Waifs and Strays

by

O Henry

PART I

TWELVE STORIES

CONTENTS

 The Red Roses of Tonia Round The Circle The Rubber Plant's Story Out of Nazareth Confessions of a Humorist The Sparrows in Madison Square Hearts and Hands The Cactus The Detective Detector The Dog and the Playlet A Little Talk About Mobs The Snow Man

THE RED ROSES OF TONIA

A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The south-boundfrom San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On thattrain was Tonia Weaver's Easter hat. 

Espirition, the Mexican, who had been sent forty miles in a buckboardfrom the Espinosa Ranch to fetch it, returned with a shrugging shoulderand hands empty except for a cigarette. At the small station, Nopal, he had learned of the delayed train and, having no commands to wait, turned his ponies toward the ranch again. 

Now, if one supposes that Easter, the Goddess of Spring, cares any morefor the after-church parade on Fifth Avenue than she does for her loyaloutfit of subjects that assemble at the meeting-house at Cactus, Tex. , a mistake has been made. The wives and daughters of the ranchmen ofthe Frio country put forth Easter blossoms of new hats and gowns asfaithfully as is done anywhere, and the Southwest is, for one day, amingling of prickly pear, Paris, and paradise. And now it was GoodFriday, and Tonia Weaver's Easter hat blushed unseen in the desert airof an impotent express car, beyond the burned trestle. On Saturdaynoon the Rogers girls, from the Shoestring Ranch, and Ella Reeves, fromthe Anchor-O, and Mrs. Bennet and Ida, from Green Valley, would conveneat the Espinosa and pick up Tonia. With their Easter hats and frockscarefully wrapped and bundled against the dust, the fair aggregationwould then merrily jog the ten miles to Cactus, where on the morrowthey would array themselves, subjugate man, do homage to Easter, andcause jealous agitation among the lilies of the field. 

Tonia sat on the steps of the Espinosa ranch house flicking gloomilywith a quirt at a tuft of curly mesquite. She displayed a frown and acontumelious lip, and endeavored to radiate an aura of disagreeablenessand tragedy. 

"I hate railroads, " she announced positively. "And men. Men pretendto run them. Can you give any excuse why a trestle should burn? IdaBennet's hat is to be trimmed with violets. I shall not go one steptoward Cactus without a new hat. If I were a man I would get one. "

Two men listened uneasily to this disparagement of their kind. One wasWells Pearson, foreman of the Mucho Calor cattle ranch. The other wasThompson Burrows, the prosperous sheepman from the Quintana Valley. Both thought Tonia Weaver adorable, especially when she railed atrailroads and menaced men. Either would have given up his epidermis tomake for her an Easter hat more cheerfully than the ostrich gives uphis tip or the aigrette lays down its life. Neither possessed theingenuity to conceive a means of supplying the sad deficiency againstthe coming Sabbath. Pearson's deep brown face and sunburned light hairgave him the appearance of a schoolboy seized by one of youth'sprofound and insolvable melancholies. Tonia's plight grieved himthrough and through. Thompson Burrows was the more skilled andpliable. He hailed from somewhere in the East originally; and he woreneckties and shoes, and was made dumb by woman's presence. 

"The big water-hole on Sandy Creek, " said Pearson, scarcely hoping tomake a hit, "was filled up by that last rain. "

"Oh! Was it?" said Tonia sharply. "Thank you for the information. Isuppose a new hat is nothing to you, Mr. Pearson. I suppose you thinka woman ought to wear an old Stetson five years without a change, asyou do. If your old water-hole could have put out the fire on thattrestle you might have some reason to talk about it. "

"I am deeply sorry, " said Burrows, warned by Pearson's fate, "that youfailed to receive your hat, Miss Weaver--deeply sorry, indeed. If therewas anything I could do--"

"Don't bother, " interrupted Tonia, with sweet sarcasm. "If there wasanything you could do, you'd be doing it, of course. There isn't. "

Tonia paused. A sudden sparkle of hope had come into her eye. Herfrown smoothed away. She had an inspiration. 

"There's a store over at Lone Elm Crossing on the Nueces, " she said, "that keeps hats. Eva Rogers got hers there. She said it was thelatest style. It might have some left. But it's twenty-eight miles toLone Elm. "

The spurs of two men who hastily arose jingled; and Tonia almostsmiled. The Knights, then, were not all turned to dust; nor were theirrowels rust. 

"Of course, " said Tonia, looking thoughtfully at a white gulf cloudsailing across the cerulean dome, "nobody could ride to Lone Elm andback by the time the girls call by for me to-morrow. So, I reckon I'llhave to stay at home this Easter Sunday. "

And then she smiled. 

"Well, Miss Tonia, " said Pearson, reaching for his hat, as guileful asa sleeping babe. "I reckon I'll be trotting along back to Mucho Calor. There's some cutting out to be done on Dry Branch first thing in themorning; and me and Road Runner has got to be on hand. It's too badyour hat got sidetracked. Maybe they'll get that trestle mended yet intime for Easter. "

"I must be riding, too, Miss Tonia, " announced Burrows, looking at hiswatch. "I declare, it's nearly five o'clock! I must be out at mylambing camp in time to help pen those crazy ewes. "

Tonia's suitors seemed to have been smitten with a need for haste. Theybade her a ceremonious farewell, and then shook each other's hands withthe elaborate and solemn courtesy of the Southwesterner. 

"Hope I'll see you again soon, Mr. Pearson, " said Burrows. 

"Same here, " said the cowman, with the serious face of one whose friendgoes upon a whaling voyage. "Be gratified to see you ride over toMucho Calor any time you strike that section of the range. "

Pearson mounted Road Runner, the soundest cow-pony on the Frio, and lethim pitch for a minute, as he always did on being mounted, even at theend of a day's travel. 

"What kind of a hat was that, Miss Tonia, " he called, "that you orderedfrom San Antone? I can't help but be sorry about that hat. "

"A straw, " said Tonia; "the latest shape, of course; trimmed with redroses. That's what I like--red roses. "

"There's no color more becoming to your complexion and hair, " saidBurrows, admiringly. 

"It's what I like, " said Tonia. "And of all the flowers, give me redroses. Keep all the pinks and blues for yourself. But what's the use, when trestles burn and leave you without anything? It'll be a dry oldEaster for me!"

Pearson took off his hat and drove Road Runner at a gallop into thechaparral east of the Espinosa ranch house. 

As his stirrups rattled against the brush Burrows's long-legged sorrelstruck out down the narrow stretch of open prairie to the southwest. 

Tonia hung up her quirt and went into the sitting-room. 

"I'm mighty sorry, daughter, that you didn't get your hat, " said hermother. 

"Oh, don't worry, mother, " said Tonia, coolly. "I'll have a new hat, all right, in time to-morrow. "

When Burrows reached the end of the strip of prairie he pulled hissorrel to the right and let him pick his way daintily across a sacuistaflat through which ran the ragged, dry bed of an arroyo. Then up agravelly hill, matted with bush, the hoarse scrambled, and at lengthemerged, with a snort of satisfaction into a stretch of high, levelprairie, grassy and dotted with the lighter green of mesquites in theirfresh spring foliage. Always to the right Burrows bore, until in alittle while he struck the old Indian trail that followed the Nuecessouthward, and that passed, twenty-eight miles to the southeast, through Lone Elm. 

Here Burrows urged the sorrel into a steady lope. As he settledhimself in the saddle for a long ride he heard the drumming of hoofs, the hollow "thwack" of chaparral against wooden stirrups, the whoop ofa Comanche; and Wells Pearson burst out of the brush at the right ofthe trail like a precocious yellow chick from a dark green Easter egg. 

Except in the presence of awing femininity melancholy found no place inPearson's bosom. In Tonia's presence his voice was as soft as a summerbullfrog's in his reedy nest. Now, at his gleesome yawp, rabbits, amile away, ducked their ears, and sensitive plants closed their fearfulfronds. 

"Moved your lambing camp pretty far from the ranch, haven't you, neighbor?" asked Pearson, as Road Runner fell in at the sorrel's side. 

"Twenty-eight miles, " said Burrows, looking a little grim. Pearson'slaugh woke an owl one hour too early in his water-elm on the riverbank, half a mile away. 

"All right for you, sheepman. I like an open game, myself. We're twolocoed he-milliners hat-hunting in the wilderness. I notify you. Burr, to mind your corrals. We've got an even start, and the one that getsthe headgear will stand some higher at the Espinosa. "

"You've got a good pony, " said Burrows, eyeing Road Runner'sbarrel-like body and tapering legs that moved as regularly as thepistonrod of an engine. "It's a race, of course; but you're too muchof a horseman to whoop it up this soon. Say we travel together till weget to the home stretch. "

"I'm your company, " agreed Pearson, "and I admire your sense. Ifthere's hats at Lone Elm, one of 'em shall set on Miss Tonia's browto-morrow, and you won't be at the crowning. I ain't bragging, Burr, but that sorrel of yours is weak in the fore-legs. "

"My horse against yours, " offered Burrows, "that Miss Tonia wears thehat I take her to Cactus to-morrow. "

"I'll take you up, " shouted Pearson. "But oh, it's just likehorse-stealing for me! I can use that sorrel for a lady's animalwhen--when somebody comes over to Mucho Calor, and--"

Burrows' dark face glowered so suddenly that the cowman broke off hissentence. But Pearson could never feel any pressure for long. 

"What's all this Easter business about, Burr?" he asked, cheerfully. "Why do the women folks have to have new hats by the almanac or bustall cinches trying to get 'em?"

"It's a seasonable statute out of the testaments, " explained Burrows. "It's ordered by the Pope or somebody. And it has something to do withthe Zodiac I don't know exactly, but I think it was invented by theEgyptians. "

"It's an all-right jubilee if the heathens did put their brand on it, "said Pearson; "or else Tonia wouldn't have anything to do with it. Andthey pull it off at church, too. Suppose there ain't but one hat inthe Lone Elm store, Burr!"

"Then, " said Burrows, darkly, "the best man of us'll take it back tothe Espinosa. "

"Oh, man!" cried Pearson, throwing his hat high and catching it again, "there's nothing like you come off the sheep ranges before. You talkgood and collateral to the occasion. And if there's more than one?"

"Then, " said Burrows, "we'll pick our choice and one of us'll get backfirst with his and the other won't. "

"There never was two souls, " proclaimed Pearson to the stars, "thatbeat more like one heart than yourn and mine. Me and you might beriding on a unicorn and thinking out of the same piece of mind. "

At a little past midnight the riders loped into Lone Elm. The half ahundred houses of the big village were dark. On its only street thebig wooden store stood barred and shuttered. 

In a few moments the horses were fastened and Pearson was poundingcheerfully on the door of old Sutton, the storekeeper. 

The barrel of a Winchester came through a cranny of a solid windowshutter followed by a short inquiry. 

"Wells Pearson, of the Mucho Calor, and Burrows, of Green Valley, " wasthe response. "We want to buy some goods in the store. Sorry to wakeyou up but we must have 'em. Come on out, Uncle Tommy, and get a moveon you. "

Uncle Tommy was slow, but at length they got him behind his counterwith a kerosene lamp lit, and told him of their dire need. 

"Easter hats?" said Uncle Tommy, sleepily. "Why, yes, I believe I havegot just a couple left. I only ordered a dozen this spring. I'll show'em to you. "

Now, Uncle Tommy Sutton was a merchant, half asleep or awake. In dustypasteboard boxes under the counter he had two left-over spring hats. But, alas! for his commercial probity on that early Saturday morn--theywere hats of two springs ago, and a woman's eye would have detected thefraud at half a glance. But to the unintelligent gaze of thecowpuncher and the sheepman they seemed fresh from the mint ofcontemporaneous April. 

The hats were of a variety once known as "cart-wheels. " They were ofstiff straw, colored red, and flat brimmed. Both were exactly alike, and trimmed lavishly around their crowns with full blown, immaculate, artificial white roses. 

"That all you got, Uncle Tommy?" said Pearson. "All right. Not muchchoice here, Burr. Take your pick. "

"They're the latest styles" lied Uncle Tommy. "You'd see 'em on FifthAvenue, if you was in New York. "

Uncle Tommy wrapped and tied each hat in two yards of dark calico for aprotection. One Pearson tied carefully to his calfskin saddle-thongs;and the other became part of Road Runner's burden. They shouted thanksand farewells to Uncle Tommy, and cantered back into the night on thehome stretch. 

The horsemen jockeyed with all their skill. They rode more slowly ontheir way back. The few words they spoke were not unfriendly. Burrowshad a Winchester under his left leg slung over his saddle horn. Pearson had a six shooter belted around him. Thus men rode in the Friocountry. 

At half-past seven in the morning they rode to the top of a hill andsaw the Espinosa Ranch, a white spot under a dark patch of live-oaks, five miles away. 

The sight roused Pearson from his drooping pose in the saddle. He knewwhat Road Runner could do. The sorrel was lathered, and stumblingfrequently; Road Runner was pegging away like a donkey engine. 

Pearson turned toward the sheepman and laughed. "Good-bye, Burr, " hecried, with a wave of his hand. "It's a race now. We're on the homestretch. "

He pressed Road Runner with his knees and leaned toward the Espinosa. Road Runner struck into a gallop, with tossing head and snortingnostrils, as if he were fresh from a month in pasture. 

Pearson rode twenty yards and heard the unmistakable sound of aWinchester lever throwing a cartridge into the barrel. He dropped flatalong his horse's back before the crack of the rifle reached his ears. 

It is possible that Burrows intended only to disable the horse--he wasa good enough shot to do that without endangering his rider. But asPearson stooped the ball went through his shoulder and then throughRoad Runner's neck. The horse fell and the cowman pitched over hishead into the hard road, and neither of them tried to move. 

Burrows rode on without stopping. 

In two hours Pearson opened his eyes and took inventory. He managed toget to his feet and staggered back to where Road Runner was lying. 

Road Runner was lying there, but he appeared to be comfortable. Pearsonexamined him and found that the bullet had "creased" him. He had beenknocked out temporarily, but not seriously hurt. But he was tired, andhe lay there on Miss Tonia's hat and ate leaves from a mesquite branchthat obligingly hung over the road. 

Pearson made the horse get up. The Easter hat, loosed from thesaddle-thongs, lay there in its calico wrappings, a shapeless thingfrom its sojourn beneath the solid carcass of Road Runner. ThenPearson fainted and fell head long upon the poor hat again, crumplingit under his wounded shoulders. 

It is hard to kill a cowpuncher. In half an hour he revived--longenough for a woman to have fainted twice and tried ice-cream for arestorer. He got up carefully and found Road Runner who was busy withthe near-by grass. He tied the unfortunate hat to the saddle again, andmanaged to get himself there, too, after many failures. 

At noon a gay and fluttering company waited in front of the EspinosaRanch. The Rogers girls were there in their new buckboard, and theAnchor-O outfit and the Green Valley folks--mostly women. And each andevery one wore her new Easter hat, even upon the lonely prairies, forthey greatly desired to shine forth and do honor to the coming festival. 

At the gate stood Tonia, with undisguised tears upon her cheeks. In herhand she held Burrow's Lone Elm hat, and it was at its white roses, hated by her, that she wept. For her friends were telling her, withthe ecstatic joy of true friends, that cart-wheels could not be worn, being three seasons passed into oblivion. 

"Put on your old hat and come, Tonia, " they urged. 

"For Easter Sunday?" she answered. "I'll die first. " And wept again. 

The hats of the fortunate ones were curved and twisted into the styleof spring's latest proclamation. 

A strange being rode out of the brush among them, and there sat hishorse languidly. He was stained and disfigured with the green of thegrass and the limestone of rocky roads. 

"Hallo, Pearson, " said Daddy Weaver. "Look like you've been breaking amustang. What's that you've got tied to your saddle--a pig in a poke?"

"Oh, come on, Tonia, if you're going, " said Betty Rogers. "We mustn'twait any longer. We've saved a seat in the buckboard for you. Nevermind the hat. That lovely muslin you've got on looks sweet enough withany old hat. "

Pearson was slowly untying the queer thing on his saddle. Tonia lookedat him with a sudden hope. Pearson was a man who created hope. He gotthe thing loose and handed it to her. Her quick fingers tore at thestrings. 

"Best I could do, " said Pearson slowly. "What Road Runner and me doneto it will be about all it needs. "

"Oh, oh! it's just the right shape, " shrieked Tonia. "And red roses!Wait till I try it on!"

She flew in to the glass, and out again, beaming, radiating, blossomed. 

"Oh, don't red become her?" chanted the girls in recitative. "Hurryup, Tonia!"

Tonia stopped for a moment by the side of Road Runner. 

"Thank you, thank you, Wells, " she said, happily. "It's just what Iwanted. Won't you come over to Cactus to-morrow and go to church withme?"

"If I can, " said Pearson. He was looking curiously at her hat, andthen he grinned weakly. 

Tonia flew into the buckboard like a bird. The vehicles sped away forCactus. 

"What have you been doing, Pearson?" asked Daddy Weaver. "You ain'tlooking so well as common. "

"Me?" said Pearson. "I've been painting flowers. Them roses was whitewhen I left Lone Elm. Help me down, Daddy Weaver, for I haven't gotany more paint to spare. "

ROUND THE CIRCLE

[This story is especially interesting as an early treatment (1902) ofthe theme afterward developed with a surer hand in The Pendulum. ]

"Find yo' shirt all right, Sam?" asked Mrs. Webber, from her chairunder the live-oak, where she was comfortably seated with a paper-backvolume for company. 

