WIDENER HN FJBY X AMERICAN MAGAZINE FOR 30 YEARS LESLIE'S MONTHLY CRONO Harvard College Library Concello de THE BEQUEST OF HARRIET J. BRADBURY la OF BOSTON conce June 26, 1930 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE FOR 30 YEARS LESLIE'S MONTHLY 10 Cents; $1.00 A YEAR VOLUME LXII May, 1906–October, 1906 THE OCTOBER NUMBER WAS THE FIRST UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF The Phillips PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK: THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY 141-147 FIFTH AVENUE HARV: I; CULLEGE, PRARY BEQUEST OF IRS. HARRIET J. BRADBURY JUNI 26, 1930 Copyright, 1906, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING Co. All Rights Reserved INDEX TO THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOLUME LXII–MAY, 1906–OCTOBER, 1906 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PAGE AN AWAKENING IN WALL STREET. ..... . Sherman Morse......... 457, 466 BAD MAN WHO MADE GOOD, A. With Portrait...... Edward B. Ferguson..... 478, 480 CAN WE KEEP SOBER? ................ ..........Julian Ward Helburn....540, 547 CHICAGO's FIVE MAIDEN AUNTS. With Portraits .....William Hard .........481, 489 CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE-INSURANCE SOLICITOR, THE. .Wm. McMahon .........269, 430 DYNAMITE; THE POWER UNTAMEABLE ..............Samuel Hopkins Adims..... 626 EVERY DAY LIVING ........ ............Anna Payson Call .......... FINGER TIPS OF ALLAH, THE. Illustrated ..........Broughton Brandenburg. .... GAS TALE OF Two CITIES, A. With Portraits ...... Sherman Morse ....... HOME LIFE IN A Gull Colony. Illustrated .........William L. Finley..... I AM NOTHING – FREEDOM IS All. With Portrait ... Leroy Scott ........ IN THE WINNING OF THE GAME. Illustrated . . ... ... Edwin Balmer ...... LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS, THE....... ......... Arthur Train ...... LYNX AND LION. Illustrated ........ .W. N. Wright....... MAN WITH THE MUCK RAKE, THE...... .... Ellery Sedgwick ......... PARABLE OF THE PICKPOCKET, THE.... ....John McAuley Palmer .... PARTNERSHIP OF SOCIETY, THE.................... William Allen White ..... PERSONALITY BEHIND THE CHINESE BOYCOTT, THE. III.D. R. Marquis .......... PHILOSOPHY OF AN ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN. III. ....Arthur Goodrich......... PLANT OF MYSTERY, THE. Illustrated .............. Arthur J. Burdick .......... POPULAR MEDICAL FALLACIES ..... .Dr. Leonard K. Hirshberg ... POWER OF THE PRESS, THE. Illustrated. ........... F. P. Dunne . PURGED BY FIRE. Illustrated .....................II arvey J. O'Higgins ...... QUICKENING SPIRIT, THE. Illustrated .............Julian Ward Helburn ....... REAPING WHERE WE HAVE Not Sown. Illustrated .Julian Ward Helburn ....... 247 REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION, THE...............Peter S. Grosscup........... 188 *• 294 INDEX TO VOLUME LXII PAGE RETORTS COURTEOUS AND DISCOURTEOUS ...........John El freth Watkins ....... 62 Dorothy Canfield ....... 281, 424 Mrs. L. H. Harris ......... 426 SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM, THE.... Charlotte Perkins Gilman ..... Mary Schenck Woolman ..... 428 SLAVE OF COTTON, THE. Illustrated ....... .Henry Kitchell Webster...... 302 TAMING OF ROGERS. Illustrated ....... ........ Sherman Morse ............ 115 343 trated .Caspar Day................ 595 595 179 FICTION:- AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE. Illustrated ........Holman Day.............. ANNIE KEENAN's Hit. Illustrated. ........Gilbert P. Coleman ...... “BATES, S. B.” Illustrated... .......Caroline Lockhart ...... 209 BILLINGS OF 49. Illustrated . ..... ... Edwin Balmer ........ 634 BRUTE, THE. Illustrated........ .......Herman Whitaker ...... .. 163 DERELICTS, THE. Illustrated .............L. Frank Tooker ....... EARLY BIRD, THE. Illustrated............Henry M. Rideout.......... 98 ENIGMA, THE.-A Special Sale - Illustrated ...Wm. Hamilton Cline ....... 286 FAMILY JARS. Illustrated ................George Allan England ....... 172 GATE OF UNDERSTANDING, THE. Illustrated Edith Barnard ............ 687 How THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA. Illustrated. Susan Keating Glaspell...... 274 IVANHOE AND THE GERMAN MEASLES. III. .Dorothy Canfield ........... 398 I WONDER WHY! Illustrated .............Owen Oliver ............... 37 JUDGEMENT OF DANIEL, THE. Illustrated... Henry Milner Rideout. .. 404 KATE STRONG, EMOTIONAL PAUPER. III. ....Wm. R. Lighton ........... 556 LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE. Illustrated .Caspar Day.. LION AND THE MOUSE, THE. Illustrated ...Owen Johnson ....... LITTLE FATHER OF ST. ANGELOS, THE. III....Maude L. Radjord ....... MOONSHINE AND MAHOMET. Illustrated. ... Leo Crane ................. 547 MYSTERY. Ill. Part I Chap I-VII ........Stewart E. White ......... 12, 129 “ II " I-XVIII ..... Samuel H. Adams ...136,310, 388 498, 661 MRS. TEASLEY'S SUMMER BOARDER. III......Mrs. L. H. Harris ... ... ... 239 New Doctor, THE...................... Flora Charlotte Finley....... OLD NOEL OF THE MELLICITES. Ill..........Holman Day.............. 530 PHILOSOPHY AT GARDENDALE. Illustrated..E. J. Rath................. 671 PRISONERS. Novel, Illustrated. Chap XXXIII-XXXVI. Mary Cholmondeley 51 SMOKE SALE, THE. Illustrated ............W'ilbur D. Nesbit........... 490 STOLEN RESCUE, A. Illustrated............Lincoln Steffens .......... STOVEHETER AND THE BIRDS OF PARADISE, Ill. Harrison J. Holt ...... STRENGTH OF HERA BOYD, THE. III. ........Harriet Gaylord ......... That PUP OF MURCHISONS. Illustrated .... Ellis Parker Butler........ TIE THAT BINDS, THE. Illustrated........J. George Frederick ..... TWIN PETERS, THE. Illustrated ..........John Fleming Wilson . WHILE THE EVIL Days Come Not ......... May McHenry....... YOUNGER GENERATION, THE. Illustrated...E. S. Johnson.. Worlds BETWEEN, Illustrated ...........Joseph Blethen.... 645 640 INDEX TO VOLUME LXII PAGE 560 MARGINALIA: Busy BEE AND Busy Body ............... Mary Talbot Campbell....... 219 FAMILY ALBUM, THE. Illustrated .........Ellis Parker Butler... GENTLEMANLY ENGINEER, A. Illustrated . .S. H. Kemper ......... 107 MUSHROOM OF COLLINGSVILLE, A. III. ..... Eleanor H. Porter .......... 332 OLIVER BASS, INCORPORATED. Illustrated.. Arnold M. Anderson ........ 446 SENTIMENTS OF THE SCHOOLMASTER ........Creswell Maclaughlin 223,336, 452 VERSE: CAUQUOMGOMOXIS. Illustrated............ Robert R. Logan ............ 413 CONFESSION, A. Illustrated ...... ........Sarah Martyn Wright....... 451 EVENING. Illustrated ...... Ingram Crockett ......... 152 IMMIGRANTS............ ..William. A. Bradley...... LITTLE SON ......... ..Percy L. Shaw............ LIFE........... .Judd Mortimer Lewis ...... LITERARY TURN, A. ..Judd Mortimer Lewis ...... MY DAD..... ..Truman Rob't. Anderson.... ODE TO AFFLUENCE . .Harold Susman .. ON THE DEEP LAKE TRAIL ....... .. Harrison Jewell Holt ..... PAT AND THE MEADOW LARK. Illustrated ..Fred Emerson Brooks ...... PRISONER, A ....... ......Theodosia Garrison ........ REBIRTH ........... ...Perry Vincent Donovan.... WANDERERS, THE.... .... Arthur Stringer .......... 585 WANDERLIED ..... .....Marjorie L. C. Pickthall..... 444 WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. Illustrated ........Don Marquis .. ....... 152 78 AUTHORS. 286 .... 587 ADAMS, SAMUEL HOPKINS ...12, 129, 310 388, 498, 626, 661 ANDERSON, ARNOLD M ............ 446 ANDREWS, TRUMAN ROBERT ....... 560 BALMER, EDWIN...............81, 634 BARNARD, EDITH ........ ..... BLETHEN, JOSEPH .. ....... 88 BBADLEY, WILLIAM ASPENWALL.... 660 BRANDENBURG, BROUGHTON........ 24, 514 BROOKS, FRED EMERSON.......... 78 BURDICK, ARTHUR J .............. 198 BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER .........44, 560 Call, Anna PAYSON ... ......... 329 CAMPBELL, Mary Talbot ......... 219 CANFIELD, DOROTHY ..........398, 424 CHOLMONDELEY, MARY........... CLINE, WM. HAMILTON .. COLEMAN, GILBERT P..... 259 CRANE, LEO ......... 547 CROCKETT, INGRAM .... DAY, CASPAR....... 595 DAY, HOLMAN 15, 530 DONOVAN, PERCY VINCENT ........ 113 DUNNE, F. P...... ... 607 152 VI INDEX TO VOLUME LXII 671 404 ....... 198 188 PAGE ENGLAND, GEORGE ALLAN ......... 172 MORSE, SHERMAN ........227, 457, 414 FERGUSON, EDWARD B ........... NESBIT, Wilbur D........ ..... 490 FINLEY, FLORA CHARLOTTE .... O'Higgins, HARVEY J...... 1 FINLEY, William L. ..... OLIVER, OWEN ........... FREDERICK, J. GEORGE ........... 435 PALMER, John MCAULEY.... Garrison, THEODOSIA ... 467 PICKTHALL, MARJORIE L. C.... GAYLORD, HARRIET......... PORTER, ELEANOR H......... 332 GLASPELL, SUSAN KEATING ........ RADFORD, MAUDE L 645 GILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS ... RATH, E. J ....... GOODRICH, ARTHUR ............ RIDEOUT, HENRY MILNER....... GROSSCUP, PETER S..... SEDGWICK, ELLERY. III HARD, WILLIAM .................. 481 SCOTT, LEROY....... Harris, Mrs. L. H. ...........239, 426 Shaw, Percy L. ..... HELBURN, JULIA WILLARD .....247, 540 STEFFENS, LINCOLN..... HIRSHBERG, DR. LEONARD KEENE.. 655 STRINGER, ARTHUR... Holt, HARRISON JEWELL .......43, SUSMAN, HAROLD... JOHNSON, E. S................... 468 TOOKER, L. FRANK. 343 JOHNSON, OWEN ....... ...... 179 TRAIN, ARTHUR.... 146 KEMPER, S. H......... ... 107 WATKINS, John ELFRETH ....... LEWIS, Judd MORTIMER ....... 106, 566 WEBSTER, HENRY KITCHELL ..... LIGHTON, Wm. R ...... WHITAKER, HERMAN ............... 163 LOCKHART, CAROLINE... 209 WHITE, STEWART EDWARD ...12, 129, 310 LOGAN, ROBERT R. 388, 498, 661 MACLAUGHLIN, CRESWELL 223, 336, 452 WHITE, WILLIAM ALLEN........... MARQUIS, Don....... ....... 144 Wilson, John FLEMING ........ MARQUIS, D. R .................. 74 WOOLMAN, MARY SCHENCK ....... McHenry, MAY....... ........ 623 WRIGHT, SARAH MARTYN ......... McMahon, WILLIAM..........269, 430 WRIGHT, W.N........ 356 ....... 413 576 .......... Stewart Edward White Mr. White always puts his knowledge of the world outdoors and his sincere love for it into everything he writes. In The Mystery, beginning in this issue, Mr. White collaborated with Samuel Hopkins Adams, but all through the excit. ing story you will recognize Mr. White's vivid portrayal of nature and of nature's men as clearly as in The Blazed Trail, The Forest, etc. Drawn by John Boyd strating The Myste The splendor of that terrific celestial apparition AMERICAN ILLUSTRATEDÁMAGAZINE VOLUME LXII MAY, 1906 No. 1 Purged by Fire The Training and Life of New York Firemen- A Great City Department where the People get what they Pay for and the Men Earn their Pay By Harvey J. O'Higgins AUTHOR OF "THE SMOKE EATERS" ONE summer afternoon not pany, having quickly "stretched" their long ago, fire broke out in hose line, dragged the nozzle unhesitating- an apartment house only into the smoking doorway and disap- West 65th street in New peared in the “ stifle" from which the * York city. There was a policemen had retreated, gasping, ten y “three-alarm” fire already minutes earlier. A truck crew, with hooks burning in 59th street; and to fight it all and axes, came on the run, in a scattered the engines and trucks in the entire dis- line that followed into the doorway like a trict had left their houses. Firemen had rush of skirmishers. Another engine com- to be summoned to the 65th street fire pany dragged in another line of hose from distant parts of the city ; none arrived through the same impossible doorway. A for twenty minutes. Before they came, second and a third crew oftruckmen followed two women, cut off from the fire escapes, to support them. More engine companies, had to jump from a third-story window to connecting with hydrants further down the the sidewalk, after several policemen and street, carried in more hose. Some ex- many volunteer Jife-savers had made des- tension ladders were raised to reach the perate and vain efforts to force their way walls beside the upper windows, out of upstairs to the third story through the touch of the flame; but no one mounted smoke. And when the first fire engine them. All the men disappeared, without swung whistling into the street, the build- haste and without shouting, in the choking ing from the second story to the roof was reek of the stairway. And none came burning like a bonfire ; and the impassable back out of it. The fire continued to stairs were choked not only with smoke burn, apparently unchecked, licking out but with flames. from the windows into the belch of the Yet the men of that first engine com- “steamers” that hummed and panted busily OPYRIGHT.. IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN, Y COLVER PUBLISHING MOUSE, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE in the street ; and the frightened specta- same results as before followed more slow. tors on the neighboring roofs, watched, ly; and the flames in the stories above fascinated, the stony face of that furnace him began to weaken, obscured in the into which at least thirty men had gone to smoke that poured up through them to the obvious suffocation and what seemed cer- burning roof. ·ain death. Of the thirty firemen who had entered Taking the Enemy in the Rear While they were still waiting for the the doorway, he was the only one whom beaten retreat of the “blue shirts," the the spectators saw during the hours that spray of a hose-line spat out of a second- the fight continued. Other companies story window through the flames. A mo- drew up hose to the tops of adjoining ment later, an axe-man could be dimly houses and played their streams on the seen there, chopping down the burning roof. In the court at the rear of the woodwork of the window frame and throw- building another attack had its base. But ing it into the street. When he had done, of the men who had gone in the front the room was dark and the smoke in which door none reappeared until darkness had he had worked was white with steam. fallen and the fire was giving out its last Five minutes later, he reappeared—this flickers. Then all those men, scorched, time at the window from which the women blackened and very tired, came trailing out had jumped—busy at his work. The with their hose-coughing and spitting, MOPKINS CO ELECTROTY PERS ET A Water Tower in Action With an inch and an eighth line and a single engine attached, a water tower will throw 250 gallons of water a minute; with six engines, 7,500 gallons. The Toronto Conflagration at Night their eyes bloodshot, the grime on their Now that unnoted fire and the way in faces streaked with sweat—and proceeded which it was subdued contain the whole to uncouple and pick up their lines without story of the New York Fire Department. so much as looking back at the blackened It is not a fire brigade that takes prizes at shell of the building they had left. tournaments. The men look undersized They were young men, wiry and small. and insignificant on parade. Their appa- They did not even wear rubber coats— ratus is not the most modern in the world. much less the blue uniforms of parades. And they do not attack a blaze after crack- They looked like plumbers' apprentices in ing their heels together, saluting their offi- helmets and hip boots. They piled the cers and making an exhibition drill of hose in the “ tenders," climbed up on top taking their hose out of a wagon, as the of it and started back to their engine German military companies do. But in houses in the silence of men who had a ability to handle dangerous fires, in daring, long way to go and were late for supper. endurance and resourcefulness there does Chief Croker of New York at a Four-aların Fire Croker never er pects his men to go where he will not go himself. Recently he ordered Deputy Chief Kruger to lead a company of men over the roof of a burning building to a point where a line could be operated effeclively. The roof won't stand it, sir," answered Kruger. Without a word, Croker rushed to the roof of the next build. ing. The crowds below watched him cross and as he reached the further parapet the building caved in with a roar. Croker drew himself up on the parapet and shouted simply: "You are right, Chief ! more pressure!" ON Ladder Work Still Pumping not seem to be a fire force to equal them. there are 400,000 persons living on a And the reasons for this are simple. square mile ; the blocks are rabbit warrens The Fire Department of Greater New done in brick; and the firemen cannot York—now employing 3565 men—is the isolate a blaze in these and fight it from largest and the busiest* in the world ; and ladders, through windows, from the street, it has the hardest of fires to fight after the easier methods of the firemen in The houses on Manhattan Island are less congested cities. They must " fight, so crowded together that in the tenement from the inside, out,' as they explain. district of the Tenth Ward, for example, They must close with their enemy-as they * The Attorney Street Hook and Ladder Company“ volled" to 1200 fires in 1905. PURGED BY FIRE did in that 65th street fire-and sweep it Naturally no political “grafter" is eager before them. up the stairs, out the win- to dedicate himself to such work. Every dows and through the roof. It follows officer, from the chief down to the young- that the men must needs be physically est lieutenant, has to rise from the ranks perfect, able to endure heat and suffoca- through a series of civil-service examina. tion. to eat smoke" as they say, to be tions that check his every step. And in "reg'lar salamanders." And to a daring the midst of all the corruptions of Tam- that seems foolhardy, they must unite many Hall, this department, continually great caution, an incredible quickness and purged by fire and tried by danger, has every wile and instinct of resource, so that remained a monument of efficiency and they may outwit an enemy that is forever public-spirited self-sacrifice. laying ambuscades and springing traps. The men who compose it are of the Similarly, « little old New York,” hav- same breed as the men of the police force. ing no room in which to spread out, has They are, for the most part, Irish : not be- grown upwards in high buildings. The cause there is any prejudice against the firemen have to make frequent use of scal- other nationalities-for the fire department ing ladders, life lines and life nets, in order has rarely more applicants than it needs to to achieve those spectacular rescues which fill up its ranks—but perhaps because this have filled the Roll of Merit until it is life of dangerous irresponsibility, this Don- almost a muster roll of the department. nybrook fair with death, this adventurous The men have to be trained and hardened and obscure service of the modern soldier to their work like gymnasts. They have of fortune, appeals to the wild blood of to acquire the undizzied cool-headedness the Hibernian. The difference between of bridge workers at great heights. They the reputations of the police and the fire- have to be lean and muscular, temperate men is the result of the different circum- and—in the downtown districts—young. stances in which the men work. The fire- They are all these things by virtue of a man is not assailed by the temptations of system of probation, examination and corrupt corporations from above and the training that weeds out the unfit before hush-money of protected vice from below. they arrive at the pay roll. The applicant He has a clean enemy, and he fights a for enlistment, after passing his civil-service clean fight. examination, is put to school at Fire Head- He begins as a “ fourth grade” fireman quarters and at the same time assigned to at a salary of $800 a year; by a mandatory one of the busiest downtown companies. provision of the city charter he is advanced He works with scaling ladders and life one grade in rank and $200 in salary lines under the eye of an instructor who for each year of his service thereafter until has ways of unexpectedly trying his nerve; he becomes a first grade fireman earning he works in line with veteran "salaman- $1400 a year; and the law requires that ders," fighting fire under the eye of an these advancements be given him without officer who pushes him to the limit of en- regard to his record. or to the wishes of durance ; he is summoned by the depart. his superior officers. But to rise above the ment physician to undergo physical exami- position of a first grade private, he must nations that note any change in his condi- pass a difficult civil service examination tion consequent upon the strain of this that takes account of his record at Fire rigorous training. At the end of a month, Headquarters as well as his replies to the if he has not developed a weak heart, or questions of the Civil Service Board; and otherwise proved himself unfit, he is en- when he passes this examination, he is put rolled as a fourth-grade firemen at a salary on the “eligible list" from which pro- of $800 a year ; and he begins the life of a motions are made by the Fire Commis- soldier who is on active duty night and sioner, but only on the recommendation day for six days in every seven, in a cam- of the Chief. Similar examinations and a paign that is never ended, in a warfare similar procedure mark his progress from that fights 11,000 battles in New York lieutenant to captain, from captain to every year, kills only 7 firemen per annum, battalion chief, and from battalion chief to but injures 375 and allows for each man deputy chief and to the final chief of de- in the service a yearly average of 40 days partment. The actual power of promotion in the hospital. is therefore in the hands of the Chief, 10 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE subject to the veto of the Commissioner; avoid the danger of running down a be- but the ratings which make promotion wildered pedestrian who seems unable to possible are the work of the Civil Service save himself. Scarcely a day passes that Board; and this complicated machinery of the New York papers do not briefly record advancement does everything to counter- such an incident. If you ask a fireman act the influence of politics, of official why he does such things, he will. ask preference, of all but the force of native you profanely : “ What the — am I paid merit in the man. It is a system that has for?” That is as near as he ever comes the self-evident fault of tending to keep to the truth of the matter. To call him a down the unlettered but much experienced hero is, in his eyes, to make him absurd. fireman who is "short” on theory but Nothing can induce him to talk, for publi- “long" on practice; but in these days of cation, about a rescue which he has made declining illiteracy, it works less injustice or a danger which he has escaped. "The than it did when it was first applied to the boys 'd guy me to death,” he says. That service. is the reason why the bravest work of It is reported—outside of the depart- these men goes unrecorded. It is done, ment—that the present Chief, Edward for the most part, where no newspaper Croker, rose to his position on the influ- man can see it ; it is reported briefly by ence of his uncle, Richard Croker, the de- the captain of the company and noted on posed "Boss" of Tammany Hall. But the official records that are kept at Fire anyone who knows the man and his work Headquarters. must doubt the report. He has no more Their own accounts of their performances diplomacy than a bull. He has antago- —when they can be persuaded to give any nized all the political Fire Commissioners are never more than amusing. “She who have been in authority over him. He was a baby hippotaymus," a fireman said has persecuted the amateur politicians un- disgustedly of a German woman whom he der him with a personal spite. He is en- had saved from the top-floor window of a gaged in perpetual quarrel with the other burning tenement house. “She weighed civic departments because the police are three hunderd tons, an' when I tried to not on their beats to turn in prompt let her down to Jimmy on the ladder she alarms or the hydrants are not sufficiently bit me ear.” An old captain who had re- numerous or the water pressure is low. tired full of honors, was asked to recall His subordinates say he is “ fire crazy." the worst fire he had ever been in ; after He is the hardest working man on the solemn reflection, he replied: “It was force. He is brave beyond question. He down in a basement bowling alley on sacrifices his home life and his personal Eighth Avenue. The walls were packed comfort to the duty of attending, night with sawdust, to deaden the noise. And and day, every dangerous fire in every the smoke was so thick you couldn't part of Greater New York. And if he breathe in it for a minute. It was the ever had any political influence, he has worst! And it didn't even get into the long since lost it in his fight with the poli- papers-if you want to write it up.". ticians to make and keep his department When one of the most famous “ heroes” what he thinks it ought to be. of the department was retired on account The ideal of service which seems to of his injuries, a fellow of his company was drive him is as evident among his men; asked for anecdotes. “Him!” he said. and yet it seems to be unconscious. It is "The least said about him the better. He certainly never voiced. If the driver of a was bug-house. He was no good. I've hook and ladder truck, going at full speed seen him jump out the readin' room win- to a fire, has to make a choice between dow, on the top floor upstairs here, an' endangering the life of a citizen in a colli- catch the telephone pole, on a bet o’ fifty sion and endangering the lives of the ten cents. He was a fool.” A veteran of men on the side steps of his truck, he un- the Roll of Merit, plagued to talk of his hesitatingly sacrifices the men : he drives work, replied plaintively : “ Here I am his horses into a pillar of the elevated road, living and eating and sleeping fires, day in into a lamp post, even into the stone front and day out, till I feel as if I'd go off my of a house, to avoid colliding with any ve- nut. And you come in and want to talk hicle that may get in his path, or even to about it! Say, let's forget it. Sit down PURGED BY FIRE II here—will you ?—and tell me a funny in his district ; and the men depend upon story." A fireman, after a narrow escape him to warn them back from falling walls from death on a burning staircase was asked or to save them before a floor collapses if he had been “scared.” “Scared!” under them. They say of the Chief, he answered. “Don't yuh think I got proudly : “He never sends us where he good sense? O'course I was scared. won't go himself.” And they tell how he What the — !" A grateful woman ordered a crew to carry a line of hose over whose husband had been saved from death a weakened roof, and when the captain by a hook-and-ladder man, visited the in- suggested that the roof would not hold jured fireman in the hospital and tried to them, he ran out on it himself to test it. make him tell her the whole story of the It fell just as he caught the further para- " thrilling " rescue. “And what did you pet ; he called back “You were right, cap- say to him when you wanted him to tain," and hurried away to bring up an- jump?” she asked. The fireman blushed. other company. "Well, ma'am,” he apologized, “I was They learn by experience the ways of in a hurry, an'-an' I wouldn't hardly their enemy and cut into the heart of a like to say.” fire with a sure instinct for what is the root When they come to talk of their methods of its strength and what is merely ac- of work, they are more communicative. cessory Aame and the smoke that con- And contrary to the accepted opinion of ceals its real progress. They go about the outsider, they are more afraid of smoke their work as a business, and talk of it as than of fire. Where there is a strong such. They consider themselves well paid blaze there must be a strong draught of air for it. They are so far from wishing any to feed it ; and it is not heat but suffoca- public recognition of their “heroism" tion that kills the " salamander.” The that they even resent their newspaper no- pipeman boasts that he will go anywhere toriety. They find their work hard and behind his nozzle ; for, in the densest look forward to the time when they shall " choke," he has a way of getting a little be able to retire on half pay and be com- air that comes out with the stream of fortable. “When I get out o' here," a water. While the men of the engine com- lieutenant said, “d'yuh know what I'm pany sweep the flames along before them, goin' to do? I'm goin' to get a job as the truck men make “ smoke vents” special policeman at the ball grounds. I through doors and windows, ceilings and ain't seen a baseball game since I come in roofs, develop the fire and bring it into the department. What d' yuh think o' the open. Continually as they “ vent" that?" closed rooms and let the air in upon ac- In short, the F. D. N. Y. is what it is cumulated gases, there are explosions because it is a department of profession- which the men call “back drafts,” and als,” carefully picked, slowly trained, and these are deadly if they catch the firemen kept up to the highest point of efficiency unprepared; for they blow back upon the by the continual test of active service. It crews a blast of living flame that over- is clean of the corruption of politics by the powers the streams and fills the lungs with same virtue of necessity. The heroism of a killing “scorch." At the first puff of the men is merely the common devotion of the backdraft, the men throw themselves good workmen to their work; and in these face down on the floor, and wait, holding days of civic maladministration and the de- their breath, until the currents reverse and spair of honesty in public service, here is a return with some breathable air. They standing rebuke to pessimism and a stand- are led into danger by their officers ; and ing proof of the nobility of the rank and the officer is responsible for the safety of file of humanity when protected from the his men. He is required to know the commercialism that is diseasing the democ- strength and construction of every building racy and enfeebling the national life. WA Light-ho! Two doints on the dort bow" The Mystery PART I. THE SEA RIDDLE By Stewart Edward White* and Samuel Hopkins Adams ILLUSTRATED BY WILL CRAWFORD VIDIOMAHE late afternoon sky flaunt- ing expectancy. As far again beyond, the moyo ed its splendor of blue and United States cruiser Wolverine outlined TA gold like a banner over the her severe and trim silhouette against the Pacific, and across its horizon. Vale depths the trade wind in all the spread of wave and sky no IT droned in measured ca- other thing was visible. For this was one dence. On the ocean's wide expanse a of the desert parts of the Pacific, three hulk wallowed sluggishly. Half a mile to hundred miles north of the steamship route the east of the derelict hovered a ship's from Yokohama to Honolulu, five hundred cutter, the turn of her crew's heads speak- miles from the nearest land, Gardner *Author of "The Blazed Trail, “The Forest," "The Silent Places,” etc. 12 THE MYSTERY 13 Island, and more than seven hundred -got into ice-field off the tip of the Aleu- northwest of the Hawaiian group. tians. Some of the crew froze. Others On the cruiser's quarter deck the offi. got ashore. Part of survivors accounted cers lined the starboard rail. Their inter- for. Others not. Say they've turned na- est was focussed on the derelict. tive. Don't know myself.” “Looks like a heavy job," said Ives, “The Aleutians!” exclaimed Billy Ed- one of the junior lieutenants. “ Those wards. “Great cats! What a drift! floaters that lie with deck almost awash How many thousand miles would that be?" will stand more hammering than a mud “Not as far as many another derelict fort.” has wandered in her time, son," said Bar- “Wish they'd let us put some six-inch nett. shells into her," said Billy Edwards, the The talk washed back and forth across ensign, a wistful expression on his big the hulks of classic sca-mysteries, new and round cheerful face. “I'd like to see old; of the City of Boston which went what they would do." down with all hands, leaving for record "Nothing but waste a few hundred only a melancholy scrawl on a bit of board dollars of your Uncle Sam's money," ob- to meet the wondering eyes of a fisherman served Carter, the officer of the deck. on the far Cornish coast; of the Great " It takes placed charges inside and out Queensland, which set out with five hun- for that kind of work.” dred and sixty-nine souls aboard, bound “ Barnett's the man for her then," said by a route unknown, to a tragic end; of the Ives. "He's no economist when it comes Naronic with her silent and empty life to getting results. There she goes!” boats alone left, drifting about the open Without any particular haste, as it seemed sea, to hint at the story of her fate; of the to the watchers, the hulk was shouldered Huronian, which, ten years later on the out of the water, as by some hidden levia- same day and date, and hailing from the than, its outlines melted into a black, out same port as the Naronic, went out into the showering mist, and from that mist leaped void, leaving no trace; of Newfoundland a giant. Up, up he towered, tossed whirl- captains who sailed, roaring with drink, ing arms a hundred feet abranch, shivered, under the arches of cathedral bergs, only and dissolved into a widespread cataract. to be prisoned, buried, and embalmed in The water below was lashed into fury, in the one icy embrace; of craft assailed by the midst of which a mighty death agony the terrible one-stroke lightning clouds of beat back the troubled waves of the trade the Indian Ocean, found days after, with wind. their blinded crews madly hauling at use- Only then did the muffled double boom. less sheets, while the officers clawed the of the explosion reach the ears of the spec- compass, and shrieked; of burnings and tators, presently to be followed by a whis- piracies; of pest ships and slave ships, and pering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept ships mad for want of water; of whelming irresistibly across the bigger surges and earthquake waves, and mysterious suctions, lapped the ship's side, as for a message drawing irresistibly against wind and steam that the work was done. power upon unknown currents; of stout When Barnett, the ordnance officer in hulks deserted in panic although sound and charge of the destruction, returned on seaworthy; of others so swiftly dragged deck, Carter complimented him. down, that there was no time for any to “Good clean job, Barnett. She was a save himself; and of a hundred other tough customer too.”. strange, stirring and pitiful ventures such “What was she?" asked Ives. as make up the inevitable peril and incor- “ The Caroline Lemp, three-masted rigible romance of the ocean. In a pause schooner. Anyone know about her?” Billy Edwards said musingly: Ives turned to the ship's surgeon, Tren - Well, there was the Laughing Lass." don, a grizzled and brief-spoken veteran, “How did you happen to hit on her ?" who had at his fingers' tips all the lore of asked Barnett quickly. all the waters under the reign of the moon. “Why not, sir? It naturally came into “What does the information bureau of my head. She was last seen somewhere the Seven Seas know about it?" about this part of the world, wasn't she ?” “ Lost three years ago-spring of 1901 After a moment's hesitation he added: 14 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE “ From sometning I heard ashore I judge world thinks it's one of those wild-goose we've a commission to keep a watch-out hunts," observed Ives. for her as well as to destroy derelicts.” “Yes," agreed Barnett. « Flora and " What about the Laughing Lass?" fauna of some unknown island would be , asked McGuire, the paymaster, a New much more in the Schermerhorn line of Englander who had been in the service traffic. Not unlikely that some of the but a short time. festive natives collected the unfortunate “Good Lord! don't you remember the professor.” · Laughing Lass mystery,' and the disap- Various theories were advanced, with- pearance of Prof. Schermerhorn?" drawn, refuted, defended, and the discus- “Karl Augustus Schermerhorn, the man sion carried them through the swift twi- whose experiments to identify telepathy light into the darkness which had been with the Marconi wireless waves made hastened by a high-spreading canopy of such a furore in the papers ?". storm-clouds. Abruptly. from the crow's- “Oh, that was only a by-product of his nest came startling news for those desolate mind. He was an original investigator in seas: “Light-ho! Two points on the port every line of physics and chemistry, be- bow.” sides most of the natural sciences,” said The group of officers stared in the direc- Barnett. "The government is particular- tion indicated, but could see nothing. ly interested in him because of his contri. Presently Ives and Edwards, who were the butions to aerial photography." keenest sighted, made out a faint, suffused "And he was lost with the Laughing radiance. At the same time came a sec: Lass?" ond hail from the crow's-nest. “Nobody knows," said Edwards. “On deck, sir." “He left San Francisco two years ago on "Hello," responded Carter, the officer a hundred-foot schooner, with an assistant, of the deck. a big brass-bound chest, and a ragamuffin “There's a light here I can't make any- crew. A newspaper man, named Slade, thing out of, sir." who dropped out of the world about the “What's it like?". same time, is supposed to have gone along "Sort of queer general glow." too. Their schooner was last sighted “Can't you describe it better than about 450 miles northeast of Oahu, in good that?” called Carter. shape, and bound westward. That's all “Don't make it out at all, sir. 'Tain't the record of her that there is." any regular and proper light. Looks like "Was that Ralph Slade ? " asked Bar- a lamp in a fog." nett. “Not unlike the electric glow above a “ Yes. He was a free-lance writer and city, seen from a distance," said Barnett, artist.” as it grew plainer. “I knew him well,” said Barnett. “He “ Yes, but the nearest electric-lighted was in our mess in the Phillipine campaign, city is some eight hundred miles away,” on the North Dakota. War correspondent objected Ives. then. It's strange that I never identified “Great Heavens! Look at that!" him before with the Slade of the Laughing shouted Edwards. Lass." A great shaft of pale brilliance shot up “What was the object of the voyage ?" toward the zenith. Under it whirled a asked Ives. maelstrom of varied radiance, pale with "They were supposed to be after buried distance but marvellously beautiful. For- treasure,” said Barnett. sythe passed them with a troubled face, on “I've always thought it more likely that his way below to report, as his relief went Prof. Schermerhorn was on a scientific ex- up. pedition,” said Edwards. "I knew the “The quartermaster reports the com- old boy, and he wasn't the sort to care a pass behaving queerly," he said. hoot in Sheol for treasure, buried or un- Three minutes later the captain was on buried.” the bridge. The great ship had swung, “Every time a ship sets out from San and they were speeding direct for the phe- Francisco without publishing to all the nomenon. But within a few minutes the world just what her business is, all the light had died out. A schooner comporting herself in a manner uncommon on the Pacific 6. Another sea mystery to add to our CHAPTER II. list,” said Billy Edwards. “Did anyone ever see a show like that before? What THE LAUGHING LASS do you think, Doc?" With the falling of dusk on June the “Humph!" grunted the veteran. 3d there were tired eyes aboard the Wol- “New to me. Volcanic, maybe.”. verine. Every officer in her complement 16 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE had kept a private and personal look-out -Seismic !” cried Billy Edwards, “I all day for some explanation of the previous should say it was seismic ! Why, when a night's phenomenon. All that rewarded native of one of these island groups sets them was a sky filmed with lofty clouds, his heart on a particular loaf of bread up and the holiday parade of the epauletted his bread-fruit tree, he doesn't bother to waves. climb after it. Just waits for some earth- Nor did evening bring a repetition of quake to happen along and shake it down that strange glow. Midnight found the to him." late stayers still deep in the discussion. “In any case,' said Barnett, such a “One thing is certain,'' said Ives. “It glow as that we sighted last night I've wasn't volcanic.". never seen from any volcano.". “Why so ?” said the paymaster. “Nor 1," said Trendon. “Don't "Because volcanoes are mostly station prove it mightn't have been." ary, and we headed due for that light.” “I'll just bet the best dinner in San “ Yes; but did we keep headed ?" said Francisco that it isn't,” said Edwards. Barnett, who was navigating officer as well “You're on," said Carter. as ordnance officer, in a queer voice. “Let me in," suggested Ives. “What do you mean, sir?" asked Ed. “And I'll take one of it,” said McGuire. wards eagerly. " Come one, come all,” said Edwards “After the light disappeared the com- cheerily. “I'll live high on the collective pass kept on varying. The stars were bad judgment of this outfit." hidden. There is no telling just where we “ To-night isn't likely to settle it, any- were headed, for some time." how," said Ives. “I move we turn in." “Always some electricity in volcanic All night the officers of the Wolverine eruptions,'' said Trendon. “Makes com- slept on the verge of waking, but it was pass cut didoes." not until dawn that the cry of “Sail-ho!'' "Are there many volcanoes here. sent them all hurrying to their clothes. abouts ?" somebody asked. The quarter deck was soon alive with men "We're in 162 West, 31 North, who were wont to be deep in dreams at about," said Barnett. “No telling whether that hour. there are or not. There weren't at last They found Carter, whose watch on deck accounts, but that's no evidence that there it was, reprimanding the look-out. aren't some since. They come up in the “No, sir," the man was insisting, “she night, these volcanic islands." didn't show no light, sir. I'd 'a sighted “ Just cast an eye on the charts,” said her an hour ago, sir, if she had.” Billy Edwards. « Full of E. D.'s and P. "We shall see,” said Carter grimly, D.'s all over the shop. Every one of 'em "Who's your relief?” volcanic." “Sennett." “ E. D.'s and P. D.'s?” queried the “Let him take your place. Go aloft, paymaster. Sennett.” "Existence Doubtful, and Position A s the look-out, crestfallen and surly, Doubtful,” explained the ensign. “ Every went below, Barnett said in subdued tones: time the skipper of one of these wandering “Upon my word, I shouldn't be sur- trade-ships gets a speck in his eye, he re- prised if the man were right. Certainly ports an island. If he really does bump there's something queer about that hooker. into a rock he cuts in an arithmetic book Look how she handles herself.” for his latitude and longitude and lets it go The vessel was some three miles to at that. That's how the chart makers windward. She was a schooner of the make a living, getting out new editions common two-masted Pacific type, but she every few months.” was comporting herself in a manner uncom- " But it's a fact that these seas are con- mon on the Pacific, or any other ocean. stantly changing," said Barnett. "They're Even as Barnett spoke, she heeled well so little travelled that no one happens to over and came rushing up into the wind, be around to see an island born. I don't where she stood with all sails shaking. suppose there's a part on the earth's sur- Slowly she paid off again bearing away face more liable to seismic disturbances from them. Now she gathered full headway, than this region.” yet edged little by little to windward again. THE MYSTERY 17 • Mighty queer tactics," muttered Ed- mile of the aimless traveler, and the small wards. “I think she's steering herself.” boat put out. Not one of his fellows but Captain Parkinson appeared on deck envied the young ensign as he left the and turned his glasses for a full minute on ship, steered by Timmins, a veteran bosn's the strange schooner. Then he ordered mate, wise in all the ins and outs of sea- the signal flags up. Signal after signal was ways. They saw him board, neatly run- disregarded by the stranger, but at length, ning the small boat under the schooner's hastened by a flaw of wind that veered counter; they saw the fore-sheet eased off from the normal direction of the breeze, and the ship run up into the wind; then she made sharply to windward, as if to the fore-sail dropped and the wheel lashed heave to. so that she would stand so. They awaited " Ah, there she comes," ran the com- the reappearaece of Edwards and the ment along the cruiser's quarter deck bosn's mate when they had vanished below But the schooner, after standing for a decks, and with an intensity of eagerness moment all flapping, answered another they followed the return of the small boat. flaw, and went wide about on the opposite Billy Edward's face as he came on deck tack. was a study. It was alight with excite- "Derelict,” remarked Capt. Parkinson. ment; yet between the eyes two deep “She seems to be in good shape too, Dr. wrinkles of puzzlement quivered. Such a Trendon!" face the mathematician bends above his “ Yes, sir.” The surgeon went to the paper, when some obstructive factor arises captain, and the others could hear his between him and his solution. deep, abrupt utterance in reply to some “Well, sir ?" There was a hint of question too low for their ears. effort at restraint in the captain's voice. “ Might be, sir. Beri-beri, maybe. “She's the Laughing Lass, sir. Every- More likely smallpox if anything of that thing ship-shape, but not a soul aboard." kind. But some of 'em would be on “Come below, Mr. Edwards," said the deck." captain. And they went, leaving behind “Whew! A plague-ship!” said Billy them a boiling cauldron of theory and con- Edwards. "Just my luck to be ordered jecture. to board her." He shivered slightly. “Scared, Billy ?" said Ives. Edwards CHAPTER III. had a record for daring which made this THE DEATH SHIP joke obvious enough to be safe. “I wouldn't want to have my peculiar Billy Edwards came on deck with a line style of beauty spoiled by smallpox marks,” of irritation right-angling the furrows be- said the ensign with a smile on his homely, tween his eyes. winning face. " And I've a hunch that “Go ahead," the quarter deck bade that ship is not a lucky find for this ship.” him, seeing him aflush with information. “Then I've a hunch that your hunch “The captain won't believe me,” is a wrong one,” said Ives, quietly, “she blurted out Edwards. looks to me about the build of the Laugh. "Is it as bad as that ?" asked Barnett ing Lass.'' smiling. A buzz of electric interest went around " It certainly is,' replied the younger the group. Every glass was raised; every man seriously. “I don't know that I eye strained toward her stern to read the blame him. I'd hardly believe it myself name as she verged into the wind again. if I hadn't - " About she came. A sharp sigh of excited “Oh, go on. Out with it. Give us disappointment exhaled from the spectators. the facts. Never mind your credibility." The name had been painted out. “The facts are that there lies the Laugh- “No go," breathed Edwards. “But ing Lass, a little weather-worn but sound I'll bet another dinner-" as a dollar, and not a living being aboard "Mr. Edwards,” called the captain, of her. Her boats are all there. Every- “ You will take the second cutter, board thing's in good condition, though none too that schooner and make a full investiga- orderly. Pitcher half full of fresh water in tion." the rack. Sails all 0. K. Ashes of the The cruiser steamed up to within half a galley fire still warm. I tell vou, gentle- 18 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE men, that ship hasn't been deserted more at all. It's regularly bewitched. Never than a couple of days at the outside." saw the like." “Are you sure all the boats are there?" "What about the log, then ?" asked Ives. “ Couldn't find it anywhere. Hunted “ Dory, dinghy, and two surf boats. high, low, jack - and - the - game; every- Isn't that enough?"). where except in the big, brass-bound “Plenty." chest I found in the captain's cabin. “ Been over her, inside and out. No Couldn't do anything with that. sign of collision. No “Prof. Schermer- leak. No anything, horn's chest!” ex- except that the star- claimed Barnett. board side is blistered " Then he was a bit. No evidence aboard." cf fire anywhere else. "Well, he isn't I tell you," said Billy aboard now," said Edwards pathetically, the ensign grimly. “it's given me a head- Not in the flesh. ache." And that's all," he “Perhaps it's one added suddenly. of those cases of panic “No; it isn't all,” that Forsythe spoke of said Barnett gently. the other night,” said - There's something Ives. "The crew got else. Captain's orders? frightened at some- “Oh, no. Capt. Park- thing and ran away, inson doesn't take with the devil after enough stock in my re- them." port to tell me to with- "But crews don't hold anything," said just step out and run Edwards with a trace around the corner and of bitterness in his hide, when they're voice. “It's nothing scared," objected that I believe myself, Barnett. anyhow." “That's true, too,'' “Give us a chance assented Ives. “Well, to believe it,” said perhaps that volcanic Ives. eruption jarred them "Well," said the en- so that they jumped sign hesitantly,“there's a sort of atmosphere "Pretty wild theory, “Pestilence don't work that way" about that scnooner that,” said Edwards. that seems, uncanny.” “No wilder than the facts, as you give. “Oh, you had the shudders before you them,” was the retort. were ordered to board,” bantered Ives. “That's so," admitted the ensign, “I know it. I'd have thought it was gloomily. one of those fool presentiments if I were “But how about pestilence?" sug- the only one to feel it. But the men were gested Barnett. "Maybe they died affected, too. They kept together like fast and the last survivor, after the frightened sheep. And I heard one say bodies of the rest were overboard, to another : got delirious and jumped after them." "Hey, Boney, d'you feel like some “Not if the galley fire was hot," said one was a-buzzin' your nerves like a Dr. Trendon, briefly. "No; pestilence fiddle-string?' Now," demanded Ed- don't work that way.” wards, plaintively, “what right has a “ Did you look at the wheel, Billy?" jackie to have nerves ?” asked Ives. “That's strange enough about the com- “Did I! There's another thing. pass,” said Barnett, slowly. “Ours is all Wheel's all right, but compass is no good right again. The schooner must have been for it." THE MYSTERY 19 so near the electric disturbance that her “No; nor anyone else. Not above instruments were permanently deranged.” water." "That would lend weight to the vol- “ Found a dozen dead rats. No sound canic theory,” said Carter. or sign of a live one on the Laughing Lass. “So the captain didn't take kindly to No rats, no mice, no bugs. Gentlemen, your go-look-see?” questioned Ives of the Laughing Lass is a charnel ship.” Edwards. “No wonder Billy's tender nerves went “ As good as told me I'd missed the wrong,” said Ives, with irrepressible flip- point of the thing,” said the ensign flush- pancy. “She's probably haunted by cock- ing. “Perhaps he can make more of it roach wraiths.” himself. At any rate, he's going to try. “He'll have a chance to see,” said Here he is now.'' Trendon. "Captain's going to put him “Dr. Trendon," said the captain ap- in charge.” pearing, "you will please to go with me “By way of apology, then," said Bar- to the schooner." nett. " That's pretty square.” “Yes, sir," said the surgeon, rising “Captain Parkinson wishes to see you from his chair with such alacrity as to in his cabin, Mr. Edwards," said an or- draw from Ives the sardonic comment: derly, coming in. “Why, I actually believe old Trendon “A pleasant voyage, Captain Billy,” is excited." said Ives. “Sing out if the goblins git For two hours after the departure of the yer." captain and Trendon, there were dull Fifteen minutes later Ensign Edwards times on the quarter deck of the Wolver with a quartermaster, Timmins, the bosn's ine. Then the surgeon came back to mate, and a crew, were heading a straight them. course toward his first command, with in- “ Billy was right,” he said. structions to “keep company and watch “But he didn't tell us anything," cried for signals ;” and intention to break into Ives. “He didn't clear up the mystery." the brass-bound chest and ferret out what “ That's why," said Trendon. “One clue lay there, if it took dynamite. As he thing Billy said,” he added waxing un- boarded, Barnett and Trendon, with both usually prolix for him, “was truer than of whom the lad was a favorite, came to a maybe he knew." sinister conclusion. “ Thanks," murmured the ensign. “It's poison, I suppose,” said the first “What was that?" officer. “ You said Not a living being aboard. “And a mighty subtle sort,” agreed Exact words, hey?". Trendon. "Don't like the looks of it." “Well, what of it?" exclaimed the en- He shook a solemn head. “Don't like it sign excitedly. “You don't mean you for a damn." found dead - ? “Keep your temperature down, my boy. CHAPTER IV. No. You were exactly right. Not a liv- ing being aboard." THE SECOND PRIZE CREW " Thanks for nothing," retorted the en- sign. From some unaccountable source in that “Neither human nor other,' pursued realm of the heaven-scouring trades, a Trendon. heavy mist swept down upon the cruiser "What's the man mean?" on June 5th, thickening as it approached, “ Food scattered around the galley. until presently it had spread a curtain be- Crumbs on the mess table. Ever see a tween the war ship and its charge. The wooden ship without cockroaches?” wind died. Until after fall of night the “Never particularly investigated the Wolverine moved slowly, bellowing for the matter." schooner, but got no reply. “Don't believe such a thing exists,” “Probably doesn't carry any fog horn," said Ives. said Carter bitterly, voicing a general un- “Not a cockroach on the Laughing easiness. “No log ; compass crazy ; with- Lass. Ever know of an old hooker that out fog-signal; I don't like that craft. wasn't overrun with rats?", Barnett ought to have been ordered to 20 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE blow the damned thing up, as a peril to “ The compass is queer again.” the high seas." “ Edwards ought to be close to the so- “We'll pick her up in the morning, lution of it," said Ives. “This gale surely," said Forsythe. "This can't last should have blown him just about to the forever.” centre of interest." Nor did it last long. An hour before "If only he isn't involved in it," said midnight, a pounding shower fell, lashing Carter, anxiously. the sea into phosphorescent whiteness. It “What could there be to involve him?” ceased, and with the growl of a leaping said McGuire. animal, a squall furiously beset the ship. “I don't know," said Carter, slowly. Capt. Parkinson came from his cabin and “Somehow I feel as if the desertion of the went on deck. schooner was in some formidable manner “Parky looks as if Davy Jones was pull- connected with that light.” ing on his string," observed the flippant F or perhaps fifteen minutes the glow Ives to his neighbor. continued. It seemed to be nearer at “Worrying about the schooner ?'' said hand than on the former sighting ; but it Forsythe. “Hope Billy Edwards saw or took no comprehensible form. Then it heard or felt that squall coming." died away and all was blackness again. “Oh, it will be all right,” said Carter But the officers of the Wolverine had long confidently. “The wind's moderating, been in troubled slumber before the sensi- now.” tive compass regained its exact balance, “ But there's no telling how far out of and with the shifting wind to mislead her, the course this may have blown him.” the cruiser had wandered by morning, no Barnett came down, dripping. man might know how far from her course. “ Anything new ?" asked Dr. Trendon. All day long of June 6th the Wolverine, The navigating officer shook his head. baffled by patches of mist and moving rain- "Nothing. But the captain's in a state of falls, patrolled the empty seas without mind," he said. sighting the lost schooner. The evening “ What's wrong with him ?" brought an envelope of fog again, and “ The schooner. Seems possessed with presently a light breeze came up from the the notion that there's something wrong north. An hour of it had failed to dis- with her." perse the mist, when there was borne down “ Aren't you feeling a little that way to the war ship a sound of Aapping as of yourself?” said Forsythe. “I am. I'll great wings. The flapping grew louder- take a look around before I turn in.' waned-ceased—and from the look-out He left behind him a silent crowd. His came a hail. return was prompt and swift. “Ship's lights three points on the star- os Come on deck,” he said. board quarter." Every man leaped as to an order. There “What do you make it out to be?” was that in Forsythe's voice which stung. came the query from below.” The weather had cleared somewhat, though “Green light's all I can see, sir." scudding wrack still blew across them to There was a pause. the westward. The ship rolled heavily. “There's her port light, now. Looks Of the sea naught was visible but arching to be turning and bearing down on us, sir. waves ; in the sky they beheld again, with Coming dead for us," the man's voice rose a sickening sense of disaster, that pale and Zoo close aboard ; less'n two ship's lovely glow, which had so bewildered them lengths away!" two nights before. As for a pre-arranged scene, the fog- " The aurora !” cried McGuire, the curtain parted. There loomed silently paymaster. and swiftly the Laughing Lass. Down “Oh, certainly," replied Ives with sar- she bore upon the greater vessel until it casm. “Dead in the west. Common seemed as if she must ram; but all the spot for the aurora. Particularly on the time she was veering to windward, and edge of the South Seas, where they are now she ran into the wind with a castanet thick!" rattle of sails. So close aboard was she “ Then what is it?". that the eager eyes of Uncle Sam's men “It's electrical anyway,” said Carter. peered down upon her empty decks—for Hodo N KUPIT HUT (( A man who was a bit of a mechanic was set to work to open the chest she was void of life. A shudder of horror ran across the Wol- Behind the cruiser's blanketing she paid verine's quarter deck. A wraith-ship, off very slowly, but presently caught the peopled with skeletons would have been breeze full and again whitened the water less dreadful to their sight than the brisk at her prow. Forgetting regulations, Ives and active desolation of the heeling hailed loudly : schooner. “Ahoy, Laughing Lass! Ahoy, Billy “Been deserted since early last night," Edwards!” said Trendon hoarsely. No sound, no animate motion came from “How can you tell that?" asked Bar- aboa. d that apparition, as she fell astern. nett. 21 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED. MAGAZINE “ Both sails reefed down. Ready for “You're ordered aboard the schooner that squall. Been no weather since to call for the night, Congdon," said the captain. for reefs. Must have quit her during the “Yes, sir." squall.” “Is there any reason why you do not " Then they jumped,” cried Carter, wish to go ?" " for I saw her boats. It isn't believable." The man hesitated, looking miserable. “ Neither was the other," said Trendon Finally he blurted out, not without a cer- grimly. tain dignity : A hurried succession of orders stopped “I obey orders, sir." further discussion for the time. Ives was “Speak out, my man," urged the cap- sent aboard the schooner to lower sail and tain kindly. report. He came back with a staggering "Well, sir : it's Mr. Edwards, then. dearth of information. The boats were all You couldn't scare him off a ship, sir, un- there; the ship was intact—as intact as less it was something—something- when Billy Edwards had taken charge, He stopped, failing of the word. but the cheery, lovable ensign and his “You know what Mr. Edwards was, men had vanished without trail or clue. As sir, for pluck,” he concluded. to the how or the wherefore they might " Vas!!" cried the captain sharply. rack their brains with guessing. There “What do you mean?” was the beginning of a log in the ensign's “The schooner got him, sir. You don't handwriting, which Ives had found with make no doubt of that, do you, sır?" high excitement and read with bitter dis- The man spoke in a hushed voice, with a appointment : shrinking glance back of him. “ Had squall from northeast," it ran. “Will you go aboard under Mr. Ives ?" “ Double reefed her and she took it nicely. “Anywhere my officer goes I'll go, and Seems a sea-worthy, quick ship. Further gladly, sir.” search for log. No result. Have ordered Ives was sent aboard in charge. For one of crew who is a bit of a mechanic to that night, in a light breeze the two ships work at the brass-bound chest till he gets it lay close together, the schooner riding open. He reports marks on the lock as if jauntily astern. But not until morning somebody had been trying to pick it before illumined the world of waters did the Wol- him." verine's people feel confident that the There was no further entry. Laughing Lass would not vanish away “Dr. Trendon is right,” said Barnett. from their ken like a shape of the mist. " Whatever happened—and God only knows what it could have been—it hap- CHAPTER V. pened just after the squall." “Just about the time of the strange THE DISAPPEARANCE glow,” cried Ives. When Barnett came on deck very early It was decided that two men and a petty in the morning of June 7th, he found Dr. officer should be sent aboard the Laugh- Trendon already up and staring moodily ing Lass to make her fast with a cable, out at the Laughing Lass. As the night and remain on board over night. But was calm the tow had made fair time to- when the order was given, the men hung ward their port in the Hawaiian group. back. One of them protested brokenly "Evidently there's something criminal that he was sick. Trendon after examina- in her record,” said Barnett frowning at tion reported to the captain. the schooner astern. "Otherwise the " Case of blue funk, sir. Might as well name wouldn't be painted out.'' be sick. Good for nothing. Others aren't “ Painted out long ago. See how rusty much better." it is. Schermerhorn's work maybe," re- “Who was to be in charge ?" plied Trendon. “Secret expedition, re- “ Congdon,” replied the doctor, nam- member." ing one of the petty officers. “Um-ah; that's true,” said the other “He's my coxswain," said Capt. Park- thoughtfully. “It's quite possible." inson. “A first-class man. I can hardly “ Captain wishes to see both of you believe that he is afraid. We'll see.” gentlemen in the ward room, if you please," Congdon was sent for. came a message. THE MYSTERY 23 Below they found all the officers gathered. crew and go aboard at once. Spare no Capt. Parkinson was pacing up and down effort to find records of the schooner's in ill-controlled agitation. cruise. Keep in company and watch for “Gentlemen,” he said, "we are facing a signals. Report at once any discovery problem which, so far as I know, is with- or unusual incident, however slight.” out parallel. It is my intention to bring A t ten o'clock of a puffy mist-laden the schooner which we have in tow to port morning a new and silent crew of nine at Honolulu. In the present unsettled men boarded the Laughing Lass. There weather we cannot continue to tow her. I were no farewells among the officers. wish two officers to take charge. Under Forebodings weighed too heavy for such the circumstances I shall issue no orders. open expression. The duty must be voluntary.” All the fates of weather seemed to com- Instantly every man, from the veteran bine to part the schooner from her convoy. Trendon to the youthful paymaster, volun- As before, the fog fell, only to be suc- teered. ceeded by squally rain showers that cut “ That is what I expected,” said Capt. up the vista into a checkerboard pattern Parkinson quietly. “But I have still a of visible sea and impenetrable grayness. word to say. I make no doubt in my Before evening the Laughing Lass, making own mind that the schooner has twice slow way through the mists, had become been beset by the gravest of perils. Noth- separated by a league of waves from the ing less would have driven Mr. Edwards cruiser. One glimpse of her between from his post. All of us who know him mist-areas the Wolverine caught at sun- will appreciate that. Nor can I free my- set. Then wind and rain descended in self from the darkest forebodings as to his furious volume from the southeast. The fate and that of his companions. But as cruiser immediately headed about, follow- to the nature of the peril I am unable to ing the probable course of her charge make any conjecture worthy of considera- which would be beaten far down to lee- tion. Has anyone a theory to offer ?" ward. It was a gloomy mess on the war There was a dead silence. ship. In his cabin Capt. Parkinson was “Mr. Barnett ? Dr. Trendon ? Mr. frankly sea-sick; a condition which noth- Ives ?" ing but the extreme of nervous depression " Is there not possibly some connection ever induced in him. between the light which we have twice For several hours the rain fell and the seen, and the double desertion ofthe ship?" gale howled. Then the sky swiftly cleared, suggested the first officer after a pause. and with the clearing there rose a great “I have asked myself that over and cry of amaze from stem to stern of the over. Whatever the source of the light Wolverine. For far toward the western and however near to it the schooner may horizon appeared such a prodigy as the eye have been, she is evidently unharmed.” of no man aboard that ship had ever be- "Yes, sir," said Barnett. " That seems held. From a belt of marvellous, glowing to vitiate that explanation." gold, rich and splendid streamers of light “I thank you, gentlemen, for the spiralled up into the blackness of the promptitude of your offers,” continued the heavens. In all the colors of the spectrum captain. “In this respect you make my they rose and fell; blazing orange, silken, duty the more difficult. I shall accept wonderful, translucent blues, and shimmer- Mr. Ives because of his familiarity with ing reds. Below, a broad band of paler sailing craft and with these seas." His hue, like sheet lightning fixed to immobility, eyes ranged the group. wavered and rippled. All the auroras of “I beg your pardon, Capt. Parkinson,” the northland blended in one could but eagerly put in the paymaster, “but I've have paled away before the splendor of handled a schooner yacht for several years that terrific celestial apparition. and I'd appreciate the chance of—" On board the cruiser all hands stood “Very well, Mr. McGuire, you shall be petrified, bound in a stricture of speech- the second in command." less wonder. After the first cry, silence "Thank you, sir." lay leaden over the ship. It was broken “You gentlemen will pick a volunteer by a scream of terror from forward. (To be continued ) The Finger Tips of Allah By