own flock. He knewit well enough to trust his oratorical machinery with its delivery, while the rest of his mind meditated other things. 

Often, while preaching, a portion of his brain would be watching theeffect on his congregation, another watching the clock, another thinkingof dinner, another musing over the scandals he knew in the lives of theparishioners. 

But now all his by-thoughts were scattered at the abrupt deed of IreneStraley. She was the traffic of his other brains now, while his lipswent on enouncing the phrases of his discourse and his fists thudded theBible for emphasis. He was remembering his boyhood and his infatuationfor Irene Straley. That was before he was sure of his call to theministry. If he had married her, he might not have heard the call. 

Doctor Crosson hoped that he was not regretting that sacrament! Sweatcame out on his brow as he understood the blasphemy of noting (even hereon the rostrum with his mouth pouring forth sacred eloquence) that IreneStraley as she marched out of the church was still slender and flexile, virginal. Doctor Crosson mopped his brow at the atrocity of his thoughtsthis morning. The springtime air was to blame. The windows were openfor the first time. The breeze that lolled through the church had noright there. It was irreverent and frivolous. It was amused at thepeople. It rippled with laughter at the preacher's heavy effort to starta jealousy between the pangs of the flesh and the pangs of the soul. 

It brought into church a savor of green rushes growing in the warm, wetthickets where Doctor Crosson--once Eddie Crosson--had loved to gohunting squirrels and rabbits, and wild duck in season. Those were yearsof depravity, but they were entrancing in memory. He felt a Satanicwhisper: "Order these old fogies out into the fields and let themworship there. It is May, you fool!"

"You fool!" That was what Irene Straley had seemed to whisper. Only, thebreeze made a soft, sweet coo of the word that had been so bitter on herlips. 

Across the square of a window near the pulpit a venerable locust-treebrandished a bough dripping with blossoms. Countless little censers ofwhite spice swung frankincense and myrrh for pagan nostrils. 

There was a beckoning in the locust bough, and in the air an incantationthat made a folly of sermons and souls and old maids' resentments andgossips' queries. The preacher fought on, another Saint Anthony in acloud of witches. 

He could hear himself intoning the long sermon with the familiarpulpiteering rhythms and the final upsnap of the last syllable of eachsentence. He could see that the congregation was already drowsilyforgetful of Irene Straley's absence. But, to save his soul, he couldnot keep his mind from following her out into the leafy streets and oninto the past where she had been the prize he and young Drury Boldin hadcontended for--a past in which he had never dreamed that his future wasa pulpit in his home town. 

He was the manlier of the two, for Drury was a delicate boy, toosensitive for the approval of his Spartan fellows. They made fun of hisgentleness. He hated to wreathe a fishing-worm on a hook! He loathed towrench a hook from a fish's gullet! The nearest he had ever come tofighting was in defense of a thousand-legged worm that one of the boyshad stuck a pin through, to watch it writhe and bite itself behind thepin. 

Irene Straley was a sentimental girl. That was right in a girl, butsilly in a boy. 

Once when Eddie Crosson stubbed his toe and it swelled up to greatimportance, Irene Straley wept when she saw it, while Drury Boldinturned pale and sat down hard. Once when Drury cut his thumb with apenknife he fainted at the sight of his own blood!

Eddie Crosson was a real boy. He smoked cubeb cigarettes with an almostunprecedented precocity. He nearly learned to chew tobacco. He couldsnap a sparrow off a telegraph-wire with a nigger-shooter almostinfallibly. He had the first air-gun in town and a shot-gun at fifteen. He thought that he was manlier than Drury because he was wiser andstronger. It never occurred to him that Drury might suffer more becausehe was more finely built, that his nerves were harp-strings whileCrosson's were fence-wire. 

So Crosson called Drury a milksop because he would not go hunting. Hecalled himself one of the sons of Nimrod. 

For a time he gained prestige with Irene Straley, especially as he gaveher bright feathers now and then, an oriole's gilded mourning, or atanager's scarlet vesture. 

One day Drury Boldin was at her porch when Ed came in from across theriver with a brace of duck. 

"You can have these for your dinner to-morrow, Reny, " he said, as helaid the limp, silky bodies on the porch floor. 

Their bills and feet were grotesque, but there was something about theirthroats, stretched out in waning iridescence, that asked for regret. 

"Oh, much obliged!" Irene cried. "That's awful nice of you, Eddie. Duckcook awful good. "

And then her enthusiasm ebbed, for she caught the look of Drury Boldinas he bent down and stroked the glossy mantle of the birds, not withzest for their flavor, nor envy of the skill that had fetched them fromthe sky, but with sorrow for their ended careers, for the miracle goneout of their wings, and the strange fact that they had once quawked andchirruped in the high air and on hidden waters--and would never fly orswim again. "I wonder if they had souls, " he mumbled. 

Eddie Crosson winked at Irene. There was no use getting mad at Drury. Eddie only laughed:

"'Course not, you darn galoot!"

"How do you know?" Drury asked. 

"Anybody knows that much, " was Crosson's sufficient answer, and Drurychanged to another topic. He asked:

"Did it hurt 'em much to die?"

"'Course not, " Eddie answered, promptly. "Not the way I got 'em. Theyjust stopped sailin' and dropped. I lost one, though. He was goin' likesixty when I drew bead on him. Light wasn't any too good and I justnipped one wing. You ought to seen him turning somersets, Reny. He litin a swampy spot, though, and I couldn't find him. I hunted for an houror more, but I couldn't find him and it was growin' dark, so I comehome. "

Drury spoke up quickly: "You didn't kill him?"

"I don't guess so. He was workin' mighty hard when he flopped. "

"Oh, that's terrible!" Drury groaned. "He must be layin' out there nowsomewheres--sufferin'. Oh, that's terrible!"

"Aw, what's it your business?" was Crosson's gruff comment. But therewas uneasiness in his tone, for Drury had set Irene to wringing herhands nervously, and Crosson felt a trifle uncomfortable himself. Twilight always made him susceptible to emotions that daylight blindedhim to, as to the stars. He remembered that boyhood emotion now in hispulpit, and his shoulder-blades twitched; an icy finger seemed to havewritten something on them. He was casting up his eyes and his hands in afamiliar gesture and quoting a familiar text:

"'Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from thenoisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under hiswings shalt thou trust. '"

From the roof of the church he seemed to see that wounded wild duckfalling, turning in air, striking at the air frantically with his goodwing and feebly with the one that bled. Down he fell, strugglingsomewhere among the pews. 

A fantastic notion drifted into the preacher's mind--that Satan had shotup a bullet from hell and it had lodged among the feathers of Jehovahthe protector, and He was falling and lost among that congregation inwhich so often the preacher had failed to find God. 

Doctor Crosson shook his head violently to fling away such madnesses, and he propounded his next "furthermore" with added energy. But he couldnot shake off the torment in the recollection of Drury Boldin's nagginginterest in that wild duck. 

II

Drury insisted on knowing where the wild duck fell, and Crosson told himthat it was "near where the crick emptied into the sluice, where thecat-tails grew extra high. "

He went on home to his supper, but the thought of the suffering bird hadseized his mind; it flopped and twisted at the roots of his thoughts. 

A few days later Drury met him and asked him again where the duck hadfallen. 

"I can't find it where you said, " he said. 

"You ain't been lookin' for it, have you?"

"Yes, for days. "

"What'd you do if you found it?" Crosson asked. 

"Kill it, " Drury answered. It was a most unexpectable phrase from him. 

"That sounds funny, comin' from you, " Crosson snickered. Then he spokegruffly to conceal his own misgivings. "Aw, it's dead long ago. "

"I'd feel better if I was sure, " said Drury. 

Crosson called him a natural-born idiot, but the next day Crossonhimself was across the river, dragged by a queer mood. He took hisbearings from the spot where he had fired his shot-gun and then madetoward the place where the duck fell. 

He stumbled about in slime and snarl for an hour in vain. Suddenly hewas startled by the sound of something floundering through the reeds. Hewas afraid that it might be a wild animal, a traditional bear or a bigdog. But it was Drury Boldin. And Irene Straley was with him. 

They were covered with mud. Crosson was jealous and suspicious andindignant. They told him that they were looking for the hurt bird. Hewas furious. He advised them to go along about their own business. Itwas his bird. 

"Who gave it to you?" Drury answered, with a battling look in his softeyes. 

"The Lord and my shot-gun. "

"What right you got to go shootin' wild birds, anyway?" Drury demanded. 

Crosson was even then devoted to the Bible for its majestic music, iffor nothing else. He quoted the phrase about the dominion over the fowlsof the air given to man for his use. 

Drury would not venture to contradict the Scriptures, and so he turnedaway silenced. But he continued his search. And Irene followed him. 

In sullen humor Crosson also searched, till he heard Drury cry out; thenhe ran to see what he had found. 

Irene and Drury were shrinking back from something that even the son ofNimrod regarded with disquiet. The duck, one wing caked and festered, and busy with ants and adrone with flies, was still alive after allthose many days. 

Its flat bill was opening and shutting in hideous awkwardness, itshunger-emaciated frame rising and falling with a kind of lurchingbreath, and the film over its eyes drawing together and rolling backmiserably. 

At the sight of the three visitors to its death-chamber it made ahopeless effort to lift itself again to the air of its security. Itcould not even lift its head. 

Drury fell to one knee before it, and a swarm of flies zooned angrilyaway. He put out his hand, but he was afraid to touch, and he only addedpanic to the bird's wretchedness. 

He rose and backed away. The three stood off and stared. Crosson feltthe guilt of Cain, but when Irene moaned, "What you goin' to do?" heshook his head. He could not finish his task. 

It was Drury Boldin, weak-kneed and putty-faced, who went hunting now. He had to look far before he found a heavy rock. He lugged it back andsaid, "Go on away, Reny. "

She hurried to a distance, and even Crosson turned his head aside. 

On the way home they were all three tired and sick, and Drury had tostop every now and then to sit down and get strength into his knees. 

But there was a sense of grim relief that helped them all, and the bird, once safely dead, was rapidly forgotten. After that Crosson seemed tolose his place in Irene's heart, and Drury won all that Crosson lost, and more. Before long it was understood that Drury and Irene had agreedto get married as soon as he could earn enough to keep them. All fourparents opposed the match; Irene's because Drury was "no 'count, " andDrury's for much the same reason. 

Old Boldin allowed that Irene would be added to his family, for mealsand lodgin', if she married his son; and old Straley guessed that itwould be the other way round, and the Boldin boy would come over to hishouse to live. 

Also, Drury could get no work in Carthage. Eventually he went to Chicagoto try his luck there. Crosson seized the chance to try to get back toIrene. One Sunday he took his shot-gun out in the wilderness and broughtdown a duck whose throat had so rich a glimmer that he believed it woulddelight Irene. He took it to her. 

She was out in her garden, and she looked at his gift with eyes so hurtby the pity of the bird's drooping neck that they were blind to itsbeauty. 

While Crosson stood in sheepish dismay, recognizing that Drury waspresent still in his absence, the minister appeared at his elbow. It wasnot the wrecked career of the fowl that shocked the pastor, but thebroken Sabbath. 

"It seems to me, Eddie, " he said, "that it is high time you werebeginning to take life seriously. Come to church to-night and make upfor your ungodliness. "

Crosson consented. It was a good way of making his escape from Irene'shaunted eyes. 

The service that night had little influence on his heart, but a monthlater a revivalist came into Carthage with a great fanfare of attack onthe hosts of Lucifer. This man was an emotionalist of irresistible fire. He reasoned less than he sang. His voice was as thrilling as a trombone, and his words did not matter. It was his tone that made the heartresound like a smitten bell. 

The revivalist struck unsuspected chords of emotion in Eddie Crosson andmade him weep! But he wept tears of a different sort from the waters ofgrief. His unusual tears were a tribute to eloquence. Sonorous words andnoble thoughts thrilled Eddie Crosson then as ever after. 

He had loved to speak pieces at school. Whether it were Spartacusexhorting his brawny slaves to revolt, or Daniel Webster upholding theUnion now and forever, one and inseparable, he had felt an exaltation, an exultation that enlarged him to the clouds. He loved the phrase morethan the meaning. What was well worded was well reasoned. 

His passion for elocution had inclined him at first to be a lawyer, butwhen he visited the county courthouse the attorneys he listened to hadsuch dull themes to expound that he felt no call to the law. What glorywas there in pleading for the honor of an old darky chicken-thief wheneverybody knew at once that he was guilty of stealing the chickens inquestion, or would have been if he had known of their accessibility?What rapture was there in insisting that a case in an Alabama courteight years before furnished an exact precedent in the matter of amechanic's lien in Carthage?

So Crosson chilled toward the legal profession. His father urged him tocome into the Crosson hardware emporium, but Eddie hated the silenttrades. The revivalist decided him, and he began to make his heartready for the clerical life. His father opposed him heathenishly andwould not pay for his seminary course. 

For several months Crosson waited about, becalmed in the doldrums. Therewas little to interest him in town except a helpless espionage onIrene's loyalty to Drury Boldin. Her troth defied both time and space. She went every day to the post-office to mail a heavy letter and toreceive the heavy letter she was sure to find there. 

She became a sort of tender joke at the post-office, and on the streetas well, for she always read her daily letter on the way home. She wouldbe so absorbed in the petty chronicles of Drury's life that she wouldstroll into people and bump into trees, or fetch up short against afence. She sprained her ankle once walking off the walk. And once shemarched plump into the parson's horrified bosom. 

Crosson often stood in ambush so that she would run into him. She wasvery soft and delicate, and she usually had flowers pinned at herbreast. 

Crosson would grin as she stumbled against him; then the lovelorn girlwould stare up at him through the haze of the distance her letter hadcarried her to, and stammer excuses and fall back and blush, and glideround him on her way. Crosson would laugh aloud, bravely, but afterwardhe would turn and stare at her solemnly enough when she resumed herletter and strolled on in the rosy cloud of her communion with herfar-off "fellow. "

One day Crosson had to run after her, because when she thought she wasturning into her own yard her absent mind led her to unlatch the gate toa pasture where a muley cow with a scandalous temper was waiting for herwith swaying head. 

Irene laughed at her escape, with an unusual mirth for her. Sheexplained it by seizing Crosson's sleeve and exclaiming:

"Oh, Eddie, such good news from Drury you never heard! He's got aposition with a jewelry-store, the biggest in Chicago. And they put himin the designing department at ten dollars a week, and they say he's gota future. Isn't it simply glorious?"

She held Crosson while she read the young man's hallelujahs. Theysounded to Crosson like a funeral address. 

Irene's mother was even prouder of Drury's success than the daughterwas. She bragged now of the wedding she had dreaded before. FinallyIrene proclaimed the glorious truth that Drury's salary had been boostedagain and they would wait no longer for wealth. He was awful busy, andso he'd just run down for a couple of days and marry her and run backwith her to Chicago and jewelry. This arrangement ended Irene's mother'sdreams of a fine wedding and relieved the townspeople of the expense ofwedding-presents. 

The sudden announcement of the wedding shocked Crosson. He endured ajealousy whose intensity surprised him in retrospect. He endured a gooddeal of humor, too, from village cut-ups, who teased him because hisbest girl was marrying the other fellow. 

Crosson felt a need of solitude and a fierce desire to kill something. He got his abandoned gun and went hunting to wear out his wrath. He worehimself out, at least. He shot savagely at all sorts of life. Hefollowed one flitting, sarcastic blue-jay with a voice like a villagecut-up, all the way home without getting near enough to shoot. 

He came down the long hill with the sunset, bragging to himself that hewas reconciled to Irene's marriage with anybody she'd a mind to. 

He could see her from a distance, sitting on the porch alone. She wasall dressed up and rocking impatiently. Evidently the train was lateagain, as always. From where he was, Crosson could see the track windingaround the hills like a little metal brook. The smoke of the engine wasnot yet pluming along the horizon. The train could not arrive for someminutes yet. 

To prove his freedom from rancor and his emancipation from love, butreally because he could not resist the chance to have a last word withIrene, he went across lots to her father's back yard and came round tothe porch. He forgot to draw the shells from his gun. 

In the sunset, with his weapon a-shoulder, he must have looked a bitwild, for Irene jumped when he spoke to her. He sought an excuse for hisvisit and put at her feet the game he had bagged--a squirrel, a rabbit, and a few birds--the last he ever shot. 

The moment the dead things were there he regretted the impulse. He wasreminded of his previous quarry and its ill success. Irene was reminded, too, for she thanked him timidly and asked if he had left any woundedbirds in the field. He laughed "No" with a poor grace. 

She said: "I'd better get these out of sight before Drury comes. Hedoesn't like to see such things. "

She lifted them distastefully and went into the house. She came outalmost at once, for she heard a train. But it was not the passengerswooping south; it was the freight trudging north. There was only asingle track then, and no block system of signals. 

Irene no sooner recognized the lumbering, jostling drove of cattle-carsand flats going by than she gasped:

"That freight ought not to be on that track--now!"

She was frozen with dread. Crosson understood, too. Then from thedistance came the whistle of the express, the long hurrah of itsapproach to the station. The freight engineer answered it with short, sharp blasts of his whistle. He kept jabbing the air with its noise. 

There was the grind of the brakes on the wheels. The cars tried to stop, like a mob, but the rear cars bunted the front cars forwardirresistibly. The cattle aboard lowed and bellowed. The brakemen, quaintsilhouettes against the red sky, ran along the tops of the box-cars, twisting the brake-wheels. 

Irene stumbled down the steps and dashed across the pastures toward thejutting hill that she had so often seen the express sweep round. Crossonfollowed. 

They came to a fence. She could not climb, she was trembling so. Crossonhad to help her over. She ran on, and as he sprawled after, he nearlydischarged the gun. 

He brought it along by habit as he followed Irene, who ran and ran, waving her arms as if she would stop the express with her naked hands. 

But long before they reached the tracks the express roared round theheadland and plunged into the freight. The two locomotives met and roseup and wrestled like two black bears, and fell over. The cars werescattered and jumbled like a baby's train. They were all of wood--heatedby soft-coal stoves and lighted by coal-oil lamps. 

The wreck was the usual horror, the usual chaos of wanton destructionand mysterious escape. The engineers stuck to their engines and wereinvolved in their ruin somewhere. The passenger-train was crowded, anddestruction showed no favoritism: old men, women, children, sheep, horses, cows, were maimed, or killed, or left scot-free. 

Some of those who were uninjured ran away. Some stood weeping. Some ofthe wounded began at once to rescue others. Crosson stood gaping at thespectacle, but Irene went into the wreckage, pawing and peering like aterrier. 

She could not find what she was looking for. She would bend and stareinto a face glaring under the timbers and maundering for help, then passon. She would turn over a twisted frame and let it roll back. She wasnot a sister of charity; she was Drury Boldin's helpmeet. 

She kept calling his name, "Drury--Drury--Drury!" Crosson watched her asshe poised to listen for the answer that did not come. He gaped at herin stupid fascination till a brakeman shook him and ordered him to lenda hand. He rested his gun against a pile of ties and bowed his shoulderto the hoisting of a beam overhanging a woman and a suckling babe. 

The helpers dislodged other beams and finished the lives they had meantto save. 

There were no physicians on the train. But a doctor or two from the towncame out and the others were sent for. A telegram was sent to summon arelief-train, but it could not arrive for hours. 

The doctors began at the beginning, but they could do little. Their ownlives were in constant danger from tumbling wreckage, for the rescuerswere playing a game of tragic jackstraws. The least mistake brought downdisaster. 

As he worked, Crosson could hear Irene calling, calling, "Drury, Drury, Drury!"

He left his task to follow her, his jealousy turned into a wild sorrowfor her. 

At last he heard in her cry of "Drury!" a note that meant she had foundhim. But such a welcome as it was for a bride to give! And such atrysting-place!

The car Drury was in had turned a somersault and cracked open acrossanother. Its inverted wheels on their trucks had made a bower of steelabout the bridegroom. The flames from the stove and from the oil-lampswere blooming like hell-flowers everywhere. And the wind that fanned theblazes was blowing clouds of scalding steam from the crumpled boilers ofthe two engines. 

Crosson ran to Irene's side. She was trying to clamber through a trellisof iron and splintered wood. She was stretching her hand out to Drury, where he lay unconscious, deep in the clutter. Crosson dragged her awayfrom a flame that swung toward her. She struck his hand aside and thrusther body into the danger again. 

Crosson, finding no water, began to shovel loose earth on the blaze witha sharp plank from the side of a car. Finding that she could not reachher lover, Irene turned and begged Crosson to run for help and for thedoctors. 

He ran, but the doctors refused to leave the work they had in hand, andthe other men growled:

"Everybody's got to take their turn. "

Crosson ran back to Irene with the news. Drury had just emerged from themerciful swoon of shock to the frenzies of his splintered bones, lacerated flesh and blistered skin, and the threat of his infernalenvironment. 

The last exquisite fiendishness was the sight of his sweetheart aswitness to his agony, her face lighted up by the flames that wereravening toward him, her hands hungering toward him, just beyond thestretch of his one free arm. 