"It balances perfeckly, Marthy, " answered Sam, with a suspiciouspleasantness in his tone. "At first I was about ter be a littlereckless and kick 'cause ther buttons was all off, but since I diskiverthat the button holes is all busted out, why, I wouldn't go so fur asto say the buttons is any loss to speak of. "

"Oh, well, " said his wife, carelessly, "put on your necktie--that'llkeep it together. "

Sam Webber's sheep ranch was situated in the loneliest part of thecountry between the Nueces and the Frio. The ranch house--a two-roombox structure--was on the rise of a gently swelling hill in the midstof a wilderness of high chaparral. In front of it was a small clearingwhere stood the sheep pens, shearing shed, and wool house. Only a fewfeet back of it began the thorny jungle. 

Sam was going to ride over to the Chapman ranch to see about buyingsome more improved merino rams. At length he came out, ready for hisride. This being a business trip of some importance, and the Chapmanranch being almost a small town in population and size, Sam had decidedto "dress up" accordingly. The result was that he had transformedhimself from a graceful, picturesque frontiersman into something muchless pleasing to the sight. The tight white collar awkwardlyconstricted his muscular, mahogany-colored neck. The buttonless shirtbulged in stiff waves beneath his unbuttoned vest. The suit of"ready-made" effectually concealed the fine lines of his straight, athletic figure. His berry-brown face was set to the melancholydignity befitting a prisoner of state. He gave Randy, histhree-year-old son, a pat on the head, and hurried out to where Mexico, his favorite saddle horse, was standing. 

Marthy, leisurely rocking in her chair, fixed her place in the bookwith her finger, and turned her head, smiling mischievously as shenoted the havoc Sam had wrought with his appearance in trying to "fixup. "

"Well, ef I must say it, Sam, " she drawled, "you look jest like one ofthem hayseeds in the picture papers, 'stead of a free and independentsheepman of the State o' Texas. "

Sam climbed awkwardly into the saddle. 

"You're the one ought to be 'shamed to say so, " he replied hotly. "'Stead of 'tendin' to a man's clothes you're al'ays setting arounda-readin' them billy-by-dam yaller-back novils. "

"Oh, shet up and ride along, " said Mrs. Webber, with a little jerk atthe handles of her chair; "you always fussin' 'bout my readin'. I doa-plenty; and I'll read when I wanter. I live in the bresh here like avarmint, never seein' nor hearin' nothin', and what other 'musement kinI have? Not in listenin' to you talk, for it's complain, complain, oneday after another. Oh, go on, Sam, and leave me in peace. "

Sam gave his pony a squeeze with his knees and "shoved" down the wagontrail that connected his ranch with the old, open Government road. Itwas eight o'clock, and already beginning to be very warm. He shouldhave started three hours earlier. Chapman ranch was only eighteenmiles away, but there was a road for only three miles of the distance. He had ridden over there once with one of the Half-Moon cowpunchers, and he had the direction well-defined in his mind. 

Sam turned off the old Government road at the split mesquite, andstruck down the arroyo of the Quintanilla. Here was a narrow stretchof smiling valley, upholstered with a rich mat of green, curly mesquitegrass; and Mexico consumed those few miles quickly with his long, easylope. Again, upon reaching Wild Duck Waterhole, must he abandonwell-defined ways. He turned now to his right up a little hill, pebble-covered, upon which grew only the tenacious and thorny pricklypear and chaparral. At the summit of this he paused to take his lastgeneral view of the landscape for, from now on, he must wind throughbrakes and thickets of chaparral, pear, and mesquite, for the most partseeing scarcely farther than twenty yards in any direction, choosinghis way by the prairie-dweller's instinct, guided only by an occasionalglimpse of a far distant hilltop, a peculiarly shaped knot of trees, orthe position of the sun. 

Sam rode down the sloping hill and plunged into the great pear flatthat lies between the Quintanilla and the Piedra. 

In about two hours he discovered that he was lost. Then came the usualconfusion of mind and the hurry to get somewhere. Mexico was anxiousto redeem the situation, twisting with alacrity along the tortuouslabyrinths of the jungle. At the moment his master's sureness of theroute had failed his horse had divined the fact. There were no hillsnow that they could climb to obtain a view of the country. They cameupon a few, but so dense and interlaced was the brush that scarcelycould a rabbit penetrate the mass. They were in the great, lonelythicket of the Frio bottoms. 

It was a mere nothing for a cattleman or a sheepman to be lost for aday or a night. The thing often happened. It was merely a matter ofmissing a meal or two and sleeping comfortably on your saddle blanketson a soft mattress of mesquite grass. But in Sam's case it wasdifferent. He had never been away from his ranch at night. Marthy wasafraid of the country--afraid of Mexicans, of snakes, of panthers, evenof sheep. So he had never left her alone. 

It must have been about four in the afternoon when Sam's conscienceawoke. He was limp and drenched, rather from anxiety than the heat orfatigue. Until now he had been hoping to strike the trail that led tothe Frio crossing and the Chapman ranch. He must have crossed it atsome dim part of it and ridden beyond. If so he was now something likefifty miles from home. If he could strike a ranch--a camp--any placewhere he could get a fresh horse and inquire the road, he would rideall night to get back to Marthy and the kid. 

So, I have hinted, Sam was seized by remorse. There was a big lump inhis throat as he thought of the cross words he had spoken to his wife. Surely it was hard enough for her to live in that horrible countrywithout having to bear the burden of his abuse. He cursed himselfgrimly, and felt a sudden flush of shame that over-glowed the summerheat as he remembered the many times he had flouted and railed at herbecause she had a liking for reading fiction. 

"Ther only so'ce ov amusement ther po' gal's got, " said Sam aloud, witha sob, which unaccustomed sound caused Mexico to shy a bit. "A-livin'with a sore-headed kiote like me--a low-down skunk that ought to belicked to death with a saddle cinch--a-cookin' and a-washin' anda-livin' on mutton and beans and me abusin' her fur takin' a squint ortwo in a little book!"

He thought of Marthy as she had been when he first met her inDogtown--smart, pretty, and saucy--before the sun had turned the rosesin her cheeks brown and the silence of the chaparral had tamed herambitions. 

"Ef I ever speaks another hard word to ther little gal, " muttered Sam, "or fails in the love and affection that's coming to her in the deal, Ihopes a wildcat'll t'ar me to pieces. "

He knew what he would do. He would write to Garcia & Jones, his SanAntonio merchants where he bought his supplies and sold his wool, andhave them send down a big box of novels and reading matter for Marthy. Things were going to be different. He wondered whether a little pianocould be placed in one of the rooms of the ranch house without thefamily having to move out of doors. 

In nowise calculated to allay his self-reproach was the thought thatMarthy and Randy would have to pass the night alone. In spite of theirbickerings, when night came Marthy was wont to dismiss her fears of thecountry, and rest her head upon Sam's strong arm with a sigh ofpeaceful content and dependence. And were her fears so groundless? Samthought of roving, marauding Mexicans, of stealthy cougars thatsometimes invaded the ranches, of rattlesnakes, centipedes, and a dozenpossible dangers. Marthy would be frantic with fear. Randy would cry, and call for dada to come. 

Still the interminable succession of stretches of brush, cactus, andmesquite. Hollow after hollow, slope after slope--all exactlyalike--all familiar by constant repetition, and yet all strange andnew. If he could only arrive _somewhere_. 

The straight line is Art. Nature moves in circles. A straightforwardman is more an artificial product than a diplomatist is. Men lost inthe snow travel in exact circles until they sink, exhausted, as theirfootprints have attested. Also, travellers in philosophy and othermental processes frequently wind up at their starting-point. 

It was when Sam Webber was fullest of contrition and good resolves thatMexico, with a heavy sigh, subsided from his regular, brisk trot into aslow complacent walk. They were winding up an easy slope covered withbrush ten or twelve feet high. 

"I say now, Mex, " demurred Sam, "this here won't do. I know you'replumb tired out, but we got ter git along. Oh, Lordy, ain't there nomo' houses in the world!" He gave Mexico a smart kick with his heels. 

Mexico gave a protesting grunt as if to say: "What's the use of that, now we're so near?" He quickened his gait into a languid trot. Rounding a great clump of black chaparral he stopped short. Samdropped the bridle reins and sat, looking into the back door of his ownhouse, not ten yards away. 

Marthy, serene and comfortable, sat in her rocking-chair before thedoor in the shade of the house, with her feet resting luxuriously uponthe steps. Randy, who was playing with a pair of spurs on the ground, looked up for a moment at his father and went on spinning the rowelsand singing a little song. Marthy turned her head lazily against theback of the chair and considered the arrivals with emotionless eyes. She held a book in her lap with her finger holding the place. 

Sam shook himself queerly, like a man coming out of a dream, and slowlydismounted. He moistened his dry lips. 

"I see you are still a-settin', " he said, "a-readin' of thembilly-by-dam yaller-back novils. "

Sam had traveled round the circle and was himself again. 

THE RUBBER PLANT'S STORY

We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdomand the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenuetheatre. I haven't looked up our family tree, but I believe we wereraised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table d'hote stalk ofasparagus. You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air ofindependence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the faunaand flora of a flat. What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plantis to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. We get moved from oneplace to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picturetaken is with a kinetoscope. We are the vagrant vine and the flittingfig tree. You know the proverb: "Where the rubber plant sits in thewindow the moving van draws up to the door. "

We are the city equivalent to the woodbine and the honeysuckle. Noother vegetable except the Pittsburg stogie can withstand as muchhandling as we can. When the family to which we belong moves into aflat they set us in the front window and we become lares and penates, fly-paper and the peripatetic emblem of "Home Sweet Home. " We aren't asgreen as we look. I guess we are about what you would call thesoubrettes of the conservatory. You try sitting in the front window ofa $40 flat in Manhattan and looking out into the street all day, andback into the flat at night, and see whether you get wise or not--hey?Talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden ofEden--say! suppose there had been a rubber plant there when Eve--but Iwas going to tell you a story. 

The first thing I can remember I had only three leaves and belonged toa member of the pony ballet. I was kept in a sunny window, and wasgenerally watered with seltzer and lemon. I had plenty of fun in thosedays. I got cross-eyed trying to watch the numbers of the automobilesin the street and the dates on the labels inside at the same time. 

Well, then the angel that was molting for the musical comedy lost hislast feather and the company broke up. The ponies trotted away and Iwas left in the window ownerless. The janitor gave me to a refinedcomedy team on the eighth floor, and in six weeks I had been set in thewindow of five different flats I took on experience and put out twomore leaves. 

Miss Carruthers, of the refined comedy team--did you ever see her crossboth feet back of her neck?--gave me to a friend of hers who had madean unfortunate marriage with a man in a store. Consequently I wasplaced in the window of a furnished room, rent in advance, water twoflights up, gas extra after ten o'clock at night. Two of my leaveswithered off here. Also, I was moved from one room to another so manytimes that I got to liking the odor of the pipes the expressmen smoked. 

I don't think I ever had so dull a time as I did with this lady. Therewas never anything amusing going on inside--she was devoted to herhusband, and, besides leaning out the window and flirting with theiceman, she never did a thing toward breaking the monotony. 

When the couple broke up they left me with the rest of their goods at asecond-hand store. I was put out in front for sale along with thejobbiest lot you ever heard of being lumped into one bargain. Think ofthis little cornucopia of wonders, all for $1. 89: Henry James's works, six talking machine records, one pair of tennis shoes, two bottles ofhorse radish, and a rubber plant--that was me!

One afternoon a girl came along and stopped to look at me. She haddark hair and eyes, and she looked slim, and sad around the mouth. 

"Oh, oh!" she says to herself. "I never thought to see one up here. "

She pulls out a little purse about as thick as one of my leaves andfingers over some small silver in it. Old Koen, always on the lockout, is ready, rubbing his hands. This girl proceeds to turn down Mr. Jamesand the other commodities. Rubber plants or nothing is the burden ofher song. And at last Koen and she come together at 39 cents, and awayshe goes with me in her arms. 

She was a nice girl, but not my style. Too quiet and sober looking. Thinks I to myself: "I'll just about land on the fire-escape of atenement, six stories up. And I'll spend the next six months lookingat clothes on the line. "

But she carried me to a nice little room only three flights up in quitea decent street. And she put me in the window, of course. And thenshe went to work and cooked dinner for herself. And what do yousuppose she had? Bread and tea and a little dab of jam! Nothing else. Not a single lobster, nor so much as one bottle of champagne. TheCarruthers comedy team had both every evening, except now and then whenthey took a notion for pig's knuckle and kraut. 

After she had finished her dinner my new owner came to the window andleaned down close to my leaves and cried softly to herself for a while. It made me feel funny. I never knew anybody to cry that way over arubber plant before. Of course, I've seen a few of 'em turn on thetears for what they could get out of it, but she seemed to be cryingjust for the pure enjoyment of it. She touched my leaves like sheloved 'em, and she bent down her head and kissed each one of 'em. Iguess I'm about the toughest specimen of a peripatetic orchid on earth, but I tell you it made me feel sort of queer. Home never was like thatto me before. Generally I used to get chewed by poodles and haveshirt-waists hung on me to dry, and get watered with coffee grounds andperoxide of hydrogen. 

This girl had a piano in the room, and she used to disturb it with bothhands while she made noises with her mouth for hours at a time. Isuppose she was practising vocal music. 

One day she seemed very much excited and kept looking at the clock. Ateleven somebody knocked and she let in a stout, dark man with towsledblack hair. He sat down at once at the piano and played while she sangfor him. When she finished she laid one hand on her bosom and lookedat him. He shook his head, and she leaned against the piano. "Twoyears already, " she said, speaking slowly--"do you think in twomore--or even longer?"

The man shook his head again. "You waste your time, " he said, roughlyI thought. "The voice is not there. " And then he looked at her in apeculiar way. "But the voice is not everything, " he went on. "Youhave looks. I can place you, as I told you if--"

The girl pointed to the door without saying anything, and the dark manleft the room. And then she came over and cried around me again. It'sa good thing I had enough rubber in me to be water-proof. 

About that time somebody else knocked at the door. "Thank goodness, " Isaid to myself. "Here's a chance to get the water-works turned off. Ihope it's somebody that's game enough to stand a bird and a bottle toliven things up a little. " Tell you the truth, this little girl mademe tired. A rubber plant likes to see a little sport now and then. Idon't suppose there's another green thing in New York that sees as muchof gay life unless it's the chartreuse or the sprigs of parsley aroundthe dish. 

When the girl opens the door in steps a young chap in a traveling capand picks her up in his arms, and she sings out "Oh, Dick!" and staysthere long enough to--well, you've been a rubber plant too, sometimes, I suppose. 

"Good thing!" says I to myself. "This is livelier than scales andweeping. Now there'll be something doing. "

"You've got to go back with me, " says the young man. "I've come twothousand miles for you. Aren't you tired of it yet. Bess? You've keptall of us waiting so long. Haven't you found out yet what is best?"

"The bubble burst only to-day, " says the girl. "Come here, Dick, andsee what I found the other day on the sidewalk for sale. " She bringshim by the hand and exhibits yours truly. "How one ever got away uphere who can tell? I bought it with almost the last money I had. "

He looked at me, but he couldn't keep his eyes off her for more than asecond. "Do you remember the night, Bess, " he said, "when we stoodunder one of those on the bank of the bayou and what you told me then?"

"Geewillikins!" I said to myself. "Both of them stand under a rubberplant! Seems to me they are stretching matters somewhat!"

"Do I not, " says she, looking up at him and sneaking close to his vest, "and now I say it again, and it is to last forever. Look, Dick, at itsleaves, how wet they are. Those are my tears, and it was thinking ofyou that made them fall. "

"The dear old magnolias!" says the young man, pinching one of myleaves. "I love them all. "

Magnolia! Well, wouldn't that--say! those innocents thought I was amagnolia! What the--well, wasn't that tough on a genuine little oldNew York rubber plant?

OUT OF NAZARETH

Okochee, in Georgia, had a boom, and J. Pinkney Bloom came out of itwith a "wad. " Okochee came out of it with a half-million-dollar debt, a two and a half per cent. City property tax, and a city council thatshowed a propensity for traveling the back streets of the town. Thesethings came about through a fatal resemblance of the river Cooloosa tothe Hudson, as set forth and expounded by a Northern tourist. Okocheefelt that New York should not be allowed to consider itself the onlyalligator in the swamp, so to speak. And then that harmless, butpersistent, individual so numerous in the South--the man who is alwaysclamoring for more cotton mills, and is ready to take a dollar's worthof stock, provided he can borrow the dollar--that man added his deadlywork to the tourist's innocent praise, and Okochee fell. 

The Cooloosa River winds through a range of small mountains, passesOkochee and then blends its waters trippingly, as fall the mellifluousIndian syllables, with the Chattahoochee. 