Broughton Brandenburg WITH PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY THE FRENCH COMMANDANT OF THE DISTRICT OF BISKRA ZEEP in the yellow bosom of Like the sudden rising of the curtain on Sc o t he Sahara there are spots the opera the flood of sunlight pours over where a man may live and the hills, and one beholds the green nest find scant food and drink, of Biskra before him, embowered in the STORY but I am about to write of hills, and half hiding its jumble of sun- view the last outpost of civiliza- bleached houses with the spreading fronds tion, the final footprint of the modern, not of its date palms and orange trees. on the edge, but thrust into the desert Immediately to the east there lies a itself, the beautiful, scantily-memorialized rocky waste that marks the bed of the oc- oasis of Biskra. casional torrent when rain does come and The political geography that draws dot- the hills hurl down the flood on the plain ted red lines in the ministry of foreign below. On its hither bank are rough affairs says that it is Algeria, and that the mounds that indicate where once the an- territory is French, but if I had my way it cient Biskra stood, in the days when the would be only Biskra, Heart of North Arabs came out of the East and dispos- Africa. sessed the autochthons. Where the grave To begin with, Algiers is not one of the of the elder city ends the poorer part of way stations of the beaten path, and to the new Biskra begins, the earth-built seek Biskra one must start from Algiers. structures appearing at a distance to be a The French have tried to build a railroad part of the rock scheme. Gradually the up through the region by the way of Con- hewn stone and the tile structures assert stantine, and have half-heartedly en- themselves, until at last, when the eye rests deavored to make the worn-out materials on the quarter immediately about the and rolling stock of the French provincial residence of the Bashaga, the chief hold- roads overcome the obstacles of nature in ing authority both from the French and the rough country where the desert begins. Arabs, there is no doubt but that one By all means go by the way of Constantine looks at a town. More it cannot be called (there is no other way to go,) and stay in as, in the terminology of the theatrical Biskra as long as possible, for it is worth booking agent, its extreme drawing popu- one journey, but no more. lation is not six thousand. The fully ad- There is one incomparable view, and vertised reappearance of Mahomet would that is when approaching from Touggourt, not provoke a greater concourse. the nearest oasis, just at dawn after a still The initial signs of life the traveler will night. Perchance the moon, almost full, see are odd-moving figures in white out on a luminous, white disk of great size, is the waste of rocks beyond the old city. At receding into the purple abyss of the as first glance they seem to be rocks, but a yet unlit west. On one hand lifts the ser- closer look will show them bending, rising rated and seamed ridges of the Mohon- from kneeling positions to full height, and neihe, and on the other and to the rear is genuflecting. They are heads of families the stretching desert sand and the hills it from the town praying to the East. cannot subdue. On the ridges rests lightly T he few horses in the caravan begin to a growing flush, blending exquisitely with neigh, the camels to cough, choke and grunt their purples, lavenders and grays. and lift their bobbing heads. From the A gorge on the edge of the desert nearer side of the town there come answer- confines of the town the noisy boys gather ing sounds. The first one distinguishable around him, after profound salaams, and by is the shouting of boys at play. The wor- the time the caravan reaches the spot, he shippers are returning. One of them car- has selected a palm tree, has spread the ries under his arm a great roll of matting mat, producing an ominous rod from and a veritable tablet library of skin-Cov- within it. The boys have slipped off their ered slabs inscribed in Arabic. At the shoes before squatting on the mat, as it is 25 A maid of Islam Fortunate is he who sees a Bedouin woman of any position unveiled. now sacred territory and school has been streets, nothing more than a slit between taken up. dividing walls. The arrival in Biskra is Queer little chaps they are, in their tat- accomplished, and the caravan disinte- tered cotton clothes, conning over sections grates. The date-laden beasts turn aside of the Koran, the majority wearing fez, at some dividing point and are lost in the some few the burnouse of the Bedouin. compound of the merchant who buys the The schoolmaster's spectacles are opaque fruit. The wool-bearers vanish down an- with grease and date juice, and worn on other by-lane and the Bedouin outriders the tip of his nose so as not to interfere stop before the door of a repairer of arms. with his vision. In that he displays a There is a longevity in the khan or patio common idiosyncrasy among Moslem ped- style of architecture of habitations which agogues. They must wear spectacles, but is puzzling, to say the least. The modern not to look through. cottage, or villa with a lawn, is a legitimate Winding around the little artificial pool, evolution of the ancient castle with a ter- on the bank of which the school sits, the race, but why half of the civilized world caravan plunges into one of the narrow should cling to the style of walling-in dwell- 26 A desert bride About her waist is the traditional broad plate of gold, silver and turquoise, usually an inheritance of great age and rare workmanship. ings, stock-shelters and grounds, is more material, great catastrophes sometimes oc- than I can understand. In former centu- cur, with heavy loss of life and property. ries of complete lawlessness, protection The holy men when praying for rain qual- from robbers was a real reason, but over ify the invocation by asking for not too all southern Europe, western Asia, north- much. A really heavy shower, such as ern Africa, Mexico, Central and South rarely occurs, melts the mud walls, the America, one finds the persistent khan and houses fall down and the streets become patio without excuse. Biskra streets are rivers of mud, while the irrigating canals a maze of nearly blank walls, uselessly in- are filled up, the water pools ruined and closing the real life of the town. These misfortune rules in general. Sandstone, walls are largely of sun-dried mud bricks which can be easily worked, is abundant, with holes in the upper reaches to accom- convenient and durable, yet the Arab modate rafters, as the houses within utilize clings to mud. the outer wall in the economy of their The reliefs to the blankness of the walls structure. By reason of the quality of the are doors, of very old wood as a rule, very The garden of Eden with the desert on every side On the rock wastes beyond old Biskra, the heads of families may be seen praying to the East 30 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE carefully preserved, as the scant timbering might ever achieve for his product. of a house often costs as much as the whole While one compound will be seen to be remaining structure. A look into one of wretched and ill-kept, the quarters for the these reveals the life within. servants thrown down and mere tent-like A sluggish stream of water wanders pretences of shelters erected, the next will through the grounds in a clay-lined ditch. be truly a garden of beauty. Around the This is the day of the week in which this pools and along the ditches exquisitely- particular street has its share of water shaped palms nod in the slight breeze that turned in to fill the pools and cisterns. A comes from without the walls. There are loud-voiced representative of the Bashaga stretches of soft sheep-grass, and the life is exercising his small authority over the of the inmates has a different complexion people of the place, driving them away entirely. In preparation for a wedding, the bride's hands and feet are steeped in henna from the gate that admits the water, while All this is a question of individual char- they beseech him to allow it to run a short acter as shown in the number of palms. time longer. Every man's wealth is accounted by the On the banks of the pool the maternal number of palms he possesses, for the fruit head of the so-called slave family that of the palm is the one great source of rey- serves the house-owner is beginning the im- enue of the region. The palms of Biskra, portant operation of making the kuss-kuss. with a little wool from the sheep, a few Her eldest daughter is dutifully bringing hides from the Bedouin horses, produce the water while the mother kneads the the staples that can be exchanged for the maize meal with an infinite slowness. It gold that will buy silks and cottons, arms seems that by her mere finger-work the and tobacco, and what very few other Arab woman can get a toughness into the things are essential to the life that goes on kuss-kuss which no Australian bush-baker unchanged from generation to generation. THE FINGER TIPS OF ALLAH 31 Not quite unchanged, for while the have been encroached upon, for in Biskra, French Protectorate, backed up with the where religious observance reaches its presence of French officials with a hand- most intense form, more women of all ful of soldiers, has had little real effect on classes are to be seen unveiled than in any the lives of the people, it has greatly re- like community of northern Africa. Of duced the price of wives. A law was put course, one is very fortunate to see a in force with the full support of the Basha- woman of the aristocracy unveiled, for ga and all the minor chiefs, that no man at the first glimpse of an approaching should have a harem with more than two European, even the little girls of the poor wives in it, and the law of supply and de- are accustomed to snatch corners of their mand beginning to act at once, the market head-shawls across their faces. price of brides declined with great rapidity. There are some beautiful symbolisms in Bedouin women Under the French Protectorate no man may have more than two wives. In fact many men who have never owned the marriages, though they fit very poor- a bit of property and have rarely had any- ly with the conventional Romeo and Juliet thing but copper money in their hands are ideals. The age of wedding for the girls possessed of a full complement of help- is about twelve, sometimes less and some- meets. The paternal government hoped times more, and the preliminaries are en- to better the condition of the common tirely a business matter conducted with people, but results of recent years may lead much ceremony. After a definite con- to a repeal of the law, inasmuch as the in- tract is made it is then that the bride is crease in population bids fair to surpass the permitted to see and talk with her future possible resources of the region. husband, if at all. The time of the wed- By rendering the harem relatively unim- ding is set and the date invariably falls portant the strict Mohammedan laws con- on a Monday or Friday evening. The cerning women appearing veiled in public night before, the bride's hands and feet The school of the desert- the rod is not spared and the Koran is learned never to be forgotten THE FINGER TIPS OF ALLAH 33 are steeped in henna with which are stained happy child takes off the girdle and plate, the nails of all women who make any gives them to her husband with a deep pretense at keeping up appearances. obeisance, the ceremonies are recom- When the day comes on which the bride menced followed by feasting and merry- is to go to the house of her husband she making that lasts as long as the bridegroom is arrayed in a rich gown, on her arms and keeps bis purse open. ankles are bracelets, and about her slender It is odd to find in a little community of little waist she wears a corded girdle hold- a few thousand souls almost shut off from ing in place a broad plate of gold, silver the influences of the rest of the world, the and turquoise, usually an inheritance of usual Mussulman type of mendicancy de- great age and rare workmanship. These veloped in such a high form. The beg- plates cannot be bought for many times gars of Biskra are the most persistent, Dancers entertaining a halted caravan their intrinsic value. The spangled bride's numerous and versatile by comparison that veil is cast over her head and she is led to one will find anywhere in the East. If in the door by her parents and given over to an unguarded moment one gives a wretched a company of joyous friends and hired creature a copper as he droops apparently musicians and celebrators who parade dying on the edge of one of the street through the streets beating the raw hide irrigating ditches, and then enters a house tambourines and cymbals, dancing and or a place of business, he will find when shouting, flanked by miserable beggars he emerges a solid phalanx of beggars lined beseeching backsheesh in the name of up to assail him with appeals in the name the bride though she never receives one of Allah and Mohammed, and hair-raising penny. curses if their demands are not heeded. So the tumultuous pageant winds its They see in every Bedouin funeral a way to the house of the groom, where the harvest. Whatever the faults of the The evening meal The houses are half fortress, half burrow 34 “Ask and ye shall receive" is also a doctrine of Islam With sandstone within reach, the Bedouin clings to sun-dried brick 35 The waters of contentment Bedouin may be, the grim dweller within for Biskra, wailing as they go, and singing the desert is not lacking in grief for the high-pitched nasal funeral hymns, that drop dead. When in some of the camps by away into quavering minors. the outlying oases a human soul Aickers It is a moving sight to see such a proces- out, the remaining clay is carefully pre- sion coming through the gorge of the pared in the best robes, is bound on a Mountains of the Rosy Cheek, the white horse, and the entire tribe sets out on foot line winding among the rocky walls which 36 I WONDER WHY ! 37 echo the mournful sounds. Runners have Fast of Ramadam and during the fair. gone on ahead, and long before the first of Then there is a great temporary bazar Biskra is seen songs of sorrow and wild opened up, there are feats of riding and cries will be heard from the direction of shooting, the traveling dancers appear, the town. A troupe of professional mourn- one wonders from where, and there is ers clad in red and yellow, tatterdemalion feasting, eating, drinking and general mendicants and idle populace, appear gaiety. crossing a ford, and the grief of the ap- The Fast of Ramadam is variable in the proaching tribe breaks out anew. The two calendar, and cannot be called annual. columns meet and join. The booming of During the time it lasts nothing can pass the tambourines redoubles, wild and weird the lips of a true believer except after sun- rise the cries breaking into the doleful set. This is very severe on the poor chants. Slowly the procession moves on people who go on with their work some- to Biskra where a company of solemn faced times in weather of awful heat, yet will small boys forms in front of the horse on not touch a drop of water. When the which the body is bound, and sing the mel- weary day is almost done one can see them low, resounding passages of the Koran begin to gather in the street beside the incessantly until the grave is reached, filled irrigating ditches. In one hand is an and closed. earthen drinking vessel, in the other a There are two seasons of the year when cigarette and a match. Patiently they Biskra is in the full flood of its life. One stand and wait. The sunset gun rings is the spring festival called the Mutton out from the military headquarters, the .. Feast ordinarily, and the other is the cigarettes are popped into their mouths, lit merry-making following the end of the and deeply inhaled—then they drink. I Wonder Why ! By Owen Oliver WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY SIGSBEE KER WASTAVA WONDER why the fairies sword to fight for her and kill the wicked O SCILX never come to our house! giant who wants to take her away. Giants I wonder why they live in always want to steal princesses, don't they? “Once Upon a Time !” I Aunt Marie calls Mr. Hardy the giant. I wonder why the train wonder why! So doesn't go there! I wonder I shouldn't have known that he was a if they are as tall as I am, now I'm seven, giant, if Aunt Marie hadn't told me, 'cause or only a little big, like I used to be! he is only as big as father, and he doesn't Aunt Stella says I might have been one if look dreadful, and he never says “fee-fi- they hadn't forgotten my wings, and she fo-fum,” only talks like a man. I don't calls me her “ fairy boy." I wonder why! think he is a very naughty giant, 'cause I Aunt Stella couldn't be a fairy, because know he doesn't cook little boys and eat she is grown-up. If she lived in “Once them on toast. I asked him and he told Upon a Time" I s'pect she would be a me when he came here the other day, and lovely princess. Sometimes I make believe I sat on his knee, like I always do. He she is, and I am her little page. If I were said some giants didn't mean to be bad, a page I should be a knight some day, and but people were frightened of them 'cause wear shining armor, and have a long, sharp they were “big men in the city.” 38 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE M.SK herself up stiff when he talks to her, and she won't listen to something that he wants to say to her. I wonder why! I asked her what he wanted to say the other day, when Aunt Marie was there. Aunt Stella says she didn't know; but Aunt Marie laughed a funny laugh that wasn't a proper laugh really. " Don't you know the story that your lovely princess comes out of, fairy page boy?" she said. “Come and sit on my knee and I'll tell you." I went and jumped on Aunt Marie's knee, and Aunt Stella waved her arms, as if she was pushing something away, and said: “Don't, Marie!" She often says that when Aunt Marie says things. I Told Carlo all the fairy stories I know wonder why! Aunt Marie laughed again and stroked “They aren't so big at home,” he said, my hair. She is a nice aunt, and I like " or when they come to your house, and her, too. I do not think she is a princess, they don't want to hurt people, and they but she knows lots of stories. would be ever so good to a princess. I “ Once upon a time,” she said, “in the hope you aren't afraid of me, fair boy.' land where fairies live, there was a very "No," I said, “I'm not afraid of you beautiful princess. Her name was Star. a tall. I like you. But are you really a She was just as beautiful as a star, and just giant, Mr. Hardy ?" as cold.” She stared at Aunt Stella as if He looked at me and smiled as if some- she meant her. thing was hurting him, and he didn't want “Aunt Stella isn't cold,” I said. “She's any one to know. ever so warm. You put your hand on her “I don't believe I am really a giant,” face and try.” he said, “but you musn't tell any one. "This was quite a different princess,'' There aren't many giants in these days — Aunt Marie said. “Her name wasn't or princesses, either, but your Auntie is Stella, but Star. She had a warm face, too. really a princess. I wonder who the prince It was her heart that was cold-freezing is going to be!”. cold, fairy page boy." I told him that Aunt Marie called Mr. “Did it hurt her ?" I asked. Desmond the prince, and he made a noise “I don't know. She didn't say, and as if he wasn't well. I wonder why! you can never know what is hurting other Mr. Desmond looks as if he might be people's hearts, or if they have any." a prince, and Aunt Marie says he is the “Have you got a cold heart, Aunt handsomest man she ever saw. I think Marie?” I said, and she laughed the funny he is only an enchanter in disguise, who way again. wants to bewitch Aunt Stella, 'cause he “My heart is too hot,” she said, “ like always tries to make me go away. He -oh, like the kitchen fire! That hurts, gave me a little push the other day, when too! But the princess' heart was quite Auntie wasn't looking, and Carlo growled cold. I don't suppose it hurt her, but it at him. I have told Carlo all the fairy hurt other people very much. She had a stories I know, and I'm sure he under- father and mother—they were the King stands, though he can only bark and can't and Queen, of course—and a sister " talk. I thought perhaps he was a prince “I s'pose she was a princess, too ?”' I that a wizard had bewitched, and some day asked. he would turn into a lady or a man, but “Oh, no! She was quite an ordinary Auntie says they never do it now. I won- girl; rather a tiresome, worrying girl, the der why! princess thought." I don't believe Aunt Stella thinks Mr. “I s'pect she was a wicked sister, and Desmond is a prince, because she draws jealous of the princess." I WONDER WHY! 39 “No. She wasn't that. She wasn't warmed her heart if any one could." -was she, Stella ?” “But suppose he couldn't, Marie ?" Aunt Stella shook her head. “No, Aunt Stella said. She seemed quite 'cited dear. She wasn't a wicked sister, and she about the story. wasn't jealous. She was a very dear “She wouldn't let him try. You see, woman, but she did not understand. fairy boy, the prince was very poor and the None of them did.” giant was very rich—so rich that he could - She understood that the princess's buy sweets four times a day. He said to heart was cold," Aunt Marie said. “You the princess: “Marry me, and I'll give you oughn't to marry any one if your heart is a carriage, and a castle, and rings on your cold to them, you know, fairy page boy fingers—and bells on your toes.'" So the funny sister wanted the princess to “Are you sure he said that, Marie ?" marry whoever could warm it. That was Aunt Stella wanted to know. right, wasn't it?". “He mayn't have said it," Aunt Marie "Not if he was an ogre or an enchanter told her, “but it was quite understood. I dressed up, or a wicked uncle in disguise. don't blame him, for he was a good sort He might be, mightn't he?". of giant, and I think he liked the princess “Of course he might; but he wouldn't very much. She was a very beautiful have deceived the princess. She was very princess, fairy boy, and easy to like, but clever, and could see through disguises her heart was so icy cold. She was poor, as you and I can see through a window. for a princess, and she wanted carriages Besides you always know if any one makes and castles and all those sort of things your heart warm. There's no disguising that warm your body but not your that. Well, two people wanted to marry heart.” this lovely princess, a giant and a prince. “She ought to have them, if she was a The prince was handsome and he loved the princess," I said. “Oughtn't she, Aunt princess very much, and he would have Stella ?” M.SK I saw him kiss Aunt Stella Mary Sigsbeeker. 1905 Once upon a time I WONDER WHY ! 41 Aunt Stella didn't answer me. I won- " And did the princess marry him?" I der why! wanted to know; but Aunt Marie put me “But suppose she could only get them down and ran out. by marrying a giant ?" “Ask your Auntie Stella,” she said. "A bad giant," I asked, “who ate little “If there's anyone can make her lieart boys?" warm, it's you, fairy boy." “No-o. He was not a bad giant. He I went and hugged Auntie Stella (she was rather nice to little boys, and I don't wasn't cold at all!), and asked her to tell think he would have been cruel to the me the rest of the story, but she said she princess, but he couldn't make her heart didn't know, and she didn't believe any warm. Would you want a castle and a one did, and it wasn't a real true story. carriage if they made your heart cold, People are always making mistakes about fairy boy?" princesses, she said, and she knew one "I should like a haunted castle," I whose heart was very, very warm to her said, “and a ghost that didn't make too fairy page boy. Perhaps there was a giant much noise, and I should love a horse to who could have warmed it, if he hadn't ride on. Does a cold heart hurt much?” thought it was too cold to try. So he only "Not while it is frozen; only when it offered her a castle and a carriage that she thaws. If your heart was cold you didn't want at all, and she had said that wouldn't like Aunt Marie, or even your she wasn't for sale. And then he got cross princess auntie-Auntie Star.". with her, and she didn't care. And now “You mean Auntie Stella, don't you?” we would go for a walk, and that was ever “Yes, I mean Aunt Stella. Did I say so much better than telling fairy tales. Auntie Star ? How stupid of me! They're We went down the lane, and over the quite different persons, of course. Well, plank across the brook, and when we came if your heart was cold you wouldn't like to the seat under the big tree, we sat us, and then we shouldn't be so fond of down. I wanted Auntie to tell me some you. Nobody would. You wouldn't like more fairy tales, but she said they had all that, would you ?" gone out of her head. I kept asking her "No," I said. “If nobody didn't to think them in again, but she couldn't, like me I shouldn't have any one to play and then Mr. Hardy came along and sat with, should I? And the princess down beside us. I asked him to tell me a wouldn't, would she ?" true fairy tale, but he said he had grown "Worse! She'd always have to play too old to believe them, but perhaps he with some one she didn't like. If the would if I told him one. princess married the giant she'd always "I'll tell you one Aunt Marie told me,” have to live with him, and her heart would I said, “ about a princess like Aunt Stella, ache, and ache, and ache! Oh, Stella! and a giant, and ". You know it would! So her funny sister “No, no !" Auntie said. I wonder wanted her to marry the prince instead." why! And he and Auntie tried who could “Why did she want her to ?” stare hardest at one another. “Because he was the nicest prince that “It's a story that has to be told some ever was.” time, Miss Stella," Mr. Hardy said, “ and " Then why didn't the funny sister your fairy page boy has told me little bits want to marry him herself ?" of it already, -I think the rest of it would “Why?" Aunt Stella asked. “Why, hurt me less, perhaps, if it came from him. Marie ?i Will you let him tell me about the beauti- Aunt Marie jumped, as if a pin had ful princess? And the giant ?". stuck into her, and nearly dropped me off "May I, Auntie ?" I asked, and Auntie her knee. bent down and kissed me. “He didn't want her,” she said. “You may tell him, dear,” she said. “You know, Stella, and it's cruel of you. “It is his own fault if he believes.” He wanted the princess. The funny sis. “Once upon a time," I told him, ter, with the hot, burning heart, wanted "there was a princess. Her name was them both to be happy, and—and she'd Star, and she was pretty, like Aunt Stella. get used to the burning, she thought, and Do you think Aunt Stella is like a princess, -and that's all, fairy boy." Mr. Hardy?" 42 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE “I think your aunt is a princess," he cold or warm, so that he would know if her said, " and there was never another.” heart was. "Oh, yes !” I told him, there was! “Do you, Stella ?” he asked. “Do “There's four in one book that mama you?" gave me. But this princess had a freezing Auntie got very red, and tried to pull heart, and it freezed her all through. her hand away, but he wouldn't let her. Aunt Stella isn't freezed at all. You feel It made me laugh, 'cause they looked so her hand. It's dreadfully warm." funny. “She has not seemed very cold to me,” “I expect she refused both,” she told he said, but he didn't feel her hand. I him, “the prince because she didn't care wonder why? for him, the giant because—because a “There was a giant who wanted to princess isn't to be bought with a giant's marry her; a good giant like you. Would wealth, Mr. Hardy. Let me go, please." you like to marry a princess, Mr. Hardy? “But suppose he offered her—a giant's If she was like Aunt Stella, I meam ?" love ?” he asked. “Can you tell me the Auntie said I was talking nonsense, and end of the story then?" we had better go, but Mr. Hardy said it I was listening to hear if she remembered wasn't nonsense to him, and he would like the end of the story, but Mr. Hardy said to marry a princess, if she was like Aunt he would give me a pony if I could find a Stella, and if her heart was just a little dozen blackberries. So I ran to look for warm to him. So I went on with the them. When I came back I jumped from story. behind the tree, and I saw him kiss Aunt “ The giant said he'd give her a castle Stella ! I wonder why! and carriage if she would, but they didn't I wonder why Aunt Marie wasn't cross know if he could make her unfreeze, and when Aunt Stella told her that she was a prince wanted to marry her too, and— going to marry the giant because he had and I don't remember if she wanted to made her heart warm. I wonder why they marry the prince. Did she, Auntie ?" hugged one another, and laughed and “ Did she, Miss Stella ?" Mr. Hardy cried ! I wonder why Aunt Stella is going asked. “Stella ? Did she?". away from us to live at Mr. Hardy's house! “ In the story she did," Aunt Stella I wonder why Aunt Marie says that a said. “But it is Marie's story, not mine, prince's sweetheart is happier than a and she doesn't know the end of it.” princess! I wonder why everybody seems Mr. Hardy caught hold of Auntie's so pleased! It makes me feel pleased hand. I expect he wanted to see if it was too ! I wonder why ! On The Deep-Lake Trail By Harrison Jewell Holt TEVA Astir at the break of dawn, And up with the rising sun, A hasty fry from the brook hard by, The pack rolled up, one glance at the sky, And the day's march is begun. 16 A rythm of feet and brain, With the senses all in tune To the birch-tree's sheen 'mid the far-off green, The gush of the brook, the jay-bird's scream, And the scent of the woods in June. A bed of boughs beside the trail Beneath a whispering pine, The camp-fire bright, the star-lit night, And the inward peace of an awed delight- Such a life is mine. APA+ LE RIN evenime “What worries me is who sent it” That Pup of Murchison's By Ellis Parker Butler AUTHOR OF " PIGS IS PIGS," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALBERT LEVERING WURCHISON, who lives next dog. The more he thought about it the door to me, wants to get rid more he worried. of a dog, and if you know “If I could just think who sent it,” he of anyone who wants a dog I said to Brownlee, “then I would know 9 wish you would let Mur- who sent it; but I can't think. It is ochison know. Murchison evidently a valuable dog. I can see that. doesn't need it. He is tired of dogs, any. People don't send cheap, inferior dogs way. That is just like Murchison. 'Way twelve hundred miles. But I can't think up in an enthusiasm one day and sick of it who sent it.”. the next. “What worries me,” he said to Brown- Brownlee-Brownlee lives on the other lee another time, “is who sent it. I can't side of Murchison-remembers when Mur- imagine who would send me a dog from chison got the dog. It was the queerest New York. I know so many people, and, thing, so Murchison says, you ever heard like as not, some influential friend of mine of. Here came the express wagon— has meant to make me a nice present and Adams' Express Company's wagon-and now he is probably mad because I haven't delivered the dog. The name was all acknowledged it. I'd like to know what right-"C. P. Murchison, Gallatin, he thinks of me about now !” Iowa," and the charges were paid. The It almost worried him sick. Murchison charges were $2.80, and paid, and the dog never did care for dogs, but when a man had been shipped from New York. Think is presented with a valuable dog, all the of that ! Twelve hundred miles in a box, way from New York, with $2.80 charges with a can of condensed milk tied to the paid, he simply has to admire that dog. box and “ Please feed ” written on it. So Murchison got into the habit of admir. When Murchison came home to dinner, ing the dog, and so did Mrs. Murchison. there was the dog. At first Murchison From what they tell me it was rather a nice was pleased ; then he was surprised ; then dog in its infancy, for it was only a pup he was worried. He hadn't ordered a then. Infant dogs have a habit of being pups. 44 THAT PUP OF MURCHISON'S 45 As near as I could gather from what Brownlee had two Irish pointers or setters Murchison and Mrs. Murchison told me it - I forget which they were; the black dogs was a little, fluffy, yellow ball, with bright with the long, Aappy ears. I don't know eyes and ever moving tail. It was the much about dogs myself. I hate dogs. kind of a dog that bounces around like a Brownlee knows a great deal about dogs. rubber ball, and eats the evening news- He isn't one of the book-taught sort; he paper, and rolls down the porch steps with knows dogs by instinct. As soon as he sees short, little squawks of surprise, and lies a dog he can make a guess at its breed, down on its back with its four legs in the and out our way that is a pretty good test, air whenever a bigger dog comes near. In for Gallatin dogs are rather cosmopolitan. color it was something like a camel, but a That is what makes good stock in men- little redder where the hair was long, and Scotch grandmother and German grand- its hair was like beaver fur-soft and woolly father on one side, and English grand- inside with a few long hairs that were not mother and Swedish grandfather on the So soft. It was so little and fluffy that other—and I don't see why the same isn't Mrs. Murchison called it Fluff. Pretty true of dogs. There are numbers of dogs name for a soft, little dog, is Fluff. in Gallatin that can trace their ancestry “If I only knew who sent that dog," through nearly every breed of dog that Murchison used to say to Brownlee, “I ever lived, and Brownlee can look at any would like to make some return. I'd send one of them and immediately guess at its him a barrel of my best melons, express formula—one part Spitz, three parts gray- paid, if it cost me five dollars !" hound, two parts collie, and so on. I have Murchison was in the produce business, heard him guess more kinds of dog than I and he knew all about melons, but not so ever knew existed. much about dogs. Of course he could tell As soon as he saw Murchison's dog he a dog from a cat, and a few things of that guessed it was a pure bred Shepherd with sort, but Brownlee was the real dog man. a trace of Esquimo. Massett, who thinks “If that isn't a Shepherd nose, I'll eat it" 46 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE he knows as much about dogs as Brownlee a calf-skin and one of these hair-brush does, didn't believe it. The moment he door mats you use to wipe your feet on in saw the pup he said it was a pedigree dog, muddy weather. He did not look like the half St. Bernard and half Spitz. same pup. He was long-limbed and awk- Brownlee and Massett used to sit on ward and useless and homely as a shopworn Murchison's steps after supper and point fifty cent yellow plush manicure set. Mur- out the proofs to each other. They would chison began to feel that he didn't really argue for hours. need a dog, but Brownlee was as enthusi- “ All right, Massett,” Brownlee would astic as ever. He would go over to Mur- say, “but you can't fool me! Look at chison's fairly oozing dog knowledge. that nose! If that isn't a Shepherd nose “I'll tell you what that dog is," he would I'll eat it. And see that tail ! Did you say, “That dog is a cross between a Great ever see a tail like that on a Spitz? That Dane and an English Deerhound. You've is an Esquimo tail as sure as I am a foot got a very valuable dog there, Murchison, high." a very valuable dog. He comes of fine Dat? & AI. EVERING And Brownlee pulled the trigger “ Tail fiddlesticks !” Massett would re- stock on both sides and it is a cross you ply, “You can't tell anything by a pup's don't often see. I never saw it and I've tail. Look at his ears! There is St. Ber- seen all kinds of crossed dogs." nard for you! And see his lower jaw. Then Massett would drop in and walk Isn't that Spitz ? I'll leave it to Mur- around the dog admiringly for a few min- chison. Isn't that lower jaw Spitz, Mur- utes and absorb his beauties. chison ?" "Murchison," he would say, “Do you Then all three would tackle the puppy know what that dog is ? That dog is a and open its mouth and feel its jaw, and pure cross between a Siberian Wolfhound the pup would wriggle and squeak, and and a Newfoundland. You treat that dog back away opening and shutting its mouth right and you'll have a fortune in him. to see if its works had been damaged. Why, a pure Siberian Wolfhound is worth “All right !” Brownlee would say, “You a thousand dollars, and a good—a really wait a year or two and you'll see !” good Newfoundland, mind you—is worth About three months later the pup was two thousand, and you've got both in one as big as an ordinary full grown dog and dog. That's three thousand dollars' worth his coat looked like a compromise between of dog !" THAT PUP OF MURCHISON'S 47 In the next six months Fluff grew. He Murchison could hire his dog at night, too. broadened out and lengthened and height- They hunt Dachs at night, don't they, ened, and every day or two Brownlee or Massett ? Only there is no Dachshund Massett would discover a new strain of dog blood in him either. If there was and if in him. They pointed out to Murchison there were a few Dachs—" all the marks by which he could tell the Massett was mad. different kinds of dog that were combined “Yes!” he cried, "And you, with in Fluff, and every time they discovered a your Cuban Bloodhound strain! I sup- new one they held a sort of jubilee, and pose if it was the open season for Cubans bragged and swelled their chests. They you'd go out with the dog and tree a few! seemed to spend all their time thinking up Or put on snow shoes and follow the odd and strange kinds of dog that Fluff had Kamtchat to his icy lair!" in him. Brownlee discovered the traces of Brownlee doesn't get mad easily. Cuban Bloodhound, Kamtchatka-hound, “ Murchison,” he said, “leaving out Beagle, Brague de Bengale and Thibet Massett's dreary nonsense about stag- Mastiff, but Massett first traced the Stag- hounds, I can tell you that dog would hound, Turkoman Watch-dog, Dachshund make the finest duck dog in the state. and Harrier in him. He's got all the points for a good duck Murchison, not being a doggish man, dog, and I ought to know for I have two never claimed to have noticed any of these of the best duck dogs that ever lived. All family resemblances, and never said what he needs is training. If you will train him he thought the dog really was, until a right you'll have a mighty valuable dog.". month or two later, when he gave it as his “But I don't hunt ducks,'' said Murchi- opinion that the dog was a cross between a son, "and I don't know how to train even wolf, a Shetland pony and hyena. It was a lap dog." about that time that Fluff had to be "You let me attend to his education," chained. He had begun to eat other dogs said Brownlee. “I just want to show and children, and chickens. The first night Massett here that I know a dog when I Murchison chained him to his kennel Fluff see one. I'll show Massett the finest duck walked a half a mile, taking the kennel dog he ever saw when I get through with along, and then only stopped because the Fluff.” kennel got tangled with a lamp-post. The So he went over and got his shot gun, man who brought him home claimed that just to give Fluff his first lesson. The first Fluff was nearly asphyxiated when he found thing a duck dog must learn is not to be him ; said he gnawed half through the afraid of a gun, and Brownlee said that if lamp-post and that gas got in his lungs, a dog first learned about guns right at his but this was not true. Murchison learned home he was not so apt to be afraid of afterward that it was only a gasoline lamp- them. He said that if a dog heard a gun post, and a wooden one. for the first time when he was away from “If there were only some stags around home and in strange surroundings he was this part of the country,” said Massett, quite right to be surprised and startled, “the stag-hound strain in that dog would but if he heard it in the bosom of his fam- be mighty valuable. You could rent him ily, with all his friends calmly seated about, out to everybody who wanted to go stag- he would think it was a natural thing, and hunting, and you'd have a regular monop- accept it as such. oly, because he's the only stag-hound in this So Brownlee put a shell in his gun and part of the country. And stag hunting Massett and Murchison sat on the porch would be popular, too, out here, because steps and pretended to be uninterested and there are no game laws that interfere with normal, and Brownlee stood up and aimed stag hunting in this state. There is no the gun in the air. Fluff was eating a closed season. People could hunt stags all bone, but Brownlee spoke to him and he the year round, and you'd have that dog looked up, and Brownlee pulled the trig- busy every day of the year.” ger. It seemed about five minutes before “Yes!” sneered Brownlee, “only there Fluff struck the ground, he jumped so high are no stags. And he hasn't any stag when the gun was fired, and then he hound blood in him. Pity there are no started north by northeast at about sixty Dachs in this state, too, isn't it? Then miles an hour. He came back all right, ky ALPaRt the EVANG He sat down and talked to Fluff like an old friend three weeks later, but his tail was still be- Fluff was fastened to the rear axle with a tween his legs. chain. Brownlee didn't feel the least discour. When they reached Duck Lake, Brown- aged. He said he saw now that the whole lee untied Fluff and patted him, and then principle of what he had done was wrong; unwrapped the gun. Fluff gave one pained that no dog with any brains whatever could glance and made the six mile run home in be anything but frightened to hear a gun seven minutes without stopping. He was shot off right in the bosom of his family. home before Brownlee could think of any. That was no place to fire a gun. He said thing to say, and he went so far into his Fluff evidently thought the whole lot of us kennel that Murchison had to take off the were crazy, and ran in fear of his life, boards at the back to find him that night. thinking we were insane and might shoot “That's nothing;" was what Brownlee him next. He said the thing to do was to said when he did speak; “young dogs are take the shot gun into its natural surround- often that way. Gun fright. They have ings and let Fluff learn to love it there. to be gun broken. You come out to-mor- He pictured Fluff enjoying the sound of row, and I'll show you how a man who the gun when he heard it at the edge of really knows how to handle a dog does the the lake. trick.'' Murchison never hunted ducks, but as The next day when Fluff saw the buck- Fluff was his dog, he went with Brownlee, board he went into his kennel and they and of course Massett went. Massett couldn't pry him out with the hoe-handle. wanted to see the failure. He said he He connected buckboards and guns in his wished stags were as plentiful as ducks and mind, so Brownlee borrowed the butcher's he would show Brownlee! delivery wagon and they drove to Wild Fluff was a strong dog—he seemed to Lake. It was seven miles, but Fluff have a strain of ox in him, so far as seemed more willing to go in that direction strength went—and as long as he saw the than toward Duck Lake. He did not gun he insisted that he would stay at home, seem to care to go to Duck Lake at all. but when Brownlee wrapped the gun in “Now, then," said Brownlee, “I'll brown paper so it looked like a big parcel show you the intelligent way to handle a from the meat shop, the horse that they dog. I'll prove to him that he has noth- had hitched to the buckboard was able to ing to fear, that I am his comrade and drag Fluff along without straining itself. friend. And at the same time,” he said, trial 48 THAT PUP OF MURCHISON'S 49 “I'll not have him running off home and his reason appealed to. Now, if I fire the spoiling our day's sport.” gun, he may be a little startled, but I have So he took the chain and fastened it created a faith in me in him. He knows around his waist, and then he sat down and there is nothing dangerous in a gun as a talked to Fluff like an old friend, and got gun. He knows I am not afraid of it, so him in a playful mood. Then he had he is not afraid. He realizes that we are Murchison get the gun out of the wagon chained together, and that proves to him and lay it on the ground about twenty feet that he need not run unless I run. Now off. It was wrapped in brown paper. watch." Brownlee talked to Fluff and told him Brownlee fired the shot gun. what fine sport duck hunting is, and then, Instantly he started for home. He did as if by chance, he got on his hands and not start lazily, like a boy starting to the knees and crawled toward the gun. Fluft wood pile, but went promptly and with a hung back a little, but the chain just dash. His first jump was only ten feet, coaxed him a little, too, and they edged and we heard him grunt as he landed, but up to the gun, and Brownlee pretended to after that he got into his stride and made discover it unexpectedly. fourteen feet each jump. He was bent “Well! well!” he said, “What's this?" forward a good deal in the middle, where Fluff nosed up to it and sniffed it, and the chain was, and in many ways he was then went at it as if it was Massett's cat. not as graceful as a professional cinder- That Brownlee had wrapped a beefsteak path track runner, but, in running, the around the gun, inside the paper, and main thing is to cover the ground rapidly. Fluff tore off the paper and ate the steak, Brownlee did that. and Brownlee winked at Murchison. Massett said it was a bad start. He said “I declare,” he said, “if here isn't a it was all right to start a hundred yard gun! Look at this, Fluff, a gun! Gosh! dash that way, but for a long distance run but we are in luck!” -a run of seven miles across country—the Would you believe it, that dog sniffed at start was too impetuous; that it showed a the gun and did not fear it in the least? You lack of generalship, and that when it came could have hit him on the head with it and to the finish the affair would be tame; but he would not have minded it. He never it wasn't. did mind being hit with small things like Brownlee said afterwards that there guns and axe handles. wasn't a tame moment in the entire seven Brownlee got up and stood erect. miles. It was rather more wild than tame. “You see!” he said, proudly. “All He felt right from the start that the finish a man needs with a dog like this is intelli- would be sensational, unless the chain cut gence. A dog is like a horse. He wants him quite in two, and it didn't. He said DEA Instantly he started for home 50 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE that when the chain had cut as far as his He said that when they reached town spinal column it could go no farther, and he felt as if he would have been glad to it stopped and clung there, but it was the stop at his own house and lie down for only thing that did stop, except his breath. awhile, but the dog didn't want to, and so It was several years later that I first met they went on, but that he ought to be Brownlee and he was still breathing hard, thankful that the dog was willing to stop like a man who has just been running rap- at that town at all. The next town was idly. Brownlee says when he shuts his twelve miles farther on, and the roads eyes his legs still seem to be going. were bad. But the dog turned into The first mile was through underbrush, Murchison's yard and went right into his and that was lucky, for the underbrush re- kennel. moved most of Brownlee's clothing, and When Murchison and Massett got home put him in better running weight, but at an hour or so later, after driving the horse the mile and a quarter they struck the all the way at a gallop, they found old In ALBER+ LEVERIN The dog went right into his kennel road. He said at two miles he thought he Gregg, the carpenter, prying the roof off might be over-exercising the dog and the kennel. You see, Murchison had maybe he had better stop, but the dog knocked the rear out of the kennel the day seemed anxious to get home so he didn't before and so when the dog aimed for the stop there. He said that at three miles he front he went straight through and, as was sure the dog was overdoing, and that Brownlee was built more perpendicular with his knowledge of dogs he was perfect- than the dog, Brownlee didn't go quite ly able to stop a running dog in its own through. He went in something like length if he could speak to it, but he doubling up a dollar bill to put it into a couldn't speak to this dog for two reasons. thimble. I don't suppose anyone would One was that he couldn't overtake the dog want to double up a dollar bill to put it and the other was that all the speak was into a thimble, but neither did Brownlee yanked out of him. want to be doubled up and put into the When they reached five miles the dog kennel. It was the dog's thought. So seemed to think they were taking too much they had to take the kennel roof off. time to get home, and let out a few more When they got Brownlee out they laid laps of speed, and it was right there that him on the grass and covered him up with Brownlee decided that Fluff had some a porch rug and let him lie there a couple Grayhound blood in him. of hours to pant, for that seemed what he PRISONERS 51 wanted to do just then. It was the long- wherever it is they race dogs—you'd have est period Brownlee ever spent awake with- a fortune.'' out talking about dog. He panted awhile and then gasped out: Murchison and Massett and old Gregg “He's a great runner; a phenomenal and twenty-six informal guests stood around runner!” and gazed at Brownlee panting. Presently. He had to pant more and then he gasped Brownlee was able to gasp out a few words. with pride- “Murchison,' he gasped, “Murchison, “But I wasn't three feet behind him all if you just had that dog in Florence-or the way!' Prisoners . A Novel By Mary Cholmondeley AUTHOR or "RED POTTAGE CHAPTER XXXIII. SVO Bion T HE following morning the The Bishop frowned, and rubbed his Bishop and Michael were chin. 8 sitting in the library at “I see one thing," continued Michael, Lostford Palace. The " and that is that it's all important that Bishop was reading a letter, he should not break with Fay.” while Michael watched him " That will be his first step—if he sunk in an arm-chair. knows the truth." Presently the Bishop thrust out his under “I am afraid it will, and yet—that's lip and gave back the letter to Michael. the pity of it, she will last longer than I "Wentworth has dipped his pen in gall shall, and he does like her—a little—which instead of in his inkpot,” he said. “For is a great deal for him. You don't be- real quality and strength give me the lieve it, but he really does. And he'll venom of a virtuous person. The ordi- want her more than ever—when I'm nary sinner can't compete with him. Evil gone.” doers are out of the running in this world The Bishop looked keenly at his godson. as well as in the next. I often tell them Michael had never before alluded to his so. That is why I took orders. What precarious hold on life. It was obvious do you suppose Wentworth suspects that he was only considering it now in its when he says Alington has suggested bearings on Wentworth's future. a discreditable reason for your being “Can a man who has grown gray look- in the Di Collo Alto villa that night, ing at himself in the glass, and recording and that he is not going to allow you to his own microscopic experiences in a diary, skulk behind a woman any longer. He can such a man forgive ?” said the Bishop. will be here directly to extort what he is “ Forgiveness is tough work. It needs pleased to call the truth.' What are knowledge of human nature. It needs you going to say?". humility. I forgave somebody once long “I don't know," said Michael. “That ago. And it nearly was the death of me. is the worst of me. I never know." I've never felt the same man since." Copyright, 1905. by Mary Cholmondeley 52 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE "Wentworth will have his chance,” her three friends with a mute imploring said Michael. " It's about all we can do gaze. Their eyes fell before hers. for him." “I have not slept all night,” she said “We all know he says he can, but then to the Bishop. “Magdalen stayed with he says such a lot of things. He dares to me; and we came quite early because I had say he loves his fellow men. But I've to come. Wentworth must be told. It isn't never found that assertion coincide with because Magdalen says so. She hasn't any real working regard for them. There said so, though I knew she felt he ought are certain things which those who care to be told from the first. And it isn't be- for others never say, and that is one them. cause he's sure to find out. And oh! The egoist on the contrary is always as- Michael, it isn't for your sake to put you serting of himself what he ought in com- right with him. It ought to be, but it mon decency to leave others to say of isn't. But I can't let him kiss me any him, only they never do. Wentworth more, and not say. It makes a kind of actually told me not so long ago that he pain I can't bear. It has been getting was intent on the service of others. I told worse and worse ever since Michael came him it was for those others to mention that back, only I did not know what it was at interesting fact, and that nobody had lied first, and yesterday,” she stopped short about him to that extent so far in my shuddering. “He came to see me yes- diocese.” terday,” she said in a strangled voice. "He always says that there is perfect“He was so dear and good, so wonderful. confidence between us,” said Michael. There never was any one like him. It is "I've heard him say so ever since I can in my heart that he will forgive me. And remember, and I've heard him tell people he trusts me entirely. I can't deceive that I always brought him my boyish him any more.” troubles. But I never did, even as a boy, The eyes of Michael and Magdalen met even when I got into a scrape at Eton. in a kind of shame. Those two who had My tutor stood by me in that. Wentworth loved her as no one else had loved her, never could endure him. He said he was who had understood her as no one else such a snob. But snob or not he was a had understood her, saw that they had firm friend to me. And I never told him misjudged her. They had judged her even at the first of my love for Fay. I by her actions, identified her with them. somehow could not. You simply can't And all the time the little trembling tell Wentworth things. But he has got it " pilgrim soul” in her was shrinking from into his head that I always have and that the pain of those very actions, was this is the first time I have kept anything growing imperceptibly apart from them, from him. If I only had Fay's leave to was beginning to regard them with horror, tell him! It is the only thing to do.” not because they had caused suffering to The door opened, and to the astonishment others, but because they had ended by in- of both men, Fay and Magdalen came in. flicting anguish upon herself. The red Fay looked as exhausted, as hopeless as hot iron of our selfishness with which we she had done three months ago when brand others, becomes in time hot at both Magdalen had brought her to make her ends. We don't know at first what it is confession to the Bishop in this very room. that is hurting us, why it burns us. But She evidently remembered it. She turned our blistered hands, cling as they will, must her lustreless eyes on him and said, needs drop it at last. Fay's cruel little “ Magdalen did not make me come this white hand had let go. time. I have come of myself. Do you Michael took it in his and kissed it. think, is there any chance, Uncle John, “ Wentworth is coming here this morn- that God will have mercy on me again, ing," said the Bishop gently. “He may as He did before ?" arrive at any moment. Stay here and “Do you mean by God having mercy speak to him. And ask him to forgive that Wentworth will still marry you if he you, Fay. You need his forgiveness.". knows the truth?" “I don't know how to tell him," She did not answer. That was of course gasped Fay, “I tried yesterday, and I what she meant. couldn't." She looked from one to the other of “Let me tell him," said Michael, and PRISONERS 53 him. as ne spoke, the door opened once more, apart from him, like a cloak which he and Wentworth was announced. might discard at any moment. He had got ready what he meant to say. “I cannot say all I have to say before The venomous sentences which he had others,” said Wentworth fiercely, "even concocted during a sleepless night were all if they are all his confederates in trying to in order in his mind. keep me in the dark, all, that is, except Who shall say what grovelling suspicions, Fay. We know by experience that she what sordid conjectures had blocked his can shield a man who has something to inflamed mind as he drove swiftly across hide even from his best friends. We the downs in the still June morning, He know by experience that dust can be meant to extort an explanation from his thrown in her unsuspecting eyes." brother, to have the whole subject out “You have been kept in the dark,'' with him once for all. He should not be said the Bishop with compassion; “ you suffered to make Fay his accomplice for have not been fairly treated, Wentworth; another hour. His tepid spirit burned you have much to forgive." within him when he thought of Michael's In spite of himself Wentworth was awed. behavior to Fay. He said to himself that He had s sudden sense of impending he could forgive that least of all. calamity. He looked again at Michael. He had expected to find Michael alone, Michael's hand shook. His whole or possibly the Bishop only with him, the body shook. His lips trembled impotently. Bishop who knew. He was disconcerted Wentworth sickened with shame. His at finding Magdalen and Fay there before love was wounded to the very depths to see his brother like this, as it had never A horrible suspicion that Magdalen also been wounded even by the first sight of knew darted across his mind. him in his convict's blouse. It was obvious to him that he had “I always trusted you,'' he said with a broken up a conference, a conspiracy. groan, putting up his hand so as to shut His bitter face darkened still more. out that tottering figure. “I don't know “I don't know what you are all plotting what miserable secret you're keeping from ahout so early in the morning," he said. me, and I don't care. It isn't that I mind. “I must apologize for interrupting you. It is that—whatever it was, however dis- I seem to be always in the way now-a- graceful it was, you should have kept it days. People are always whispering be- from me. God knows I only wanted to hind my back. But I have come over to help you. Surely, surely, Michael, you see Michael. I want a few plain words might have trusted me. What have I with him without delay, and I intend to done that you should treat me as if I were have them.” an enemy? I thought I was your friend.” " That is well,” said the Bishop, “be. No one spoke. cause you are about to have them. We "After all I don't know that I care to were speaking of you when you came in.” hear. Why should I care? It's rather “I wish to see Michael alone," said late in the day to hear now what everyone Wentworth, stung by the Bishop's instant knows except me, what I've been breaking admission of being in his brother's con- my heart over, racking my brains over, as fidence. you well know, for these two endless years, He looked only at Michael who, his what you aren't even now telling me of eyes on the ground, was leaning white as your own accord, what you have been death against the mantelpiece. persuaded to by this—this Wentworth “Do you wish us to go, Michael?” said looked at the Bishop, “this outsider, this the Bishop. middle man." “I wish you all to stay,” he said, rais- A great jealousy and bitterness were ing his eyes for a moment. His hand compressed into the words "middle shook so violently that he knocked over a man." little ornament on the mantelpiece, and it “You have got to hear,” said Michael, fell with a crash into the fire-place. His and the trembling left him. voice shook too, but his eyes were steady. He turned towards his brother, still His great physical weakness, poignantly supporting himself with one hand on the apparent though it was, seemed a thing mantelpiece. The two stern faces con- 54 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE fronted each other, and Magdalen for the she been so terrified. Wentworth could first time saw a likeness between them. not blame her seriously now. "I have kept things from you. You are “I never tried to shield the Marchesa,'' right there," said Michael speaking in a Michael went on. “That was her own low diffcult voice. “But I never inten- idea. I only wanted to shield Fay from tionally deceived you till the Marchese being misconstrued. The Duke under- was murdered. Long before that, four stood. He saw me hiding behind the years before that, I fell in love." screen, and tried to save me. He told me Wentworth's heart contracted. He so next day. The Duke was good to me had always feared that moment for from first to last." Michael, had always awaited it with a Wentworth turned a fierce livid face little store of remedial maxims. He had towards his brother. felt confident that Michael had never even "Have I really got at the truth at last?" been slightly attracted by any woman. he said. “How can I tell ? The Duke How often he had said to himself that if could have told me, but he is dead. Did there had been any attraction, he should he really connive at your romantic passion have been the first to know of it. Yet the for his wife? If I may venture to offer an incredible truth was being thrust at him, opinion, that part of the story is not quite that Michael had struggled through his so well thought out as the rest, though it first love without drawing upon the deep is excessively modern. Anyhow, he is wells of Wentworth's knowledge. dead. You tell me he saw you behind " The woman I fell in love with was the screen in his wife's room at midnight, Fay. She was seventeen. I was nine- and felt no need of an explanation. teen." How like an Italian. But he is dead, The room went round with Wentworth. and you forced your love on another “ Fay,” he said in blank astonishment, man's wife, though you own she did not “Fay!” Then a glare of light broke in return it, wormed yourself into her rooms on him. at night, and then-then-yes, I begin to " Then it was her," he stammered, see a grain of truth among these heaps of “not her maid as that brute Alington lies—then when by an evil chance, an ex- said, it was her-her herself that ". traordinary stroke of bad luck, there was “It was her I went to see the night I danger of your being discovered, then you was arrested. I was deeply in love with her.” persuaded her, the innocent inexperienced Michael paused a moment and then creature whom you would have wronged added gently, “She never cared for me, if you could—you worked upon her feel- I did not see that clearly at the time, be- ings, you made her into your accomplice, cause I was blinded by my own passion. you persuaded her to hide you. You mean I have seen it since.” cur! You only sneaked out of your hole Wentworth made no movement. when escape was absolutely impossible. “I decided to leave Rome. Fay wrote And so the truth, or some garbled part of to me that I ought to go. I went to say it, is choked out of you at last. No good-bye to her in the garden the night wonder you were silent all these years. No the Marchese was murdered. While I wonder you would not speak. No wonder was in the garden, the murder was dis- you let your poor dupe of a brother break covered and the place was surrounded, his heart over your silence. Weak credu- and I could not get away. I hid in Fay's lous fool that I have been from first to last. boudoir. The Duke came in and explained So help me God, I will never speak to you to Fay what had happened. It was the first again." I knew of it. Then, when they searched The violent stammering voice ceased at the house and I saw that I must be dis- last. covered in another moment, I came out Fay shivered from head to foot, and and gave myself up as the murderer, be- looked at her lover. cause I could not be found hiding in Fay's Both men had forgotten her. Their rooms at night. It was the only thing to eyes never left each other. Wentworth's do.” fierce face was turned with deadly hatred Fay took a long breath. What a simple upon his brother. Michael met his eye, but explanation it seemed after all. Why had he did not speak. PRISONERS 55 There was death in the air. he was trapped. I had trapped him there Suddenly as in a glass she saw that first. He did not want to come. I forced Michael was saving her again, was sacrifi- him to come. I let him spoil his life to cing himself for her a second time at save my wretched good name. He is enormous cost, the cost of his brother's right when he told you just now that I love. never loved him. The love was all on his " Michael!” said Fay with a sob, side. He gave it all. I took it all, and I “ Michael, I can't bear it. You are trying to went on taking it. It was I who kept him save me again, but I can't bear to be saved in prison quite as much as the Marchesa. any more. I have had enough of being It was I who let him burn and freeze in saved. I won't be saved. It hurts too his cell. A word from me would have got much. I won't let you do it a second him out." time. I have had enough of being silentW entworth laughed suddenly, a horrible when I ought to speak. I have had enough discordant laugh. of hiding things, and pretending, and They had rotted down before his eyes being frightened.” to loathsome unrecognizable corpses—the Fay saw at last that the truth was her man and the woman he had loved. only refuge from that unendurable horror Fay looked wildly at him. which was getting up out of its grave again. " But you are good,” she said faintly. She fled to it for very life, and flung her. “You won't, Wentworth, you won't Cast self upon it. me off like-like I did Michael.” She took Michael's hand and turning to He did not look at her. Wentworth began to speak rapidly, with a He took up his gloves and straightened clearness and directness which amazed the fingers as his custom was. Magdalen and the Bishop. “ There is no longer anything which It all came out, the naked truth; her need detain me here,” he said to the loveless marriage, the great kindness of Bishop, and he moved towards the door. her husband towards her, her determina. “Nothing except the woman whose tion, bred of idleness and vanity, to en- fate is in your hands," said the Bishop slave Michael anew when he came to gently. “What of her? She deserted Rome, his resistance, his decisiou to leave Michael because her eyes were holden. Italy, her inveigling him under the plea of Now