Crosson heard the lovers murmur to each other across that little abyss. He flung himself against the barriers like a madman. But his hands werefutile against the tangle of joists and hot steel. 

Irene saw him working alone and asked him where the others were, and thedoctors. 

"They wouldn't come!" Crosson groaned, ashamed of their ugly sense ofjustice. 

The girl's face took on a look of grim ferocity. She said to Crosson:

"Your gun--where is it?"

He pointed to where he had left it. It had fallen to the ground. 

She ran and seized it up, and holding it awkwardly but with menace, advanced on a doctor who toiled with sleeves rolled high, and face andbeard and arms blotched with red grime. 

She thrust the muzzle into his chest and spoke hoarsely:

"Doctor Lane, you come with me. "

"I'm busy here, " he growled, pushing the gun aside, hardly knowing whatit was. 

She jammed it against his heart again and cried, "Come with me or I'llkill you!"

He followed her, wondering rather than fearing, and she swept a group ofmen with the weapon, and commanded, "You men come, too. " She marchedthem to the spot where Drury was concealed, and pointed to him andsnarled, "Get him out!"

The men tested their strength here and there without promise of success. One group started a heap of wheels to slewing downward and Crossonshouted to them to stop. An inch more, and they would have buried Druryfrom sight or hope. 

One man wormed through somehow and caught Drury by the hand, but thefirst tug brought from him such a wail of anguish that the man fellback. He could not budge the body clamped with steel. He could onlywrench it. So he came away. 

"There's nothing for me to do, Reny, " the doctor faltered, and, chokedwith pity for her and her lover and the helplessness of mankind, heturned away, and she let him go. The gun fell to the ground. 

The other men left the place. One of them said that the wrecking-crewwould be along with a derrick in a few hours. 

"A few hours!" Irene whimpered. 

She leaned against the lattice that kept her from the bridegroom andtried to tell him to be brave. But he had heard his sentence, and withhis last hope went what little courage he had ever had. 

He began to plead and protest and weep. He gave voice to all the voicesof pain, the myriad voices from every tormented particle of him. 

Irene knelt down and twisted through the crevice to where she could holdhis hand. But he snatched it away, babbling: "Don't touch me! Don'ttouch me!"

Crosson stayed near, dreading lest Irene's skirts should catch fire. Twice he beat them out with his hands. She had not noticed that theywere aflame. She was murmuring love-words of odious vanity to one whoalmost forgot her existence, centered in the glowing sphere of his ownhell. 

Drury rolled and panted and gibbered, cursed even, with lips more usedto gentle words and prayers. He prayed, too, but with sacrilege:

"O Lord, spare me this. O God, have a little mercy. Send rain, sendhelp, lift this mountain from me just till I can breathe. O God, if Youhave any mercy in Your heart--but no, no--no, no, You let Your own Sonhang on the cross, didn't You? He asked You why You had deserted Him, and You didn't answer, did You?"

Crosson looked up to see a thunderbolt split the dark sky, but the starswere agleam now, twinkling about the moon's serenity. 

Irene put her fingers across Drury's lips to hush his blasphemy. Shetore her face with her nails, and tried for his sake to stifle the sobsthat smote through her. 

By and by Drury's voice grew hoarse, and he whispered. She bent closeand heard. She called to Crosson:

"Run get the doctor to give him something--some morphine orsomething--quick. Every second is agony for my poor boy. "

Crosson ran to the doctor. He stood among writhing bodies and shook hishead dismally. He was saying as Crosson came up:

"I'm sorry, I'm awful sorry, folks, but the last grain of morphine isgone. The drug-stores haven't got any more. We've telegraphed to thenext town. You'll just have to stand it. "

Crosson went back slowly with that heavy burden of news. He whispered itto Irene, but Drury heard him, and a shriek of despair went from himlike a flash of fire. New blazes sprang up with an impish merriment. Crosson, fearing for Irene's safety, fought at them with earth and withwater that boys fetched from distances, and at last extinguished theimmediate fire. 

The bystanders worked elsewhere, but Crosson lingered to protect Irene. In the dark he could hear Drury whispering something to her. 

He pleaded, wheedled, kissed her hand, mumbled it like a dog, reasonedwith her insanely, while she trembled all over, a shivering leaf on ablown twig. 

Crosson could hear occasional phrases: "If you love me, you will--ifyou love me, Reny. What do you want me to suffer for, honey? You don'twant me just to suffer--just to suffer, do you--you don't, do you? Renyhoney, Reny? You say you love me, and you won't do the thing that willhelp me. You don't love me. That's it, you don't really love me!"

She turned to Crosson at last and moaned: "He wants me to kill him! Whatcan I do? Oh, what is there to do?"

Crosson could not bear to look in her eyes. He could not bear the soundof Drury's voice. He could not even debate that problem. He was cravenlyglad when somebody's hand seized him and a rough voice called him awayto other toil. He slunk off. 

There were miseries enough wherever he went, but they were the miseriesof strangers. He could not forget Irene and the riddle of duty that washers. He avoided the spot where she was closeted with grief, and workedremote in the glimmer from bonfires lighted in the fields alongside. 

The fire in the wreck was out now, save that here and there littleblazes appeared, only to be quenched at once. But smoldering timberscrackled like rifle-shots, and there were thunderous slidings ofwreckage. 

Irene's mother and father had stood off at a distance for a long time, but at length they missed Irene and came over to question Crosson. Heknew that Irene would not wish them present at such obsequies, and hetold them she had gone home. 

After a time, curiosity nagged him into approaching her hiding-place. Helistened, and there was no sound. He peered in and dimly descried Drury. He was not moving; he might have been asleep. Irene might have beenasleep, too, for she lay huddled up in what space there was. 

Crosson knelt down and crawled in. She was unconscious. He touched Drurywith a dreading hand, which drew quickly back as from a contact withice. 

A kind of panic seized Crosson. He backed out quickly and dragged Ireneaway with him in awkward desperation. 

As her body came forth, his gun came too. He thought it had lainoutside. He caught it and broke it at the breech, ejecting the twoshells; one of them was empty. He threw it into the wreck and pocketedthe other shell and tossed the gun under a stack of wreckage. 

He was trying to revive Irene when her father and mother came backanxiously to say that she was not at home. Her mother dropped down ather side. 

Crosson left Irene with her own people. He did not want to see her orhear her when she came back to this miserable world. He did not want hereven to know what he knew. 

III

Crosson had tried afterward to forget. It had been hard at first, but intime he had forgotten. He had gone to a theological school and learnedto chide people for their complaints and to administer well-phrasedanodynes. During his vacations he had avoided Irene. When he had beengraduated he had been first pulpited in a far-off city. 

Years afterward he had been invited to supply an empty pulpit in hishome town. He had not succeeded with life. He lacked the flame or theluck or the tact--something. He had come back to the place he startedfrom. He had renewed old acquaintances, laughed over the ancient jokes, and said he was sorry for those who had had misfortune. When he metIrene Straley he hardly recalled his love, except to smile at it as aboyish whim. He had forgotten the pangs of that as one forgets almostall his yester aches. He had forgotten the pains he had seen otherssuffer, even more easily than he forgot his own. 

To-day his sermon on the triviality of bodily discomfort had flung IreneStraley back into the caldron of that old torment. She had made thatsilent protest against the iniquitous cruelty of his preachment. She haddragged him backward into the living presence of his past. 

She had not forgotten. She had been faithful to Drury Boldin while hewas working in a distant city. She was faithful to him still in thatFarthest Country. She had the genius of remembrance. 

These were Doctor Crosson's ulterior thoughts while he harangued hisflock visibly and audibly. His thoughts had not needed the time theirtelling requires. They gave him back his scenes in pictures, not inwords; in heartaches and heartbreaks and terrors and longings, not inlimping syllables that mock the vision with their ineptitude. 

He felt anew what he had felt and seen, and he could not give any verveto the peroration of his sermon. He could not even change it. It hadbeen effective when he had preached it previously. But now he parrotedwith unconscious irony the phrases he had once so admired. He came tothe last word. 

"And so, to repeat: How much more bitter, dearly beloved, are theanguishes of the soul than any mere bodily distress! What are thefleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to thesoul's despair? Nothing, nothing. "

His congregation felt a lack of warmth in his tone. His hand fell limplyon the Bible and the sermon was done. The only stir was one of relief atits conclusion. 

He gave out the final hymn, and he sat through it while the peopledragged it to the end. He gave forth the benediction "in the name of theFather and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, " and he made short work ofthe dawdlers who waited to exchange stupidities with him. He took refugefrom his congregation in his study, locked the door, and gave himself upto meditation. 

Somehow pain had suddenly come to mean more to him than it had yetmeant. He had known it, groaned under it, lived it down, and let it go. He had felt sorry for other people and got rid of their woes as best ashe could with the trite expressions in use, and had forgotten whetherthey were hushed by health or by death. 

And so he had let the old-fashioned hell go by with other dogmas out ofstyle. He had fashioned a new Hades to frighten people with, that theymight not find sin too attractive and imperilous. 

Now he was suddenly convinced that if there must be hell, it must besuch as Dante set to rhyme and the old hard-shell preachers preached: aregion where flames sear and demons pluck at the frantic nerves, playingupon them fiendish tunes. 

Yet he could not reconcile that hell with the God that made thelilac-bush whose purple clusters shook perfume and little flowersagainst his window-sill, while the old locust in rivalry bent down andflaunted against the lilacs its pendants of ivory grace and heavenlyfragrance. 

Against that torment of beauty came glimpses of Drury and Irene in thelurid cavern under the wreck. Beyond those delicate blossoms he imaginedthe battle-fields of Europe and the ruined vessels where hurt soulswrithed in multitudes. 

He could not be satisfied with any theory of the world. He could notfind that pain was punishment here, or see how it could follow the soulafter the soul had left behind it the fleshly instrument of torture. Thewhy of it escaped his reason utterly; for Drury had been good, and hehad come upon an honorable errand when he fell into the pit. 

Doctor Crosson stood at his window and begged the placid sky forinformation. He looked through the lilacs and the locusts and all thegreen wilderness where beauty beat and throbbed like a heart in bliss. It was the Sabbath, and he was not sure. But he was sure of a meltingtenderness in his heart for Irene Straley, and he felt that her power tofeel sorry for her lover--sorry enough to defy all the laws in hisbehalf--was a wonderful power. He longed for her sympathy. 

By and by he began to feel a pain, the pain of Drury Boldin. He wasglad. He groaned. "I hurt! I hope that I may hurt terribly. "

Suddenly it seemed that he actually was Drury Boldin in the throes ofevery fierce and spasmic thrill. Again he most vividly was Irene Straleywatching her lover till she could not endure his torture or her own, andwith one desperate challenge sent him back to the mystery whence hecame. 

Doctor Crosson, when he came back to himself, could not solve thatmystery or any mystery. He knew one reality, that it hurts to be alive;that everybody is always hurting, and that human heart must help humanheart as best it can. Pain is the one inescapable fact; the rest istheory. .. . He prayed with a deeper fervor than he had ever known:

"God give me pain, that I may understand, that I may understand!"

THE BEAUTY AND THE FOOL

There was once a beautiful woman, and she lived in a small town, thoughpeople said that she belonged rather in a great city, where her giftswould bring her glory, riches, and a brilliant marriage. In repose, shewas superb; in motion, quite perfectly beautiful of form and carriage, with all the suave rhythms of a beautiful being. 

Her beauty was her sole opulence; the boast of her friends; theconfession of her enemies; the magnet of many lovers; the village's onestatue. She had an ordinary heart, quite commonplace brains, but beautythat lined the pathway where she walked with eyes of admiration anddelight. 

In her town, among her suitors, was one that was a Fool--not aremarkable fool; a simple, commonplace fool of the sort that aboundseven in villages. He was foolish enough to love the Beauty so completelythat when he made sure that she would not love him he could not endureto remain in the village, but went far away in the West to get thetorment of her beauty out of his sight. The other suitors, who werewiser than he, when they found that she was not for them, gave her upwith mild regret as one gives up a fabulous dream, saying: "There wasno hope for us, anyway. If the Fool had stayed at home he would havebeen saved from the sight of her, for she is going East, where there aregreat fortunes for the very beautiful. "

And this she made ready to do, since the praise she had received hadbred ambition in her--a reasonable and right ambition, for why should alight be hidden under a bushel when it might be set up on high toillumine a wide garden? Besides, she had not learned to love any of theunimportant men who loved her important beauty, yet promised it nothingmore than a bushel to hide itself in. 

So she made ready to take her beauty to the larger market-place. But thenight before she was to leave the village her father's house took firemysteriously. The servant, rushing to her door to waken her, died, suffocated there before she could cry out. The Beauty woke to find herbed in flames. She rose with hair and gown ablaze, and, agonizing to awindow, leaped blindly out upon the pavement. There the neighborsquenched the fire and saved her life--but nothing more. 

Thereafter she was a cripple, and her vaunted beauty was dead; it hadgone into the flames, and she had only the ashes of it on her searedface. Now she had only pity where she had had envy and adulation. Nowthere was a turning away of eyes when she hurried abroad on necessaryerrands. Now her enemies were tenderly disposed toward her, andeverybody forbore to mention what she had been. Everybody spared herfeelings and talked of other things and looked at the floor or at thesky when she must be spoken to. 

One day the Fool, having heard only that the Beauty was to leave thevillage, and having heard nothing of the fire, and not having prosperedwhere he was, returned to his old home. The first person he saw he askedof the Beauty, and that one told him of the holocaust of her graces, andwarned him, remembering that the Fool had always spoken his thoughtswithout tact or discretion--warned the Fool to disguise when he saw herthe shock he must feel and make no sign that he found her other than heleft her. And the Fool promised. 

When he saw her he made a pretense indeed of greeting her as before, buthe was like a man trying to look upon a fog as upon a sunrise; for theold beauty of her face did not strike his eyes full of its own radiance. She saw the struggle of his smile and the wincing of his soul. But shedid not wince, for she was by now bitterly accustomed to this reticenceand self-control. 

He walked along the street with her, and looked always aside or aheadand talked of other things. He walked with her to her own gate, and toher porch, trying to find some light thing to say to leave her. But thecruelty of the world was like a rusty nail in his heart, and when he putout his hand and she set in his hand what her once so exquisite fingerswere now, his heart broke in his breast; and when he lifted his eyes towhat her once so triumphant face was now, they refused to withhold theirtears, and his lips could not hold back his thoughts, and he groanedaloud:

"Oh, you were so beautiful! No one was ever so beautiful as you werethen. But now--I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I wish that I mighthave died for you. You were so beautiful! I can see you now as you werewhen I told you good-by. "

Then he was afraid for what he had said, and ashamed, and he dreaded tolook at her again. He would have dashed away, but she seized him by thesleeve, and whispered:

"How good it is to hear your words! You are the only one that has toldme that I ever was beautiful since I became what I am. Tell me, tell mehow I looked when you bade me good-by!"

And he told her. Looking aside or at the sky, he told her of her facelike a rose in the moonlight, of her hair like some mist spun and wovenin shadows and glamours of its own, of her long creamy arms and herhands that a god had fashioned lovingly. He told her of her eyes andtheir deeps, and their lashes and the brows above them. He told her ofthe strange rhythm of her musical form when she walked or danced orleaned upon the arm of her chair. 

He dared not look at her lest he lose his remembrance of them; but heheard her laughing, softly at first, then with pride and wild triumph. And she crushed his hand in hers and kissed it, murmuring: "God blessyou! God bless you!"

For even in poverty it is sweet to know that once we were rich. 

THE GHOSTLY COUNSELORS

I

In a little hall bedroom in a big city lay a little woman in a bigtrouble. She had taken the room under an assumed name, and a visitor hadcome to her there--to little her in the big city, from the biggerunknown. 

She had taken the room as "Mrs. Emerton. " The landlady, Mrs. Rotch, hadhad her doubts. But then she was liberal-minded--folks had to be in thatstreet. Still, she made it an invariable rule that "no visitors wasnever allowed in rooms, " a parlor being kept for the purpose up to teno'clock, when the landlady went to bed in it, "her having to have hersleep as well as anybody. "

But, in spite of the rules, a visitor had come to "Mrs. Emerton's"room--a very, very young man. His only name as yet was "the Baby. " Shedared not give the young man his father's name, for then people wouldknow, and she had come to the city to keep people from knowing. She hadcome to the wicked city from the sweet, wholesome country, where, according to fiction, there is no evil, but where, according to fact, people are still people and moonlight is still madness. In the country, love could be concealed but not its consequence. 

Her coadjutor in the ceremony of summoning this little spirit from thevasty deep had not followed her to the city where the miracle wasachieved. He was poor, and his parents would have been brokenhearted; hisemployer in the village would have taken away his seven-dollar-a-week job. 

So the boy sent the girl to town alone, with what money he had saved upand what little he could borrow; and he stayed in the village to earnmore. 

The girl's name was Lightfoot--Hilda Lightfoot--a curiously propheticname for her progress in the primrose path, though she had goneheavy-footed enough afterward. And now she could hardly walk at all. 

Hilda Lightfoot had come to the city in no mood to enjoy itsfrivolities, and with no means. She had climbed the four flights to herroom a few days ago for the last time. In all the weeks and weeks shehad never had a caller, except, the other day, a doctor and a nurse, whohad taken away most of her money and left her this little clamorousyouth, whose victim she was as he was hers. 

To-night she was desperately lonely. Even the baby's eternal demands anduproars were hushed in sleep. She felt strong enough now to go out intothe wonderful air of the city; the breeze was as soft and moonseeped asthe blithe night wind that blew across the meadows at home. 

The crowds went by the window and teased her like a circus parademarching past a school. 

But she could not go to circuses--she had no money. All she had was anameless, restless baby. 

She grew frantically lonely. She went almost out of her head from hersolitude, the jail-like loneliness, with no one to talk to except herlittle fellow-prisoner who could not talk. 

Her homesick heart ran back to the home life she was exiled from. Shewas thinking of the village. It was prayer-meeting night, and the moonwould wait outside the church like Mary's white-fleeced lamb till theservice was over, and then it would follow the couples home, gambolingafter them when they walked, and, when they paused, waiting patientlyabout. 

The moon was a lone white lamb on a shadowy hill all spotted withdaisies. Everything in the world was beautiful except her fate, herprison, her poverty, and her loneliness. 

If only she could go down from this dungeon into the streets! If onlyshe had some clothes to wear and knew somebody who would take hersomewhere where there was light and music! It was not much to ask. Hundreds of thousands of girls were having fun in the theaters and therestaurants and the streets. Hundreds of thousands of fellows weretaking their best girls places. 

If only Webster Edie would come and take her out for a walk! She hadbeen his best girl, and he had been her fellow. Why must he send herhere, alone? It was his duty to be with her, now of all times. A womanhad a right to a little petting, now of all times. She had written himso yesterday, begging him to come to her at any cost. But her lettermust have crossed his letter, and in that he said that he could not getaway and could not send her any money for at least another week, andthen not much. 

She was doomed to loneliness--indefinitely. If only some one would comein and talk to her! The landlady never came except about the bill. Thelittle slattern who brought her meals had gone to bed. She knewnobody--only voices, the voices of other boarders who went up and downthe stairs and sometimes paused outside her door to talk and laugh orexchange gossip. She had caught a few names from occasional greeting orexclamation: "Good morning, Miss Marland!" "Why, Mrs. Elsbree!" "How wasthe show last night, Miss Bessett?" "Oh, Mrs. Teed, would you mindmailing these letters as you go out?" "Not at all, Mrs. Braywood. "

They were as formless to her as ghosts, but she could not help imaginingbodies and faces and clothes to fit the voices. She could not helpforming likes and dislikes. She would have been glad to have any of themcome to see her, to ask how she was or admire the baby, or to borrow apin or lend a book. 

If somebody did not come to see her she would go mad. If only she dared, she would leave the baby and steal down the stairs and out of the frontdoor and slip along the streets. They called her; they beckoned to herand promised her happiness. She was like a little yacht held fast in acove by a little anchor. The breeze was full of summons and nudgings;the water in the bay was dancing, every ripple a giggle. Only her anchorheld her, such a little anchor, such a gripping anchor!

If only some one would come in! If only the baby could talk, or evenlisten with understanding! She was afraid to be alone any longer, lestshe do something insane and fearful. She sat at the window, with one armstretched out across the sill and her chin across it, and stared offinto the city's well of white lights. Then she bent her head, hid herhot face in the hollow of her elbow, and clenched her eyelids to shutaway the torment. She was loneliest staring at the city, but she wasunendurably lonely with her eyes shut. She would go crazy if somebodydid not come. 

There was a knock at the door. It startled her. 

She sat up and listened. The knock was repeated softly. She turned herhead and stared at the door. Then she murmured, "Come in. "

The door whispered open, and a woman in soft black skirts whispered in. The room was lighted only by the radiance from the sky, and themysterious woman was mysteriously vague against the dimly illuminatedhall. 