Okochee rose, as it were, from its sunny seat on the post-office stoop, hitched up its suspender, and threw a granite dam two hundred and fortyfeet long and sixty feet high across the Cooloosa one mile above thetown. Thereupon, a dimpling, sparkling lake backed up twenty milesamong the little mountains. Thus in the great game of municipalrivalry did Okochee match that famous drawing card, the Hudson. It wasconceded that nowhere could the Palisades be judged superior in the wayof scenery and grandeur. Following the picture card was played the aceof commercial importance. Fourteen thousand horsepower would this damfurnish. Cotton mills, factories, and manufacturing plants would riseup as the green corn after a shower. The spindle and the flywheel andturbine would sing the shrewd glory of Okochee. Along the picturesqueheights above the lake would rise in beauty the costly villas and thesplendid summer residences of capital. The naphtha launch of themillionaire would spit among the romantic coves; the verdured hillswould take formal shapes of terrace, lawn, and park. Money would bespent like water in Okochee, and water would be turned into money. 

The fate of the good town is quickly told. Capital decided not toinvest. Of all the great things promised, the scenery alone came tofulfilment. The wooded peaks, the impressive promontories of solemngranite, the beautiful green slants of bank and ravine did all theycould to reconcile Okochee to the delinquency of miserly gold. Thesunsets gilded the dreamy draws and coves with a minting that shouldcharm away heart-burning. Okochee, true to the instinct of its bloodand clime, was lulled by the spell. It climbed out of the arena, loosed its suspender, sat down again on the post-office stoop, and tooka chew. It consoled itself by drawling sarcasms at the city councilwhich was not to blame, causing the fathers, as has been said, to seekback streets and figure perspiringly on the sinking fund and theappropriation for interest due. 

The youth of Okochee--they who were to carry into the rosy future theburden of the debt--accepted failure with youth's uncalculating joy. For, here was sport, aquatic and nautical, added to the meagre round oflife's pleasures. In yachting caps and flowing neckties they pervadedthe lake to its limits. Girls wore silk waists embroidered withanchors in blue and pink. The trousers of the young men widened at thebottom, and their hands were proudly calloused by the oft-plied oar. Fishermen were under the spell of a deep and tolerant joy. Sailboatsand rowboats furrowed the lenient waves, popcorn and ice-cream boothssprang up about the little wooden pier. Two small excursion steamboatswere built, and plied the delectable waters. Okochee philosophicallygave up the hope of eating turtle soup with a gold spoon, and settledback, not ill content, to its regular diet of lotus and fried hominy. And out of this slow wreck of great expectations rose up J. PinkneyBloom with his "wad" and his prosperous, cheery smile. 

Needless to say J. Pinkney was no product of Georgia soil. He came outof that flushed and capable region known as the "North. " He calledhimself a "promoter"; his enemies had spoken of him as a "grafter";Okochee took a middle course, and held him to be no better nor no worsethan a "Yank. "

Far up the lake--eighteen miles above the town--the eye of thischeerful camp-follower of booms had spied out a graft. He purchasedthere a precipitous tract of five hundred acres at forty-five cents peracre; and this he laid out and subdivided as the city of Skyland--theQueen City of the Switzerland of the South. Streets and avenues weresurveyed; parks designed; corners of central squares reserved for the"proposed" opera house, board of trade, lyceum, market, public schools, and "Exposition Hall. " The price of lots ranged from five to fivehundred dollars. Positively, no lot would be priced higher than fivehundred dollars. 

While the boom was growing in Okochee, J. Pinkney's circulars, maps, and prospectuses were flying through the mails to every part of thecountry. Investors sent in their money by post, and the Skyland RealEstate Company (J. Pinkney Bloom) returned to each a deed, duly placedon record, to the best lot, at the price, on hand that day. All thistime the catamount screeched upon the reserved lot of the Skyland Boardof Trade, the opossum swung by his tail over the site of the expositionhall, and the owl hooted a melancholy recitative to his audience ofyoung squirrels in opera house square. Later, when the money wascoming in fast, J. Pinkney caused to be erected in the coming city halfa dozen cheap box houses, and persuaded a contingent of indigentnatives to occupy them, thereby assuming the role of "population" insubsequent prospectuses, which became, accordingly, more seductive andremunerative. 

So, when the dream faded and Okochee dropped back to digging bait andnursing its two and a half per cent. Tax, J. Pinkney Bloom (unloving ofchecks and drafts and the cold interrogatories of bankers) strappedabout his fifty-two-inch waist a soft leather belt containing eightthousand dollars in big bills, and said that all was very good. 

One last trip he was making to Skyland before departing to other saladfields. Skyland was a regular post-office, and the steamboat, _DixieBelle_, under contract, delivered the mail bag (generally empty) twicea week. There was a little business there to be settled--thepostmaster was to be paid off for his light but lonely services, andthe "inhabitants" had to be furnished with another month's homelyrations, as per agreement. And then Skyland would know J. PinkneyBloom no more. The owners of these precipitous, barren, useless lotsmight come and view the scene of their invested credulity, or theymight leave them to their fit tenants, the wild hog and the browsingdeer. The work of the Skyland Real Estate Company was finished. 

The little steamboat _Dixie Belle_ was about to shove off on herregular up-the-lake trip, when a rickety hired carriage rattled up tothe pier, and a tall, elderly gentleman, in black, stepped out, signaling courteously but vivaciously for the boat to wait. Time wasof the least importance in the schedule of the _Dixie Belle_; CaptainMacFarland gave the order, and the boat received its ultimate twopassengers. For, upon the arm of the tall, elderly gentleman, as hecrossed the gangway, was a little elderly lady, with a gray curldepending quaintly forward of her left ear. 

Captain MacFarland was at the wheel; therefore it seemed to J. PinkneyBloom, who was the only other passenger, that it should be his to playthe part of host to the boat's new guests, who were, doubtless, on ascenery-viewing expedition. He stepped forward, with that translucent, child-candid smile upon his fresh, pink countenance, with that air ofunaffected sincerity that was redeemed from bluffness only by itsexquisite calculation, with that promptitude and masterly decision ofmanner that so well suited his calling--with all his stock in tradewell to the front; he stepped forward to receive Colonel and Mrs. Peyton Blaylock. With the grace of a grand marshal or a wedding usher, he escorted the two passengers to a side of the upper deck, from whichthe scenery was supposed to present itself to the observer in increasedquantity and quality. There, in comfortable steamer chairs, they satand began to piece together the random lines that were to form anintelligent paragraph in the big history of little events. 

"Our home, sir, " said Colonel Blaylock, removing his wide-brimmed, rather shapeless black felt hat, "is in Holly Springs--Holly Springs, Georgia. I am very proud to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bloom. Mrs. Blaylock and myself have just arrived in Okochee this morning, sir, onbusiness--business of importance in connection with the recent rapidmarch of progress in this section of our state. "

The Colonel smoothed back, with a sweeping gesture, his long, smooth, locks. His dark eyes, still fiery under the heavy black brows, seemedinappropriate to the face of a business man. He looked rather to be anold courtier handed down from the reign of Charles, and re-attired in amodern suit of fine, but raveling and seam-worn, broadcloth. 

"Yes, sir, " said Mr. Bloom, in his heartiest prospectus voice, "thingshave been whizzing around Okochee. Biggest industrial revival andwaking up to natural resources Georgia ever had. Did you happen tosqueeze in on the ground floor in any of the gilt-edged grafts, Colonel?"

"Well, sir, " said the Colonel, hesitating in courteous doubt, "if Iunderstand your question, I may say that I took the opportunity to makean investment that I believe will prove quite advantageous--yes, sir, Ibelieve it will result in both pecuniary profit and agreeableoccupation. "

"Colonel Blaylock, " said the little elderly lady, shaking her gray curland smiling indulgent explanation at J. Pinkney Bloom, "is so devotedto businesss. He has such a talent for financiering and markets andinvestments and those kind of things. I think myself extremelyfortunate in having secured him for a partner on life's journey--I amso unversed in those formidable but very useful branches of learning. "

Colonel Blaylock rose and made a bow--a bow that belonged with silkstockings and lace ruffles and velvet. 

"Practical affairs, " he said, with a wave of his hand toward thepromoter, "are, if I may use the comparison, the garden walks uponwhich we tread through life, viewing upon either side of us the flowerswhich brighten that journey. It is my pleasure to be able to lay outa walk or two. Mrs. Blaylock, sir, is one of those fortunate higherspirits whose mission it is to make the flowers grow. Perhaps, Mr. Bloom, you have perused the lines of Lorella, the Southern poetess. That is the name above which Mrs. Blaylock has contributed to the pressof the South for many years. "

"Unfortunately, " said Mr. Bloom, with a sense of the loss clearlywritten upon his frank face, "I'm like the Colonel--in the walk-makingbusiness myself--and I haven't had time to even take a sniff at theflowers. Poetry is a line I never dealt in. It must be nice, though--quite nice. "

"It is the region, " smiled Mrs. Blaylock, "in which my soul dwells. Myshawl, Peyton, if you please--the breeze comes a little chilly from yonverdured hills. "

The Colonel drew from the tail pocket of his coat a small shawl ofknitted silk and laid it solicitously about the shoulders of the lady. Mrs. Blaylock sighed contentedly, and turned her expressive eyes--stillas clear and unworldly as a child's--upon the steep slopes that wereslowly slipping past. Very fair and stately they looked in the clearmorning air. They seemed to speak in familiar terms to the responsivespirit of Lorella. "My native hills!" she murmured, dreamily. "Seehow the foliage drinks the sunlight from the hollows and dells. "

"Mrs. Blaylock's maiden days, " said the Colonel, interpreting her moodto J. Pinkney Bloom, "were spent among the mountains of northernGeorgia. Mountain air and mountain scenery recall to her those days. Holly Springs, where we have lived for twenty years, is low and flat. Ifear that she may have suffered in health and spirits by so long aresidence there. That is one portent reason for the change we aremaking. My dear, can you not recall those lines you wrote--entitled, Ithink, 'The Georgia Hills'--the poem that was so extensively copied bythe Southern press and praised so highly by the Atlanta critics?"

Mrs. Blaylock turned a glance of speaking tenderness upon the Colonel, fingered for a moment the silvery curl that drooped upon her bosom, then looked again toward the mountains. Without preliminary oraffectation or demurral she began, in rather thrilling and more deeplypitched tones to recite these lines:

 "The Georgia hills, the Georgia hills!-- Oh, heart, why dost thou pine? Are not these sheltered lowlands fair With mead and bloom and vine? Ah! as the slow-paced river here Broods on its natal rills My spirit drifts, in longing sweet, Back to the Georgia hills. 

 "And through the close-drawn, curtained night I steal on sleep's slow wings Back to my heart's ease--slopes of pine-- Where end my wanderings. Oh, heaven seems nearer from their tops-- And farther earthly ills-- Even in dreams, if I may but Dream of my Georgia hills. 

 The grass upon their orchard sides Is a fine couch to me; The common note of each small bird Passes all minstrelsy. It would not seem so dread a thing If, when the Reaper wills, He might come there and take my hand Up in the Georgia hills. "

"That's great stuff, ma'am, " said J. Pinkney Bloom, enthusiastically, when the poetess had concluded. "I wish I had looked up poetry morethan I have. I was raised in the pine hills myself. "

"The mountains ever call to their children, " murmured Mrs. Blaylock. "Ifeel that life will take on the rosy hue of hope again in among thesebeautiful hills. Peyton--a little taste of the currant wine, if youwill be so good. The journey, though delightful in the extreme, slightly fatigues me. " Colonel Blaylock again visited the depths ofhis prolific coat, and produced a tightly corked, rough, black bottle. Mr. Bloom was on his feet in an instant. 

"Let me bring a glass, ma'am. You come along, Colonel--there's alittle table we can bring, too. Maybe we can scare up some fruit or acup of tea on board. I'll ask Mac. "

Mrs. Blaylock reclined at ease. Few royal ladies have held their royalprerogative with the serene grace of the petted Southern woman. TheColonel, with an air as gallant and assiduous as in the days of hiscourtship, and J. Pinkney Bloom, with a ponderous agility halfprofessional and half directed by some resurrected, unnamed, long-forgotten sentiment, formed a diversified but attentive court. The currant wine--wine home made from the Holly Springs fruit--wentround, and then J. Pinkney began to hear something of Holly Springslife. 

It seemed (from the conversation of the Blaylocks) that the Springs wasdecadent. A third of the population had moved away. Business--and theColonel was an authority on business--had dwindled to nothing. Aftercarefully studying the field of opportunities open to capital he hadsold his little property there for eight hundred dollars and investedit in one of the enterprises opened up by the book in Okochee. 

"Might I inquire, sir, " said Mr. Bloom, "in what particular line ofbusiness you inserted your coin? I know that town as well as I knowthe regulations for illegal use of the mails. I might give you a hunchas to whether you can make the game go or not. "

J. Pinkney, somehow, had a kindly feeling toward these unsophisticatedrepresentatives of by-gone days. They were so simple, impractical, andunsuspecting. He was glad that he happened not to have a gold brick ora block of that western Bad Boy Silver Mine stock along with him. Hewould have disliked to unload on people he liked so well as he didthese; but there are some temptations toe enticing to be resisted. 

"No, sir, " said Colonel Blaylock, pausing to arrange the queen's wrap. "I did not invest in Okochee. I have made an exhaustive study ofbusiness conditions, and I regard old settled towns as unfavorablefields in which to place capital that is limited in amount. Somemonths ago, through the kindness of a friend, there came into my handsa map and description of this new town of Skyland that has been builtupon the lake. The description was so pleasing, the future of the townset forth in such convincing arguments, and its increasing prosperityportrayed in such an attractive style that I decided to take advantageof the opportunity it offered. I carefully selected a lot in thecentre of the business district, although its price was the highest inthe schedule--five hundred dollars--and made the purchase at once. "

"Are you the man--I mean, did you pay five hundred dollars for a lot inSkyland" asked J. Pinkney Bloom. 

"I did, sir, " answered the Colonel, with the air of a modestmillionaire explaining his success; "a lot most excellently situated onthe same square with the opera house, and only two squares from theboard of trade. I consider the purchase a most fortuitous one. It ismy intention to erect a small building upon it at once, and open amodest book and stationery store. During past years I have met withmany pecuniary reverses, and I now find it necessary to engage in somecommercial occupation that will furnish me with a livelihood. The bookand stationery business, though an humble one, seems to me not inaptnor altogether uncongenial. I am a graduate of the University ofVirginia; and Mrs. Blaylock's really wonderful acquaintance withbelles-lettres and poetic literature should go far toward insuringsuccess. Of course, Mrs. Blaylock would not personally serve behindthe counter. With the nearly three hundred dollars I have remaining Ican manage the building of a house, by giving a lien on the lot. Ihave an old friend in Atlanta who is a partner in a large book store, and he has agreed to furnish me with a stock of goods on credit, onextremely easy terms. I am pleased to hope, sir, that Mrs. Blaylock'shealth and happiness will be increased by the change of locality. Already I fancy I can perceive the return of those roses that were oncethe hope and despair of Georgia cavaliers. "

Again followed that wonderful bow, as the Colonel lightly touched thepale cheek of the poetess. Mrs. Blaylock, blushing like a girl, shookher curl and gave the Colonel an arch, reproving tap. Secret ofeternal youth--where art thou? Every second the answer comes--"Here, here, here. " Listen to thine own heartbeats, O weary seeker afterexternal miracles. 

"Those years, " said Mrs. Blaylock, "in Holly Springs were long, long, long. But now is the promised land in sight. Skyland!--a lovely name. "

"Doubtless, " said the Colonel, "we shall be able to secure comfortableaccommodations at some modest hotel at reasonable rates. Our trunksare in Okochee, to be forwarded when we shall have made permanentarrangements. "

J. Pinkney Bloom excused himself, went forward, and stood by thecaptain at the wheel. 

"Mac, " said he, "do you remember my telling you once that I sold one ofthose five-hundred-dollar lots in Skyland?"

"Seems I do, " grinned Captain MacFarland. 

"I'm not a coward, as a general rule, " went on the promoter, "but Ialways said that if I ever met the sucker that bought that lot I'd runlike a turkey. Now, you see that old babe-in-the-wood over there?Well, he's the boy that drew the prize. That was the onlyfive-hundred-dollar lot that went. The rest ranged from ten dollars totwo hundred. His wife writes poetry. She's invented one about thehigh grounds of Georgia, that's way up in G. They're going to Skylandto open a book store. "

"Well, " said MacFarland, with another grin, "it's a good thing you arealong, J. P. ; you can show 'em around town until they begin to feel athome. "

"He's got three hundred dollars left to build a house and store with, "went on J. Pinkney, as if he were talking to himself. "And he thinksthere's an open house up there. "

Captain MacFarland released the wheel long enough to give his leg aroguish slap. 

"You old fat rascal!" he chuckled, with a wink. 

"Mac, you're a fool, " said J. Pinkney Bloom, coldly. He went back andjoined the Blaylocks, where he sat, less talkative, with that straightfurrow between his brows that always stood as a signal of schemes beingshaped within. 

"There's a good many swindles connected with these booms, " he saidpresently. "What if this Skyland should turn out to be one--that is, suppose business should be sort of dull there, and no special sale forbooks?"

"My dear sir, " said Colonel Blaylock, resting his hand upon the back ofhis wife's chair, "three times I have been reduced to almost penury bythe duplicity of others, but I have not yet lost faith in humanity. IfI have been deceived again, still we may glean health and content, ifnot worldly profit. I am aware that there are dishonest schemers inthe world who set traps for the unwary, but even they are notaltogether bad. My dear, can you recall those verses entitled 'HeGiveth the Increase, ' that you composed for the choir of our church inHolly Springs?"