you can make the balance even if urgency to come to the garden at night, you will. But will you? You can repay his refusal to enter the house, her frantic cruelty with cruelty. You can desert her desire to keep him, his determination to with inhumanity even greater than hers, part from her. . because you do it with your eyes open, There was no doubt in the minds of but will you ? Is it to be an eye for an those who listened in an awed silence that eye, and a tooth for a tooth ? She loves you here was the whole truth at last. and is at your mercy, as Michael was once Fay looked full at Wentworth and then at hers. You can crush her if you will. said: “He asked me why I had sent for But will you ?" him, what it was that he could do for me. "Wentworth!” said Fay, and she fell And I said-I said—“Take me with at his feet, clasping his knees. His face was as flint, as he looked down "No," said Michael, wincing as under at her, and tried to push away her hands. a lash. “No, you did not. Fay, you “Let him go, my child,” said the never said that." Bishop sternly, and he took Fay's hands, "You did not hear it, but I said it.” and held them. “It is no use trying to Michael staggered against the mantel- keep a man who does not love you. Go, piece. Wentworth. You are right. There is Wentworth had not moved. His face nothing to keep you here. In this room had become frightful, distorted. there are two people, one of whom has "I am a wicked woman, Wentworth,' sinned and has repented, and both of said Fay. “I tried to make him in love whom love you and have spoken the truth with me. I tried to tempt him. I could to you. But there is no love and truth make him love me, but not do wrong. in you to rise up and meet theirs. You And then I let him take the blame when do not know what love and truth are, even you." 56 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE when you see them very close. You had choking his life out of him. There was a better go.” thin gutteral sawing noise mixed in with "I will go," said Wentworth, his eyes the sobbing. Then all in a moment the blazing. And he went out and shut the sobbing ceased, he felt the hands relax, door behind him. and then an avalanche of darkness crashed Fay's hands slipped out of the Bishop's, down on him, and buried him beneath it. her head fell forward, and she sank down on the floor. The Bishop and Magdalen CHAPTER XXXIV bent over her. Michael looked a moment at her, and Down, very deep down. Buried in an swiftly left the room. He overtook Went- abyss of darkness, shrouded tightly in a worth in the hall, groping blindly for his nameless horror that pressed on eyes and hat. breath and hands and limbs. "Come in here,” said Michael, “ At last a faint sound reached Went- want a word with you," and he half worth. Far away in some other world a pushed Wentworth into room leading out clock struck. His numbed faculties ap- of the hall. It was a dreary little airless prehended the sound, and then forgot it apartment with a broken blind, intended when it ceased. for a waiting room, but fallen into disuse, At last he felt himself stir. He found and only partially furnished, the corners himself staring at a glimmer of light. He piled with great tin boxes containing would not look at it, and he could not episcopal correspondence. look away from it. What was it? It had Michael closed the door. something to do with him. It grew more “Wentworth,” he said breathlessly, distinct. It was a window with a broken “you don't see. You don't understand. blind. Fay loves you!” He looked earnestly at Some one close at hand began to tremble. Wentworth as if the latter were acting in Wentworth sat up suddenly and found it some woeful ignorance, which one word was himself. He was alone lying crumpled would set right. He seemed entirely ob- up against the wall where he had been livious of Wentworth's insulting words flung down. He knew where he was. He towards himself. saw the piles of tin boxes. He remem- “I see one thing," said Wentworth," bered, and that is that I'm not inclined to marry H e leaned his leaden throbbing head your cast-off mistress.” against the wall, and wave after wave of Michael closed with him instantly, but sickness even unto death shuddered over not before Wentworth had seen the light- him. Michael had tried to kill him. His ning in his eyes; and the two men struggled stiff wrenched throat throbbed together furiously in the dim airless little room with with his head. For a long time he did its broken blind. not move. Wentworth knew Michael meant to kill At last the clock struck again. him. The long scarred hands had him by He staggered to his feet as if he had the throat, were twisting themselves in the been called, and looked with intentness at silk tie Fay had knitted for him. He tore a fallen book and upset inkstand. There himself out of the grip of these iron fingers. was a quill pen balancing itself in an ab- But Michael only sobbed and wound his surd manner with its nib stuck in the cane arms round him. And Wentworth knew he bottom of an overturned chair. He was trying to throw him, and break his back. took it out, and laid it on the table. He Wentworth fought for his life, but he saw his hat in a corner, stooped for it, was overmatched. The awful murderous missed it several times, and then got hold hands were feeling for his neck again, the of it, and put it on. There was a little sobbing breath was on his face, the glar- glass over the mantelpiece. A ghastly face ing eyes staring into his. The hands with a torn collar was watching him fur- closed on his throat once more, squeezing tively through it. He turned fiercely on his tongue out of his mouth, his eyes out the spy and found the face was his own. of his head. He made a last frightful He turned up his coat and buttoned it. struggle to wrench the hands away. But Then he went to the half open door and they remained clutched into his flesh, looked out. PRISONERS 57 His ear caught a faint sound. Other- door, with his butler looking somewhat wise the house was very still, surprised, standing on the steps. A maid servant on her knees with her He found himself getting out, and giving back to him was washing the white stone orders. He listened to himself telling his floor of the hall at the foot of the stair- servant to pay the fly and to send word by case. Another servant also with her back it to his dog-cart to return home. Of to him was watching her. course he had gone to Lostford in the "Then it is early morning," he said. dog-cart. He had forgotten that. And he walked out of the room, and outThen he heard his own voice ordering a of the house, through the wide open doors. whiskey and soda to be brought to him in A fine rain was falling, but he did not the library. And he walked there. notice it. He passed out through the The afternoon post had arrived with the gates and found himself in the road. He newspapers and he took up a paper. But stopped unconsciously, not knowing what it was printed in some language unknown to do next. to him, though he recognized some of the A fly dawdling back to the town from the letters. station, passed him and pulled up, as he H ow long had he been gone, an hour, a hesitated. day, a year? “Station, sir?" said the driver He looked at the clock. “No, Barford,” said Wentworth, and he Half past two. But this great shock got in. The fly with its faded cushions with which the air was still rocking might and musty atmosphere seemed a kind of have stopped it. He put his ear to it. refuge. He breathed more freely when he Strange! It was going. And it always was enclosed in it. stopped so easily, even if the housemaid As in the garden of Eden, desolation dusted it. often first makes itself felt as a realization Was it half past two in the afternoon or of nakedness. We must creep away. in the night? We must hide. We have no protection, There was a band of sunshine across the no covering. floor, and outside the gardens and the Wentworth cowered in the fly. He down were steeped in it. passed without recognizing them, all the · Perhaps it was day. old familiar landmarks, the twisting white The butler brought in a tray and placed road that branched off to Priesthope, the it near him. dew ponds, the half hidden lonely farm. “Have you had luncheon, sir?" He was in a strange country. Wentworth thought a moment, and then He looked with momentary curiosity at said “yes." a weather-worn sign post which pointed “And will Mr. Michael return to-day, forlornly where four roads met. It was sir p! falling to pieces with age, but yet it must Wentworth remembered some old, old, have been put up there since the morn- prehistoric arrangement by which Michael ing. He had never seen it before. He was to have come back with him to Barford shouted to the driver that he had taken this afternoon. the wrong road. The man pointed with "No," he said, the room suddenly his whip to where, a mile away, the smoke darkening till the sunshine on the floor of Barford rose among its trees. The was barely visible. “No, he is not com- landscape suddenly slid into familiar lines ing back.” again. He recognized it, and sank back, The man hesitated a moment, and then confused and exhausted. The effort of left the room. speaking had hurt his throat horribly. Wentworth groped for the flagon of Was he going mad? How could his whiskey, poured out a quantity and drank throat hurt him like this if it wasn't-if it raw. Then he waited for the night- Michael had not- mare to lift. He thrust thought from him. He would His mind cleared gradually. His wait till he got home, till his own roof was scattered faculties came sneaking back safely over him, the familiar walls round like defeated soldiers to camp. But they him. had all one tale of disaster, and one only, This was his gate. Here was his own to tell. He must needs believe them. 58 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE Michael had tried to kill him. What- house, and remained there. The baby ever else shifted that remained true. pheasants crept in and out, all around Wentworth bowed his stiffening head him. Their little houses, each with an upon his hands, and the sweat ran down anxious step-mother in it, were set at his face. regular intervals along the grassy path. Michael had tried to kill him, and had Only yesterday he had walked along that all but succeeded. Oh! if only he had quite path with the keeper, and had thought that succeeded. If only his life had not come in the autumn he and Michael would be back to him! He had died and died hard shooting together once more. in that little room. And yet here he was They would never shoot together again. still alive and in agony. As the dusk fell he heard a sound of Michael first. That thought was torture. wheels. His dog-cart returning from Then Fay. That thought was torture. The Lostford no doubt. It did not turn into woman he had so worshipped, on whom he the court-yard, but came on up to the had lavished a wealth of love, far greater house. Wentworth peered down through than most inen have it in them to bestow, the leaves. had deceived him, had been willing to be It was the Bishop's dog-cart. He his brother's mistress. recognized the groom who drove it. To Why had he ever believed in Fay and his amazement he saw Lord Lossiemouth Michael ? Had he not tacitly distrusted get out. After some parley he went into men and women always from his youth the house. up? Had he not gauged life and love Why should he have come ? and friendship at their true value years Oh! of course, how dense he was. He ago? Why had he made an exception of had been sent over on an embassy by this particular man and woman ? They Magdalen and the Bishop. They wanted were no worse than the rest. to hush up the fight, and bring about a What was any man or woman worth ? reconciliation between him and Fay. He They were all false to the core. What should be told Fay was making herself ill was Fay? A pretty piece of pink and with crying. His magnanimity would be white, a sensual lure, like other women, appealed to by that pompous prig. Well, not better and not worse. And what was he had had his journey for nothing. Michael but a man like other men, ready Wentworth saw his servants looking for to forget honor, morality, everything if him and hid himself in the coppice. once his passions were aroused ? It was an A couple of hours later he left the wood, old story, as old as the hills, that men and and went down the steep path to the women betray each other. It was as old gardens. It was nearly dark now. Lights as the psalms of David. twinkled in the house. The lamp in the Pah! what a fool he was to allow his library laid a pale finger of light upon the heart to be wrung by what was only the lawn, through the open glass doors. ordinary vulgar experience of those who Wentworth went up to it, and then as were so silly as to mix themselves up he was about to enter, shrank back as- with their fellow creatures. tonished. He had only himself to thank. Lord Lossiemouth was sitting there with Well, at any rate he was free now. He his back to the window. Wentworth was awake now. He was not going to put stood a long time looking at him. He his hand in the fire a second time. was evidently waiting for him to come in. He was going abroad immediately. He He sat stolidly on as if he were glued to would start to-morrow morning. In the his chair, smoking one cigarette after meanwhile he would go and see somebody, another. call somewhere, be in high spirits some- At last he got up. Surely he would go where with others. — They (they were now. He walked to the bookshelves that Michael and Fay) would hear of that lined the walls, inspected the books, afterwards, would see how little he cared. selected one, and settled himself with a He seized up his hat and went out. voluminous sigh in his arm-chair once But when he walked a few hundred yards more. he sank down exhausted on a wooden seat Abandoning hope, Wentworth stole away in the alder coppice overhanging the across the grass as noiselessly as he had PRISONERS 59 come, and disappeared in the darkness. A deep and bitter sense of injustice was growing within him with the growing light. CHAPTER XXXV A hundred times during the night he had recalled in cold anger every word of Wentworth never knew how he spent that final scene in the library, his own the night, if indeed that interminable speech, his own actions, his great wrongs, tract in which time stopped could have his unendurable pain. been one night. It was longer than all And yet again it returned upon him, the rest of his life put together. always with Fay's convulsed face and In later years, in peaceful later years, clinging hands, always with the Bishop's confused memories came to him of things scathing words of dismissal. Their horrible that he must have seen then, but of which injustice rankled in his mind, their he took no heed at the time; of seeing the abominable cruelty to himself revolted breath of animals like steam close to the him. Hideous crimes had been com- ground; of stumbling suddenly under a mitted against him, but he had done no hedgerow on a huddled sleeping figure evil, unless to love and to trust were evil. with a white face, which struggled up un- Why then was he to be thus thrust into the clean in the clean moonlighr, and menaced wrong, thus condemned unheard, cast him in a foul atmosphere of rags. forth with scorn because he had not And once, many years later, when he obediently fallen in with the Bishop's pre- was taking an unfamiliar short cut across posterous demand on him to condone the downs, he came upon a little pool in everything? It was not to be expected of an old chalk pit, and recognized it. He him. had never seen it by day but he knew it. Suddenly the faces of the others watch- He had wandered to it on a night of moon ing him after Fay's confession rose before and mist, and had seen a fox bring down him, the Bishop's, Magdalen's, Michael's. her cubs to drink just where that twisted He saw that they had not expected it of alder branch made an arch over the water. him either—not even Michael. Only in Wentworth sat by that chalk pit on the Fay's upraised eyes as she held him by down utterly spent in body and mind the knees had there been one instant's hour after hour, till the moon which had anguished hope. Only in hers. And been tangled in the alder stooped to the that had been quickly extinguished. He violet west with one great star to bear her had extinguished it himself. company. Who shall say through what interminable labyrinths, * * through what * sloughs, across what deserts his tortured The little clouds turned to trembling mind had dragged itself all night. The flame. The whole sky flushed and then sun had gone down upon his wrath. The paled. A thread of fire showed upon the moon had gone down upon his wrath. horizon. It widened. It drew into an The land was gray. The spectral horses arch. The sun rose swiftly, a sudden ball moving slowly in the misty fields were gray of living fire; and in a moment the smallest A streak of palest saffron light showed shrub upon the down, the grazing horses, where the dim earth and dim sky met. the huddled sheep were casting gigantic A remembrance came to him of a sum- shadows across the whole world. mer dawn such as this, years and years A faint sound of wheels was growing ago, when Michael had been dangerously clearer and nearer. ill, and how his whole soul had spent itself Wentworth saw a dog-cart coming in one passionate supplication that he towards him along the great white road. might not be taken from him. As he looked, it half pulled up and then stopped. A man got out and came * * towards him. The raw sunlight caught A tender green, transparent as the light only his face and shoulders. He seemed seen through a leaf in May, was welling up to wade towards him waist deep through the sky. The tiny clouds floated in it a gray sea. like rafts of rose color upon a sea of glass. Lord Lossiemouth again! Lord Lossiemouth's heavy tired face showed sharp and white in the garish light. 60 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE “I have been looking everywhere for his colorless lips. Death was very near. you," he said, not ungently. “I waited He knew no one. Not the Bishop, not half the night at Barford, and then Magdalen, who kept watch beside him, went on to Saundersfoot station, and then listening ever for Wentworth's step outside. to Wrigley. Your servants thought you in the dawn Michael's spirit made as if might possibly have gone there. But you to depart, but it seemed as if it could not had not been seen there. Magdalen sent gain permission. me to tell you you must go back to the The light grew. Palace. Your brother is very ill. He had And with the light the labored breath- an attack of hemorrhage apparently just ing became easier. He stirred feebly, and after you and he parted in the hall. I whispered incoherently from time to time. promised her not to go back without you. He was still in his cell. Wentworth's name, Shall we drive on?” the Italian doctor's rose to his lips. Thus after a pause he said suddenly, CHAPTER XXXVI “The duke is dead. She will come now.” There was a long silence. He was Michael was dying. All night Magdalen waiting, listening. and the Bishop, with nurse and doctor The Bishop and Magdalen held their fought for his life, vainly strove to stem breath. Fay knew at last what it is to fail the stream of blood with which his life was another. She had failed Michael. Went- ebbing away. worth had failed her. He had been found by Lord Lossie- “Fay!” Michael said, “come soon." mouth and a servant lying unconscious at She had to bear it, the waiting, the the foot of the staircase in the hall. He faltered anguish, the suspense, the faint had been carried into a room on the ground- reiterated call to deaf ears. floor. Everything had been done, but The Bishop got up from his knees beside without avail. Michael was dying, suffoca- Michael, and motioned to Fay to take his ting in anguish, threshing his life out place. She went timidly to the low couch through the awful hours, in wild delirium. and knelt down by it. He was in prison once more beating “Speak to him," said the Bishop sternly. against the bars of his narrow window look- " Michael!” she said. ing out over the lagoon. His hoarsestrangled He knew her. All other voices had voice spoke unceasingly. His hands gone from him, but hers he knew. All plucked at his wrists, and then dropped other faces had faded from him, but hers exhausted beneath the weight of the chains he knew. He looked full at her. Love which dragged him down. stronger than death shone in his eyes. Magdalen would fain have spared “ Fay," he said in an awed voice, Fay the ordeal of that vigil. But the " at last.” Bishop was inexorable. He bade her re- She had come to release him, after the main. And shrunk away in a corner, Duke's death, as he knew she would. shivering to her very soul, Fay listened She leaned her white cheek a moment hour after hour to the wild feeble voice of against his in speechless self-abasement. her victim, back once more in the cell He whispered to her, where he had been so silent, where the "Have I served you?" walls had kept his counsel so well. She She whispered back, “Yes." saw something at last of what he had en- He whispered again, “ Do you still love dured for her, of what he had made so me?” The words were quite inaudible. light. Again she said, “ Yes." At last the paroxysm passed. Michael Again a movement of the lips, but no pushed back the walls with his hands, and sound. then suddenly gave up the struggle. He looked at her with radiant question- "They are closing in on me,” he said, ing eyes. "I cannot keep them back any longer.” Again she murmered, “ Yes." The contest ceased all in a moment. It had to be like that. He had always He lay back motionless with half closed known that this moment had to come. eyes, his face blue against the white pillows. Had he not foreseen it in some forgotten The blood had ceased at last to flow from dream? PRISONERS 61 A great trembling laid hold on Michael - Michael,'' said Fay again. and then a stillness of exceeding joy. But Michael's face was set. He was In the silence the Cathedral bells chimed sunk in a great rest, breathing deep and out suddenly for early service. The sound slow, deeper and slower yet, his long arms of the bells came faintly to him as across faintly rising and falling with each breath. wide water, the river of death widening as “Oh, Fay. For God's make make him it nears the sea. It was all part of his hear,” said Wentworth with a cry. dream.' The bells of Venice were rejoic- The Bishop and Magdalen standing ing with him, in this his blessed hour. apart looked at each other. He was freed at last, free as he had “He has forgiven her though he does never been, free as the seagull seen not know it,” he said below his breath. through the bars that could no longer Fay stooped down. She raised Michael keep him back. Useless bars, why had in her arms, and laid his head on her he let them hold him so long? He was breast, turning his fading face to his out and away, sailing over the sheening brother. water in a boat with an orange sail; in a “ Michael," she whispered into his ear, boat like a butterfly with spread wings; with a passion which would have cloven sailing away, past the floating islands, past death itself. “Come back, come back that pale beautiful grief of sea-lavender— and say one word to Wentworth.” he laughed to see it shine so beautiful- Very near the sea now. Very near the sailing away into a pearly morning, under great peace and light. This was the real a luminous sky. life at last. All the rest had been a vain The prison was far away now. Left shadow, a prison where he had dwelt a behind. There was a great knocking at its little while not seeing that this great all- gates, hurried steps upon the stairs, and surrounding water which had seemed to a voice crying urgently through the bars. • hem him in was but a highway of light. But he could not stay to listen. He Who were these two with him in the was too far away to hear. The voice was boat? Who but the two he loved best! to him but like the thin harsh cry of the Who but Fay and Wentworth! They were sea-mew wheeling near, blended in with all floating on together in exceeding joy. the marvel of his freedom. He took no They were very near him. He felt them heed of it. He was afloat on the great one on each side, but the light was so sea-faring tide. Far away before him, great that he could not see them. His but nearer, nearer, and yet nearer, the sea head was on Fay's breast. His hand was gleamed in trembling ecstasy. in Wentworth's hand. It was all as in “He does not know me. He does not dim dreams he had longed for it to be. hear me," said Wentworth, on his knees Fay's voice reached him, pressed close beside Michael, raising a wild desperate to his ear, like the sound of the sea, held face to Magdalen. Was Michael's last in its tiniest shell. look of deadly hatred to remain with him H e opened his eyes and his brother's through life? white face came to him for a moment, like "Speak to him again, Fay," said Mag- sea foam, blown in from the sea of love to dalen. “Tell him Wentworth is here.” which he was going, part of the sea. Fay was still kneeling on the other side. Wenty!” he said, and smiled at him. The two lovers' eyes met across the man And like blown foam upon a breaking they had murdered. wave, the face passed. “ Michael," the tremulous voice And like the whisper in the shell under whispered. the hush of the surge, the voice passed. “Louder," said Wentworth hoarsely. The shadow which we call life-passed. THE END Retorts Courteous and Discourteous The Best Wit, of Congress By John Elfreth Watkins VIET HE most pungent witticisms purely extemporaneous debate were as y enlivening the debates of perfectly regulated as those of the trained Congress are almost in- comic actor who has profited by numerous variably blurted out quite rehearsals. l e upon the spur of the Reed's first retort of note was delivered NIE moment and very seldom back in the seventies, at about the time rehearsed or jotted down in the prompting when Conkling referred to him as “ that notes. cheerful young idiot from Maine." He In such a great legislative body the uttered it after some interrupting member juxtaposition of opposing factors offers ideal had asked him a question intended to conditions for the generation either of confuse him but which he had answered brilliant wit or of bitter vituperation. It is with telling effect. when one party's side of either chamber " And now, having embalmed that fly becomes most surcharged with positive and in the liquid amber of my remarks, I will the other with negative intellectual elec- proceed,” said Reed, bringing down the tricity, so to speak, —when the potential is house. highest, as in the severest thunder storm Once, when Breckenridge, of Kentucky, weather—that the brightest sparks snap- had paused in a speech of most mournful ping across the dividing aisle cause the at- and lugubrious cadences, Reed convulsed mosphere to thunder with loudest peals of the House by pretending to weep, and laughter and applause. holding his handkerchief to his eyes, ex- The three most brilliant latter-day wits claiming aloud to Cannon, of Illinois, of the House of Representatives—Thomas while the funereal tones of the orator still B. Reed, of Maine ; John Allen, of Miss- echoed in the hall : issippi, and Peter J. Otey, of Virginia— “ Joe, were you acquainted with the have lately passed out, the first and last deceased ?" named to the Great Beyond and Mr. When minority leader, the big Maine Allen to private life. man caused roars of laughter by this thrust “Tom " Reed rarely told stories, but at his political opponents: produced them, and it has been said that “The present House has avoided its he thought in epigrams. opportunities and shirked its duties and Mr. Allen was a master of led a gelatinous life to the scorn of all satire and the success of vertebrate animals!" his scintillations was large- Discussing some of the leaders of the ly due to his droll inton- opposition, Mr. Reed once exclaimed, ation—as was Reed's like. after naming them : wise — and to his serio- “Neither of them ever says a word comic delivery. Mr. Otey without subtracting from the sum total of was more of the racon- human knowledge." teur and his accentuation, While Speaker, the great “ Czar” had The Late Cear pauses and gestures in little chance to actively enter debate, but life RETORTS COURTEOUS AND DISCOURTEOUS 63 occasionally injected some poignant wit “General Albert Sydney Johnson and into his rulings. myself met Grant at Shiloh, and if Gen- Soon after Reed had made the innova- eral Johnson hadn't been killed and I tion of counting a quorum from all mem- hadn't got scattered on the evening of bers present, whether voting or not, a that day, there is no knowing what member most emphatically objected to would have happened.” being thus counted. Addressing the House upon his ad- “Does the gentleman continue to stand vent to Tupelo, he said : there and persistently claim that he is not “Mr. Chairman, some thirty-one years present?” asked the Speaker. ago one of the most prominent and One of the most famous of Reed's re- brilliant young men of my State, having torts was made at the expense of Springer, concluded his studies, and appreciating of Illinois. The “Maine Giant” had the importance of the town, settled there just read one of Springer's own speeches and afterward became a member of this in refutation of the latter's argument, just body. What he has contributed to it, I concluded. The Illinoian launched into leave for others to say. My modesty philosophy upon the privilege of progres- prevents me.” sive thinkers to change their opinions. Lauding his beloved Tupelo to his col. “I honor them for it," he continued. leagues, he excited the risibles of all, by “ An honest man is the noblest work of this : God. As for me, Mr. Chairman, in the “Oh, if you could only stand upon words of an eminent American statesman, College Hill in Tupelo, and see one of our I would rather be right than be Presi- sunsets! It is very near the center of the dent.'" earth. You can stand there and look " The gentleman from Illinois needn't around and you will see the horizon just worry, Mr. Chairman,' drawled Reed, about the same distance from you in every “He'll never be ei—ther !”. direction. Such moons as we have down But this one bit of repartee was not there!” he added with fine eloquence. original with Reed. It had been delivered “It is the only place in the South to-day with telling effect in the early days of Con- where we have the same silvery, southern gress in the midst of a war of words between moon that we used to have before the two statesmen whose names history does war!” not hand down along with the dialogue. One of the most mirth-provoking The speech of John Allen which most speeches of Otey was that in which he completely convulsed his colleagues was paid his respects to Reeder, of Kansas. his valedictory in which he asked the Re- Speaking of the latter's jokes, the Virginian publicans, his political opponents, to erect said : a $20,000 fish hatchery in his native town " They are as clear as a northwest Kansas of Tupelo, Mississippi. blizzard, translucent as a block of granite, "Why, sir, fish will travel overland for bright as midnight in a billy goat's stomach miles to get in the water we have at and as pointed as a steam hammer.” Tupelo," he said, addressing the Speaker. In a speech upon the last reapportion- " Thousands and millions of unborn fish ment bill Mr. Otey thus referred to the are clamoring to this Congress to-day for resolutions intended to reduce the repre- an opportunity to be hatched at Tupelo.” sentation of the South: The Republicans of the House voted “They will not pass the appropriation thus won solely by the until the fishworm ready wit of their popular opponent. In swallows the whale, not thanking the House he stated : until the snail out runs “Mr. Chairman, I will sit upon the the hare, not until banks of this fish hatchery at Tupelo and Dutchmen stop drink- have before me a practical demonstration ing beer and not until of the truth of the old adage that 'a the billy-goat butts sucker is hatched every minute.'" from the rear." Referring to the Civil War and his part Presenting his com- therein, as a confederate private, Allen pliments to Dolliver said, in a speech before the House : of Iowa, he once said : Mr. Speaker AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE Congressman and Book Agent " The gentleman from No greater uproar of mirth was ever Iowa answers queries like caused in the house than that following the the man who placed the retort of Gibson, of Tennessee, to a saddle upon his horse hind Tammany representative from New York, side before. A bystander the effervescent Sulzer. said, My friend, you have “Look here, Mr. Seidlitz Powder,” that saddle on hind side said the Tennessean by way of opening a foremost.' The man re- sentence which was never finished. plied: "How do you During the bitter fight against “ Reed know, sir, which way I'm rules" the House was thrown into con- going?'" vulsions by General Spinola who, point- In another debate Mr. Otey informed ing to the painting of the Siege of York- the House that Dalzell, of Pennsylvania, town, hanging in the hall, gravely accused reminded him of a tramp upon a country Speaker Reed of counting the Hessians in road who was parched with thirst. the background of the picture in order to “Seeing a well,” said Mr. Otey, "he make up a quorum. The general always rushed up to it, and a lady wishing to re- wore a tremendously high collar, so high fresh him asked if he wanted some water. in fact that Representative “ Tim " Camp- I decline to be interrupted,' said the bell tapped it one day with the ferrule of tramp. He began to pump for water, but his cane and inquired, to the amusement of no water came. He was forced to ask the the House, “ Is General Spinola within ?" lady if there was any water in the well. In a debate over a Civil Service bill Oh, yes, plenty,' said she. The tramp Champ Clark of Missouri addressed this continued to pump, and finally, getting no question to Hepburn, of Iowa: water, asked the lady, 'why, if there is “I would like to know how you come plenty of water in the well, will no water to the conclusion that everybody on this come?' . Because,' she promptly replied, side is in favor of the repeal of the whole the sucker is at the wrong end of the business ?” pump.'” “Simply because that would be wrong," One of the most effective witticisms of shouted Hepburn, thereby bringing down “Uncle Joe" Cannon was an appeal to the House. the House to settle down to work upon a In a parliamentary duel with General bill under consideration. Grosvenor, Republican, of Ohio, over the “We had better transact a little public responsibility for the financial panic of business, just to fool the people," said he, 1893, Representative Champ Clark, thereby convulsing the House. Democrat, of Missouri, declared that One of the most telling oratorical blows preparations for a bond issue were con- ever landed upon the present Speaker was templated just before the close of Harri- delivered by the late Amos Cummings, of son's administration. New York, when Mr. Cannon was Chair- “I am ready to admit,” retorted the man of the Committee on Appropriations. combative General, “that the prospect of “Why didn't you stand by the propo- Democratic administration caused a panic. sition which the House made at your in- It always has and it always will, but, thank stance ?” asked Cummings, with bitter- God, there is little likelihood of one being ness. “Why are you backing down at again inflicted upon the first fire ? You are misnamed. You the country!” are no Cannon, you are a toy musket!” During the famous During a debate where Bourke Cochran deadlock fight in the of New York had been persistently annoy- House, over the Civil ing Boutell, of Illinois, with questions, Rights Bill, General Boutell grew tired and remarked that Ben Butler favored a Cochran reminded him of the following Sunday Session. epitaph : “ Bad as I am, I have some respect for “Here lies the body of Robt. Gordon- God's Day,” replied Mouth almighty and voice accordin'. Stranger, troad lightly near this wonder: Sam Randall of Penn- Suavity from If he opens his mouth, you are gone, by thunder!” sylvania, South Carolina RETORTS COURTEOUS AND DISCOURTEOUS 65 “Don't the Bible say Representative Macon of North Carolina, that it is lawful to pull one of the few men in public life who won your ox or ass out of a the deep friendship of Randolph, was re- pit on the Sabbath ?” ask- placed by a member who assiduously sought ed Butler. “You have 37 to succeed not only to his seat, but also to asses on your side of the the good graces of the great Virginian. House and I want to get Randolph snubbed the newcomer, how- Everybody's them out of this ditch to- ever, and the latter finally sought revenge Friend morrow. I think I am en- by bitterly assaulting him in debate. gaged in holy work." Randolph made no immediate reply, but “Don't do it,” replied Randall. “I in a few days observed, incidentally: expect some day to see you in a better “Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of a re- world.') mark of my friend, the Hon. Nathaniel “You'll be there, as you are here, a Macon of North Carolina, the wisest man member of the lower House," flashed I ever knew, but," (and here he pointed back the General, with telling effect. to Macon's successor) “but, Mr. Speaker, During one of the early tariff debates whose seat in this House I am sorry to the southern representatives pressed an say is now vacant! vacant! vacant!” amendment increasing the duty on mo- No greater wit ever sat in Congress than lasses 100 per cent. ad valorem. Its ob- the late “Sunset” Cox, of Ohio. ject was to choke off the northern mem- Speaking upon the tariff question Mr. bers and kill the bill. Representative Cox once said:- Burgess of Rhode Island stoutly “If the mother gives her objected. child castor oil, she pours down " Mr. Speaker,” said Daniel 148 per cent. ad valorem. If of Kentucky, very acridly, " let the child does not enjoy the the constituents of the gentle- dose there is a 25 per cent. man from Rhode Island sop bowl as the recipient of the their bread only on one side in contents of its tender stomach ; molasses and they will pay the and though she wash it with same duty they do now!” nitre and take to it much soap, Burgess was quick to reply, yet the iniquity is marked be- reminding the Kentucky mem- Oratory fore me, saith the Lord,' for ber that established habit the soap is taxed forty per among a people becomes second nature. centum. God help the child !” “What would the gentleman from Ken- One of the greatest uproars of laughter tucky think," he continued, “ if I should ever heard in the House was caused by a offer an amendment that himself and his member from Colorado who made a motion constituents shall hereafter have only a “that Congress adjourn sine die.” This pint of whiskey for breakfast, instead of a motion to adjourn the whole Congress and quart?" not the House only, caused a general out- Kentuckians in those days, as now, were burst which surprised the Coloradoan. twitted about their conviviality and the Not cognizant of his real error and sus- mirth following the thrust of the gentle- pecting that “sine die' was the wrong man from Vermont completely silenced term to use he again arose, shouting: his opponent. "I move this House An adept at repartee was the celebrated do now adjourn bona John Randolph, of Roanoke. Once, after fide!” he had addressed the House, several mem. At this there was an bers rose and attacked him in succession. uproar and he bobbed Calmly rising, after they had finished, up for the third time, he replied in these words: shouting: - “Mr. Speaker, I am in the condition of “Mr. Speaker, I move old King Lear: that we just purely and • The little dogs and all, simply adjourn.” Tray, Blanch and Sweet-heart, see, they bark At another time, while at me.'' arraigning a colleague, No Rebates ! om 66 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE the same member, pointing his finger, “I beg to say, Mr. President, that the uttered this peroration: mistake is the Senator's, not mine," re- "And there he sits, Mr. Speaker, mute, joined Clay. “Unlike him, sir, I do not silent, dumb." look one way and row another.". "And he ain't saying a word,” added This was a cruel thrust at Buchanan who «« Tom" Reed who sat near by. had a cast in one eye. Less that excites the risib es is heard in During a debate upon a bill for the pur- the upper house of Congress. “Sena- chase of Cuba, General Cass, of Michigan, torial dignity" forbids the great freedom made an elaborate speech supporting the of debate allowed in the House. The wit measure on the ground that it was dangerous of the Senate is usually sharp repartee to the Republic to have the dependency bordering upon vituperation rather than the of a foreign power so near to our shores. reductio ad absurdum method of debate. He was immediately followed by Senator Henry Clay had a poignant wit which John P. Hale, of New Hampshire. he often employed cruelly. He and James “Consistency has always been a crown- Buchanan sat in the Senate as enemies. ing jewel in the diadem of the Senator Once after Buchanan had replied to one from Michigan,” said Hale. “He favors of Clay's attacks upon the Democrats, the the annexation of Cuba because its proxi- latter retorted: mity as a foreign territory is a constant "I made no allusion to the Senator menace to our welfare, when every night from Pennsylvania. I was referring to the of his life, when he is at home in Detroit, leaders, not the subordinates, of the from the window of the room in which he Democracy." sleeps he can throw a stone into the pos- “ The Senator from Kentucky was cer- sessions of her Brittanic Majesty." Thus tainly in error,” replied Buchanan, “be- in two minutes did he utterly undo the cause he pointedly and repeatedly looked effects of General Cass' three hours of at me while he was speaking." eloquence. I am Nothing: Freedom is All The Personal Story of the Russian Revolutionist, Narodny By Leroy Scott Color ANANAS AM nothing. Personal suc- Sad, dreaming, with white strained face, cess, happiness—they are so quiet, so gentle—fifteen thousand nothing. Burning of home, roubles on his head, man of a hundred prison, the Czar's bullet, disguises, of a dozen names, defier of Siberia— they are noth- gendarmes and spies, dare-devil, flame- a ing. There is only one souled lover of the people ; for me he thing-only one thing—that Russia shall summed up the leadership of the Russian be free!” Revolution. I had asked how the Russian Revolu- He went on and told me the story of tionist looks upon life, and thus answered his life-told it in his halting week-old Ivanovitch Narodny, a leader of the Revo- English which he had studied night and lutionists, now in America to ask the Free day that he might plead his people's need to help make free his broken people. The to the great heart of America. At times answer came in a voice low and passion- the voice quivered ; at times the gray eyes less ; sadness lay in the hollows of his threw fire ; at times he laughed exultantly thin face like an actual presence ; his soft as he remembered triumphs over the Czar's gray eyes gazed afar at visions of Freedom. officials. When he laughed his face was I AM NOTHING: FREEDOM IS ALL 67 saddest; sorrow never left it, and his --in the dead of night behind darkened laughter was an emphasis, a startling un- windows. In summer the fields tired us derscoring, of his grief. As his voice rose so that when evening came we cared only and fell with the rise and fall of his story, for our beds. But on Sundays the “Self- I was hearing not only his voice, seeing School' would steal away into the forest not only his face ; I was seeing houses and spend the day beneath the pines. burned, men driven in chains to Siberia, Soon I was committing my second crime. women and children murdered; I was I saw that all Russia was drunk, and to seeing the faces, hearing the stories, of my boyish mind drunkeness seemed the the countless other Revolutionists who cause of Russia's evils—its ignorance, its also say, “I am nothing," who also say, poverty, its misery. I did not then know, “ There is only one thing—that Russia as I now know, that the people were shall be free !" And I retell the story drunk because it was the Czar's wish. here that you who read may see what I The people must not think-on that rule saw, feel what I felt. stands the government of the Czar; and to keep the peasant from thinking the The Baltic Provinces were a rich land or government encourages him to drink. At plains and valleys and mountains, of seventeen I became a temperance advocate birches and pines, of villages and farms. —and thereby became a traitor, for I was In recent months they have been made a opposing the Czar. I soon learned, how- a broad waste. Upon them are the ashes ever, that vodka was a child evil; that the of a thousand homes ; into their soil has parent evil was the political condition. I gone the blood of a thousand women and began to form societies to spread discon- children ; into their air have gone a thou- tent. Two hundred of these societies- sand souls. The Czar, the “Little all shamming as temperance societies—I Father," has been restoring “peace” formed through Esthonia. Then I was among his children. found out. I eluded the officers that came In this region, in the Province of to arrest me, and fled from my home. Esthonia, I was born. My home was a My life as a hunted animal was begun. farm, and I grew up as a farm lad. At I disguised myself in a new name, and night, when I was a mere child, I often settled at Vira in the Province of St. listened to the cautious talk of Freedom Petersburg, where I became a writer of between my father and mother, for they articles and plays. I was then twenty-two. too were Revolutionists. Centuries ago In Vira I met a wise old general who had all the lands about the Baltic Sea were a for a long time been attached to the court great Republic, so Freedom remains there of the Czar-white-haired, but straight of as a part of the soil, a part of the air. I figure, and in him the eternal flames of was taught Freedom, I breathed it, my liberty. He grew to be my dearest friend, plow turned it from the earth. Freedom the father of my mind. I became a Revo- became my blood, my bones, my life. lutionist. He taught me military tactics One of the first instincts of Freedom is and diplomacy, and educated me in politi- to be free in mind—to know. As a boy cal matters. He used to say to me, in a of sixteen (that was twenty years ago) I voice that quivered: “You must be pre- began to feel my ignorance, and the ignor- pared to be one of the leaders in the great ance of the peasant lads who were my revolt, and afterwards in the Republic. I friends. But for peasants to attend am too old to help—but I shall work schools for higher education, this the Czar through you." And I would promise to does not allow. I thought much, and at work for the two of us. length I said to my friends, “Let us make After a time my fifteen friends of the a Self-School', at which all shall be "Self-School' came to Vira. Once more teachers, all pupils.” They agreed. we studied together, but now we studied Each of us (there were fifteen in the not for self but for Russia. To help make group) privately studied one subject, and Russia free—that became our profession. “this he taught when we came together as Each of us determined to fit himself for a class. This was my first crime. We an expert part in the struggle for Freedom. could all have been sent to Siberia. We One selected military tactics for his knew we were guilty, so we met in secret specialty, another the airship, another the 66 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE the same member, pointing his finger, “I beg to say, Mr. President, that the uttered this peroration: mistake is the Senator's, not mine,' re- “And there he sits, Mr. Speaker, mute, joined Clay. “Unlike him, sir, I do not silent, dumb." look one way and row another." “And he ain't saying a word,” added This was a cruel thrust at Buchanan who "Tom" Reed who sat near by. had a cast in one eye. Less that excites the risib es is heard in During a debate upon a bill for the pur- the upper house of Congress. “Sena- chase of Cuba, General Cass, of Michigan, torial dignity' forbids the great freedom made an elaborate speech supporting the of debate allowed in the House. The wit measure on the ground that it was dangerous of the Senate is usually sharp repartee to the Republic to have the dependency bordering upon vituperation rather than the of a foreign power so near to our shores. reductio ad absurdum method of debate. He was immediately followed by Senator Henry Clay had a poignant wit which John P. Hale, of New Hampshire. he often employed cruelly. He and James “Consistency has always been a crown- Buchanan sat in the Senate as enemies. ing jewel in the diadem of the Senator Once after Buchanan had replied to one from Michigan," said Hale. “He favors of Clay's attacks upon the Democrats, the the annexation of Cuba because its proxi- latter retorted: mity as a foreign territory is a constant “I made no allusion to the Senator menace to our welfare, when every night from Pennsylvania. I was referring to the of his life, when he is at home in Detroit, leaders, not the subordinates, of the from the window of the room in which he Democracy.". sleeps he can throw a stone into the pos- “ The Senator from Kentucky was cer- sessions of her Brittanic Majesty." Thus tainly in error," replied Buchanan, “be- in two minutes did he utterly undo the cause he pointedly and repeatedly looked effects of General Cass' three hours of at me while he was speaking.” eloquence. I am Nothing: Freedom is All The Personal Story of the Russian Revolutionist, Narodny By Leroy Scott NAFAVA) AM nothing. Personal suc- Sad, dreaming, with white strained face, cess, happiness—they are so quiet, so gentle—fifteen thousand nothing. Burning of home, roubles on his head, man of a hundred prison, the Czar's bullet, disguises, of a dozen names, defier of Siberia — they are noth- gendarmes and spies, dare-devil, flame- sing. There is only one souled lover of the people ; for me he thing-only one thing—that Russia shall summed up the leadership of the Russian be free!" Revolution. I had asked how the Russian Revolu- He went on and told me the story of tionist looks upon life, and thus answered his life—told it in his halting week-old Ivanovitch Narodny, a leader of the Revo- English which he had studied night and lutionists, now in America to ask the Free day that he might plead his people's need to help make free his broken people. The to the great heart of America. At times answer came in a voice low and passion- the voice quivered ; at times the gray eyes less ; sadness lay in the hollows of his threw fire ; at times he laughed exultantly thin face like an actual presence ; his soft as he remembered triumphs over the Czar's gray eyes gazed afar at visions of Freedom. officials. When he laughed his face was I AM NOTHING: FREEDOM IS ALL 67 saddest; sorrow never left it, and his —in the dead of night behind darkened laughter was an emphasis, a startling un- windows. In summer the fields tired us derscoring, of his grief. As his voice rose so that when evening came we cared only and fell with the rise and fall of his story for our beds. But on Sundays the “Self- I was hearing not only his voice, seeing School' would steal away into the forest not only his face; I was seeing houses and spend the day beneath the pines. burned, men driven in chains to Siberia, Soon I was committing my second crime. women and children murdered; I was I saw that all Russia was drunk, and to seeing the faces, hearing the stories, of my boyish mind drunkeness seemed the the countless other Revolutionists who cause of Russia's evils—its ignorance, its also say, “I am nothing," who also say, poverty, its misery. I did not then know, “ There is only one thing—that Russia as I now know, that the people were shall be free !” And I retell the story drunk because it was the Czar's wish. here that you who read may see what I The people must not think-on that rule saw, feel what I felt. stands the government of the Czar; and to keep the peasant from thinking the The Baltic Provinces were a rich land or government encourages him to drink. At plains and valleys and mountains, of seventeen I became a temperance advocate birches and pines, of villages and farms. -and thereby became a traitor, for I was In recent months they have been made a opposing the Czar. I soon learned, how- a broad waste. Upon them are the ashes ever, that vodka was a child evil ; that the of a thousand homes; into their soil has parent evil was the political condition. I gone the blood of a thousand women and began to form societies to spread discon- children ; into their air have gone a thou- tent. Two hundred of these societies- sand souls. The Czar, the “Little all shamming as temperance societies—I Father,'' has been restoring "peace" formed through Esthonia. Then I was among his children. found out. I eluded the officers that came In this region, in the Province of to arrest me, and fled from my home. Esthonia, I was born. My home was a My life as a hunted animal was begun. farm, and I grew up as a farm lad. At I disguised myself in a new name, and night, when I was a mere child, I often settled at Vira in the Province of St. listened to the cautious talk of Freedom Petersburg, where I became a writer of between my father and mother, for they articles and plays. I was then twenty-two. too were Revolutionists. Centuries ago In Vira I met a wise old general who had all the lands about the Baltic Sea were a for a long time been attached to the court great Republic, so Freedom remains there of the Czar-white-haired, but straight of as a part of the soil, a part of the air. I figure, and in him the eternal flames of was taught Freedom, I breathed it, my liberty. He grew to be my dearest friend, plow turned it from the earth. Freedom the father of my mind. I became a Revo- became my blood, my bones, my life. lutionist. He taught me military tactics One of the first instincts of Freedom is and diplomacy, and educated me in politi- to be free in mind—to know. As a boy cal matters. He used to say to me, in a of sixteen (that was twenty years ago) I voice that quivered: “You must be pre- began to feel my ignorance, and the ignor- pared to be one of the leaders in the great ance of the peasant lads who were my revolt, and afterwards in the Republic. I friends. But for peasants to attend am too old to help, but I shall work schools for higher education, this the Czar through you." And I would promise to does not allow. I thought much, and at work for the two of us. length I said to my friends, “Let us make After a time my fifteen friends of the a Self-School', at which all shall be "Self-School' came to Vira. Once more teachers, all pupils." They agreed. we studied together, but now we studied Each of us (there were fifteen in the not for self but for Russia. To help make group) privately studied one subject, and Russia free—that became our profession. this he taught when we came together as Each of us determined to fit himself for a class. This was my first crime. We an expert part in the struggle for Freedom. could all have been sent to Siberia. We One selected military tactics for his knew we were guilty, so we met in secret specialty, another the airship, another the 68 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE making of arms, another the army, another the Minister of Finance have been telegraphy, another the railroad, and so searched, and your letter found. The on. One of our number spent years in police are coming—there is not a minute!" Paris studying cooking, and became a The telegraph is watched by the gov- great chef, an artist. High government ernment, letters are opened by spies, so officials must have good cooks ; The Revo- he had come the three hundred miles lution must have government secrets. He from St. Petersburg to warn me. Five has helped much-very much. minutes later I was running through the Five years passed thus. I began to feel night over the crusted snow, my hound at that the Russian Republic was too slow in my side. Now and then the dead stillness coming. I wanted a quicker Freedom, quavered with the mournful howl of a and my desire builded a glorious dream: wolf—and I was thankful for the hound. if a group had a large piece of land, Toward daybreak, at a little station, I made everything on that land they con- caught a train that carried me to the Ger- sumed, and lived there constantly, they man frontier. I had no passport, which could be free even though in Russia. is required to leave Russia, but five With money I had earned by my writings roubles excused me to the gendarme. and by an artificial millstone I had invented, But I passed the Russian frontier only I bought four hundred acres of land near to fall into a new trouble. At this time, Rappino, in my home province of because of cholera in Russia, the importa- Esthonia. The land lay in a beautiful tion of ham from Russia into Germany was valley, from which sloped up mountains forbidden. Now I had bought several clothed in straight black pines amid which sandwiches to eat upon the train, and gleamed the white of birches. Through when I entered Germany one remained the valley ran a little river that paused to uneaten. It was of ham. When I was turn a grain mill, then dashed on. Here I searched by a custom officer this sandwich and the families of twenty of my friends was found, and I was arrested on the spot settled to make the glorious dream a charged with smuggling ham into Germany. glorious reality. We built our own houses, I who was fleeing because I had plotted we made great plans for the future, we the overthrow of a royal dynasty, I was said, “This shall be «The Happy arrested because of a ham sandwich! Valley." Then the Czar. The Little Two days later I was freed. I proceeded Father knows how to make his children to Berlin where I remained for three miserable, and us, by his church officials, months, writing for the underground his tax-gatherers, his Cossacks, he made press. Toward the end of this time I most miserable of all. At the end of wrote back to Russia asking how many of the first year half the families left and my fifteen friends of the Self-School' settled in Siberia. Siberia was happier had been arrested. This letter fell into than our Happy Valley. the hand of the government, a Russian Eight years ago, while I was living in officer was at once dispatched for me, and the colony, there was talk of a Republic, I was trapped like a rat. and I was so indiscreet as to send a letter I was extradited, under a secret agree- to the proposed Minister of Finance re- ment between Russia and Germany re- garding the issuance of bonds upon Free garding political prisoners, and lodged in Russia. At two o'clock of Christmas the fortress of Peter and Paul in St. night there came a pounding on the door Petersburg. I was in prison, but I was of my one-room stone house, which I not in prison ; for the captive Revolution- myself had builded, and which stood apart ist there exists only the idea that he has from the others in the edge of the forest. helped the people. Four years I awaited My hound sprang at the door, barking. I trial, which was postponed for “adminis- leapt from my bed. The police, my instinct trative reasons." Four years a cell was told me. my home, old sour black bread, with warm “ Who's there?" I called. water for breakfast, with cold thin potato The answer was a Revolutionary soup at lunch, with more cold soup at countersign. I opened the door, and supper was my food, the faces of guards there stood a friend from St. Petersburg. at the wicket door my only faces. Dur- “Quick!” he cried. “The rooms of ing this time I did not speak by word of I AM NOTHING: FREEDOM IS ALL 69 mouth to a soul except the guards. But posed her new beliefs. She had to choose, in Russian prisons speech is not only by and rather than give up the people she the lips. gave up him, and threw herself with all In the prison chapel there was a little her soul into the Revolutionary movement. booth for each prisoner, with a window Other leaders preached Freedom ; she through which he can see the priest and a sang Freedom. little hole through which he gets air. One For a while her rank shielded her, but Sunday, at the beginning of my imprison- one night after she had sung the Marsel- ment, through the air hole of my booth laise at a Revolutionist meeting, making was thrown a moistened wad of bread. the sobs leap from all, the police came for From whom it came I do not know. With her. In course of time she was thrown in it I found the Revolutionists' telegraphic into a cell beside me—and oh, she was a code. From that time my walls had wonderful prison mate! When the guards tongues ; they told me, in their speech of were not about she would sing softly, yet raps, the stories and ideas of the prison- so that we could hear, songs of the Revo- ers in the cells about me, and they rapped lution in that magnificent voice which had back my story and ideas in answer. We won the public of Moscow ; and in the grew close friends, I and these people be- middle of the black prison night her voice yond my walls. Foremost of my invisible would come softly through the walls, friends were a robber, a monk, and a through the darkness, singing folk-songs, princesss. The robber was a very old or airs from the opera, or thrilling hymns of man who had broken from prison five Freedom. For almost three years it was times. He told me through the walls so. Then she was claimed by that dread stories of the government officials he had disease of the Russian prisons-tuberculo- robbed; “I have robbed more officials sis ; and one day, rap, rap, rap, there came than any other man,' he said proudly. through the walls this message : The monk had preached a free church, as “My strength is going—I can do no I had preached a free government, and more for Freedom-I cannot bear the formed a new sect. He had dared think thought !" for himself and for this reason he is to- I heard her glorious voice no more. She day still in prison. The princess-ah, she hung herself with her handkerchief. was most interesting of all. Four years of prison dampness and of The princess was of a family that for a black bread and thin soup, so blanched, thousand years has been among the high- so thinned me, that a government doctor est and mightiest in Russia. Beside them reported me a harmless wreck. I was the Romanoffs are grass of to-day. She tried, found innocent, and discharged to was very beautiful, was only twenty-five die. But I did not die. A few months when she entered prison, and had a voice in the little stone house in my beautiful that was made in heaven. She cultivated valley, and I again had strength for the her voice in Berlin, Paris and Italy, and on work of Freedom. I disguised myself in completing her studies she became the a new name—Ivanoff—and returned to leading soprano in the Imperial Opera at the cause. Four years of agitation fol- Moscow. Here her girlish beauty and lowed. I formed Revolutionary socie- wonderful voice quickly made her a great ties all through the Baltic Provinces—spoke favorite. But it came to her, while her at secret meetings for the working people success was still fresh, that her gift did not -organized such meetings for other speak- belong to her—that, like the sun and the ers. air and the sky, it belonged to all. She There were crowds of twenty, of hun- began to sing for the poor people in the dreds, of thousands—in private houses, cities and for the peasants in the little vil- in halls, always so secretly--in the forests lages, giving them the glorious music their with guards stationed about to give poverty had always forbidden them. She warning of the approach of officers. Four then began to see how poor their condi- thousand peasants and workingmen have tion was, how oppressed they were. She I seen at one of these forest meetings. began to think, and to think is to become The forests !--what have they not done a Revolutionist. Her husband was a high for Russia's Freedom. government official, and naturally he op. I was in the massacre of “Bloody Sun- 70 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE day" in St. Petersburg in January of last The police and the gendarmes filed before year. It was then that the Little Father us; the army officers, drinking and showed how he loves his children. He gambling in their clubs, rushed forth in paved the streets with their bodies. He wild fear ;-and police, gendarmes, officers, filled the gutters with their blood. The joined in a stampede for the boats, on police learned of my active part and I fled which they fled from the Island to St. to Narva, where I kept almost constantly Petersburg. Kronstadt was ours. to my room for several weeks. One night We reached the fortress and released when I was fast asleep, there came a the imprisoned soldiers. My experiment pounding at my door and a cry of was a success. The soldiers obeyed only “Open!" I heard the rattle of sabres. a uniform. It was enough. I knew what was without-gendarmes. “ Back to the barracks !" I ordered. There was not a moment to be lost, for I had roused the whirlwind, .but I could the gendarmes began to beat down the not quiet it. One uniform among four- door with their guns. I sprang from my teen thousand soldiers was nothing. Those bed, smashed the window with my bare about me obeyed the orders of the uniform hand and leaped out into the snow. II wore, but beyond this circle my words had on only a nightgown. It was cold, were lost. For two hours I shouted vain but I did not think of the cold; I thought commands. Then I went to my room, only of the gendarmes. My room was threw off my beard and uniform, and re- near the edge of the town, and half a mile turned to the streets an ordinary citizen. into the country was the house of a friend. The soldiers entered the deserted clubs of Never before did I run as I ran to my the officers, smoked their cigars, drank friend's house—through the concealing their wine, spread themselves in disorder night, disguised as a fisherman. I was through all Kronstadt. Thus it was for carried across the gulf of Finland by a two days, the officers and the police look- group of fisherfolk in their little sail-boat. ing fearfully on, as it were, from St. From Finland I crossed to Berlin, where I Petersburg. At the end of the two days lived until last October, when the general the soldiers sobered down of their own amnesty extended by the government accord, the officers and the police bravely made it possible for me to return to returned, and Kronstadt was once more Russia. the Czar's. The Revolutionists had long believed Shortly after this, the Czar's Manifesto, that it was the uniform the soldiers obeyed, filled with golden promises, was published. not the man in it. If the soldier honored We were suspicious, but we thought there only the uniform, what possibilities for might be truth in the Czar's words. At us! I determined to test our belief. I least there was no longer need for secrecy. went to Kronstadt, where fourteen thous- In the Baltic Provinces we talked openly and marines were stationed, and with the of a representative government, of univer- aid of several of the non-commissioned sal suffrage, of a Republic. Officialdom officers who were my comrades, I prepared took fright and ran away. The priests and for the experiment. At two o'clock one pastors, who are government officers, fed night an officer in each barracks drummed into the German provinces, and we made the war alarm. The fourteen thousand of their deserted churches temples of Free- marines sprang from their cots, leaped dom. We elected a president and other into their uniforms and seized their arms. officers, we appointed our own police. For "To the streets !" commanded the a month there was a Republic in the Baltic officers. Provinces. It seemed that beautiful Free- The soldiers marched out. I was wait- dom was at hand ! ing before the barracks in a great false Toward the end of November two hun- beard and in the uniform of a general dred and forty Revolutionist representa- which had been given me by my Revolu- tives from all over Russia came together in tionary Father. At my command the St. Petersburg to formulate and discuss soldiers fell into order, and I led them plans that we would want carried out under through the streets of Kronstadt to the the liberal rule we saw ahead. We made fortress where were several soldiers under no attempt at concealment, for the Czar's sentence to be shot the following day. manifesto had given us to believe we had I AM NOTHING: FREEDOM IS ALL 71 freedom of speech; we had forgotten the diers. I was without overcoat and hat-a Czar's government is just a lie. We met very suspicious figure; and having neither, late at night in a large hall, situated, ac- I could not escape even could I get by the cording to the Russian custom of building, soldiers who surrounded me. in a yard enclosed by a high wall. The I jerked a card from my pocket—to this chairman had just called the meeting to day I do not know what it was—and hand- order and had said no more than a dozen ed it to one of the soldiers. “Here is or two words, when suddenly there came my card,” I said rapidly. “I am a mem- from the rear of the hall the sharp slam of ber of the Secret Police. One of these a closing door. Revolutionists is trying to escape. I am We all sprang up and looked about. after him. Quick! Give me your coat Just inside the main door stood a man and hat !”