She closed the door after her and stood, a shadow in a shadow. Even herface was a mere glimmer, like a patch of moonlight on the door, and hervoice was stealthy as a breeze. It was something like the voice sheheard called "Mrs. Elsbree. "

Hilda started to rise, but a faint, white hand pressed her back and thevoice said:

"Don't rise, my dear. I know how weak you are, what you have gonethrough, alone, here in this dreary place. I know what pain you haveendured, and the shame you have felt, the shame that faces you outsidein the world. It is a cruel world. To women--oh, but it is cruel! It hasno mercy for a woman who loves too well. 

"If you had a lot of money you might fight it with its own weapon. Moneyis the one weapon it respects. But you haven't any money, have you, mydear? If you had, you wouldn't be here in the dark alone, would you?

"I'm afraid there is nothing ahead of you, either, but darkness, mydear. The man you loved has deserted you, hasn't he? He is a poor, weakthing, anyway. Even if he married you, you would probably part. He'dalways hate you. Nobody else will want you for a wife, you poor child;you know that, don't you? And nobody will help you, because of the baby. You couldn't find work and keep the baby with you, could you? And youcouldn't leave it. It is a weight about your neck; it will drown you indeep waters. 

"Even if it lived, it would have only misery ahead of it, for your storywould follow it through life. The older it grew, the more it wouldsuffer. It would despise you and itself. How much happier you would benot to be alive at all, both of you, you poor, unwelcome things!

"There are many problems ahead of you, my dear; and you'll never solvethem, except in one way. If you were dead and asleep in your grave withyour poor little one at your breast, all your troubles would be overthen, wouldn't they? People would feel sorry for you; they wouldn'tsneer at you then. And you wouldn't mind loneliness or hunger orpointing fingers or anything. 

"Take my advice, dearie, and end it now. There are so many ways; so manythings to buy at drug-stores. And that's the river you can just see overthere. It is very peaceful in its depths. Its cool, dark waters willwash away your sorrows. Or if that is too far for you to go, there's thewindow. You could climb out on the ledge with your baby in your arms andjust step off into--peace. Take my advice, poor, lonely, little thing. It's the one way; I know. The world will forgive you, and Heaven will bemerciful. Didn't Christ take the Magdalen into His own company and Hismother's? He will take you up into heaven, if you go now. Good-by. Don'tbe afraid. Good-by. Don't be afraid. "

She was gone so softly that Hilda did not see her go. She had beenstaring off into that ocean of space, and when she turned her head thewoman was gone. But her influence was left in the very air. Her wordswent on whispering about the room. Under their influence the girl rose, tottered to the bed, gathered the sleeping baby to her young bosom, kissed his brow without waking him, and stumbled to the window. 

She pushed it as high as it would go and knelt on the ledge, peeringdown into the street. It was a fearful distance to the walk. 

She hoped she would not strike the stone steps or the area rail. And yetwhat difference would it make? It would only assure her peace thequicker. She must wait for those people below to walk past. But theywere not gone before others were there. She could not hurl herself uponthem. 

As she waited, it grew terrible to take the plunge. She had always beenafraid of high places. She grew dizzy now, and must cling hard to keepfrom falling before she said her prayers and was ready. And, now thepavement was clear. She kissed her baby again. She drew in a deepbreath, her last sip of the breath of life. How good it was, this clear, cool air flowing across this great, beautiful, heartless city that sheshould never see again! And now--

There was a knock at the door. It checked her. She lost impulse andimpetus and crept back and sank into a chair. She was pretending to berocking the baby to sleep when she murmured, "Come in. "

Perhaps it would be Mrs. Elsbree, returned to reproach her for hercowardice and her delay. But when she dared to look up it was anotherwoman. At least it was another voice--perhaps Miss Marland's. 

"I've been meaning to call on you, Mrs. Emerton, but I haven't had afree moment. Of course I've known all along why you were here. We allhave. There's been a good deal of backbiting. But that's theboarding-house of it. This evening, at dinner, there was some mention ofyou at the table, and some of the women were ridiculing you and somewere condemning you. Oh, don't wince, my dear; everybody is always beingridiculed or condemned or both for something. If you were one of thesaints they would burn you at the stake or put you to the torture. 

"Anyway, I spoke up and told them that the only one who had a right tocast a stone at you was one without sin, and I despaired of finding sucha person in this boarding-house--or outside, either, for that matter. Ispoke up and told them that you were no worse than the others. They allhad their scandals, and I know most of them. There's some scandal abouteverybody. We're all sinners--if you want to call it sin to follow yourmost sacred instincts. 

"Why should you be afraid of a little gossip or a few jokes or a littleabuse from a few hypocrites? They're all sinners--worse than you, too, most of them, if the truth were known. 

"Why blame yourself and call yourself a criminal? You loved theboy--loved him too much, that's all. If you had been really wicked youwould have refused to love him or to give yourself up to his plea. Ifyou had been really bad you'd have known too much to have this child. You'd have got rid of it at all costs. 

"You are really a very good little woman with a passion for being amother. It's the world outside that's bad. Don't be ashamed before it. Hold your head up. The world owes you a living, and it will pay it ifyou demand it. It will pay for you and your child, too. Just demand yourrights. You'll soon find a place. You're too young and beautiful to beneglected. You're young and beautiful and passionate. You can make someman awfully happy. He'll be glad to have your baby and you--disgrace andall. He may be very rich, too. Go find him. The baby may grow up to be awonderful man. You could make enough to give the boy every advantage anda fine start in the world. 

"The world is yours, if you'll only take it. Remember the Bible, 'Askand it shall be given unto you. ' Think it over, my dear. Don't doanything foolish or rash. You're too young and too beautiful. And now Imust ran along. Good-by and good luck. "

While Hilda was breathing deep of this wine of hope and courage thewoman was gone. 

Hilda glanced out of the window again. She shuddered. A moment more andshe would have been lying below there, broken, mangled, unsightly--perhaps not dead, only crippled for life and arrested as asuicide that failed; perhaps as a murderess, since the fall would surelyhave killed her child--her precious child. She held him close, her greatman-baby, her son; he laughed, beat the air with his hands, chuckled, and smote her cheek with palms like white roses. She would take him fromthis gloomy place. She would go out and demand money, fine clothes, attention. 

She put on her hat, a very shabby little hat. She began to wrap the babyin a heavy shawl. They would have finer things soon. 

She grew dizzy with excitement and the exertion, and sank back in thechair a moment, to regain her strength. The chair creaked. No, it was aknock at the door. It proved what the last woman had said. "Ask, and itshall be given unto you. "

She had wished for some one to call on her. The whole boarding-house wascoming. She was giving a party. 

This time it was another voice out of the darkness. It must have beenMiss Bessett's. She spoke in a cold, hard, hasty tone. "Going out, mydear? Alone, I hope? No, the baby's wrapped up! You're not going to beso foolish as to lug that baby along? He brands you at once. Nobody willwant you round with a squalling baby. Oh, of course he's a pretty child;but he's too noisy. He'll ruin every chance you have. 

"You're really very pretty, my dear. The landlady said so. If shenoticed it, you must be a beauty, indeed. This is a great town forpretty girls. There's a steady market for them. 

"The light is poor here, but beauty like yours glows even in darkness, and that's what they want, the men. The world will pay anything forbeauty, if beauty has the brains to ask a high price and not give toomuch for it. 

"Think of the slaves who have become queens, the mistresses who havebecome empresses. There are rich women all over town who came by theirmoney dishonestly. You should see some of them in the Park with theirautomobiles. You'd be ashamed even to let them run over you. Yet, if youwere dressed up, you'd look better than any of the automobile brigade. 

"You might be a great singer. I've heard you crooning to the baby. Youfind a rich man and make him pay for your lessons, and then you makeeyes at the manager and, before you know it, you'll be engaged for theopera and earning a thousand dollars a night--more than that, maybe. 

"Think how much that means. It would make you mighty glad you didn'tmarry that young gawp at home. He's a cheap skate to get you into thistrouble and not help you out. 

"But I'll set you in the way of making a mint of money. There's only onething: you must give up the baby and never let anybody know you ever hadit. Don't freeze up and turn away. There are so many ways of disposingof a baby. Send it to a foundling asylum. No questions will be asked. The baby will have the best of care and grow so strong that some richcouple will insist on adopting it, or you could come back when you aremarried to a rich man and pretend you took a fancy to it and adopt ityourself. 

"And there's a lot of other ways to get rid of a baby. You could give itthe wrong medicine by mistake, or just walk out and forget it. Andthere's the river; you could drop it into those black waters. And thenyou're free--baby would never know. He would be ever so much better off. And you would be free. 

"You must be free. You must get a little taste of life. You've a rightto it. You lived in a little stupid village all your years--and nowyou're in the city. Listen to it! It would be yours for the asking. Andit gives riches and glory to the pretty girls it likes. But you must goto it as a girl, not as a poor, broken, ragged thing, lugging a sicklybaby with no name. Get rid of the baby, my dear. It will die, anyway. Itwill starve and sicken. Put it out of its misery. That medicine on yourwash-stand--an overdose of that and you can say it was a mistake. Whocan prove it wasn't? Then you are free. You'll have hundreds of friends, and a career, and a motor of your own, and servants, and a beautifulhome. Don't waste your youth, my dear. Invest your beauty where it willbring big proceeds. 

"See those lights off there--the big lights with the name of that womanin electric letters? She came to town poorer than you and with a worsename. Now she is rich and famous. And the Countess of--What's-her-name?She was poor and bad, but she didn't let any old-fashioned ideas ofremorse hold her back. Go on; get rid of the brat. Go on!"

Hilda clutched the baby closer and moved away to shield her from thisgrim counselor. When she turned again she was alone. The woman had gone, but the air trembled with her fierce wisdom. She was ruthless, but howwise!

The lights flaring up into the sky carried that other woman's name. Herpicture was everywhere. She had been poor and wicked. Now she was ahousehold word, respected because she was rich. She had succeeded. 

There came a lilting of music on a breeze. They were dancing, somewhere. The tango "coaxed her feet. " Her body swayed with it. 

If she were there, men would quarrel over her, rush to claim her--asthey had done even in the village before she threw herself away on themost worthless, shiftless of the lot, who got her into trouble anddeserted her. It was not her business to starve for his baby. 

The baby began to fret again, to squawk with vicious explosions of uglyrage; it puled and yowled. It was a nuisance. It caught a fistful of herhair and wrenched till the tears of pain rushed to her eyes. Sheunclasped the little talons, ran to the wash-stand, took up an uglybottle and poured out enough to put an end to that nauseating wail. 

She bent over to lift the baby to the glass. Its lips touched her bosom. Its crying turned to a little chortle like a brook's music. It pommeledher with hands like white roses. The moon rested on its little head andmade its fuzz of hair a halo. She paused, adoring it sacredly likeanother Madonna. 

A soft tap at the door. She put the fatal glass away and turnedguiltily. A dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voicespoke. It must be Mrs. Braywood's. She could not have suspected, for hertone was all of affection. 

"I heard your child laughing, my dear--and crying. I don't know whichwent to my heart deeper. I just had to come to see it. It is somarvelous to be a mother. I've been married for ten years, and myhusband and I have prayed and waited. But God would not send us a baby. He saved that honor for you. And such an honor and glory and power! Tobe a mother! To be a rose-bush and have a white bud grow upon your stem, and bloom! Oh, you lucky child, to be selected for such a privilege! Youmust have suffered; you must be suffering now; but there's nothing worthwhile that doesn't cost pain. 

"It occurred to me that--don't misunderstand me, my child, but--well, the landlady said you were poor; she was in doubt of the room rent; soI thought--perhaps you might not want the baby as much as I do. 

"I hoped you might let me take him. I'd be such a good mother to him. I'd love him as if he were my own, and my husband would pay you well forhim. We'd give him our own name, and people should never know thathe--that you--that we weren't really his parents. Give him to me, won'tyou? Please! I beg you!"

Hilda whirled away from her pleading hands and clenched the baby so hardthat it cried a little. The sound was like that first wail of his shehad ever heard. Again it went into her heart like a little hand seizingand wringing it. 

Mrs. Braywood--if it were Mrs. Braywood--was not angry at the rebuff, though she was plainly disheartened. She tried to be brave, and sighed. 

"Oh, I don't wonder you turn away. I understand. I wouldn't give him upif I were in your place. The father must come soon. He won't stay awaylong. Just let him see the baby and hear its voice and know it is hisbaby, and he will stand by you. 

"He will come to you. He will hear the voice wherever he is, and he willmake you his wife. And the baby will make a man of him and give himambition and inspiration. Babies always provide for themselves, theysay. You will have trouble, and you will suffer from the gibes ofself-righteous people, and you will be cruelly blamed; but there isonly one way to expiate sin, my child, and that is to face itsconsequences and pay its penalties in full. The only way to atone for awrong deed is to do the next right thing. Take good care of yourprecious treasure. Good-by. His father will come soon. He will come. Good-by. Oh, you enviable thing, you mother!"

And now she was gone. But she had left the baby's value enhanced, andthe mother's, too. 

She had offered a price for the baby, and glorified the mother. Thelonely young country girl felt no longer utterly disgraced. She did notfeel that the baby was a mark of Heaven's disfavor, but rather of itsfavor. She felt lonely no longer. The streets interested her no more. Let those idle revelers go their way; let them dance and laugh. They hadno child of their own to adore and to enjoy. 

If the baby's father came they would be married. If he delayed--well, she would stumble on alone. The baby was her cross. She must carry it upthe hill. 

Hilda felt entirely content, but very tired, full of hope that WebsterEdie would come to her, but full of contentment, too. She talked to thebaby, and he seemed to understand her now. She could not translate hislanguage, but he translated hers. 

She slipped out of her day clothes and into her nightgown--and so tobed. She fell asleep with her baby in her arms. Her head drooped backand her parted lips seemed to pant and glow. The moon reached herwindow and sent in a long shaft of light. It found a great tear on hercheek. It gleamed on her throat bent back; it gleamed on one bareshoulder where the gown was torn; it gleamed on her breast where thebaby drowsily clung. 

There was a benediction in the moonlight. 

DAUGHTERS OF SHILOH

I

Mrs. Serina Pepperall had called her husband twice without success. Itwas at that hatefulest hour of the whole week when everybody that has toget up is getting up and realizing that it is Monday morning, andraining besides. 

It is bad enough for it to be Monday, but for it to be raining isinexcusable. 

Young Horace Pepperall used to say that that was the reason the worlddidn't improve much. People got good on Sunday, and then it had to goand be Monday. He had an idea that if Sunday could be followed by someother day, preferably Saturday, there would be more happiness and virtuein the world. Mrs. Pepperall used to say that her boy was quite aph'losopher in his way. Mr. Pepperall said he was a hopeless loafer andspent more time deciding whether he'd ought to do this or that than itwould have taken to do 'em both twice. Whereupon Mrs. Pepperall, whosemaiden name was Boody--daughter of Mrs. Ex-County-Clerk Boody--wouldremind her husband that he was only a Pepperall, after all, while herson was at least half Boody. Whereupon her husband would remind her ofcertain things about the Boodys. And so it would go. But that was othermornings. This was this morning. 

Among all the homes that the sun looked upon--or would have looked uponif it could have looked upon anything and if it hadn't been raining andthe Pepperall roof had not been impervious to light, though not tomoisture--among them all, surely the Pepperall reveille would have beenthe least attractive. Homer never got his picture of rosy-fingeredAurora smilingly leaping out of the couch of night from any such home asthe Pepperalls' in Carthage. 

Serina was as unlike Aurora as possible. Aurora is usually poised ontiptoe, with her well-manicured nails gracefully extended, and nothingmuch about her except a chariot and more or less chiffon, according towhether the picture is for families or bachelors. 

Serina was entirely surrounded by flannelette, of simple and pitilesslychaste design--a hole at the top for her head to go through and a largerone at the other extreme for her feet to stick out at. But it was solong that you couldn't have seen her feet if you had been there. AndPapa Pepperall, who was there, was no longer interested in those onceexciting ankles. They had been more interesting when there had been lessof them. But we'd better talk about the sleeves. 

The sleeves were so long that they kept falling into the water whereSerina was making a hasty toilet at the little marble-topped altar tocleanliness which the Pepperalls called the "worsh-stand"--that is, the"hand-wash-basin, " as Mrs. Hippisley called it after she came back fromher never-to-be-forgotten trip to England. 

But then Serina's sleeves had always been falling into the suds, andever since she could remember she had rolled them up again with thatpeculiar motion with which people roll up sleeves. This morning, havingfailed to elicit papa from the bed by persuasion, she made such a racketabout her ablutions that he lifted his dreary lids at last. He realizedthat it was morning, Monday, and raining. It irritated him so that heglared at his faithful wife with no fervor for her unsullied andunwearied--if not altogether unwearisome--devotion. He watched her rollup those sleeves thrice more. Somehow he wanted to scream at thefutility of it. But he checked the impulse partly, and it was withsoftness that he made a comment he had choked back for years. "Serina--"he began. 

"Well, " she returned, pausing with the soap clenched in one hand. 

He spoke with the luxurious leisureliness and the pauses for commas of anearly educated man lolling too long abed:

"Serina, it has just occurred to me that, since we have been married, you have expended, on rolling back those everlastingly relapsing sleevesof yours, enough energy to have rolled the Sphinx of Egypt up on top ofthe Pyramid of Cheops. "

Serina was so surprised that she shot the slippery soap under thewash-stand. She went right after it. There may be nymphs who can stalk acake of soap under a wash-stand with grace, but Serina was not one ofthem. Her indolent spouse made another cynical comment:

"Don't do that! You look like the Goddess of Liberty trying to peek intothe Subway. "

But she did not hear him. She was rummaging for the soap and for ananswer to his first remark. At length she emerged with both. She stoodup and panted. 

"Well, I can't see as it would 'a' done me any good if I had have!"

"Had have what?" her husband yawned, having forgotten his originalremark. 

"Got the Sphinnix on top of the Cheops. And besides, I've been meaningto hem them up; but now that you've gone bankrupt again, and I have todo my own cooking and all--"

"But, my dear Serina, you've said the same thing ever since we weremarried. What frets me is to think of the terrible waste of labor withnothing to show for it. "

She sniffed, and retorted with all the superiority of the unsuccessfulwife of an unsuccessful husband:

"Well, I can't see as you're so smart. Ever since we been married youbeen goin' to that stationery-store of yours, and you never learnedenough to keep from going bankrupt three times. And now they've shutthe shop, and you've nothing better to do than lay in bed and make funof me that have slaved for you and your children. "

They were always his children when she talked of the trouble they were. Her all too familiar oration was interrupted by the eel-like leap of thesoap. This time it described a graceful arc that landed it under themiddle of the bed--a double bed at that. 

Pepperall had the gallantry to pursue it. He went head first over thestarboard quarter of the deck, leaving his feet aboard. Just as hetagged the soap with his fingers his feet came on over after him, and hefound himself flat on his back, with his head under the bed and his feetunder the bureau. 

When the thunder of his downfall had subsided he heard Serina say, "Nowthat you're up you better stay up. "

So he wriggled out from under and got himself aloft, rubbing hisindignant back. If Serina was no Aurora rising from the sea, her husbandwas no Phoebus Apollo. His gown looked like hers, only younger. It hada frivolous little pocket, and the slit-skirt effect on both sides; andit was cut what is called "misses' length, " disclosing two of the leastattractive shins in Carthage. 

He was aching all over and he was angry, and he snarled as he stood atthe wash-stand:

"Have you finished with this water?"

"Yes, " she said, muffledly, from the depths of a face-towel. 

"Why don't you ever empty the bowl then?" he growled, and viciouslytilted the contents into the--must I say the awful word?--theslop-jar--what other word is there?

The water splashed over and struck the bare feet of both icily. Theyyowled and danced like Piute Indians, and glared at each other as theydanced. They glared in a nagged rage that would have turned into an uglyquarrel if a great sorrow had not suddenly overswept them. They sawthemselves as they were and by a whim of memory they remembered whatthey had been. He laughed bitterly:

"It's the first time we've danced together in a long time, eh?"

Her lower lip began to quiver and swell quite independently and shesighed:

"Not much like the dances we used to dance. Oh dear!"

She dropped into a chair and stared, not at her husband, but at thebridegroom of long ago he had shriveled from. She remembered thosehoneymoon mornings when they had awakened like eager children andlaughed and romped and been glad of the new day. The mornings had beenprecious then, for it was a tragedy to let him go to his shop, as it wasa festival to watch from the porch in the evening till he came round thecorner and waved to her. 

She looked from him to herself, to what she could see of herself--it wasnot all, but more than enough. She saw her heavy red hands and thecoarse gown over her awkward knees, and the dismal slovenliness of herattitude. She felt that he was remembering the slim, wild, sweet girl hehad married. And she was ashamed before his eyes, because she had letthe years prey upon her and had lazily permitted beauty to escape fromher--from her body, her face, her motions, her thoughts. 

She felt that for all her prating of duty she had committed a greatwickedness lifelong. She wondered if this were not "the unpardonablesin, " whose exact identity nobody had seemed to decide--to growstrangers with beauty and to forget grace. 