"That was four years ago, " said Mrs. Blaylock; "perhaps I can repeat averse or two. 

 "The lily springs from the rotting mould; Pearls from the deep sea slime; Good will come out of Nazareth All in God's own time. 

 "To the hardest heart the softening grace Cometh, at last, to bless; Guiding it right to help and cheer And succor in distress. 

"I cannot remember the rest. The lines were not ambitious. They werewritten to the music composed by a dear friend. "

"It's a fine rhyme, just the same, " declared Mr. Bloom. "It seems toring the bell, all right. I guess I gather the sense of it. It meansthat the rankest kind of a phony will give you the best end of it oncein a while. "

Mr. Bloom strayed thoughtfully back to the captain, and stoodmeditating. 

"Ought to be in sight of the spires and gilded domes of Skyland now ina few minutes, " chirruped MacFarland, shaking with enjoyment. 

"Go to the devil, " said Mr. Bloom, still pensive. 

And now, upon the left bank, they caught a glimpse of a white village, high up on the hills, smothered among green trees. That was ColdBranch--no boom town, but the slow growth of many years. Cold Branchlay on the edge of the grape and corn lands. The big country road ranjust back of the heights. Cold Branch had nothing in common with thefrisky ambition of Okochee with its impertinent lake. 

"Mac, " said J. Pinkney suddenly, "I want you to stop at Cold Branch. There's a landing there that they made to use sometimes when the riverwas up. "

"Can't, " said the captain, grinning more broadly. "I've got the UnitedStates mails on board. Right to-day this boat's in the governmentservice. Do you want to have the poor old captain keelhauled by UncleSam? And the great city of Skyland, all disconsolate, waiting for itsmail? I'm ashamed of your extravagance, J. P. "

"Mac, " almost whispered J. Pinkney, in his danger-line voice, "I lookedinto the engine room of the _Dixie Belle_ a while ago. Don't you knowof somebody that needs a new boiler? Cement and black Japan can't hideflaws from me. And then, those shares of building and loan that youtraded for repairs--they were all yours, of course. I hate to mentionthese things, but--"

"Oh, come now, J. P. , " said the captain. "You know I was just fooling. I'll put you off at Cold Branch, if you say so. "

"The other passengers get off there, too, " said Mr. Bloom. 

Further conversation was held, and in ten minutes the _Dixie Belle_turned her nose toward a little, cranky wooden pier on the left bank, and the captain, relinquishing the wheel to a roustabout, came to thepassenger deck and made the remarkable announcement: "All out forSkyland. "

The Blaylocks and J. Pinkney Bloom disembarked, and the _Dixie Belle_proceeded on her way up the lake. Guided by the indefatigablepromoter, they slowly climbed the steep hillside, pausing often to restand admire the view. Finally they entered the village of Cold Branch. Warmly both the Colonel and his wife praised it for its homelike andpeaceful beauty. Mr. Bloom conducted them to a two-story building on ashady street that bore the legend, "Pine-top Inn. " Here he took hisleave, receiving the cordial thanks of the two for his attentions, theColonel remarking that he thought they would spend the remainder of theday in rest, and take a look at his purchase on the morrow. 

J. Pinkney Bloom walked down Cold Branch's main street. He did notknow this town, but he knew towns, and his feet did not falter. Presently he saw a sign over a door: "Frank E. Cooly, Attorney-at-Lawand Notary Public. " A young man was Mr. Cooly, and awaiting business. 

"Get your hat, son, " said Mr. Bloom, in his breezy way, "and a blankdeed, and come along. It's a job for you. "

"Now, " he continued, when Mr. Cooly had responded with alacrity, "isthere a bookstore in town?"

"One, " said the lawyer. "Henry Williams's. "

"Get there, " said Mr. Bloom. "We're going to buy it. "

Henry Williams was behind his counter. His store was a small one, containing a mixture of books, stationery, and fancy rubbish. Adjoiningit was Henry's home--a decent cottage, vine-embowered and cosy. Henrywas lank and soporific, and not inclined to rush his business. 

"I want to buy your house and store, " said Mr. Bloom. "I haven't gottime to dicker--name your price. "

"It's worth eight hundred, " said Henry, too much dazed to ask more thanits value. 

"Shut that door, " said Mr. Bloom to the lawyer. Then he tore off hiscoat and vest, and began to unbutton his shirt. 

"Wanter fight about it, do yer?" said Henry Williams, jumping up andcracking his heels together twice. "All right, hunky--sail in and cutyer capers. "

"Keep your clothes on, " said Mr. Bloom. "I'm only going down to thebank. "

He drew eight one-hundred-dollar bills from his money belt and plankedthem down on the counter. Mr. Cooly showed signs of future promise, for he already had the deed spread out, and was reaching across thecounter for the ink bottle. Never before or since was such quickaction had in Cold Branch. 

"Your name, please?" asked the lawyer. 

"Make it out to Peyton Blaylock, " said Mr. Bloom. "God knows how tospell it. "

Within thirty minutes Henry Williams was out of business, and Mr. Bloomstood on the brick sidewalk with Mr. Cooly, who held in his hand thesigned and attested deed. 

"You'll find the party at the Pinetop Inn, " said J. Pinkney Bloom. "Getit recorded, and take it down and give it to him. He'll ask you ahell's mint of questions; so here's ten dollars for the trouble you'llhave in not being able to answer 'em. Never run much to poetry, didyou, young man?"

"Well, " said the really talented Cooly, who even yet retained his rightmind, "now and then. "

"Dig into it, " said Mr. Bloom, "it'll pay you. Never heard a poem, now, that run something like this, did you?--

 A good thing out of Nazareth Comes up sometimes, I guess, On hand, all right, to help and cheer A sucker in distress. "

"I believe not, " said Mr. Cooly. 

"It's a hymn, " said J. Pinkney Bloom. "Now, show me the way to alivery stable, son, for I'm going to hit the dirt road back to Okochee. "

CONFESSIONS OF A HUMORIST

There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It. 

But they called it humor instead of measles. 

The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the seniorpartner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private officeto present it. I had been selected for spokesman, and I made a littlespeech that I had been preparing for a week. 

It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists thatbrought down the house--which was a very solid one in the wholesalehardware line. Old Marlowe himself actually grinned, and the employeestook their cue and roared. 

My reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o'clock on thatmorning. For weeks afterward my fellow clerks fanned the flame of myself-esteem. One by one they came to me, saying what an awfully cleverspeech that was, old man, and carefully explained to me the point ofeach one of my jokes. 

Gradually I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others mightspeak sanely on business matters and the day's topics, but from mesomething gamesome and airy was required. 

I was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten up thegranite ware with persiflage. I was second bookkeeper, and if I failedto show up a balance sheet without something comic about the footingsor could find no cause for laughter in an invoice of plows, the otherclerks were disappointed. By degrees my fame spread, and I became alocal "character. " Our town was small enough to make this possible. The daily newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings I wasindispensable. 

I believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for quick andspontaneous repartee. This gift I cultivated and improved by practice. And the nature of it was kindly and genial, not running to sarcasm oroffending others. People began to smile when they saw me coming, andby the time we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden thesmile into a laugh. 

I had married early. We had a charming boy of three and a girl offive. Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage, and were happy. My salary as bookkeeper in the hardware concern kept at a distancethose ills attendant upon superfluous wealth. 

At sundry times I had written out a few jokes and conceits that Iconsidered peculiarly happy, and had sent them to certain periodicalsthat print such things. All of them had been instantly accepted. Several of the editors had written to request further contributions. 

One day I received a letter from the editor of a famous weeklypublication. He suggested that I submit to him a humorous compositionto fill a column of space; hinting that he would make it a regularfeature of each issue if the work proved satisfactory. I did so, andat the end of two weeks he offered to make a contract with me for ayear at a figure that was considerably higher than the amount paid meby the hardware firm. 

I was filled with delight. My wife already crowned me in her mind withthe imperishable evergreens of literary success. We had lobstercroquettes and a bottle of blackberry wine for supper that night. Herewas the chance to liberate myself from drudgery. I talked over thematter very seriously with Louisa. We agreed that I must resign myplace at the store and devote myself to humor. 

I resigned. My fellow clerks gave me a farewell banquet. The speech Imade there coruscated. It was printed in full by the Gazette. Thenext morning I awoke and looked at the clock. 

"Late, by George!" I exclaimed, and grabbed for my clothes. Louisareminded me that I was no longer a slave to hardware and contractors'supplies. I was now a professional humorist. 

After breakfast she proudly led me to the little room off the kitchen. Dear girl! There was my table and chair, writing pad, ink, and pipetray. And all the author's trappings--the celery stand full of freshroses and honeysuckle, last year's calendar on the wall, thedictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble betweeninspirations. Dear girl!

I sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques orodalisks or--perhaps--it is trapezoids. Upon one of the figures Ifixed my eyes. I bethought me of humor. 

A voice startled me--Louisa's voice. 

"If you aren't too busy, dear, " it said, "come to dinner. "

I looked at my watch. Yes, five hours had been gathered in by the grimscytheman. I went to dinner. 

"You mustn't work too hard at first, " said Louisa. "Goethe--or was itNapoleon?--said five hours a day is enough for mental labor. Couldn'tyou take me and the children to the woods this afternoon?"

"I am a little tired, " I admitted. So we went to the woods. 

But I soon got the swing of it. Within a month I was turning out copyas regular as shipments of hardware. 

And I had success. My column in the weekly made some stir, and I wasreferred to in a gossipy way by the critics as something fresh in theline of humorists. I augmented my income considerably by contributingto other publications. 

I picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny idea andmake a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With false whiskers on, it would serve up cold as a quatrain, doubling its producing value. Byturning the skirt and adding a ruffle of rhyme you would hardlyrecognize it as _vers de societe_ with neatly shod feet and afashion-plate illustration. 

I began to save up money, and we had new carpets, and a parlor organ. My townspeople began to look upon me as a citizen of some consequenceinstead of the merry trifler I had been when I clerked in the hardwarestore. 

After five or six months the spontaniety seemed to depart from myhumor. Quips and droll sayings no longer fell carelessly from my lips. I was sometimes hard run for material. I found myself listening tocatch available ideas from the conversation of my friends. Sometimes Ichewed my pencil and gazed at the wall paper for hours trying to buildup some gay little bubble of unstudied fun. 

And then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to myacquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like averitable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquantphrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound springingupon a bone. I dared not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltilyand meanly, I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandumbook or upon my cuff for my own future use. 

My friends regarded me in sorrow and wonder. I was not the same man. Where once I had furnished them entertainment and jollity, I now preyedupon them. No jests from me ever bid for their smiles now. They weretoo precious. I could not afford to dispense gratuitously the means ofmy livelihood. 

I was a lugubrious fox praising the singing of my friends, the crow's, that they might drop from their beaks the morsels of wit that I coveted. 

Nearly every one began to avoid me. I even forgot how to smile, noteven paying that much for the sayings I appropriated. 

No persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plunderingin search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy wenthunting among the solemn aisles and pillars for spoil. 

Did the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I began:"Doxology--sockdology--sockdolager--meter--meet her. "

The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filteringunheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a _bon mot_. Thesolemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughtsas I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalitiesconcerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso. 

My own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly femininecreature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once her conversationwas my delight, and her ideas a source of unfailing pleasure. Now Iworked her. She was a gold mine of those amusing but lovableinconsistencies that distinguish the female mind. 

I began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that should haveenriched only the sacred precincts of home. With devilish cunning Iencouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting, she laid her heart bare. Uponthe cold, conspicuous, common, printed page I offered it to the publicgaze. 

A literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces of silverI dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes and frills of follyand made them dance in the market place. 

Dear Louisa! Of nights I have bent over her cruel as a wolf above atender lamb, hearkening even to her soft words murmured in sleep, hoping to catch an idea for my next day's grind. There is worse tocome. 

God help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the neck of thefugitive sayings of my little children. 

Guy and Viola were two bright fountains of childish, quaint thoughtsand speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor, and wasfurnishing a regular department in a magazine with "Funny Fancies ofChildhood. " I began to stalk them as an Indian stalks the antelope. Iwould hide behind sofas and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees amongthe bushes in the yard to eavesdrop while they were at play. I had allthe qualities of a harpy except remorse. 

Once, when I was barren of ideas, and my copy must leave in the nextmail, I covered myself in a pile of autumn leaves in the yard, where Iknew they intended to come to play. I cannot bring myself to believethat Guy was aware of my hiding place, but even if he was, I would beloath to blame him for his setting fire to the leaves, causing thedestruction of my new suit of clothes, and nearly cremating a parent. 

Soon my own children began to shun me as a pest. Often, when I wascreeping upon them like a melancholy ghoul, I would hear them say toeach other: "Here comes papa, " and they would gather their toys andscurry away to some safer hiding place. Miserable wretch that I was!

And yet I was doing well financially. Before the first year had passedI had saved a thousand dollars, and we had lived in comfort. 

But at what a cost! I am not quite clear as to what a pariah is, but Iwas everything that it sounds like. I had no friends, no amusements, no enjoyment of life. The happiness of my family had been sacrificed. I was a bee, sucking sordid honey from life's fairest flowers, dreadedand shunned on account of my stingo. 

One day a man spoke to me, with a pleasant and friendly smile. Not inmonths had the thing happened. I was passing the undertakingestablishment of Peter Heffelbower. Peter stood in the door andsaluted me. I stopped, strangely wrung in my heart by his greeting. Heasked me inside. 

The day was chill and rainy. We went into the back room, where a fireburned, in a little stove. A customer came, and Peter left me alonefor a while. Presently I felt a new feeling stealing over me--a senseof beautiful calm and content, I looked around the place. There wererows of shining rosewood caskets, black palls, trestles, hearse plumes, mourning streamers, and all the paraphernalia of the solemn trade. Here was peace, order, silence, the abode of grave and dignifiedreflections. Here, on the brink of life, was a little niche pervadedby the spirit of eternal rest. 

When I entered it, the follies of the world abandoned me at the door. Ifelt no inclination to wrest a humorous idea from those sombre andstately trappings. My mind seemed to stretch itself to grateful reposeupon a couch draped with gentle thoughts. 

A quarter of an hour ago I was an abandoned humorist. Now I was aphilosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found a refuge fromhumor, from the hot chase of the shy quip, from the degrading pursuitof the panting joke, from the restless reach after the nimble repartee. 

I had not known Heffelbower well. When he came back, I let him talk, fearful that he might prove to be a jarring note in the sweet, dirgelike harmony of his establishment. 

But, no. He chimed truly. I gave a long sigh of happiness. Neverhave I known a man's talk to be as magnificently dull as Peter's was. Compared with it the Dead Sea is a geyser. Never a sparkle or aglimmer of wit marred his words. Commonplaces as trite and asplentiful as blackberries flowed from his lips no more stirring inquality than a last week's tape running from a ticker. Quaking alittle, I tried upon him one of my best pointed jokes. It fell backineffectual, with the point broken. I loved that man from then on. 

Two or three evenings each week I would steal down to Heffelbower's andrevel in his back room. That was my only joy. I began to rise earlyand hurry through my work, that I might spend more time in my haven. In no other place could I throw off my habit of extracting humorousideas from my surroundings. Peter's talk left me no opening had Ibesieged it ever so hard. 

Under this influence I began to improve in spirits. It was therecreation from one's labor which every man needs. I surprised one ortwo of my former friends by throwing them a smile and a cheery word asI passed them on the streets. Several times I dumfounded my family byrelaxing long enough to make a jocose remark in their presence. 

I had so long been ridden by the incubus of humor that I seized myhours of holiday with a schoolboy's zest. 

Mv work began to suffer. It was not the pain and burden to me that ithad been. I often whistled at my desk, and wrote with far more fluencythan before. I accomplished my tasks impatiently, as anxious to be offto my helpful retreat as a drunkard is to get to his tavern. 

My wife had some anxious hours in conjecturing where I spent myafternoons. I thought it best not to tell her; women do not understandthese things. Poor girl!--she had one shock out of it. 

One day I brought home a silver coffin handle for a paper weight and afine, fluffy hearse plume to dust my papers with. 

I loved to see them on my desk, and think of the beloved back room downat Heffelbower's. But Louisa found them, and she shrieked with horror. I had to console her with some lame excuse for having them, but I sawin her eyes that the prejudice was not removed. I had to remove thearticles, though, at double-quick time. 

One day Peter Heffelbower laid before me a temptation that swept me offmy feet. In his sensible, uninspired way he showed me his books, andexplained that his profits and his business were increasing rapidly. He had thought of taking in a partner with some cash. He would ratherhave me than any one he knew. When I left his place that afternoonPeter had my check for the thousand dollars I had in the bank, and Iwas a partner in his undertaking business. 

I went home with feelings of delirious joy, mingled with a certainamount of doubt. I was dreading to tell my wife about it. But Iwalked on air. To give up the writing of humorous stuff, once more toenjoy the apples of life, instead of squeezing them to a pulp for a fewdrops of hard cider to make the pubic feel funny--what a boon thatwould be!

At the supper table Louisa handed me some letters that had come duringmy absence. Several of them contained rejected manuscript. Ever sinceI first began going to Heffelbower's my stuff had been coming back withalarming frequency. Lately I had been dashing off my jokes andarticles with the greatest fluency. Previously I had labored like abricklayer, slowly and with agony. 