. wearing a long gray coat brilliant with He automatically obeyed. I slipped on epaulets and gold buttons, a cockaded red- his coat and hat and to all appearances banded hat and high spurred boots, with was a soldier of the Czar. I walked past a sabre swinging at his side—the chief of the guarded gate of the yard, out into the the St. Petersburg police. street. Before me were thousands of sol- " This meeting is under arrest,” he re- diers. I saw my friends being brought marked, in a quiet, cold voice. down from the hall and put into black While we gazed astounded at him four vans about which stood guards of Cos- doors swung open and there entered some sacks. I marched through my friends (all sixty policemen. They marched to the of that group are in prison to-day, save ends of the rows of seats, beckoned the only myself and the friend that escaped representatives with their forefingers, and with me) with the air of a soldier on a said very politely, “ Please.” That one very important message, and pressed on word was all. But it was enough. The through the mass of other soldiers that representatives saw they were trapped, filled the street. saw escape was impossible. They came Then I hurried on to a railroad station forward, were turned over to the soldiers to catch a train that I knew left St. who had appeared behind the police, and Petersburg shortly after midnight. were led prisoners from the hall. At the station there was just one other But I did not go with my friends. Day traveler-a little furtive man in a coat and night for fifteen years I have moment- whose sleeves fell far below his hands, ly expected arrest. This has given me the whose tails almost swept the station plat- instinct, the habits, of the hunted animal. form and whose girth could have encircled One of my habits has been never to sit him twice. He wore a silk hat that was down at a meeting save beside a door or constantly dropping to his chin, and his window through which I could leap. On face was streaked with black lines. My this night I had obeyed the hunted ani- curiosity roused, I drew nearer this odd mal in me, and with one friend I had figure, but as he saw me approaching in taken a seat near a little side door. The in my soldier's uniform he turned quickly instant I saw the Chief of Police I seized to run away. The act brought his face the arm of my friend and sprang through for a moment into a sharper light. I was the door. We found ourselves in a narrow startled. hall in which burned a single electric light. “ Brunoff !” I called softly. I smashed the bulb with my hand so that He paused, and glanced back. Sure the police could not see to follow, and enough, it was the friend who a few min- rushed through the hall into a room that utes before had leaped through the win- I found to be the women's dressing room. dow with me. In this there was a little window that gave When I had stopped laughing, and upon a lower roof. We leaped down upon when we were settled in the train, he told this roof, and from it jumped through the me his story. On making his escape (he darkness two stories to the ground-I from too was without overcoat and hat) he had one side of the roof, he from the other, hurried to the house of a huge-bodied thereby becoming separated. When I friend, only to learn from the maid that scrambled to my feet I discovered myself the friend was out. Among us is the in the yard and among half a dozen sol- rule, “If you have a coat and your brother 72 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE has none, the coat is your brother's." My only ashes there. I saw wives shot down, friend rushed to the dressing room, seized children bayonetted. It was one vast the only coat and hat in sight, put them murder of the innocent. Powerless to on, and then chanced to look into the help, I looked upon the death of scores I mirror. The flame red hair and the flame knew. In one town I saw three friends, red beard he saw there advertised his all teachers, tied together to one telephone identity. Hair and beard must be dyed- post; I saw ten Cossacks take their stand but how? He had only seconds. Upon a few paces away ; I saw them raise their a writing table in the room he saw an ink- rifles ; I saw the fire leap from their guns ; well. He dipped his fingers into the ink I saw the brave heads of my comrades and ran them through his hair and beard. falling ; I heard their dying “ Oi!" Oi!" Then he clapped the big silk hat upon his One of the three straightened up, despite head and hurried to the station. But he the bullets in him, and cried out, “ You had applied too much of the hair-dye, and may kill us, but our memory will take ven- not applied it well, His hair and beard geance on you !” The next instant the were alternate streaks of red and of a mat- guns flashed once more and he hung limp ted dripping black, and ink drops trickled against the binding cords. down his face. And the great silk hat Yes, it was one vast murder ! that at every jar dropped suddenly to the The man that gave this last cry had a chin, eclipsing everything! Such a Revo- brother who is one of the chief revolution- lutionist! It was a marvel he had notary leaders, and last January, during these been arrested. massacres, this brother was captured by The arrest of these representatives was five Cossacks and held in a little village in the end of our short dream of Freedom as the Province of Pskov. A friend of mine a gift from the Czar. At once the Czar learned of the capture, went to the Cos- began the opacification of the Baltic sacks and offered a hundred roubles for Provinces. Soldiers and Cossacks poured their prisoner's release. But the Cossacks, in. Count Witte said, “I shall kill one seeing that their prisoner must be a man in ten in the Baltic Provinces ;” and of prominence, demanded five hundred, of how well he kept his word you in Amer- and the friend came to St. Petersburg and ica have heard only the faintest part. asked my help. We raised the amount, Thousands of homes were wantonly burned, and I returned with him to the little vil- often the homes of those who had taken lage. But in the meantime the Cossacks no part in the brief Republic. My own had discovered the government was offer- beautiful valley was devastated, my own ing three thousand roubles for their pris- house razed to the ground. Of the thou- oner, so we were now met with a demand sand who were killed most were women for thirty-five hundred. We quickly called and children. The husbands and brothers a meeting of friends in the neighborhood, managed to escape, and the Czar's and after a long discussion we decided “peace," not to be denied, accepted the that Freedom needed the money more wives and sisters as substitutes. than did the Cossacks. During the “peace" massacres I made Toward midnight eight of us drove to frequent trips from St. Petersburg to the the house (it was a sort of village prison towns and cities of the Baltic Provinces, and stood just outside the town) where to learn the state of affairs there and carry our friend was held. It was bitter cold, the story back to our leaders in Petersburg. the snow was falling heavily, a high roar- A reward of fifteen thousand roubles had ing wind swirled the fakes blindingly. just been put upon my head, but I wore about-an ideal night for our adventure. the uniform of a Commissioner of Criminals, We drew up quietly behind the house and and in this disguise I went freely among crept round to the entrance. There stood the men who were looking for me. Once two of the Cossacks on guard. We leaped I had to join in the search for myself. suddenly upon them, and threw over the The things I saw during this reign of head of each a large grain sack, the in- “peace" I can never forget ; history can- side of which we had sprinkled with snuff. not forget them, for they are written in The snuff entered their throats and noses, fire and blood. I saw soldiers apply the they could only sneeze and cough—could torch to houses, and a little later I saw not cry out. We bound them, then Ivanovitch Narodny A fine type of the professional Russian revolutionist. 74 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE softly entered the house. He found the everywhere peace! We sat minute after other three Cossacks in bed. Before they minute, without words, the tears running could open an eye we were upon them, down our faces. Peace! Ah, my country ! and in another minute they, too, were when will that peace be yours ! bound. We took our comrade from the The next day we reached St. Petersburg. cell, carried the five Cossacks into the After three days and nights of talking the sa ne cell and locked then there. Then St. Petersburg leaders saw that to be free, my friend and I hurried our comrade into as you in America are free, we must have the sleigh and galloped off through the help. So we decided that I was to come furious night. to America, and ask aid of the free for All night we drove, through fierce wind the enslaved. I escaped across the and stinging snow. At length the wind frontier in the sheepskin coat, in the began to still, the snow to fall no more, sheepskin hat, in the stupid face, of a the East to lighten. Soon all was calm- Finnish peasant ; and here I am, at the which was fitting, for this was the Sabbath beginning of my mission. morning-my last in Russia. For long we had driven through a thick forest, He ended. The glow faded from his when suddenly we came into an open gentle face: his sadness deepened. He space, and before us we saw a picture that was seeing the Unforgetable Miseries. caused us to rein in our weary horses. Then the week-old English resumed, with Amid the open space stood a beautiful desperate intensity: “I have been in this monastery—the monastery where lies America one week, and already do I not buried the great poet, Pushkin. Into it speak the English language fluently!" moved groups of peasants, peaceful faced. The voice leaped up like a fame. “But From its steepie broke forth the peaceful I shall it learn! Then to American peoples Sabbath song of the bells. All about was will I speak the sufferings of Russian the white peace of the snow. Above the peoples. I will say, “Help us be free !" mountains that crowded about the monas- and they will help ; they are rich-their tery, the morning sun was rising, serene hearts are great. and mighty-gloriously peaceful. Peace “Then-Oh, my Russia!- Freedom!" Wu:—The Personality Behind the Chinese Boycott By D. R. Marquis U TING FANG is the formation. He was trying to size up the Chinese boycott. When I American character with the idea of find- first read that there was the ing out what the probable American atti- mischief to pay in China, tude towards China would be in the future. a few months ago, I put it And he was a whole anti-exclusion lobby, down to my old friend, a whole press agency in himself, although Mr. Wu. he was always clever enough not to overtly Wu Ting Fang's real mission in America over-step the bounds of diplomatic usage. was to find out all he could about Ameri- And it is in Wu Ting Fang's brain that cans. Thus, the millions of questions the idea of striking the Americans through which he asked, however impertinent they their pocket-books originated. He used may have seemed, were always pertinent to say, with a fine scorn of occidental pre- ones. Even while he was indulging in tensions to civilization, that the pocket- some subtle bit of mockery concerning a book was the only point about an American phase of American life, he was getting in- that was vulnerable. Wu Ting Fan," : principal promoter of the Chinese boycott against American socds I remember the first time that I ever to explain himself. I was sent down to interviewed the Chinese minister—the un- the legation to get whatever story there grateful man whom I made famous has was in it. likely forgotten it himself. A pamphletW u came down the stairs holding my concerning Chinese exclusion had been card in his hand. written and the city editor of the Washing "Are you an American ?” he said. ton paper on which I worked took it into I said I was. his head that if Wu was not the author he "Then why have you stolen a European was at least the inspiration, and had some- title?". thing to do with the distribution. If such I humbly insisted that the name on my were the case, Wu had committed a great card, D. R. Marquis, was not a title but a breach of diplomatic courtesy; for the name. pamphlet was directly designed to in- “No," he said, “you Americans are fluence the course of pending legislation; all alike, you are always pretending to be and it would be up to the Chinese minister things that you are not." And always 75 76 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE after that he called me, by turns, Duke, and it pleased the city editor. After that, Marquis, Count, etc. Wu became my regular assignment, and I had come to interview him, but Wu in less than a month the Chinese minister interviewed me. appeared to be enjoying the interviews “Are you a liar, Marquis ?” he said. himself. I said that I was a liar, and that I was a Wu was the most inquisitive and most pretty gcod liar, too, but that I could never cynical individual I ever knew. No phase hope to be considered so good a liar as an of American life escaped him. His thou- oriental diplomat. sands of questions might seem at the “Why do you ask, anyhow," I added. moment to be entirely irrelevant, but all "Well, all newspaper men are liars," the time he was building up his estimate he said. of the American character. He had a " It is a trick which we have learned most genuine and most profound contempt from the diplomatic corps," I told him. for western art, morals, manners and in- It seemed to make a hit with him, and stitutions. He considered us graceless that gave me the cue as to how to handle barbarians. He said that we had not him. learned how to live yet. He was more “ If you had not been a very clever liar severe with us than Henry James and yourself, you would not have written this much more to the point. Our philosophies, thing," I said, and I pulled out the he showed, had come to us from the East; pamphlet against Chinese exclusion and our religions as well; but we had per- Wu lost his temper, "went up in the verted the spirit of both. Christianity was air," and for fully two minutes could not well enough, in its way, but we did not express himself in English. He flew round practice it. No, we were barbarians; our the room like a chicken, his pig tail waving morality was a pretence, our liberty was in fury. But I suspected that he wasn't an illusion, we had nothing but brutal really so angry—that he only wanted to strength. And we would wither and pass “run a bluff.” Finally he calmed down, from the face of the earth in a few cen- got a grip on white man's talk again, and turies, while China, that has lasted so asked: many ages and seen so many young em- “What makes you think I wrote it ?" pires arise and die, would still exist. But “The arguments are exactly the same this latter he did not believe himself, I as those which you continually advance think. For while he had a very genuine against the exclusion act," I said, "and scorn for what he considered our barbarity, they are put forth in the same way." our uncivilized and uncultivated state of He denied the authorship, of course, existence, he would not have thought us and then said: worth hating if he had not seen that we “Whether I wrote it, or not, do you are strong. He feared and shrank from not think the arguments are correct ? the terrible youth and virility of the occi- Why should you be so superficial as to dent even while he decried its barbarity. consider the point of authorship more im- He was petulant that we should be so portant than the arguments, you news- strong. In reality, he was here to study paper man? What difference does the our exuberant young strength, and what authorship make if the arguments are just it means to Asia. He found out that we -but you are all superficial-all Ameri- do not know ourselves what it means to cans are superficial.” Asia, and he used to remark on that, too. And then he added: He could not understand our professions "You Americans are pigs." of national morality; he disbelieved in their I suppose he told me that about a thou- sincerity, and so, finding this country sand times during the period in which I strong, and not an international bully, he knew him. put down our lack of aggressiveness to When I wrote my story I said very little stupidity instead of to morality. And it about the pamphlet on Chinese exclusion, seems to me that it is Wu's estimate of the I described the interview, dwelling on the American character which is guiding China gyrations of the distinguished gentleman in her relations with America to-day. Wu, when I presented the pamphlet. The story in getting the boycott inaugurated, did was what newspapers call a “funny story," nor in all probability think that it would WU:-THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE CHINESE BOYCOTT 77 lead to more serious trouble. He believed mated chorus of feminine art students that the attack upon the American pocket- including several he-feminine art students book would be sufficient to gain certain in Windsor ties—forming a background. concessions; he saw us both stupid, as he Wu paused before a portrait study. called it, and mercenary, but he over- “Who's that?” he asked. estimated our cupidity as a nation. He “Li Hung Chang," said Vos. thought the conscience—which he could “No, no, no, no," said Wu. “ Not Li. not understand—and the cupidity would It does not look like him." work together to prevent a war. We were “But," pleaded the painter, “it's only strong and brutal, and insincere in our a study—and it's a three-quarters view." moral professions, he thought; but never It does not look three-quarters like theless we were so mercenary that this him," returned Wu, quick as a flash. And latter quality would outweigh the others the Hollander wondered why the art and that we would yield to the Chinese in students laughed—he never “tumbled.” some things in order to save our com- Here is another instance of Wu's pur- merce. But it appears that the racial feel- suit of an idea. One evening I was walk- ing to which he appealed has got beyond ing along Massachusetts Ave., near Rock him. The point which he was always Creek, with a young lady. Came paddling wondering about, but of which he said through the dusk several of Wu's family, nothing for publication—what the future and one of the interpreters, or secretaries, attitude of this stupid America might be of the legation, with Wu bringing up the towards China—may be settled sooner rear pushing a bicycle. He stopped to than he believed. light his lamp, and noticed the girl and It is not to be supposed that he made myself. It happened that he had met her any of these points aforesaid for direct a number of times in a social way. She publication. He amused himself by talk- asked after Madame Wu, etc. Finally Wu ing freely to me, because he knew that pointed to me with a puzzled look, and anything he said in a personal conversa- said: tion would not be " played up” in such a " Are you married ?" manner as to place him in a light in which We denied it. no minister cares to be placed. The “Umph! Engaged?” "jollies” he did not mind. And fre- Breathless denials. quently I would print a serious interview Thought on Wu's part. Evidently here in which he would give his side of the was some phase of American life rather Chinese question. I think there was a new to him. How was it that this Mar- tacit understanding to the effect that if I quis, whom he knew as an ordinary scrub would occasionally quote him seriously and of a reporter, should be walking about respectfully I had carte blanche, the rest of with this young woman whom he had met the time, to make as much humorous at various hifalutin functions? It puzzled copy out of his personal eccentricities as I him. chose. He did not really care about that “What's the reason you don't get after he saw that the first two interviews married then?” he asked us. did not kill him. There is nothing like which was rather embarrassing, as I catching a man unspoiled and training hadn't known the young lady very long. him how to be interviewed. He got on his wheel and rode off a little Wu speaks English very well, and is a way. Suddenly he turned round and rode confirmed punster. Once I ran across him back. in the Corcoran Art gallery, where I had "Say, you people," he said, “there's been sent to write something about an a nice dark place to sit down over there exhibition of portraits by Hubert Vos, a on the bridge." noted Dutch painter of racial types. Vos He was never satisfied until he had had portraits of Chinese mandarins, pried to the bottom of a situation. He was Siamese notables, Japanese and Javanese in America to pry out the meaning of gentlemen-a whole show of faces gathered situations. And generally the things which from the ends of the earth. The painter seemed merely impertinent enough when was there himself, showing the Chinese he said them, after reflection on your part, minister about the hemicycle-an ani- assumed more significance than that. Politie Het Pat and the Meadow Lark 1 By Fred Emerson Brooks L ELLO! and you're the meadow lark 11 That sings to me most every day And stops me work and bids me hark Wid ears and eyes both turned your way. RUTHERFORD BOYD 1906 Ye're not so handsome, by the by, As one would think to hear ye sing. Yer freckled breast has made ye shy And modesty has clipped yer wing. I long to tell ye what a thrill Yer mellow notes bring to my ear. If I could sing wid half yer skill I'd not stay long a plowin' here. LC By witchery yer throttle seems To pour its rapture in the air Which sleep inhales in mid-day dreams To paint the milk maid's cheek more fair, I've heard ye singin' all day long Till I have thought ye chant so well, Those honeyed notes dropped in yer song Have turned to wild flowers where they fell. کر لیا۔ w DES I've heard ye sing when none seemed nigh To listen, till I've thought perchance The meadow fairies standin' by Have coaxed a carol for their dance. I Could I but make ye understand How dear ye are, ye precious thing, Ye'd come and perch upon the hand That heeds not labor while ye sing. In golden, sunshine-flooded June, Beneath the shade where zephyrs play, Barefooted I, from care immune, First learned to love thy roundelay. If this great farm were yours and mine No bird should be molested here, All timid creatures welcome dine, And find a refuge from their fear. The shriveled heart and sordid mind That would destroy a bird that sings, Of every joy would rob mankind, And pluck the angels of their wings. ROTHERFORD BOYD 1906 MOWARD. SILES “Home, home !" ... Yale scores once more In the Winning of the Game By Edward Balmer ILLUSTRATED BY HOWARD GILES X ANNING!” Confidently it one base from another; it comes to the most comes. “Banning!” Proud, staid professors in their special reserved seats ly now; and now as the cheer and to the little Cambridge muckers on the sweeps its volume into the roof of the locker building far away; it comes mighty challenge of the thou- with the hot glow of recollection to the seniors sands, “ Banning!” about to leave and with the burning eagerness As though the explosion in the Harvard of anticipation to the little subfreshman about stands detonates latent mines, from the oppo- to enter; to all the cheering undergraduates site side of the field the quicker, sharper Yale it comes; and to the alumni—the “grads” cheers crash back, and now—so suddenly from Billy and Roger, back for their first that the heavy-breathing sigh of suspense reunion, to the gray-haired men who marched seems the element of silence-a strange hush, out of Harvard Yard over forty years ago stilling and oppressive, settles over the crowd- when Lincoln called for volunteers-to all of ed stands. The first blue-stockinged player them it comes, like a breath from the fountain steps nearer the square rubber plate; behind of youth, and makes them as boys at college him the crimson-clad catcher crouches quick- once more. ly; but as he signals with his hand, a nervous So the sum of all that makes the class day laugh from the bleachers on both sides and game-and makes its dangerand excitement, the soft clatter of hand-clapping in the open too. For sometimes the realization of his air brings him erect again. great charge and responsibility comes to a The umpire tears away the tinfoil and new player, suddenly and sickeningly in the tosses out a clean white ball; the new short- midst of a play, and his coolness and skill is stop drops back a foot or two imperceptibly; forgotten. Then the panic spreads to the the freshman outfielder draws in eagerly and, others who have never before undergone the suddenly recollecting himself, runs back again strain of the class-day game, while the older to his position. “Play ball!” Banning, the players fight that panic doggedly, silently. Harvard captain and pitcher, throws his weight Like a hidden and smouldering fire, it can not from left foot to right, and as the right hurls be fairly uncovered and fought openly, lest it the body ahead, his arm flashes forward still burst forth more violently and sweep the more quickly. “Strike!” The game is on. whole team before it; so they fight the more It is more than baseball that the twenty desperately to “brace" the team before it is thousand, packed into that blunt wedge about too late. For all the time the opposing team the diamond, have come to see; and the is piling up runs. teams are met for more than a game. They Knowing this the great crowds gaze down have a hundred traditions to uphold, a thou with the thrill of great hope and fear; for Yale sand promises to fulfill; and over them all has a veteran team-beaten last year, to be breathes the glory of the ancient rivalry and sure, but still a veteran team. But Harvard the pride of supremacy for Harvard or Yale. has six new men where the old “stalwarts" of It comes to the fathers and mothers, with the last year stood; and two of these new men are sisters and little brothers who are down for freshmen, substituted at the last moment the first class-day and commencement; it when the regulars were hurt. There are be- comes to the girls from home, from Wellesley sides Gardiner in centre, Boughton in right. or Smith or Vassar, though they know not field, and Banning, the captain and pitcher. 81 82 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE That is Boughton at bat now, for Donnell, mistrust them now? No; it cannot be mis- the first man up for Harvard, is out. The trust; it is only a little nervousness which rightfielder hits and gains his base. Banning makes the men all about you jump up sud- bunts and though he is thrown out at first his denly and then throw themselves back in their sacrifice has advanced Boughton to second seats where they reassure themselves in un- base. Two are out and a hit can score a run, conscious whispers. Perhaps, too, it is only as Boughton is leading far from his base: a little natural anxiety which brings the Har- but Gardiner's long, hard drive is caught vard coach to his feet and keeps him staring, brilliantly by Flanders, the Yale captain, in motionless and rigid, till he recollects himself centrefield and Boughton cannot score. The and drops back upon the bench. There can't inning is over. be anything the matter, and yet-and yet And now like the first, inning after inning there is a change. passes without score. Twice Yale gets a man But Banning-good old Banning who does to third base with but one out; but twice the not, who can not fail-he has the ball again. Harvard infielders, playing in close, cut off He seems intent upon studying the fresh bat- the runners at the plate. Once, with but one ter who faces him, and Flanders leads further out, Harvard filled the bases; but Yale, play- away from second base. The Yale runner is ing coolly and quickly, retired the side with a creeping almost imperceptibly further and lightning double-play. Another inning is further away toward third when the Harvard gone, and another, and still no score. Are catcher snaps his hand to one side; and at the those “green,” almost untried infielders of signal, Banning turns. With the flash and Harvard to prove equal to the veterans of accuracy of instinct and practice, he has Yale? Can they keep up that steady, sure thrown the ball almost before facing about; support of their captain? For if they can, and now he smiles with relief, for he sees that Banning the unbeaten-dear old Banning, he has caught the Yale runner far off the base who for three years has never failed to win in and that Norton and Kenton are ready to baseball the supremacy Harvard lost on river receive his throw. The put-out is sure, sure, and gridiron-Banning can surely win again. when—the leather crashes through Kenton's But wait. nervous fingers. Norton, clutching frantic- The best batters of Yale, leading the bat- ally, only strikes the ball to deflect it and send ting list, are up. It is the seventh inning- it flying off between left and centre fields. the “lucky seventh.” As the surface of the The sure put-out is an error; and the Yale Yale stands rises suddenly and sways in players stand now on third and second rhythm with the blue flags breaking out bases. higher above it, at first you seem to see rather Again Banning, in the pitcher's box takes than hear that the “Elis” are singing. Then the ball and faces the batter. He can hear the “Boola” comes, quickening, enlivening, the movements about him as the infielders inspiring; Harvard replies with the “On, on draw closer and the diamond begins filling to Victory,” of its Marseillais; and now as up. In their new positions less than forty feet the deeper Harvard cheers end, the sharp, to each side, Banning knows that the first and crackling “Brek-ek-ek-ek, C'ax, c'ax” breaks third basemen are set, like springs, to jump out in quicker accent as Yale cheers its play- at the crack of the bat. Nearer on each side ers going to bat. and a little behind, he knows that his second The crack of the bat hitting the ball; a basemen and short-stop are playing well up to roar; another cheer from Yale as Perry steps get an infield hit in time to shut off Flanders to the plate; another crack as the wood again when he runs in from third base. Always strikes the leather; another roar-and look! before-even in the otherinnings of this same Two Yale men are on the bases; Flanders, game—when his men closed in about him, who gained first, when Norton, the Harvard Banning had felt instinctively their strength short-stop, fumbled his grounder, is on second and support, but nothing like that comes to base now; and Perry, on the error by Kenton him now. Only from the outfield, from far which advanced Flanders from first to second, out where Gardiner and Boughton stand use- is now safe on the first bag. You have seen less and unable to help him in that crisis, Yale runners on the bases before in the game; comes the stay and comfort of a prop in the and you have seen them put out by the steady, struggle. Yet Banning, too, realizes that accurate work of those same Harvard in- before those oldest team-mates can help him, fielders who are still before you. Why do you Yale will have scored. But stop! Is he, IN THE WINNING OF THE GAME 83 Banning, the captain of the team, looking to note the direction of the ball, but are run- for aid? Is he waiting for help? Is he afraid ning desperately back. Already the ball flies to fight it out alone? Afraid? over and past them. As Banning is nearing "Strike!” He remembered, from the year second base it is dropping to the ground; as before, that Larson never could hit those high he turns second they pick the ball up. They incurves just clipping the side of the plate are relaying it in now as Banning turns third and up between the elbow and shoulder, and tears on; but the ball, on the long throw “Strike!” Yes; that certainly was Larson's to the plate, comes faster still. Boughton, in weak spot, and the ball had found it again. the coaching box, jumps and waves his arms “Ball." Banning didn't really think that frantically. “Hold third!” And as the Yale Larson would be fooled by that. It was catcher, after receiving the ball, snaps it to thrown quite perceptibly too far to one side. third base, Banning dives back and is safe on “Ball.” That was closer, but Larson guessed the bag. correctly that it would curve away from the Gardiner is up and hits for a base, scoring plate." Strike! Three strikes! Out!” Right Banning, and he himself going to second base in the weak spot again. But why are they as the Yale left fielder has thrown to the plate cheering that? It was merely his duty. He in the vain hope of cutting off the run. had to do it. What is he captain for? Any- Hunter, the Harvard left fielder, is up and on way, it is only a beginning. Gladding is up. a lucky “double” to right scores Gardiner “Strike!” Just a straight one, right over and puts himself on second base. And now, the centre of the plate, but all Banning's as he leads off, he can score on a long “sin- strength and “steam" was behind it. gle.” “Crack!” A single! A single! Wash- “Strike!” A high “drop" which just glanced burne has responded nobly and knocked the on the edge of the bat, but Washburne, the ball just over the head of the second baseman. catcher, held it. “Strike—three! Striker Hunter, having a good start, is going to try to out!” Gladding hurls his bat angrily upon score, and the play will be very close. He the ground as he goes back to the bench, but slides, he slides, and the throw to the plate is he might have known that last one was going just a bit off. It's terribly close, but Hunter to be a strike. Banning has no time or is safe. Harvard three; Yale, nothing. strength to waste on pitching extra balls. Washburne could get no further than first Gladding was not much of a batter, anyway. base; but now, Adams, on a pretty bunt, is Two are out and the infielders are dropping thrown out at first base, as his sacrifice back to their old positions. They can play to advances Washburne to second. It is the throw the batter out at first base and need chance now for another double or even for not worry about Flanders at third. But the another good single to score Washburne and fury of the struggle is upon Banning. An- clinch the game with four runs before the other batter faces him. Yale pitcher recovers his control. Who is up? “Strike!” “Foul!”—the second ball Kenton ? pitched. It goes up and up. Now it is falling. It is his chance now to “make good” and and Washburne is under it. It's easy for him; retrieve his errors of last inning—but that is he can't miss it with that big glove. “Out!” the danger. Banning throws his arm over the Yet the first relief which comes in the realiza- freshman's shoulder as he rises from the tion that Yale is retired without a score, gives bench. “Meet the ball, Ken. Meet it fair way at once to the former wilder passion. and hard, but don't slash at it. Just meet it, That last easy put-out on the foul robbed old man. Don't try for a home run; don't Banning; he feels robbed as a wild beast is try to ‘kill' it. All we want is a good single. robbed, which, when the lust of killing is Remember, now. Firmly, Ken. Firm.” aroused, finds his prey, but finds it already “Foul!” For a moment Kenton remem- slain. The hot desire to combat, to overcome, bers and the ball flies just outside the third is still unsatisfied. He is glad that it is his base line. A few feet further in and it would turn at bat. have been a fair hit. “Strike!” He started “Crash!” It is not the ordinary sharp then on a steady even swing, but at the last sound of the bat hitting the ball, but the instant his eagerness overcame him and he deeper, longer reverberation as the wood slashed at the end of the stroke. Of course meets the leather and holds it for the full he missed. “Strike!” Slashing at it openly duration of the powerful, swinging stroke. now, striking blindly and madly; and now At the sound, the Yale outfields scarcely wait as the Yale pitcher throws quickly to follow 84 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE up his advantage, “Strike!” Kenton is out. but as he stoops the spinning becomes a roll- And Norton-Norton more eager, more ing motion and it swerves to one side. War- anxious after Kenton's failure-he, too, den shifts quickly, but brushes the ball with strikes himself out, and Harvard is retired his foot, and though now he has it ready to for the inning. throw, Flanders is safe on first base. “A hit! To those cheering crowds in the crimson A hit!” stands, exultant over the three earned runs, Perry is up. Again the right hand stealing that failure of Kenton's and Norton's means away from the handle of the bat which the but the loss of another chance to score. But left holds loosely. Again that dull, deadening Banning, as he sees his men only more crunch of the stick, not batting, but merely anxious and over-eager after the inning at stopping the ball. Again the sphere rolls bat, knows the rest that it means—and the slowly toward third base. Like a flash Perry former fury of his play is gone. It was wast- is off toward first, but quicker-even before ing his strength too much. He plays coolly the ball was hit-Banning runs forward. Yet now, carefully adapting his play to the as he sees the ball rolling to one side, he falls peculiarities of the batters facing him in turn. back to avoid blocking Warden. Warden has One by one they go down before him; three the ball already while Perry is still far from times he strikes them out and yet no batted first base; but Flanders, having had a long ball has tested that wavering support or lead, is almost upon second. There can be no found the weakness in the players about him. hope of cutting off Flanders now, but Perry Yet he hears without pride or triumph the can easily be put out-yet, look! Warden is great cheer as the third batter strikes out. It throwing to second-to second when Flanders is only the eighth inning. The ninth is to is already there. He's safe; both runners are come. Harvard, in its turn at bat, cannot safe; Perry is on first and Flanders on second. score again. It is the ninth-and again the No outs. head of Yale's batting list is up. Never mind the uproar of encouragement For those seconds as the captains grimly and exhortation from the Harvard side; never face each other for the last time, once more a mind the pandemonium in the Yale ranks. strange stillness is over the field; yet, unlike Larson is up. “Foul-strike!” Larson, at- that when the game began, it is not breathless tempting to bunt, fouls the ball and under the and oppressive. You can hear the even, rule a strike is scored against him. “Foul- rhythmical respiration of the crowds; and strike!” Another unsuccessful bunt, but the now, without signal or demonstration, the intent is certain. Will Yale do nothing but great masses begin to rise. There is a rustle, bunt? They can't hit—they can't drive the the swish of skirts and the subdued scraping ball out squarely. Only twice in all the in- of men's feet. The twenty thousand are nings before have they been able to do so; and standing and still no sound. That is grander, in those innings when a hit meant a run, Ban- more terrible than sound. ning had beaten them all and struck them out. “Strike!” The crowd? Is it seated or He, Banning, had fought them all alone; and standing? Is it silent or cheering? Banning how are they getting the advantage now? does not know. “Strike!” Is Flanders, the By hitting ? No; by merely stopping the ball captain of Yale, to fail to lead a ninth inning -any one can do that, but with any kind of an rally? Twice that steady swing, that cool infield it means a sure out-and by laying stroke of the bat brings nothing. And now down those weak bunts, those “sacrifice hits" the ball flies toward him the third time; but which advance one man only at the cost of swiftly as it flies, Flanders draws the handle another. Yet now they are not sacrifices, but of the bat nearer. A hand slips halfway hits-hits giving the runner his base; and down the stick. Not swinging the bat or even why? Through fault of Banning's ? holding it firm to meet the ball, but just stop. “U-un-und.” That bunt is easier still. ping the ball with the dull “u-un-und” of It is rolling, smoothly and gently, right into the leather against thestick loosely held, Flan- Kenton's hands. He couldn't get it better. ders bunts. The ball is rolling with a slow To second! Throw it to second and then to spinning motion just inside the third base first base; it's easily a double play. They line, but the Yale player, without stopping to can't fail now as they failed in the seventh- watch it, is off toward first base. He is half- Kenton and Norton. No; for Kenton is even way there when Warden, running up from now reaching for the ball as it almost stops third base, is upon the ball. He stoops for it; before him. Yet he juggles it; he juggles it IN THE WINNING OF THE GAME 85 nervously in his anxious hands. Perry, run- he had worked after that till, when Hamilton ning down from first base, is passing-passing was sick and Stanton hurt his arm and they Kenton as he clutches the ball firmly at last. were saving another pitcher for another game, As it is half-scooped, half tossed to the base they put in “Freshman Banning" against in that last instant, Norton shoots forward his Amherst. And then came the strange, hands to receive it. Perry hurls himself for- strengthening joy as he felt he held the game ward recklessly. He's on the base now; but from first inning to last, so that even the hasn't Norton the ball? What's the matter “Crimson” admitted that he had “made with him? What is he stooping for? Ah, the good," and the “Bulletin” (which goes to the ball—the ball. He has dropped it and it rolls graduates) even said that “Banning, of 'oo, in the dust at his feet. The bases are full and showed better control than any one else so none are out. far during the year, and as far as could be “Banning!" Reproachfully it sounds to judged from one game he seems the logical him. “Banning!” Beseechingly now; and now successor to Stanton, who graduates this as the voices of those thousands rise in the year.” Then the Pennsylvania game came; extreme demand upon him, “Banning!” and when Stanton, whose arm was not yet in Don't they see? Can't they understand ? good shape, had to leave the game, they put Don't they see that it is not he who fails and Banning in-and he won. He remembered that the infield, his support behind him, is then the first Yale game, when with all the gone to pieces ? Can't they understand that betting against him, the “freshman phenom- those bunts which are winning for Yale now enon” went in and won that, too. And then would be fatal to the blue if the Harvard he recalled the boy's vanity, the “swelled pitcher had any support at all? Can't they head” which he got just after that, but which comprehend that those desperate tactics of Dashell, the captain in his sophomore year, Yale-those bunts which depend only upon good old Dashell, knocked out of him and the nervous uselessness of the Harvard in field made him the Banning which the whole col- -show how hard he has pressed Yale? Do lege came to respect and love—and depend they reproach him now and demand more upon. For he never failed. than he has already done? Have they already He remembered how they used to speak forgotten those innings in this very game when of that in the big mass-meetings at the he fought them all alone and allowed no Union; how they used to calmly assume score? Have they forgotten the Princeton that, whatever the eleven or the track team game and the Pennsylvania game only a few or the crew might do, the nine would always days ago, the Yale game last year, the year win-and it did. Then after that game he before, and the year before that? Have they pitched against Yale in his junior year, he forgotten all that he has won for them that recollected how not only the college papers they reproach him now because his support but the Boston and New York dailies began is gone? It all flashes before him and he talking about him so much that two Na- burns hot with quick anger at the ingratitude tional League men came up to him and tried of those fickle thousands. vainly to lure him away. He remembered, As the experiences of a drowning man's life too, how, when his father's plant was burned whirl before his eyes in rapid panorama, the down soon after and he really was "hard events of his career come now to Banning up" and had to tutor for his support, the before the next batter faces him. He remem- professional players came back and tempted bers how, as a little freshman long ago, he him again-but he sent them away. Then, worked all fall pitching for the batting prac- though he tried to keep that secret, it tice of the "scrubs," till they took him on the leaked out somehow and even the pro- big reserve squad-only to work him all the fessors, who disliked "the disproportionate harder during those long winter months of attention paid modern sports," forgot them- work in the “cage.” He remembered the selves and came down to see him play- first joy as the spring came and he was put and kept on coming. And then, in his in during the last innings of a practice game senior year, he was made captain without a with Trinity; and how the “Crimson" the dissenting vote or even a smothered criti- next morning said: “Toward the end of the cism; and half the college was cheering game. vesterday, the new men were tried out, him outside during the election for they and Banning, a freshman, seemed not without knew how it would come out. And that promise.” He remembered how much harder brought him down to the present game. 86 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE He never knew, until that instant, how Are they still blind? Have they lost all very much that game meant to him. It was sense? Can he play for the whole team ? not merely the last game he should play for Can one man be nine? He has not asked Harvard—and that was hard enough to for extraordinary support or even for good think about—but it was the last big game support. He has taken the burden of the he should ever play, for he had decided, game upon himself and by preventing Yale quite firmly and bravely in the face of big from doing more than make those easy, offers, never to go into professional ball. It those ridiculously easy bunts, he has asked meant the end of a great deal—the end of his men only to pick up those gently rolling fairly and cleanly won pre-eminence in the balls and throw them to the base. Will sport which he had chosen. It was like they give him no support at all? Can they putting away a faculty or an instinctive do nothing? It is the panic, the awful con- sense; it was almost like losing a part of tagious panic of the class-day game, the himself. He had known, of course, that the panic which, like a plague, strikes strong end must come; but he had hoped that it men to make them weak and worse than would come as the climax and the logical useless. Can't something, can't somebody conclusion of all that had gone before. It brace the team? Can no one restore con- seemed only just that, having won under fidence? But wait. Whose duty is that? others for three years, he might cap it all Is it Gardiner's or Boughton's, straining at with a victory by his own team in the last thė leash of the uselessness out there in the game before he gave up baseball forever. field ? No; it is his, the captain's. And His father and mother, with his sister and again forgetting his anger against the others little subfreshman brother-yes, and the as he finds the fault in himself, he faces the Girl from Home—they and all the other new batter boldly. friends who had come down for commence- “U-un-und!” Another bunt rolls into ment were there for the first time to see the diamond and Kenton picks it up cleanly. him play. It was only just, only right that “Home, home!” For Perry, running in he should. But what is the matter? Has from third, is still far from the plate. Wash- he lost ? Is he losing ? burne stands ready for the throw. “Yale. Half-unconsciously he draws his belt Yale! Ya--" Again it becomes vast and tighter till the sweat-soaked garments stick inarticulate, for the throw goes wild and with damp firmness about him and he digs Yale scores once more. Yale, two; Har- his cleats deeper into the clay ground as he vard, three-in the ninth inning, while Yale studies the batter. It is like him that, still has the bases full and none are out. angered at the doubt in himself, he loses his “Banning!” Do they despise him now? resentment against the others. No, he will They had depended upon him, not upon the win; he must win; they can't throw the rest of the team, and the failure must be his game away—they can't-- after all. Yes; they are right. “Banning!” “U-un-und." A bunt; a bunt with all Wait. What is that thrill of inspiration the bases full. Has Yale lost all reason? which tingles in his veins ? “BANNING!” A bunt right in front of the home plate when A s if the sound had flayed him, the blood all Washburne has to do is to pick it up smarts and stings under his skin at the and touch the plate to put out Flanders strange inspiration. Will he be strong and running in from third. But look; look! brave enough before them all to take upon Warden, who was playing in close, darts himself the failure and the shame of the forward impulsively. “It's Washburne's team that the others—his team, but without ball. It's Washburne's; leave it to Wash- him-may win ? No; it is asking too much burne!” But Warden, wincing under his and it is only a chance anyway. It is only a errors of the moment before, does not stop chance which his self-established disgrace till he crashes into the catcher; and as they could bring about; and it is not his fault both go down together, Flanders dashes if the game is lost. He will stay and keep past. A roar, shattering and inarticulate; his position while Yale bunts into that for Yale-Yale has scored. broken Harvard infield, tieing the score and “Banning!” Like a rebuke it resolves then winning. Those crowds will under- from the tumult. “Banning!” Tauntingly stand when they recall and analyze the game now; and now as he hears the voices rise in upon cooler consideration, that it was the the frenzy of scorn, “BANNING!” rest who failed, not he. They will remember IN THE WINNING OF THE GAME 87 with a thrill that heroic picture of the cap- dued silence of uncertainty, but uncertainty tain playing all alone, without the slightest only for the instant. Already the crowds be- support from his men, and keeping Yale gin to understand. It flashes upon those old from scoring until the last inning. Yes; they players, jumping to their feet and staring will surely remember that tragically heroic down with incredulous admiration; it flashes figure playing steadily on, while his support upon the undergraduates beyond them; upon went to pieces behind him, and through no the subfreshmen further on, and even upon fault of his own, going down to his first de- the girls beyond, comprehension flashes. Not feat, doing all that he could to avert it. All spreading in a wave, but jumping from point that he could ? to point, stand after stand, like letters in a Another player faces him; but as Ban- monster electric sign when the current is ning flushes with new anger at his hesitation turned on, blaze forth in comprehension. So to do the harder thing, he does not turn to that from the most learned senior explaining the batter. Instead he steps slowly but in heavy terms how “Banning chose the resolutely from the box. psychological moment to stop the panic and, “Billings,” he calls to the bench where by taking the blame of their errors upon him- the substitutes sit; “Billings; come in.” self, restored the necessary confidence to his And then quite simply and without display team”-from him to the most happily igno- he turns to the men about him. “I've got to rant little girl, who knows only that the Har- go out, fellows. They're on to me. I'm no vard captain somewhere and somehow saved good any more; I can't do anything with the game, they all understand. them. Billings 'll take my place. Go in And now as Gardiner and Boughton, rush- and win!” ing in from the outfield, throw themselves In the midst of that puzzled silence which upon their classmate, alternately punching alone greets him as he leaves the game, he him and hugging him to themselves, suddenly hears, “Now, men, now! They've knocked the great crowd surges forward jealously. Banning out. But now we got 'em; we got Like one man the hundreds in the stand 'em; we got 'em now!” It is Boughton furthest to the right have risen. “Harvard!” calling from right field-dear old Boughton A thousand in the next stand are on their feet. who understands at once. He understands “Harvard!” And now the marshals and and has done all the rest that was needed. cheer-leaders all about the field catch the Look at that Harvard infield now. beat and wave their arms to mark the next “Crack!” It is a hard, vicious drive, quite “Harvard!” It has reached the sections unlike the easy bunt which Kenton fumbled where the members of the Athletic Associa- only a moment ago; but now he handles the tion sit and like a reverberation after that ball coolly. There is the comforting thud of thunder the sound travels on, bringing that the ball in the catcher's glove as Washburne mighty mass to its feet, section by section. gets the quick, accurate throw. Larson is out “Rah-rah-rah!” Unnoted as a metronome, at the plate. when the musician has caught the spirit of his “Crack!” Another drive, harder than the theme, they disregard those little waving one just before. Half way between third base arms trying to mark the time for them; for and second it flies, but Warden-Warden the they cheer now with only the rule and rhythm unsteady of the moment before-Warden of impulse and strong feeling. “Banning!” jumps instinctively. He catches it in the It is round to the Yale stands now. "Ban- fingers of his glove as he stabs his hand high ning!” It is Yale itself which makes that above his head, and like a flash he throws the sound mightier than all that have gone be- ball home. “Batter out and runner out at the fore. plate.” A double-play, accurate and perfect. Far away on the Charles River where Yale is out-out in the ninth inning, with 2 the crew is training, the echo comes; the runs to Harvard's 3. Harvard has won. eight hold their oars till it becomes intel- From one side comes the quick, regular ligible. “It's Banning," the coxswain says. crack of the Yale cheer, cheering the team in “It's Banning. He's won for us again.” defeat. From the other ? That first wild, And then because he did not know, he exultant cry of victory has died away, and in added: “They seem pretty glad about it, as its place once more a strange silence-yet if it was something unusual for him to win neither like the pall of suspense nor the still- a game. They might have known they ness of anxiety. It is the whispering, sub-. could depend upon him for it.” Worlds Between By Joseph Blethen WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARENCE UNDERWOOD SOCCESSO the men, that club of six Sound. Six girls, trying their wings against marriageable girls had in- the safe barriers of each other's common T y creased in interest as the sense, may soften the puzzles of daily bread summer days raced by; with the ready jest of youth; Mrs. Hunt- but to five of the six girls ington, knowing they meant no disrespect HVES who, from within the club for sacred things, suffered to stand by the itself, looked out upon a world of men the ginger jar, where Marion, the irrepressible, one engrossing question became: “Can had placed it, a card which bore an inscrip- a Desdemona be born under the stars and tion that was Marion's idea of an appro- stripes ?” priate grace for a Chautauqua club-house. For how could a club of six girls contain Each girl upon taking her place at the table a living, breathing, breathless puzzle of the was supposed to point to it and nod. heart without setting five of them into “Most August Mr. Mikado," the card ecstasies of expectation over the dream- had read. “You are most undoubtedly the light in the eyes of that sixth ? Mrs. Hunt- most bothersome brigand in our recollection. ington, the chaperone, caught the thread of But, a cook being necessary even in a Chau- the unworded story and took stock of her tauqua club house, we are honorably glad flock. It was not Sadie Norton, whose that you are an honorably passable cook. quiet happiness in her engagement to Wal- In our thoughtless moments we may yearn lace Elliott had won her the name of Say for a handsomer cook, a cook more easy in Nothing; it was not Marion, whose mis- his manner and less Japanesy in his archi- chievous coquetry outran them all; nor was tecture, but in our hearts we know your it either of the three little blondes, Nicky, honorably ugly face is best. Otherwise we Bricky and Gricky, whose calling cards might skip lectures and do unheard of bore the names of Nickerson, Brickerton things, oh, august Mr. Mikado. And we and Greig, who endlessly debated the ques- hope our presence here is honorably accept- tion of which of the three was the tallest, able, most August-and-September Mr. Mi- and openly showed a preference for tall kado, for we have each and every one of us men. It must then be Lorraine, who, at placed our honorably necessary twenty- twenty-five, had been in society three sea- cents in the ginger jar.” sons; Lorraine, with her gentle manners, Lorraine's rebellion, her fiery charge her tall, lithe form, her fair beauty, her upon this card, its destruction in her quiver- rumored escape from many deeply planned ing fingers, and her subsequent tearful conquests; Lorraine, with her deep sen- apology to Marion had been the first alarm- sitiveness, her power to choose among men, ing symptom. Then others appeared. but who, at this moment, was apparently T he men who called on these girls were unaware of threatening fate. the young men who did things; they called Six girls and their chaperone must have because the girls were charming and capable. their daily bread even if theirs is the daint- A girl who could be successfully officer of iest club house in a Chautauqua Camp; for the day in a summer club would not stumble daily bread there must be payment, even when love placed ber in a home of her own. though the Chautauqua Camp lies on an What wonder, then, that Lieutenant Hei- island nestling in a warm arm of Puget hachiro Yama, naval constructor in the WORLDS BETWEEN 89 service of the Emperor of Japan, in an Lorraine to her knees, the first girl of her American port to superintend the construc- flock to cry out in prayer at the call of That tion of a battleship commissioned from an Greatest of All. American firm for the Royal Japanese navy, “Fifteen minutes for experiences,” de- found his eyes drawn thereto? clared Marion, dropping before the open Among the men Lieutenant Yama moved fire. “Freshy, lower the lights.” in the freedom of a seaport democracy. The girls scurried to their favorite places, His mature face had won him the sobriquet Mrs. Huntington rocking in the back- of Pa Yama at their hands, only to be pushed ground, for she loved their very pranks. on by the merciless, quizzing Marion to be The freshman girls obeyed, and the club Pyjamas. The Lorraine Second Rebellion grouped about restless, eager, mischievous. had concerned this; and then the five girls “As this is man-night we will tell our had begun to think. experiences with that One evening each honorably bothersome week was open house thing called man. in this club. Dinner Fraulein Gricky will on these evenings was tell us the story of spiced with more than her first sweetheart." usual laughter in spite “Oh, girls, he was of Mr. Mikado's brig- the cutest little Dutch andish frowns. Then boy! He wore wood- there was a dance or en shoes; his name two, for it was well to was Heinrich; and set the blood going he had been eating when the cool of a sauerkraut. But he Puget Sound evening called me 'Liebchen? came creeping on. and we played post- Marion played a office all one after- two-step with tanta- lizing zest, only to stop “Order!” cried Ma- and declare: “Wish rion, endeavoring to man! Wish waltz suppress the laughter. with tall man.” Then han “Don't hurry over Sadie Norton, the En- interesting places. We gaged Girl, played a are studying one of dreamy waltz till each the great mysteries, girl glided to a corner. for while it comes in For a moment peace many disguises, it is held them breathless always recognizable. over their dancing ; The chair made the anticipation lighting mistake of calling on a their eyes. For on freshman who doesn't Lorraine these nights the puzzle know the difference was abroad. Lieutenant Pyjamas would between love and lonesomeness. The chair come in full uniform, to bow to each one will now turn to a real grown up. Who, with his conscientious precision, to ask Mrs. better than an engaged girl, could expound Huntington, turning his “th” into “s," if on the mystery of a man? Say Nothing, he found her to be in heals as usual," and you may say something." then to sit in a corner with Lorraine and The club wheeled on the complacent Miss tell those earnest, dreamy folk tales of the Norton, who counterfeited a sigh, laughed little people just across. over the eager faces about her, and then And Lorraine ? Was she beginning to held her engagement ring to the firelight. care? Just beginning, without yet facing “See that sparkle? Much like any other the fact that Othello may be Japanese, and diamond, of course, but the only light to the Propriety an Iago? That was the puzzle girl whose engagement ring it is.” of the club. That was Mrs. Huntington's Instantly the light of mischief went out, one worry. That, she feared, would bring and in the eyes of five girls there burned the noon!” 90 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE glow of That Greatest of All. Sadie Nor- their skirts, snapped on the lights, and ton, seeing it, drew them all to her big heart: turned from romping to dignity. “A poet says an engagement solitaire is a “I am going after Lorraine," said Sadie. bit of the Great Throne, bringing a flashM r. Mikado, being the only servant the from the eyes of God; science says it is house afforded, admitted the guests. Lieu- indestructible, unmatched, yet made out tenant Yama was granted a deep bending. of the commonest substances of our beings. Poor Lieutenant Yama, on the occasion of Suppose I say that a betrothal stone is the his first visit to this club house, had con- record of a new true love?—The first quered once and for all. Entering, he had acknowledgment, and therefore never to been met by a most insolent stare from Mr. be matched.