II

Whatever her husband may have been thinking, he had the presence of mindto hide his eyes in the water he had poured from the pitcher. He scoopedit up now in double handfuls. He made a great splutter and soused hisface in the bowl, and scrubbed the back of his neck and behind his earsand his bald spot, and slapped his eminent collar-bones with his wethand. And then he was bathed. 

Serina pulled on her stockings, and hated them and the coarser feet theycovered. She opened the wardrobe door as a screen, less from modesty forherself than from sudden disgust of her old corset and her all too soberlingerie. She resolved that she would hereafter deck herself with moreof that coquetry which had abruptly returned to her mind as a wife'smost solemn duty. 

Then she remembered that they were poorer than they ever had been. Nowthey could not even run into debt again; for who would give them furthercredit, since their previous bills had been canceled by nothing moresatisfactory than the grim "Received payment" of the bankruptcy court?

It was too late for her to reform. Her song was sung. And as for buyingfrills and fallals, there were two daughters to provide for and a sonwho was growing into the stratum of foppery. With a sigh of dismissalshe flung on her old wrapper, whose comfortableness she suddenlydespised, and made her escape, murmuring, "I'll call the childern. "

She pounded on the boy's door, and Horace eventually answered with hisregular program of uncouth noises, like some one protesting againstbeing strangled to death. These were followed by moans of woe, and thenby far-off-sounding promises of "Oh, aw ri', I'm git'nup. "

Serina moved on to her youngest daughter's door. She had tapped but oncewhen it was opened by "the best girl that ever lived, " according to herfather; and according to her mother, "a treasure; never gave me a bit oftrouble--plain, of course, but so willing!"

Ollie was fully dressed and so was her room, except for the bed, thecovers of which were thrown back like a wave breaking over thefootboard. In fact, after Ollie had kissed her mother she informed herthat the kitchen fire was made, the wash-boiler on, and the breakfastgoing. 

"You are a treasure!" Serina sighed. 

She passed on to the door of Prue. Prue was the second daughter. Rosie, the eldest, had married Tom Milford and moved away. She was havingtroubles of her own, and children with a regularity that led Serina todislike Tom Milford more than ever. 

Serina knocked several times at Prue's door without response. Then shewent in as she always had to. Prue was still asleep, and her yesterday'sclothes seemed to be asleep, too, in all sorts of attitudes and allsorts of places. The only regularity about the room was the fact thatevery single thing was out of place. The dressing-table held a littlechaos, including one stocking. The other stocking was on the floor. Onesilken garter glowed in the southeast corner and one in the northwest. One shoe reclined in the southwest corner and the other gaped in thenortheast. But they were pretty shoes. 

Her frock was in a heap, but it suggested a heap of flowers. Hair-ribbons and ribboned things and a crumpled sash bedecked thecarpet. But the prettiest thing of all was the head half fallen from thepillow and half smothered in the tangled skeins of hair. One arm wasbent back over her brow to shut out the sunlight and the other armdangled to the floor. There was something adorable about the round chinnestling in the soft throat. Her chin seemed to frown with a lovablesullenness. There was a mysterious grace in the very sprawl vaguelyoutlined by the long wrinkles and ridges of the blankets. 

Serina shook her head over Prue in a loving despair. She was the bad boyof the family, impatient, exacting, hot-tempered, stormy, luxurious, yetnever monotonous. 

"You can always put your hand on Ollie, " Serina would say; "but younever know where Prue is from one minute to the next. "

Consequently Ollie was not interesting and Prue was. 

They were all afraid of Prue and afraid for her. They all toadied to herand she kept them excited--alarmed, perhaps; angry, oh yes; but neverbored. 

And there were rewards in her service, too, for she could be as stormywith affection as with mutiny. Sometimes she would attack Serina withsuch gusts of gratitude or admiration that her mother would cry forhelp. She would squeeze her father's ribs till he gasped for breath. When she was pleased she would dance about the house like a whirlingmænad with ululations of ecstasy. These crises were sharp, but they lefta sweet taste in the memory. 

So Prue had the best clothes and did the least work. Prue was sent offto boarding-school in Chicago, though she had never been able to keep upwith her classes in Carthage; while Ollie--who took first prizes tilleven the goody-goody boys hated her--stayed at home. She had dreamed ofbeing a teacher in the High, but she never mentioned it, and she studiedbookkeeping and stenography in the business college so that she couldhelp her father. 

Prue had not been home long and had come home with bad grace. When herfather had found it impossible to borrow more money even to pay hisclerks, to say nothing of boarding-school bills, he had to write thetruth to Prue. He told her to come again to Carthage. 

She did not come back at once and she refused to explain why. As amatter of fact, she had desperately endeavored to find a permanent jobin Chicago. It was easy for so attractive a girl to get jobs, but it washard for so domineering a soul to keep one. She was regretfully bouncedout of three department stores in six days for "sassing" the customersand the aisle-manager. 

She even tried the theater. She was readily accepted by a stage-manager, but when he found that he could not teach her the usual figures orpersuade her to keep in step or line with the rest he regretfully lether go. 

It was the regularity of it that stumped Prue. She could dance like aballerina by herself, but she could not count "one-two-three-four" twicein succession. The second time it was "o-o-one-t'threeee-f'r" and nextit would be "onety-thry-fo-o-our. "

Prue hung about Chicago, getting herself into scrapes by her charm andfighting her way out of them by her ferocious pride. Finally she wenthungry and came home. When she learned the extent of her father'sfinancial collapse she delivered tirades against the people of Carthageand she sang him up as a genius. And then she sought escape from thedepression at home by seeking what gaiety Carthage afforded. She made noeffort to master the typewriter and she declined to sell dry-goods. 

Serina stood and studied the sleeping girl, that strange wild thing shehad borne and had tried in vain to control. She thought how odd it wasthat in the mystic transmission of her life she had given all the usefulvirtues to Ollie and none of them to Prue. She wondered what she hadbeen thinking of to make such a mess of motherhood. And what could shedo to correct the oversight? Ollie did not need restraint, and Pruewould not endure it. She stood aloof, afraid to waken the girl to themiseries of existence in a household where every day was blue Mondaynow. 

Ollie had not waited to be called. Ollie had risen betimes and done allthe work that could be done, and stood ready to do whatever she could. Prue was still aloll on a bed of ease. Even to waken her was to waken aMarch wind. The moment she was up she would have everybody runningerrands for her. She would be lavish in complaint and parsimonious ofhelp. And yet she was a dear! She did enjoy her morning sleep so well. It would be a pity to disturb her. The rescuing thought came to Serinathat Prue loved to take a long hot bath on Monday mornings, because onwash-day there was always a plenty of hot water in the bathroom. Onother mornings the hot-water faucet suffered from a distressing coughand nothing more. 

So she tiptoed out and closed the door softly. 

III

At breakfast Ollie waited on the table after compelling Serina to sitdown and eat. There was little to tempt the appetite and no appetite tobe tempted. 

Papa was in the doldrums. He had always complained before of having togulp his breakfast and hurry to the shop. And now he complained becausethere was no hurry; indeed, there was no shop. He must set out at histime of years, after his life of independent warfare, to ask forenlistment as a private in some other man's company--in a town wherevacancies rarely occurred and where William Pepperall would not bewelcome. 

The whole town was mad at him. He had owed everybody, and then suddenlyhe owed nobody. By the presto-change-o of bankruptcy his debts had beenpassed from the hat of unpaid bills to the hat of worthless accounts. 

Serina was as dismal as any wife is when she is faced with the prospectof having her man hanging about the house all day. A wife in a man'soffice hours is a nuisance, but a man at home in household office hoursis a pest. This was the newest but not the least of Serina's woes. 

Horace was even glummer than ever, as soggy as his own oatmeal. At besthe was one of those breakfast bruins. Now he was a bear that has beenhit on the nose. He, too, must seek a job. School had seemed confiningbefore, but now that he must go to work, school seemed like one longrecess. 

Even Ollie was depressed. Hers was the misery of an active person deniedactivity. She had prepared herself as an aid in her father's business, and now he had no business. In this alkali desert of inanition Prue'svivacious temper would have been welcome. 

"Where's Prue?" said papa for the fifth time. 

Serina was about to say that she was still asleep when Prue made herpresence known. Everybody was apprised that the water had been turned onin the bathroom; it resounded throughout the house. It seemed to fallabout one's head. 

Prue was filling the tub for her Monday morning siesta. She was humminga strange tune over the cascade like another Minnehaha. And from thebehavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the sideboardshe was evidently dancing. 

"What's that toon she's dancing to?" papa asked, after a while. 

"I don't know, " said Serina. 

"I never heard it, " said Ollie. 

"Ah, " growled Horace, "it's the Argentine tango. "

"The tango!" gasped papa. "Isn't that the new dance I've been readingabout, that's making a sensation in New York?"

"Ah, wake up, pop!" said Horace. "It's a sensation here, too. "

"In Carthage? They're dancing the tango in our home town?"

"Surest thing you know, pop. The whole burg's goin' bug over it. "

"How is it done? What is it like?"

"Something like this, " said Horace, and, rising, he indulged in theprehistoric turkey-trot of a year ago, with burlesque hip-snaps andpoultry-yard scrapings of the foot. 

"Stop it!" papa thundered. "It's loathsome! Do you mean to tell me thatmy daughter does that sort of thing?"

"Sure! She's a wonder at it. "

"What scoundrel taught my poor child such--such--Who taught her, I say?"

"Gosh!" sniffed Horace, "sis don't need teachin'. She's teachin' therest of 'em. They're crazy about her. "

"Teaching others! My g-g-goodness! Where did she learn?"

"Chicago, I guess. "

"Oh, the wickedness of these cities and the foreigners that are draggingour American homes down to their own level!"

"I guess the foreigners got nothin' on us, " said Horace. "It's aNamerican dance. "

"What are we coming to? Go tell Prue to come here at once. I'll put astop to that right here and now. "

Serina gave him one searing glance, and he understood that he could notdeliver his edict to Prue yet awhile. He heard her singing even morebarbaric strains. The chandelier danced with a peculiar savagery, thenthe dance was evidently quenched and subdued. Awestruck yowls from aboveindicated that Prue was in hot water. 

"This is the last straw!" groaned papa, with all the wretchedness of afather learning that his daughter was gone to the bad. 

IV

Prue did not appear below-stairs for so long that her father had losthis magnificent running start by the time she sauntered in all sleek andshiny and asked for her food. She brought a radiant grace into the dullgray room; and Serina whispered to Will to let her have her breakfastfirst. 

She and Ollie waited on Prue, while the father paced the floor, stealingsidelong glances at her, and wondering if it were possible that so sweeta thing should be as vicious as she would have to be to tango. 

When she had scoured her plate and licked her spoon with a child-likecharm her father began to crank up his throat for a tirade. He beganwith the reluctant horror of a young attorney cross-examining his firstmurderer:

"Prue--I want to--to--er--Prue, do you--did you--ever--This--er--thistango business--Prue--have you--do you--er--What do you know about it?"

"Well, of course, papa, they change it so fast on you it's hard to keepup with it, but I was about three days ahead of Chicago when I leftthere. I met with a man who had just stepped off the twenty-hour trainand I learned all he knew before I turned him loose. "

In a strangled tone the father croaked, "You dance it, then?"

"You bet! Papa, stand up and I'll show you the very newest roll. It's apeach. Put your weight on your right leg. Say, it's a shame we haven't aphonograph! Don't you suppose you could afford a little one? I couldhave you all in fine form in no time. And it would be so good formamma. "

Papa fell back into a chair with just strength enough to murmur, "I wantyou to promise me never to dance it again. "

"Don't be foolish, you dear old bump-on-a-log!"

"I forbid you to dance it ever again. "

She laughed uproariously: "Listen at the old Skeezicks! Get up here andI'll show you the cutest dip. "

When at last he grew angry, and made her realize it, she flared into atumult of mutiny that drove him out into the rain. He spent the daylooking for a job without finding one. Horace came home wet anddiscouraged with the same news. Ollie, the treasure, however, announcedthat she had obtained a splendid position as typist in Judge Hippisley'soffice, at a salary of thirty dollars a month. 

William was overjoyed, but Serina protested bitterly. She and Mrs. JudgeHippisley had been bitter social rivals for twenty years. They hadfought each other with teas and euchre parties and receptions from youngwifehood to middle-aged portliness. And now her daughter was to work inthat hateful Anastasia Hippisley's old fool of a husband's office? Well, hardly!

"It's better than starving, " said Ollie, and for once would not becoerced, though even her disobedience was on the ground of service. After she had cleared the table and washed the dishes she set out forher room, lugging a typewriter she had borrowed to brush up her speedon. 

Prue had begged off from even wiping the dishes, because she had todress. As Ollie started up-stairs to her task she was brought back bythe door-bell. She ushered young Orton Hippisley into the parlor. He hadcome to take Prue to a dance. 

When papa heard this mamma had to hold her hand over his mouth to keephim from making a scene. He was for kicking young Hippisley out of thehouse. 

"And lose me my job?" gasped Ollie. 

The overpowered parent whispered his determination to go up-stairs andforbid Prue to leave. He went up-stairs and forbade her, but she wentright on binding her hair with Ollie's best ribbon. In the midst of herfather's peroration she kissed him good-by and danced down-stairs inOllie's new slippers. Her own had been trotted into shreds. 

Papa sat fuming all evening. He would not go to bed till Prue came hometo the ultimatum he was preparing for her. From above came thetick-tock-tock of Ollie's typewriter. It got on his nerves, like rain ona tin roof. 

"To think of it--Ollie up-stairs working her fingers to the bone to helpus out, and Prue dancing her feet off disgracing us! To think that oneof our daughters should be so good and one so bad!"

"I can't believe that our little Prue is really bad, " Serina sighed. 

"Yet girls do go wrong, don't they?" her husband groaned. "Thismorning's paper prints a sermon about the tango. Reverend DoctorWhat's-his-name, the famous New York newspaper preacher, tears the wholetango crowd to pieces. He points out that the tango is the cause of thepresent-day wickedness, the ruin of the home!"

Serina was dismal and terrified, but from force of habit she took theopposite side. 

"Oh, they were complaining of divorces long before the tango was everheard of. That same preacher used to blame them on the bicycle, then onthe automobile and the movies. And now it's the tango. It'll beflying-machines next. "

Papa was used to fighting with mamma, and he roared with fine leoninity:"Are you defending your daughter's shamelessness? Do you approve of thetango?"

"I've never seen it. "

"Then it must be just because you always encourage your children toflout my authority. I never could keep any discipline because you alwaysfought for them, encouraged them to disobey their father, to--to--to--"

She chanted her responses according to the familiar family antipathyantiphony. They talked themselves out eventually; but Prue was not home. Ollie gradually typewrote herself to sleep and Prue was not home. Horacecame in from the Y. M. C. A. Bowling-alley and went to bed, and Prue wasnot home. 

The old heads nodded. The sentinels slept. At some dimly distant timepapa woke with a start and inquired, "Huh?"

Mamma jumped and gasped, "Who?"

They were shivering with the after-midnight chill of the cold room, andPrue was not home. Papa snapped his watch open and snapped it shut; andthe same to his jaw:

"Two o'clock! And Prue not home. I'm going after her!"

He thrust into his overcoat, slapped his hat on his aching head, flungopen the door. And Prue came home. 

She was alone! And in tears!

V

As papa's overcoat slid off his arms and his hat off his head she toredown her gloves, tossed her cloak in the direction of the hat-tree andstumbled up the stairs, sobbing. Her mother caught her hand. 

"What's the matter, honey?"

Prue wrenched loose and went on up. 

Father and mother stared at her, then at each other, then at the floor. Each read the same unspeakable fear in the other's soul. Serina ran upthe stairs as fast as she could. William automatically locked the doorsand windows, turned out the lights, and followed. 

He paused in the upper hall to listen. Prue was explaining at last. 

"It's that Orton Hippisley, " Prue sobbed. 

"What--what has he done?" Serina pleaded, and Prue sobbed on:

"Oh, he got fresh! Some of these fellas in this town think that becausea girl likes to have a good time and knows how to dance they can getfresh with her. I didn't like the way Ort Hippisley held me and I toldhim. Finally I wouldn't dance any more with him. I gave his dances toGrant Beadle till the last; then Ort begged so hard I said all right. And he danced like a gentleman. But on the way home he--he put his armround me. And when I told him to take it away he wouldn't. He said I hadbeen in his arms half the evening before folks, and if I hadn't mindedthen I oughtn't to mind now. And I said: 'Is that so? Well, it's mightydifferent when you're dancing. ' And he said, 'Oh no, it isn't, ' and Isaid, 'Oh yes, it is. ' And he tried to kiss me and I hauled off andsmashed him right in the nose. It bloodied all over his dress soot, andI'm glad of it. "

Somehow Papa Pepperall felt such an impulse to give three cheers that hehad to put his own hand over his mouth. He tiptoed to his room, and whenmamma appeared to announce with triumph, "I guess Prue hasn't gone tothe bad yet, " papa said: "Who said she had? Prue is the finest girl inAmerica!"

"I thought you were saying--"

"Why can't you ever once get me right? I was saying that Prue is toofine a girl to be allowed to mingle with that tango set. I'm going tocowhide that Hippisley cub. And Prue's not going to another one of thosedances. "

But he didn't. And she did. 

VI

Ollie was up betimes the next morning to get breakfast and make haste toher office. She was so excited that she dropped a stove-lid on thecoalscuttle just as her mother appeared. 

"For mercy's sake, less noise!" Serina whispered. "You'll wake poorPrue!"

Ollie next dropped the tray she had just unloaded on the table. Serinawas furious. Ollie whispered:

"I'm so nervous for fear I've lost my job at Judge Hippisley's, now thatPrue had to go and slap Orton. "

"Always thinking of yourself, " was Serina's rebuke. "Don't be soselfish!"

But Ollie's fears were wasted. Orton Hippisley might have boasted ofkisses he did not get, but not of the slaps that he did. He had gained anew respect for Prue, and at the first opportunity pleaded forforgiveness, eying her little fist the while. He begged her to go withhim to a dance at his home that evening. 

She forgave him for the sake of the invitation--and she glided anddipped at the judge's house while Ollie spent the evening in his officetrying to finish the day's work. Her speed was not yet up torequirements. Prue's speed was. 

Other girls watched Prue manipulating her members in the intricatemechanisms of the latest dances. They begged her to teach them, but shelaughed and said: "It's easy. Just watch what I do and do the same. "

So Raphael told his pupils and Napoleon his subordinates. 

That night Ollie and Prue reached home at nearly the same time. Ollietold how well she was getting along in the judge's office. Prue told howshe had made wall-flowers of everybody else in Mrs. Hippisley's parlor. Let those who know a mother's heart decide which daughter Serina was theprouder of, the good or the bad. 

She told William about it--how Ollie had learned to type letters withboth hands and how Prue got there with both feet. And papa said, "She'sa great girl!"

And that was singular. 

VII

A few mornings later Judge Hippisley stopped William on the street andspoke in his best bench manner:

"Will, I hate to speak about your daughter, but I've got to. "

"Why, Judge, what's Ollie done? Isn't she fast enough?"

"Ollie's all right. I'm speaking of Prue. She's entirely too fast. Iwant you to tell her to let my son alone. "

"Why, I--you--he--"

"My boy was clerking in Beadle's hardware-store, learning the businessand earning twelve dollars a week. And now he spends half his timedancing with that dam--daughter of yours. And Beadle is going to firehim if he doesn't 'tend to business better. "

"I--I'll speak to Prue, " was all Pepperall dared to say. The judge hadtoo many powers over him to be talked back to. 

Papa spoke to Prue and it amused her very much. She said that old Mr. Beadle had better speak to his own boy, who was Orton's fiercest rivalat the dances. And as for the fat old judge, he'd better take up dancinghimself. 

The following Sunday three of the Carthage preachers attacked the tango. One of them used for his text Matthew xiv:6, and the other used Markvi:22. Both told how John the Baptist had lost his head over Salome'sdancing. Doctor Brearley chose Isaiah lix:7 "Their feet run to evil . .. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are intheir paths. "

Mr. And Mrs. Pepperall and Ollie sat under Doctor Brearley. Prue hadslept too late to be present. Doctor Brearley blamed so many of theevils of the world on the tango craze that if a visitor from Mars haddropped into a pew he might have judged that the world had been an Edentill the tango came. But then Doctor Brearley had always blamed oldthings on new things. 

It was a ferocious sermon, however, and the wincing Pepperalls felt thatit was aimed directly at them. When Doctor Brearley denounced modernparents for their own godlessness and the irreligion of their homes, William took the blame to himself. On his way home he announced hisdetermination to resume the long-neglected family custom of reading fromthe Bible. 