Presently I opened a letter from the editor of the weekly with which Ihad a regular contract. The checks for that weekly article were stillour main dependence. The letter ran thus:

DEAR SIR:

As you are aware, our contract for the year expires with the presentmonth. While regretting the necessity for so doing, we must say thatwe do not care to renew same for the coming year. We were quitepleased with your style of humor, which seems to have delighted quite alarge proportion of our readers. But for the past two months we havenoticed a decided falling off in its quality. Your earlier work showeda spontaneous, easy, natural flow of fun and wit. Of late it islabored, studied, and unconvincing, giving painful evidence of hardtoil and drudging mechanism. 

Again regretting that we do not consider your contributions availableany longer, we are, yours sincerely, THE EDITOR. 

I handed this letter to my wife. After she had read it her face grewextremely long, and there were tears in her eyes. 

"The mean old thing!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I'm sure your piecesare just as good as they ever were. And it doesn't take you half aslong to write them as it did. " And then, I suppose, Louisa thought ofthe checks that would cease coming. "Oh, John, " she wailed, "what willyou do now?"

For an answer I got up and began to do a polka step around the suppertable. I am sure Louisa thought the trouble had driven me mad; and Ithink the children hoped it had, for they tore after me, yelling withglee and emulating my steps. I was now something like their oldplaymate as of yore. 

"The theatre for us to-night!" I shouted; "nothing less. And a late, wild, disreputable supper for all of us at the Palace Restaurant. Lumpty-diddle-de-dee-de-dum!"

And then I explained my glee by declaring that I was now a partner in aprosperous undertaking establishment, and that written jokes might gohide their heads in sackcloth and ashes for all me. 

With the editor's letter in her hand to justify the deed I had done, mywife could advance no objections save a few mild ones based on thefeminine inability to appreciate a good thing such as the little backroom of Peter Hef--no, of Heffelbower & Co's. Undertaking establishment. 

In conclusion, I will say that to-day you will find no man in our townas well liked, as jovial, and full of merry sayings as I. My jokes areagain noised about and quoted; once more I take pleasure in my wife'sconfidential chatter without a mercenary thought, while Guy and Violaplay at my feet distributing gems of childish humor without fear of theghastly tormentor who used to dog their steps, notebook in hand. 

Our business has prospered finely. I keep the books and look after theshop, while Peter attends to outside matters. He says that my levityand high spirits would simply turn any funeral into a regular Irishwake. 

THE SPARROWS IN MADISON SQUARE

The young man in straitened circumstances who comes to New York City toenter literature has but one thing to do, provided he has studiedcarefully his field in advance. He must go straight to Madison Square, write an article about the sparrows there, and sell it to the _Sun_ for$15. 

I cannot recall either a novel or a story dealing with the populartheme of the young writer from the provinces who comes to themetropolis to win fame and fortune with his pen in which the hero doesnot get his start that way. It does seem strange that some author, incasting about for startlingly original plots, has not hit upon the ideaof having his hero write about the bluebirds in Union Square and sellit to the _Herald_. But a search through the files of metropolitanfiction counts up overwhelmingly for the sparrows and the old GardenSquare, and the _Sun_ always writes the check. 

Of course it is easy to understand why this first city venture of thebudding author is always successful. He is primed by necessity to asuperlative effort; mid the iron and stone and marble of the roaringcity he has found this spot of singing birds and green grass and trees;every tender sentiment in his nature is baffling with the sweet pain ofhomesickness; his genius is aroused as it never may be again; the birdschirp, the tree branches sway, the noise of wheels is forgotten; hewrites with his soul in his pen--and he sells it to the _Sun_ for $15. 

I had read of this custom during many years before I came to New York. When my friends were using their strongest arguments to dissuade mefrom coming, I only smiled serenely. They did not know of that sparrowgraft I had up my sleeve. 

When I arrived in New York, and the car took me straight from the ferryup Twenty-third Street to Madison Square, I could hear that $15 checkrustling in my inside pocket. 

I obtained lodging at an unhyphenated hostelry, and the next morning Iwas on a bench in Madison Square almost by the time the sparrows wereawake. Their melodious chirping, the benignant spring foliage of thenoble trees and the clean, fragrant grass reminded me so potently ofthe old farm I had left that tears almost came into my eyes. 

Then, all in a moment, I felt my inspiration. The brave, piercingnotes of those cheerful small birds formed a keynote to a wonderful, light, fanciful song of hope and joy and altruism. Like myself, theywere creatures with hearts pitched to the tune of woods and fields; asI was, so were they captives by circumstance in the discordant, dullcity--yet with how much grace and glee they bore the restraint!

And then the early morning people began to pass through the square totheir work--sullen people, with sidelong glances and glum faces, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. And I got my theme cut out clear fromthe bird notes, and wrought it into a lesson, and a poem, and acarnival dance, and a lullaby; and then translated it all into proseand began to write. 

For two hours my pencil traveled over my pad with scarcely a rest. ThenI went to the little room I had rented for two days, and there I cut itto half, and then mailed it, white-hot, to the _Sun_. 

The next morning I was up by daylight and spent two cents of my capitalfor a paper. If the word "sparrow" was in it I was unable to find it. I took it up to my room and spread it out on the bed and went over it, column by column. Something was wrong. 

Three hours afterward the postman brought me a large envelopecontaining my MS. And a piece of inexpensive paper, about 3 inches by4--I suppose some of you have seen them--upon which was written inviolet ink, "With the _Sun's_ thanks. "

I went over to the square and sat upon a bench. No; I did not think itnecessary to eat any breakfast that morning. The confounded pests ofsparrows were making the square hideous with their idiotic "cheep, cheep. " I never saw birds so persistently noisy, impudent, anddisagreeable in all my life. 

By this time, according to all traditions, I should have been standingin the office of the editor of the _Sun_. That personage--a tall, grave, white-haired man--would strike a silver bell as he grasped myhand and wiped a suspicious moisture from his glasses. 

"Mr. McChesney, " he would be saying when a subordinate appeared, "thisis Mr. Henry, the young man who sent in that exquisite gem about thesparrows in Madison Square. You may give him a desk at once. Yoursalary, sir, will be $80 a week, to begin with. "

This was what I had been led to expect by all writers who have evolvedromances of literary New York. 

Something was decidedly wrong with tradition. I could not assume theblame, so I fixed it upon the sparrows. I began to hate them withintensity and heat. 

At that moment an individual wearing an excess of whiskers, two hats, and a pestilential air slid into the seat beside me. 

"Say, Willie, " he muttered cajolingly, "could you cough up a dime outof your coffers for a cup of coffee this morning?"

"I'm lung-weary, my friend, " said I. "The best I can do is threecents. "

"And you look like a gentleman, too, " said he. "What brung youdown?--boozer?"

"Birds, " I said fiercely. "The brown-throated songsters carollingsongs of hope and cheer to weary man toiling amid the city's dust anddin. The little feathered couriers from the meadows and woods chirpingsweetly to us of blue skies and flowering fields. The confoundedlittle squint-eyed nuisances yawping like a flock of steam pianos, andstuffing themselves like aldermen with grass seeds and bugs, while aman sits on a bench and goes without his breakfast. Yes, sir, birds!look at them!"

As I spoke I picked up a dead tree branch that lay by the bench, andhurled it with all my force into a close congregation of the sparrowson the grass. The flock flew to the trees with a babel of shrillcries; but two of them remained prostrate upon the turf. 

In a moment my unsavory friend had leaped over the row of benches andsecured the fluttering victims, which he thrust hurriedly into hispockets. Then he beckoned me with a dirty forefinger. 

"Come on, cully, " he said hoarsely. "You're in on the feed. "

Thank you very much!

Weakly I followed my dingy acquaintance. He led me away from the parkdown a side street and through a crack in a fence into a vacant lotwhere some excavating had been going on. Behind a pile of old stonesand lumber he paused, and took out his birds. 

"I got matches, " said he. "You got any paper to start a fire with?"

I drew forth my manuscript story of the sparrows, and offered it forburnt sacrifice. There were old planks, splinters, and chips for ourfire. My frowsy friend produced from some interior of his frayedclothing half a loaf of bread, pepper, and salt. 

In ten minutes each of us was holding a sparrow spitted upon a stickover the leaping flames. 

"Say, " said my fellow bivouacker, "this ain't so bad when a fellow'shungry. It reminds me of when I struck New York first--about fifteenyears ago. I come in from the West to see if I could get a job on anewspaper. I hit the Madison Square Park the first mornin' after, andwas sitting around on the benches. I noticed the sparrows chirpin', and the grass and trees so nice and green that I thought I was back inthe country again. Then I got some papers out of my pocket, and--"

"I know, " I interrupted. "You sent it to the _Sun_ and got $15. "

"Say, " said my friend, suspiciously, "you seem to know a good deal. Where was you? I went to sleep on the bench there, in the sun, andsomebody touched me for every cent I had--$15. "

HEARTS AND HANDS

At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on theeastbound B. & M. Express. In one coach there sat a very pretty youngwoman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxuriouscomforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were twoyoung men, one of handsome presence with a bold, frank countenance andmanner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built androughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together. 

As they passed down the aisle of the coach the only vacant seat offeredwas a reversed one facing the attractive young woman. Here the linkedcouple seated themselves. The young woman's glance fell upon them witha distant, swift disinterest; then with a lovely smile brightening hercountenance and a tender pink tingeing her rounded cheeks, she held outa little gray-gloved hand. When she spoke her voice, full, sweet, anddeliberate, proclaimed that its owner was accustomed to speak and beheard. 

"Well, Mr. Easton, if you _will_ make me speak first, I suppose I must. Don't you ever recognize old friends when you meet them in the West?"

The younger man roused himself sharply at the sound of her voice, seemed to struggle with a slight embarrassment which he threw offinstantly, and then clasped her fingers with his left hand. 

"It's Miss Fairchild, " he said, with a smile. "I'll ask you to excusethe other hand; it's otherwise engaged just at present. "

He slightly raised his right hand, bound at the wrist by the shining"bracelet" to the left one of his companion. The glad look in thegirl's eyes slowly changed to a bewildered horror. The glow faded fromher cheeks. Her lips parted in a vague, relaxing distress. Easton, with a little laugh, as if amused, was about to speak again when theother forestalled him. The glum-faced man had been watching the girl'scountenance with veiled glances from his keen, shrewd eyes. 

"You'll excuse me for speaking, miss, but, I see you're acquainted withthe marshall here. If you'll ask him to speak a word for me when weget to the pen he'll do it, and it'll make things easier for me there. He's taking me to Leavenworth prison. It's seven years forcounterfeiting. "

"Oh!" said the girl, with a deep breath and returning color. "So thatis what you are doing out here? A marshal!"

"My dear Miss Fairchild, " said Easton, calmly, "I had to do something. Money has a way of taking wings unto itself, and you know it takesmoney to keep step with our crowd in Washington. I saw this opening inthe West, and--well, a marshalship isn't quite as high a position asthat of ambassador, but--"

"The ambassador, " said the girl, warmly, "doesn't call any more. Heneedn't ever have done so. You ought to know that. And so now you areone of these dashing Western heroes, and you ride and shoot and go intoall kinds of dangers. That's different from the Washington life. Youhave been missed from the old crowd. "

The girl's eyes, fascinated, went back, widening a little, to rest uponthe glittering handcuffs. 

"Don't you worry about them, miss, " said the other man. "All marshalshandcuff themselves to their prisoners to keep them from getting away. Mr. Easton knows his business. "

"Will we see you again soon in Washington?" asked the girl. 

"Not soon, I think, " said Easton. "My butterfly days are over, I fear. "

"I love the West, " said the girl irrelevantly. Her eyes were shiningsoftly. She looked away out the car window. She began to speak trulyand simply without the gloss of style and manner: "Mamma and I spentthe summer in Denver. She went home a week ago because father wasslightly ill. I could live and be happy in the West. I think the airhere agrees with me. Money isn't everything. But people alwaysmisunderstand things and remain stupid--"

"Say, Mr. Marshal, " growled the glum-faced man. "This isn't quitefair. I'm needing a drink, and haven't had a smoke all day. Haven'tyou talked long enough? Take me in the smoker now, won't you? I'mhalf dead for a pipe. "

The bound travelers rose to their feet, Easton with the same slow smileon his face. 

"I can't deny a petition for tobacco, " he said, lightly. "It's the onefriend of the unfortunate. Good-bye, Miss Fairchild. Duty calls, youknow. " He held out his hand for a farewell. 

"It's too bad you are not going East, " she said, reclothing herselfwith manner and style. "But you must go on to Leavenworth, I suppose?"

"Yes, " said Easton, "I must go on to Leavenworth. "

The two men sidled down the aisle into the smoker. 

The two passengers in a seat near by had heard most of theconversation. Said one of them: "That marshal's a good sort of chap. Some of these Western fellows are all right. "

"Pretty young to hold an office like that, isn't he?" asked the other. 

"Young!" exclaimed the first speaker, "why--Oh! didn't you catch on?Say--did you ever know an officer to handcuff a prisoner to his _right_hand?"

THE CACTUS

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. Alarge amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to thedrowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entirecourtship while removing one's gloves. 

That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table in his bachelorapartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green plant in a redearthen jar. The plant was one of the species of cacti, and wasprovided with long, tentacular leaves that perpetually swayed with theslightest breeze with a peculiar beckoning motion. 

Trysdale's friend, the brother of the bride, stood at a sideboardcomplaining at being allowed to drink alone. Both men were in eveningdress. White favors like stars upon their coats shone through thegloom of the apartment. 

As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there passed through Trysdale'smind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemedthat in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had beenbanked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears thelowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crispgarments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of theminister irrevocably binding her to another. 

From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it hadbecome a habit of his mind, to reach some conjecture as to why and howhe had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact, he hadsuddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never beforefaced--his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He sawall the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to ragsof folly. He shuddered at the thought that to others, before now, thegarments of his soul must have appeared sorry and threadbare. Vanityand conceit? These were the joints in his armor. And how free fromeither she had always been--But why--

As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt anunworthy, sullen exultation that had served to support him. He hadtold himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than theman to whom she was about to give herself. But even that poorconsolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift, limpid, upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, heknew himself to be forgotten. Once that same look had been raised tohim, and he had gauged its meaning. Indeed, his conceit had crumbled;its last prop was gone. Why had it ended thus? There had been noquarrel between them, nothing--

For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of thoselast few days before the tide had so suddenly turned. 

She had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he hadaccepted her homage with royal grandeur. It had been a very sweetincense that she had burned before him; so modest (he told himself); sochildlike and worshipful, and (he would once have sworn) so sincere. She had invested him with an almost supernatural number of highattributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed theoblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promiseof blossom or fruit. 

As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart the seam of his last glove, thecrowning instance of his fatuous and tardily mourned egoism camevividly back to him. The scene was the night when he had asked her tocome up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness. He couldnot, now, for the pain of it, allow his mind to dwell upon the memoryof her convincing beauty that night--the careless wave of her hair, thetenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words. But they hadbeen enough, and they had brought him to speak. During theirconversation she had said:

"And Captain Carruthers tells me that you speak the Spanish languagelike a native. Why have you hidden this accomplishment from me? Isthere anything you do not know?"

Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No doubt he (Trysdale) had been guilty(he sometimes did such things) of airing at the club some old, cantingCastilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of dictionaries. Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers, was the very manto have magnified this exhibition of doubtful erudition. 

But, alas! the incense of her admiration had been so sweet andflattering. He allowed the imputation to pass without denial. Withoutprotest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this spurious bay ofSpanish scholarship. He let it grace his conquering head, and, amongits soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of the thorn that wasto pierce him later. 

How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like asnared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet! He could havesworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent was in hereyes, but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. "I will sendyou my answer to-morrow, " she said; and he, the indulgent, confidentvictor, smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited, impatient, in his rooms for the word. At noon her groom came to thedoor and left the strange cactus in the red earthen jar. There was nonote, no message, merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarousforeign or botanical name. He waited until night, but her answer didnot come. His large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her. Two evenings later they met at a dinner. Their greetings wereconventional, but she looked at him, breathless, wondering, eager. Hewas courteous, adamant, waiting her explanation. With womanlyswiftness she took her cue from his manner, and turned to snow and ice. Thus, and wider from this on, they had drifted apart. Where was hisfault? Who had been to blame? Humbled now, he sought the answer amidthe ruins of his self-conceit. If--

The voice of the other man in the room, querulously intruding upon histhoughts, aroused him. 

"I say, Trysdale, what the deuce is the matter with you? You lookunhappy as if you yourself had been married instead of having actedmerely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come twothousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the wayfrom South America to connive at the sacrifice--please to observe howlightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I had, too, and now she's gone. Come now! take something to ease yourconscience. "

"I don't drink just now, thanks, " said Trysdale. 

"Your brandy, " resumed the other, coming over and joining him, "isabominable. Run down to see me some time at Punta Redonda, and trysome of our stuff that old Garcia smuggles in. It's worth the trip. Hallo! here's an old acquaintance. Wherever did you rake up thiscactus, Trysdale?"

"A present, " said Trysdale, "from a friend. Know the species?"

"Very well. It's a tropical concern. See hundreds of 'em around Puntaevery day. Here's the name on this tag tied to it. Know any Spanish, Trysdale?"

"No, " said Trysdale, with the bitter wraith of a smile--"Is it Spanish?"