-Indestructible, because it Mikado. Like a flash Yama's shoulders has become a seal on the girl's heart; a and head had gone up and back, and Mr. seal because nevermore is her heart entirely Mikado had been transfixed with a stare so her own.” commanding in its intentness that slowly Mrs. Huntington brushed a tear away, his palms turned outward and he bent far and a skirt rustled as Lorraine went slowly forward. The girls had watched the scene to her feet. . The girls, looking at her, un- with delight. Had Yama done nothing consciously clothed her with the sweet more he would have prospered with them romance of the words just spoken. Tall, as the only human being they knew who fair, rounded; she made as if to speak. could bend Mr. Mikado. Then she turned away; then turned back Yama's eyes searched the room for Lor- to utter almost a cry: “But suppose it raine. There was an unmistakable look comes upon her before she is aware? Sup- of disappointment in them. He turned to pose it be unwelcome! Then, even against Mrs. Huntington: “Miss Langdon—er- her will, it is more than a seal; it is a scar.” she is in heals as usual ?” Then in the silence Lorraine crossed the “Entirely so, Lieutenant. You may see room and went out of doors. The girls, for yourself,” replied Mrs. Huntington, in- laughing, but a moment since, now gasped dicating the door where Lorraine and Sadie at the revelation. were entering. "Is it possible ?” whispered the betrothed Every girl in the room saw the light of girl in surprise, her ring hand hidden ner- love flash in Lieutenant Yama's eyes; every vously in her dress. girl thought of the flash of Sadie's betrothal “The Lieutenant,” whispered another, ring in the firelight; every girl thought of her eyes big with wonder. Lorraine's cry of “pity, pity.” Was it, “Pyjamas!” exclaimed Marion. “Oh, indeed, too late ? I'm ashamed of my jesting. I didn't mean O ut there on the beach, where the same to pull down the house. It's just as though Pacific that girdled Lieutenant Yama's a girl couldn't laugh without discovering a island home was gently stirring, whispering, cry beneath it. What has Lorraine been whispering, with a thousand tongues on thinking about to get interested in a colored the sand at her feet, Lorraine had faced a man!” sudden struggle with her pride. Why had “Oh, Marion! Don't be disrespectful. Sadie Norton's words not only swept her off A well-born Japanese! He is as worthy as her feet, but betrayed her into voicing a a full blood Spaniard, or Italian, or an suddenly revealed truth? Could it be that American Indian." she, Lorraine Langdon, had become more “Well, there are none of them white than properly interested in a Japanese? men,” retorted Marion. Her pride said no. She had been amused “A Japanese gentleman may be every- during the past few weeks. There had thing that's lovely,” said Sadie. “But that been summer dreams; that was all. She is not the point. Lorraine is the grandest must arouse herself and be careful, or the type of American girl. There is no call for girls, and perhaps Lieutenant Yama, might such a sacrifice. The American man is misunderstand. Thus her greeting of him ready, and we must save Lorraine for him.” was much more formal than usual, and again Off on the distant bay a launch screamed. each girl understood. But the engaged “There are the gentlemen, Yama and all,” girl was beyond mere thinking, she acted. said Mrs. Huntington. The girls arose “Lieutenant Yama, I have not shown you from their places on the floor, shook out my engagement ring. Come, I want you WORLDS BETWEEN 91 rect?" to tell me how lovers become engaged in glasses, stiff black hair, sturdy figure and Japan." long coat he was the picture of dignity. "Ha, ha, Miss Norton," said the Lieu- “I have humbly important message for tenant, unconsciously uttering that soft the Lieutenant,” said he. “I learned ssat monosyllable of his native tongue which he had come here and I followed hastily. sounds like a dainty, throaty laugh, but Excuse my bossersome intrusion. It is- which really means yes. “I will tell Japa- er-honorably necessary.” nese custom. A cup of tea. Er-a writing Then the club and the club's guests saw -er-a betrossal scroll. I have been study- these two representatives of a wonderful ing-er- the most excellent American way. people bow and bow again as they con- It is-er-honorably much different. When versed in that soft, pattering echo from the American lover makes-er-humbly inter- Orient. When the lieutenant turned to esting declaration he must-er-honorably address his friends in English it was with kiss his sweetheart. Am I unworthily cor- shining eye and proud bearing: “My most august fasser, the Admiral “Yes,” said Sadie in despair, and for ten Yama, is to arrive shortly with squadron- minutes each girl talked like a magpie. er- Japanese navy, you know, for launching But no chattering could turn Yama's eyes of my ship. My friend, the honorable Vice- from Lorraine. Sadie kept him as best she Consul, graciously informs me. The Ad- could till her fiancé came. Then Lieu- miral, my honorably very great fasser, will tenant Yama bowed and slipped away to give reception on board. I shall be most Lorraine. unworthily indebted if all of you-er-will The beautiful girl was fully determined most unjustly come.” to be distant, but his appeal to “have con- What a flutter of hearts as tea was served versation to semselves” was irresistible. in honor of the Vice-Consul! What a light And as he talked she seemed to hear the of pride in the glances Lorraine sent rioting flutter of fans, to see dainty women in among her sisters; Sadie, safe against the kimonas dwelling in paper houses in a land shoulder of her fiancé, shuddered: “Oh, of daintily colored tissues, and to feel that Wallace, it is dreadful. Look at Lorraine's this sturdy little mystery-man was treading eyes. What chance has one girl for self lightly where an American foot would have protection against a whole fleet?” awakened startling echoes. Next day the coming visit of the Admiral “To-morrow is Sunday,” said Lieutenant was the topic of conversation in the Chau- Yama. “I will come humbly in my canoe. tauqua camp, and the club house, where a There will be many canoes in the islands. Japanese lieutenant came to call upon a I would unworthily press you to be in my sweet American girl, became the center of undeserving canoe." interest. As the busy weeks rushed by, One more glorious, lazy, dreamy after- Lieutenant Yama came again and again. noon on the Sound with Yama! She would But Lorraine was careful, sharing him more go and enjoy it to the last minute; listen and more with the club as a whole, till one to his voice, the dreamy stories of his far night the girls declared open house in honor away home among the cherry blossoms. of the Lieutenant and the Vice-Consul. Then, when the sun had dipped behind the The Vice-Consul told the club of the plans. Olympics and the last canoe had come out The visiting fleet would lie off this very of the islands, she would say good bye to camp. There would be diplomatic visits Yama and her dreams. between officers of the visiting fleet and While Yama was waiting breathlessly officers of the North Pacific squadron of for her answer the door bell sounded. the United States Navy which was lying in Mr. Mikado, on answering the ring, was the bay to receive the visitors; there would seen to bow low. Soft Japanese words be endless firing of salutes; Old Glory and were heard, and then Lieutenant Yama the Japanese colors would be everywhere sprang to his feet. entwined; then the launching; then an “It is the honorable Japanese Vice-Con- exchange of visits between the Admiral and sul,” said he. “He is graciously asking for his son; then departure of the visiting fleet, my unworthy self.” accompanied to sea by the American cruisers. Mrs. Huntington hastened to make the The girls had talked it over by their fire; Vice-Consul welcome. With his gold-bowed now Lorraine voiced their hopes. 92 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE “If Lieutenant Yama would accept the her. All night she tossed with that glint use of our club house for his reception to haunting her; all night she was at the very Admiral Yama we would be honored.” edge of prayer, fearing lest That Greatest Lieutenant Yama, trembling in the stress of All had come into her heart. of his emotion, endeavored to thank the Through the whole glorious Sabbath fair American girl. The Vice-Consul beam- hour the canoe drifted on the calm bay. ed through his gold-brimmed glasses, con- Lieutenant Yama was boyish in his suit of gratulated Lieutenant Yama and thanked white; the American girl was dainty in a everybody. Only the engaged girl felt ill summer frock. The Oriental warrior spoke at ease in the wave of happiness. In her his love fiercely; the American girl's lips mind flashed a vision of the Japanese flag trembled under her graceful, shielding as it would float from the club house roof fingers. He, crouching in the stern, holding beside Old Glory; the Japanese flag would the idle paddle over the edge of the canoe, be Yama and the stars and stripes would leaned ever so slightly toward her; she, sunk be Lorraine. “We are deliberately push- in deep cushions facing him, shrank ever ing her into his arms,” said she to her fiancé. so little from his burning eyes. A quick . “My fasser, may he not witness our betrossal ?” “He's a splendid fellow,” said Wallace, move by either would have capsized the looking at the sturdy little man who could frail craft. An unguarded word from her build a monster battleship. would have. shattered this man's heart. “Oh, Wallace! Don't think it! He's of She sought to balance her thoughts against another race.” the flood of words as delicately as he bal- | Again that night Lieutenant Yama begged anced the canoe. Lorraine to accept a place in his canoe for “I am bossered by much most excellent the following Sunday. Just for an hour American manners,” said he. “I would with her alone that he might thank her, humbly marry you. My fasser, Admiral where none could hear; where he could to the august Emperor, comes; may he control his rushing tumultuous gratitude, not witness our betrossal?” and where she would understand words The American girl dared not meet his meant only for herself. Lorraine yielded eyes. A very real man had suddenly. by ever so slight a droop of her pretty head, sprung out of the nameless unreality of an yet caught that in his eye which alarmed Oriental charm. The thorn in the rose that WORLDS BETWEEN 93 been helpletu sure so greamerican girl leaned had been so charming now sank deep into "No, my dears. Lorraine is not for her being. In every way he seemed clean, him. Her woman's heart has told her so. and good, and worthy; but deeper thoughts But we must help. Watch and wait. He held the girl silent. Womanhood weighed will come again. Then we must help, for this possibility in the balance, and was awed. there is yet much danger.” This was not her destiny; this was come Five girls tip-toed about in silence, their upon her without her choosing. She had hearts in that locked room up stairs where been helpless; now there would be a scar. at last youth knelt by her white bed, brought “Are you sure so great an Admiral would to prayer by that insistent Greatest of All. be pleased with an American girl ?" she Next day the Japanese fleet of three heard herself ay. Then, as he leaned cruisers crept very slowly around the island toward her with an eager affirmative lighting and came to anchor off the very camp. his face, she made a gesture of entreaty. Then there was booming of cannon as “Please, my dear f iend," said she. “Can American ships welcomed Japanese, and you not see that even an American girl's the fleets of two nations saluted Emperor heart is like a dainty paper house of your and President. Lorraine, standing on the people? All the sacred things within are edge of a bluff where she could see, felt each shielded less by a flimsy thickness of tissue cannon shot pierce her heart, felt each glint wall than by the honor of those who guard of brass from those stately ships shame her, it. My heart is a paper house. Do not felt each waving flag to mean her conquest, crush it. Give me time to set the thoughts felt that she alone must be the cost of all in the paper house to rights. The visitor, this display of power. Sadie, seeing her so, believe me, was not expected.” went to her and pressed her hand. “But my excellent fasser comes to-mor- “Lorraine, sweetheart? You do not row," persisted the eager Othello. “May I mean to do this?” . most unworthily come to-night to ask?” “No, no. I was blind.” Lorraine hid her bowed head in her hands “Desdemona did well to die; had she and was silent. She could not deny this; lived her eyes would soon have conquered if there must be a crushing of paper houses her heart. You have eyes, Lorraine dear.” then a few hours was as good as a few weeks. “Yes, yes. But why did she have to be But above all things he must spare her at Desdemona ?” this moment. The white, tapering, royal “Perhaps to make American girls think hands were eloquent in their gesture of that strong American arms are best to helplessness. Lieutenant Yama drank her treasure a dainty creature like this. Look words and was silent; swept her with eager at that Japanese fleet; monster black things eyes and was silent; surrendered her at the of power; wonderful; representing a great end of his promised hour and was silent. people. But look at that other fleet; white What must a man do to win a fair American ships that bear white men-our men, sweet- girl with such beauty as dazzled? He must heart! Are we not safer with them?”. think, think! And when he could think “Oh, I'll never marry. Never, never! it he would go again. But not that night, It's too awful!” nor the next, nor the next did he go, for “May we help you, sweetheart ?” those delicate hands before a fair girl's face “Oh, if you only could!” had cut him; had wounded Lieutenant Through that day a new light burned in Yama, of the Royal Japanese Navy, who Sadie's eyes. She sang softly as she worked, had spoken an honorable love. directing the decoration of the club house. Lorraine crossed the lawns to the club At her bidding Lorraine moved here and house. With no word for anyone she went there adding the very touches that would to her room. Shoulders, on which the be the most welcome to Lieutenant Yama, pride of maidenhood was wont to sit, putting into each act a thought of love that drooped as she walked; lips, on which the could not be, a hope for a sparing of pain smile of rose-gathering was wont to draw that must be borne. a cupid's bow, drew tight to hide a tremble. Then came the day of the launching, and Five pairs of girlish eyes read the truth. after the roar of sound had heralded the Five girls came with questioning looks to event, Lieutenant Yama came with a launch Mrs. Huntington. and carried the six girls and Mrs. Hunting- “Is it too late?” ton to the flagship of the Japanese fleet, 94 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE where the Admiral received them. Admiral him; all the honor of his position in that Yama's English was good, his appreciation naval establishment shone in the poise of keen. His pride in his son bubbled over that well carried uniform. Suddenly he into outspoken joy. He sent to his cabin sprang forward, leaped to the balustrade, for photographs of his wife, his home and his and brought his hand to his cap. On ship- children. The Lieutenant, as a baby boy board there was a roar of deep huzzas; romping with other babies, was exhibited. the Admiral on the bridge of the Mikado's But if this picture of Japanese babyhood ship stood with hand to cap saluting his son. was pretty even in Lorraine's eyes, yet did Sadie, true to her trust, had not allowed those eyes read therein a meaning for Lor- Lorraine a moment's danger from Lieuten- raine alone. ant Yama. Now, in sudden delight of the An hour later the Admiral and his staff Admiral's salute, she looked toward this returned the visit, going to the club house girl of rare beauty, only to feel her own heart with all the ceremony of naval etiquette. wrench, her own throat close tight, her own The dainty decorations implying subtle eyes go wide; Lorraine, looking with all compliments to a visitor, the light that her eyes upon this sturdy man of a sturdy flamed in the son's eyes when the fair Ameri- race, was paying him in the moment of his can girl was near, the very blond beauty honor the tribute of maiden love. Had he of the charming girl herself, struck deep into but turned his eyes to her in that moment, the old Admiral's understanding. Shyly, both the Lieutenant and Lorraine had when he could do it best, he spoke to his been swept beyond all recall. Sadie, creep- son in soft, low voiced Japanese: ing toward the girl, took her hand and gently “My son, you are honorably very success- drew her from the very edge of things. ful in serving the august Emperor.” Color flashed back to color; cheer an- - "I humbly bow, my gracious sire.” swered cheer; guns roared; whistles of an “You will win promotion.” hundred hurrying, color-dressed merchant “I am honorably at a loss for a fitting craft screamed farewell; but gradually the answer, oh, my best friend.” fleets drew away, and the watching ones “Your thought, your life, your blood turned within doors. should always be for the august Emperor.” “You are to stay to tea," said Mrs. Hunt- “I am only worthy humbly to try." “Think, then, how it would seem to wed His thanks were genuine. There was a one of these. Beautiful as the fairest of duty to perform, and after tea would be a flowers, the fairest one here is not of our good time for it. blood. There are great maidens in Japan; Five girls chatted against time; Mrs. high, fair, beloved of the Emperor. Think Huntington directed here and there, closing oh, my son, of the august Emperor's smile doors and windows, against the on-coming -and be careful.” cool of evening, and fitting the great living- “I bow, my honorably crushing sire.” room chairs and cushions that all might Not once again that hour did Lieutenant gather before the fire in unspoken protection Yama raise his eyes to the face they hun- of one girl. Lieutenant Yama tasted his gered to see. The Admiral returned to his tea and sat holding the cup idly. Though ship, flags snapped from the signal yards, Lorraine sat near, her own half-closed eyes smoke poured from the great funnels, men dreaming, the Lieutenant saw her not. In swarmed to quarters, guns boomed, and this hour of professional triumph, his heart then, slowly, majestically, the home squad- held one thought. “Think, oh my son, of the ron moved out by the island to take its way august Emperor's smile and be careful." to the Straits that led to the sea, followed Gradually the Lieutenant's drooping slowly by the visiting ships. shoulders straightened; light glowed again Lieutenant Yama, standing with a throng in eyes that had blurred; firmly held lips on the great veranda of the club house, with spoke thoughtful words of gratitude. the flags of two nations snapping above “Miss Norton-er-might I honorably him, watched these visitors with stirring bosser-er-to see engagement ring again?” thoughts. Come from his native land to Sadie Norton caught her breath in a little honor a ship under his hand, they were now gasp. On her, then, was to fall the critical slipping away to return into that mysterious moment. She rose, marshalled her four Orient. All the pride of his race flamed in patriots with her eyes, saw them rise and NES ad PES TV Drean by Clarence Underwood “Is it too late ?" 96 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE lead Lorraine and Mrs. Huntington away, this most unworthy love break her heart?" found herself alone with Lieutenant Yama, For a moment Sadie hesitated. For a and braced herself. In that rushing, eddy- moment Othello seemed worthy even of ing moment she tried in vain to recall the Lorraine. But only for a moment. Ah, wording of Wallace's dear love-pledge to poor Desdemona! Your love was a flash herself; all that her mind could picture was of That Greatest of All, yet it could not the tall, fair, innocent Lorraine looking her stand against misunderstanding. Sadie love at this sturdy, dark-skinned man out thought of the bristling old Admiral of an unknown and alien ancestry. and of the photographs from his cabin. “An engagement ring-Lieutenant Yama Her own womanhood rallied. -is the most distinctive badge of American “Better break her heart, my very dear womanhood," said she, in an attempt at friend, and leave her in peace than poison self-control. At first her tone was low and her heart with a passion that it could not hesitating. Then she got herself, and full nourish.” and eagerly her words rushed forth with the Lieutenant Yama was silent till again he zest of an inspiration: voiced a thought: “Excellent American “An engagement ring stands for love, girls have married honorably unworthy Lieutenant Yama, because the American Japanese." girl may freely give her heart to the man “Lieutenant, would your Emperor, seek who wins her. It stands for security, be- an American for husband of his own daugh- cause the American girl knows men, and, ter, a royal Princess ?”. if she loves unwisely, goes unwedded rather Lieutenant Yama, of the Royal Japanese than wear this pledge unwisely. It stands Navy, came to his feet at the mention. His for equality, because the American man, eyes snapped. He bowed, as he said: “I when he places this badge of love on a girl's think-impossible.” hand, is proud to let the world see the girl With eyes looking calmly into eyes the whom he holds to be his equal. See my daughter of the Republic answered the ring, Lieutenant. Is it not beautiful? It son of the Empire: “My friend, Lorraine means that Wallace loves me as an American is not a Princess by rank, for in this country —and that I shall be an American wife.” there are no titles; but in her home, in her “Wallace-er-Mr. Elliott-is an Ameri- beauty, her pure heart, her sweetness, her can," answered the unhappy Lieutenant, love, she is the equal of your Emperor's speaking aloud a thought that overwhelmed daughter.-See, you are puzzled. But it him. is true. Would Lorraine, the American, “The American gentleman,” said Sadie, be happy-in Japan?” grasping at the suggestion in his words, The sturdy man put out a hand and gently “will think of this before he proposes mar- touched Miss Norton's white sleeve: “Per- riage to the American girl: 'Do I love her mit me to ask one honorably impolite ques- as she is born to be loved; my equal, my tion. If Miss Langdon—did love-would companion? Can I be to her all that her you wish her to marry- Japanese?”. free heart has learned to ask; her equal, her face to face at last! With woman's tact companion?' If he cannot answer this Sadie Norton played woman's helplessness the true American gentleman will not press to defend woman: “Were Lorraine Lang- her to be his wife. He may even speak his don my own sister-I should much prefer love, for it is his right to speak it. But even that she marry an American.” if it scars her heart and breaks his own he Lieutenant Yama's eyes went down before must tell his love and depart.—That is why the truth in the girl before him. He an engagement ring—when she does wear squared his shoulders, brushed his stubborn it-means so much to the American hair from his brow, and was ready. girl,- Lieutenant Yama.” “Please say to Miss Langdon I am hum- "It is manly to tell his unworthy love bly going away. And may I say honorably and go away?” asked the Lieutenant. good-bye?” “It is due her that he should confess it.” Sadie went beyond the portières, sought “And if-if she loves the humbly unfortu- out Lorraine and prepared her: “Sweet- nate man-but he has honorably blundered? heart, be careful. He understands. His If he-honorably must go away, may not heart is broken, but he is a hero. You may his honorably most unworthy love-may not trust him if you can control yourself.” WORLDS BETWEEN 97 “I can." Her low voice was steady. embarrassed; she fled to her room to weep “Then go, dear, go. You owe it to him.” scalding tears on a wound that would leave Lorraine went in to him, but not once did a cruel scar. she lift her eyes. Never had the blonde Those five girls and their chaperone had girl seemed so dainty, so full of possible joy sat in hushed and dread suspense, just so far to his hungry heart, so much a real Princess. away as not to hear, not too far to err One thought only flamed in his mind: to against propriety. They had heard the depart as an American lover would depart. Lieutenant's tones, but caught no words. “Miss Langdon-my battleship will Then the silence, then a kiss, then flying soon be completed. Then most unworthily feet and the rustling of skirts up the stairs, I am to have honorable promotion in Japan. then a man's firm, rapid step out across the I will go—now—to my battleship. When verandah and out of their lives. I asked you to marry me I most unworthily One by one the five girls crept out into did not know so much as now. You are the big room, came to the fire and stood American Princess; I am Japanese sailor. looking at the empty floor where the two But I know it is manly in America to tell had stood. They saw motherly Mrs. Hunt- girl my honorably unworthy love. I have ington go up stairs and enter the suffering learned that the man proves his love-er- one's door. One by one the five girls by kiss. I wish honorably to prove I love sank down by the fire, the four young- you—then go away.” er ones huddled to Sadie with a com- He stood a moment looking helplessly mon impulse. One by one their eyes went at this rare creature whose trembling hand to the engagement ring; each read in its went to her heart, but whose silence was flash a message of purity; each felt within consent. But he, too, trembled at the herself a new appreciation of love. thought of touching so dear an object. She, For a time there was silence. Then the understanding, brushed a tear from her engaged girl spoke, reverently: “Poor Lor- drooping lids, and held her hands to him. raine!-So bitter-so bitter!” He seized them and pressed them to his lips. Then silence again till Marion spoke. But this American girl drew his hands to “Wish!” said she, impulsively. But no girl her pulsing throat, closed her all too eloquent replied. Each caught in the implied desire eyes, and stood with royally lifted head, an echo of her own thought. They waited waiting. The man understood in a flash for her to say it: and pressed a kiss on those pure lips. To “Wish we were all little Miss Kimonos! him it was an ordeal. of honor; to the Then Lorraine could marry her little Lieu- American girl it was a tragedy. He stood tenant Pyjamas. Wish !” W VI - James Pustno Horns tooting like the steam-tram was running wild in the hotel yara The Early Bird By Henry M. Rideout TV ut ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES PRESTON VIET ZHE heathen Chinee is music of the winch, and a polyglot scream S p eculiar," observed the sec- of “Kubberdar—arrea-guar'n'aba'o!" ond officer. “See the The winch-boy—an odd little aged ingenooity o' that feller at Chinaman in a pastoral straw bonnet, with a Se the winch, now." sheath-knife sticking out, like a rudimen- CLIC On a white-hot deck, the tary tail-stump, from under his blue dun- coolies dodged and clamored. “Arrea!” garee—had hardly exerted a muscle:-in- they shouted, peering overside into the stead of the fuming, sweating tug which a bumping lorcha. The chain ran down white man gives the lever, he had laid on rattling, till they signalled the winch to a calm hand and done the trick. Two stop, with yeilow hands waving abstractedly, bricks, lashed with rope-yarn at the proper and a wail of " Abis!" Grunts and thuds point, swung below; and a “Hy-lam” rose out of the lorcha in a thin but coolie had scored one mechanical triumph pungent cloud of dust; then the watchers over a Glasgow firm. at the rail cried “ Virra—v.rra-virra!" in "Now that's ingenooity," said the sec- frenzy, the chain clanked taut, and a ond. He paused to kick a Bengali box- giant slingful of brown gunny-bags swung wallah down the ladder, and followed to inboard with a rush, poised over the black cut his sampan loose. Shrieks of protest- yawn of the hatch, twirled, and suddenly “Oh zoolum! — Zubberdusti!" -rose dropped out of sight, to the hollow iron and drifted astern over the glaring harbor. T'HE EARLY BIRD 99 The second remounted, mopping sweat blossomed out gay at once—one long state from under his pith helmet, and muttering feast. O' course we stayed. The queens - black swine, chafing all the paint off all wore silk knickerbockers, fifty-two of my stanchions!” 'em: an interesting sight, a-floating round “Ingenooity,” he resumed. “That’s and pining at the windows. We stayed. what counts.” No prospect o' more money, or even This he elaborated after tiffin, in Mac's jobs. The consul's one o' the whitest cabin against the silent engines. We all men in the East, and helped us a whole smoked Mrs. Middleton's cheroots, lot, but he didn't hold out any rosy de- scratched prickly heat, and cursed Chitta- lusions o grandeur much more. gong. Finally, I remember, we all sat up late “But American ingenooity's the most one night, loafing round in sarongs in the ingenious,” he declared, patriotically. ground floor verandahs, and listening to “What? Oh, Scots be hanged. Hoot, tree-lizards a-calling To-kay, To-kay!' toot. Mean by it ? Definition ? Why, the way they do. It makes you thirsty if sure. I mean—er—that quality which—er you like sweet wines. Well, about mid- -which promotes the general happiness night we'd exhausted every project, and with the least fuss to all concerned. There were knocking each other a good deal. you are. Now let me talk.” And here All the King's wives had disappeared long is the second's story: ago, upstairs, and everything was dull, and we were peevish. Before I was in steam this way, I knocked round in oil-ships a spell, and fought some in the Philapeens, and 'fore that prospected considerable in Colorado and China and all over. Well, a crowd of us boys was sent up into Sumatra by some Dutchmen -Padang highlands, and way up in from Fort de Kock. We found some gold, and lots o' dengue fever. But the Dutchmen naturally didn't pay us as per contract, and we got back to Batavia with something over five hundred guilders between four of us, for all our wordly goods. We put up at the best hotel, and figured how long it would last. We ought to moved out quick, but after the bosque things was so interesting in that little Dutch burg that we kept staying on. Seemed like a metropolis. And presently, what with circuses, and biographs, and mylords, and Duck-and- Dorises, and—and entertainments, we found that a conservative estimate left us 354 guilders in debt by the time the next boat sailed, a Chinese boat and deck passage at that. 'Twasn't altogether our fault. We'd have cleared out and been all right, I've always argued, if the King of Siam hadn't come over to investigate Buddhist ruins and paddy-growing. He was hot on modern improvements then: travelled in a yacht, a converted hooker that was improved some. He stopped at the same hotel, o' course, with a push o' courtiers and fifty-two wives, a full pack and him the little Joker. Everything A full pack and him the Joker James Rusten 100 AMERICAN. ILLUSTRATED NE “ I see a way o' financing ourselves, I think,” says Sam Bird. “ Perhaps." He was a big California boy, talked slow and lazy, a farmer-looking boy, but one of the best. “Don't go knocking this way. Wait till tomorrer or next day." “ Just what we been doing,” snaps out Bassett. “Tomorrer, and tomorrer, and tomorrer, shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon." (Bassett came from the Uni of Indiana or somewhere, and he knew Shakespere by the back:-little chap, big spectacles, thin face, and a nose as point- ed as a lead pencil, —one more whittle and the point'd break: a little sharp nose and a little sharp voice through it. —No! Not Shakespere: Bassett!) “ That's what you lazy Pacific Slopers are always saying," he tells Sam. “To- morrer, manana, besok,—bad as these goo-goos.'' I knew what Bird's game was, I thought, and said so. " You're trying to sell those snake-skins to those two French epidermist men in Bassett came from Indiana Noordwijk. Saw you pervading round there. They ain't fools. Neither are we. You'll get twenty guilders—if you have nice little campong; plenty of rice, and luck. What's that, in our crisis?" nothing to do but sing the Koran at night- "Perhaps, was all I said," drawls this fall, under the bamboo tree. And here Sam Bird." Don't get hot.” And he we are, beachcombers, in Batavia; and leans back and smokes his Paiacombo, we'll starve to death, and the Dutch'll and looks up dreamy at the Royal Apart- give our effects to their Orphans' Home, ments windows in the second story, and—finish!” through the liana creepers. “It's taxider “No orphan would be grasping enough matist, anyway." to want 'em,” says Bird; "and no girl “Don't you go figuring on any Airta- with good eyesight would ratify that first tion-motifs with the forty-second queen,” scheme.” They went on to pass very low says Bassett, following his glance." That remarks, and got to be in earnest; and don't b’long honorable pidgin.” when Dan Towers, who'd been homesick “ This ain't romance," says Bird, quite for some time, said he'd never see Ashta- disgusted. " You never see things as bula, Ohio, again, and Bird said there was they are, Bass-always bookish. This is always compensations, we nearly had a an awful cold proposition." fight; 'cause Dan really liked Ashtabula. We allowed it was, too, and told him Ain't it a funny world? what we thought of him for rousing false Well, we all got sore, and went to bed hopes over a lot o' mangy snake-skins that blue, in those small marble-sepulchre wouldn't realize our fares to Tandjong Turkish bath bedrooms, about two in the Priok in a bullock-cart, let alone a sado. morning. Before daybreak I woke a little, Bassett got real bitter about it. and heard a thrashing round in Sam Bird's “I begin to wish you'd left me behind room next door, and then saw his kimono at Bencoolen," he says. flapping 'cross the compound on his way “So do 1,” agrees Sam Bird, prompt back from the bath. I sung out, “Go to and hearty. bed, idiot!" and rolled over to sleep. “I'd 'a' married a nice native girl in a long dawn I woke again, and this time Sumatra wrapper,” says Bassett, letting I heard a frightful fog, -strong men curs- on not to hear, “and settled down in a ing, engines blowing off, and horns tooting, THE EARLY BIRD IOI like the steam-tram was running wild in We three ran out in our pajamas,-nice the hotel yard. I stuck my head out- cool morning, all the birds just beginning doors—out popped all the others, Bassett's to chirp up in the canary-trees, pink mists sharp beak, and old Dan's big frowzly nut, a-rising. and a long line o' bullet headed Dutch He was on his back under the machine, planters all down the verandah, like horses wrenching and pounding, and wouldn't looking out o' their stalls. And there say a word. You wouldn't believe the under the big banyan tree, puffing and smell o' that cheap petrol stuff if you'd churning and emitting smoke, was a ridic- undergone it. She was a little tin French ’lous little red motor-car. First one we'd machine, crazy and falling apart with ever seen in the East. A six-footer in old age, but I could see she'd been white and a topi, bigger'n the machine scrubbed and polished like binnacles. Even itself, sat at the wheel jerking on them kicking Sam's legs didn't make him come tell-tale-handle things, and writhing round out till he finished. When he did his When the sleep cleared out o' my eyes, undershirt was all trickled over with black I saw it was Sam Bird. goo, and he was red as apoplexy, but Bassett was always quick at sizing grinning. things up. “She'll run!” he said, as if we'd been “ He's gone off his head,” says he, waiting weeks to hear that fact. “ Heat's been too much for him. “ Look here, you Native Son o' the Thought he acted queer last night.” Golden West,” squeaks Bassett, very We all yelled together: “What you up to?” sharp, “explain yourself. What thing are “She'll run all right,” sings out Bird. you doing?' To prove it, she backed through a wire “ Looks like an otta-mobile, don't it?" fence into the banyan roots and gave up says Bird, in a speculative kind o' way. with a snort. Sam took a monkey-wrench "It is." and a spanner out of his pocket, pulled off He began tinkering some more, and his coat, and disappeared under the body started to whistle a real catchy little piece. there in the jungle. Bassett hauled at his shoulders, and shook James Puston He was on his back wrenching and pounding 102 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE remember it's mine. Matter-o'. fact I'm hiring it by the day. But if any asks, don't forget it's mine. I'm a wealthy and eccentric young man. That's the line. Wealthy: eccentric." "What!” squeals Bassett, burst- ing out through the vines. “Hir- ing? by the day? Boys,” he turns to us, fairly crying, "it's our money, our funds, that this—this- vampire eats up and throws away, so's he can come wake us up 'fore daylight out of our warm beds—I mean cool beds.” He took on fierce till we began to see it in his light, and then we all three went for Sam so noisy that he had to blow his horn continuous to keep from hearing us. The manager sent a Java boy out to say that the gentlemen must make some quiet at once, or they might disturb His Majesty the King. “I don't know about the head that wears a crown," allows Bas- sett, “but it must have laid some uneasy for the last half hour. You come down to my room and explain, Sam Bird,” he says as we moved away. “There's a lot to be said yet." . Flattering with the hands like Jews Bird was still calm and unnatural. He took off the undershirt with his fist under Sam's nose, fighting mad. the coal-tar front, threw it under the “What thing?” he was yelling. banyan, and buttoned up his jacket. “What thing?" We were all talking at Then he put on English and a Duke's once, so loud that the manager appeared drawl. at his bed-room window in a towel. "No feah," says he, talking loud This California boy, he pitched Bassett enough for a gallery. “I must be off for a half way into the banyan bosque. spin in my caw. If you were properly at- « There," he said. After tinkering a tiawed, and did not behave like such a while more, he explained to me and Dan. perfect rotter, I might have awsked you, “If you must know, I'm just taking a dear boy." And he climbed back into the ride round 'fore breakfast. Dawn, beauti- car. ful dawn! Fresh and mild, and the little " It's the heat's done it,” says Bassett, dickey birds a-wobbling their fresh little while we rested in our long chairs. lays, and laying their fresh little eggs; and "Notice him throw me around? He my! the sunrise through those cocoa palms! couldn't 'a' done that with his normal You wouldn't believe how a nature-lover strength. Go on yourself, Dan! I say he enjoys a spin in his car this way." is! I know better. He's by the nut,- “Sam, old man,” I says, trying to heat and fever and worry." speak kind, “whose is this obscene All of a sudden we thought so, too, bundle o' scrap-iron ?” when the horn bellowed like an Australian He became sensible all at once. steer, and the car started out from the “Now look here, boys,” said he, en- banyan, and came bumping down our tirely business-like. “If anyone asks you, way, laying a trail o' this axle-grease stuff James list THE EARLY BIRD 103 all along the foot-path. Honk-onk-onk, What thing are you doing? Advertising goes the horn, and the rattle was like a what?" steam-roller full of iron rods, and sich. “Look out foreside," says Bird. Sam sat up dignified, steering round and We looked. A little group of Siamese round the compound full speed, slewing in silk knickerbockers—men, this time- the corners, and doing a Judgment Day on were standing round the car, talking, and the trumpet. You know the noise a fat scooching down to look underneath. I woman's poodle makes when he breathes ? began to see a light. That car was like an elephant suffering same “Let him have the two hundred guild- way. There wasn't a piece o' silence left ders, Dan," I says to Towers. He was in Weltevreden. It was a pretty race, and treasurer. when Sam, without slowing engines, dodged We hadn't finished counting them over the pet orang-utan, (who'd come out to him, before a soft and satiny Siamese into the road from behind the bath house chap came up and allowed politely that suddenly) why, all the Dutchmen laughed,. Phya Somebody—which means a lord- and so did the Javanese boys, and we would like to speak with Mr. Bird for a cheered. It was such neat work, and the moment. Sam made a smooth reply, and orang-utan looked so surprised. Heads walked off with him, in a easy, usual sort began to show in the windows of the Royal o’ way. Suite. “Hm!” says Bassett. “I wonder now By this time the uproar was something that young grafter.” awful, till Sam ported his helm and wentIt seemed a long time before he came boiling down the avenue again, out the back, alone. He sat down and finished gate, and we could hear distant honks his coffee and toast, looking mournful and afloating off past the Harmonie Club. sheepish. By breakfast-time he wasn't back. “Well, boys,” he said at last, “ to be At table we had nothing to say except honest with you, I'm disappointed. It our friend was a wealthy and eccentric hasn't turned out as I wanted. I had an young man, with a passion for taking out idea o' selling this old thing to the King as his motor-car in the early morning. The a modern improvement. Well, gone futt. manager had quieted down; apparently Silly idea, I s'pose. I'm sorry, boys." no complaints issued by Royalty. Bassett and Dan Towers went right up When he came back, about nine o'clock in the air at that. The things those two he left the car under the tree and came said, I won't defile my speech with. and had coffee in our verandah, acting "Do you mean to tell us,” said like himself again almost. Bassett, very pale, “ that we're stuck with “ Now then,” says Bassett, “ make that Old Curiosity? Have you bought it?" your talk. What's the game?" “Not yet,” said Sam, with a mischiev- “How much cash have we got?” asks ous kind o' look. Bird. "Two hundred guilders. Bueno: "Not yet!” yelled Dan and Bassett, hand it over. Come on. Stop your star- and both went up in the air again. I had ing. I know what I'm about. Nothing to to separate all three of 'em, and lock up lose. Give it here.”. Bassett in his room 'cause he insisted on “What for ? ” we asks him. “ Buying locking Sam Bird up. dog-carts, or going to Tosari for your “Now to business," says Sam to me. health ?" “Come along. Oh, and bring those “No," he says. “For the general snake-skins." I hopped up beside him on the seat, and “What was this loco act of yours at we churned out into the road, leaving daylight?”, says Bassett. “We might 'a' Bassett trying to break out the shutters, been arrested over that, or asked to pay and Dan trying to say what he'd do if our bill—same thing." we come back without those Funds. “Oh, that," drawls Sam. " That was for the first time then I found how that advertising. Wasn't sure what other time poor old chariot really suffered. She I might find him in, he's so busy." groaned and puffed and shook and cried “Look here at me,” says Bassett. like a baby, and even then could hardly “ Right in the eye. No, he looks rational. move out of her own odor. Sam was good." 104 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE shouting but I only got snatches o' what “ Those Frenchmen threw her on the he said. “At it for a week-taxidermatists scrap-heap six months ago," he said. ... condemned her. . . junk-heap. .. “Lying in an open-face go-down didn't their back compound. . . never before do her a bit o' good. I studied her, ... learned it ... two days!” Like though, and the situation.” Close- that. All the rest was drowned, except mouthed chap, Sam was. when he bumped his nose against my ear Next morning, he had a young Siamese and roared, “We'll come out top-side all courtier out with him, and that afternoon right!” and another time—She'll hold to- was teaching him to steer, while Dan gether a full week, sure!" All this time we Towers and Bassett sat bitterly computing were ploughing a furrow o'natives and how much this spectacle cost us per day. kosong-ponies right and left through I didn't tell 'em she belonged to us : it Noordwijk. saved trouble. Next day the same lessons Two blocks this side he slowed down, went on, and the orang-utan took to the and made very heavy weather of it up to banyan, mastheaded till after dark. The the taxidermatists' door. The two French- third day, Sam didn't climb in at all, but men came out o' their shop—civilized- the young Siamese did, and an older man looking fellers they were—and Sam and in pale pink-and-green silks and a London they all began to talk Malay at once, wag- helmet, and a servant up behind holding a ging their heads and flattering with their gold umbrella over him. Just as she hands like Jews. They laid it out how started, spitting smoke and sobbing- chupput she could lari a kilometre, and “Boys," drawls Sam Bird, “I told you I Sam didn't know how long a kilometre was disappointed the other day. I was, was, and when they tried to explain it really. I meant to sell her to the King, but in Malay it was worse than before. And I only got a Lord. That's small game: Sam had to coin terms like “monkey- still, the pay's just as much here," he wrench-pooniah” to express his feelings slapped his pocket—"and there's five toward the health o' her interior. By thousand guilders to the good, if she lasts eleven o'clock they came down to fifteen till the Teung-Suey sails next Friday." hundred guilders. In our own private uproar we almost Bird stood firm and stern for twelve overlooked another one out by the gate. hundred. They were all yelling and standing up on “Easy, Sam," I says. “I followed the seat, and the car instead o' turning you blind so far, but I don't like this. went hot-foot straight across the road and Where's the one thousand !! rammed the embankment. Gold umbrel- “Shut up,” he says; then translates to la, pinks and pale greens, whole outfit, the Frenchmen. “My friend is right. shot over into the canal. Remember how He is wise in these things, and says she the water looks in that little Dutch sluice? won't last three days, and we'd have to Like Bensdorp's Cocoa. send to Europe for the parts." “I told him he steered erratic," Sam They weakened a little shrugging their observes. “ Anyway, it simplifies things. shoulders just to show they didn't care, -I'll never know how long she would 'a' when they did. lasted.-Well, well. — They'll never know, " Twelve hundred,” repeats Sam, "and either. ..... Boys, I guess we better the snake-skins." go fish 'em out. It would look kind o' Those reptiles may have turned the bal- more thoughtful." ance, for they really were all right, and we That night at the demonstration in our all knew it: only certain thing in the whole verandah there were the five thousand transaction. So at eleven-thirty, with one guilders on Sam's table, still, in Javasche tremendous shrug, it closed at Sam's price. Bank notes. He paid down the skins and the two hun “Well, Sam, what-what you going to dred guilders, promised the rest that after- do with it all?" says Bassett. He talked noon, and we started back in our car. She mighty meek and timid. broke down twice. Sam really looked “Dan's treasurer,” says Bird. "This worried then, but after a lot o' prying and is the Vampire Rescue Fund, Bass, – crawling and hammering, off she limped twelve hundred and fifty apiece, go as you again. please." “Boys, I guess we'd better go fish 'em out" “ Bird Banzai!” says Bassett. “You'll broke Dan Towers's long chair and two do. I'm sorry I said that Vampire, in a others, and cut him accidently over the moment o' heat. Here's apologies." eye. But he carried his point. "All right, my boy," says California. “Boys," he said, wiping away the “How !—And now what's the next move, blood, “I'm going home to be decent. with all our money? What's the best city You needn't see me further'n New York.” in the world to be wealthy in for a while ?" The second officer pitched his cheroot Some said Paris, some New York, and out of the cabin door, and meditated. — we nearly had another misunderstanding. “Might 'a' been decent myself.... Dan Towers was glum and wouldn't speak, More you go about, the less you settle even. So we decided to write votes on down. Humph !... But think o' the paper, and put 'em in my topi, and draw. ingenooity o' that California Bird — a First city to be drawn, we'd head for. farmer-looking boy, too." Bird drew for us, and held up the "Ah, ye spendthrifts,” remarked Mac, folded slip. “I kind o' hope Paris," he the engineer, virtuously. “Wastrels and said. “Mind, though, we're bound, sol. spendthrifts.” emn." -Then he opened it. "We spent it all right,” gloated the He looked as if he saw a ghost. Then second. "'Cept fifteen guilders Dan he laughed, and threw the paper on the Towers gave to a destitoot British subject table. Bassett stuck his nose into it and begging at the docks. More'n you'd do. read off : "God help any man,' says this old .“ Ashtabula, Ohio!". fool, Dan Towers, “any white man that's In the compromise that followed we stranded, specially in the East.'" 105 SO MARGINALIA GUS A Literary Turn By Judd Mortimer Lewis If you're a literary gent, oh, use a nom de plume, Or fond mammas and proud papas will bring you to your doom; When introduced Mamma will say, your hand held tight in hern, “So glad! I have a daughter of a literary turn." THEN rattle on, “She's such a child, a prodigy, we think; 1 Sometimes she sits up all night long and never sleeps a wink, And writes---you ought to see her write---she writes to beat the band! And deep---she writes whole reams of stuff no one can understand! “AND then, of course, she sleeps all day. Now wont you come to tea Some day, I'll have her read to you! I'm sure that you will be Surprised. We are, her pa and me; her genius is a coal To set the world a-burning! You'll meet a kindred soul.” a CO OR you will meet a dad, who'll say, “ Old chap, your stuff is great! I go to sleep a-reading it! Now stand right here and wait--- I've got a boy here in the crush---somewhere---I fairly yearn To have you meet; he's got, like you, a literary turn.” 106 MARGINALIA 107 AND so it goes; the ashman, the milkman, and the cook; A The motorman, conductor, each one, has read your book And holds a pleasure for you. The world has folks to burn Who have a bunch of children of a literary turn. If you're a literary gent, oh, use a nom de guerre, 1 Or you'll be treed, surrounded, where'er it haps you are; Concealed in every hedgerow, by every tree and fern, Are parents who have children of a literary turn. A Gentlemanly Engineer By S. H. Kemper SOME of the boys had been and Millocker here, who understand the real discussing the use and abuse value of the cuss word as a lubricant." of profanity, and Michelson Well, I'm a refined man too,” said had advanced the opinion Millocker, resenting O'Hara's inference. that violent bad language “What you see about me that ain't refined ?" was often futile and unnec- O'Hara regarded his friend doubtfully. essary, and sometimes even coarse. "Oh, well—" he said, and yawned. "The trouble with you, Michelson,” said “Why, look here,” Millocker insisted, O'Hara, " is that you're so refined, with your “last week when I lost a bolt out of an ec- white collar. You see things through the centric strap and had to bring my engine meejum of a complex and artificial civiliza. down on one side and stopped over dead tion. It's the chaps in over clothes, like me centre three times, I'm blanked if anybody “ Well, I'm a refined man too" 108 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE heard me using any violent language while "Well, I got kind of balled up when I we was pinching her forward! And if that went to say it," Millocker said regretfully; wasn't a test I'd like to know. Did you hear “ you can't always make your refined ideas me saying anything unrefined, Harry?" He work. What I want to prove is that I've appealed to his fireman. got 'em all right. It happened several years "Nothing that the situation didn't seem to ago when I was running down on the M. V. demand, Mr. Millocker," the young fellow and W. There was a fellow on the road" answered, grinning. Millocker hesitated a moment as if em- barrassed. “I won't mention any names," he said. “This chap was just the meanest, dirtiest little beast that ever lived and breathed on this earth. It seems kind of un- fair to say hard things about a man after he's dead and this fellow is dead now ; but I've got to explain that he was uncommon mean and trifling or you won't understand. He had been a fireman but got kicked out of the brotherhood for some low trick he'd done, and after that he kept hanging round the shops and the yards, getting a job now and then as a laborer. Everybody about the rail- road got to hate him so it's a wonder some- one didn't hit him on the head with a wrench, He had what you might call a natural genius for stealing. He used to swipe the tools of machinists at work in the roundhouse; he'd swipe brass off the locomotives, and he wasn't above stealing an engineer's little can of valve oil if he got a chance, just for spite be- cause he knew it was the most precious thing in this world to a plug puller. I've had him hook my pie and sandwiches out of my lunch basket when my back was turned for a minute. He hadn't a friend about the place, and when there was an accident in the roundhouse and “ Hook my pie and sandwiches" he was killed, happening to be on an engine where he hadn't any business, no one was anyways afflicted. * An undertaker took charge of the remains, • What you want to be refined for, any. wiring to the dead man's home for instruc- way?" O'Hara asked contemptuously. tions. He came of very decent people a long "Well, I am," said Millocker; “it ain't way up the state. The next afternoon my that I just want to be." conductor mentioned to me that the mother A few minutes later he emerged from a and a sister had come down on our train to thoughtful silence with the remark, "You take the body home. He said they seemed just ought to see me in my Sunday clothes!" mighty helpless and pitiful. He'd had to Millocker had a way of sticking to one look out for them a good deal, and that was train of thought long after everyone else had how he came to talk with 'em and to find out diverged, seriously working things out to who they were. They had told him they definite conclusions. Presently he interrupted couldn't bear to have · Charlie' sent home an air brake disquisition with animation. all alone; they had to come and take care of "I tell you, fellows, I've got a whole lot of him. He was all they had in the world, they refined instincts. A man's way of talking said. The conductor thought it pretty funny ain't everything, and clothes ain't everything; that they didn't seem to have the first glim- you've got to have refined feelings. If you mer of an idea what sort of chap Charlie' ali will listen just a minute I'll tell you about had been. It seemed to me that it showed something I done once, a little speech I one streak of half way decency in him that made up right on the spur of the moment, he had always wanted to stand well with almost impromchoo, as you might say. I bet those two, had managed to keep them in the you'll say it was a pretty refined idea!" dark as to the kind of fellow he was. The "I didn't know you had ever made a train they were to take going home left three speech, Millocker," said Michelson with hours after we got in, and the conductor said admiration, the two women expected to put in the time MARGINALIA · 109 waiting at the undertaker's place. Well, “How did the women like the speech ?" when I was on my way to my boarding house Michelson asked. the thought came to me what a dull time “ Didn't I tell you I got balled up when I those two little women were going to have, went to say it ?" Millocker said mournfully; and I began to try to think of some plan to "but say, it was a nice refined idea, now make things a little pleasanter for them. So wasn't it?" I went round to a forist's and sent a lot of “But it was all lies,” O'Hara objected. flowers round to the undertaker's with a card "Well, what difference did that make if it saying they were from the lodge of the had have made those two women feel better Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen the dead in their minds ?" Millocker demanded. man had once belonged to. If there'd been “Besides, it wasn't any more lies than things time I'd of gotten 'em to make me up some that are said and printed every day about thing real pretty, a life-sized coal scoop, people who have died.”. maybe, done in little white flowers, with "Tell us how you felt when you went to roses all round and the lodge number and the say it," Phil McCarthy suggested; “I never letters B. of L. F. picked out in violets; but could see how anybody could make a speech, there wasn't time. Then I steamed round to any way. It beats me how some of the boys my boarding house and washed and dressed can get up in lodge meeting and talk !"'. and while I was shaving I made up my “It was the funniest thing!” said Mil- speech." locker. "I was feeling all right when the Millocker sat erect and smote his knee undertaker led me through his hall to the with his fist. His sagacious gray eye lighted room where the two women were waiting. with enthusiasm. I had my speech all ready when he opened " It was a son of a gun of a speech!” he the door. The next minute I saw the said. mother and sister, and all of a sudden I felt “Can you say any of it now?" Michelson like somebody had me by the throat. I asked respectfully. " Why, sure. I began: · Madam, I have been delegated by the Railway unions of this place to convey and express to you our con- dolences on the untimely death of your son whose tragic terminus has cast a weight of gloom over our midst.' I went on a bit like that, throwing flowers at that little sneak that had nearly broke my heart several times by swiping my lunch, and then I wound up with a piece of poetry. It said, But we know he is happier dwelling in space Over there on that evergreen shore! “ All the time I was dressing and then on my way round to the undertaker's place, 1 kept saying it all over and over to myself to get her running slick without any knocks or pounds or blows. I wanted to be mighty sure I got the poetry right, 'cause the first part of the verse is rather comic. It says: M ehr " It was the funniest thing" • The death angel smote Alexander M'Crue And gave him protracted repose; He wore a red shirt and a number ten shoe couldn't have said a word to save my life. And he had a big wart on his nose. The undertaker introduced me. I'd told But we know he is happier dwelling in him to say I was a friend of Charlie's. And space the two women came up to me, holding Over there on that evergreen shore, out their hands. They were such little And his friends are advised that his women; why, their heads hardly come to funeral takes place my shoulder. They begun to cry softly and Exactly at twenty past four."" I stood there holding a hand of each. 110 AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE Presently the young girl pulled her hand Millocker looked at his watch and rose to away, and then I took and patted the his feet. mother's shoulder; and I said, I want to “Maybe I did get balled up when I went help you; I want to help you if I can,' to say it, but it was a dummed refined idea, and I'd hardly of known my own voice. that speech. You can bet your life I'm a The mother is dead now but I never let on refined man all right!''. what kind of a man Charlie was, and my He went away toward the roundhouse wife don't know to this day that her brother while the boys resumed the inexhaustible wasn't all she thought him." subject of the Westinghouse ,Brake. Ode To Affluence By Harold Susman (With apologies to Alexander Pope ) LAPPY the man whose wish and care 11 A million-dollar palace bound, Content to breathe a millionaire The year around. Whose private cars, whose horses, yachts, Whose autos, all one could desire, Whose houses in a dozen spots We all admire. Bless'd who can unconcern’dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, Who has just dined, and wined, and dined, With people gay. Who sails away across the seas In search of constant recreation, Whose slightest whim he may appease With new sensation. Thus let me live, much seen, much known, Whatever is for sale, I'd buy, Whate'er I wanted, I would own! Oh me! Oh my! The Man with the Muck Rake By ELLERY SEDGWICK “Where was a Man that could look no way but downwards, with a muckrake in his hand: There stood also one over his head, with a Celestial Crown in his hand, and proffered to give him that Crown for his muckrake; but the man did neither look up, nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor.”—Pilgrim's Progress. GRESS. “The Man with the Muck Rake” he has fools, drunkards and the United States that been called and the name will stick like we shall one day strike bottom? pitch. The yellow journals have made him S ocialism—that's where these leaders of and now he is making the magazines. the magazines and newspapers are headed There is nothing too base for him to follow; for. The sentimentalist who looks to find nothing too foul for him to exploit. He there the Kingdom of Brotherly Love upon needs money and he is paid for the job. Earth, the honest man, hysterical with The soul of the circulation man is in him. anger at the crimes of high finance, the Readers he must have, thousands of them, brave fool spoiling for a fight, the good hundreds of thousands. Exaggeration, citizen who says to himself, “Where so perversion, distortion, truths, half-truths, much evil is, the whole must be swept away lies—he heaps them up, regardless of to let us build anew "-all alike are follow- honesty, reckless of consequences, abso- ing the lead of the statesmen of the yellow lutely without thought of the enormous press toward the ruinous experiment of responsibility that is his. straight-out socialism and the long dead level I am no apologist for the times we live in. of prostrate energies that must follow it. They are better times, perhaps, than the Continued socialism is unthinkable in the world has ever seen before, but they are full United States, but the bare experiment of spectacular wickedness in high places of would cost us twenty-five years of progress. business and of politics, just as they are full The sinister politicians, the hirers of the of the meaner sins of smaller men. There Men with the Muck Rakes, hounding their is no blinking the facts. Evil is here and we servants on to exposures each more prurient must face it and beat it back, but shall we than the last, would not hesitate to make Americans gulp down the food every scan- the people pay the awful price of their rise dal-monger throws to us and swallow it hook, to a short-lived power. The righteous bait and sinker? Shall every "exposer" be indignation of a great nation is being shaped our prophet? Shall we prick up long ears to personal ends with a malignant selfish- at every ass that brays? ness of purpose as coolly calculated as any It is time to halt and to think soberly. act in history. The last two years have witnessed a The exposure movement among maga- political revival in this country such as zines began with sincerity of purpose. comes but once in a generation, a revulsion “The History of the Standard Oil Com- against false leaders, as moral as any pany” was a unique undertaking pursued religious revival in time of great calamity. with industry and a fair-mindedness wholly Roosevelt, Folk, Hughes, Deneen, Jerome, admirable. It is scarcely too much to say have led us. Shall we believe in the political for it that it marks the starting-point of an creed which they without ceasing repeat: immense and beneficial revolution. This “Play the game hard, but play it square was followed by a series of exposures of the and make every man that plays it play it revolting political conditions of cities and square too?” Shall we follow them or states which did magnificent work for the shall we besot ourselves with the nostrums right until theories instead of facts began to of every yellow quack and then run hell-for- dominate them and constructive pessimism leather down the steeps of socialism, trust came to be the ruling passion of their author. ing to the Providence which watches over Then came Lawson turning state's evidence II2 AMERICAN MAGAZINE on his former accomplices, stirring up the circulation brings, is fast becoming the aim people with a tremendous hurly-burly and object of its life. No franchise stealing of proof and inference, denunciation, legislator, no insurance rascal stealing the charge and counter-charge; still doing great money that belongs to widows and to good in setting men to thinking and supply- orphans, does to his country more cruel ing newspaper invective with a new stand- injury than the editor who loses all sense of ard to live up to. Futile, even puerile, as was responsibility. the remedy Lawson proposed, the benefit There are to-day three courses open to us of his work surpassed, perhaps, the evil as a nation. One is the course of Elkins that went with it. But of Lawson's imi- and Aldrich in the Senate, of Rogers and tators this cannot be said truly. In the Armour in the trusts, of Spencer and his ilk breathless work of exposure there is no in the railroads. It is the course of obstruc- time, scarcely is there desire for the facts. tion to the declared will of the people, of Men are tried and found guilty in magazine impudent determination to preserve a counting-rooms before the investigation is system long since become intolerable. It is begun. “What we want is hot stuff,” says the course leading straight to destruction. the Man with the Muck Rake; "what's the There is another course which such men as use of looking where we're not going to find these make us almost sympathize with at it!” Everywhere he goes sniffing for evil. times, but which also leads to destruction. You find him in Panama smelling for It is the course of Debs and of Hearst, of the twenty-four hours and then writing it up as yellow journals and the magazine heroes. the worst muck heap in two continents. It is the course of the abolishment of the You find him in Washington spending two government of our forefathers, the course at weeks in preparation for a general onslaught once of the visionary and the schemer, the on the senators, good, bad and indifferent course of Socialism. You find him nosing round the courts of And there is the third course. The course justice and talking his reckless generalities of the square deal. The course which lays of "fixed” judges and “juries owned by the down as its fundamental principle that the trusts.” It's all grist to his mill. Anything government shall not play the whole game that can rouse unreasoning passion and sell itself, but shall see that the whole game is his magazine. Always hoping for the worst, played fair and that the man who doesn't his hopes never fail him. play fair is ruled off the field. It demands A country which is governed by public publicity, the vigorous enforcement of the opinion is governed by the men who spread law. It calls upon the nation for earnest it. One of the most interesting phenomena and unsleeping support. It calls upon the of late years is the growth of the influence new journalism to give the people honest of magazines in the field formerly monop- facts, helpful suggestions, constructive ideas. olized by the daily papers. Magazines This is the course that the American entered the province of journalism with Magazine believes in to the core of it, and certain great advantages in the work of to emphasize which, it adopted the name forming public opinion. They are not it bears to-day. This is the course which in bound by party affiliations. They may the end must prevail. select the questions which they think them. This is a republic of honest men. The selves qualified to treat. The intervals business which earns bread and butter for which elapse between their publication most of us is honest business. One by one dates imply a deliberate and dispassionate the gaunt, gray wolves will be hunted down. investigation of the facts. With the advent Even now the pack is thinning out. Our of the magazines into the political and fathers fought their battles and won them. social arena began that “new journalism” Where are the Whiskey Ring, the Star from which the country has a right to hope Route scandals, the Tweed Ring to-day? much-the journalism which deals thor- Those battles were won when the American oughly with a question, accepting informa- people turned on intrenched rascals and tion only at first hand and sparing neither drove them headlong out. To-day we are time nor expense to get at the facts. To-day on a flood-tide of our own victories. Spurn- that new journalism, just risen to the ful- ing the malicious attacks made on public ness of its strength, is already in danger. confidence, which is alike the basis of busi- It found the country sick of commercialism ness and the foundation of self-government, and it has caught the virulent disease. let us have faith in ourselves, faith in our Circulation, and the money and power that institutions, faith in the Republic. Rebirth San Francisco: 1906 By Percy Vincent Donovan HEAR, as the prophet heard After the shock and the blast, The still small voice of the Word, Clear to the soul at last. ON “ AFTER the earthquake, a fire,” And after the Whisper, a song! Courage, set your desire On high, sing, and be strong. are V TAKE heart of courage and know You have not endured in vain Lamentation and mourning and woe, For you must be born again. SOUS NEAR ON S HERMAN PFELFER RE Drawn by Herman Pjeifer See " At Mediator's Peace" The thick smoke pall that stung and blistered throat and lungs AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOL. LXII, NO. 2 JUNE, 1906 And the Los SHALGuide 2 At Mediator's Place By Holman Day AUTHOR OF “IN THE HONEST woods,” ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HERMAN PFEIFER MEMERICUS FILLMORE one from one direction, one from another, COPP came staggering they heard the familiar tinkle of iron against along the carry trail, his can- stone and knew that Mediator was at his vas canoe turned over his favorite task. head and shoulders, the hot June sun glinting on it as though he were some gigantic hard-shelled Mediator's Place is half way along the insect. Perspiration streamed down his two-mile carry between Telos Jaws, coming good-natured face. down river, and the Hulling Machine Falls. He was coming down river and had On the slope of bank between Mediator's lifted out above Telos Jaws. Place and the river is “Bloody Ground," Angus Mult came toiling along the carry or“Deadman's Strip.” Some rivermen call trail from down river. He had lifted out the row of forty-seven graves by one name, below the Hulling Machine. The sun beat some by the other. upon the gum-patched bottom of his canoe. Heaps of water-worn stones mark each His thin face was sombre. grave. The rivermen have built the rude As they approached Mediator's Place, cenotaphs, piling on each grave stones COPYRIGHT, 1908, IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN, BY COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 115 116 AMERICAN MAGAZINE enough to denote the age of the deceased- down, patiently listened to the Mediator a stone for a year. One grave is marked when he read texts from a fat little Bible wholly by white stones. The occupant thus that he carried in his breast pocket. Each distinguished is the only one in the grim month he wrote out what he termed a “Me- purlieus of Deadman's Strip who died a diatorial Bulletin.” The wayfarers listened natural death. The others were the toll of patiently to that, also. Telos Jaws and a story goes with each one H e spent all his spare time with chisel and -running the river gamut of a jam's king mallet, cutting texts into the rocks up and log that snapped ahead of time, to the down the carry so that “the very stones swamping of a current-slewed bateau. might have tongues and speak,” he ex- The half hundred victims of the Hulling plained. Machine are not represented in the Strip. The dead, the spirits, the living, plenty The Jaws spew into the dead water below of smooth surfaces along the cliffs for his something worth burying and it can be chisel, a daily dropping of a bit of pork or picked up. a pinch of flour into his porringer—the The Mediator is an old settler. Old knoll at Deadman's Strip was certainly an rivermen tell vaguely that the happenings admirable location for a Mediator. that set him into believing that he had been divinely commissioned to act as mediator between the higher forces and man, and Americus Fillmore Copp eased his galled that he had a band of ten thousand spirits shoulders from under his canoe when he constantly about him to do his bidding, was came abreast the Mediator, and sat down the happening that sent him wandering on the craft. away into the wilderness and was a domes- “Wal, Mede," he remarked cheerily, slat- tic happening of the kind that twist men's ting the sweat from his forehead with his wits awry and make of a home a taunt and forefinger, “how's she readin' to-day?”