After the heavy Sabbath dinner had been eaten--Prue was up in time forthis rite--he gathered his little flock in the parlor for a solemnwhile. It had been his habit to choose the reading of the day atrandom--he called it "letting the Lord decide. " The big rusty-hingedBible fell open with a loud puff of dust several years old. Papaadjusted his spectacles and read what he found before him:

"Nehemiah x: 'Now those that sealed were, Nehemiah, the Tirshatha, theson of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah, Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah, Pashur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush . .. '" He began to breathe hard. He was lostin an impenetrable forest of names, and he could not pronounce one ofthem. He sneaked a peek ahead, dimly made out "Bunni, Hizkijah, Magpiashand Hashub, " and choked. 

It looked like sacrilege, but he ventured to close the Book and open itonce more. 

This time he happened on the last chapter of the Book of Judges, whereinis the chronicle of the plight of the tribe of Benjamin, which could notget women to marry into it. The wife famine of the Benjamites was not inthe least interesting to Mr. Pepperall, but he would not tempt the Lordagain. So he read on, while the children yawned and shuffled, Prueespecially. 

Suddenly Prue sat still and listened, and papa's cough grew worse. Hewas reading about the "feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly, " and how theelders of the congregation ordered the children of Benjamin to go andlie in wait in the vineyards. 

"'And see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance indances, then come ye out of the vineyards and catch you every man hiswife of the daughters of Shiloh. .. . 

"'And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according totheir number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went andreturned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt inthem. .. . 

"'In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that whichwas right in his own eyes. "

He closed the Book and stole a glance at Prue. Her eyes were so brightwith triumph that he had to say:

"Of course that proves nothing about dancing. It doesn't say that theShiloh girls made good wives. "

Prue had the impudence to add, "And it doesn't say that the sons ofBenjamin were good dancers. "

Her father silenced her with a scowl of horror. Then he made a longprayer, directed more at his family than at the Lord. It apparently hadan equal effect on each. After a hymn had been mumbled through thefamily dispersed. 

Prue lingered just long enough to capture the Bible and carry it off toher room in a double embrace. Serina and William tried to be glad tosee her sudden interest, but they were a little afraid of her exactmotive. 

She made no noise at all and did not come down in time to help getsupper--the sad, cold supper of a Sunday evening. She slipped into thedining-room just before the family was called. Papa found at his plate aneat little stack of cards, bearing each a carefully lettered legend inPrue's writing. He picked them up, glanced at them, and flushed. 

"I dare you to read them, " said Prue. 

So he read: "'To every thing there is a season, and a time to everypurpose under the heaven . .. A time to mourn and a time to dance. .. . Hehath made every thing beautiful in his time. ' Ecclesiastes iii. 

"'Let them praise his name in the dance . .. For the Lord taketh pleasurein his people. .. . Praise him with the timbrel and dance. .. . Praise himupon the loud cymbals. ' Psalms cxlix, cl. 

"'O virgin of Israel . .. Thou shalt go forth in the dances of them thatmake merry. .. . Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both youngmen and old together. ' Jeremiah xxxi. 

"'We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced. ' Matthew xi: 17. 

"'Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw King Davidleaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in herheart. .. . Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto theday of her death. ' II Samuel vi: 16, 23. "

Papa did not fall back upon the Shakesperean defense that the devil canquote Scripture to his purpose. He choked a little and filled his handwith the apple-butter he was spreading on his cold biscuit. Then hesaid:

"It's not that I don't believe in dancing. I don't say all dances areimmor'l. "

"You better not, " said Serina, darkly. "You met me at a dance. We usedto dance all the time till you got so's you wouldn't take me to partiesany more. And you got so clumsy and I began to take on flesh, and ranshort of breath like. "

"Oh, there's mor'l dances as well as immor'l dances, " William confessed, not knowing the history of the opposition every dance has encountered inits younger days. "The waltz now, or the lancers or the Virginia reel. Even the two-step was all right. But this turkey-trot-tangobusiness--it's goin' to be the ruination of the home. It isn't fit fordecent folks to look at, let alone let their daughters do. I want youshould quit it, Prue. If you need exercise help your mother with thehousework. You go and tango round with a broom awhile. I don't see whyyou don't try to help your sister, too, and make something useful ofyourself. I tell you, in these days a woman ought to be able to earn herown living same's a man. You could get a good position in Shillaber'sdry-goods store if you only would. "

Prue wriggled her shoulders impatiently and said: "I guess I'm one ofthose Shiloh girls. I'll just dance round awhile, and maybe some richBenjamin gent'man will grab me and take me off your hands. "

VIII

One evening Prue came home late to supper after a session at BerthaAppleby's. An informal gathering had convened under the disguise of achurch-society meeting, only to degenerate into a dancing-bee after afew perfunctory formalities. 

Prue had just time to seize a bite before she went to dress for afrankly confessed dancing-bout at Eliza Erf's. As she ate with angryvoracity she complained:

"I guess I'll just quit going to dances. I don't have a bit of fun anymore. "

Her father started from his chair to embrace the returned prodigal, buthe dropped into Ollie's place as Prue exclaimed:

"Everybody is always at me for help. 'Prue, is this right?' 'Prue, teachme that. ' 'Oh, what did you do then?' 'Is it the inside foot or theoutside you start on?' 'Do you drop on the front knee or the hind?' 'Doyou do the Innovation?' Why, it's worse than teaching school!"

"Why don't you teach school?" said William, feebly. "There's going to bea vacancy in the kindergarten. "

Prue sniffed. "I see myself!" And went to her room to dress. 

Her father sank back discouraged. What ailed the girl? She simply wouldnot take life seriously. She would not lift her hand to help. When theywere so poor and the future so dour, how could she keep from earning alittle money? Was she condemned to be altogether useless, shiftless, unprofitable? A weight about her father's neck till he could shift herto the neck of some unhappy husband?

He remembered the fable of the ant and the locust. Prue was the locust, frivoling away the summer. At the first cold blast she would be pleadingwith the industrious ant, Ollie, to take her in. In the fable the locustwas turned away to freeze, but you couldn't do that with a human locust. The ants just have to feed them. Poor Ollie!

Munching this quinine cud of thought, he went up to bed. He was footsorefrom tramping the town for work. He had covered almost as much distanceas Prue had danced. He was all in. She was just going out. 

She kissed him good night, but he would not answer. She went to kiss hermother and Ollie and Horace. Ollie was practising shorthand, and kissedPrue with sorrowing patience. Horace dodged the kiss, but called herattention to an article in the evening paper:

"Say, Prue, if you want to get rich quick whyn't you charge for yourtango advice? Says here that teachers are springing up all over Noo Yorkand Chicawgo, and they get big, immense prices. "

"How much?" said Prue, indifferently. 

"Says here twenty-five dollars an hour. Some of 'em's earning a coupleof thousand dollars a week. "

This information went through the room like a projectile from acoast-defense gun. Serina listened with bated breath as Horace read theconfirmation. She shook her head:

"It beats all the way vice pays in this world. "

Horace read on. The article described how some of the most prominentwomen in metropolitan society were sponsoring the dances. A group ofladies, whose names were more familiar to Serina than the Christianmartyrs, had rented a whole dwelling-house for a dancing couple todisport in, so that the universal amusement could be practisedexclusively. 

That settled Serina. Whatever Mrs. ---- and Miss ---- and the mother ofthe Duchess of ---- did was better than right. It was swell. 

Prue's frown now was the frown of meditation. "If they chargetwenty-five dollars an hour in New York, what ought to be the price inCarthage?"

"About five cents a week, " said Serina, who did not approve of Carthage. "Nobody in this town would pay anything for anything. "

"We used to pay old Professor Durand to teach us to waltz and polka, "said Horace, "in the good old days before pop got the bankruptcy habit. "

That night Prue made an experiment. She danced exclusively with OrtHippisley and Grant Beadle, the surest-footed bipeds in the town. Whenmembers of the awkward squad pleaded to cut in she danced awayimpishly, will-o'-the-wispishly. When the girls lifted their skirts andasked her to correct their footwork she referred them to the articles inthe magazines. 

She was chiefly pestered by Idalene Brearley, daughter of the clergyman, and his chief cross. 

Finally Idalene Brearley tore Prue from the arms of Ort Hippisley, backed her into a corner, and said:

"Say, Prue, you've got to listen! I'm invited to visit the swellest homein Council Bluffs for a house-party. They call it a week-end; that showshow swell they are. They're going to dance all the time. When it comesto these new dances I'm weak at both ends, head and feet. " She laughedshamelessly at her own joke, as women do. "I don't want to go there likeI'd never been any place, or like Carthage wasn't up to date. I'm justbeginning to get the hang of the Maxixe and the Hesitation, and Ithought if you could give me a couple of days' real hard work I wouldn'tbe such an awful gump. Could you? Do you suppose you could? Or couldyou?"

Prue looked such astonishment at this that Idalene hastened to say:

"O' course I'm not asking you to kill yourself for nothing. How muchwould you charge? Of course I haven't much saved up; but I thought if Itook two lessons a day you could make me a special rate. How much wouldit be, d'you s'pose? Or what do you think?"

Prue wondered. This was a new and thrilling moment for her. A boy isexcited enough over the first penny he earns, but he is brought up toearn money. To a girl, and a girl like Prue, the luxury was almostintolerably intense. She finally found voice to murmur:

"How much you gettin' for the lessons you give?"

Idalene had, for the sake of pin money, been giving a few allegedlessons in piano, voice, water-colors, bridge whist, fancy stitching, brass-hammering, and things like that. She answered Prue withreluctance:

"I get fifty cents an hour. But o' course I make a specialty of thosethings. "

"I'm making a specialty of dancing, " said Prue, coldly. 

Idalene was torn between the bitterly opposite emotions of getting andgiving. Prue tried to speak with indifference, but she looked as greedyas the old miser in the "Chimes of Normandy. "

"Fifty cents suits me, seeing it's you. "

Idalene gasped: "Well, o' course, two lessons a day would be a dollar. Could you make it six bits by wholesale?"

Prue didn't see how she could. Teaching would interfere so with heramusements. Finally Idalene sighed:

"Oh, well, all right! Call it fifty cents straight. When can I come overto your house?"

"To my house?" gasped Prue. "Papa doesn't approve of my dancing. I'llcome to yours. "

"Oh no, you won't, " gasped Idalene. "My father doesn't dream that Idance. I'm going to let him sleep as long as I can. "

Here was a plight! Mrs. Judge Hippisley strolled up and demanded, "What's all this whispering about?"

They explained their predicament. Mrs. Hippisley thought it was aperfectly wonderful idea to take lessons. She would let Prue teachIdalene in her parlor if Prue would teach her at the same time fornothing. 

"Unless you think I'm too old and stupid to learn, " she added, fishingly. 

Prue put a catfish on her hook: "Oh, Mrs. Hippisley, I've seen womenmuch older and fatter and stupider than you dancing in Chicago. "

While the hours of tuition were being discussed Bertha Appleby tiptoedup to eavesdrop, and pleaded to be accepted as a pupil. And she forcedon the timorous Prue a quarter as her matriculation fee. 

Orton Hippisley beau'd Prue home that night, and they paused in anarcade of maples to practise a new step she had been composing in theback of her head. 

He was an apt pupil, and when they had resumed their homeward stroll sheneglected to make him take his arm away. Encouraged, he tried to kissher when they reached the gate. She cuffed him again, but this time herbuffet was almost a caress. She sighed:

"I can't get very mad at you, you're such a quick student. I hope yourmother will learn as fast. "

"My mother!" he exclaimed. 

"Yes. She wants me to teach her the one-step. "

"Don't you dare!"

"And why not?" she asked, with sultry calm. 

"Do you think I'll let my mother carry on like that? Well, hardly!"

"Oh, so what I do isn't good enough for your mother!"

"I don't mean just that; but can't you see--Wait a minute--"

She slammed the gate on his outstretched fingers and he went homefondling his wound. 

The next day he strolled by the parlor door at his own home, but Pruewould not speak to him and his mother was too busy to invite him in. Itamazed him to see how humble his haughty mother was before the hithertoneglected Prue. 

Prue would have felt sorrier for him if she had not been so exalted overher earnings. 

She had not let on at home about her class till she could lay the proofof her success on the supper-table. When she stacked up the entire twodollars that she had earned by only a few miles of trotting, it lookedlike the loot the mercenaries captured in that old Carthage which thenew Carthage had never heard of. 

The family was aghast. It was twice as much as Ollie had earned thatday. Ollie's money "came reg'lar, " of course, and would total up more inthe long run. 

But for Prue to earn anything was a miracle. And in Carthage two dollarsis two dollars, at the very least. 

IX

The news that Carthage had a tango-teacher created a sensation rivalingthe advent of its first street-car. It gave the place a metropolitanflavor. If it only had a slums district, now, it would be a great andgloriously wicked city. 

Prue was fairly besieged with applicants for lessons. Those who coulddance a few steps wanted the new steps. Those who could not dance at allwanted to climb aboard the ark. 

Mrs. Hippisley's drawing-room did not long serve its purpose. On thethird day the judge stalked in. He came home with a chill. At the sightof his wife with one knee up, trying to paw like a horse, his chillchanged to fever. His roar was heard in the kitchen. He was so used todomineering that he was not even afraid of his wife when he was in thefirst flush of rage. 

Prue and Idalene and Bertha he would have sentenced to deportation if hehad had the jurisdiction. He could at least send them home. Hethreatened his wife with dire punishments if she ever took another stepof the abominable dance. 

Prue was afraid of the judge, but she was not afraid of her own father. She told him that she was going to use the parlor, and he told her thatshe wasn't. The next day he came home to find the class installed. 

He peeked into the parlor and saw Bertha Appleby dancing with IdaleneBrearley. Prue was in the arms of old "Tawm" Kinch, the town scoundrel, a bald and wealthy old bachelor who had lingered uncaught like a wiseold trout in a pool, though generations of girls had tried every device, from whipping the' stream to tickling his sides. He had refused everybait and lived more or less alone in the big old mansion he hadinherited from his skinflint mother. 

At the sight of Tawm Kinch in his parlor embracing his daughter andbungling an odious dance with her, William Pepperall saw red. He wouldthrow the old brute out of his house. As he made his temper ready Mrs. Judge Hippisley hurried up the hall. She had walked round the block, crossed two back yards and climbed the kitchen steps to throw the judgeoff the scent. William could hardly make a scene before these women. Hecould only protest by leaving the house. 

He found that, having let the outrage go unpunished, once, it was hardto work up steam to drive it out the second day. Also he remembered thathe had asked Tawm Kinch for a position in his sash-and-blind factoryand Tawm had said he would see about it. Attacking Tawm Kinch would belike assaulting his future bread and butter. He kept away from the houseas much as he could, sulking like a punished boy. One evening as he wenthome to supper, purposely delaying as long as possible, he saw TawmKinch coming from the house. He ran down the steps like an urchin andseized William's hand as if he had not seen him for a long time. 

"Take a walk with me, Bill, " he said, and led William along anunfrequented side street. After much hemming and hawing he began: "Bill, I got a proposition to make you. I find there's a possibility of ap'sition openin' up in the works and maybe I could fit you into it ifyou'd do something for me. "

William tried not to betray his overweening joy. 

"I'd always do anything for you, Tawm, " he said. "I always liked you, always spoke well of you, which is more 'n I can say of some of theother folks round here. "

Tawm was flying too high to note the raw tactlessness of this; he wentright on:

"Bill--or Mr. Pepperall, I'd better say--I'm simply dead gone on thatgirl of yours. She's the sweetest, smartest, gracefulest thing that everstruck this town, and when I--Well, I'm afraid to ask her m'self, but Iwas thinkin' if you could arrange it. "

"Arrange what?"

"I want to marry her. I know I'm no kid, but she could have the bighouse, and I can be as foolish as anybody about spending money when I'vea mind to. Prue could have 'most anything she wanted and I could giveyou a good job. And then ever'body would be happy. "

X

Papa did his best to be dignified and not turn a handspring or shout forjoy. He was like a boy trying to look sad when he learns that theschool-teacher is ill. He managed to hold back and tell Tawm Kinch thatthis was kind of sudden like and he'd have to talk to the wife about it, and o' course the girl would have to be considered. 

He was good salesman enough not to leap at the first offer, and he leftTawm Kinch guessing at the gate of the big house. To Tawm it looked aslonely and forlorn as it looked majestic and desirable to PapaPepperall, glancing back over his shoulder as he sauntered home withdifficult deliberation. His heart was singing, "What a place to eatSunday dinners at!"

Once out of Tawm Kinch's range, he broke into a walk that was almost alope, and he rounded a corner into the portico that Judge Hippisleycarried ahead of him. When the judge had regained his breath he seizedpapa by both lapels and growled:

"Look here, Pepperall, I told you to keep your daughter away from myboy, and you didn't; and now Ort has lost his job. Beadle fired himto-day. And jobs ain't easy to get in this town, as you know. And nowwhat's going to happen?"

William Pepperall was so exultant that he tried to say two things at thesame time; that Orton's job or loss of it was entirely immaterial and amatter of perfect indifference. What he said was, "It's material ofperfect immaterence to me. "

He spurned to correct himself and stalked on, leaving the judge gaping. A few paces off William's knees weakened at the thought of how he hadjeopardized Ollie's position; but he tossed that aside with equal"immaterence, " for when Prue became Mrs. Kinch she could take Ollie tolive with her, or send her to school, or something. 

When he reached home he drew his wife into the parlor to break theglorious news to her. She was more hilarious than he had been. All theirfinancial problems were solved and their social position enhanced, as ifthe family had suddenly been elevated to the peerage. 

She was on pins and needles of impatience because Prue was late forsupper. She came down at last when the others had heard all about it andnearly finished their food. She had her hat on, and she was in such ahurry that she paid no attention to the fluttering of the covey, or theprolonged throat-clearing of her father, who had difficulty in keepingSerina from blurting out the end of the story first. At length he said:

"Well, Prue, I guess the tango ain't as bad as I made out. "

"You going to join the class, poppa?" said Prue, round the spoonful ofpreserved pears she checked before her mouth. 

Her father went on: "I guess you're one of those daughters of Shilohlike you said you was. And the son of Benjamin has come right out afteryou. And he's the biggest son of a gun in the whole tribe. "

Prue put down the following spoonful and turned to her mother: "Whatails poppa, momma? He talks feverish. "

Serina fairly gurgled: "Prepare yourself for the grandest surprise. You'd never guess. "

And William had to jump to beat her to the news: "Tawm Kinch wants tomarry you. "

"What?"

"Yep. "

"What makes you think so?"

"He asked me. "

"Asked you!"

Serina clasped her hands and her eyes filled with tears of the rescued. "Oh, Prue, ain't it wonderful? Ain't the Lord good to us?"

Prue did not catch fire from the blaze. She sniffed, "He wasn't verygood to Tawm Kinch. "

William, bitter with disappointment, snapped: "What do you mean? He'sthe richest man in town. Some folks say he's as good as worth a hundredthousand dollars. "

"Well, what of it? He'll never learn to dance. His feet interfere. "

"What's dancing got to do with it? You'll stop all that foolishnessafter you've married Tawm. "

"Oh, will I? Ort Hippisley can dance better with one foot than TawmKinch could dance if he was a centipede. "

"Ort Hippisley! Humph! He's lost his job and he'll never get another. You couldn't marry him. "

"I'm not in any hurry to marry anybody. "

The reaction from hope to confusion, the rejection of the glitteringgift he proffered, infuriated the hen-pecked, chickpecked father. Heshrieked:

"Well, you're going to marry Tawm Kinch or you're going to get out of myhouse!"

"Papa!" gasped Ollie. 

"Here, dad!" growled Horace. 

"William!" cried Serina. 

William thumped the table and rose to his full height. He had not oftenrisen to it. And his voice had an unsuspected timbre:

"I mean it. I've been a worm in this house long enough. Here's where Iturn. This girl has made me a laughing-stock and a despising-stock longenough. She can take this grand opportunity I got for her or she canpack up her duds and clear out--for good!"

He thumped the table again and sat down trembling with spent rage. Serina was so crushed under the crumbled wall of her air-castles thatshe could not protest. Olive and Horace felt that since Prue was soindifferent to their happiness they need not consider hers. There was along, long silence. 

The sound of a low whistle outside stole into the silence. Prue rose andsaid, quietly:

"Ollie, would you mind packing my things for me? I'll send over for themwhen I know where I'll be. "

Ollie tried to answer, but her lips made no sound. Prue kissed each ofthe solemn faces round the table, including her father's. They mighthave been dead in their chairs for all their response. She paused withprophetic loneliness. That low whistle shrilled again. 

She murmured a somber, "Good-by, everybody, " and went out. 

The door closed like a dull "Good-by. " They heard her swift feet slowlycrossing the porch and descending the steps. They imagined them upon thewalk. They heard the old gate squeal a rusty, "Good-by-y--Prue-ue!"

XI

It was Ort Hippisley, of course, that waited for Prue outside the gate. They swapped bad news. She had heard that he had lost his job, but notthat his father had forbidden him to speak to Prue. 

Her evil tidings that she had been compelled to choose between marryingTawm Kinch and banishment from home threw Ort into a panic of dismay. He was a natural-born dancer, but not a predestined hero. He had noinspirations for crises like these. He was as graceful as a manly mancould be, but he was not at his best when the hour was darkest. He wasat his best when the band was playing. 