"Yes. The natives imagine the leaves are reaching out and beckoning toyou. They call it by this name--Ventomarme. Name means in English, 'Come and take me. '"

THE DETECTIVE DETECTOR

I was walking in Central Park with Avery Knight, the great New Yorkburglar, highwayman, and murderer. 

"But, my dear Knight, " said I, "it sounds incredible. You haveundoubtedly performed some of the most wonderful feats in yourprofession known to modern crime. You have committed some marvellousdeeds under the very noses of the police--you have boldly entered thehomes of millionaires and held them up with an empty gun while you madefree with their silver and jewels; you have sandbagged citizens in theglare of Broadway's electric lights; you have killed and robbed withsuperb openness and absolute impunity--but when you boast that withinforty-eight hours after committing a murder you can run down andactually bring me face to face with the detective assigned to apprehendyou, I must beg leave to express my doubts--remember, you are in NewYork. "

Avery Knight smiled indulgently. 

"You pique my professional pride, doctor, " he said in a nettled tone. "I will convince you. "

About twelve yards in advance of us a prosperous-looking citizen wasrounding a clump of bushes where the walk curved. Knight suddenly drewa revolver and shot the man in the back. His victim fell and laywithout moving. 

The great murderer went up to him leisurely and took from his clotheshis money, watch, and a valuable ring and cravat pin. He then rejoinedme smiling calmly, and we continued our walk. 

Ten steps and we met a policeman running toward the spot where the shothad been fired. Avery Knight stopped him. 

"I have just killed a man, " he announced, seriously, "and robbed him ofhis possessions. "

"G'wan, " said the policeman, angrily, "or I'll run yez in! Want yername in the papers, don't yez? I never knew the cranks to come aroundso quick after a shootin' before. Out of th' park, now, for yours, orI'll fan yez. "

"What you have done, " I said, argumentatively, as Knight and I walkedon, "was easy. But when you come to the task of hunting down thedetective that they send upon your trail you will find that you haveundertaken a difficult feat. "

"Perhaps so, " said Knight, lightly. "I will admit that my successdepends in a degree upon the sort of man they start after me. If itshould be an ordinary plain-clothes man I might fail to gain a sight ofhim. If they honor me by giving the case to some one of theircelebrated sleuths I do not fear to match my cunning and powers ofinduction against his. "

On the next afternoon Knight entered my office with a satisfied look onhis keen countenance. 

"How goes the mysterious murder?" I asked. 

"As usual, " said Knight, smilingly. "I have put in the morning at thepolice station and at the inquest. It seems that a card case of minecontaining cards with my name and address was found near the body. Theyhave three witnesses who saw the shooting and gave a description of me. The case has been placed in the hands of Shamrock Jolnes, the famousdetective. He left Headquarters at 11:30 on the assignment. I waitedat my address until two, thinking he might call there. "

I laughed, tauntingly. 

"You will never see Jolnes, " I continued, "until this murder has beenforgotten, two or three weeks from now. I had a better opinion of yourshrewdness, Knight. During the three hours and a half that you waitedhe has got out of your ken. He is after you on true induction theoriesnow, and no wrongdoer has yet been known to come upon him while thusengaged. I advise you to give it up. "

"Doctor, " said Knight, with a sudden glint in his keen gray eye and asquaring of his chin, "in spite of the record your city holds ofsomething like a dozen homicides without a subsequent meeting of theperpetrator, and the sleuth in charge of the case, I will undertake tobreak that record. To-morrow I will take you to Shamrock Jolnes--Iwill unmask him before you and prove to you that it is not animpossibility for an officer of the law and a manslayer to stand faceto face in your city. "

"Do it, " said I, "and you'll have the sincere thanks of the PoliceDepartment. "

On the next day Knight called for me in a cab. 

"I've been on one or two false scents, doctor, " he admitted. "I knowsomething of detectives' methods, and I followed out a few of them, expecting to find Jolnes at the other end. The pistol being a. 45-caliber, I thought surely I would find him at work on the clue inForty-fifth Street. Then, again, I looked for the detective at theColumbia University, as the man's being shot in the back naturallysuggested hazing. But I could not find a trace of him. "

"--Nor will you, " I said, emphatically. 

"Not by ordinary methods, " said Knight. "I might walk up and downBroadway for a month without success. But you have aroused my pride, doctor; and if I fail to show you Shamrock Jolnes this day, I promiseyou I will never kill or rob in your city again. "

"Nonsense, man, " I replied. "When our burglars walk into our housesand politely demand, thousands of dollars' worth of jewels, and thendine and bang the piano an hour or two before leaving, how do you, amere murderer, expect to come in contact with the detective that islooking for you?"

Avery Knight, sat lost in thought for a while. At length he looked upbrightly. 

"Doc, " said he, "I have it. Put on your hat, and come with me. Inhalf an hour I guarantee that you shall stand in the presence ofShamrock Jolnes. "

I entered a cab with Avery Knight. I did not hear his instructions tothe driver, but the vehicle set out at a smart pace up Broadway, turning presently into Fifth Avenue, and proceeding northward again. Itwas with a rapidly beating heart that I accompanied this wonderful andgifted assassin, whose analytical genius and superb self-confidence hadprompted him to make me the tremendous promise of bringing me into thepresence of a murderer and the New York detective in pursuit of himsimultaneously. Even yet I could not believe it possible. 

"Are you sure that you are not being led into some trap?" I asked. "Suppose that your clue, whatever it is, should bring us only into thepresence of the Commissioner of Police and a couple of dozen cops!"

"My dear doctor, " said Knight, a little stiffly. "I would remind youthat I am no gambler. "

"I beg your pardon, " said I. "But I do not think you will find Jolnes. "

The cab stopped before one of the handsomest residences on the avenue. Walking up and down in front of the house was a man with long redwhiskers, with a detective's badge showing on the lapel of his coat. Now and then the man would remove his whiskers to wipe his face, andthen I would recognize at once the well-known features of the great NewYork detective. Jolnes was keeping a sharp watch upon the doors andwindows of the house. 

"Well, doctor, " said Knight, unable to repress a note of triumph in hisvoice, "have you seen?"

"It is wonderful--wonderful!" I could not help exclaiming as our cabstarted on its return trip. "But how did you do it? By what processof induction--"

"My dear doctor, " interrupted the great murderer, "the inductive theoryis what the detectives use. My process is more modern. I call it thesaltatorial theory. Without bothering with the tedious mentalphenomena necessary to the solution of a mystery from slight clues, Ijump at once to a conclusion. I will explain to you the method Iemployed in this case. 

"In the first place, I argued that as the crime was committed in NewYork City in broad daylight, in a public place and under peculiarlyatrocious circumstances, and that as the most skilful sleuth availablewas let loose upon the case, the perpetrator would never be discovered. Do you not think my postulation justified by precedent?"

"Perhaps so, " I replied, doggedly. "But if Big Bill Dev--"

"Stop that, " interrupted Knight, with a smile, "I've heard that severaltimes. It's too late now. I will proceed. 

"If homicides in New York went undiscovered, I reasoned, although thebest detective talent was employed to ferret them out, it must be truethat the detectives went about their work in the wrong way. And notonly in the wrong way, but exactly opposite from the right way. Thatwas my clue. 

"I slew the man in Central Park. Now, let me describe myself to you. 

"I am tall, with a black beard, and I hate publicity. I have no moneyto speak of; I do not like oatmeal, and it is the one ambition of mylife to die rich. I am of a cold and heartless disposition. I do notcare for my fellowmen and I never give a cent to beggars or charity. 

"Now, my dear doctor, that is the true description of myself, the manwhom that shrewd detective was to hunt down. You who are familiar withthe history of crime in New York of late should be able to foretell theresult. When I promised you to exhibit to your incredulous gaze thesleuth who was set upon me, you laughed at me because you said thatdetectives and murderers never met in New York. I have demonstrated toyou that the theory is possible. "

"But how did you do it?" I asked again. 

"It was very simple, " replied the distinguished murderer. "I assumedthat the detective would go exactly opposite to the clues he had. Ihave given you a description of myself. Therefore, he must necessarilyset to work and trail a short man with a white beard who likes to be inthe papers, who is very wealthy, is fond 'of oatmeal, wants to diepoor, and is of an extremely generous and philanthropic disposition. When thus far is reached the mind hesitates no longer. I conveyed youat once to the spot where Shamrock Jolnes was piping off AndrewCarnegie's residence. "

"Knight, " said I, "you're a wonder. If there was no danger of yourreforming, what a rounds man you'd make for the Nineteenth Precinct!"

THE DOG AND THE PLAYLET

[This story has been rewritten and published in "Strictly Business"under the title, The Proof of the Pudding. ]

Usually it is a cold day in July when you can stroll up Broadway inthat month and get a story out of the drama. I found one a fewbreathless, parboiling days ago, and it seems to decide a seriousquestion in art. 

There was not a soul left in the city except Hollis and me--and two orthree million sunworshippers who remained at desks and counters. Theelect had fled to seashore, lake, and mountain, and had already begunto draw for additional funds. Every evening Hollis and I prowled aboutthe deserted town searching for coolness in empty cafes, dining-rooms, and roofgardens. We knew to the tenth part of a revolution the speedof every electric fan in Gotham, and we followed the swiftest as theyvaried. Hollis's fiancee. Miss Loris Sherman, had been in theAdirondacks, at Lower Saranac Lake, for a month. In another week hewould join her party there. In the meantime, he cursed the citycheerfully and optimistically, and sought my society because I sufferedhim to show me her photograph during the black coffee every time wedined together. 

My revenge was to read to him my one-act play. 

It was one insufferable evening when the overplus of the day's heat wasbeing hurled quiveringly back to the heavens by every surcharged brickand stone and inch of iron in the panting town. But with the cunningof the two-legged beasts we had found an oasis where the hoofs ofApollo's steed had not been allowed to strike. Our seats were on anocean of cool, polished oak; the white linen of fifty deserted tablesflapped like seagulls in the artificial breeze; a mile away a waiterlingered for a heliographic signal--we might have roared songs there orfought a duel without molestation. 

Out came Miss Loris's photo with the coffee, and I once more praisedthe elegant poise of the neck, the extremely low-coiled mass of heavyhair, and the eyes that followed one, like those in an oil painting. 

"She's the greatest ever, " said Hollis, with enthusiasm. "Good asGreat Northern Preferred, and a disposition built like a watch. Oneweek more and I'll be happy Jonny-on-the-spot. Old Tom Tolliver, mybest college chum, went up there two weeks ago. He writes me thatLoris doesn't talk about anything but me. Oh, I guess Rip Van Winkledidn't have all the good luck!"

"Yes, yes, " said I, hurriedly, pulling out my typewritten play. "She'sno doubt a charming girl. Now, here's that little curtain-raiser youpromised to listen to. "

"Ever been tried on the stage?" asked Hollis. 

"Not exactly, " I answered. "I read half of it the other day to afellow whose brother knows Robert Edeson; but he had to catch a trainbefore I finished. "

"Go on, " said Hollis, sliding back in his chair like a good fellow. "I'm no stage carpenter, but I'll tell you what I think of it from afirst-row balcony standpoint. I'm a theatre bug during the season, andI can size up a fake play almost as quick as the gallery can. Flag thewaiter once more, and then go ahead as hard as you like with it. I'llbe the dog. "

I read my little play lovingly, and, I fear, not without someelocution. There was one scene in it that I believed in greatly. Thecomedy swiftly rises into thrilling and unexpectedly developed drama. Capt. Marchmont suddenly becomes cognizant that his wife is anunscrupulous adventuress, who has deceived him from the day of theirfirst meeting. The rapid and mortal duel between them from thatmoment--she with her magnificent lies and siren charm, winding abouthim like a serpent, trying to recover her lost ground; he with hisman's agony and scorn and lost faith, trying to tear her from hisheart. That scene I always thought was a crackerjack. When Capt. Marchmont discovers her duplicity by reading on a blotter in a mirrorthe impression of a note that she has written to the Count, he raiseshis hand to heaven and exclaims: "O God, who created woman while Adamslept, and gave her to him for a companion, take back Thy gift andreturn instead the sleep, though it last forever!"

"Rot, " said Hollis, rudely, when I had given those lines with properemphasis. 

"I beg your pardon!" I said, as sweetly as I could. 

"Come now, " went on Hollis, "don't be an idiot. You know very wellthat nobody spouts any stuff like that these days. That sketch wentalong all right until you rang in the skyrockets. Cut out thatright-arm exercise and the Adam and Eve stunt, and make your captaintalk as you or I or Bill Jones would. "

"I'll admit, " said I, earnestly (for my theory was being touched upon), "that on all ordinary occasions all of us use commonplace language toconvey our thoughts. You will remember that up to the moment when thecaptain makes his terrible discovery all the characters on the stagetalk pretty much as they would, in real life. But I believe that I amright in allowing him lines suitable to the strong and tragic situationinto which he falls. "

"Tragic, my eye!" said my friend, irreverently. "In Shakespeare's dayhe might have sputtered out some high-cockalorum nonsense of that sort, because in those days they ordered ham and eggs in blank verse anddischarged the cook with an epic. But not for B'way in the summer of1905!"

"It is my opinion, " said I, "that great human emotions shake up ourvocabulary and leave the words best suited to express them on top. Asudden violent grief or loss or disappointment will bring expressionsout of an ordinary man as strong and solemn and dramatic as those usedin fiction or on the stage to portray those emotions. "

"That's where you fellows are wrong, " said Hollis. "Plain, every-daytalk is what goes. Your captain would very likely have kicked the cat, lit a cigar, stirred up a highball, and telephoned for a lawyer, instead of getting off those Robert Mantell pyrotechnics. "

"Possibly, a little later, " I continued. "But just at the time--justas the blow is delivered, if something Scriptural or theatrical anddeep-tongued isn't wrung from a man in spite of his modern andpractical way of speaking, then I'm wrong. "

"Of course, " said Hollis, kindly, "you've got to whoop her up somedegrees for the stage. The audience expects it. When the villainkidnaps little Effie you have to make her mother claw some chunks outof the atmosphere, and scream: "Me chee-ild, me chee-ild!" What shewould actually do would be to call up the police by 'phone, ring forsome strong tea, and get the little darling's photo out, ready for thereporters. When you get your villain in a corner--a stage corner--it'sall right for him to clap his hand to his forehead and hiss: "All islost!" Off the stage he would remark: "This is a conspiracy againstme--I refer you to my lawyers. '"

"I get no consolation, " said I, gloomily, "from your concession of anaccentuated stage treatment. In my play I fondly hoped that I wasfollowing life. If people in real life meet great crises in acommonplace way, they should do the same on the stage. "

And then we drifted, like two trout, out of our cool pool in the greathotel and began to nibble languidly at the gay flies in the swiftcurrent of Broadway. And our question of dramatic art was unsettled. 

We nibbled at the flies, and avoided the hooks, as wise trout do; butsoon the weariness of Manhattan in summer overcame us. Nine storiesup, facing the south, was Hollis's apartment, and we soon stepped intoan elevator bound for that cooler haven. 

I was familiar in those quarters, and quickly my play was forgotten, and I stood at a sideboard mixing things, with cracked ice and glassesall about me. A breeze from the bay came in the windows not altogetherblighted by the asphalt furnace over which it had passed. Hollis, whistling softly, turned over a late-arrived letter or two on histable, and drew around the coolest wicker armchairs. 

I was just measuring the Vermouth carefully when I heard a sound. Someman's voice groaned hoarsely: "False, oh, God!--false, and Love is alie and friendship but the byword of devils!"

I looked around quickly. Hollis lay across the table with his headdown upon his outstretched arms. And then he looked up at me andlaughed in his ordinary manner. 

I knew him--he was poking fun at me about my theory. And it did seemso unnatural, those swelling words during our quiet gossip, that I halfbegan to believe I had been mistaken--that my theory was wrong. 

Hollis raised himself slowly from the table. 

"You were right about that theatrical business, old man, " he said, quietly, as he tossed a note to me. 

I read it. 

Loris had run away with Tom Tolliver. 

A LITTLE TALK ABOUT MOBS

"I see, " remarked the tall gentleman in the frock coat and black slouchhat, "that another street car motorman in your city has narrowlyexcaped lynching at the hands of an infuriated mob by lighting a cigarand walking a couple of blocks down the street. "

"Do you think they would have lynched him?" asked the New Yorker, inthe next seat of the ferry station, who was also waiting for the boat. 

"Not until after the election, " said the tall man, cutting a corner offhis plug of tobacco. "I've been in your city long enough to knowsomething about your mobs. The motorman's mob is about the leastdangerous of them all, except the National Guard and the Dressmakers'Convention. 

"You see, when little Willie Goldstein is sent by his mother for pigs'knuckles, with a nickel tightly grasped in his chubby fist, he alwayscrosses the street car track safely twenty feet ahead of the car; andthen suddenly turns back to ask his mother whether it was pale ale or aspool of 80 white cotton that she wanted. The motorman yells andthrows himself on the brakes like a football player. There is ahorrible grinding and then a ripping sound, and a piercing shriek, andWillie is sitting, with part of his trousers torn away by the fender, screaming for his lost nickel. 

"In ten seconds the car is surrounded by 600 infuriated citizens, crying, 'Lynch the motorman! Lynch the motorman!' at the top of theirvoices. Some of them run to the nearest cigar store to get a rope; butthey find the last one has just been cut up and labelled. Hundreds ofthe excited mob press close to the cowering motorman, whose hand isobserved to tremble perceptibly as he transfers a stick of pepsin gumfrom his pocket to his mouth. 