. a by-word. Perhaps that was why Dead- The old man was kneeling on a ledge man's Strip appealed to him. But on the above the carry trail, face toward the cliff. Munsungan no one hinted, no one pried, no He smiled amiably under his grizzled beard one flouted. It was a good place for a Me- when he turned his head. A battered tin diator to locate in. All who came up the pail beside him on the ledge was filled with river camped on the carry with the Jaws smouldering moss and dried fungi. The roaring above them and the Hulling Ma- faint draught of air puffed the “smudge” chine growling below. All who came down around the Mediator's head and drove the river camped on the carry, too. away the thronging blackflies. There were the dead who camped there “Is the spirit band makin' any private always. talk about this drought breakin'?” in- There was the “Octagon,” the Media- quired Angus Mult sarcastically. He had tor's eight-sided log camp, representing just eased himself from under his canoe, months of his patient labor, for the corner nodding sourly at Copp. Copp was amia- chamferings of an eight-sided camp are not ble. Mult was grim. His query had an easily hewed. On its slab door was the infection of ridicule in it. He was a young writing: man, tall, sinewy, high-colored, bold of eye “Welcome to all who come in honesty and and with a bit of a twist at the corner of his peace and fear of God. But all others are mouth that was not pleasant. asked to pass on and leave me and my home “The rain is blessed and falls alike on to its solitude alone.” the just and the unjust,” said the old man, And there were not many nights when blinking at them through the smoke. "But men did not snore under the split cedar of it is in the hollow of His hand." the Mediator's roof; there were not many “And twenty-three million feet of the days when men did not frizzle their bacon Munsungan drive are in the hollow of this over the big fire that roared on his hearth. valley north of Telos,” growled Mult. “If There were not many who failed to leave a you were a rain-maker, Mediator, instead little of their stores in the bare cupboard of of a rock-chopper, and if your ten thousand the old man who indignantly refused money spirit band knew how to push clouds, I compensation. could hand you a steady job from now Those who halted, going up and coming until August.” Drawn by Herman Pfeifer He flung the brands to right and left 118 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “There is a comfort in Isaiah,” returned the Mediator cheerfully. He pointed to the lettering on the rock. "And the Lord shall guide thee continu- ally and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones.” Copp clawed at his tangled brown beard and laughed with a sort of a silly chuckle. is cob-piled, and that as for more water, even the fish are learning how to walk.” “Pretty well wowed up, be they—them d'rectors ?” suggested Copp. Mult glowered up sullenly at the sky. "I never knew before,” he said, “that the boss of a drivin' crew was responsible for the in- fernal, blastnation sky stayin' dryer'n the “ Follow the cross-and hurry on" The young man twisted his mouth with a still more satiric grimace and gnawed at the end of his black mustache. "He will, eh! Well, you wouldn't think so if you'd been with me this trip when I told the directors of the Log Driving Asso- ciation that the banks of this river between Upper Haymock and Telos, here, are jack- strawed with jill-pokes and that ev'ry shoal bottom of a brass kittle turned upside down. Them directors pitched into me and snarled and growled and told me how it was when old Lem Guiou used to boss the drive for 'em. I can put hell’n’ repeat into a drivin’ crew but I can't squat juice out of anything like that." He shook his fist above his head. The skies bent over them with that hard, AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE 119 dry burnish that follows weeks of drought. “If you're tryin' to wcpse some lyin' At the horizon line earth and sky were scandal about my sister in your mouth like welded by the sullen hues of smoke. The hot puddin',” he gritted, “I tell you, Copp, mountains, near and far, glimmered through I won't stand for it, eien if it is a joke. I the haze with dull, blue outlines. The fixed one man once. I'm ready for another nose sniffed acrid odors of burning forest. one.” " The fire wardens will be gitt.n' the next “If for a girl to git engaged to be married dose,” said Copp, his face lengthening as he to a decent, respectable chap and then to blinked into the dim distances. have the news git out is scandal, then it's “What's the nearest to Eagle settlement ?” more'n what I ever s'posed it was,” returned inquired Mult, with solicitude. The Medi- Copp stoutly. “Your sister Beth is engaged ator had resumed his chiseling. to Clair Blynn, and she let on as much to "Nothin' right handy so fur. The nearest my wife when Lize put it right up to her, and big one is on Hanson & West's Caribou there aint a person in Eagle settlement but brook operation, but it's only in the cuttin's what knows all about it. You know it your- up to now. Hows'ever, it's workin' east, self--so what's the use of bluffin' your and I'm goin' down for more men. There's friends any longer.” a hundred gone in toward Indian pond, but Mult's jaw had dropped. He struck his they ain't goin' to be able to keep it away palm against the front brim of his hat and from the standin' timber unless ”-he tipped it up. His face was purple. looked around the skies despairingly—“she “You sit there and tell me that?” he rains." roared. “Unless she rains!”snarled Mult. “What “I do,” replied Copp composedly. in damnation have I ever done that this “You're a liar!” The accusation was should happen to me the first year they gave flung so hastily and so furiously that Copp me the drive?” sat staring at the man who leaned above " And they gave me a range of townships him with upraised fist. The Mediator a hundred miles long to patrol and are whirled from his work and sank back on his blamin' me for the fires that the cussed dude thin haunches. fishermen have set,” growled Copp. “And the tongue is a fire, a world of Both men sat on their upturned canoes iniquity, so is the tongue among our mem- and dug their moccasined toes into the bers, that it--"" mould of the trail. “You can go on with your chip-chop, old "I reckon I'll camp here with the old man man,” shouted Mult. “This doesn't con- to-night,” said Mult at last. cern you. I say you're a liar, Ame Copp, “ There's nothin' for you to hurry about,” and I'll—_" replied Copp. “Wa'n't worryin' about “I don't go out with far-sighted specs your sister, was ye?” The question was lookin' for trouble, the same as some folks simple, but there was a touch of malicious do,” said Copp slowly, “but when I meet it, jest in Copp's tone. The high color of the face to, I claim my share of the road. If young man grew ruddier. But he did not you want to fight me, Mult, because I have reply. told you a straight piece of news, that I sup- "I s'pose you bought 'em a weddin' posed you knew all about, then come on like present in the city, didn't ye?” pursued a man. But don't you call me a liar again!" Copp waggishly. He drawled the last words and at the close The other glared at him so redly, so sus- set his teeth and put his big fists up. piciously and with such evident astonish- But the other man, after regarding him a ment that the gossipy up-river man quailed moment with an expression in which doubt for just a moment. But he promptly re- mingled with rage, whirled with a curse and covered his assurance, or seemed to. set himself under his canoe. He went " Privacy in fam’lies is all right, Angus,” toiling away up the carry path without a he cried, “and I ain't the one to stick my word. nose in, but-well, it's leaked out since "He acts as though he intended to save you've been gone down river.” He was his muscle for some one else," muttered grinning again. Copp, meditatively. “That's a queer Mult got up off his canoe and scowled thing," he went on, looking up at the Vedia- down on the newsmonger. tor, who was alternately surveying nim Drawn by Herman Pfeifer “The rain, the rain, the blessed rain ! " AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE 121 and the bottom of the receding canoe. “I reckoned that at last Beth Mult had picked out a man that would suit her brother. He has chased off everyone else that has dared to look at her.” Americus Fillmore Copp had known Mediator Marr of Deadman's Strip for a good many years, but he reflected as he gazed at him now that he had never seen on the wrinkled face such an expression as was creeping over it. Its bland serenity was replaced by uneasiness and alarm. “Does he mean harm to his sister ?” he asked. “I don't reckon so," returned Copp. “He's prob’ly goin' home to put more cotton battin' round her and kill Clair Blynn, so I should jedge by signs. P'raps if the Grand Mucker of Pee-ru should come along with a bag o' di’monds and a golden crown, Angus Mult would think he was good enough to marry Beth. Clair Blynn ain't no dude nor no angel, but he's the cleanest man that ever come up-river to Eagle settlement, and Beth Mult ain't none too good for him.” “Who is this Clair Blynn?” asked the Mediator earnestly, his gaze fixed on the tossing canoe now disappearing around the cliff. “The new surveyor for Hanson & West -twelve hundred a year now and more later, for his folks have money in those timberlands. I've never understood Angus Mult's way with his sister, Mediator.” The fire warden's brow wrinkled. “She's a pretty girl and a good girl and she's had a lot of attentions our way. What else could you expect? Young folks must be young folks. But that brother of hers has licked more'n a dozen decent fellers for beauin' her home and dancin' with her.” He stuffed tobacco into his pipe with fingers that trembled a little after his bold defiance. “I'll own up that an only brother has a right to be boss over his sister in some ways, when she ain't got either father or mother livin',” he went on, resentment provoking flow of speech, “but this settin' up to be a tyrant over a girl that's clus' onto twenty- five and deservin' to have a good husband and settle down ain't my idea of brotherly love." "She is a good girl, they tell me,” said the returned Coppemphatically. He puffed at his pipe a little while and then raised his canoe upon his shoulders. He peered up at the old man from under its edge. “There's trouble due in the Eagle settle- ment, Mediator," he said, "and it will arrive in the canoe that Angus Mult is polin'. I wisht your band of ten thousand guardeen angels wa’n’t all in your head and locked in there at that. They'd find a good job waitin' for 'em up-river. Guardeen angels might be able to mess into fam’ly affairs. I reckon we ain't got no call to." He went away down the carry trail. The next day a bateau crew coming down river met the Mediator two miles above Telos Jaws. His leaky punt had stranded on a shoal where the river had swung him. His pole was broken, he was unconscious, and blood spotted his white beard about his lips. They dashed water on him, gave him a sup from a black bottle and bore him back to the Octagon, with sundry surly counsels regarding the advisability of crazy old men staying at home where they belonged. He did not reply. He did not explain. On his face remained that strange expres- sion that no one had ever seen there be- fore. For two days after that he sat on his little porch and gazed up-river toward the cliff's edge where the carry trail snaked out of the birches. His pale, blue eyes, that for so many years had been filled only with the vague light of innocent delusion, now stared wide, as though he feared what was to come 'round that corner of the cliff. He seemed to have prescience of impending evil. And yet it was not a spectacle that prom- ised ill that at last came into sight along the trail. A girl, tall, straight and athletic, swung ahead, sturdily bearing a pack, a forcing pole and canoe paddles. A man, stum- bling under the load of a canoe, was close behind. Both were hurrying. When the girl saw the old man on the porch she began to run. “Mr. Marr,” she gasped as she drew near, “you don't know us, but we are trying to escape from a great danger. It is close behind us. Won't you help with the canoe? My poor boy can go no further alone." As the old man still sat there on the porch, staring at her with face as white as Mediator, his voice quivering. “Straighter's king spruce and with a neart sounder'n the center of a saw-log,” 122 AMERICAN MAGAZINE the white of his hair and beard, she broke She was againstruggling with him over the into eager appeal. canoe. But he grasped her wrists and held “We are not doing wrong, Mr. Marr. her away. You are a good man. I have heard all the “I'm not coward enough to see you do rivermen speak of you. We are innocent that,” he choked, for he was still panting and we are threatened with great danger for breath and his shoulders were pinched Won't you help with the canoe to the forward in his agony. He tried again to Hulling Machine? You must help us.” lift the canoe, but his cramped fingers She wailed this. refused to clutch and his arms, quivering as The man came up, stumbling and stag- with palsy, were unable to straighten as he gering under the canoe, rolled it off his attempted to poise the craft over his head. shoulders to the ground and fell across it. He let it fall and turned to her, despair on “Oh, my God, little girl," he gasped, his features at first and then grim resolve “my heart seems bursting in me.” settling into the tense lines about his mouth. “You see," she almost screamed. She “I'm only human, Beth. I've got a right dropped the paddles and shook the Media- to have you. Your brother doesn't own tor's arm. “He cannot do any more. He you. It's got to be settled sometime. I'll has done already what would have killed settle it here. I won't be chased like a dog." three men. He is my true, brave boy. “It will be horrible—horrible," she Come, come!” wailed. “He will come like a beast that's While she clutched his arm and dragged mad. I know him so well. There's no at it she cast frightened glances up the trail, reason in him. When we are married he her face showing both exhaustion and bitter must listen. Oh, my boy, for God's sake fear. come away—come away!”. The Mediator slowly rose to his feet, But he resisted, dogged in his despair and holding to the side of his camp. He was impotence—for the moment merely a tor- yet weak from his cruel efforts on the river. tured animal at bay. He set his face up- But it was something more than physical river. decrepitude that had set his hands to Again the girl ran to the Mediator and fluttering in such pitiful manner. He clutched him by his arms. stretched. them out to her. There was “There's going to be murder done here appeal in the gesture, as though he had murder!” she shrieked. “He's almost made a move to take her into his arms. She here. Why don't you do something? Why saw in his mien simply the pathetic decla- doesn't some one do something? Old man, ration of his weakness. don't you understand ? It's my brother- She turned away from him and ran to the and here is the man I love best in all the young man. world! My brother, and my husband that “Clair, I'll carry it myself. I will carry is going to be!' Oh, don't you understand ?” “You love him best of all the world?. She had thrown off her pack and was He's a good young man they tell me-a pushing him away from the canoe. But he good young man. Do you love him best? resisted her, at first gently, then with deter- It's a serious thing to be married. I know mination that flushed his face. A moment of those that have been married to their before it had been pale and rigid with everlasting ruin.” exhaustion. The old man seemed to be maundering. “He has driven me to the limit, Beth. He was fingering his throat with his flutter- You know it. It ain't because I am a ing hands and staring from the girl to the coward that I have run away from him. young man who stood there scowling up- He may think different. Others may think river. different. But— " “But if he's a good young man maybe “It's only the bravest men who are he " willing to fight self and conquer themselves “Only a crazy man to look to in our at the word of a woman, Clair,” she cried awful trouble!” she moaned, whirling “You have done that because he's my away from him. He pulled off his tall cap, brother. We must keep on, Clair. It threw it upon the porch and followed her. would be too horrible if he should over. It may have been the taunt that stung him, take us." it may have been consciousness of her it.” AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE 123 pitiable helplessness and her terrible posi- religious enthusiast in his tone as he spoke tion between those two men; it may have the last words. been the sudden crystallization from the They were attempting to stammer ac- mist of the strange reflections and ponder- knowledgment, but he checked them gently. ings that had been stirring in the Mediator's “Follow the cross-and hurry on." dim mind during the days in which he had He had that fluttering hand at his throat sat and meditated. However it was, the again. man that followed her to where the man “If-if- ” he stammered, gazing at the stood at bay was no longer the simple old girl with dimming eyes, "you wanted to creature of delusions that the Munsungan leave something with me that I would never had known so long. forget, you could- " He shuttled his Now that his grotesque cap was off, his wistful gaze at the young man and mur- waving, white hair gave him an air that mured, “I'm only an old man, you know, awed them a bit. His face wore dignity and I'd like to press my lips once on her and earnestness that transfigured him. A bonny forehead.” close observer would have seen more than She came to him swiftly, put her arms the honest light of entire sanity in his blue around his neck and kissed him, for the eyes, but the fire in them sparkled with the pathos of his loneliness and the mute appeal flame of authority. of his dim eyes touched her woman's heart. “You say that man of wrath is close Then they hastened away, the woman fol- behind you?" he cried. “Angus Mult, lowing closely at the heels of her lover along with legs like iron and arms like steel, is not the narrow trail among the trees. The to be outrun on this river, that he knows so Mediator went thrusting back through the well. There is one chance for you, young copse, tears streaming down into his beard. people. Follow me. I say, follow me !" When he came to the canoe that they had She grasped the young man by the arm left he tried to carry it out of sight, but it and he followed. The Mediator led them was too much for his strength, shattered into the edge of the woods and down the since that day on the river. As he dropped mouth of a trail. it and straightened he saw a man come “This is the Cameron trail,” he said, lurching around the bend of the trail up- "and it leads to the lake settlement. It river, canoe on his back. would be the trail that he would take to The Mediator stumbled to his porch and pursue, if it was thought you had gone sat down on it. through the woods. Follow me!” It was Angus Mult who came, and his He thrust through a copse and they came eyes were bloodshot and he was breathing aſter. with the hoarse “sufflings” of a strong man "I have not lived all these years here in near the end of his endurance. He threw these woods not to have my own trails,” he his canoe from his shoulders and ran and said, pointing to a tree that was hidden from kneeled beside the other craft. a person on the old trail. The tree bore a “So you've got 'em hidden here, old rude cross hacked into the bark to serve as a man,” he gritted. “They're in your camp, "blaze." hey? You needn't lie to me. You were “There goes my trail to the lake settle- out tryin' to hide their canoe.” ment,” he said. “It's five miles shorter He stopped, for his breath seemed tearing and it dodges the big hills. Wait here." at his throat as he gasped. Still on his In a few minutes he was back with them. knees, he began to roll back his sleeves from He had brought their pack and a tin pail in his wrists. addition, “Only a minute-a minute-a minute," “There's a bit to eat in the pail,” he said; he panted, gulping for air at each pause. 'I make poor shifts at cooking and it may “Then I'll at him. He stole her. But not be good, but it will help a little. Now he's cornered.” hasten on. It may happen that I can turn He did not rise but pulled a short-muzzled aside the man of wra h who comes after. rifle from his belt and laid it before him on There are few who know my trail here. the ground. Remember and follow the cross-follow the “That's if he tries to run. But him and cross!” me 'll meet like men-but he ain't a man. There was the reverent significance of the He's a dirty thief.” 124 AMERICAN MAGAZINE The old man made no reply. His tears “You wouldn't be guarding an empty cabin were gone and his eyes were hard under the that way. You don't dare to deny that tufts of white eyebrow. they are in there." The other leaned forward and panted on “What I deny is that I'm interfering in all fours like a dog, his mouth slavering your family or standing between your sister struggling to control his heaving lungs. At and yourself.” last he struggled up, stumbled forward a “She's in that camp and I'll —-" few steps, planted himself with legs astride “Listen, Angus Mult. You are talking and shouted, of the girl called Beth Mult. She is not “Come out, Clair Blynn, and settle with your sister. Do you hear me? By my the man you've robbed.” hopes of heaven—the only thing left of all Only the silence of the woods followed my hopes—by my faith as a clergyman, by his cry. the Lord Jesus who died to save me, that “Once more. Will you come out in the girl is not your sister. Therefore, Angus open like a man?” Mult, go on your ways and leave the child Again the silence. alone. Your demand for her is only the “Then, damn you, take it as ye'll have demand of the man for the maid-and the it!” He started forward, but the Mediator maid has chosen otherwise." rose and stood before his door. It was a stunning blow that the old man “The writing on my door," said he had dealt. “welcomes only those who come in honesty As he at first gasped to say something, and peace and fear of God. You can't Angus Mult's lips framed his accustomed come into my house, Angus Mult.” ready retort, “Liar," but he did not utter “Get out of the way, you old text drooler," the word. Something in the old man's roared Mult, advancing. mien and his solemn asseveratión impressed, “You can't come into my house, I say.” deterred, overawed the other's fierce anger. As he spoke the Mediator reached his hand The next moment a frenzied, eager, wild inside the door and took from the deer-hoof hope that frightened him came into his hangers his heavy magazine rifle. heart. Yet somehow, after all, that hope “It's my house and I say you can't come had a familiar thrill in it. in." "Angus,” went on the old man, “it is the "It ain't you I want, old man-it ain't first duty of a good brother to give his sister you. But ye can't stand between me and to a worthy man whom she has chosen. the man I do want and not get hurt. Ye You have not been willing. 'The Adam in can't stand between me and my sister. you has spoken louder than your reason. D've hear me? This ain't your business." You haven't known what was the matter "I'm not standing between you and your with you. I pity you, my boy." sister,” returned the Mediator. The instinct of the primordial man that “So you're lyin' for 'em, as well as he had not understood before, the feeling shieldin' 'em, be ye?" rasped the pursuer. that he had struggled blindly against for all “Angus Mult, you look at me a moment!” the years, the jealous, bitter protection of The tone was so tense, and the air of the her, the mad rage that inflamed him when old man standing there so imperious and so others wooed her_his untrained heart now striking that Mult paused in spite of himself. began to have an understanding of it all. Out of the smoky heavens blew a roaring His soul still blinked dizzily in the dazzle, west wind. It fluttered the long, white hair but he felt that the old man must be speaking of the Mediator like bannerets. His gaunt truth. How else could he, Angus Mult, frame seemed to tower. love the girl that they called his sister with "Listen to me, Angus Mult. I am a such flaming passion that his hands itched clergyman of the gospel. You have never to kill the man who was taking her away known that before, but I am. I abhor a from him? liar as a traitor to God and man. I say I “I pity you, my son," quavered the am not standing between your sister and Mediator. “I pity you and I understand. yourself.” I loved a woman myself, once, and one The other quailed before that command came and took her away from me—but it ing gaze only for a moment. was a bitterer cross to bear than yours. I “But they are in there," he roared. haven't talked of it through all the years, AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE 125 first. Angus Mult, for the talking of it would have your father stole her and her mother. She scorched my throat, just as the memory has is my daughter." been burning out îny soul. Now believe for a long time the two stood and stared that others than you have had to walk hand at each other—the old man with serene in hand with death in life. You and the authority replacing the trouble and anguish others of the rivermen have called me in his dim eyes; the young man with set crazy, Angus, and my poor wits are not teeth through which his breath came sibil- what they were. I know it! But God has antly, his lips slowly rolling away. put aside the curtain of my darkness a little The only sound was the rush of the wind to-day-for my heart has been strangely down the smoky skies. It drowned out stirred, Angus-strangely stirred! So I even the dull roar of the Jaws and the grum- may say unto you, go and leave her. For ble of the Hulling Machine, with their your way with her ever after is but the way diminished floods. of a man with a maid, and she has made her Mult was the first to break the silence. choice.” “She ain't goin' to be stolen from me," he Mult had not spoken, for this draught yelled. “Nobody has loved her so long as I of truth had made him drunken, at the have. She is mine and ye've got to give her to me.” Now he yearned madly for confirmation. As he shouted, he suddenly dove forward The panting thing that had been hidden in and downward, threw his arms around the his breast for all the years saw the honest old man's legs and dragged him from the light streaming on it at last and beat at the platform. They fell together on the ground. bars to be let out. Mult was up first and roughly twitched the "You've got to prove it, old man,” he rifle from the other's feeble clutch. He cried, with a break in his voice like a squall whirled it above his head in both hands and of something wild. flung it far into the woods. The next in- “It can be proved,” said the Mediator. -stant he was inside the camp, screaming His lips were as white as his beard. “The hoarsely: woman that your father, the 'hand- “Now it's man to man for her, Clair some Lud Mult,' brought into the wilder- Blynn.” ness years ago was not his wife, Angus. It He raged around the dim interior, lighted was another man's wife, and he had stolen only by the door and the cook fire on the her and her baby girl, because he was big hearth, groping wildly into the recesses of and strong and handsome and the other man the upper and lower tiers of bunks. was not. And he stole his own little boy Then he came stamping out of doors. away from his own wife. And he came up He ran again to their discarded canoe and here into the wilderness where folks are not seemed to sniff at it with almost a canine ready with questions. Look at me, Angus eagerness. His keen riverman's eyes noted This is true!” that the canvas under the cedar spreaders It was no skeptic on whom he bent his was still damp. The canoe had not been burning gaze. Angus Mult wildly and long out of the water. He turned his face joyously reached out and grasped the toward the Hulling Machine. More than knowledge to his heart as truth. ever he displayed the canine characteristics “Then no other man under God's skies now. He threw back his head and his shall have her but me," he roared. “You nostrils dilated. ain't got no right to keep me away from her, “Not that way without a canoe,” he mut- old man. No man has got the right to take tered. her away from me. She's mine.” With head bent forward he ran around He was advancing to come in at the door and around the little clearing of the Media- of the camp. The Mediator brought his tor. The old man sat on the ground, where rifle up into the hollow of his arm. he had been thrown, watching him anx- "I say the girl has spoken and has made iously. her choice," he said gravely. “You have The ground was hard and dry after all no claim. I have given her to the man she the weeks of drought, but at the mouth of loves." the Cameron trail, where the springs oozed “You have given her?”. at the foot of the big trees, he found the im- “Yes, because I am the man from whom pressions of their feet-impressions faint ar 126 AMERICAN MAGAZINE and extending for only a little way until the the trail that led through the blow-downs, soil became hard again. by the trail bordered by dry-kye. It was He rushed farther down the trail to the the path thai che racing conflagration other spring hole, whose existence he knew. would take, without friendly hill or cliff to He went down on his hands and knees and interpose a shield. with nose to the ground exar nined every A forest fire has its vagaries. Its flanks square foot of the trail. take unexpected swings. It halts, some- He came roaring back into the clearing. times, and eats and eats as though it had “So you've got 'em tucked away in some found some dainty morsel. Sometimes it of your dodge holes in there, old man!” he never stops even for swamps and water- yelled. “I know your tricks! You thought courses. I'd chase away on the Cameron trail. Oh, The old man knew all the chances and no! Oh, no! I'm no man to be fooled that realized all the uncertainties. It was a way. They haven't gone down the trail. freakish foe that he must circumvent. But I'm no man to go hunting for a needle in a one thing was certain: the fire would follow haystack." the valley trail. Only a woodsman that His frenzy and excitement made him knew every inch of that forest could strike gibber like a maniac. his way from that trail to the high ground “I'll show 'em! I'll show you! I'll have and find some recess in the rocks that might 'em out. And if they don't come out they'll avail as place of refuge. get their hell on earth, I'll make it for 'em. The Mediator knew his country. He can't have her. By the gods, he can't He had seen and kissed his child that day. have her. I'll see her in the torments of After all the years the depths of his being damnation first-and here's the damna had been stirred again by the love of his tion!” own. The horrible danger she was in He ran into the camp and rushed out filmed his mind once more. with blazing firebrands from the hearth. A madman's zeal and strength replaced The wind was volleying down the valley his weakness. He screamed and danced like the huge draft of a mighty furnace. before the wall of fire with all the abandon The woods were tinder. For miles back the other was displaying. Then suddenly from the river the dry-kye of the earlier he dashed off under the shrouding pall of cuttings strewed the ground, scattered yellow smoke, made a detour around the between pines and spruces of the younger blazing west confines of the conflagration growth, full of resin and smeared with sun- and at last-blackened, scorched and half- caked pitch. He flung the brands to right blinded-found himself in the trail of the and left, letting the roaring wind carry crosses, a figure that swept along in the them. He rushed back into the camp and sifting smoke like a shadow, following the brought out a tin pail heaped with live coals. trail almost by instinct. He sowed them among the trees and over He came upon them an hour later. The the brittle tinder of a near-by blow-down red glare of the flames was at his back and —and the harvest sprang instantaneous; sparks were dropping around like rain. flames that grew and flourished in shredded They had apparently abandoned hope. streamers like herbage of hideous growth, They had taken the trail ready to sink with fires that went flickering up pitch-covered exhaustion. Their red pursuer had now trunks, roared into horrid bloom in the hun'ed them down. They kneeled in the tree tops and scattered seeds of destruction shallow depths of a little watercourse, their that were borne down on the wind. New arms about each other. flames sprang up far ahead and blossomed There was only a croak left in the old and seeded ere the fires behind had over man's throat, but they obeyed his gestures. taken them in their careering course. The watercourse led up the little hillside, The master of the mischief danced to and and he left the trail and took it, stumbling fro along the wall of the fire, screaming his over the stones of the brook that had been summons to come forth. shrunk into pools that only half covered dirt- The old man scrambled up, his woods- stained rocks. man's heart sick with the thought that They, in their bewilderment, had not came to him. He had sent the young couple dared to attempt to flank the fire. But the away by the trail through the lowlands, by Mediator knew the way toward the high- AT MEDIATOR'S PLACE 127 lands. The night came down on them, Flames sprang from a dry stub of tree while they struggled on, gasping for breath that the lightning had riven. The new in that thick smoke pall that stung and fires coursed along the parched and stunted blistered throat and lungs. growth on the summit, whipped by the When they gazed from a shelf of the wind, and rode on and ahead of the older mountain the remote distances seemed like and fiercer conflagration, whose food was the expanse of some great city spotted snatched away from its jaws on the moun- with lights. It was here that the rush oftain top. Before their eyes, as they strug- the fire had already passed, leaving stumps gled upward, the great fire died. The red blazing and stubs flickering. Nearer them flaring of the new one lighted the heavens the charge of the flames was furious under beyond the mountain down whose flank the spur of the wind. it went roaring and ravening. “The wind will go down at sunset,” the At last they came out upon the blackened, Mediator had gasped. But this night it hot expanse of the summit, that had been continued. More than that, it changed, made safe for them so miraculously. The and in this there was despair. For the fire stifling smoke of the older conflagration, that had swung around the base of the that was backing upon them at the foot of wooded mountain now came roaring up the mountain, drove down upon them in and toward them in their faces. The eddying currents of air. To right and left other and older conflagration still ate on and all around raged the hideous saturnalia its steady and relentless course behind, of the flames. But here in the cleft of the backing slowly and opposing its wall of ledge to which they carried the fainting girl flames to them. they were safe for a time, despite the menace They were dragging the girl between of the flames deploying sullenly up the them now, but they realized that they could mountain. not go on much longer. Thirst parched and hunger gnawed, they “Any other time but in these days, when gasped for air and their lungs seemed to be the Lord has withheld His waters from the drying within them. But for a little while face of the earth, I could take courage from they were safe. that wind changing," muttered the Me- "It was the hand of God that smote here diator. “Alas, the fountains of the sky are and made a way for us in this Red Sea of dried up and woe is to us all.” destruction,” said the old man reverently, But now there was a shuttling of fierce and he kneeled and began to give thanks. white light above the smoke. The winds It was not sleep that drowned out the volleyed in their ears, but above the roar of senses of the young man, as he crouched in them there came a booming report, that the crevice of the ledge, the girl's head on rolled among the hills hollowly. his arm. It was the stupor of collapse, of “It is the voice of the Lord,” choked the anæsthesis in that stifle. He had striven to old man. stay awake to fan the smoke away from the He went toiling up the steep slope. The face of the unconscious girl. He would man and maid dragged themselves behind have given his right hand for a draught of him. water to pour between her blackened lips. "It is the voice of the Lord and the glory He swooned and fell beside her while he of his visage,” he muttered at each sheeting muttered this offer to Fate. of the white light and the growing roar of He did not know what hour it was when the thunder. he revived. It was still black night. “And that is the hand of God!” he fairly There was a queer roar all through the shrieked. heavens and along the earth. The breath A bolt of lightning had come arching came pure in his nostrils. He eased his across the dun heavens and found its arm from under her head and dragged him- target on the crest of the mountain up self out into the open, holding by the side of which they were creeping. The awful yelp the rock. Sheeting before the driving wind, of its passing almost split their ears. The guttering and gulleying and gurgling down echoes that went jarring away shook the the mountain slope, patting his face hills. like fond fingers of the unseen, the waters of "It is the hand of God," cried the Me- heaven met him as he issued. diator once more. In the sullen red glow of expiring fires 128 AMERICAN MAGAZINE he saw a figure kneeling on the side of the cliff. The sooty mask of the old man's face was streaked. His hair hung limply on his shoulders. “And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up and drink; for there is a sound of abund- ance of rain.'" He quoted the passage solemnly, and then cried with the shrillness of hysteria: "It's the rain, the rain, the blessed rain, my son! Bless the Lord for His mercies, and His love endureth forever.” He toppled forward in utter relaxation of body and mind. There was a smile on his face as the young man dragged him back to the shelter of the cliff, and he left him slum- pering as soundly as an infant. But it was the Mediator who left them sleeping when he arose at the first glimmer. ing of gray. The clouds hung low and dragged their sodden draperies along the mountain tops. The rain still poured un- ceasingly. The Mediator's chisel and little mallet never left the pocket of his frayed old coat except when they were in use. Now he drew them out and walked a little way down the mountain to where a cliff offered in- viting expanse. It was the familiar tinkle of iron against stone that led to him a man who had stag- gered all night along the hideous trail of his fire, weeping aloud and cursing himself. The old man had his little Bible propped open under shelter of a stone and had set deep into the living rock these words: "Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving who covereth the heavens with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who mak- eth- “You didn't find them!" wailed Angus Mult at his shoulder. “I have killed her. I didn't go for to do it, Mediator. She wasn't for me. I know it now. I've had a chance to think it over. And I've killed her! I've thought of it all the night. I tried to put the are out, old man. Oh, I tried to put it out." He held forth his blackened and blistered hands. His hair was singed. Red welts striped his cheeks. “Hell was in me, Mediator. I'm always sorry afterwards. But it's always when it's too late.” He broke into blubberings. "It was that same word that your father sent to me, Angus Mult,” replied the old man sternly. He gazed long at the culprit who cowered there in the rain, and when at last Mult had lowered his eyes under the grave and rebuking regard, the Mediator began to talk. It was only at the end of his solemn arraignment of the man's unjust persecu- tion of the innocent and helpless that he vouchsafed the information that the girl was not dead. “She's alive?” roared Mult, staggering to his feet and coming toward the old man with outstretched arms and face working piteously. “Yes, Angus Mult, she is alive,” said a voice above them on the mountainside. “She is alive and so am I, and I'm here to meet you now as man should meet man, for that woman is mine and hereafter I shall protect her. Now what will you have of me? For I swear I'll not be run by you like a fox any further." “She ain't mine any longer," faltered the spirit-broken Mult. “It's her right to choose her man," he said, shuttling appealing glances be- tween the two grave men. “I've found out some things. I'm sorry, and that's all I've got the language to say to you, Blynn. It's been bad, but you've got to make some allowances for a man like me that aint had nothin' else but her-and that didn't understand till — " a sob checked his words. “All is,” he went on brokenly after a time, “I'd jest like to look at her once more and have her know that I'm sorry and ain't goin' to give her no more trouble? It ain't in me after what I've been through." It was the Mediator who gently pushed the chosen lover from the path and led the way to the crevice in the ledge. He bent forward and looked in. “She's still asleep-poor little girl," he whispered over his shoulder. “It has been an awful night for her, Angus Mult." “And for me, Mediator! I don't reckon it's for me to wake her," muttered the man. “You can tell her how I come and how I went away, Mediator. You've got better language than I have. Tell her I come to realize at last. Tell her that I ain't all bad, and when I knew she had the right to have some one that she wanted I was man enough to give her up when I come to realize—when I come to real- ize.” He had pushed into the crevice and THE MYSTERY 129 stood close to the Mediator, gazing over his shoulder into the gloom. “I ain't had trainin’ and I didn't take it like a real gentlemen that understood how to act in time o' trouble," he whim- pered. “But I've been a man since I come to realize. Tell her that much!” He pressed past the old man and kneeled suddenly and kissed her hand that lay limply outspread on the moss. Then he went out into the rain and gazed up at the heavens. "It looks like quite a spell of it,” he said with piteous attempt to be matter-of- fact. The in-grained, simple anxiety to be “a man," his sole code of woods decorum had taken possession of him. “I reckon it's me for the drive now. There's nothin' like bein' busy, gents. I hope the little girl will get to the settle ment all handy and right. It's only an easy ja’nt down the other side.” . He pointed a wavering hand to the dull steel line of lake below them. "Good day," he said brokenly. “Wait for me down by the ledge, Angus," said the Mediator. “I'm going back to the river with you." “There's the lake,” said he to Blynn. “You can take your time as soon as she wakes up. There's the food in the little tin pail. Good bye to you and good luck." He turned away, his face puckering with the grimace that precedes tears. “One moment, sir!” hoarsely whispered Blynn. “I overheard some of your talk to Mult a little while ago. I think you haven't told us all-all that-well, I didn't hear anything definite, but I suspect that you are-are-something--" “I am the Mediator," said the old man over his shoulder, moving away; "they say I'm a little light in the head. I'm the-Mediator.” Two men silent, their heads bowed, their faces grief-stricken, took their way together through the sodden forest, the rains beating against their faces. Another man, with a smile on his face, sat at the mouth of the little cave and watched the slumbers of a girl who smiled back at him in her sleep. The Mystery By Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL CRAWFORD SYNOPSIS OF First INSTALLMENT. - The schooner Laughing Lass is encountered under sail, but deserted, by the U. S. S. Wolverine in the North Pacific. A crew under Ensign Edwards with bos'n's mate Timmins is put aboard. When she again appears she is again deserted. Previous to her appearance on each occasion, a shaft of light and brilliant glow are seen. A new crew of volunteers is put aboard. A storm separates the vessels ; that night the light is seen for the third time. The Wol. verine's company watch it in a silence that is broken by a cry forward. CHAPTER V.- CONTINUED. THE quartermaster who had The needle was swaying like a cobra's MESELN been at the wheel came head. And as the cobra's head spits clambering down the lad- venom, it spat forth a thin, steel-blue der and ran along the deck, stream of lucent fire. Then so swiftly it his fingers splayed and stiff- whirled that the sparks scattered from it in 9 ened before him in the a tiny shower. It stopped, quivered, and intensity of his panic. curved itself upward until it rattled like “The needle! The compass!” he a fairy drum upon the glass shield. shrieked. In the west the splendor and the terror Barnett ran to the wheel house with shot to the zenith. Barnett whirled the Trendon at his heels. The others followed wheel. The ship responded perfectly. 130 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “I thought she might be bewitched, too,” he murmured. “You may head her for the light, Mr. Barnett,” said Capt. Parkinson calmly. He had come from his cabin, all his nervous depression gone, in the face of an imminent and visible danger. Slowly the great mass of steel swung to the unknown. For an hour the unknown guided her. Then fell blackness, sudden, complete. After that radiance the daz- zled eye could make out no stars, but the look-out's keen vision discerned some- thing else. “Ship afire!” he shouted hoarsely. “Where away?" “Two points to leeward, near where the light was, sir.”. They turned their eyes to the direction indicated, and beheld a majestic rolling volume of purple light. Suddenly a fiercer red shot it through. “That's no ship afire,” said Trendon. “Volcano in eruption.” “And the other?” a ked the captain. “No volcano, sir.” “Poor Billy Edwards wins his bet,” said Forsythe in a low voice. “God grant he's on earth to collect it," replied Barnett solemnly. No one turned in that night. When the sun of June 8 rose it showed an ocean bare of prospect except that on the far horizon, where no land showed on the chart, there rose a smudge of dirty, rolling smoke. Of the schooner there was neither sign nor trace. The news ran electrically through the cruiser and all eyes were strained for a glimpse of the boat. The ship swung away to starboard. “Let me know as soon as you can make her out," ordered Carter. “Aye, aye, sir.” “There's certainly something there,” said Forsythe presently. “I can make out a speck rising on the waves." “She's a small boat," came in the clear tones of the look-out, “driftin' down." “Any one in her?" asked Carter. “Can't make out yet, sir. No one's in charge though, sir.” Capt. Parkinson appeared, and Carter pointed out the speck to him. “Yes. Give her full speed,” said the captain, replying to a question from the officer of the deck. Forward leapt the swift cruiser, all too slow for the anxious hearts of those aboard. For there was not one of the Wolverines who did not expect from this aimless traveler of desert seas at the least a lead- ing clue to the riddle that oppressed them. “Rides high, like a dory," was the next information from aloft. "Wasn't there a dory on the Laughing Lass?” cried Forsythe. “On her stern da vits,” answered Tren- don. “It is hardly probable that unattached small boats should be drifting about these seas,” said Captain Parkinson, thought- • fully. “If she's a dory, she's the Laugh- ing Lass's boat.” “That's what she is,” said Barnett. “You can see her build plain enough.” “Mr. Barnett, will you go aloft and keep me posted ?" said the captain. The executive officer climbed to join the look-out. As he ascended, those below saw the little craft rise high and slow on a broad swell. “Two men rolling in the bottom," shouted the look-out. “Are they alive?” “No sir; not that I can see.” “Ives or McGuire," suggested Forsythe in low tones. “Or Billy Edwards,” amended Carter. “Not Edwards,” said Trendon. “How do you know?" demanded Forsythe. ""Dory was aboard when we found her CHAPTER VI THE CASTAWAY “This ship,” growled Carter, the second officer, to Dr. Trendon, as they stood watching the growing smoke-column, “is a worse hot-bed of rumors than a down- East village. That's the third sea-gull we've had officially reported since break- fast." As he said, three distinct times the Wolverine had thrilled to an imminent discovery, which, upon nearer investi- gation, had dwindled to nothing more than a floating fowl. Upon the heels of Carter's complaint came another hail. “Boat ahoy. Three points on the starboard bow.” THE MYSTERY 131 the second time; after Edwards had left." "Can you make out which of the men is in her ?” hailed the captain. “Don't think it's any of our people," came the astonishing reply from Barnett. “ Are you sure?” on the high seas except that a step for a mast showed that she had pre umably been used for skimming about open shores. Of her passengers, one lay for- ward, prone and quiet. A length of sail- cloth spread over him made it impossible to see his garb. At his breast an ugly SA QUE PAREMAA RSS H WAT UAWEZA “Where we goin'?” “I brefer not to say ". I can see only one man's face, sir. It isn't Ives or McGuire. He's a stranger to me.” "It must be one of the crew, then." o, sir, beg your parding," called e look-out. “Nothin' like that in our crew, sir.” The boat came down upon them swiftly. the quarter-deck was looking into Ch. She was of a type common enough protuberance, outlined vaguely, hinted a deformity. The other sprawled aft, and at a nearer sight of him some of the men broke out into nervous titters. There was some excuse, for surely such a scarecrow had never before been the sport of wind and wave. A thing of shreds he was, elabor- ately ragged; a face overrun with a scrub of beard and preternaturally drawn, 22 SET TAGA SU NIE Sale “ You must not touch" surmounted by a stiff-dried, dirty, cloth semi-turban with a wide, forbidding stain along the side, worked out the likeness to a make-up. "My God!” cackled Forsythe with an hysterical explosion. A long-drawn, irrepressible aspiration of expectancy rose from the warship's decks as the stranger raised his haggard face, turned eyes unseeingly upon them, and fell back. The forward occupant stirred not, save as the boat rolled.. From between decks someone called out, sharply, an order. In the grim silence it seemed strangely incongruous that the measured business of a ship's life should be going forward as usual. Something within the newcomer's consciousness stirred to that voice of authority. Me- chanically, like some huge, hideous toy he raised first one arm, then the other, and hitched himself half way up on the stern seat. His mouth opened. His face wrinkled. He seemed groping for the meaning of a joke at which he knew he ought to laugh. Suddenly from his lips 132 THE MYSTERY 133 in surprising volume, raucous, rasping, yet with a certain rollicking deviltry fit to set the head a-tilt, burst a chanty. Oh, their coffin was their ship, and their grave it was the sea; Blow high, blow low; what care we! And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea: Down on the coast of the High Barbaree-ee. Long-drawn, like the mockery of a wail the minor cadence wavered through the stillness, and died away. “The High Barbaree!” cried Trendon. “You know it?" asked the Captain, expectant of a clue. "One of those cursed tunes you can't forget," said the surgeon. “Heard a scoundrel of a beach-comber sing it years ago. Down in New Zealand, that was When the fever rose on him he'd pipe up. Used to beat time with a steel hook he wore in place of hand. The thing haunted me till I was sorry I hadn't let the rascal die. This creature might have learned it from him. Howls it out exactly like.” “I don't see that that helps us any,” said Forsythe, looking down on the prepar- ations that were making to receive the un- expected guests. With a deftness which had made the Wolverine famous in the navy for the niceties of seamanship, the great cruiser let down her tackle as she drew skilfully alongside, and made fast, preparatory to lifting the dory gently to her broad deck. But before the order came to hoist away, one of the jackies who had gone down drew the covering back from the still figure forward, and turned it over. With a half-stifled cry, he shrank back. And at that the tension of soul and mind on the Wolverine snapped, breaking into outeries and sudden, sharp imprecations. The face revealed was that of Timmins, the bosun's mate who had sailed with the first vanished crew. A life-preserver was fas- tened under his arms. He was dead. "I'm out," said the surgeon briefly, and stood with mouth agape. Never had the disciplined Wolverines performed a sea ty with so ragged a routine as the getting in of the boat containing the live man and the corpse. The dead seaman was reverently disposed and covered. As to the survivor there was some hesitancy on the part of the captain who was inclined to send him forward until Dr. Trendon, after a swift scrutiny, suggested that for the present, at least, he be berthed aft. They took the stranger to Edwards' vacant room where Trendon was closeted with him for half an hour. When he emerged he was beset with questions. “Can't give any account of himself yet," said the surgeon. “Weak and not rightly conscious." “What ails him?" “Enough. Gash in his scalp. Fever. Thirst and exhaustion. Nervous shock, too, I think.” “How came he aboard the Laughing Lass?” “Does he know anything of Billy ?” “Was he a stowaway?” “Did you ask him about Ives and McGuire ?” “How came he in the small boat?" "Where are the rest ?” “Now, now," said the veteran chidingly. “How can I tell? Would you have me kill the man with questions?" He left them, to look at the body of the bosun's mate. Not a word had he to say when he returned. Only the captain got anything out of him but growling and un- intelligible expressions, which seemed to be objurgatory and to express bewildered cogitation, “How long has poor Timmins been drowned ?” the captain had asked him, and Trendon replied: “Captain Parkinson, the man wasn't drowned. No water in his lungs." “Not drowned! Then how came he by his death?” “If I were to diagnose it under any other conditions I should say that he had in- haled flames.” Then the two men stared at each other in blank impotency. Meantime the scare- crow was showing signs of returning con- sciousness and a message was dispatched for the physician. On his way he met Barnett who asked and received permis- sion to accompany him. The stranger was tossing restlessly in his bunk, opening and shutting his parched mouth in silent, piteous appeal for the water that must still be doled to him parsimoniously. “I think I'll try him with a little brandy," said Trendon, and sent for the liquor. Barnett raised the patient while the surgeon held the glass to his lips. The man's hand rose, wavered, and clasped the glass. 134 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “All right, my friend. Take it yourself Barnett shook his head. if you like," said Trendon. “Tell me,” begged Slade. The fingers closed. Tremulously held, “Wait till you're stronger," admonished the little glass tilted and rattled against Trendon. the teeth. There was one deep, eager “Can't wait,” said the weak voice. spasm of swallowing. Then the fevered The eyes grew wild. eyes opened upon the face of the Wolv- “Mr. Barnett, tell him the bare outline erine's first officer. and make it short," said the surgeon. “Prosit, Barnett,” said the man in a “We sighted the Laughing Lass two voice like the rasp of rusty metal. days ago. She was in good shape, but The navy man straightened up as from deserted. That is, we thought she was a blow under the jaw. deserted." "Be careful what you are about,” The man nodded eagerly. warned Trendon, addressing his superior “I suppose you were aboard,” said officer sharply, for Barnett had all but Barnett, and Trendon made a quick let his charge drop. His face was a gesture of impatience and rebuke. puckered mass of amaze and incredulity. “No," said Slade. “Left three-four "Did you hear him speak my name— don't know how many nights ago." or am I dreaming ?” he half whispered. The officers looked at each other. "Go "Heard him plain enough. Who is on," said Trendon to his companion. he?” “We put a crew aboard in command · The man's eyes closed, but he smiled of an ensign," continued Barnett, “and a little-a singular, wry-mouthed, winning picked up the schooner the next night, smile. With that there sprung from deserted. You must know about it. behind the brush of beard, filling out the Where is Billy Edwards?”. deep lines of emaciation, a memory to “Never heard of him," whispered the the recognition of Barnett; a keen and other. gay countenance that whisked him back “Ives and McGuire, then. They were across seven years' time to the days of there after-Great God, man!” he cried, Dewey and the Philippines. his agitation breaking out. "Pull your- “Ralph Slade, by the Lord!” he ex- self together! Give us something to go claimed. on." “Of the Laughing Lass?” cried Trendon. “Mr. Barnett!" said the surgeon “Of the Laughing Lass." peremptorily. Such a fury of eagerness burned in the But the suggestion was working in the face of Barnett that Trendon cautioned sick man's brain. He turned to the him. “See here, Mr. Barnett; you're officers a face of horror. not going to fire a broadside of disturbing “Your man, Edwards—the crew- questions at my patient yet a while. He's they left her? In the night?" in no condition." What does he mean?” cried Barnett. But it was from the other that the “The light! You saw it?". questions came. Opening his eyes he “Yes; we saw a strange light," whispered, “The sailor? Where?' answered Trendon soothingly. “Dead," said Trendon bluntly. Then, Slade half rose. “Lost; all lost!” breaking his own rule of repression he he cried, and fell back unconscious. asked: Trendon exploded into curses. “See what “Did he come off the schooner with you've done to my patient,” he fumed. you?” Barnett looked at him with contrite eyes. “Picked him up," was the straining “Better get out before he comes to," answer. “Drifting.” growled the surgeon. “Nice way to treat The survivor looked around him, then a man half dead of exhaustion.” into Barnett's face, and his mind, too, It was nearly an hour before Slade traversed the years. came back to the world again. The “North Dakota?” he queried. doctor forbade him to attempt speech. “No; I've changed my ship,” said But of one thing he would not be denied. Barnett. “This is the Wolverine." There was a struggle for utterance, then: “Where's the Laughing Lass?" “The volcano?" he rasped out. THE MYSTERY 135 “Dead ahead," was the reply. “Stand by,” gasped Slade. He strove to rise, to say something further, but endurance had reached its limit. The man was utterly done. Dr. Trendon went on deck, his head sunk between his shoulders. For a minute he was in earnest talk with the captain. Presently the Wolverine's engines slowed down, and she lay head to the waves. CHAPTER VII authoritatively. “What's his name?” he inquired of the journalist. “Darrow," replied the latter. “Percy Darrow-he's the assistant. It's a long story " “Of course it's a long story. There's a lot we want to know,” interrupted Captain Parkinson. “Quartermaster, head for the volcano yonder. Mr. Slade, we want to know where you came from; and why you left the schooner, and who Percy Darrow is. And there's dinner, so we'll just adjourn to the mess room and hear what you can tell us. But there's one thing we're all anxious to know: how came you in the dory which we found and left on the Laughing Lass no later than two days ago ?” "I haven't set eyes on the Laughing Lass for-well, I don't know how long, but it's five days anyway, perhaps more," replied Slade. They stared at him incredulously. “Oh, I see!” he burst out suddenly; "there were twin dories on the schooner. The other one's still there, I suppose. Did you find her on the stern davits?” THE FREE LANCE By the following afternoon Dr. Trendon allowed his patient to come on deck. Nearly twenty-four hours' rest and skilful treatment had done wonders for Slade. He was still a trifle weak and uncertain, and still a little glad to lean on the arms of his companions, but his eye was bright and alert, and his hollow cheeks mounted a slight color. This, with the clothes lent him by Barnett, transformed his appearance, and led Captain Parkinson to congratulate him- self that he had not obeyed his first impulse to send the castaway forward with the men. The officers pressed about him with heaity greeting, to which the journalist barely paid the courtesy of acknowledg- ment. His eye swept the horizon eagerly until it rested on the cloud of volcanic smoke belling up across the setting sun. A sigh of relief escaped him. "Where are we?” he asked Barnett -“I mean since you picked me up. How long ago was that anyway?” “Yesterday," replied the navigating officer. “We've stood off and on, looking for some of our men.” “Then that's the same volcano—?” Barnett laughed softly. “Well, they aren't quite holding a caucus of volcanoes down in this country. One like that is enough.” But Slade brushed the remark aside. “Head for it!” he cried excitedly. “We may be in time! There's a man on that island." “A man?” “Another?” “Not Billy Edwards ?” “Not some of our boys ?” Slade stared at them bewildered. "Hold on," interposed Dr. Trendon “That's it, then. You see when I left—" Captain Parkinson's raised hand checked him. “If you will be so good, Mr. Slade, let us have it all at once, after mess.” At the table the young officers at a sharp hint from Dr. Trendon conversed on indifferent subjects until the journalist had partaken heartily of what the physician allowed him. After he had pushed back his chair he looked about at the circle of faces, and sat silent for quite a minute, staring at the table, his fingers aimlessly rubbing into spots of wetness the water- beads as they gathered on the outside of his glass. Suddenly he looked up. “I don't know how to begin," he con- fessed. “It's too confounded improbable. I hardly believe it myself, now that I'm sitting here in human clothes surrounded by human beings. Old Scrubs, and the Nigger, and Handy Solomon, and the Professor, and the Chest, and thc-well, they were real enough when I was caught in the mess. But I warn you, you are not going to believe me, and hanged if I blame you a bit.” “We've seen marvels ourselves in the last few days,” encouraged Captain Park- inson. 