In him Prue found somebody to support, not to lean on. But his distressat her distress was so complete that it endeared him to her war-likesoul more than a braver quality might have done. They stood awhile thusin each other's arms like a Pierrot and his Columbine with winter comingon. Finally Orton sighed:

"What in Heaven's name is goin' to become of us? What you goin' to do, Prue? Where can you go?"

Prue's resolution asserted itself. "The first place to go is Mrs. Prosser's boardin'-house and get me a room. Then we can go on to thedance and maybe that'll give us an idea. "

"But maybe Mrs. Prosser won't want you since your father's turned youout. "

"In the first place it was me that turned me out. In the second placeMrs. Prosser wants 'most anybody that's got six dollars a week comin'in. And I've got that, provided I can find a room to teach in. "

Mrs. Prosser welcomed Prue, not without question, not without everyquestion she could get answered, but she made no great bones of thefamily war. "The best o' families quar'ls, " she said. "And half the timethey take their meals with me till they quiet down. I'll be losin' yousoon. "

Prue broached the question of a room to teach in. To Mrs. Prosser, renting a room had always the joy of renting a room. She said that her"poller" was not used much and she'd be right glad to get something forit. She would throw in the use of the pianna. Prue touched the keys. Itwas an old boarding-house piano and sounded like a wire fence plucked;but almost anything would serve. 

So Prue and Orton hastened away to the party, and danced with the finalrapture of doing the forbidden thing under an overhanging cloud ofmenace. Several more pupils enlisted themselves in Prue's classes. Another problem was solved and a new danger commenced by Mr. NormanMaugans. 

The question of music had become serious. It was hard to make progresswhen the dancers had to hum their own tunes. Prue could not buy aphonograph, and the Prosser piano dated from a time when pianos did notplay themselves. Prue could "tear off a few rags, " as she put it, butshe could not dance and teach and play her own music all at once. Mrs. Hippisley was afraid to lend her phonograph lest the judge should noticeits absence. 

And now like a sent angel came Mr. Norman Maugans, who played thepipe-organ at the church, and offered to exchange his services asmusician for occasional lessons and the privilege of watching Pruedance, for which privilege, he said, "folks in New York would pay ahundred dollars a night if they knew what they was missin'. "

Prue grabbed the bargain, and the next morning began to teach him toplay such things as "Some Smoke" and "Leg of Mutton. "

At first he played "Girls, Run Along" so that it could hardly be toldfrom "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night?" and his waltzes were mostlyhesitation; but by and by he got so that he fairly tangoed on thepedals, and he was so funny bouncing about on the piano-stool to"Something Seems Tingle-ingle-ingle-ingling So Queer" that the pupilsstopped dancing to watch him. 

The tango was upon the world like a Mississippi at flood-time. Thelevees were going over one by one; or if they stood fast they stoodalone, for the water crept round from above and backed up from below. 

In Carthage, as in both Portlands, Maine and Oregon, and the two Cairos, Illinois and Egypt, the Parises of Kentucky and France, the Yorks andLondons, old and new; in Germany, Italy, and Japan, fathers, monarchs, mayors, editors stormed against the new dance; societies passedresolutions; police interfered; ballet-girls declared the dances immoraland ungraceful. The army of the dance went right on growing. 

Doctor Brearley called a meeting of the chief men of his congregation totalk things over and discipline, if not expel, all guilty members. Deacon Luxton was in a state of mind. He dared not vote in favor of thedance and he dared not vote against it. He and his wife were takinglessons from Prue surreptitiously at their own home. Judge Hippisley'svoice would have been louder for war if he had not discovered that hiswife was secretly addicted to the one-step. Old Doctor Brearley waswalking about rehearsing a sermon against it when he happened to enter aroom where Idalene was practising. He wrung from her a confession of thedepth of her iniquity. This knowledge paralyzed his enthusiasm. 

Sour old Deacon Flugal was loudly in favor of making an example of Prue. His wife was even more violent. She happened to mention her disgust toMrs. Deacon Luxton:

"I guess this'll put an end to the tango in Carthage!"

"Oh, I hope not!" Mrs. Luxton cried. 

"You hope not!"

"Yes, I do. It has done my husband no end of good. It's taken pounds andpounds of fat off him. It brings out the prespiration on him somethingwonderful. And it's taken years off his age. He's that spry and full ofjokes and he's gettin' right spoony. He used to be a tumble cut-up, andthen he settled down so there was no livin' with him. But now he keepsat me to buy some new clothes and he's thinkin' of gettin' a tuxeda. Hisold disp'sition seems to have come back and he's as cheerful and, oh, soaffectionate! It's like a second honeymoon. "

Mrs. Luxton gazed off into space with rapture. Mrs. Flugal was so silentthat Mrs. Luxton turned to see if she had walked away in disgust. Butthere was in her eyes that light that lies in woman's eyes, and sheturned a delicious tomato-red as she murmured:

"How much, do you s'pose, would a term of lessons cost for my husband?"

XII

Somehow the church failed to take official action. There was loudcriticism still, but phonographs that had hitherto been silent or atleast circumspect were heard to blare forth dance rhythms, and notalways with the soft needle on. 

Mrs. Prosser's boarders were mainly past the age when they were liableto temptation. At first the presence and activities of Prue had added atang of much-needed spice to this desert-island existence. They loved tostare through the door or even to sit in at the lessons. But at thefirst blast of the storm that the church had set up they scurried aboutin consternation. Mrs. Prosser was informed that her boarding-house wasno longer a fit place for church-fearing ladies. She was warned toexpurgate Prue or lose the others. Mrs. Prosser regretfully banished thegirl. 

And now Prue felt like the locust turned away from ant-hill afterant-hill. She walked the streets disconsolately. Her feet from old habitled her past her father's door. She paused to gaze at the dear frontwalk and the beloved frayed steps, the darling need of paint, thetime-gnawed porch furniture, the empty hammock hooks. She sighed andwould have trudged on, but her mother saw her and called to her from thesewing-room window, and ran out bareheaded in her old wrapper. 

They embraced across the gate and Serina carried on so that Prue had togo in with her to keep the neighbors from having too good a time. Pruetold her story, and Serina's jaw set in the kind of tetanus that mothersare liable to. She sent Horace to fetch Prue's baggage from "oldProsser's, " and she re-established Prue in her former room. 

When William came slumping up the steps, still jobless, he found thedoors locked, front and back, and the porch windows fastened. Serinafrom an upper sill informed him that Prue was back, and he could eitheraccept her or go somewhere else to live. 

William yielded, salving his conscience by refusing to speak to thegirl. Prue settled down with the meekness of returned prodigals for whomfatted calves are killed. According to the old college song, "TheProd. , " when he got back, "sued father and brother for time while away. "That was the sort of prodigal Prue was. Prue brought her classes withher. 

Papa Pepperall gave up the battle. He dared not lock his daughter in orout or up. He must not beat her or strangle her with a bowstring or dropher into the Bosporus. He could not sell her down the river. A modernfather has about as much authority as a chained watch-dog. He can jumpabout and bark and snap, but he only abrades his own throat. 

There were Pepperall feuds all over town. One by one the mostconservative were recruited or silenced. 

William Pepperall, however, still fumed at home and abroad, and JudgeHippisley would have authorized raids if there had been any places toraid. Thus far the orgies had been confined to private walls. There was, indeed, no place in Carthage for public dancing except the big room inthe Westcott Block over Jake Meyer's restaurant, and that room wasrented to various secret societies on various nights. 

Prue's class outgrew the parlor, spread to the dining-room, and trickledinto the kitchen. Here the growth had to stop, till it was learned thatif Mr. Maugans played very loud he could be heard in the bedroomsup-stairs. And there a sort of University Extension was practised forladies only. 

And still the demand for education increased. The benighted held outhands pleading for help. Young men and old offered fabulous sums, adollar a lesson, two dollars! Prue decided that if her mother would stayup-stairs as a chaperon it would be proper to let the men dance there, too. 

"But how am I going to cook the meals?" said mamma. 

"We'll hire a cook, " said Prue. And it was done. She even bought mammaa new dress, and established her above-stairs as a sort of grand duenna. 

Mamma watched Prue with such keenness that now and then, when Prue hadto rush down-stairs, mamma would sometimes solve a problem for one ofPrue's "scholars, " as she called them. 

One day papa came home to his pandemonium, jostled through thecouple-cluttered hall, stamped up-stairs, and found mamma showing DeaconFlugal how to do the drop-step. 

"You trot four short steps backward, " mamma was saying, "then you make alittle dip; but don't swing your shoulders. Prue says if you want todance refined you mustn't swing your shoulders or your--your--the restof you. "

Papa was ready to swing his shoulders and drop the deacon through thewindow, but as he was about to protest the deacon caught mamma in hisarms and swept backward, dropping his fourth step incisively on papa'sinstep, rendering papa _hors de combat_. 

By the time William had rubbed witch-hazel into the deacon's heel-mark, the deacon in a glorious "prespiration" had gone home with his ownbreathless wife ditto. William dragged Serina into the bathroom, theonly room where dancing was not in progress. He warned her not to forgetthat she had sworn to be a faithful wife. She pooh-poohed him and said:

"You'd better learn to dance yourself. Come on, I'll show you the JediaLuna. It's very easy and awful refined. Do just like I do. "

She put her hands on her hips and began to sidle. She had him nearlysidled into the bathtub before he could escape with the cry of a huntedanimal. At supper he thumped the table with another of his resolutions, and cried:

"My house was not built for a dance-hall!"

"That's right, poppa, " said Prue; "and it shakes so I'm afraid it'llcome down on us. I've been thinking that you'll have to hire me thelodge-room in the Westcott Block. I can give classes there all day. "

He refused flatly. So she persuaded Deacon Flugal and several gentlemenwho were on the waiting-list of her pupils to arrange it for her. 

And now all day long she taught in the Westcott Block. The noise of hermusic interfered with business--with lawyers and dentists and insuranceagents. At first they were hostile, then they were hypnotized. Lawyerand client would drop a title discussion to quarrel over a step. Thedentist's forceps would dance along the teeth, and many an uncomplainingbicuspid was wrenched from its happy home, many an uneasy molar assumeda crown. The money Prue made would have been scandalous if money did nottend to become self-sterilizing after it passes certain dimensions. 

By and by the various lodge members found their meetings and theirsecret rites to be so stupid, compared with the new dances, that almostnobody came. Quorums were rare. Important members began to resign. Everybody wanted to be Past Grand Master of the Tango. 

The next step was the gradual postponement of meetings to permit of alittle informal dancing in the evening. The lodges invited their ladiesto enter the precincts and revel. Gradually the room was given overnight and day to the worship of Saint Vitus. 

XIII

The solution of every human problem always opens another. People dancedthemselves into enormities of appetite and thirst. It was not that foodwas attractive in itself. Far from it. It was an interruption, adistraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon ofecstasy. But it was necessary in order that strength might be kept upfor further dancing. 

Deacon Flugal put it happily: "Eating is just like stoking. When I'mgiving a party at our house I hate to have to leave the company and godown cellar and throw coal in the furnace. But it's got to be did or theparty's gotter stop. "

Carthage had one good hotel and two bad ones, but all three were "downnear the deepo. " Almost the only other place to eat away from home was"Jake Meyer's Place, " an odious restaurant where the food was ill chosenand ill cooked, and served in china of primeval shapes as if stone hadbeen slightly hollowed out. 

Prue was complaining that there was no place in Carthage where peoplecould dance with their meals and give "teas donsons. " Horace was smittenwith a tremendous idea. 

"Why not persuade Jake Meyer to clear a space in his rest'runt like theydo in Chicawgo?"

Prue was enraptured, and Horace was despatched to Jake with the profferof a magnificent opportunity. Horace cannily tried to extract from Jakethe promise of a commission before he told him. Jake promised. ThenHorace sprang his invention. 

Now Jake was even more bitter against the tango than Doctor Brearley, Judge Hippisley, or Mr. Pepperall. The bar annex to his restaurant, orrather the bar to which his restaurant was annexed, had been almostdeserted of evenings since the vicious dance mania raged. Thebowling-alley where the thirst-producing dust was wont to arise inclouds was mute. Over his head he heard the eternal Maugans and themyriad-hoofed shuffle of the unceasing dance. When he understood whatHorace proposed he emitted the roar of an old uhlan, and the onlycommission he offered Horace was the commission of murder upon hisperson. 

Horace retreated in disorder and reported to Prue. Prue called upon Jakeherself, smilingly told him that all he needed to do was to crowd histables together round a clear space, revolutionize his menu, get a cookwho would cook, and spend about five hundred dollars on decorations. 

"Five hundret thalers!" Jake howled. "I sell you de whole shop for fivehundret thalers. "

"I'll think it over, " said Prue as she walked out. 

She could think over all of it except the five hundred dollars. She hadnever thought that high. She told Horace, and he said that the way tofinance anything was to borrow the money from the bank. 

Prue called on Clarence Dolge, the bank president she knew best. Heasked her a number of personal questions about her earnings. He wassurprised at their amount and horrified that she had saved none of them. He advised her to start an account with him; but she reminded him thatshe had not come to put in, but to take out. 

He said that he would cheerfully lend her the money if she could get aproper indorsement on her note. She knew that her father did not indorseher dancing, but perhaps he might feel differently about her note. 

"I might get poppa to sign his name, " she smiled. 

Mr. Dolge exclaimed, "No, thank you!" without a moment's hesitation. Healready had a sheaf of papa's autographs, all duly protested. 

She went to another bank, whose president announced that he would haveto put the very unusual proposal before the directors. Judge Hippisleywas most of the directors. The president did not report exactly what thedirectors said, for Prue, after all, was a woman. But she did not getthe five hundred. 

Prue had set her heart on providing Carthage with a _café dansant_. Shedetermined to save her money. Prue saving!

It was hard, too, for shoes gave out quickly and she could not wear thesame frock all the time. And sometimes at night she was so tired shejust could not walk home and she rode home in a hack. A number of youngmen offered to buggy-ride her home or to take her in their littleautomobiles. But they, too, seemed to confuse art and business withfoolishness. 

Sometimes she would ask Ort to ride home with her, but she wouldn't lethim pay for the hack. Indeed he could not if he would. His devotion toPrue's school had cost him his job, and the judge would not give him apenny. 

Sometimes in the hack Prue would permit Ort to keep his arm round her. Sometimes when he was very doleful she would have to ask him to put itround her. But it was all right, because they were going to get marriedwhen Orton learned how to earn some money. He was afraid he would haveto leave Carthage. But how could he tear himself from Prue? She wouldnot let him talk about it. 

XIV

Now the fame of Prue and her prancing was not long pent up in Carthage. Visitors from other towns saw her work and carried her praises home. Sometimes farmers, driving into town, would hear Mr. Maugans's musicthrough the open windows. Their daughters would climb the stairs andpeer in and lose their taste for the old dances, and wistfully entreatPrue to learn them them newfangled steps. 

In the towns smaller than Carthage the anxiety for the tango fermented. A class was formed in Oscawanna, and Prue was bribed to come over twicea week and help. 

Clint Sprague, the manager of the Carthage Opera House, which was nowchiefly devoted to moving pictures, with occasional interpolations ofvaudeville, came home from Chicago with stories of the enormous moneysobtained by certain tango teams. He proposed to book Prue in a chain ofsmall theaters round about, if she could get a dancing partner. She saidshe had one. 

Sprague wrote glowing letters to neighboring theater-managers, but, being theater-managers, they were unable to know what their publicswanted. They declined to take any risks, but offered Sprague theirhouses at the regular rental, leaving him any profits that might result. 

Clint glumly admitted that it wouldn't cost much to try it out inOscawanna. He would guarantee the rental and pay for the show-cards andthe dodgers; Prue would pay the fare and hotel bills of herself, herpartner, and Mr. Maugans. 

Prue hesitated. It was an expense and a risk. Prue cautious! She wouldtake nobody for partner but Orton Hippisley. Perhaps he could borrow themoney from his father. She told him about it, and he was wild withenthusiasm. He loved to dance with Prue. To invest money in enlargingher fame would be divine. 

He saw the judge. Then he heard him. 

He came back to Prue and told her in as delicate a translation as hecould manage that it was all off. The judge had bellowed at him that notonly would he not finance his outrageous escapade with that shamelessPepperall baggage, but if the boy dared to undertake it he would disownhim. 

"Now you'll have to go, " said Prue, grimly. 

"But I have no money, honey, " he protested, miserably. 

"I'll pay your expenses and give you half what I get, " she said. 

He refused flatly to share in the profits. His poverty consented toaccept the railroad fare and food enough to dance on. And he would paythat back the first job he got. 

Then Prue went to Clint Sprague and offered to pay the bills if he wouldgive her three-fourths of the profits. He fumed; but she drove a goodbargain. Prue driving bargains! At last he consented, growling. 

When Prue announced the make-up of her troupe there was a cyclone in herown home. Papa was as loud as the judge. 

"You goin' gallivantin' round the country with that Maugans idiot andthat young Hippisley scoundrel? Well, I guess not! You've disgraced usenough in our own town, without spreading the poor but honorable name ofPepperall all over Oscawanna and Perkinsville and Athens and Thebes. "

The worn-out, typewritten-out Ollie pleaded against Prue's lawlessness. It would be sure to cost her her place in the judge's office. It was badenough now. 

Even Serina, who had become a mere echo of Prue, herself went so far asto say, "Really, Prue, you know!"

Prue thought awhile and said: "I'll fix that all right. Don't you worry. There'll be no scandal. I'll marry the boy. "

XV

And she did! Took ten dollars from the hiding-place where she banked herwealth, and took the boy to an Oscawanna preacher, and telegraphed homethat he was hers and she his and both each other's. 

The news spread like oil ablaze on water. Mrs. Hippisley had consentedto take lessons of Prue, but she had never dreamed of losing her eldestson to her. She and Serina had quite a "run-in" on the telephone. William and the judge almost had a fight-out--and right on Main Street, too. 

Each accused the other of fathering a child that had decoyed away andruined the life of the other child. Both were so scorched with helplesswrath that each went home to his bed and threatened to bite any handthat was held out in comfort. Judge Hippisley had just strength enoughto send word to poor Olive that she was fired. 

XVI

The next news came the next day. Oscawanna had been famished for a sightof the world-sweeping dances. It turned out in multitudes to see thefamous Carthage queen in the new steps. The opera-house there had notheld such a crowd since William J. Bryan spoke there--the time he didnot charge admission. According to the Oscawanna _Eagle_: "Thisenterprising city paid one thousand dollars to see Peerless PruePepperall dance with her partner Otto Hipkinson. What you got to sayabout that, ye scribes of Carthage?"

Like the corpse in Ben King's poem, Judge Hippisley sat up at the newsand said: "What's that?" And when the figures were repeated he "droppeddead again. "

The next day word was received that Perkinsville, jealous of Oscawanna, had shoveled twelve hundred dollars into the drug-store where ticketswere sold. Two sick people had nearly died because they couldn't gettheir prescriptions filled for twelve hours, and the mayor of the townhad had to go behind the counter and pick out his own stomach bitters. 

The Athens theater had been sold out so quickly that the town hall wasengaged for a special matinée. Athens paid about fifteen hundreddollars. The Athenians had never suspected that there was so much moneyin town. People who had not paid a bill for months managed to dig upcash for tickets. 

Indignant Oscawanna wired for a return engagement, so that those who hadbeen crowded out could see the epoch-making dances. Those who had seenthem wanted to see them again. In the mornings Prue gave lessons toselect classes at auction prices. 

Wonderful as this was, unbelievable, indeed, to Carthage, it was notsurprising. This blue and lonely dispeptic world has always been readyto enrich the lucky being that can tempt its palate with something itwants and didn't know it wanted. Other people were leaping from povertyto wealth all over the world for teaching the world to dance again. Pruecaught the crest of the wave that overswept a neglected region. 

The influence of her success on her people and her neighbors was boundto be overwhelming. The judge modulated from a contemptuous allusion to"that Pepperall cat" to "my daughter-in-law. " Prue's father, who hadnever watched her dance, had refused to collaborate even that far in herruination, could not continue to believe that she was entirely lostwhen she was so conspicuously found. 

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the world is so wholesome and so wellbalanced that nobody ever attained enormous prosperity without someexcuse for it. People who contribute the beauty, laughter, thrills, andrhythm to the world may do as much to make life livable as people whoinvent electric lights and telephones and automobiles. Why should theynot be paid handsomely?

Prue, the impossible, unimaginable Prue, triumphed home safely withseveral thousands of dollars in her satchel. Orton bought a revolver toguard it with, and nearly shot one of his priceless feet off with it. They dumped the money upon the shelf of the banker who had refused tolend Prue five hundred dollars. He had to raise the steel grating to getthe bundle in. The receiving teller almost fainted and had to count ittwice. 

Clint Sprague alone was disconsolate. He had refused to risk Prue'sexpenses, had forced her to take the lioness's share of the actual costsand the imaginary profits. He almost wept over what he might have had, despising what he had. 