"When the bloodthirsty mob of maddened citizens has closed in on themotorman, some bringing camp stools and sitting quite close to him, andall shouting, 'Lynch him!' Policeman Fogarty forces his way throughthem to the side of their prospective victim. 

"'Hello, Mike, ' says the motorman in a low voice, 'nice day. Shall Isneak off a block or so, or would you like to rescue me?'

"'Well, Jerry, if you don't mind, ' says the policeman, 'I'd like todisperse the infuriated mob singlehanded. I haven't defeated alynching mob since last Tuesday; and that was a small one of only 300, that wanted to string up a Dago boy for selling wormy pears. It wouldboost me some down at the station. '

"'All right, Mike, ' says the motorman, 'anything to oblige. I'll turnpale and tremble. '

"And he does so; and Policeman Fogarty draws his club and says, 'G'wanwid yez!' and in eight seconds the desperate mob has scattered and goneabout its business, except about a hundred who remain to search forWillie's nickel. "

"I never heard of a mob in our city doing violence to a motormanbecause of an accident, " said the New Yorker. 

"You are not liable to, " said the tall man. "They know the motorman'sall right, and that he wouldn't even run over a stray dog if he couldhelp it. And they know that not a man among 'em would tie the knot tohang even a Thomas cat that had been tried and condemned and sentencedaccording to law. "

"Then why do they become infuriated and make threats of lynching?"asked the New Yorker. 

"To assure the motorman, " answered the tall man, "that he is safe. Ifthey really wanted to do him up they would go into the houses and dropbricks on him from the third-story windows. "

"New Yorkers are not cowards, " said the other man, a little stiffly. 

"Not one at a time, " agreed the tall man, promptly. "You've got a finelot of single-handed scrappers in your town. I'd rather fight three ofyou than one; and I'd go up against all the Gas Trust's victims in abunch before I'd pass two citizens on a dark corner, with my watchchain showing. When you get rounded up in a bunch you lose your nerve. Get you in crowds and you're easy. Ask the 'L' road guards and GeorgeB. Cortelyou and the tintype booths at Coney Island. Divided youstand, united you fall. _E pluribus nihil_. Whenever one of your mobssurrounds a man and begins to holler, 'Lynch him!' he says to himself, "Oh, dear, I suppose I must look pale to please the boys, but I will, forsooth, let my life insurance premium lapse to-morrow. This is asure tip for me to play Methuselah straight across the board in thenext handicap. '

"I can imagine the tortured feelings of a prisoner in the hands of NewYork policemen when an infuriated mob demands that he be turned over tothem for lynching. 'For God's sake, officers, ' cries the distractedwretch, 'have ye hearts of stone, that ye will not let them wrest mefrom ye?'

"'Sorry, Jimmy, ' says one of the policemen, 'but it won't do. There'sthree of us--me and Darrel and the plain-clothes man; and there's onlysivin thousand of the mob. How'd we explain it at the office if theytook ye? Jist chase the infuriated aggregation around the corner, Darrel, and we'll be movin' along to the station. '"

"Some of our gatherings of excited citizens have not been so harmless, "said the New Yorker, with a faint note of civic pride. 

"I'll admit that, " said the tall man. "A cousin of mine who was on avisit here once had an arm broken and lost an ear in one of them. "

"That must have been during the Cooper Union riots, " remarked the NewYorker. 

"Not the Cooper Union, " explained the tall man--"but it was a unionriot--at the Vanastor wedding. "

"You seem to be in favor of lynch law, " said the New Yorker, severely. 

"No, sir, I am not. No intelligent man is. But, sir, there arecertain cases when people rise in their just majesty and take arighteous vengeance for crimes that the law is slow in punishing. I aman advocate of law and order, but I will say to you that less than sixmonths ago I myself assisted at the lynching of one of that race thatis creating a wide chasm between your section of country and mine, sir. "

"It is a deplorable condition, " said the New Yorker, "that exists inthe South, but--"

"I am from Indiana, sir, " said the tall man, taking another chew; "andI don't think you will condemn my course when I tell you that thecolored man in question had stolen $9. 60 in cash, sir, from my ownbrother. "

THE SNOW MAN

EDITORIAL NOTE. --_Before the fatal illness of William Sydney Porter(known through his literary work as "O. Henry") this American master ofshort-story writing had begun for Hampton's Magazine the story printedbelow. Illness crept upon him rapidly and he was compelled to give upwriting about at the point where the girl enters the story. _

_When he realized that he could do no more (it was his lifelong habitto write with a pencil, never dictating to a stenographer), O. Henrytold in detail the remainder of The Snow Man to Harris Merton Lyon, whom he had often spoken of as one of the most effective short-storywriters of the present time. Mr. Porter had delineated all of thecharacters, leaving only the rounding out of the plot in the finalpages to Mr. Lyon. _

Housed and windowpaned from it, the greatest wonder to little childrenis the snow. To men, it is something like a crucible in which theirworld melts into a white star ten million miles away. The man who canstand the test is a Snow Man; and this is his reading by Fahrenheit, Reaumur, or Moses's carven tablets of stone. 

Night had fluttered a sable pinion above the canyon of Big Lost River, and I urged my horse toward the Bay Horse Ranch because the snow wasdeepening. The flakes were as large as an hour's circular tatting byMiss Wilkins's ablest spinster, betokening a heavy snowfall and lessentertainment and more adventure than the completion of the tattingcould promise. I knew Ross Curtis of the Bay Horse, and that I wouldbe welcome as a snow-bound pilgrim, both for hospitality's sake andbecause Ross had few chances to confide in living creatures who did notneigh, bellow, bleat, yelp, or howl during his discourse. 

The ranch house was just within the jaws of the canyon where itsbuilder may have fatuously fancied that the timbered and rocky walls onboth sides would have protected it from the wintry Colorado winds; butI feared the drift. Even now through the endless, bottomless rift inthe hills--the speaking tube of the four winds--came roaring the voiceof the proprietor to the little room on the top floor. 

At my "hello, " a ranch hand came from an outer building and received mythankful horse. In another minute, Ross and I sat by a stove in thedining-room of the four-room ranch house, while the big, simple welcomeof the household lay at my disposal. Fanned by the whizzing norther, the fine, dry snow was sifted and bolted through the cracks andknotholes of the logs. The cook room, without a separating door, appended. 

In there I could see a short, sturdy, leisurely and weather-beaten manmoving with professional sureness about his red-hot stove. His face wasstolid and unreadable--something like that of a great thinker, or ofone who had no thoughts to conceal. I thought his eye seemedunwarrantably superior to the elements and to the man, but quicklyattributed that to the characteristic self-importance of a petty chef. "Camp cook" was the niche that I gave him in the Hall of Types; and hefitted it as an apple fits a dumpling. 

Cold it was in spite of the glowing stove; and Ross and I sat andtalked, shuddering frequently, half from nerves and half from thefreezing draughts. So he brought the bottle and the cook broughtboiling water, and we made prodigious hot toddies against the attacksof Boreas. We clinked glasses often. They sounded like iciclesdropping from the eaves, or like the tinkle of a thousand prisms on aLouis XIV chandelier that I once heard at a boarder's dance in theparlor of a ten-a-week boarding-house in Gramercy Square. _Sictransit_. 

Silence in the terrible beauty of the snow and of the Sphinx and of thestars; but they who believe that all things, from a without-wine tabled'hote to the crucifixion, may be interpreted through music, might havefound a nocturne or a symphony to express the isolation of thatblotted-out world. The clink of glass and bottle, the aeolian chorusof the wind in the house crannies, its deeper trombone through thecanyon below, and the Wagnerian crash of the cook's pots and pans, united in a fit, discordant melody, I thought. No less welcome anaccompaniment was the sizzling of broiling ham and venison cutletindorsed by the solvent fumes of true Java, bringing rich promises ofcomfort to our yearning souls. 

The cook brought the smoking supper to the table. He nodded to medemocratically as he cast the heavy plates around as though he werepitching quoits or hurling the discus. I looked at him with someappraisement and curiosity and much conciliation. There was no prophetto tell us when that drifting evil outside might cease to fall; and itis well, when snow-bound, to stand somewhere within the radius of thecook's favorable consideration. But I could read neither favor nordisapproval in the face and manner of our pot-wrestler. 

He was about five feet nine inches, and two hundred pounds ofcommonplace, bull-necked, pink-faced, callous calm. He wore brown ducktrousers too tight and too short, and a blue flannel shirt with sleevesrolled above his elbows. There was a sort of grim, steady scowl on hisfeatures that looked to me as though he had fixed it there purposely asa protection against the weakness of an inherent amiability that, hefancied, were better concealed. And then I let supper usurp his briefoccupancy of my thoughts. 

"Draw up, George, " said Ross. "Let's all eat while the grub's hot. "

"You fellows go on and chew, " answered the cook. "I ate mine in thekitchen before sun-down. "

"Think it'll be a big snow, George?" asked the ranchman. 

George had turned to reenter the cook room. He moved slowly aroundand, looking at his face, it seemed to me that he was turning over thewisdom and knowledge of centuries in his head. 

"It might, " was his delayed reply. 

At the door of the kitchen he stopped and looked back at us. Both Rossand I held our knives and forks poised and gave him our regard. Somemen have the power of drawing the attention of others without speakinga word. Their attitude is more effective than a shout. 

"And again it mightn't, " said George, and went back to his stove. 

After we had eaten, he came in and gathered the emptied dishes. Hestood for a moment, while his spurious frown deepened. 

"It might stop any minute, " he said, "or it might keep up for days. "

At the farther end of the cook room I saw George pour hot water intohis dishpan, light his pipe, and put the tableware through its requiredlavation. He then carefully unwrapped from a piece of old saddleblanket a paperback book, and settled himself to read by his dim oillamp. 

And then the ranchman threw tobacco on the cleared table and set forthagain the bottles and glasses; and I saw that I stood in a deep channelthrough which the long dammed flood of his discourse would soon bebooming. But I was half content, comparing my fate with that of thelate Thomas Tucker, who had to sing for his supper, thus doubling theburdens of both himself and his host. 

"Snow is a hell of a thing, " said Ross, by way of a foreword. "Itain't, somehow, it seems to me, salubrious. I can stand water and mudand two inches below zero and a hundred and ten in the shade andmedium-sized cyclones, but this here fuzzy white stuff naturally getsme all locoed. I reckon the reason it rattles you is because itchanges the look of things so much. It's like you had a wife and lefther in the morning with the same old blue cotton wrapper on, and ridesin of a night and runs across her all outfitted in a white silk eveningfrock, waving an ostrich-feather fan, and monkeying with a posy of lilyflowers. Wouldn't it make you look for your pocket compass? You'd beliable to kiss her before you collected your presence of mind. "

By and by, the flood of Ross's talk was drawn up into the clouds (so itpleased me to fancy) and there condensed into the finer snowflakes ofthought; and we sat silent about the stove, as good friends and bitterenemies will do. I thought of Boss's preamble about the mysteriousinfluence upon man exerted by that ermine-lined monster that nowcovered our little world, and knew he was right. 

Of all the curious knickknacks, mysteries, puzzles, Indian gifts, rat-traps, and well-disguised blessings that the gods chuck down to usfrom the Olympian peaks, the most disquieting and evil-bringing is thesnow. By scientific analysis it is absolute beauty and purity--so, atthe beginning we look doubtfully at chemistry. 

It falls upon the world, and lo! we live in another. It hides in anight the old scars and familiar places with which we have grownheart-sick or enamored. So, as quietly as we can, we hustle on ourembroidered robes and hie us on Prince Camaralzaman's horse or in thereindeer sleigh into the white country where the seven colors converge. This is when our fancy can overcome the bane of it. 

But in certain spots of the earth comes the snow-madness, made known bypeople turned wild and distracted by the bewildering veil that hasobscured the only world they know. In the cities, the white fairy whosets the brains of her dupes whirling by a wave of her wand is cast forthe comedy role. Her diamond shoe buckles glitter like frost; with apirouette she invites the spotless carnival. 

But in the waste places the snow is sardonic. Sponging out the worldof the outliers, it gives no foothold on another sphere in return. Itmakes of the earth a firmament under foot; it leaves us clawing andstumbling in space in an inimical fifth element whose evil outdoes itsstrangeness and beauty, There Nature, low comedienne, plays her trickson man. Though she has put him forth as her highest product, itappears that she has fashioned him with what seems almost incrediblecarelessness and indexterity. One-sided and without balance, with histwo halves unequally fashioned and joined, must he ever jog hiseccentric way. The snow falls, the darkness caps it, and theridiculous man-biped strays in accurate circles until he succumbs inthe ruins of his defective architecture. 

In the throat of the thirsty the snow is vitriol. In appearance asplausible as the breakfast food of the angels, it is as hot in themouth as ginger, increasing the pangs of the water-famished. It is aderivative from water, air, and some cold, uncanny fire from which thecaloric has been extracted. Good has been said of it; even the poets, crazed by its spell and shivering in their attics under its touch, haveindited permanent melodies commemorative of its beauty. 

Still, to the saddest overcoated optimist it is a plague--a corrodingplague that Pharaoh successfully side-stepped. It beneficently coversthe wheat fields, swelling the crop--and the Flour Trust gets us by thethroat like a sudden quinsy. It spreads the tail of its white kirtleover the red seams of the rugged north--and the Alaskan short story isborn. Etiolated perfidy, it shelters the mountain traveler burrowingfrom the icy air--and, melting to-morrow, drowns his brother in thevalley below. 

At its worst it is lock and key and crucible, and the wand of Circe. When it corrals man in lonely ranches, mountain cabins, and foresthuts, the snow makes apes and tigers of the hardiest. It turns thebosoms of weaker ones to glass, their tongues to infants' rattles, their hearts to lawlessness and spleen. It is not all from theisolation; the snow is not merely a blockader; it is a Chemical Test. It is a good man who can show a reaction that is not chiefly composedof a drachm or two of potash and magnesia, with traces of Adam, Ananias, Nebuchadnezzar, and the fretful porcupine. 

This is no story, you say; well, let it begin. 

There was a knock at the door (is the opening not full of context andreminiscence oh, best buyers of best sellers?). 

We drew the latch, and in stumbled Etienne Girod (as he afterward namedhimself). But just then he was no more than a worm struggling forlife, enveloped in a killing white chrysalis. 

We dug down through snow, overcoats, mufflers, and waterproofs, anddragged forth a living thing with a Van Dyck beard and marvellousdiamond rings. We put it through the approved curriculum ofsnow-rubbing, hot milk, and teaspoonful doses of whiskey, working himup to a graduating class entitled to a diploma of three fingers of ryein half a glassful of hot water. One of the ranch boys had alreadycome from the quarters at Ross's bugle-like yell and kicked thestranger's staggering pony to some sheltered corral where beasts wereentertained. 

Let a paragraphic biography of Girod intervene. 

Etienne was an opera singer originally, we gathered; but adversity andthe snow had made him _non compos vocis_. The adversity consisted ofthe stranded San Salvador Opera Company, a period of hotel second-storywork, and then a career as a professional palmist, jumping from town totown. For, like other professional palmists, every time he worked theHeart Line too strongly he immediately moved along the Line of LeastResistance. Though Etienne did not confide this to us, we surmisedthat he had moved out into the dusk about twenty minutes ahead of aconstable, and had thus encountered the snow. In his most sacred bluelanguage he dilated upon the subject of snow; for Etienne wasParis-born and loved the snow with the same passion that an orchid does. 

"Mee-ser-rhable!" commented Etienne, and took another three fingers. 

"Complete, cast-iron, pussy-footed, blank. .. Blank!" said Ross, andfollowed suit. 

"Rotten, " said I. 

The cook said nothing. He stood in the door weighing our outburst; andinsistently from behind that frozen visage I got two messages (via theM. A. M wireless). One was that George considered our vituperationagainst the snow childish; the other was that George did not loveDagoes. Inasmuch as Etienne was a Frenchman, I concluded I had themessage wrong. So I queried the other: "Bright eyes, you don't reallymean Dagoes, do you?" and over the wireless came three deathly, psychictaps: "Yes. " Then I reflected that to George all foreigners wereprobably "Dagoes. " I had once known another camp cook who had thoughtMons. , Sig. , and Millie (Trans-Mississippi for Mlle. ) were Italiangiven names; this cook used to marvel therefore at the paucity ofNeo-Roman precognomens, and therefore why not--

I have said that snow is a test of men. For one day, two days, Etiennestood at the window, Fletcherizing his finger nails and shrieking andmoaning at the monotony. To me, Etienne was just about as unbearableas the snow; and so, seeking relief, I went out on the second day tolook at my horse, slipped on a stone, broke my collarbone, andthereafter underwent not the snow test, but the test offlat-on-the-back. A test that comes once too often for any man tostand. 

However, I bore up cheerfully. I was now merely a spectator, and frommy couch in the big room I could lie and watch the human interplay withthat detached, impassive, impersonal feeling which French writers tellus is so valuable to the litterateur, and American writers to thefaro-dealer. 

"I shall go crazy in this abominable, mee-ser-rhable place!" wasEtienne's constant prediction. 