136 AMERICAN MAGAZINE audience ref around good tiesvery once he The officers unconsciously relaxed into attitudes of greater ease. Overhead the lamps swayed gently to the swell. "I'm a reporter by choice, and a de- tective by instinct," began Slade, with startling abruptness. “Furthermore, I'm pretty well off. I'm what hey call a free lance, for I have no regular desk on any of the journals. I generally turn my stuff in to The Star because they treat me well. In return it is pretty well under- stood between us that I'm to use my judgment in regard to 'stories' and that they'll stand back of me for expenses. You see, I've been with them quite a while.” He looked around the circle as though in appeal to the comprehension of his audience. Some of the men nodded. "I loaf around here and there in the world, having a good time, traveling, visiting, fooling around. Every once in a while something interests me. The thing is a sort of instinct. I run it down. If it's a good story, I send it in. That's all there is to it.” He laughed slightly. “You see, I'm a sort of magazine writer in method, but my stuff is news- paper stuff. Also the game suits me. That's why I play it. That's why I'm here." “So much for myself,” Slade continued. “As for the Laughing Lass- PART II. THE BRASS-BOUND CHEST Being the Story Told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to the Officers of the United States Cruiser Wolverine. A C late, I was laro CHAPTER I came to me in a shrill falsetto. So gro- tesque was the effect of this treble from a THE BARBARY COAST bulk so squat and broad and hairy as the silhouette before me that I almost laughed SarGE COINCIDENCE got me aloud. Saloss a board her. I'll tell you "I guess you've made no mistake on a) A how it was. One evening, that. I'm her master, and her owner too." late, I was just coming out “Well, I haf been told you might rent To of a dark alley on the her," said the doctor. es Barbary Coast, San Fran- “Rent her!” mimicked the falsetto. cisco. You know—the water front, where “Well, that-hell, yes, I'll rent her!” he you can hear more tongues than at Port laughed again. Said, see stranger sights, and meet ad- “Doch recht,” the Professor was plainly venture with the joyous certainty of at the end of his practical resources. mediæval times. After waiting a moment for something Just at the turn of the alley I nearly more definite, the falsetto enquired rather bumped into two men. I pulled up, drily: thanking fortune that they had not seen “How long? What to? What for? me. The first words were uttered in a Who are you anyway?". voice I knew well. "I am Professor Schermerhorn,” the You've all heard of Professor Karl latter answered. Augustus Schermerhorn. He did some “Seen pieces about you in the papers." big things, and had in mind still bigger. “How many men haf you in the crew ?" I'd met him some time before in connection “Me and the mate, and the cook, and with his telepathy and wireless waves four hands." theory. It was queer enough to meet “And you could go—soon?" him again, at midnight, in a dark alley “Soon as you want—if I go." on the Barbary Coast in San Francisco, “I wish to leaf to-morrow.” talking to an individual whose facial out “If I can get the crew together I might line at least was not ornamental. make it. But say, let's not hang out here My curiosity, or professional instinct, in this run of darkness. Come over to the whichever you please, was all aroused. I grog shop yonder where we can sit down.” flattened myself against the wall. To my relief, for my curiosity was fully The first remark I lost. The reply aroused–Professor Schermerhorn's move- WOW NA EE SENSE TO Slowly the man defined himself as a shape takes form in a fog ments are usually productive—this pro- posal was vetoed. “No, no," cried the Doctor with some haste, “this iss well! Somebody might oferhear.” The huge figure stirred into an attitude of close attention. After a pause, the falsetto asked deliberately: “Where we goin'?” “I brefer not to say.” “H'm! How long a cruise?” “I want to rent your schooner and your crew so long ass I please to remain.” "H'm! How long's that likely to be?” “Maybe a few months; maybe seferal years." "H'm! Unknown port; unknown cruise. See here, anything crooked ?” 137 138 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “No, no! Not at all! It iss simply The affair interested me greatly. Ap- business of my own.” parently Professor Schermerhorn was about “Not that I care," commented the to go on a long voyage. I prided myself other easily, “only risks is worth paying on being fairly up-to-date in regard to the for." plans of those who interested the public, “There shall not be risk.” and the public at that time was vastly “Pearls likely ?” hazarded the other, interested in Professor Schermerhorn. I, without much heed to the assurance. in common with the rest of the world, had “Them Jap gunboats is getting pretty imagined him anchored safely in Phila- hard to dodge of late years. However, delphia, immersed in chemical research. I've dodged 'em before.” Here he bobbed up at the other end of the “Now as to pay-how mooch iss your continent, making shady bargains with boat worth ?” obscure shipping captains, and paying I could almost follow the man's thoughts a big premium for absolute secrecy. It as he pondered how much he dared ask. looked good. “Well, you see, for a proposition like Accordingly, I was out early the next that-don't know where we're going, morning. I had not much to go by; when we're going to get back-and schooners are as plenty as tadpoles in them gunboats-how would a hundred San Francisco harbor. However, I was and twenty-five a month strike you?” sure I could easily recognize that falsetto “Double it up. I want you to do ass I voice; and I knew where the supplies say, and I will also your crew give were to be purchased. Adams and Marsh double wages. Bud I want goot men, are a large firm, and cautious. I knew who will stay, and keep the mouth shut." better than to make direct inquiries, or to "Gosh all fish-hooks! They'd go to appear in the salesroom. But, by hanging hell with you for that!" around the door of the shipping-room, "Now you can get all you want at I soon had track of the large orders to be Adams and Marsh. Tell them it iss for sent that day. In this manner I had no me. Brovisions for three years, anyway. great difficulty in following a truck to Be ready to sail to-morrow." Pier 1o, nor to identify a consignment to “Tide turns at eight in the evening.” Captain Ezra Selover, as probably that of “I will send some effects in the morn- which I was in search. The mate was in charge of the stowage, The master hesitated. so I could not be quite sure. Here, how- “That's all right, Professor, but how ever, was a schooner of about a hundred do I know it's all right? Maybe by and fifty tons burden. I looked her over. morning you'll change your mind.” She was the cleanest ship I ever saw. “That cannot be. My plans are all” The deck looked as though it had been “It's the usual thing to pay something—" holystoned every morning by a crew of “Ach, but yes. I haf forgot. Darrow jackies; the stays were whipped and told me. I will make you a check. Let tarred, the mast new-slushed, and every us go to the table of which you spoke.” foot of running gear coiled down ship- They moved away, still talking. I did shape and Bristol fashion. There was a not dare to follow them into the light, for good deal of brass about her; it shone like I feared that the Professor would recognize gold, and I don't believe she owned an me. I'd have given my eye teeth, though, inch of paint that wasn't either fresh or to have gathered the name of the schooner, new-scrubbed. or that of her master. As it was, I hung I gazed for some time at this marvel. around until the two had emerged from the It's unusual enough anywhere, but aboard corner saloon. They paused outside, still a California hooker it is little short of talking earnestly. I ventured a hasty miraculous. The crew had all turned interview with the bar-keeper. He could up, apparently, and a swarm of stevedores or would tell me nothing of either man. were hustling every sort of provisions, I should have shadowed the captain to supplies, stock, spars, lines and canvas his vessel. I cursed myself for a blunderer. down into the hold. It was a rush job, When I got to the street the two men had and that mate was having his hands full. disappeared. I didn't wonder at his language nor at his ing." THE MYSTERY 139 looks, both of which were somewhat long? Just about six seconds! There mussed up. Then almost at my elbow and back! You—" I won't bother with I heard that shrill falsetto squeal, and all the epithets, although by now I know turned just in time to see the captain Captain Selover's vocabulary fairly well. ascend the after gang-plank. “And yet you couldn't take six seconds He was probably the most dishevelled off to spit over the side! Couldn't walk and untidy man I ever laid my eyes on. two fathom! Had to spit on my quarter- His hair and beard were not only long, deck, did you!” but tangled and unkempt, and grew so R umble from the mate. far toward each other as barely to expose “No, by God, you won't call up any of a strip of dirty brown skin. His shoulders the crew! You'll get a swab and do it were bowed and enormous. His arms yourself. You'll get a hand swab and get hung like a gorilla's, palms turned slightly down on your knees, damn you! I'll outwards. On his head was jammed a teach you to be lazy!” linen boating hat that had once been The mate said something again. white; gaping away from his hairy chest “It don't matter if we ain't under way. was a faded, dingy, checked cotton shirt, That has nothing to do with it. The that had once been brown and white; quarter-deck is clean, if the waist ain't, his blue trousers were spotted and splashed and nobody but a damn misbegotten son- with dusty stains; he was chewing of-a-sea-lawyer would spit on deck any. tobacco. A figure more in contrast to the how!” exquisitely neat vessel it would be hard to from this, Captain Selover went on imagine. into a good old-fashioned deep-sea “cus- The captain mounted the gang-plank sing out,” to the great joy of the stevedores. with a steadiness that disproved my first The mate began to answer back. In a suspicion of his having been on a drunk. moment it was a quarrel. Abruptly it was He glanced aloft, cast a speculative eye a fight. The mate marked Selover beneath on the stevedores trooping across the the left eye. The captain with beautiful waist of the ship, and ascended to the simplicity crushed his antagonist in his quarter-deck where the mate stood lean- gorilla-like squeeze, carried him to the ing over the rail and uttering directed side of the vessel and dropped him, limp curses from between sweat-beaded lips. and beaten, to the pier. And the mate There the big man roamed aimlessly on was a good stout specimen of a seafarer, what seemed to be a tour of inspection. too. Then the captain rushed below, As I watched him, his whole frame emerging after an instant with a chest stiffened. The long gorilla arms con- which he flung after his subordinate. It tracted, the hairy head sunk forward was followed a moment later by a stream in the tenseness of a serpent ready to of small stuff-mingled with language strike. He uttered a shrill falsetto shriek projected through an open port-hole. that brought to a standstill every stevedore This in turn ceased. The captain reap- on the job, and sprang forward to seize peared with a pail and brush, scrubbed his mate by the shoulder. feverishly at the offending spot, mopped it Evidently the grasp hurt. I can be dry with the same old red bandana hand- lieve it might, from those huge hands. kerchief, glared about him—and abruptly The man wrenched himself about with an became as serene and placid as a noon oath of inquiry and pain. I could hear calm. He took up the direction of the one side of what followed. The captain's Stevedores. It was all most astounding. high-pitched tones carried clearly; but Nobody paid any attention to the mate. the grumble and growl of the mate were He looked toward the ship once or twice, indistinguishable at that distance. thought better of it, and began to pick up “How far is it to the side of the ship, his effects, muttering savagely. In a you hound of hell ?" shrieked the captain. moment or so he threw his chest aboard an Mumble-surprised-for an answer. outgoing truck and departed. "Well, I'll tell you, you swab! It was now nearly noon and I was just It's just two fathom from where you in the way of going for something to eat, stand. Just two fathom! How long when I caught sight of another dray, would it take you to walk there? How laden with boxes and crated affairs, which 140 AMERICAN MAGAZINE I recognized as scientific apparatus. It were public property. I told myself that was followed in quick succession by in the present instance his lavish use of three others. Ignorant as I was of the money, the elaborate nature of his prepara- requirements of a scientist, my common- tions, the evident secrecy of the expedition sense told me this could be no exploring as evidenced by the fact that he had outfit. I revised my first intention of negotiated for the vessel only the day before going to the Club, and bought a sandwich setting sail, the importance of personal or two at the corner coffee-house. I don't supervision as proved by the fact that he know why, but even then the affair seemed -notoriously impractical in practical mat- big with mystery, with the portent of ters, and notoriously disliking anything tragedy. Perhaps the smell of tar was in to do with business-had conducted the my nostrils and the sea called. It has affair himself instead of delegating it, always possessed for me an extraordinary why, gentlemen, don't you see that all allurement. this was more than enough to wake me A little after two o'clock a cab drove up, body and soul? Suddenly I came to to the after gang-plank and stopped. a definite resolution. Captain Selover From it alighted a young man of whom I had descended to the pier. I approached. shall later have occasion to tell you more, “You need a mate," said I. followed by Professor Schermerhorn. The He looked me over. young man carried only a light leather “Perhaps," he admitted; "where's “serviette,” such as students use abroad, your man?” while the Professor fairly staggered under “Right here,” said I. the weight of a square, brass-bound chest His eyes widened a little. Otherwise without handles. The singularity of this he showed no sign of surprise. I cursed unequal division of labor struck me at my clothes. once. Fortunately I had my master's certificate It struck also one of the dock men, who with me-I'd passed fresh-water on the ran forward, eager for a tip. Great Lakes; I always carry that sort of “Kin I carry th' box for you, boss?” document on the chance that it may come he asked, at the same time reaching for it. handy. It chanced to have a couple of The Professor's thin figure seemed naval endorsements, results of the late war. fairly to shrink at the idea. “Look here," I said before I gave it to “No, no!” he cried. “It iss not for him. “You don't believe in me. My you to carry!" clothes are too good. That's all right. He hastened up the gang-plank clutching They're all I have that are good. I'm the chest close. At the top, Captain broke. I came down here wondering Selover met him. whether I'd better throw myself in the “Hello, Professor," he squeaked. drink.” “Here in good time. We're busy, you “You look like a dude,” he squeaked. see. Let me carry your chest for you." “Where did you ever ship?" “No, no!” Professor Schermerhorn I handed him my certificate. The fairly glared. endorsements from Admiral Keays and “It's almighty heavy,” insisted the Captain Arnold impressed him. He stared captain. "Let me give you a hand.” at me again, and a gleam of cunning crept “You must not touch!” emphatically into his eyes. ordered the scientist. “Where iss the “Nothing crooked about this ?” he cabin?” breathed softly. He disappeared down the companion- I had the key to this side of his character. way, clasping his precious load. The You remember I had overheard, the night young man remained on deck to super- before, his statement of his moral scruples. intend the stowing of the scientific goods I said nothing, but looked knowing. and the personal baggage. “What was it?" he murmured. “Plain All this time I had been thinking busily. desertion, or something worse?" I remembered distinctly one other instant I remained inscrutable. when Dr. Schermerhorn had disappeared. “Well," he conceded, “I do need a He had come back inscrutably, but within a mate; and a naval man-even if he is week his results on aerial photography wantin' to get out of sight- THE MYSTERY 141 “He won't spit on your decks, anyway," pledged to act as second officer on a little I broke in boldly. hundred-and-fifty-ton schooner. Captain Selover's hairy face bristled about the mouth. This I subsequently discovered was the symstom of a grin. CHAPTER II “You saw that, eh?” he trebled. “Aren't you afraid he'll bring down THE GRAVEN IMAGE the police and delay your sailing?” I asked. I had every reason to be satisfied with He grinned again. my disguise-if such it could be called. "You needn't worry. There ain't goin' Captain Selover at first failed to recognize to be any police. He had his advance me. Then he burst into his shrill cackle. money, and he won't risk it by tryin' to “Didn't know you," he trebled. “But come back." you look shipshape. Come, I'll show you We came to an agreement. I professed your quarters." surprise at the wages. The captain Immediately I discovered what I had guardedly explained that the expedition suspected before—that on so small a was secret. schooner the mate took rank with the men “What's our port?" I asked, to test him. rather than the afterguard. Cabin accom- “Our papers are made out for Honolulu,” modations were of course very limited. he replied. My own lurked in the waist of the ship- We adjourned to sign articles. a tiny little airless hole. "By the way,” said I, “I wish you “Here's where Johnson stayed,” prof- wouldn't make them out in my own name. fered Selover. “You can bunk here, or 'Eagen’ will do.” you can go in the foc'sle with the men. "All right,” he laughed, “I sabe. Eagen There's more room there. We'll get it is." under way with the turn of the tide.” “I'll be aboard at six,” said I. “I've He left me. I examined the cabin. It got to make some arrangements.” was just a trifle larger than its single berth, “Wish you could help with the lading," and the berth was just a trifle larger than said he. "Still, I can get along. Want myself. My chest would have to be left any advance money?”. outside. I strongly suspected that my "No," I replied; then I remembered lungs would have to be left outside also; that I was supposed to be broke. “Yes,” for the life of me I could not see where the I amended. air was to come from. With a mental He gave me ten dollars. reservation in favor of investigating the "I guess you'll show up," he said. forecastle, I went on deck. "Wouldn't do this to everybody. But The Laughing Lass was one of the a naval man-even if he is dodgin' Uncle prettiest little schooners I ever saw. Sam-" Were it not for the lines of her bilges and “I'll be here," I assured him. the internal arrangement of her hold, it At that time I wore a pointed beard. might be imagined she had been built This I shaved. Also I was accustomed originally as a pleasure yacht. Even the to use eye-glasses. The trouble was rake of her masts, a little forward of the merely a slight astigmatism which bothered plumb, bore out this impression, which me only in reading or close inspection. I a comparatively new suit of canvas, well could get along perfectly well without the stopped down, brass stanchions forward, glasses, so I discarded them. I had my and two little guns under tarpaulins, hair cut rather close. When I had put almost confirmed. One thing struck me on sea-boots, blue trousers and a shirt, as peculiar. Her complement of boats a pea-jacket and a cap I felt quite safe was ample enough. She had two surf from the recognition of a man like Profes- boats, a dingey, and a dory slung to the sor Schermerhorn. In fact, as you shall davits. In addition another dory—the see, I hardly spoke to him during all the one you picked me up in-was lashed to voyage out. the top of the deck house. Promptly at six, then, I returned with a “They'd mighty near have a boat sea chest, bound I knew not whither, and apiece," I thought, and went forward. 142 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Just outside the forecastle hatch I them, a steady and beady black. I paused. Someone below was singing in could at first glance ascribe great activity, a voice singularly rich in quality. The but only moderate strength to his slender, words and the quaintness of the minor air wiry figure. In this I was mistaken. struck me immensely and have clung to His sheer physical power was second my memory like a burr ever since. only to that of Captain Selover. One of his forearms ended in a steel hook. At “Are you a man-o'-war or a privateer," the moment I could not understand this; said he, could not see how a man so maimed Blow high, blow low, what care we! could be useful aboard a ship. Later I “Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I'm sailing wished we had more as handy. His name for my fee" was Anderson, but I never heard him Down on the coast of the high Bar- called that. It was always “Handy baree-ee. Solomon” with the men and masters. We stared at each other, I fascinated by · I stepped to the companion. The voice something, some spell of the ship, which at once ceased. I descended. I have never been able to explain to my- A glimmer of late afternoon struggled self-nor even describe. It was a mystery, through the dead-lights. I found myself a portent, a premonition such as over- in a really commodious space, extending takes a man sometimes in the dark passage- far back of where the forward bulkheads ways of life. I cannot tell you of it, nor are usually placed, accommodating rows make you believe. Let it pass. and rows of bunks-eighteen of them, in Then by a slow process of successive fact. The unlighted lamp cast its shadow perceptions I became aware that I was on wood stained black by much use, but watched by other eyes, other wax figures, polished like ebony from the continued other human beings with unwavering friction of men's garments. I wish I gaze. They seemed, to the sense of mystic could convey to you the uncanny effect- apprehension that for the moment held this, of dropping from the decks of a possession of me, to be everywhere- miniature craft to the internal arrange- in the bunks, on the floor, back in the ments of a square-rigged ship. A fresh, shadows, watching, watching, watching sweet breeze of evening sucked down the from the advantage of another world. hatch. I immediately decided on the Then the grotesque figure in the corner forecastle. stirred. I stood for a moment at the foot of the “Well, mates," said the man, “believe companion accustoming my eyes to the or not believe, it's in the book, and it gloom. After a moment, with a shock stands to reason, too. We have gold of surprise, I made out a shining pair of mines here in Californy and Nevada and bead-points gazing at me unblinkingly all them States; and we hear of gold from the shadow under the bitts. Slowly mines in Mexico and Australia too, but the man defined himself, as a shape takes did you ever hear tell of gold mines in form in a fog. He was leaning forward Europe? Tell me that! And where did in an attitude of attention, his elbows the gold come from then, before they resting on his knees, his forearms depend- discovered America ? Tell me that! Why ing between them, his head thrust out. they made it, just as the man that wrote I could detect no faintest movement of this here says, and you can kiss the Book eye-lash, no faintest sound of breathing on that." The stillness was portentous. The creature “How about that place, Ophir, I read was exactly like a wax figure, one of the about?" asked a voice from the bunks. sort you meet in corridors of museums The man shot a keen glance thither from and for a moment mistake for living beings. beneath his brows. He wore on his head a red bandanna “Know last year's output from them handkerchief-I never saw him with other mines of Ophir, Thrackles ?” he enquired covering. From beneath it straggled oily in silky tones. . and tangled locks of glossy black. His “Why, no," stammered the man ad- face was long, narrow, hook-nosed and dressed as Thrackles. sinister. His eyes, as I have described “Well, I do,” pursued the man with the THE MYSTERY 143 steel "hook, "and it's just the whole of Thrackles finally with some impatience. nothing, and you can kiss the Book on “I sabe how a man goes after treasure that too! There ain't any gold output, with a box; but why should he take because there aint any mines, and there treasure away in a box? What do you never have been. They made their gold." think, Bucko?” he suddenly appealed to me. He tossed aside a book he had been I looked from my investigation of the holding in his left hand. I recognized empty berths. the fat little paper duodecimo with amuse "I don't think much about it," I replied, ment, and some wonder. The only other “except that. by the look of the stores copy I had ever laid my eyes on is in the we're due for more than Honolulu; and Astor Library. It is somewhat of a from the look of the light we'd better turn rarity, called The Secret of Alchemy or the to on deck.” Grand Doctrine of Transmutation Fully An embarrassed pause fell. Explained, and was written by a Dr. “Who are you, anyway?” bluntly de Edward Duvall -a most extraordinary manded the man with the steel hook. volume to have fallen into the hands of “My name is Eagen," I replied. “I've seamen. the berth of mate. Which of these bunks I stepped forward, greeting and being are empty?”. greeted. Besides the men I have men They indicated what I desired with just tioned they were four. The cook was a a trace of sullenness. I understood well bullet-headed, squat negro with a broken enough their resentment at having a ship's nose. I believe he had a name—Robin officer quartered on them—the forecastle son, or something of that sort. He was they considered as their only liberty when to all of us simply the Nigger. Unlike at sea, and my presence as a curtailment most of his race he was gloomy and to the freedom of speech. I subsequently taciturn. did my best to overcome this feeling, but Of the other two, a little white-faced, never quite succeeded. thin-chested youth named Pulz, and a At my command the Nigger went to his villainous-looking Mexican called Perdosa, galley. I ascended to the deck. Captain I shall have more to say later. Selover came to my side and leaned over My arrival broke the talk on alchemy. the rail, peering critically at the black It resumed its course in the direction of water against the piles. our voyage. Each discovered that the “She's at the flood,” he squeaked. others knew nothing; and each blundered “And here comes the Lucy Belle." against the astounding fact of double The tug took us in charge and puffed wages. with us down the harbor and through the “All I know is the pay's good; and Golden Gate, where we set all canvas. that's enough,” concluded Thrackles from About midnight we drew up on the Faral- a bunk. lones. “ The pay's too good,” growled Handy The schooner handled well. Our crew Solomon. “This aint no job to go look was divided into three watches-an unusual at the 'clipse of the moon, or the devil's arrangement, but comfortable. Two men a preacher!” could sail her handily in most sorts of "Wat you maik heem, den?” queried weather. Handy Solomon had the wheel. Perdosa. Otherwise the deck was empty. "It's a treasure, of course," said Handy I brooded in wonder at what I had seen Solomon shortly. and how little I had explained. The "He, he, he!'' laughed the negro without number of boats, sufficient for a craft of mirth. three times the tonnage; the capacity of “What's the matter with you, Doc the forecastle with its eighteen bunks- tor?" demanded Thrackles. enough for a passenger ship-what did it “Treasure!” repeated the Nigger. mean? And this wild, unkempt, villain- “You see dat box he done carry so cairful? ous crew with its master and his almost You see dat?” ridiculous contrast of neatness and filth A pause ensued. Somebody scratched a —did Professor Schermerhorn realize to match and lit a pipe. what he had entrusted himself and his "No, I don't see that!” broke out precious expedition, whatever it might be? (To be continued) SORN KUTKERYOND BOYD 1966. Wireless Telegraph By Don Marquis WITH DECORATIONS BY JOHN RUTHERFORD BOYD Dead priests that have sung when the world was young at Mercury's temple-place, Your myth, it was true. It is born anew in the death of time and space! ORE swift, more fleet, than the sun-stained feet of the Dawns that trample the night- More fleet, more swift, than the gleams that lift in the wake of a wild star's flight- Through the unpathed deeps of a sea that sweeps unplumbed, unsailed, unknown, Where the forces untamed, unseen, unnamed, have ruled from the First, alone, Now the Ghosts of Thought, with a message caugnt from the tales of the dreaming past, Unheard, unseen, with nor sound nor sheen, speed through the ultimate vast. LL battered and lamed and shattered and maimed the mail-ship crawls into port, And the belted tire and the volted wire are the toys of the whirl- wind's sport; 144 WOOD GIVITIILONI Voir 11 Higuitallrirl Linull on EXISTEN 709 NININIAI TER UN COLANTINI ! 09 JOHN ROZAFORD BOYD NOT AND the gray sea's teeth in the depths beneath where the coiled, green serpents play Are crumbling, crunching, mumbling, munching, at the cable lengths alway- But now they may howl, the storms, and growl, at the work of the lineman's hands, But gone is their pride with the boast of the tide that bit at the deep-sea strands. FOR a sentience thrills through the bastioned hills that has neither voice nor form, Nor recks of the might of the Chaos-sprite that lashes the earth with his storm; Bitted and bridled and shackled and girdled and bound with a linkless chain, The brute powers cower at the god-like power that dwells in a human brain; Man has stolen the wings of the deathless Things that range where the spirit is lord, He is leagued anew with the Silence through the strands of a strandless cord. AN'S feet are clay and they halt and stay with the graveyard worms and clods, But his plumed thought flings to the wind its wings in the haunts of the careless gods- For those old gods live, and they weave and give new meanings to old myth; And blossoms and gleams of the world-old dreams flower fresh from the truth at their pith- the tales that twine round the ruined shrine where Hermes' priests have sung, They were true, they are true, they are born anew in the speech of a younger tongue. 145 The Last of the Wire-tappers The True Story of the Famous Felix Case By Arthur Train AUTHOR OF “COLONEL AMMON AND THE FRANKLIN SYNDICATE," "THE CASE OF MABEL PARKER," ETC. “Sir," replied the knave unabashed, “I am one of those who do make their living · by their wits." OHN FELIX, a dealer in automatic musical instru- ments in New York City, was swindled out of $50,000 on February 2, 1905, by JULEGLE what is commonly known as the "wire-tapping” game. During the previous August a man calling himself by the name of Nelson had hired Room 46, in a building at 27 East Twenty-second Street, as a school for“ wireless telegraphy.” Later on he had installed over a dozen deal tables, each fitted with a complete set of ordinary telegraph instruments and con- nected with wires which, while apparently passing out of the windows, in reality plunged behind a desk into a small “dry" battery. Each table was fitted with a shaded electric drop-light, and the room was furnished with the ordinary paraphernalia of a telegraph office. The janitor never ob- served any activity in the "school.” There seemed to be no pupils, and no one haunted the place except a short, ill-favored person who appeared monthly and paid the rent. On the afternoon of February 1, 1905, Mr. Felix was called to the telephone of his store and asked to make an appointment, later in the afternoon, with a gentleman named Nelson who desired to submit to him a business proposition. Fifteen minutes afterwards Mr. Nelson arrived in person and introduced himself as having met Felix at “Lou” Ludlam's gambling house. - He then produced a copy of the Evening Telegram which contained an article to the effect that the Western Union Telegraph Company was about to resume its “pool- room service,"—that is to say, to supply the poolrooms with the telegraphic returns of the various horse races being run in different parts of the United States. The paper also contained, in connection with this item of news, a photograph which might, by a stretch of the imagination, have been taken to resemble Nelson himself. M r. Felix, who was a German of French sympathies married to an American lady, had recently returned to America after a ten years' sojourn in Europe. He had had an extensive commercial career, was possessed of a considerable fortune, and had at length determined to settle in New York, where he could invest his money to advantage and at the same time conduct a conservative and harmonious business in musical instru- ments. Like the Teutons of old, dwelling among the forests of the Elbe, Mr. Felix knew the fascination of games of chance and had heard the merry song of the 146 THE LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS 147 wheel at both Hambourg and Monte Carlo. sighed Nelson, "and if we should offer to In Europe the pleasures of the gaming make a big bet ourselves, the gamblers table had been comparatively inexpensive, would be suspici us and probably refuse to but in New York for some unknown reason place it." the fickle goddess had not favored him and “I think this looks like a svindling game." he had lost upwards of $51,000. “Zu viel!" said Felix shrewdly. So it did; so it was. as he himself expressed it. Being of a philo- By and by Felix put on his hat and, sophic disposition, however, he had pock- escorted by Nelson, paid a visit to the eted his losses and contented himself with “branch office" at 27 East Twenty-second the consoling thought that, whereas he Street. Where once solitude had reigned might have lost all, he had in fact lost only a supreme and the spider had spun his web part. It might well have been that had not amid the fast gathering dust, all was now The Tempter appeared in the person of his tumultuous activity. Fifteen busy operators afternoon visitor, he would have remained in eye shades and shirt sleeves took the news in statu quo for the rest of his natural life. hot from the humming wires and clicked it In the sunny window of his musical store, off to the waiting poolrooms. surrounded by zitherns, auto-harps, dulci- “Scarecrow wins by a neck!” cried one, mers, psalteries, sackbuts, and other instru- “Blackbird second!” ments of melody, the advent of Nelson pro “Make the odds 5 to 3,” shouted a short, duced the effect of a sudden and unexpected ill-favored man, who sat at a desk puffing discord. Felix distrusted him from the very a large black cigar. The place buzzed first. like a beehive and ticked like a clock- The "proposition” was simplicity itself. maker's. It had an atmosphere of breath- It appeared that Mr. Nelson was in the em- less excitement all its own. Felix watched ploy of the Western Union Telegraph Com- and marvelled, wondering if dreams came pany, which had just opened a branch office true. for racing news at 27 East Twenty-second The short, ill-favored man strolled over Street. This branch was under the superin- and condescended to make Mr. Felix's tendence of an old associate and intimate acquaintance. An hour later the three friend of Nelson's by the name of McPher- of them were closeted among the zitherns. son. Assuming that they could find some At the same moment the fifteen operators one with the requisite amount of cash, they were ranged in a line in front of a neighbor- could all make their everlasting fortunes by ing bar, their elbows simultaneously ele- simply having McPherson withhold the vated at an angle of forty-five degrees. news of some race from the poolrooms long F elix still had lingering doubts. Hadn't enough to allow one of the others to place a Mr. McPherson some little paper,-a letter, large bet upon some horse which had in a bill, a receipt or a check, to show that fact already won and was comfortably in the he was really in the employ of the Western stable. Felix grasped the idea instantly. Union ? No, said “Mac," but he had At the same time he had his suspicions of something better,-his badge which he had his visitor. It seemed peculiar that he, an received as the fastest operator among inconspicuous citizen who had already lost the company's employees. Felix wanted $50,000 in gambling houses, should be se- to see it, but “Mac” explained that it was lected as the recipient of such a momentous locked up in the vault at the Farmers' opportunity. Moreover, he knew very well Loan and Trust Co. To Felix this had that gentlemen in gambling houses were a safe sound—“Farmers' Trust Co.” never introduced at all. He thought he Then matters began to move rapidly. detected the odor of a rodent. He naively It was arranged that Felix should go inquired why, if all these things were so, down in the morning and get $50,000 Nelson and his friend were not already yet from his bankers, Seligman & Meyer. millionaires two or three times ? The Then he was to meet Nelson at the store answer was at once forthcoming that they and go with him to the poolroom where had been, but had been robbed-unmerci- the big financiers played their money. fully robbed, by one in whom they had had McPherson was to remain at the “office" confidence and to whom they had entrusted and telephone them the results of the races in advance. By nightfall they would “And now we are poor, penniless clerks!” be worth half a million. their money. 148 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “I hope you have a good safe," re- marked Nelson, tentatively. The three conspirators parted with mutual expres- sions of confidence and esteem. Next morning Mr. Felix went to his bankers and procured $50,000 in five ten- thousand-dollar bills. The day passed very slowly. There was not even a flurry in zitherns. He waited impatiently for Nelson who was to come at five o'clock. At last Nelson arrived and they hurried to the Fifth Avenue Hotel where the coup was to take place. And now another marvel. Wassermann Brothers' stock-brokering office, which closes at three, hummed just as the "office" had done the evening before,—and with the very same bees, although Felix did not recognize them. It was crowded with men who struggled violently with one another in their eagerness to force their bets into the hands of a benevolent- looking person, who, Felix was informed, was the “trusted cashier” of the establish- ment. And the sums were so large that even Felix gasped. “Make that $40,000 on 'Coco'!” cried a baldheaded “capper." “Mr. Gates wants to double his bet on Jackstone',-make it $80,000!” shrieked another. “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" begged the “trusted cashier,” “not quite so fast, if you please. One at a time.” “Sixty thousand on ‘Hesper'—for a place!" bawled one addressed as Mr. Keene, while Messrs. Ryan, Whitney, Belmont, Sullivan, McCarren, and Murphy all made handsome wagers. From time to time a sporty looking man standing beside a ticker, shouted the odds and read off the returns. Felix heard with straining ears: “They're off!” “Baby leads at the quarter.” “Susan is gaining!” “They're on the stretch!”. “Satan wins by a nose-Peter second.” There was a deafening uproar, hats were tossed ceilingwards, and great wads of money were passed out by the “trusted cashier” to indifferent millionaires. Felix wanted to rush in and bet at once on some- thing—if he waited it might be too late. Was it necessary to be introduced to the cashier ? No? Would he take the bet ? All right, but- At that moment a page elbowed his way among the money calling plaintively for “Felix! Mr. Felix.” Shrinking at the thought of such publicity in such distin- guished company, Felix caught the boy's arm and learned that he was wanted at the telephone booth in the hotel. “It must be ‘Mac,' said Nelson. “Now don't make any mistake!” Felix promised to use the utmost care. It was “Mac." “Is this Mr. Felix ?—Yes? Well, be very careful now. I am going to give you the result of the third race which has already been run. I will hold back the news three minutes. This is merely to see if everything is working right. Don't make any bet. If I give you the winners correctly, you can put your money on the fourth race. The horse that won the last is ‘Tom Platt,'—'O. Dell' is second. Now just step back and see if I am right." Felix rushed back to the poolroom. As he entered the man at the tape was call- ing out that “they” were off. In due course “they" reached the quarter and then the half. A terrific struggle was in progress between “Tom Platt” and “0. Dell.” First one was ahead and then the other. Finally they came thundering down to the stretch, “Tom Platt” win- ning by a neck. Gates won $90,000, and several others pocketed wads running anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. Felix hurried back to the telephone. “Mac” was at the other end. “Now write this down,” admonished McPherson; "we can't afford to have any mistake. 'Old Stone' has just won the fourth race, with 'Calvert' second. Play Old Stone' to win at 5 to 1. We shall make $250,000—and Old Stone' is safely in the stable all the time and his jockey is smoking a cigarette on the Club House veranda. Good luck, old man." Felix had some difficulty in getting near the “trusted cashier" so many financiers were betting on “Calvert." Felix smiled to himself. He'd show them a thing or two. Finally he managed to push his envelope containing the five ten-thousand-dollar bills into the “trusted cashier's” hand. The latter marked it “Felix, 5 to i to win!" and thrust it into his pocket. Then Whitney or somebody bet $70,000 on “Calvert." THE LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS 149 “ They're off!” shouted the man at The “trusted cashier” who had pocketed the tape. Felix's $50,000 has never been caught. How he lived while they tore around It is said that he is running a first-class the course Felix never knew. Neck and hostelry in a Western city. But that is neck “Old Stone” and “Calvert” passed another story. the quarter, the half, and the three-quarter When acting Inspector O'Brien ordered post, and with the crowd yelling like demons McPherson brought into his private room, came hurtling down the stretch. the latter unhesitatingly admitted that "Old Stone wins!” cried the "booster” the three of them had “trimmed” Felix at the tape in a voice husky with excitement of his $50,000, exactly as the latter had “Calvert a close second!” Felix nearly alleged. He stated that Wyatt (alias fainted. His head swam. He had won Williams) was the one who had taken in the a quarter of a million. Then the voice money, that it was still in his possession, of the “booster” made himself audible and still intact in its original form. He above the confusion. denied, however any knowledge of Wyatt's “What! A mistake. Not possible!- whereabouts. Yes. Owing to some confusion at the The reason for this indifference became finish, both jockies wearing the same apparent when the two prisoners were colors, the official returns now read 'Cal- arraigned in the Magistrate's court, and vert,' first; ‘Old Stone,' second.” their counsel demanded their instant discharge on the ground that they had Among the zitherns Felix sat and won- committed no crime for which they could dered if he had been swindled. He had be prosecuted. He cited an old New not returned to Wassermann Brothers. York case, McCord vs. The People*, which Had he done so he would have found it seemed in a general way to sustain his empty five minutes after he had lost his contention, and which had been followed money. The millionaires were already by another and much more recent de- streaming hilariously into Sharkey's. cision, The People vs. Livingston. The "Gates" pledged “Belmont” and “Keene” first of these cases had gone to the Court pledged “Whitney." Each had earned of Appeals, and the general doctrine had five dollars by the sweat of his brow. been annunciated that where a person The glorious army of wiretappers had won parts with his money for an unlawful or another victory and their generals had dishonest purpose, even though he is consummated a campaign of months. Ex- tricked into so doing by false pretenses, a penses (roughly), $600. Receipts, $50,000. prosecution for the crime of larceny cannot Net profits, $48,400. Share of each, be maintained. $16,133. In the McCord case, the defendant A day or two later Felix wandered down had falsely pretended to the complainant, to Police Headquarters, and in the Rogue's a man named Miller, that he was a police Gallery identified the photograph of Nelson, officer and held a warrant for his arrest. whom he then discovered to be none other By these means he had induced Miller to give than William Crane, alias John Lawson, him a gold watch and a diamond ring as alias John Larsen, a well-known “wire the price of his liberty. The conviction tapper," arrested some dozen times within in this case was reversed on the ground a year or two for similar offenses. McPher- that Miller parted with his property for son turned out to be Christopher Tracy, an unlawful purpose; but there was a very alias Charles J. Tracy, alias Charles strong dissenting opinion from Mr. Justice Tompkins, alias Topping, alias Toppin, Peckham, now a member of the bench etc., etc., arrested some eight or ten times of the Supreme Court of the United States. for “wire-tapping.” The “trusted cash In the second case, that of Livingston, ier" materialized in the form of one the complainant had been defrauded out of Wyatt, alias Fred Williams, etc., a “wire $500 by means of the “green goods” game; tapper" and pal of “Chappie" Moran but this conviction was reversed by the and “Larry” Summerfield. Detective Ser- Appellate Division of the Second Depart- geants Fogarty and Mundy were at once ment on the authority of the McCord detailed upon the case and arrested within a short time both Nelson and McPherson. † 47 App. Div. 283. * 46 New York 470. 150 AMERICAN MAGAZINE case. The opinion in this case was written of the Court of Appeals, became a veritable by Mr. Justice Cullen, now Chief Judge Mecca for persons of their ilk. of the New York Court of Appeals, who To readers «unfamiliar with the cast of says in conclusion: mind of professional criminals it will “We very much regret being compelled be almost impossible to appreciate with to reverse this conviction. Even if the what bold insouciance these vultures now prosecutor intended to deal in counterfeit hovered over the metropolitan barnyard. money, it is no reason why the appellant Had not the Court of Appeals itself recog- should go unwhipped of justice. We nized their profession? They had nothing venture to suggest that it might be well to fear. The law was on their side. They for the legislature to alter the rule laid down walked the streets flaunting their immunity in McCord vs. People.” in the very face of the police. “Wire- Well might the judges regret being tapping” became an industry, a legalized compelled to set a rogue at liberty simply industry with which the authorities might because he had been ingenious enough to interfere at their peril. Indeed, there is invent a fraud (very likely with the assist- one instance in which a “wire-tapper" ance of a shyster lawyer) which involved successfully prosecuted his victim (after the additional turpitude of seducing an- he had trimmed him) upon a charge other into a criminal conspiracy. Living- of grand larceny arising out of the same ston was turned loose upon the community transaction. One crook bred another every in spite of the fact that he had swindled time he made a victim, and the disease of a man out of $500 because he had inci- crime, the most infectious of all distem- dentally led the latter to believe that in pers, ate its way unchecked into the return he was to receive counterfeit money body politic. Broadway was thronged by or "green goods," which might be put a prosperous gentry, the aristocracy and into circulation. Yet, because some years elite of knavery, who dressed resplendently, before, the Judges of the Court of Appeals flourished like the green bay tree, and had, in the McCord matter, adopted the spent their (or rather their victims') money rule followed in civil cases, to wit, that as with the lavish hand of one of Dumas's the complaining witness was himself in gentlemen. fault and did not come into court with But the evil did not stop there. Seeing clean hands he could have no standing that their brothers flourished in New York, before them, the Appellate Division in and neither being learned in the law nor the next case felt obliged to follow them gifted with a power of nice discrimination and to rule tantamount to saying that between rogueries, all the other knaves in the two wrongs could make a right and country took it for granted that they had at two knaves one honest man. It may last found the Elysian fields and came seem a trifle unfair to put it in just this trooping here by hundreds to ply their vari- way, but when one realizes the iniquityous trades. The McCord case stood out like of such a doctrine as applied to criminal a cabalistic sign upon a gate-post telling cases, it is hard to speak softly. Thus the all the rascals who passed that way that broad and general doctrine seemed to be the city was full of honest folk waiting to established that so long as a thief could be turned into rogues and “trimmed.” induce his victim to believe that it was “And presently we did pass a narrow lane, and to his advantage to enter into a dishonest at the mouth espied a written stone, telling beggars transaction, he might defraud him to by a word like a wee pitchfork to go that way." any extent in his power. Immediately there sprang into being hordes of The tip went abroad that the city was swindlers, who, aided by adroit shyster “good graft” for everybody, and in the lawyers, invented all sorts of schemes train of the “wire-tappers” thronged the which involved some sort of dishonesty “Alimflammer," "confidence man," “boost- upon the part of the person to be defrauded. er," "capper” and every sort of affiliated The “wire-tappers, of whom “Larry” crook, recalling Charles Reade's account Summerfield was the Napoleon, the “gold- in The Cloister and the Hearth of Gerald in brick" and “green-goods” men, and the Lorraine among their kin of another period: 6 sick engineers” flocked to New York, "With them and all they had, 'twas lightly which, under the unwitting protection come and lightly go; and when we left them my THE LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS 151 master said to me, “This is thy first lesson, but the catastrophe which deprived Felix of tonight we shall be at Hansburgh. Come with th his $50,000. The “wire-tappers” rolled me to the “rotboss " there, and I'll show thee all our folk and their lays, and especially " the loss. in money; for as “Larry” Summerfield ners," "the dutzers," "the schleppers,” “the expressed it, “There is a sucker born gickisses,” “the schwanfelders,” whom in Eng. every minute.” Indeed, the fraternity land we call “shivering Jemmies," "the sünt- regers," "the schwiegers," "the joners,” “the were so liberal with their “rolls” that they sessel-degers," "the gennscherers," in France became friendly with certain police officials "marcandiers a rifodés," "the veranerins," "the and intimately affiliated with various stabulers," with a few foreigners like ourselves, politicians of influence, one of whom such as "pietres," "francmitoux,” “polissons," "malingreux," "traters,” “rufflers," "whip- went on Summerfield's bond, when he jacks," "dommerars," "glymmerars," "jark- was being prosecuted for the “sick engi- men," "patricos," "swadders," "autem morts," neer” frauds to the extent of $30,000. "walking morts, -"' 'Enow !'cried I, stopping They regularly went to Europe in the him, 'art as gleesome as the evil one a counting of his imps. I'll jot down in my tablet all these summer season and could be seen at all caitiffs and their accursed names : for knowledge the race courses and gambling resorts of is knowledge. But go among them alive or dead, the Continent. It is amusing to chronicle that will I not with my good will.'" in this connection that just prior to Mc- And a large part of it was due simply Pherson's arrest—that is to say during to the fact that seven learned men upon the summer vacation of 1904—he crossed seven comfortable chairs in the city of the Atlantic on the same steamer with Albany had said, many years ago, that an assistant district attorney of New York "neither the law or public policy designs county, who failed to recognize his ship the protection of rogues in their dealings companion and found him an entertaining with each other, or to insure fair dealing and agreeable comrade. and truthfulness as between each other, The trial came on before Judge Warren in their dishonest practices." W. Foster in Part 3 of the General Sessions The reason that the "wire-tapping” game on February 27, 1906. A special panel was supposed to come within the scope of quickly supplied a jury, which, after the McCord case was this: it deluded the hearing the evidence, returned a verdict victim into the belief that he was going to of guilty in short order. Mr. James cheat the poolroom by placing a bet upon Osborne who defended McPherson refused a "sure thing." Secondarily it involved, as to sum up the case or to put in any defense, the dupe supposed, the theft or disclosure relying solely upon points of law; but of of messages which were being transmitted course no defense was possible upon the over the lines of a telegraph company,-a facts which could not, in the very nature of misdemeanor. Hence, it was argued, the things, be denied. victim was as much a thief as the proposer It now remains for the judges of the Court of the scheme, had parted with his money of Appeals to decide whether they will for a dishonest purpose, did not come into extend the doctrine of the McCord and court with “clean hands,” and no prose- Livingston cases to a fraud of this character, cution could be sustained, no matter whether they will limit the doctrine strictly whether he had been led to give up his to cases of precisely similar facts, or money by means of false pretenses or whether they will frankly refuse to be not. bound by any such absurd and iniquitous While “wire-tapping” differed technically theory and consign the McCord case to the from the precise frauds committed by dust-heaps of discarded and mistaken McCord and Livingston, it nevertheless doctrines where it rightfully belongs. closely resembled those swindles in general Their action will determine whether the Character and came clearly within the perpetrators of the most ingenious, elaborate doctrine that the law was not designed to and successful bunco game in the history protect “rogues in their dealings with of New York county shall be punished each other." for their offense or instead be turned No genuine attempt had ever been made loose to prey at will upon the community to prosecute one of these gentry until at large. FA with Evening By Ingram Crockett THE half moon touched with golden light, An orange glow on the marge of night, The stilly song of the cricket heard, And the whispering wings of a passing bird- The smell of smoke from the upland blown, And silent fields lying low and lone. S. inkies THE laugh of a child from a wooded lane, 1 The last bright gleam of a window pane, And, shadow weavers under the moon, The bull-bats lost in the darkness soon. A star on the crest of the purpling hill, And its other self in the river still. 178 A MELODY born of days no more, A ripple lisping along the shore, A voice that speaks to me out of the gloom Till the rose of my heart is again in bloom- And lo! in the darkness shining free The window light where she waits for me. The perfect poise that is the aeronaut's despair Home Life in a Gull Colony · By William L. Finley WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY HERMAN T. BOHLMAN T estehen KASSIDHE lake region of Southern a Oregon is perhaps the most extensive breeding ground on the Pacific Coast for al! kinds of water birds. The e country is interspersed with great lakes, many from twenty to thirty miles across, and reaching out on all sides of these are vast marsh areas and tule fields extending for miles and miles. The latter part of last May we set out to study and photograph the bird life of this region. For several days we packed through the mountains with our heavy camera equipment and then across a roll- ing, sage-brush country till we reached Lost River, which empties into Tule or Rhett Lake. Here we abandoned our horses for a stout rowboat, and then for over a month we cruised about Tule Lake, crossed over to White Lake and out into the Lower Klamath. Tule Lake is a body of water about twenty-five miles long and fifteen to twenty miles wide, cut through the northern half by the Oregon and California boundary line. A few miles to the northwest is Lower Klamath Lake, about the same size. Between these two larger lakes is a smaller body of water called White Lake, separated from the Lower Klamath by a broad strip of tule land. The border of these lakes is a veritable jungle. The tules grow in an impenetrable mass from ten to fifteen feet high, and one can never get to a point where he can look out above the tops of the reeds and see where he is going. Then the foundation below is made of decayed vegetation and is treacherous to tread upon. One may wade along in two feet of water a short dis- tance and sink over his head at the next step. We found a few places where the solid roots had formed a sort of a floor at 153 W / . WWW WW WW HD W li elle WWW ht www Each pair of gulls has its own home spot 2 ES The green blind generates confidence—notice the young gull on Mr. Finley's knee HOME LIFE IN A GULL COLONY 155 the surface of the water, which was buoy- year. They are most useful birds about ant enough to support us. These pre- the water-fronts of our cities. These gulls carious footholds were the only camping have developed certain traits that mark spots we had for two weeks. them as land birds rather than birds of the In Lower Klamath Lake stretching for sea. In Southern California and Oregon miles and miles to the west is a seemingly I have watched flocks of them leave the A seascape at Klamath Lake endless area of floating tule “islands," ocean and rivers at daybreak every morn- between which flow a network of narrow ing and sail inland for miles, skirmishing channels. These so-called islands are com- about the country to pick up a living in posed of the decayed growth of generations the fields, following the plow all day long of tules. Most of them are soft and springyas blackbirds do, and fighting at the farm- and sink under the weight of a person. er's heels for angle-worms. I have seen Gulls love society. They always nest others rummage daily about pig-pens and in colonies and live together the entire gorge on the offal thrown out from the 17 When the photographers approached the nesting grounds slaughter-houses. If any bird is useful to We wanted the opportunity of making man, the gull is certainly of great eco an intimate study of the home life of the nomic importance as a scavenger. gull, but unless in some way we could hide It was several days before we found the near at hand this was simply impossible, colony of nesting gulls on Lower Klamath for the whole colony of birds went frantic Lake. We were led to the place by whenever we approached their nests and watching the course of the small flocks young. To overcome this difficulty, we that spread out over the lake in the morning had brought a blind, specially built for the and returned homeward about dusk each purpose. We had secured an old wagon evening. From a full mile away, with our umbrella of dark-green color. Then taking field glass, we could see the gulls rising a long piece of green canvas, we had and circling over the low-lying islands. As sewed hooks along the edge about eighteen we rowed nearer, the birds came out to inches apart, and, when these were hooked meet us, cackling excitedly at the dubious in at the end of each rib, we had the sides looking craft approaching .so near their hanging down all around, making a covered homes. They swam about on all sides, tent, in which we could hide with our curiously following in the wake of our cameras. boat. Cormorants flapped along over the The next morning we pulled down below surface, pelicans rose heavily from the the gull colony and landed under cover water, and gulls and terns got thicker and of the high tules. Here we erected the thicker, until, when the nose of the boat blind and got underneath with our cameras. pushed in at the edge of the island, the Then, holding up the umbrella, we began air seemed completely filled with a crying, slowly edging toward the rookery. It chaotic swarm. We stepped out among is hard to say just what the gulls thought the reeds, but had to tread cautiously to this queer - looking object was; they keep from breaking eggs or killing young could see no legs, no head, but still it birds. Many youngsters crouched low in moved. Whereas, the day before they their tracks and others scudded off in all - had gone wild at our approach, now directions. Our presence caused such con- they paid little attention to the green thing fusion among old and young that we that blended fairly well with the green jumped in the boat again and pulled away tules, even though it gradually approached for fifty yards. closer and closer. After manquvring for 156 the whole gull colony turned out in their honor almost an hour, we reached the edge of opponent by the neck and began shaking the colony and planted our blind by driv- and hanging on with all the tenacity of a ing the extension handle of the umbrella bull pup, till the intruder got enough and in the mud. Some of the parents regarded departed, leaving the victor with a mouthful the green tent with suspicion, backing off of feathers. or rising to circle around where they could Almost all the eggs had hatched and some get a full view. But it was not long be- of the young gulls were about grown. By fore the blind seemed to pass as part of watching the actions of the parents, I soon the scenery and we were surrounded on discovered that their greatest anxiety all sides by the snow-plumaged birds com- seemed to be to keep their children crouch- ing and going and paying little or no atten ing low in the nest so they would not run tion to us, as we peered out or pointed our away and get lost in the crowd. I saw cameras through the loop-holes we cut in one young gull start to run off through the the canvas. reeds, but he hadn't gone a yard before Although there were at least a thousand the mother dived at him with a blow pair of gulls nesting so close together, yet that sent him rolling. He got up dazed housekeeping was in no sense a communal and started off in a new direction, but matter. The nests were within two or she rapped him again on the head till three feet of each other, but each pair of he was glad to crouch down in the dry gulls had its own home spot and the inva- reeds. sion of that place by any other gull was the The parents seemed to recognize their challenge for a fight. Several times we own chicks largely by location. Several were the excited spectators of fights that times I saw old birds pounce upon young- were going on just outside our tent. I sters that were running about and beat watched one old hen, who was very angry them unmercifully. It seemed to be as because she couldn't find her chicks. As much the duty of a gull mother to beat her one of her neighbors lit near, she grabbed neighbor's children, if they didn't stay the tail of the intruder and gave it a sharp home, as to whip her own if they moved jerk. At that both birds grasped each out of the nest, but often this would lead other by the bill and a lively set-to fol- to a rough-and-tumble fight among the old lowed. They pulled and tugged till sud- birds. Sometimes a young gull would denly the old hen let go and grabbed her start to swim off in the water, but it never 157 Never an instant when the wings and tail are not adjusted to meet the air currents Like a section of a Japanese screen The bird gives the photographer but a fraction of a second as he sweeps across the angle of vision went far before it was pounced upon and driven back shoreward. Although we had an excellent chance to study gull life from our blind, yet we found little pleasure in it at the time. The sun was pelting hot and there was not the faintest movement in the sultry atmos- phere. We had to breathe the foulest kind of air on account of the dead birds and decaying fish scattered about, and we were standing in a muck that was contin- ually miring deeper. Swarms of flies and mosquitoes harassed us constantly, while the perspiration kept dripping from our bodies, till, after three or four hours in the blind, our tongues were parched from thirst, and with loss of strength and pa- tience, we were compelled to quit for the day. But for all we suffered there was a fascination in watching these wild birds going and coming fearlessly almost within arm's reach. For three different days we 160 A flight picture well focused is a rare shot worked in the blind trying to picture the gulls in their characteristic attitudes of Hight. These gulls are masters in the air. I have watched by the hour birds similar to these following along in the wake of a steamer, but had never before had such chances with a camera. Often they poise, resting apparently motionless on out stretched wing. It is a difficult feat. A small bird can't do it. A sparrow hawk can only poise by the rapid beating of his wings. The gull seems to hang perfectly still, yet there is never an instant when the wings and tail are not constantly adjusted to meet the different air currents. Just as in shooting the rapids in a canoe, the paddle must be adjusted every moment to meet the different eddies, currents and whirlpools, and it is never the same in two different instants. A gull by the perfect adjustment of its body, without a single flap of the wings, makes headway straight in the teeth of the wind. I saw one retain 161 At close range a perfect equilibrium in a stiff breeze, and at the same time reach forward and scratch his ear. Even though we had good chances to picture the flying gulls, yet wing shooting with a camera is such a difficult feat, that several dozen plates yielded but few good negatives. The short interval of time dur- ing which it takes a flying bird to sweep across the angle of vision of the lens gener- ally gives the photographer only part of a second's time to aim, focus and shoot. A flight picture well focused and clear and satisfactory in its make-up is the record of a rare shot and a great many misses; per- haps it is more often a good guess, but it is rarely if ever made without a great deal of practice. S TEROL . A sociable colony 162 The “Brute” By Herman Whitaker WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY G. W. PETERS UGGY tropical night was “He looks like an American,” the other settling down on La Luna, girl said, and after they passed on, Bender a Mexican rubber planta- turned on Gilson. tion. Across the river from “You chump! What made you do the plantation house, gloom that? Here we've seen nothing but dirty b y shrouded the jungle-inky enganchada women for the last six months, blackness gemmed with the greenish in- and you balk at a chance like that!” candescence of myriad lantern flies. It Gilson loftily waved away the other's was very hot, close, oppressive as a north- indignation. “I never expected to renege ern nightmare, but there was, at least, on my nationality, but I wouldn't give a cess of the rodedores, most virulent of in- fool of that bunch a chance to brand me sect pests, for Gilson, the field superin- in with their herd.” Then, ignorant of the tendent, stretched at ease on the veranda. fact that he was playing with Cupid's He was alone. In the office, Fleming, lightnings, he added, “I wouldn't be seen the manager, was sweating over his monthly on the calle with either.” report in vain efforts to make actual re- It discharged, the lightning, at noon, sults in rubber culture take the color of taking form in a telegram from Fleming: stockholders' expectations. Mrs. Fleming “My sister telegraphs will arrive City of had gone for a ride in the cool with Jack- Mexico to-day. Please escort her down.” son, the bookkeeper, and Miss Mabel, the “That was yesterday,” Bender com- manager's sister, about whom Gilson's mented. “We had better do the hotels thoughts were centered. and see if she has registered.” Inimitable as Cupid is in his methods, She had, at the Palazio, but there was it is doubtful if he ever presented him nothing in the neat signature to recall self to mortal in more original guise than their adventure of the morning, and the that which he assumed for Gilson. While two vied in quantity and quality of blushes taking a short vacation in the City of Mex- when Gray-Eyes and her companion ico two months before, he and Bender of rustled into the parlor. Las Glorias had descried a party of tour- Having obtained a glimpse of their visi- ists, one of those "personally conducted” tors in the patio below, the girls were quite plagues that are visited upon foreign coun- composed. Only a slight dimpling at the tries for their sins of evil living. Blue and corners of a very sweet mouth betrayed gold tags proclaimed that this particular Mabel Fleming's appreciation of the situa- aggregation was the “Association of tion as she introduced her companion, the Brownsville Joiners," and as, all bloated daughter of a neighboring planter; and with the pride of travel, it sailed down only once did she permit herself the very Calle San Francisco, Gilson drew his com- slightest of allusions. panion aside into the doorway of a church. “If you will please see the porter about But they were not to escape so easily, our trunks, Mr. Gilson,” she said as the for two girls at the tail of the procession young men took leave after making train stopped and, raising fine gray eyes to Gil- arrangements for next morning, “that is, son's height, the taller girl inquired the if you speak Spanish. We can get noth- name of the church. Ordinarily, he would ing out of him but a “No com prende.' ”. have answered courteously, but, irritated Outside, on the street, Bender punched by the party's foolish behavior, he re- Gilson in the chest. “You wouldn't walk plied in Spanish, the length of the calle with either, would "No com prende, Señorita.' He did not you? Two days on a slow train and understand. fourteen hours horseback, alone, with 163 164 AMERICAN MAGAZINE those eyes. I see your finish, old misogy- upon him, he felt her blushing in the nist!” Then as Gilson grinned appre- gloom. ciatively, he went on, “But why didn't “I'm afraid that I was dosing,” he said. you apologize and get on a proper footing?”