Prue ought to have been a wreck; but there is no stimulant like success. In a boat-race the winning crew never collapses. Prue's mother beggedher to rest; her doctor warned her that she would drop dead. But shesmiled, "If I can die dancing it won't be so bad. "

Even more maddeningly joyful than the dancing now was the rhapsody ofincome. To be both Salome and Hetty Green! Mr. Dolge figured out herincome. At any reasonable rate of interest it represented a capital farbigger than Tawm Kinch's mythical hundred thousand. Mr. Dolge said toWilliam Pepperall:

"Bill, your daughter is the richest man in town. Any time you want toborrow a little money, get her name on your note and I'll be glad to letyou have it. "

Somehow his little pleasantry brought no smile to William's face. Hesnapped:

"You mind your own business and I'll mind mine. "

"Oh, I suppose you don't have to borrow it, " Dolge purred; "she justgives it to you. "

William almost wept at this humiliation. 

Prue bought out Jake Meyer's restaurant. She spent a thousand dollars onits decoration. She consoled Ollie with a position as her secretary attwenty-five dollars a week and bought her some new dresses. 

Her mother scolded poor Ollie for being such a stick as not to be ableto dance like her sister and having to be dependent on her. There wassomething hideously immoral and disconcerting about this success. Butthen there always is. Prue was whisked from the ranks of the resentfulpoor to those of the predatory rich. 

Prue established Horace as cashier of the restaurant. She wanted to makeher father manager, but he could not bend his pride to the yoke oftaking wages from his child. If she had come home in disgrace andrepentance he could have been a father to her. 

The blossoming of what had been Jake Meyer's place into what Carthagecalled the "Palais de Pepperall" was a festival indeed. The newspapers, in which at Horace's suggestion Prue advertised lavishly, gave the eventhead-lines on the front page. The article included a complete catalogueof those present. This roster of forty "Mesdames" was thereafteraccepted as the authorized beadroll of the Carthage Four Hundred. Mrs. Hippisley was present and as proud as Judy. But the judge and WilliamPepperall were absent, and Prue felt an ache in a heart that should havebeen so full of pride. She and Orton rode home in a hack and she criedall the way. In fact, he had to stick his head out and tell the driverto drive round awhile until she was calm enough to go home. 

A few days later, as Prue was hurrying along the street looking over alist of things she had to purchase for her restaurant, she encounteredold Doctor Brearley, who was looking over a list of subscribers to thefund for paying the overdue interest on the mortgage on the new steeple. He was afraid the builders might take it down. 

In trying to pass each other Prue and the preacher fell into aninvoluntary tango step that delighted the witnesses. When DoctorBrearley had recovered his composure, and before he had adjusted hisspectacles, he thought that Prue was Bertha Appleby, and he said:

"Ah, my dear child, I was just going to call on you and see if youcouldn't contribute a little to help us out in this very worthy cause. "

Prue let him explain, and then she said:

"Tell you what I'll do, Doctor: I'll give you the entire proceeds of myrestaurant for one evening. And I'll dance for you with my husband. "

Doctor Brearley was aghast when he realized the situation. He was afraidto accept; afraid to refuse. He was in an excruciating dilemma. Prue hadmercy on him. She said:

"I'll just announce it as an idea of my own. You needn't have anythingto do with it. "

The townspeople were set in a turmoil over Prue's latest audacity. Halfthe church members declared it an outrage; the other half decided thatit gave them an opportunity to see her dance under safe auspices. FoxyPrue!

XVII

The restaurant was crowded with unfamiliar faces, terrified at what theywere to witness. Doctor Brearley had not known what to do. It seemed somean to stay away and so perilous to go. His daughter solved theproblem by telling him that she would say she had made him come. He wentso far as to let her drag him in. "But just for a moment, " heexplained. "He really must leave immediately after Mr. And Mrs. Hippisley's--er--exercises. " He apparently apologized to the otherguests, but really to an outraged heaven. 

He trembled with anxiety on the edge of his chair. The savagery of themusic alarmed him. When Prue walked out with her husband the old Doctorwas distressed by her beauty. Then they danced and his heart thumped;but subtly it was persuaded to thump in the measure of that unholyMaxixe. He did not know that outside in the street before the twowindows stood two exiled fathers watching in bitter loneliness. 

He saw a little love drama displayed, and reminded himself that, afterall, some critics said that the Song of Solomon was a kind of weddingdrama or dance. After all, Mrs. Hippisley was squired by her perfectlyproper and very earnest young husband--though Orton in his black clotheswas hardly more than her shifting shadow. 

The old preacher had been studying his Cruden, and bolstering himselfup, too, with the very Scriptural texts that Prue had written out forher stiff-necked father. He had met other texts that she had not knownhow to find. The idea came to the preacher that, in a sense, since Godmade everything He must have made the dance, breathed its impulse intothe clay. 

This daughter of Shiloh was an extraordinarily successful piece ofworkmanship. There was nothing very wicked surely about that coquettishbending of her head, those playful escapes from her husband's embrace, that heel-and-toe tripping, that lithe elusiveness, that joyous psalmodyof youth. 

Prue was so pretty and her ways so pretty that the old man felt thepathos of beauty, so fleet, so fleeting, so lyrical, so full of--Alas!The tears were in his eyes, and he almost applauded with the others whenthe dance was finished. He bowed vaguely in the direction of the anxiousPrue and made his way out. She felt rebuked and condemned and would notbe comforted by the praise of others. She did not know that the oldpreacher had encountered on the sidewalk Judge Hippisley. DoctorBrearley had forgotten that the judge had not yet ordered his owndecision reversed, and he thought he was saying the unavoidable thingwhen he murmured:

"Ah, Judge, how proud you must be of your dear son's dear wife. I fancythat Miriam, the prophetess, must have danced something like that on thebanks of the Red Sea when the Egyptians were overthrown. "

Then he put up the umbrella he always carried and stumbled back to hisparsonage under the star-light. His heart was dancing a trifle, and heescaped the scene of wrath that broke out as soon as he was away. 

For William Pepperall had a lump in his throat made up of equal parts ofdesire to cry and desire to fight, and he said to Judge Hippisley withall truculence:

"Look here, Judge! I understand you been jawin' round this town about mydaughter not being all she'd ought to be. Now I'm goin' to put a stop tothat jaw of yours if I have to slam it right through the top of yourhead. If you want to send me to jail for contemp' of court, sentence mefor life, because that's the way I feel about you, you fat old--"

Judge Hippisley put up wide-open hands and protested:

"Why, Bill, I--I just been wonderin' how I could get your daughter tomake up with me. I been afraid to ask her for fear she'd just think Iwas toadyin' to her. I think she's the finest girl ever came out ofCarthage. Do you suppose she'd make up and--and come over to our houseto dinner Sunday?"

"Let's ask her, " said William, and they walked in at the door. 

XVIII

Early one morning about six months from the first dismal Monday morningafter William Pepperall's last bankruptcy, Serina wakened to find thatWilliam was already up. She had been oversleeping with that luxury whicha woman can experience only in an expensive and frilly nightie combinedwith hemstitched linen sheets. She opened her heavy andslumber-contented eyes to behold her husband in a suit of partly-silkpajamas. He was making strange motions with his feet. "What on earth youdoing there?" she yawned, and William grinned. 

"Yestiddy afternoon the judge was showin' me a new step in this MaxHicks dance. It's right cute. Goes like this. "

Mamma Pepperall watched him cavort a moment, then sniffedcontemptuously, and rolled out like a fireman summoned. 

"Not a bit like it! It goes like this. "

A few minutes later the door opened and Ollie put her head in. 

"For Heaven's sake be quiet! You'll wake Prue, and she's all wore out;and she's only got an hour more before they have to get up and take thetrain for Des Moines. "

The old rascals promised to be good, but as soon as she had gone theywrangled in whispers and danced on tiptoes. Suddenly Prue put her headin at the door and gasped:

"What in Heaven's name are you and poppa up to? Do you want to wakeOrton?"

Papa had to explain:

"I got a new step, Prue. Goes like this. Come on, momma. "

Serina shyly took her place in his arms; but they had taken only a fewstrides when Prue hissed:

"Sh-h! Don't do it! Stop it!"

"Why?"

"In the first place it's out of date. And in the second place it's notrespectable. "

Then the hard-working locust, having rebuked the frivolous ants, wentback to bed. 

"A" AS IN "FATHER"

I

For two years life at Harvard was one long siesta to Orson Carver, 2d. And then he fell off the window-seat. Orson Carver, 1st, ordered him towake up and get to work at once. Orson announced to his friends that hewas leaving college to pay an extensive visit to "Carthage" and itsounded magnificent until he added, "in the Middle West. "

A struggling young railroad had succumbed to hard times out there, andOrson senior had been appointed receiver. It was the Carthage, Thebes &Rome Railroad, connecting three towns whose names were larger than theirpopulations. 

Since Orson had seemed unable to decide what career to choose, if any, his father decided for him--decided that he should take up railroadingand begin at the beginning, which was the office at Carthage. And Orsonwent West to "grow up young man with the country. "

Carthage bore not the faintest resemblance to the moving-picture life ofthe West; he didn't see a single person on horseback. Yet his motherthought of him as one who had vanished into the Mojave desert. She wroteto warn him not to drink the alkali water. 

Young Orson, regarding the villagers with patient disdain, was amazed tofind that they were patronizing him with amusement. They spoke of hisadored Boston as an old-fogy place with "no git-up-and-git. "

Orson's mother was somewhat comforted when he wrote her that the youngwomen of Carthage were noisy rowdies dressed like frumps. She was atrifle alarmed when she read in his next letter that some of them werenot half bad-looking, surprisingly well groomed for so far West, andfairly attractive till they opened their mouths. Then, he said, theytwanged the banjo at every vowel and went over the letter "r" as if itwere a bump in the road. He had no desire for blinders, but he said thathe would derive comfort from a pair of ear-muffs. By and by he waswriting her not to be worried about losing him, for there was safety innumbers, and Carthage was so crowded with such graces that he couldnever single out one siren among so many. The word "siren" forced hismother to conclude that even their voices had ceased to annoy him. Sheexpected him to bring home an Indian squaw or a cowgirl bride on anytrain. 

And so Orson Carver was by delicate degrees engulfed in the life ofCarthage. He was never assimilated. He kept his own "dialect, " as theycalled it. 

The girl that Orson especially attended in Carthage was Tudie Litton, as pretty a creature as he could imagine or desire. For manifest reasonshe affected an interest in her brother Arthur. And Arthur, with acharacteristic brotherly feeling, tried to keep his sister in her place. He not only told her that she was "not such a much, " but he also said toOrson:

"You think my sister is some girl, but wait till you see Em Terriberry. She makes Tudie look like something the pup found outside. Just you waittill you see Em. She's been to boarding-school and made some swellfriends there, and they've taken her to Europe with 'em. Just you wait. "

"I'll wait, " said Orson, and proceeded to do so. 

But Em remained out of town so long that he had begun to believe her amyth, when one day the word passed down the line that she was cominghome at last. 

That night Tudie murmured a hope that Orson would not be so infatuatedwith the new-comer as to cast old "friends" aside. She underlined theword "friends" with a long, slow sigh like a heavy pen-stroke, and notwithout reason, for the word by itself was mild in view of the fact thatthe "friends" were seated in a motionless hammock in a moon-shelteredporch corner and holding on to each other as if a comet had struck theearth and they were in grave danger of being flung off the planet. 

Orson assured Tudie: "No woman exists who could come between us!" And awoman must have been supernaturally thin to achieve the feat at thatmoment. 

But even Tudie, in her jealous dread, had no word to say against theimminent Em. Everybody spoke so well of her that Orson had a mingledexpectation of seeing an Aphrodite and a Sister of Charity rolled intoone. 

Now Carthage was by no means one of those petty towns where nearlyeverybody goes to the station to meet nearly every train. But nearlyeverybody went down to see Em arrive. Foremost among the throng wasArthur Litton. Before Em left town he and she had been engaged "onapproval. " While she was away he kept in practice by taking Liddy Soveyto parties and prayer-meetings and picnics. Now that Em was on the wayhome Arthur let Liddy drop with a thud and groomed himself once more towear the livery of Em's fiancé. 

When the crowd met the train it was recognized that Arthur was next inimportance to Em's father and mother. Nobody dreamed of pushing up aheadof him. On the outskirts of the mêlée stood Orson Carver. He gaverailroad business as the pretext for his visit to the station, and hehovered in the offing. 

As the train from the East slid in, voices cried, "Hello, Em!" "Woo-oo!""Oh, Em!" "Oh, you Emma!" and other Carthage equivalents for "_Ave!_"and "all hail!"

Orson saw that a girl standing on the Pullman platform waved ahandkerchief and smiled joyously in response. This must be Em. When thetrain stopped with a pneumatic wail she descended the steps like a youngqueen coming down from a dais. 

She was gowned to the minute; she carried herself with metropolitanpoise; her very hilarity had the city touch. Orson longed to dashforward and throw his coat under her feet, to snatch away the porter'shand-step and put his heart there in its place. But he could not dothese things unintroduced. He hung back and watched her hug her motherand father in a brief wrestling-match while Arthur stood by in simperinghomage. 

When she reached out her hand to Arthur he wrung it and clung to it withthe dignity of proprietorship and a smirk that seemed to say: "I ownthis beautiful object, and I could kiss her if I wanted to. And shewould like it. But I am too well bred to do such a thing in the presenceof so many people. "

Orson was not close enough to hear what he actually said. The glow inhis eyes, however, was enough. Then Em visibly spoke. When her lipsmoved Arthur stared at her aghast; seemed to ask her to repeat what shesaid. She evidently did. Now Arthur looked askance as if her wordsshocked him. 

Her father and mother, too, exchanged glances of dismay and chagrin. Thethrong of friends pressing forward in noisy salutation was silenced asif a great hand were clapped over every murmurous mouth. 

Orson wondered what terrible thing the girl could have spoken. There wasnothing coarse in her manner. Delicacy and grace seemed to mark her. Andwhatever it was she said she smiled luminously when she said it. 

The look in her eyes was incompatible with profanity, mild soever. Yether language must have been appalling, for her father and mother blushedand seemed to be ashamed of bringing her into the world, sorry that shehad come home. The ovation froze away into a confused babble. 

What could the girl have said?

II

Orson was called in by the station agent before he could question any ofthe greeters. When he was released the throng had dispersed. TheTerriberrys had clambered into the family surrey and driven home withtheir disgrace. 

But that night there was a party at the Littons', planned in Emma'shonor. Tudie had invited Orson to be present. 

He found that the one theme of conversation was Emma. Everybody said tohim, "Have you seen Emma?" and when he said "Yes, " everybody demanded, "Have you heard her?" and when he said "No" everybody said, "Just youwait!"

Orson was growing desperate over the mystery. He seized Newt Elkey bythe arm and said, "What does she do?"

"What does who do?"

"This Miss Em Terriberry. Everybody says, 'Have you heard her?'"

"Well, haven't you?"

"No! What under the sun does she say?"

"Just you wait. 'Shh!"

Then Emma came down the stairs like a slowly swooping angel. 

She had seemed a princess in her traveling-togs; in her evening gown--!Orson had not seen such a gown since he had been in Paris. He imaginedthis girl poised on the noble stairway of the Opéra there. Em camefloating down upon these small-town girls with this fabric from heavenlylooms, and reduced them once for all to a chorus. 

But there was no scorn in her manner and no humility in her welcome. TheCarthage girls frankly gave her her triumph, yet when she reached thefoot of the stairs and the waiting Arthur she murmured something thatbroke the spell. The crowd rippled with suppressed amusement. Arthurflushed. 

Orson was again too remote to hear. But he could feel the wave ofderision, and he could see the hot shame on Arthur's cheeks. Emma bentlow for her train, took Arthur's arm, and disappeared into the parlorwhere the dancing had begun. 

Orson felt his arm pinched, and turned to find Tudie looking at him. "This is our dance, " she said, "unless you'd rather dance with her. "

"With her? With Miss Terriberry, you mean?"

"Naturally. You were staring at her so hard I thought your eyes wouldroll out on the floor. "

There was only one way to quell this mutiny, and that was to soothe itaway. He caught Tudie in his arms. It was strenuous work bumping aboutin that little parlor, and collisions were incessant, but he wooed Tudieas if they were afloat in interstellar spaces. 

They collided oftenest with Arthur and his Emma, for the lucky youth whoheld that drifting nymph seemed most unhappy in his pride. The girl wastalking amiably, but the man was grim and furtive and as careless of hissteering as a tipsy chauffeur. 

Orson forgot himself enough to comment to Tudie, "Your brother doesn'tseem to be enjoying himself. "

"Poor boy, he's heartbroken. "

"Why?"

"He's so disappointed with Em. "

"I can't see anything wrong with her. "

"Evidently not; but have you heard her?"

In a sudden access of rage Orson stopped short in the middle of theswirl, and, ignoring the battery of other dancers, demanded, "InHeaven's name, what's the matter with the girl?"

"Nothing, I should judge from the look on your face after your closeinspection. "

"Oh, for pity's sake, don't begin on me; but tell me--"

"Talk to her and find out, " said Tudie, with a twang that resounded asthe music came to a stop. "Oh, Em--Miss Terriberry, this is Mr. Carver;he's dying to meet you. "

She whirled around so quickly that he almost fell into the girl's arms. She received him with a smile of self-possession: "Chahmed, Mr. Cahveh. "

Orson's Eastern ears, expecting some horror of speech, felt delightinstead. She did not say "charrmed" like an alarm-clock breaking out. She did not trundle his name up like a wheelbarrow. She softened the "a"and ignored the "r. "

Tudie rolled the "r" on his ear-drums as with drum-sticks, and bycontrast the sound came to him as: "Misterr Carrverr comes fromHarrvarrd. He calls it Havvad. "

"Oh, " said Em, with further illumination, "I woah the Hahvahd colohs thelahst time I went to a game. "

Orson wanted to say something about her lips being the perfect Havvadcrimson, but he did not quite dare--yet. And being of New England, hewould always be parsimonious with flatteries. 

Tudie hooked her brother's arm and said with an angelic spitefulness, "We'll leave you two together, " and swished away. 

Orson immediately asked for the next dance and Em granted it. While theywere waiting for the rheumatic piano to resume they promenaded. Orsonnoted that everybody they passed regarded them with a sly and cynicalamusement. It froze all the language on his lips, and the girl was stillbreathing so fast from the dance that she apologized. Orson wanted totell her how glorious she looked with her cheeks kindled, her lipsparted, and her young bosom panting. But he suppressed the feverishimpulse. And he wondered more and more what ridiculous quality theCarthaginians could have found in her who had returned in such splendor. 

The piano exploded now with a brazen impudence of clamor. Orson openedhis arms to her, but she shook her head: "Oh, I cahn't dahnce again justyet. You'd bettah find anothah pahtnah. "

She said it meekly, and seemed to be shyly pleased when he said he muchpreferred to sit it out. And they sat it out--on the porch. Moonlightcould not have been more luscious on Cleopatra's barge than it wasthere. The piazza, which needed paint in the daylight, was blue enameledby the moon. The girl's voice was in key with the harmony of the hourand she brought him tidings from the East and from Europe. They were asgrateful as home news in exile. 

He expected to have her torn from him at any moment. But, to hisamazement, no one came to demand her. They were permitted to situndisturbed for dance after dance. She was suffering ostracism. The morehe talked to her the more he was puzzled. Even Arthur did not appear. Even the normal jealousy of a fiancé was not evident. Orson's brain grewfrantic for explanation. The girl was not wicked, nor insolent. Sheplainly had no contagious disease, no leprosy, no plague, not even acold. Then why was she persecuted?

He was still fretting when the word was passed that supper was ready, and they were called in. Plates and napkins were handed about byobliging young gallants; chicken salad and sandwiches were dealt outwith a lavish hand, and ice-cream and cake completed the banquet. 

Arthur had the decency to sit with Em and to bring her things to eat, but he munched grimly at his own fodder. Orson tagged along and sat onthe same sofa. It was surprising how much noise the guests made whilethey consumed their food. The laughter and clatter contrasted with thesoft speech of Em, all to her advantage. 

When the provender was gone, and the plates were removed, Tudie whiskedOrson away to dance with her. As he danced he noted that Em was awall-flower, trying to look unconcerned, but finally seeking shelter bythe side of Tudie's mother, who gave her scant hospitality. 

Tudie began at once, "Well, have you found out?"

"No, I haven't. "

"Didn't you notice how affected she is?"

"No more than any other girl. "

"Oh, thank you! So you think I'm affected. "

"Not especially. But everybody is, one way or another--even the animalsand the birds. "

"Really! And what is my affectation?"

"I don't know, and I wouldn't tell you if I did. What's MissTerriberry's?"

"Didn't you dahnce with her?"

"Yes. "

"Well, that's it. "

"What's that?"

"She says 'dahnce, ' doesn't she?"

"I believe she does. "

"Well, she used to say 'dannce' like the rest of us. "

"What of it? Is it a sin to change?"