"Never knew Mark Twain to bore me before, " said Ross, over and over. Hesat by the other window, hour after hour, a box of Pittsburg stogies ofthe length, strength, and odor of a Pittsburg graft scandal depositedon one side of him, and "Roughing It, " "The Jumping Frog, " and "Life onthe Mississippi" on the other. For every chapter he lit a new stogy, puffing furiously. This in time, gave him a recurrent premonition ofcramps, gastritis, smoker's colic or whatever it is they have inPittsburg after a too deep indulgence in graft scandals. To fend offthe colic, Ross resorted time and again to Old Doctor Still'sAmber-Colored U. S. A. Colic Cure. Result, after forty-eighthours--nerves. 

"Positive fact I never knew Mark Twain to make me tired before. Positive fact. " Ross slammed "Roughing It" on the floor. "When you'resnowbound this-away you want tragedy, I guess. Humor just seems tobring out all your cussedness. You read a man's poor, pitiful attemptsto be funny and it makes you so nervous you want to tear the book up, get out your bandana, and have a good, long cry. "

At the other end of the room, the Frenchman took his finger nails outof his mouth long enough to exclaim: "Humor! Humor at such a time asthees! My God, I shall go crazy in thees abominable--"

"Supper, " announced George. 

These meals were not the meals of Rabelais who said, "the great Godmakes the planets and we make the platters neat. " By that time, theranch-house meals were not affairs of gusto; they were mentaldistraction, not bodily provender. What they were to be later shallnever be forgotten by Ross or me or Etienne. 

After supper, the stogies and finger nails began again. My shoulderached wretchedly, and with half-closed eyes I tried to forget it bywatching the deft movements of the stolid cook. 

Suddenly I saw him cock his ear, like a dog. Then, with a swift step, he moved to the door, threw it open, and stood there. 

The rest of us had heard nothing. 

"What is it, George?" asked Ross. 

The cook reached out his hand into the darkness alongside the jamb. With careful precision he prodded something. Then he made one carefulstep into the snow. His back muscles bulged a little under the arms ashe stooped and lightly lifted a burden. Another step inside the door, which he shut methodically behind him, and he dumped the burden at asafe distance from the fire. 

He stood up and fixed us with a solemn eye. None of us moved underthat Orphic suspense until, "A woman, " remarked George. 

Miss Willie Adams was her name. Vocation, school-teacher. Presentavocation, getting lost in the snow. Age, yum-yum (the Persian fortwenty). Take to the woods if you would describe Miss Adams. A willowfor grace; a hickory for fibre; a birch for the clear whiteness of herskin; for eyes, the blue sky seen through treetops; the silk in cocoonsfor her hair; her voice, the murmur of the evening June wind in theleaves; her mouth, the berries of the wintergreen; fingers as light asferns; her toe as small as a deer track. General impression upon thedazed beholder--you could not see the forest for the trees. 

Psychology, with a capital P and the foot of a lynx, at this juncturestalks into the ranch house. Three men, a cook, a pretty youngwoman--all snowbound. Count me out of it, as I did not count, anyway. I never did, with women. Count the cook out, if you like. But notethe effect upon Ross and Etienne Girod. 

Ross dumped Mark Twain in a trunk and locked the trunk. Also, hediscarded the Pittsburg scandals. Also, he shaved off a three days'beard. 

Etienne, being French, began on the beard first. He pomaded it, from alittle tube of grease Hongroise in his vest pocket. He combed it witha little aluminum comb from the same vest pocket. He trimmed it withmanicure scissors from the same vest pocket. His light and Gallicspirits underwent a sudden, miraculous change. He hummed a blithe SanSalvador Opera Company tune; he grinned, smirked, bowed, pirouetted, twiddled, twaddled, twisted, and tooralooed. Gayly, the notorioustroubadour, could not have equalled Etienne. 

Ross's method of advance was brusque, domineering. "Little woman, " hesaid, "you're welcome here!"--and with what he thought subtle doublemeaning--"welcome to stay here as long as you like, snow or no snow. "

Miss Adams thanked him a little wildly, some of the wintergreen berriescreeping into the birch bark. She looked around hurriedly as ifseeking escape. But there was none, save the kitchen and the roomallotted her. She made an excuse and disappeared into her own room. 

Later I, feigning sleep, heard the following:

"Mees Adams, I was almost to perish-die-of monotony w'en your fair andbeautiful face appear in thees mee-ser-rhable house. " I opened mystarboard eye. The beard was being curled furiously around a finger, the Svengali eye was rolling, the chair was being hunched closer to theschool-teacher's. "I am French--you see--temperamental--nervous! Icannot endure thees dull hours in thees ranch house; but--a womancomes! Ah!" The shoulders gave nine 'rahs and a tiger. "What adifference! All is light and gay; ever'ting smile w'en you smile. Youhave 'eart, beauty, grace. My 'eart comes back to me w'en I feel your'eart. So!" He laid his hand upon his vest pocket. From this vantagepoint he suddenly snatched at the school-teacher's own hand, "Ah!Mees Adams, if I could only tell you how I ad--"

"Dinner, " remarked George. He was standing just behind the Frenchman'sear. His eyes looked straight into the school-teacher's eyes. Afterthirty seconds of survey, his lips moved, deep in the flinty, frozenmaelstrom of his face: "Dinner, " he concluded, "will be ready in twominutes. "

Miss Adams jumped to her feet, relieved. "I must get ready fordinner, " she said brightly, and went into her room. 

Ross came in fifteen minutes late. After the dishes had been cleanedaway, I waited until a propitious time when the room was temporarilyours alone, and told him what had happened. 

He became so excited that he lit a stogy without thinking. "Yeller-hided, unwashed, palm-readin' skunk, " he said under his breath. "I'll shoot him full o' holes if he don't watch out--talkin' that wayto my wife!"

I gave a jump that set my collarbone back another week. "Your wife!" Igasped. 

"Well, I mean to make her that, " he announced. 

The air in the ranch house the rest of that day was tense with pent-upemotions, oh, best buyers of best sellers. 

Ross watched Miss Adams as a hawk does a hen; he watched Etienne as ahawk does a scarecrow, Etienne watched Miss Adams as a weasel does ahenhouse. He paid no attention to Ross. 

The condition of Miss Adams, in the role of sought-after, was feverish. Lately escaped from the agony and long torture of the white cold, wherefor hours Nature had kept the little school-teacher's vision locked inand turned upon herself, nobody knows through what profound feminineintrospections she had gone. Now, suddenly cast among men, instead offinding relief and security, she beheld herself plunged anew into otherdiscomforts. Even in her own room she could hear the loud voices ofher imposed suitors. "I'll blow you full o' holes!" shouted Ross. "Witnesses, " shrieked Etienne, waving his hand at the cook and me. Shecould not have known the previous harassed condition of the men, fretting under indoor conditions. All she knew was, that where she hadexpected the frank freemasonry of the West, she found the subtle tangleof two men's minds, bent upon exacting whatever romance there might bein her situation. 

She tried to dodge Ross and the Frenchman by spells of nursing me. Theyalso came over to help nurse. This combination aroused such a naturalstate of invalid cussedness on my part that they were all forced toretire. Once she did manage to whisper: "I am so worried here. Idon't know what to do. "

To which I replied, gently, hitching up my shoulder, that I was ahunch-savant and that the Eighth House under this sign, the Moon beingin Virgo, showed that everything would turn out all right. 

But twenty minutes later I saw Etienne reading her palm and felt thatperhaps I might have to recast her horoscope, and try for a dark mancoming with a bundle. 

Toward sunset, Etienne left the house for a few moments and Ross, whohad been sitting taciturn and morose, having unlocked Mark Twain, madeanother dash. It was typical Ross talk. 

He stood in front of her and looked down majestically at that cool andperfect spot where Miss Adams' forehead met the neat part in herfragrant hair. First, however, he cast a desperate glance at me. Iwas in a profound slumber. 

"Little woman, " he began, "it's certainly tough for a man like me tosee you bothered this way. You"--gulp--"you have been alone in thisworld too long. You need a protector. I might say that at a time likethis you need a protector the worst kind--a protector who would take athree-ring delight in smashing the saffron-colored kisser off of anyyeller-skinned skunk that made himself obnoxious to you. Hem. Hem. Iam a lonely man, Miss Adams. I have so far had to carry on my lifewithout the"--gulp--"sweet radiance"--gulp--"of a woman around thehouse. I feel especially doggoned lonely at a time like this, when Iam pretty near locoed from havin' to stall indoors, and hence it waswith delight I welcomed your first appearance in this here shack. Since then I have been packed jam full of more different kinds offeelings, ornery, mean, dizzy, and superb, than has fallen my way inyears. "

Miss Adams made a useless movement toward escape. The Ross chin stuckfirm. "I don't want to annoy you, Miss Adams, but, by heck, if itcomes to that you'll have to be annoyed. And I'll have to have my say. This palm-ticklin' slob of a Frenchman ought to be kicked off the placeand if you'll say the word, off he goes. But I don't want to do thewrong thing. You've got to show a preference. I'm gettin' around tothe point, Miss--Miss Willie, in my own brick fashion. I've stoodabout all I can stand these last two days and somethin's got to happen. The suspense hereabouts is enough to hang a sheepherder. MissWillie"--he lassooed her hand by main force--"just say the word. Youneed somebody to take your part all your life long. Will you mar--"

"Supper, " remarked George, tersely, from the kitchen door. 

Miss Adams hurried away. 

Ross turned angrily. "You--"

"I have been revolving it in my head, " said George. 

He brought the coffee pot forward heavily. Then bravely the big platterof pork and beans. Then somberly the potatoes. Then profoundly thebiscuits. "I have been revolving it in my mind. There ain't no usewaitin' any longer for Swengalley. Might as well eat now. "

From my excellent vantage-point on the couch I watched the progress ofthat meal. Ross, muddled, glowering, disappointed; Etienne, eternallyblandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams, nervous, picking at herfood, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now andthen the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backslike a Dreadnaught in a fog. 

I used to own a clock which gurgled in its throat three minutes beforeit struck the hour. I know, therefore, the slow freight ofAnticipation. For I have awakened at three in the morning, heard theclock gurgle, and waited those three minutes for the three strokes Iknew were to come. _Alors_. In Ross's ranch house that night the slowfreight of Climax whistled in the distance. 

Etienne began it after supper. Miss Adams had suddenly displayed alively interest in the kitchen layout and I could see her in there, chatting brightly at George--not with him--the while he ducked his headand rattled his pans. 

"My fren', " said Etienne, exhaling a large cloud from his cigarette andpatting Ross lightly on the shoulder with a bediamonded hand which, hung limp from a yard or more of bony arm, "I see I mus' be frank withyou. Firs', because we are rivals; second, because you take thesematters so serious. I--I am Frenchman. I love the women"--he threwback his curls, bared his yellow teeth, and blew an unsavory kisstoward the kitchen. "It is, I suppose, a trait of my nation. AllFrenchmen love the women--pretty women. Now, look: Here I am!" Hespread out his arms. "Cold outside! I detes' the col-l-l! Snow! Iabominate the mees-ser-rhable snow! Two men! This--" pointing tome--"an' this!" Pointing to' Ross. "I am distracted! For two wholedays I stan' at the window an' tear my 'air! I am nervous, upset, pr-r-ro-foun'ly distress inside my 'ead! An' suddenly--be'old! Awoman, a nice, pretty, charming, innocen' young woman! I, naturally, rejoice. I become myself again--gay, light-'earted, 'appy. I addressmyself to mademoiselle; it passes the time. That, m'sieu', is wot thewomen are for--pass the time! Entertainment--like the music, like thewine!

"They appeal to the mood, the caprice, the temperamen'. To play withthees woman, follow her through her humor, pursue her--ah! that is themos' delightful way to sen' the hours about their business. "

Ross banged the table. "Shut up, you miserable yeller pup!" he roared. "I object to your pursuin' anything or anybody in my house. Now, youlisten to me, you--" He picked up the box of stogies and used it onthe table as an emphasizer. The noise of it awoke the attention of thegirl in the kitchen. Unheeded, she crept into the room. "I don't knowanything about your French ways of lovemakin' an' I don't care. In mysection of the country, it's the best man wins. And I'm the best manhere, and don't you forget it! This girl's goin' to be mine. Thereain't going to be any playing, or philandering, or palm reading aboutit. I've made up my mind I'll have this girl, and that settles it. Myword is the law in this neck o' the woods. She's mine, and as soon asshe says she's mine, you pull out. " The box made one final, tremendouspunctuation point. 

Etienne's bravado was unruffled. "Ah! that is no way to win a woman, "he smiled, easily. "I make prophecy you will never win 'er that way. No. Not thees woman. She mus' be played along an' then keessed, thischarming, delicious little creature. One kees! An' then you 'aveher. " Again he displayed his unpleasant teeth. "I make you a bet Iwill kees her--"

As a cheerful chronicler of deeds done well, it joys me to relate thatthe hand which fell upon Etienne's amorous lips was not his own. Therewas one sudden sound, as of a mule kicking a lath fence, andthen--through the swinging doors of oblivion for Etienne. 

I had seen this blow delivered. It was an aloof, unstudied, almostabsent-minded affair. I had thought the cook was rehearsing the propermethod of turning a flapjack. 

Silently, lost in thought, he stood there scratching his head. Then hebegan rolling down his sleeves. 

"You'd better get your things on, Miss, and we'll get out of here, " hedecided. "Wrap up warm. "

I heard her heave a little sigh of relief as she went to get her cloak, sweater, and hat. 

Ross jumped to his feet, and said: "George, what are you goin' to do?"

George, who had been headed in my direction, slowly swivelled aroundand faced his employer. "Bein' a camp cook, I ain't over-burdened withhosses, " George enlightened us. "Therefore, I am going to try toborrow this feller's here. "

For the first time in four days my soul gave a genuine cheer. "If it'sfor Lochinvar purposes, go as far as you like, " I said, grandly. 

The cook studied me a moment, as if trying to find an insult in mywords. "No, " he replied. "It's for mine and the young lady'spurposes, and we'll go only three miles--to Hicksville. Now let metell you somethin', Ross. " Suddenly I was confronted with the cook'schunky back and I heard a low, curt, carrying voice shoot through theroom at my host. George had wheeled just as Ross started to speak. "You're nutty. That's what's the matter with you. You can't stand thesnow. You're getting nervouser, and nuttier every day. That and thisDago"--he jerked a thumb at the half-dead Frenchman in the corner--"hasgot you to the point where I thought I better horn in. I got torevolving it around in my mind and I seen if somethin' wasn't done, anddone soon, there'd be murder around here and maybe"--his head gave animperceptible list toward the girl's room--"worse. "

He stopped, but he held up a stubby finger to keep any one else fromspeaking. Then he plowed slowly through the drift of his ideas. "Aboutthis here woman. I know you, Ross, and I know what you reely thinkabout women. If she hadn't happened in here durin' this here snow, you'd never have given two thoughts to the whole woman question. Likewise, when the storm clears, and you and the boys go hustlin' out, this here whole business 'll clear out of your head and you won't thinkof a skirt again until Kingdom Come. Just because o' this snow here, don't forget you're living in the selfsame world you was in four daysago. And you're the same man, too. Now, what's the use o' getting allsnarled up over four days of stickin' in the house? That there's whatI been revolvin' in my mind and this here's the decision I've come to. "

He plodded to the door and shouted to one of the ranch hands to saddlemy horse. 

Ross lit a stogy and stood thoughtful in the middle of the room. Thenhe began: "I've a durn good notion, George, to knock your confoundedhead off and throw you into that snowbank, if--"

"You're wrong, mister. That ain't a durned good notion you've got. It's durned bad. Look here!" He pointed steadily out of doors untilwe were both forced to follow his finger. "You're in here for more'n aweek yet. " After allowing this fact to sink in, he barked out at Ross:"Can you cook?" Then at me: "Can you cook?" Then he looked at thewreck of Etienne and sniffed. 

There was an embarrassing silence as Ross and I thought solemnly of afoodless week. 

"If you just use hoss sense, " concluded George, "and don't go for tohurt my feelin's, all I want to do is to take this young gal down toHicksville; and then I'll head back here and cook fer you. "

The horse and Miss Adams arrived simultaneously, both of them veryserious and quiet. The horse because he knew what he had before him inthat weather; the girl because of what she had left behind. 

Then all at once I awoke to a realization of what the cook was doing. "My God, man!" I cried, "aren't you afraid to go out in that snow?"

Behind my back I heard Ross mutter, "Not him. "

George lifted the girl daintily up behind the saddle, drew on hisgloves, put his foot in the stirrup, and turned to inspect me leisurely. 

As I passed slowly in his review, I saw in my mind's eye the algebraicequation of Snow, the equals sign, and the answer in the man before me. 

"Snow is my last name, " said George. He swung into the saddle and theystarted cautiously out into the darkening swirl of fresh new currencyjust issuing from the Snowdrop Mint. The girl, to keep her place, clung happily to the sturdy figure of the camp cook. 

I brought three things away from Ross Curtis's ranch house--yes, four. One was the appreciation of snow, which I have so humbly tried here torender; (2) was a collarbone, of which I am extra careful; (3) was amemory of what it is to eat very extremely bad food for a week; and (4)was the cause of (3) a little note delivered at the end of the week andhand-painted in blue pencil on a sheet of meat paper. 

"I cannot come back there to that there job. Mrs. Snow say no, George. I been revolvin' it in my mind; considerin' circumstances she's right. "