"It's an affectation. "

"Why? Is education an affectation?"

"Oh! so you call the rest of us uneducated?"

"For Heaven's sake, no! You know too much, if anything. But what hasthat to do with Miss Terriberry?"

Because their minds were at such loggerheads their feet could not keepmeasure. They dropped out of the dance and sought the porch, while Tudieraged on:

"She has no right to put on airs. Her father is no better than mine. Whois she, anyway, that she should say 'dahnce' and 'cahn't' and'chahmed'?"

Orson was amazed at the depths of bitterness stirred up by a merequestion of pronunciation. He answered, softly: "Some of the meekestpeople in the world use the soft 'a. ' I say 'dahnce. '"

"Oh, but you can't help saying it. "

"Yes, I could if I tried. "

"But you were born where everybody talks like that. Em was born outhere. "

"She has traveled, though. "

"So have I. And I didn't come back playing copy-cat. "

"It's natural for some people to mimic others. She may not be asstrong-minded as you are. " He thought that rather diplomatic. "Besides'dannce' and 'cann't' aren't correct. "

"Oh yes, they are!"

"Oh no, they're not! Not by any dictionary ever printed. "

"Then they'd better print some more. Dictionaries don't know everything. They're very inconsistent. "

"Naturally. "

"Now you say 'tomahto' where I say 'tomayto. '"

"Yes. "

"Why don't you say 'potahto'?"

"Because nobody does. "

"Well, nobody that was born out here says 'dahnce' and 'cahn't. '"

"But she's been East and in Europe, and--where's the harm of it, anyway?What's your objection to the soft 'a'?"

"It's all right for those that are used to it. "

"But you say 'father. ' Why don't you say 'rather' to rhyme with it?"

"Don't be foolish. "

"I'm trying not to be. "

"Well, then, don't try to convince me that Em Terriberry is a wonderfulcreature because she's picked up a lot of foreign mannerisms and comeshome thinking she's better than the rest of us. We'll show her--theconceited thing! Her own father and mother are ashamed of her, andArthur is so disgusted the poor boy doesn't know what to do. I think heought to give her a good talking to or break off the engagement. "

Orson sank back stunned at the ferocity of her manner. He beheld howgreat a matter a little fire kindleth. It was so natural to him to speakas Miss Terriberry spoke that he could not understand the hatred thealien "a" and the suppressed "r" could evoke among those native to theflat vowel and the protuberant consonant. He was yet to learn to whatlengths disputes could go over quirks of speech. 

III

The very "talking to" that Tudie believed her brother ought to give hisbetrothed he was giving her at that moment at the other end of theporch. Arthur had hesitated to attempt the reproof. It was not pleasantto broach the subject, and he knew that it was dangerous, since Em washigh-spirited. Even when she expressed a wonder at the coolness ofeverybody's behavior he could not find the courage for the lectureseething in his indignant heart. 

He was worrying through a perfunctory consolation: "Oh, you just imaginethat people are cold to you, Em. Everybody's tickled to death to haveyou home. You see, Em--"

"I wish you wouldn't call me Em, " she said. 

"It's your name, isn't it?"

"It's a part of my old name; but I've changed Emma to Amélie. After thisI want to be called Amélie. "

If she had announced her desire to wear trousers on the street, or tosmoke a pipe in church, or even to go in for circus-riding, he could nothave been more appalled than he was at what she said. 

"Amélie?" he gasped. "What in the name of--of all that's sensible isthat for?"

"I hate Em. It's ugly. It sounds like a letter of the alphabet. I likeAmélie better. It's pretty and I choose it. "

"But look here, Em--"

"Amélie. "

"This is carrying things too blamed far. "

He was not entirely heedless of her own welfare. He had felt theanimosity and ridicule that had gathered like sultry electricity in theatmosphere when Emma had murmured at the station those words that Orsonhad not heard. 

Orson, seated with Tudie at one end of the porch, heard them now at theother end of the porch as they were quoted with mockery by Arthur. Orsonand Tudie forgot their own quarrel in the supernal rapture ofeavesdropping somebody's else wrangle. 

"When you got off the train, " Arthur groaned, "you knocked me off mypins by what you said to your father and mother. "

"And what did I say?" said Em in innocent wonder. 

"You said, 'Oh, my dolling m'mah, I cahn't believe it's you'!"

"What was wrong with that?"

"You used to call her 'momma' and you called me 'darrling. ' And youwouldn't have dared to say 'cahn't'! When I heard you I wanted to die. Then you grabbed your father and gurgled, 'Oh, p'pah, you deah oldangel!' I nearly dropped in my tracks, and so did your father. And thenyou turned to me and I knew what was coming! I tried to stop you, but Icouldn't. And you said it! You called me 'Ahthuh'!"

"Isn't that your name, deah?"

"No, it is not! My name is 'Arrthurr' and you know it! 'Ahthuh'! what doyou think I am? My name is good honest 'Arrthurr. '" He said it like agood honest watch-dog, and he gnarred the "r" in the manner that madethe ancients call it the canine letter. 

Amélie, born Emma, laughed at his rage. She tried to appease him. "Ithink 'Ahthuh' is prettiah. It expresses my tendah feelings bettah. Theway you say it, it sounds like garrgling something. "

But her levity in such a crisis only excited her lover the more. "Everybody at the station was laughing at you. To-night when youtraipsed down the stairs, looking so pretty in your new dress, you hadto spoil everything by saying: 'What a chahming pahty. Shall we dahnce, Ahthuh?' I just wanted to die. "

The victim of his tirade declined to wither. She answered: "I cahn'ttell you how sorry I am to have humiliated you. But if it's a sin tospeak correctly you'll have to get used to it. "

"No, I won't; but you'll get over it. You can live it down in time; butdon't you dare try to change your name to Amélie. They'd laugh you outof Carthage. "

"Oh, would they now? Well, Amélie is my name for heahaftah, and if youdon't want to call me that you needn't call me anything. "

"Look here, Em. "

"Amélie. "

"Emamélie! for Heaven's sake don't be a snob!"

"You're the snob, not I. There's just as much snobbery in sticking tomispronunciation as there is in being correct. And just as muchaffectation in talking with a burr as in dropping it. You think it's allright for me to dress as they do in New York. Why shouldn't I talk thesame way? If it's all right for me to put on a pretty gown and weah myhaiah the most becoming way, why cahn't I improve my name, too? Youcahn't frighten me. I'm not afraid of you or the rest of your backwoodsfriends. Beauty is my religion, and if necessary I'll be a mahtah toit. "

"You'll be a what?"

"A mahtah. "

"Do you mean a motto?"

"I mean what you'd call a marrtyrr. But I won't make you one. I'llrelease you from our engagement, and you can go back to Liddy Sovey. Iunderstand you've been rushing her very hahd. And you needn't take mehome. I'll get back by the gahden pahth. "

She rose and swept into the house, followed by her despairing swain. 

Orson and Tudie eavesdropped in silence. Tudie was full of scorn. Amélie's arguments were piffle or worse to her, and her willingness toundergo "martyrdom" for them was the most arrant pigheadedness, as themartyrdom of alien creeds usually is. 

Orson, the alien, was full of amazement. Here was a nice young man inlove with a beautiful young woman. He had been devoted for years, andnow, because she had slightly altered her habits in one vowel and oneconsonant, their love was curdled. 

IV

Greater wars have begun from less causes and been waged more fiercely. They say that an avalanche can be brought down from a mountain by awhispered word. Small wonder, then, that the murmur of a vowel and themurder of a consonant should precipitate upon the town of Carthage thestored-up snows of tradition. Business was dull in the village and anyexcitement was welcome. Before Emma's return there had been a certainslight interest in pronunciation. 

Orson Carver had for a time stimulated amusement by his droll talk. Hehad been suspected for some time of being an impostor because he spokeof his university as "Havvad. " The Carthaginians did not expect him tocall it "Harrvarrd, " as it was spelled, but they had always understoodthat true graduates called it "Hawvawd, " and local humorists won muchlaughter by calling it "Haw-haw-vawd. " Orson had bewildered them furtherby a sort of cockneyism of misappropriated letters. He used the flat "a"in words where Carthaginians used the soft, as in his own name and hisuniversity's. He saved up the "r" that he dropped from its rightfulplace and put it on where it did not belong, as in "idear. " He hadprovoked roars of laughter one evening when a practical joker requestedhim to read a list of the books of the Bible, and he had mentioned"Numbas, Joshuar, Ezrar, Nehemiar, Estha, Provubbs, Isaiar, Jeremiar. "

Eventually he was eclipsed by another young man sent to a post in theC. , T. & R. Railroad by an ambitious parent--Jefferson Digney, of Yale. Digney, born and raised in Virginia and removed to Georgia, had takenhis accent to New Haven and taken it away with him unsullied. HisSouthern speech had given Carthage acute joy for a while. 

Arthur Litton had commented once on the contrast between Orson andJefferson. "Neither of you can pronounce the name of his State, " saidArthur. "He calls it 'Jawja' and you call it 'Jahjar. '"

"What should it be?"

"Jorrjuh. "

"Really!"

"You can't pronounce your own name. "

"Oh, cahn't I?"

"No, you cahn't I. You call it 'Cavveh. ' He calls it 'Cyahvah. '"

"What ought it to be?"

"Carrvurr--as it's spelt. "

Yet another new-comer to the town was an Englishman, Anthony Hopper, ayounger son of a stock-holder abroad. He was not at all the Englishmanof the stage, and the Carthaginians were astonished to find that he didnot drop his "h's" or misapply them. And he never once said "fawncy, "but flat "fancy. " He did not call himself "Hanthony 'Opper, " as theyexpected. But he did take a "caold bahth in the mawning. "

With a New Englander, an old Englander, and an Atlantan in the town, Carthage took an astonishing interest in pronunciation that winter. Whenconversation flagged anybody could raise a laugh by referring to theiroutlandish pronunciations. Quoting their remarks took the place of suchparlor games as trying to say "She sells sea shells, " or "The seaceaseth and it sufficeth us. "

The foreigners entered into the spirit of it and retorted withburlesques of Carthagese. They were received with excellentsportsmanship. One might have been led to believe that the Carthaginianstook the matter of pronunciation lightly, since they could laughtolerantly at foreigners. This, however, was because the foreigners hadmissed advantages of Carthaginian standards. 

Emma Terriberry's crime was not in her pronunciation, but in the factthat she had changed it. Having come from Carthage, she must foreverremain a Carthagenian or face down a storm of wrath. Her quarrel withher lover was the beginning of a quarrel with the whole town. 

Arthur Litton became suddenly a hero, like the first man wounded in awar. The town rallied to his support. Emma was a heartless wretch, whohad insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject atoady to the hateful East as she was. Her new name became a byword. Herpronunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. Shewas accused of things that she never had said, things that nobody couldever say. 

They inflicted on her the impossible habit of consistency. She wasreported as calling a hat a "hot, " a rat a "rot, " of teaching her littlesister to read from the primer, "Is the cot on the mot?" Pronunciationbecame a test of character. The soft "r" and the hard "a" were taken asproofs of effeminate hypocrisy. 

Carthage differed only in degree, not in kind, from old Italy at thetime of the "Sicilian Vespers, " when they called upon everybody topronounce the word "ciceri. " The natives who could say "chee-cheree"escaped, but the poor French who could come no nearer than "seeseree"were butchered. Gradually now in Carthage the foreigners fromMassachusetts, Georgia, England, and elsewhere ceased to be regardedwith tolerance. Their accents no longer amused. They gave offense. 

In the railroad office there were six or seven of these new-comers. Theywere driven together by indignation. They took up Amélie's cause; madeher their queen; declined invitations in which she was not included;gave parties in her honor: took her buggy-riding. Each had his day. 

A few girls could not endure her triumph. They broke away from the foldand became renegades, timidly softening their speech. This infuriatedthe others, and the town was split into Guelph and Ghibelline. 

Amélie enjoyed the notoriety immensely. She flaunted her success. Sheridiculed the Carthage people as yokels. She burlesqued their jargon asoutrageously as they hers. 

The soda-water fountains became battle-fields of backbiting and mockery. The feuds were as bitter, if not as deadly, as those that flourishedaround the fountains in medieval Italian towns. Two girls would perch onthe drug-store stools back to back, and bicker in pretended ignoranceof each other's presence. Tudie Litton would order "sahsahpahrillah, "which she hated, just to mock Amélie's manner; and Amélie, assuming tobe ignorant of Tudie's existence, would retort by ordering "astrorrburry sody wattur. " Then each would laugh recklessly butmiserably. 

The church at which the Terriberrys worshiped was almost torn apart bythe matter. The more ardent partisans felt that Amélie's unrepentantsoul had no right in the sacred edifice. Others urged that there shouldbe a truce to factions there, as in heaven. One Sunday dear old Dr. Brearley, oblivious of the whole war, as of nearly everything else lessthan a hundred years away, chose as his text Judges xii: 6:

"Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: forhe could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slewhim at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of theEphraimites forty and two thousand. "

If the anti-Amélites had needed any increase of enthusiasm they got itnow. They had Scripture on their side. If it were proper for the men ofGilead, where the well-known balm came from, to slay forty-two thousandpeople for a mispronunciation, surely the Carthaginians had authority tostand by their "alturrs" and their "fi-urs" and protect them from thosewho called them "altahs" and "fiahs. "

No country except ours could foster such a feud. No language except thechaos we fumble with could make it possible. By and by the war wore outof its own violence. People ceased to care how a thing was said, andbegan to take interest again in what was said. Those who had mimickedAmélie had grown into the habit of mimicry until they half forgot theirscorn. The old-time flatness and burr began to soften from attrition, tobe modified because they were conspicuous. You would have heard Arthursubduing his twang and unburring the "r. " If you had asked him he wouldhave told you his name was either "Arthuh" or "Ahthur. "

Amélie and her little bodyguard, on the other hand, grew so nervous ofthe sacred emblems that they avoided their use. When they came to a wordcontaining an "a" or a final "r" they hesitated or sidestepped and letit pass. Amélie fell into the habit of saying "couldn't" for "cahn't, "and "A. M. " for "mawning. "

People began to smile when they met her, and she smiled back. Slowlyeverybody that had "not been speaking" began speaking, bowing, chatting. Now, when one of the disputed words drifted into the talk, each tried toconcede a little to the other's belief, as soldiers of the blue and thegray trod delicately on one another's toes after peace was decreed. Everybody was now half and half, or, as Tudie vividly spoke it, "haffand hahf. " You would hear the same person say "haff-pahst ten, ""hahf-passt eleven, " and "hahf-pahst twelve. "

Carthage became as confused in its language as Alsace-Lorraine. 

V

All through this tremendous feud Orson Carver had been faithful toAmélie. Whether he had given Tudie the sack or she him was neverdecided. But she was loyal to her dialect. He ceased to call; Tudieceased to invite him. They smiled coldly and still more coldly, and thenshe ceased to see him when they met. He was simply transparent. 

Orson was Amélie's first cavalier in Carthage. He found her mightilyattractive. She was brisk of wit and she adored his Boston and his ways. She was sufficiently languorous and meek in the moonlight, too--anexcellent hammock-half. 

But when the other Outlanders had begun to gather to her standard itcrowded the porch uncomfortably. 

Dissension rose within the citadel. Orson's father had foughtJefferson's father in 1861-65. The great-grandfathers of both of themhad fought Anthony Hopper's forefathers in '76-83. The pronunciations ofthe three grew mutually distasteful, and dreadful triangular rows tookplace on matters of speech. 

Amélie sat in silence while they wrangled, and her thoughts reverted toArthur Litton. He had loved her well enough to be ashamed of her andrebuke her. She was afraid that she had been a bit of a snob, a triflecaddish. She had aired her new accent and her new clothes a trifle tooinsolently. Old customs grew dear to her like old slippers. Sheremembered the Littons' shabby buggy and the fuzzy horse, and the drivesArthur and she had taken under the former moons. 

Her father and mother had shocked her with their modes of speech whenshe came home, and she had ventured to rebuke them. She felt now thatthey ought to have spanked her. A great tenderness welled up in herheart for them and their homely ways. She wanted to be like them. 

The village was taking her back into its slumberous comfortableness. 

She would waken from her reveries to hear the aliens arguing their alienrules of speech. It suddenly struck her that they were all wrong, anyway. She felt an impulse to run for a broom and sweep them off intospace. She grew curt with them. They felt the chill and dropped away, all but Orson. At last his lonely mother bullied his father intorecalling him from the Western wilds. 

He called on Amélie to bid a heartbreaking good-by. He was disconsolate. He asked her to write to him. She promised she would. He was excited tothe point of proposing. She declined him plaintively. She could neverleave the old folks. "My place is here, " she said. 

He left her and walked down the street like a moving elegy. 

He suffered agonies of regret till he met a girl on the East-boundtrain. She was exceedingly pretty and he made a thrilling adventure ofscraping acquaintance with her mother first, and thus with her. Theywere returning to Boston, too. They were his home folks. 

When at last the train hurtled him back into Massachusetts he had almostforgotten that he had ever been in Carthage. He had a sharp awakening. 

When he flung his arms about his mother and told her how glad he was tosee her, her second exclamation was: "But how on uth did you acquiahthat ghahstly Weste'n accent?"

 * * * * *

One evening in the far-off Middle West the lonely Amélie was sitting inher creaking hammock, wondering how she could endure her loneliness, plotting how she could regain her old lover. She was desperatelyconsidering a call upon his sister. She would implore forgiveness forher sin of vanity and beg Tudie's intercession with Arthur. She hadnearly steeled herself to this glorious contrition when she heard awarning squeal from the front gate, a slow step on the front walk, andhesitant feet on the porch steps. 

And there he stood, a shadow against the shadow. In a sorrowful voice hemumbled, "Is anybody home?"

"I am!" she cried. "I was hoping you would come. "

"No!"

"Yes. I was just about ready to telephone you. "

There was so much more than hospitality in her voice that he stumbledforward. Their shadows collided and merged in one embrace. 

"Oh, Amélie!" he sighed in her neck. 

And she answered behind his left ear: "Don't call me Amélie any more. Ilike Em betterr from you! It's so shorrt and sweet--as you say it. We'llforget the passt forreverr. "

"Am! my dolling!"

"Oh, Arrthurr!"

THE END

RECENT BOOKS OF TRAVEL

 * * * * *

_IN VACATION AMERICA_ By HARRISON RHODES

_In this book of leisurely wanderings the author journeys among thevarious holiday resorts of the United States from Maine to AtlanticCity, Newport, Bar Harbor, the Massachusetts beaches, Long Island Sound, the Great Lakes, Niagara, ever-young Greenbriar White and other VirginiaSprings, Saratoga, White Mountains, the winter resorts of Florida, theCarolinas and California. _ Illustrated in Color

 * * * * *

_ALONG NEW ENGLAND ROADS_

By WILLIAM C. PRIME

_All those who are on the lookout for an unusual way to spend a vacationwill find suggestions here. This book of leisurely travel in NewHampshire and Vermont has been reprinted to meet the demand for a workthat has never failed to charm since its first publication more than adecade ago. _ Illustrated

 * * * * *

_AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS_ By NORMAN DUNCAN

_In this book the author gives a chatty account of his trip along theoutskirts of Australian civilization. The big cities were merely passedthrough, and the journeying was principally by stage-coach, oncamel-back, or by small coastal steamers from Western Australia to NewGuinea. _ Illustrated in Tint

 * * * * *

_CALIFORNIA: An Intimate History_

By GERTRUDE ATHERTON

_The California of to-day and the California of yesterday with itspicturesque story, are set forth in this book by the one writer whocould bring to it the skill united with that love for the task of aCalifornian-born, Gertrude Atherton. This story of California covers thevaried history of the state from its earliest geological beginnings downto the California of 1915. _ Illustrated

 * * * * *

RECENT BOOKS OF VERSE

_POEMS_ BY DANA BURNET

_Poems of to-day, of living persons, of present hopes and fears. Thereare stirring poems on the great war: "The Battle of Liège, " "Dead on theField of Honor, " "Sunk by a Mine, " "The Glory of War, " etc. , Poems ofPanama, of its ancient swashbuckler pirates and its moderncanal-builders; Poems About Town and Dialect Poems. _

Post 8vo, Cloth

 * * * * *

_DREAMS AND DUST_ BY DON MARQUIS

_A book of lyrics and other poems written in the major key ofcheerfulness and hope. "I sting too hot with life to whine, " says theauthor. Mr. Marquis has filled successfully many different verse formswith the wine of his interest in life. _

Post 8vo, Cloth

 * * * * *

_THE LAUGHING MUSE_ By ARTHUR GUITERMAN

_A book of humorous verses on various subjects ranging from prehistoricbeasts to Bernard Shaw. The ballads are mock-heroic, parodies of theballads of chivalry. In other verses the Puritans, the Dutch inhabitantsof New Amsterdam are gently satirized. _

Post 8vo, Cloth

 * * * * *

HARPER & BROTHERS

NEW YORK ESTABLISHED 1817 LONDON