. “Dosing?” “Inform the lady that I mistook her for The accent conveyed her full knowledge the pompadour-over-the-left-eye type of of the intense wakefulness of the lips that girl? I see myself.” And when Bender returned her kiss. Brass, unmitigated reasserted his opinion that he, Gilson, was effrontery alone would carry him through. starting under a “bit of a handicap,” he “And accidents will happen," he went replied with the sangfroid of youth, “Oh, on quietly. “So don't apologize.” I have hopes." “Accidents?” An unfortunate remark, for as the two “If it was-intentional—_" walked away a girl on the balcony above “O4h! you" Anger choked her. removed a handkerchief from her mouth, “— accept my thanks,” he finished, and the tears of mirth evaporated under and before she could frame her anger in the sudden flash of large gray eyes. words, he stepped from the veranda. "Have you?” she commented, gazing Shaping a course through the gloom, after. he ran into Bender-whom Mrs. Fleming On the train, however, there had been had captured on trail and brought in to no trace of resentment in Miss Fleming's dinner-and carried him off to his quar- manner, nothing to indicate the REVENGE ters. which she had spread on her diary. As “Like all the other women when they the cars rattled, banged and jerked through first come down," he said, answering his the hot lands, she had turned eyes up to friend's query, “Miss Fleming is running him that were, as aforesaid, big and liquid full tilt at our labor system, and as my work enough for a man to drown in. It was a brings me closest to the people, she nat- hard ordeal. Yet he had curbed himself; urally busts most of her lances on me. rejecting the gray suicide so sweetly of Of course the system isn't ideal. The long fered until arriving at La Luna, the tension working hours under a boiling tropical relaxed with a suddenness that broke the sun; the dirt, disease, awful death rate, spring of a new-born hope. the working under guard by day, the con- Musing in the dusk, Gilson bitterly re- finement in the galera at night, all these called that the change came with her in- things must shock a tender girl. She troduction to Jackson. Jackson! If it doesn't understand the irresponsibility of had been Bender; Gregg, his subordinate the peon. That before we get them the at Las Glorias; Polson, of Sol Suchia. But Mexican labor contractors have cinched Jackson! It irked him the more because them from fifty to a hundred dollars, and he had little more than an intuition to that we must restrict their liberty till the advance against the bookkeeper, and that debt is worked off. was largely formed on a nasty way of “She sees only the misery; charging shoving to a winning or piking to a losing it all to me, though I've done my best under in a friendly game of poker. That would the conditions. You know the stand we not count much to his prejudice with a have always taken with our women woman. Moreover, Jackson was son of given them a separate galera, a chance to the president and richest stockholder of be decent if they feel that way. Well, the La Luna corporation! four of them complained the other day of Deep in his musing, Gilson missed the Ilarion, the overseer. I was for firing clatter of hoofs on the other side of the him, but Jackson has the hiring of the free house and a soft footfall stealing along the people and wouldn't stand for it. Said veranda a minute thereafter; did not rouse we couldn't get as good a man for twice till arms suddenly clasped his neck and the price, and that the stockholders- moist lips pressed his. that's his dad-were already kicking at “Why, Jack? Sitting all alone?” the expense. Of course I had to do some- Warned by the absence of Fleming's thing, but when I cautioned Ilarion, he beard, she drew instantly away, and as was cheeky and I batted him one-as the Gilson girded himself against the weak- luck would have it, just as Miss Mabel ness as of water which the caress brought went riding by. Since then she alludes “ Back to the galera! In with you!" 166 AMERICAN MAGAZINE to me as “The Brute.' Jackson told me; brought them the sleep breathing of the he thinks it no end of a joke.” hundred contract slaves imprisoned within. Bender grinned. “Peculiar sense of “Sounds like a huge sigh,” Gilson com- humor, hasn't he?” mented as they walked on. “Do you Shrugging, Gilson went on, “Last night know I never get quite used to it—the I heard him talking to her on the veranda. squalor, misery, hell of it all.” I didn't mean to eavesdrop.” Pausing, “It's surely hell,” Bender agreed. “But he indicated the siding of split poles through if we don't make the best of the system which one could have thrown a cat. “This someone else will make the worst." is no better than a bird cage, and he was Stopping at a hut that stood by itself, talking quite loudly as he assured her that Gilson called out the mandador, a huge things would be run differently when Indian of the Isthmus tribes. “To-mor- he came in to his own.” row," he said, "you will set two men to “Just after he had refused to fire that carry water for the women in the cook- old rip of a mandador,” Bender com house, two to chop wood for their fires, mented. “He's a beauty. What are you and a third to grind corn for tortilla paste.” going to do?” As they walked away, Bender patted “There's the dinner bell!” Gilson an- his friend delightedly upon the back. swered. “Come out afterwards with me “Now you are doing things. That ought and you'll see.” to take the wind out of Mr. Jackson's During the meal, Bender saw also. In sails. But say!” he added quickly. “With the quiet of her own room Mabel had his mania for sitting on expense don't you striven to abate the colors that flowed at suppose that he will object to your weak- the memory of the kiss, and, failing, sheening the field force?” came to table just spoiling for the fight G ilson shrugged. “That's just what that ensued when Fleming made inquiry I do expect; the very reason for my passing of a sick woman. it up to him.” “I should imagine,” she said, glancing “You think that he will — " at Gilson, “that they would all be sick. "— report me to headquarters. I At three o'clock this morning I heard them don't think—I'm sure.” go by my window, panting as they carried Suddenly enlightened, Bender grinned. water up to the cookhouse. I wonder, “You old fox! I see your game. You Jack, that you stand for such inhumanity ?” will call his sympathetic bluff. But take It was the tocsin of war and, well used care that he doesn't deal you out from a to its alarm by this time, Fleming turned cold deck. Anyway this play is bound a twinkling eye on Gilson. “What about to serve you with Miss Mabel.” it, Gill?" “Panting?!” Without looking up from his dinner, Gilson answered, “Shouldn't The concession to her opinion did serve wonder. They are getting too lazy and Gilson with Mabel, though, obedient to the fat to do anything but eat.” law of feminine contrariness, she was at Applied to the gaunt enganchadas, fat- pains to conceal the fact. For this he ness was so eminently ridiculous that Flem- was largely responsible. Having sized ing roared, his wife tittered, Bender choked, her up as a girl of mettle, one of the kind and even Jackson's yellow mustache drew that are not to be coaxed with sugar, he up to his nose. Ignoring them, the girl bore himself toward her with a superlative wrathfully eyed Gilson. indifference that sharply piqued her sense “You are shameless,” she said, after a of power. Apparently, she was no more long pause. in his eyes than the dirtiest enganchada; Later, walking out through the moon an appearance that was the more mad- light, Gilson led Bender in among the dening because long ago she had divined plantation buildings, a double row of palm- the love that lay behind it. Her inability thatched huts, that rose on either hand, to draw him from his entrenchments, looming sere and black in the tender strange to say, both piqued and pleased light. Passing the galera-a huger hut, her; a paradox that is explainable only on wound and fenced with barb wire till it the hypothesis that she could have no resembled a bird cage—the night wind further use for a conquered foe. She THE “ BRUTE". 167 would have loved, yet feared to defeat him. “But they are drunk—and armed!” So, for another month, they played at he stammered. cross purposes; Mabel riding or walking “Drunk? How did they get the liquor ?" in the cool of the evening with Jackson, “Well — you see — ” He hemmed, carrying on a desperate flirtation under the hawed, stammered, then under the urge indifferent eyes of Gilson who, on his part of his fright confessed his cowardly folly. went quietly about his business. Thinking to placate the mutineers he had One morning the rising sun caught ordered aguardiente to be served and they Mabel and Mrs. Fleming sewing upon the were armed with the machetes, the yard- veranda. Fleming was away; had gone long knives used in clearing jungle. to Chicago to report personally at a stock. “Why didn't you collect them up?" she holders' meeting, and thus the heavy work demanded. of breaking in a new draft of engancha- “What?” he gasped. “Go in-among dores had fallen upon Gilson. To-day, them?”. however, he was also away; down the “Yes, Jack would have done it." river purchasing corn for the work folks' As she stood, puckering her brow in tortillas. Jackson was the only white angry perplexity, the uproar grew in raucous man on the plantation. volume. At the bawl of one drunken The latter was in her mind when, look- voice she shuddered, remembering thank- ing over her sewing, Mrs. Fleming asked, fully that Mabel did not understand “Well did he last night " Spanish. There was room here, ample “No, he didn't,” Mabel bluntly inter- room, for one of those tropical tragedies rupted. that occasionally make nasty reading in Blushing a little, Mrs. Fleming yet northern papers. But the plucky little brazened it out. “He has been so well, woman never faltered. I can't think of any other word than “You can go,” she said, “but I stay by spoony'- " the plantation.” Then, stamping her foot, “Don't apologize,” Mabel cut in again. she exclaimed, “Oh, if Mr. Gilson were "It fits-exactly.” only here!” "— lately,” Mrs. Fleming continued. Mabel took pity on Jackson's mortified “And when you sat out so late I felt sure flush. “Why, Nell! What could he do? that he would " Don't be unjust." "I didn't let him.” “Do? Drive them!” “Why, Mab?” Like a good sister-in “Then here's his chance,” Mabel said, law, Mrs. Fleming wished to see Mabel quietly pointing. “He's there now-out comfortably settled. “I should have imag- at the store.” ined—” Dropping her sewing, she jumped “Impossible!” Mrs. Fleming cried. “He up. “Good Gracious! What's that?" couldn't possibly-_" A shout, long, loud, raucous, came floating But he could and had; moreover his over from the galera, and as the two stood, talismanic appearance sprang out of very staring at each other, Jackson turned the simple causes. Getting a chance upstream corner. Flushed, breathless, an uneasy with the Las Glorias steam launch, he had smile accentuated the nervousness it was gained a day on the canoes that were intended to conceal. heavily laden with corn. "Mutiny!” he exclaimed. “It's the But now that man and occasion were new batch that Fleming sent down from met, Mrs. Fleming shifted her ground with Vera Cruz! Cabos and mandador have feminine suddenness. “Come back!” she taken to the jungle! Come, we must screamed as, after tying the horse he had escape to Las Glorias!” borrowed from Bender, Gilson headed “And leave the plantation without a for the galera. “Come back! They have white man?” Mrs. Fleming looked her had liquor!” surprise. At this season the rubber was Having come on a scared cabo out in the cumbered two feet deep with dried grass, jungle, Gilson was aware of the fact. He brush, weeds, the jungle growths of a sea- knew also that he had to face men with son. A match, and two hundred thousand whom the impeccable tradition of Gringo dollars investments would go up in smoke. bravery had been weakened by Jackson's "No," she finished, “I will stay." folly. Yet though his uncertainty of re- - " It was a very ciever jump THE “ BRUTE" 169 sults amounted almost to certainty that “No, Señor!” The answer rolled out two minutes would see him mincemeat, he from a hundred throats. waved a cheery greeting and sauntered on. He pondered. “Very well! there's no “Now for a great big bluff!” about cov- hurry. You can take a day to think it ered his active thought. over. You!” he swung smartly round on As he approached the yelling ceased the ringleader. “Gather in the machetes!” and the men who were scattered among The man hesitated-one second. The the buildings came running to join the hard glance, the hand, lightly resting on bulk of their fellows in the wire compound; a Colt's 45, told that he, at least, would and as he turned in at the gate the mob die. “Si, Señor!” Dropping his own bunched as does a bunch of harried steers. machete into the hollow of his arm, he Steerlike, too, it shifted its formation as he walked down the line and gathered up the advanced, those in front slipping back to blades. the rear, till one man, bolder than the rest, “Now!” Gilson rapped the pile with was left to face him. A huge fellow of the his gun, and the line started at the steel's true Indian type, his broad cheek-bones, sharp ring. “Back to the galera! Every flat nose, savage eyes, summed the stupid - man! In with you!” ity, ignorance, cowardly ferocity of his It was done. As the bolt shot on the hundred mates. Like a red-eyed bull at last mutineer, Mrs. Fleming collapsed in bay, he stood, the mob behind him, un- a chair. She braced, however, and re- easy, nervous, the more dangerous for its fused the cologne which Mabel brought. innate cowardice. “There, there! It was only my silliness. Looking on from the veranda, Mabel Now, what do you think of him?” experienced a dread shrinking, the exact Flushing color drowned out the girl's counterpart of the feeling she had when, pallor. “I think-that he is splendid.” a little girl, she saw a lion tamer enter a Though she almost whispered it, yet cage. She caught herself wishing she had Jackson heard, and he plumbed greater called him back; gave a momentary glance deeps of mortification when, a few minutes of wonder at Jackson, who stood, nervously later, he offered Gilson insincere con- chewing his mustache. gratulations. “You are out of my class," “Can he control them?" she whispered. he said with a hollow laugh. "I'd sized "A minute will tell,” Mrs. Fleming them up as impossible and was going for whispered back. help.” "No, Señor, we will not work,” the man Gilson measured him with unwavering answered Gilson's question. “We have eye. “Nobody sick, was there?” been deceived. The food, the work, noth- “No—but the men-" Jackson unwisely ing is as represented.” blundered on. He doubtless spoke the truth; the rascally "-oh! the men? Yes! Well, you labor contractors habitually spoon-fed their needn't bother. They'll be very well after dupes with broth of lies. But the planta- they've worked your liquor out of their tion had made an honest bargain; stood systems.” to lose thousands by a successful defection. Laughing uneasily, Jackson concealed Very coolly, Gilson set about the re-estab his fury till he was alone in his office. lishment of authority. There, alone with his naked soul, he was If he could get them in some kind of not pretty to look upon. “Oh, you—" order. His blue eye wandered coldly Beyond blasphemy, he shook both fists over the mob. “Form in line!” he sharply in the air. “Oh, you-I've fooled too ordered. “Then we will talk." long!” Success, life itself, hung in uncertain Sitting down, he dashed a letter off, balance that moment. If they did not chewing viciously on his mustache the obey—but, curious as children, the pack while. “There!” he finished. “That loosened, shuffled into disorderly line. ought to do your business.” The beginnings of discipline thus estab- lished, the problem now centered on the ringleader. “He is splendid!” said Miss Mabel. Gilson surveyed the line. “So you But who shall explain the subtilities, con- won't work?” tradictions, unreason of the complex fem- 170 AMERICAN MAGAZINE inine heart? She had never treated Gil- as Jackson's hypocrisy was flashed upon son more coldly than she did at table that her. But she gripped herself in the time evening and during the month that elapsed required to read the letter twice. before an answer came to Jackson's letter, “Thank you,” she said, handing it back. continued to walk and ride with the latter. “How very interesting! I'll trouble you The letter was very much to the point. for the butter.” “We beg to inform you that owing to the Her marvelous coolness drew his ad- unprecedented falling off in field work as miration, while his compunction would shown in the report of Mr. Jackson, we have increased a hundred-fold could he have decided to dispense with your ser- have seen her, an hour later, crying into vices. Dismissal to take effect end of cur- her pillow tears of anger and mortifica- rent month." tion; the latter for herself, the former for “The beast!” Bender commented, when him. It was all his fault! Of course! If Gilson showed him the letter a few days he hadn't spoken so flippantly under the later. “Pretty raw work. I thought he'd Palazio balcony, nor turned her small make a better job; cover his tracks.” attempts at revenge with his imperturbable Gilson nodded. “He thought to report front? As for this crowning outrage? me to Jackson père, and have me fired for She would never forgive him. cold reasons of state. But it appears from Having come to this conclusion she rose, one of Fleming's letters that the old chap for it was hot and stuffy in her bedroom, was sick and the vice-president acted in and adjourned to a nest she had made in his absence." the roots of a big saber down by the river, “Does Jackson know of it?" there to take further census of her feelings. “Only that I'm fired. I spent a whole Catching the flutter of the white skirt, as evening with him discussing the sanity of she went by his office, Gilson looked after the Chicago office.” her and, after a moment's hesitation, fol- “And the folks ?” lowed. He had better stayed. No well- Gilson laughed. “He was so good as to regulated girl cares to be disturbed when suggest that I had resigned and they be- she is trying to get even with her feelings. lieve it. What am I going to do with this?” Her glance was coldly interrogative when, He patted the letter. “Save it for a right looking up, she saw him beside her. proper season." Hesitantly, he began, “I wanted to The “season" came the following Sun- apologize. It was brutal of me to spring day, Gilson's last day as field superintend that letter on you. If — " ent of La Luna; and no stage manager She interrupted with a weary gesture. could have been more careful in the prepa “What does it matter? I have come to ration of his climax. Having ordered the expect anything—from you." cookhouse detail back to the fields, he “And is there no pardon ?” He spoke came in to lunch confident that Mabel very gently. “I had hoped—when we would not let the event pass unchallenged. met-up there in Mexico City, that—" "I cannot imagine what constrained He stopped, chilled by the ironical uplift you to do it," she said, but in a tone so of her brows. gentle that he felt compunction for the “The hope you so candidly expressed thing he was about to do. It was the first under the Palazio balcony ?” She as- hint of the value she had placed in his con- sisted his puzzled look. “You remem- cessions. ber, 'you had hopes.”” He answered quietly, “The men are Dumbfounded, he stared, then a low needed in the fields." whistle escaped him as his mind laid hold “Oh, well.” She glanced at Jackson. of that forgotten incident. The whistle “It isn't worth while-now. Things will was not offensive-particularly. But when soon be changed.” his mouth puckered—that was a crime. “You think so ?” Selecting his dis- She grew hot, all over. missal from a handful of papers, he handed “I'm surprised " he began. it across the table. Then he watched “I'm not,” she promptly interrupted. watched the red tide sweep from the lace “Everything you do lacks that element- at her throat up under the fluff of her hair. even this intrusion.” A crackling of paper marked deep emotion “S-o?” He waited a little while she THE “ BRUTE" 171 stared over the river. “Then I'll say, they were still a quarter of a mile away. good-by." Erect, hands outstretched, as though to Alone, she fulfilled her first intention, draw it back, Mabel stood in the bows, and, having finished her cry, felt rather and almost as though it had felt her re- disposed to tax her own severity. “Oh, straining will, the train slowed down after well,” she compromised. “I'll be nice to it had moved a hundred yards. him this evening.” “She's taking on water!” the girl But when she returned to the house he screamed. “Oh, hurry, Mr. Bender!" was gone; over to Las Glorias, Mrs. She was already running wide open, Fleming said, to spend a day before he but Bender slapped a half gallon of lubri- left for the states. Too frightened to cry cant into his small furnace and slammed now, she crawled to bed and lay tossing the door. in wakeful desperation. And when, next “Get ready!” Mabel gasped. “Oh, get morning, hope fluttered in in the shape of ready to—run!” a telegram from Fleming, countermanding “Tut, tut!” he laughed. “This is your the dismissal, she begged to be allowed to funeral, girl. Gather up your skirts. take it to him. Now-RUN!” When, two hours later, she rode into How she ran-as a scared deer and, Las. Glorias, the fair face of her flushed withal, just made the last coach as the from hard galloping, Bender's big heart train moved on. It was a perilous high smote him! step, but she took it, and came face to face "He's gone,” he said. “Went down with Gilson who had stepped out for a by canoe this morning.” last look round. She handed him the Luckily he had taken the precaution telegram. with a "Read! Read!” of lifting her from the saddle. “Gone?" A glance, and he shook his head. The she repeated blankly, then, “04h!” train was going four miles an hour, and The misery in the wail abolished certain rapidly pulling up to its maximum of six. humorous lines about Bender's mouth. She threw a frightened glance around. He spoke promptly. “Oh, please! won't you-come back- "If you are game for a night run down with me?” stream on my launch, we may catch him It was a very clever jump that he made. before he boards the train at Colorado.” His burden drove his feet ankle deep in the If she was game! sand, but he did not fall; and not for a Great is the power of a woman's tearful moment later did she realize that she was smile. All that night Bender raced down being kissed, and kissed in the astonished that tropical stream, darting in and out faces of a Mexican section crew. of snags and sandbanks, carrying a head “Please set me down?" she urged, for of steam that bade fair to shake every he showed a disposition to ignore a brown- bolt out of the launch. He was profuse in faced Public Opinion. Yet there were comforting words, too. At daybreak they compensations in the fervid way in which still lacked ten miles of the little river she clutched his arm to her bosom. station, but the V. C., the craziest of experi- “Oh, I thought you were gone for- ments in railroading, had never been known ever.” to run a train on schedule; there was heaps His eye twinkled. “Didn't Bender tell of time. At least so he told her. But alas! you that I was coming back next week?” accidents will happen even to time cards, “O-h!” Stopping between the tracks, and oh, the cussedness of things! Every she gazed at him. “You don't mean to morning for a month past the train had say that- " been late from six to ten hours, it would “ – just a little jaunt up to the city, be so late every morning for a month to yes." come; but because, on this occasion, a half " — that you deliberately—" she sighed. hour's delay would bring happiness to two “Oh, you- " persons, it must needs roll in on time. “Brute'?” he suggested. Though Bender almost blew his small She looked archly up. “No comprende, whistle off, the cars jerked onward while Señor.'” Family Jars A Little Tale of Cousinly Amenities By George Allan England WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LYNN BOGUE HUNT “Bangs-yes, they was first-rate bangs fer eighty-five cents. Easy to put on, too. VAY, did I ever tell you 'bout They was made outa somebuddy's hair, Mis' Sockalexis Bean's new parted fine. Rindy kept 'em pinned in- | bangs? No? I swan, side her Sunday bunnet; then, when she that's too bad! Hitch th' put the bunnet on, they'd hang plum down old splint-bottom up nigh over her forred, nat’ral as life. All she ☺ to the stove an’I vum I will!” had ť do was wet 'em down good an’ I “hitched.” Sumner Sessions very me- comb 'em, an' they'd curl up somethin' thodically lighted his corncob with a sul- grand. I tell you, Rindy looked some phur match, then carefully stroked back diff'rent when she got them bangs on, an' the curve of his long, white mustaches. the upper set, an' the new alpacky gownd. “Th’ whole fool business started, d'ye “Nex' Sunday after all the modern im- see, with them thar bangs. Mis' Bean, provements was installed, you bate she her that was Orindy Purrington-seemed didn't miss meetin', no sir! Her an' to be gittin' along some into the sere an' Sockalexis had ben a-backslidin' for some yaller. It galled her most oncommon time, what with livin' five mile from the how folks was beginnin' to gossip. Pond, old Kit goin' lame an' the gen'ral "Lawsee [said some), but Rindy's slump in looks. But that nex' Sunday failin' up, these days. not by a jugful! “She is, fer fair; I cal’late she ain't got “Rindy she got up at five A. M., helped hair enough left to make even so much's Sock chore, streened the milk, got break-. a watch-chain!' fast, made Sock wash the buck-board an' "* Teeth a-goin' fast, too, ain't they?' card Kit (the first time in two year), done "Yep-face fallin' in like she was up the dishes an' fed the shoats all by half a-goin' to swaller it! pas' seven, so's she'd have two good "1 swan, if anybuddy ever was short on hours to fix up her an’Sock. They prinked fer looks, Rin Bean's that person! some, too, now I bate ye! "Folks's talk filtered back to Rindy an' “Elmer Bowker, drivin' past down the galled her, as I've said, somethin' terrible. Jericho road at eight, seen Rindy shavin’ She stood it as long's she could, an' when Sock on the side porch, which was most she couldn't stan' it no longer she made unusual. Sock was straddle of a kitchen up her mind somethin' would have to did chair with an apurn pinned 'round his about it. So, after she'd delibrated good red neck, an' Rindy was 'tarnally layin' an’ plenty, she took some o' her board- it to him with a razor. Elmer said he money outa the bureau drawer an’ went heerd Sock hollerin' an' Rindy encouragin' on the cars to Bethel, where she had her of him. upper gooms stamped in wax fer a set, “Aow! AOW-OW-OW-OW-W-W-w! bought her a pattern o' black alpacky an' Whatcher pullin' so for, consarn ye?' purchased the 'foresaid bangs which made “Sh-hh-h, Sock! You set still jest a all the to-do, lawsuit an' all, like I'm minute an' I'll be done. Remember, it's a-goin' to tell you. in a good cause!' 172 FAMILY JARS 173 “ Cause H— I 00-00-000! That with teeth an' bangs, su'thin' like a shiver cussed razor's duller'n a 'tarnal shovel! went over the folks on the steps, waitin' "Hush! fer the las' bell. It amazed 'em, it stunned "" Thar! Now you've did it! I'm an almost terrified 'em 'twan't acco bleedin' like a 'tarnation pig! Yes I be, to nature, such v'ilent an' sudden changes. too–I c'n feel it runnin' down my neck- The folks was sure thunderstruck-it I'm all a gore o' blood. Now I hope boded no good, no good at all, like you're you're satisfied!' a-goin' to see right square off. miner le L.B.H. “Whatcher pullin' so for, consarn ye?” “ Sock he bellered like a yearlin', but he had to set an' take it. Rindy's 'bout six sizes bigger, anyway, so he hadn't no show to skip out. “After the shave, Rin she got out his old brown suit an' brushed it good, turned his rubber collar inside out, got his satin necktie with the pansies embroidered onto it, combed his hair an' made him grease his boots. Then she turned him loose, told him not t'stir outa the door- yard, an' sailed in on her own prinkin'. “Fur be it from me to understan' the innardness o' that grand fixin' up. All is, when Rindy an' Sock druv up to the meetin' house, Kit's coat all shiny, Sock shaved an’ with his collar on, her in the alpacky, ide od it good out his peraly screes, be ip fast, h Pansies' got his wined isockalexis up the them gugait an. We short “I be a-failin' up fast, hey? I be short on fer looks, be I?' Rin's gait an' bearin' fairly screeched them questions as she peraded up the aisle to her pew, with Sockalexis trailin' on behind, squeakin' in his greased boots an' lookin' like he'd ben catched a-stealin' sheep. Sech wicked, worldly vanity as Rin's, I never seen in this here mortial vale of tears; it fairly brustled out all over her. Scand’lous, wicked, worldly pride. She stayed to Sunday school, too, an' aftnoon meetin'. 'Twas plum insultin'. “Some was mad, some laughed, an' some, worse luck, was bit by the green- eyed monster. “Mis’ Ame Twitchell, Rin's first cousin, fixin u he meetied eyed Mis LYNN BOGUE HUNT 1906 “ Sech wicked, worldly vanity" was one o' the worst-bit ones, full o' con- good fer fifty anyway. Or p'raps he'd swap sumin', gnawin'envy. All that week an' his Kit, an'give su'thin' to boot. Then, the next she made the grasshopper a bur “What? You want me t'cheat my den to Ame. Day after day, whenever neighbor an' perjure my etarnai soul jes' Ame wa’n't chorin' or in the spool-mill, to gratify your wicked, worldly vanities? 'twas Bangs, Alpacky, Shave, Necktie, Why Luell, how you do talk! Ef I had Grease, Bunnet, Teeth. Ame told me that thoughts like them thar, I'd keep 'em to 'long to'ards the last on it he got to dreamin' myself, at least, an' not— he was a fashion-magazine with larded “Vanities? Wicked? Jes' 'cause I boots an' bangs fer whiskers. want t' look decent an' red myself up a “Pshaw! What's the use, Luell? Jest bit so's not to be a laughin'-stock with 'cause Rin makes a 'tarnal fool outa her Cousin Rin? Oh Ame, Ame! When we self, what for you want to?' was married——!! "Pshaw as much as you're a mind “Gosh aʼmighty, but words did fly some, to, Ame Twitchell, but you'd oughta be though! They flew fer sev'ral weeks, hot ashamed o' yourself to see Rin "arrayed an' heavy, mornin', noon an' night an' like one o' these," an' me goin' to meetin' Sundays, till finally old Ame petered out. in my old print polonay, with my Congress Yes, Luella wore him to a reg'lar frazzle, boots all worn to a frazzle! An' as fer till he weakened, wavered an give in jes' your looks, well——!! fer the sake o' peace. When a man can't "Oh hush! Even ef I wanted you an' eat a meal o' vittles ner lay in his bed me t'be a couple o' dum fools, where thout hearin' one perpetual yap-yap- d'you think the money'd come from? yappin', he gits so, after a while, that he'll You think we're Rockyfellers, hey? Where'd rob his gran'mother fer the sake o' peace. the money come from, I'd like t'know?' And Ame loved peace oncommon well, "Money? Did you say money? I too. So 'twas peace he bought, with his thank th' Lord I ain't so thick as you own conscience. He made up his mind be, Ame Twitchell! Money? How about he'd swap old Belle, he give plum in to old Belle? Why don't you take an' sell Luella, an'he promised when the deal her to Sock? She ain't over an' above was carried through, that he'd turn the spry, I admit, but you're lucky on hoss- boot—what thar was of it-over to his tradin'—he'll buy, all right-you see if he lovin' wife fer the carryin' out of her won't. Fix her up a mite an' she'll be heart's desire. 174 FAMILY JARS 175 II gether, but shucks! a little tag-end o wheeze never could faze him. "Now Belle, d'you see, had been 'a “It's danged lucky fer me, though,' good one in her day, but of late years he said to himself, puttin' on the final she'd ben a-runnin' down, runnin' down, kedidoes, that Sockalexis Bean lives on same's everythin' on this mortial foot- risin' ground right snug to Androscoggin stool does ef you give it time enough. Falls. The roar of that thar water's sure She was thinner 'n a hay-rake, her wuth a power o' money to me! Now I'll coat was shaggy as a b’ar's hide, she'd borrer Dudley's new buggy fer a couple o' a cast in one eye, was spavined an' had days, git me a quart of XXX, an' see what the heaves somethin' dretful. Besides, can be did in the manner o family busi- su'thin' had went wrong with her nose, ness! so she whistled all-fired bad, 'spite of all “Bout the next evenin', Sock was anybuddy c'd do. Sounded like a tarna- a-rockin' on his side porch, listenin' to the tion en-gine, when she got het up to her high-water boomin' over the Falls, and full speed. Speed? Yep, old an' rickety luggsuriatin' in his old clo’es, when some- as Belle was, she had some speed left in buddy druv up th’ hill at a good smart her, somewheres, 'specially uphill. Some lick. The hoss jerked a trifle in its gait hosses is built like that—they run a heap (and no wonder, with a pint slug of XXX sight better up a grade than they do on th' coursin' through its vitials), but it went level. Belle come of blooded stock, way, along right lively, jes' the same. Its coat way back; 'twas filtered out purty thin, I looked sleek an'fine; 'twas a tall upstandin' vum, but still it'd show out now an' then, critter, plump an’ well-hung, diff'rent from on occasions. So the case wa’n't quite the gen’ral run o' South Pond nags. Sock, hopeless. allus keen fer hoss-flesh an' a good trade, “Ame, havinstrangled his conscience set up sudden an' took notice. t' death, an' then stomped on it, made up “Half an hour later, back the rig come his mind to do the job good an' lib'ral. agin, an' Sock seen 'twas Ame Twitchell He thunk an' thunk, a couple o' days, an' drivin'. He'd ben 'round by Locke's then he done a few things. The result Mills, 'cross the bridge, an' so down the was his new thoroughbred, jes' in from the Gore road. Sock hailed him: West, an' not fer sale, swap er hire. “Hey, thar, hey! Hold on a minute, "Say, d’you know anything 'bout hosses, can't ye?' hey? D'you know they'll eat pork? Well, “Whoa! Whoa-a-aa, Shhhhh! hol- they will, when it's fed 'em an' they have lered Ame, makin' a great to do with the to. The heaves stops, subsequent, though lines. “Whoa, consarn ye! Stan' still they're an all-fired sight wuss, afterwards. thar! Whoa — Belle went right onto a meat diet, hog- “Gosh aʼmighty!' said Sock t' himself, meat an' oil-cakes. Yep, linseed-oil 'It's every mite he can do t' stop!' it'll fat a rail fence. Belle took on weight “Excuse me!' hollered Ame from quite amazin'. Cur’us thing 'bout oil-cakes, a smart piece up the road. “Excuse me. though; once a hoss has ben fatted on 'em, It's tarnation hard t' hold the critter when an' then grows pickid agin, there ain't she gits goin'. That's the wust of these nothin' in God's world 'll put flesh onto here high-steppers. Danged ef I'd a- him a second time. You can try as much bought th' mare at all, ef I'd knowed she as you're a mind to: it ain't no use. Belle was so all-fired jumpy. From Indiany got pork an' oil-cake good an' plenty, plus yep-an' the hardest-bitted brute ever I clean oats; she certainly did pick up drawed a rein over. By th’ way, how'd amazin' fast, more so as Ame never took you like?? her a step outa the barn for as much as two “Fine, fine! When did you git 'er ? solid weeks. A pair o'clippers in Ame's What's her record ? hands soon smoothed the rough coat in “One-ten an' a quarter, measured half- good style, so Belle's own mother wouldn't mile; sired by Westmont; I've only had her a-knowed her. The spavin come down 'bout a fortnit, but I c'n see already she's a too, by reason o liniment, an' a pair o' hummer! At first I vummed I wouldn't nose-springs took away the loudest o’ the sell, but now, well, she's too plaguey swift whistles. Ame couldn't stop 'em alto fer me.' LYNN BOGUE HUNT “ Taggin' after that local freight with cur'ous persistency" III "The minute's silence that come then was jes' actually bendin' down with possi- bilities. Sock turned his cud, scratched his bald spot an' finally asked: “What'll you take for 'er?' “ As she stands ?' “Yep! “Seventy-five an' your Kit.' “I'll give Kit an' fifty.' “Sixty an' it's a go!! “Bridle throwed in?' ** Yep! ""I'll go ye! You've traded hosses, mister! Onhitch!' “B’lieve it or not, 'twas did as quick as that. 'Twas allus a word an' a deed with Sock, anyway, an' sometimes the deed afore the word. Sock had heered some rumors Ame had let float around concernin' his new mare; he'd seen her trot an' liked her; he wanted her an' had the money; he was a born trader; over an' above his daily vittles an' drink, he trąded. In twenty minutes more they'd shifted, Kit was hooked up to th' buggy, the boot was thumb out an' counted over, and Ame had druv away, leavin' that antique, pork- fed, oil-cake-stuffed, spavined, broken-down fossil with anti - whistle springs in its nose, standin' in Sockalexis Bean's box- stall. "Well, Sock found out in less'n twenty- four hours. First time he druv her, which was nex' mornin', an' got away from the roar o' the Falls, he heerd su'thin' kind-a whistley in her breathin'. He stopped, got out an' looked in her nose. Yep- springs. He said a bad word, suspicion dawnin' on him fast; he looked at her knees an' fetlocks—then he knowed the wusst. March hares is petrified mum- mies 'side of what Sockalexis Bean was then. Deacon er no deacon, he hollered su'thin' scand'lous, throwed his hat in the dust an' stomped on it, called himself blasphemious epitaphs, an' gen’rally smashed the third commandment like you'd smash an egg on a rock. Then he druv home. “From that thar minute, su'thin' was a-brewin' fer Ame Twitchell, but Sock he never let on. No, he never mentioned it to nobuddy, not even to Rindy, who scolded day an' night 'bout the dicker he'd made. Sock said “Pshaw!' an' let on to like the new mare fine, fine! Even when he met Ame at the Pond he never so much as peeped. "How's the new high-stepper suit ye, hey?' Ame would ask with a grin, heapin' of insults onta injuries. rumores mare; he'd seen had the me his 176 DS “ Somebuddy else runnin', too; yellin' like a soul in torment” . “Fust rate! Couldn't be better!' ""Trot good?' “Best rudder, I swaney, I ever see!' “Wind all right ? J'ints sound?' "Sound's a die!' “Swap back?' "Guess not! “Then he'd drive on with that poor busted-down critter, lookin' pleased as Punch. “'Spite of all he c'd do, Belle took to runnin' down pow'ful fast. The sleek coat growed ragged agin, fetlocks got long haired, spavin' set in wuss 'n ever, an' whistles begun t sound like a dum loco- motive. But as I was sayin', Socka- lexis never peeped so much 's a word. Ame, though, wa’n't so close-mouthed; he let the story leak, an' leak it did, till all of Oxford County was laughin' up its sleeve. Also, cousin Luell Twitchell showed up in meetin' from that time on, a dum sight more scrum'shus than Rindy 'd ever ben. Oh, things was bad, bitter bad an' sore for the Beans; but Sockalexis bided his time, he bided his time. "Now I'll have you know the railroad runs through South Pond village in a most curious manner, right plum through the main street len’thwise fer half a mile 'fore it swings off in a stiff up-grade 'round the lake to Locke's Mills. Snug to the deepo thar's a side-track where the local freight puts in back o' the freight-shed every afternoon. It's a quiet spot, an' pow'ful secluded. Yes. “Well, one P. M., Ame he druv to town fer grain, vittles an' cider, an' hitched Kit by the deepo while he was a-tradin'in Andrews' store. Sock was in town, too, but not fer grain ner cider: 'twas bigger game, much bigger, he was after. He hitched nex' to Ame, an' waited. “He didn't have t wait long 'fore the local freight backed down to onload a car at the shed. You bet Sock was a-keepin’ his eyes peeled 'bout then. Things looked fav'rable, an' no mistake—the street was purty nigh deserted an' the caboose o' the train stood not two rod away. Sock he waited an’ waited, like a spider watchin' a fat fly. He seen Opportunity knockin' at his door, an' he wa'n't the man to turn a lady down; he didn't let her knock in vain “Ef you'd-a ben down thar back o' the freight-shed, Mister, you might-a seen a long, wiry cuss, answerin' to the name o' Sockalexis Bean onhitch Ame's hoss in a casual manner, lead her, wagon an' all, up to the caboose, an’ make a good, hard knot with the bridle 'round the hand-rail. Then you might-a seen the same man saunter away to the deepo platform, set 177 178 AMERICAN MAGAZINE down on a baggage-truck, light his T. D. an’ prepare fer joyous doins. “Toot! Toot !— Ding-dong-ding- dong! Why, that's the local gittin' ready t' pull out fer Locke's Mills. “Chu! Chu! Chu! Chuchuchu- chuchu' (wheels a-slippin'!) 'Chu! Chu! CHU! CHU!' (sand on the rail!) “CHU! -CHU!-CHU! “Su'thin' tugs kind-a gentle at Kit's head, an' she moves forrard at a slow walk. "Chu! Chu! Chu! Chu!Chu! Chu!-- “ The walk briskens up a bit, kind-a develops into a lope; the wagon jounces over th'rails as it comes in onto the track. "Chuchuchuchuchuchu chu chuchuchu chu!——”. “A trot! See! The old hoss is · be- ginnin' to step out right peart! Ears laid back an' reins a-trailin', thar she goes, taggin' after that local freight with cur'ous persistency. Things begin bouncin' in the wagon, too-looks bad fer the eggs-yes, thar they go! My land, what a splattera- tion! Flour? Jeems Rice, what a dust flour does raise when a bagful busts! "ChuChuChuChuChuChuChuChuChu Chu!—— “Lopin' now, Kit? Sure enough, so ye be! Bounce! Bounce! Slam! Bang!-- Kit's fully onlimbered 'bout now, swingin' along at a fine, free stride—thar's kind-a like a haze o' parcels all 'round the wagon; the road-bed begins t' look all-fired un- tidy in the wake o' the percession. Yes, that's the cider-jug! Cider's mighty full o gas, ain't it? Hear th’explosion when it hits? Gallopin'?—Whee-ee-ee! Look at 'er run! My land, thar goes the whiffle- tree, all t'thunder! Wagon's runnin' lopsided, ain't it? Yes, that's the off hind- wheel hittin' a rock! Up she goes, an down in a rain o' spokes an' felly! Now the ex is draggin'! By gosh, it catches a tie-such a pull! Ricochet, they useter call it in the army; wagon flies high an' comes down all of a scatter!—Thar, Kit's free at last! Wagon's t'other side up in the ditch, what ain't strung 'long the track in pieces. Jes' the harness left now an Kit runnin' like a rabbit-no reel danger fer Kit up that grade an’ with Locke's Mills only a mile away, but all-fired stren- uous! Somebuddy else runnin', too. What? Ame Twitchell ? Why, I vum, so 'tis, 'way behind, runnin' an' yellin' like a soul in torment etarnal. No chance fer Ame, though—the old hoss has got about a mil- lion times too big a start-Ame's sure out of it, but he keeps a-runnin' an'a-screechin' jes' the same ; after him a gang o' South Ponders, hollerin', yellin', scootin' up the track like a pack of crazy devils in a fit. Red faces, wavin' arms, sweat, dust, an' . laughter, most uproarious, ondecent laugh- ter. What? Laughter? Why, ef it ain't Sockalexis Bean that's laughin'! Yes— an' ef he don't stop this very minute, right plum off, he'll sure bust his suspender buttons an' throw a conniption-fit! - " Jumpin' Jewsharps!' “Th' brakeman o' the local has jes' came back over the top o' the train an' catched a glimpse of an old hoss, all dust an' sweat, thunderin' along th' track like a runaway cyclone in the midst of a cloud o' gravel an' ballast, with th' whole tarnation town screamin' after her- "Jumpin' Jewsharps !-- “One dive, an' he's down the ladder into the caboose, jammin' on the air. Jerk! Jolt! Grind-d-d-d!—Zeeeeee! — Wheeeee- eu-eu-uuu!-- “Everybuddy runs up, pantin'. My land, what's the matter? Everybuddy's askin' 'bout a million questions with the last tag - end o breath. Everybuddy? Well, no, not quite. No, Mr. Sockalexis Bean ain't thar; 'bout that time he's jouncin' outa town behind old Belle, sound an' well an' happier than most men ever is. Happy? Did I say happy? Yes, let it go at that, seein' as I ain't got the tongues o' Jew an Greek to say it better. "No, it never hurt Kit none, after she'd. cooled down an' rested a bit; but the wagon an' supplies was too fragmentary to ever be got together agin at any one spot. Lawsuit? My land, yes—it run six months or a year; if you want to you can find out all 'bout it down to Berlin court-house. Damages? Yes-s-s—but precious small ones; the jury, d'you see, knowed both sides o' the story. Damages? Pshaw! Not much more 'n enough to buy Luell Twitchell a set o’bangs to match them what Rindy Bean kep' pinned in the front o' her best Sunday-go-to-meetin' bunnet.” The Lion and the Mouse zenean Charles Klein's Successful Drama of the Great American Money King Told in Story Form By Owen Johnson AUTHOR OF "IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY,” ETC. with ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERNEST HASKELL REXIN a shabby, weather-stained to Stott, examines the cottage in astonisn- cottage of rural Long Island, ment, seeking from each in frightened Judge Rossmore and his appeal to learn what has happened. The wife awaited with shrinking father plunges desperately into the recital TORS dread the return of their of his financial ruin and the menace of b y daughter. Shirley, from impeachment which confronts him. Stott Europe. A few months before, Judge cries out that it is all a conspiracy of Ready Rossmore of the U. S. Supreme Court bore Money Ryder, the financial colossus, to an envied name, with a fortune ample to rid himself of the man who has blocked the afford his only child every worldly delight. progress of his moneyed interests. Ryder! Bankrupt, his fair name under suspicion, The name is the culminating blow to Shir- with the certain prospect of impeachment, ley, for it is the name of the father of the the trial that is now the hardest to meet man she loves. A bitter protest breaks is the return of his own child ignorant of from her. Bankruptcy, disgrace, her the family disgrace. Unjust misfortune has dream of happiness dispelled-everything shattered their faith, but has taken noth- seems to have gone out of her life in these ing from the gentle dignity of the wife nor short, cruel moments. the quiet courtesy of the judge, proof even “Father," Shirley begins slowly, “does against the petty annoyances of enforced this mean that you have lost everything, poverty, often in their reiteration more your fortune, your—your good name?" difficult to endure than the shock of The judge nods a silent assent, while the tragedies. To their dismay, Judge Stott mother adds sadly, “We have got to live arrives ahead, confessing that his courage in this little house now.” failed him when it came to the point of There is a long second of suspense, then revealing the catastrophe. The express- Shirley, tossing her head, cries gayly: man lugs in the trunks-eleven in all “Now don't you say anything against an incongruous reminder of their departed this house. It is just the dearest little prosperity, that makes the coming revela- house anyone could have!”. tion seem unnecessarily cruel. The parents look up with new hope, Shirley runs in, glowing with health and Judge Stott hastily turns his back. Shir- happiness, a radiant, unconscious child of ley has risen to the moment with the clear, fortune, with a strange new joy in her man decisive courage of American woman- ner, the charm of the romance that has hood. She takes command, finding every- come into her life. thing delightful, teasing her father into a She turns to her father. Something smile. Then becoming serious, she tells strange in the constraint of his welcome them of her literary success and her hope surprises her. She turns to her mother, in her novel, “The Great American 179 180 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Octopus," which she has just finished. the sacrifice and the cry of her soul goes In it, strangely enough, she has drawn a up as the curtain falls on the sobbing girl. picture of John Burkett Ryder. As soon as she is left alone with Stott, she returns at once to Ryder, learning be- II yond a doubt of his responsibility for her father's disgrace, for Ryder has even re- In the rigid, elegant private library of fused to produce the letters of inquiry John Burkett Ryder, Senator Roberts and from her father which would establish his daughter, Kate, await the return of the his innocence. magnate. Jorkins in stiff pompousness “It seems as though you can fight any at the door is receiving instructions from thing in this world but money," says the confidential secretary, the Hon. Fitzroy Shirley, staring before her. Then turning Bagley, who lends to the social ambitions with an indignant revolt at his helpless of Mrs. Ryder the experience of four years - despair, she cries: “Well, I am going to in which he was third groom of the bed- fight money. I am going to fight John chamber to the second son of England's Burkett Ryder!” queen. The secretary reproves Jorkins It is the cry that opens up the tremen- for his negligence in allowing the lower dous struggle of a woman against the cyni- staircase to be unguarded, exclaims at the cism of dollars. Just how she will fight inefficiency of the police that permits the she does not know. Yet already a plan richest man in the world to be kodaked is in her mind. with impunity, and loftily turns down the At this very moment Jefferson Ryder senator's request for a private interview appears. He has heard of their troubles, for a friend. and in straightforward, honest fashion has When the senator leaves, Kate lingers come directly to ask the girl he loves to behind, and though she forbids Bagley's marry him and accept his help, trembling further devotion she remains quite willingly lest she should have seen in the papers his to listen to his protestations. Jefferson reported engagement to Katharine Rob- coming in, asks to see his father. Impos- erts, daughter of the powerful senator, an sible. There are already three appoint- engagement which his father has deter- ments, including the chairman of the mined upon, and in characteristic manner Republican National Committee. Mrs. has announced. Shirley is on the point of Ryder sweeps in to implore an interview accepting him, when the judge, who has for an admiral-a gorgeous, floundering found no one to carry the trunks, returns, somewhat overdressed lady. She brings a and stops in amazement at the specta- reply from Sarah Green, author of “The cle of the son of his worst enemy under Great American Octopus,” announcing his roof. Jefferson, utterly unconscious, that she will call that afternoon. Jefferson, shoulders a trunk and starts up the stairs. who is unaware of Shirley's literary career, Turning to his daughter, Judge Rossmore Jooks up in surprised interrogation. Bagley bitterly expresses his mortification. She condescends to explain. The woman has recognizes that he is right and resolves to had the impertinence to make Mr. Ryder send Jefferson away, renouncing her idea the principal character. Impertinence, of the marriage. as though that were all! She not only At first she tells Jefferson she cannot refused his first summons to the office, but marry him against his father's wish, then a second one to the house, replying that because of their fathers' enmity, then that she preferred her invitation should come the public report of his engagement has from Mrs. Ryder. Still more astounding made it impossible. Finally, she says to Bagley is the fact that she has won her brokenly that any excuse will serve, only way and now is to arrive on the express he must go. He bows, takes her hand, invitation of the dutiful wife. Jefferson's and goes out without looking back. Shir- delight at the girl's independence is abruptly ley, who has gone through the scene in a stilled as Jorkins enters and whispers passion of self-immolation, stands a mo- hoarsely, ment silently. For the moment, the great “Mr. Ryder, sir-he's here, sir!” struggle to which she has dedicated her- Jefferson stiffens, Mrs. Ryder starts, self is forgotten-only the heart speaks and Bagley in a fluster, throws an anxious THE LION AND THE MOUSE 181 glance over the desk and stalks out to meet Kate Roberts. The father abruptly puts his chief. aside his papers and his cigar, rises and Jefferson implores his mother to inter comes forward, saying with genuine af- cede for him with his father, confessing fection, "Don't be a fool, Jeff.” For a mo- that he cannot forget Shirley. The ment he argues with him until the thought mother's simple heart is touched. She of Rossmore and his daughter springs into promises, she qualifies, she bites her lip his mind, and with a burst of anger that and rolls her eyes towards the door. From clouds the hungry, vulture-like face with the hall, the nervous, a passion of the evil dynamic voice of Ry- one, he strikes the desk der reaches them like and glares suspiciously the warning rush of a at his son. flying engine. The “If the inside his- mother instantly whis- tory of every commer- pers, cial enterprise were "Perhaps after all known,” says Jeffer- you had better tell him son doggedly, defend- yourself, dear.” ing Judge Rossmore, The next moment “how many would Ryder bursts into the escape conviction? room-a spare, electric Would you, father?”. man-swoops down on Ryder bursts into a his desk, flinging a furious denunciation, word each to his wife ending angrily, “It's and his son, pounces no use disinheriting on a card, grunts out you, you wouldn't the name of the gov- care.” Then pound- ernor of a great state, ing the desk and shak- dismisses him curtly ing a furious finger at and begins to run him, he roars “You're through his papers like the only flesh and a flame devouring a blood that belongs to prairie. Mrs. Ryder, me. You see myweak- after weakly attempt- ness. You see I want ing to speak with him, you with me and you quickly departs with a kell take advantage, you deprecating glance at take advantage!” her son. Moved by this un- "Jefferson, do you usual display, Jeffer- want to see me?" roars son tells him that what the father in a voice to he wants is to be him- set an army in motion. self, to go away and "I do," Jefferson cease being always the says firmly. son of the richest man "I haven't the time,” Shirley in the world. Suspi- snaps out Ryder, al- cious of his true motive, ready buried in his correspondence, “but Ryder gets him to promise he will not seek I'll give it to you." Then as Jefferson out Shirley. Jefferson reluctantly gives him begins, he halts him with a warning, “No his hand on it. Then remembering that philosophic twaddle, my boy. No Tolstoi, he must read the advance report of the he's a thinker, you're not. No Bernard Inter-State Commerce Commission in time Shaw, he's funny and you're not. Now for it to reach the Senate, Ryder claps his go on, go on, go on!” sen on the back and hurries him to the Jefferson, who has started boldly, falls door. back like a frightened debtor but quickly T he servant announces Miss Green. returning to the charge tells him flatly that Jefferson reiterates his intention of leaving he will no longer consent to be engaged to and departs. Ryder back at the desk, 182 AMERICAN MAGAZINE does not even lift his head from the report. The first clash has come between the A telephone rings. He slams it off. A opposing points of view, the idealism of the paragraph sets him in a fury, and at this woman, the cynicism of the man. Ryder moment of his irritation the door opens startled at this presentation, seeks again and Jorkins announces, to find out how she obtained these details “Miss Green.” which he recognizes as belonging to his Shirley enters quietly, remaining at the own life-reading finally the passage that door, waiting the opening of the great has astounded him: struggle for the honor of her father. Ryder “With all his physical bravery, John throwing down the document shoots a Broderick was intensely afraid of death." quick glance in her direction, and plainly T hen forgetting that he is betraying him- surprised at her youth and loveliness hastily self, he cries, “Who told you that? I've puts away his cigar. never mentioned that to a living soul!” “Um-and are you Miss Green ?” he “Most men who amass money are afraid says with blunt directness. of death,” Shirley says thoughtfully, “for “That is my nom de plume,” Shirley death is the only thing which can separate answers. “Are you Mr. Ryder?” them from their money." Surprised at the simplicity and dignity Ryder burst into a roar of laughter- of her manner, Ryder insensibly changing perhaps relieved at this simple explanation. his tone, asks her to be seated, and picking Then turning to her with an air of flatter- up her book, goes at once to the point, ing intimacy, he asks, saying, “Where did you get these details? “I want to ask you, Miss Green, where Come, take me into your confidence.” you got the character of the central figure, “I have,” Shirley answers quickly, “and the Octopus, as you call him.” it has cost you just a dollar and a half.” “From imagination of course.” Pushing back impatiently, Ryder' ex- “You've sketched a pretty big man here." claims that he cannot make her out, that “He has possibilities—” Shirley re- she is just like his son Jefferson. plies, “but I think he makes very poor “What's the matter with him," asks use of them.” Shirley; "does he want to marry the wrong Ryder starts and hurriedly frames the girl ?” question he has had in mind. "Now how did you know that!” ex- “What do you think of him as a type? claims Ryder, astounded. How would you classify him?”. “Oh, I don't know. I should imagine “As the greatest criminal of the age," any girl would be the wrong girl if you Shirley answers directly. “He is avarice hadn't picked her out yourself.” -egotism and ambition incarnate. He R yder's hands fall slowly as he stares at loves money because he loves power. And Shirley, interested no longer in the book, he loves power more than mankind or but in this extraordinary personality. womankind.” Amazed at her fearlessness, perplexed, “Rather strong!” comments Ryder, amused, thoroughly charmed, he seizes the switching his chair about. telephone, crying impetuously, “Of course," she says demurely, “no “I like you, upon my soul I do! I am such man ever really existed.” going to introduce you to my wife and Ryder glances up sharply, Shirley's face son- ". shows no signs of a smile. At her inquiry, "Whát a commander-in-chief,” inter- he explains that he wishes her to edit his rupts Shirley, mischievously. “You al- biography. Rising he unlocks a strong ways tell people what they are to do, don't box and puts before her a mass of papers. you?” She expresses doubts as to the wisdom of Utterly flabbergasted, Ryder turns with such a book, answering quietly to his a smothered ejaculation and, gulping down amazed inquiry, his amazement, cries, “Supposing everyone wished to be the “Well I-will you do me the honor to. richest and most powerful man in the meet my family!” world-don't you think it would postpone Victor at every point, Shirley hastily indefinitely the era of the brotherhood of bows her head to hide her laughter and man?" her triumph. “ The letters that will clear her father" While Ryder returns to the telephone, Shirley glances through the manuscript of the biography. All at once she stops, staring at the very papers she has deter- mined to get, the letters her father wrote, the letters that will clear him. The shock paralyzes her faculties; before she can re- cover herself Ryder, noticing the change, comes to her side, recognizes the writing, and snatching the letters from her angrily locks them in a drawer of his desk. By pretending to have seen the signa- ture, Shirley leads him to discuss the case of Judge Rossmore. Trusting in the im- pression she sees she has made, she im- pulsively appeals to his sympathies. She might as well have besought a granite wall to move. The master of business has no sympathies. She has touched him on the raw, and found only a machine, relentless and without comprehension of pity. The utter hopelessness of moving such a tyrant swells up before her. Momentarily she loses faith, and with difficulty controls her feelings. When Ryder looks at her in surprise, she hastily explains that it is the artistic temperament in full working order, aroused by a tragic story. The arrival of Kate and the senator save her further explanations. Jorkins is overcome at re- ceiving an order to serve tea in the holy of holies, and upon this Jefferson rushes in to say good-bye. The father carries his son over and pre- sents him to Miss Green, to the utter dum- founding of Jefferson who, suddenly con- fronted with Shirley, almost betrays the situation. Ryder, after explaining to Shir- ley that Miss Roberts is to be his son's wife, and recommending her to talk with Jeff as she talked to him, goes over to Senator Roberts and whispers in his ear that though Jefferson has a will of his own, he will come around. Meanwhile Shirley, revolting at the heartlessness of Ryder, has resolved to gain possession of her father's letters by any means. She whispers to Jeff to get her the key of his father's desk. Jefferson only comprehends one thing, that Shirley is somehow to remain in his home. He hesitates, shifts from foot to foot, then with a characteristic grin, shuffles over to his father, saying, “Father, I've changed my mind. I'm not going away.” The curtain falls on universal hilarity, Ryder vigorously pumping his son's hand and laughing slyly at the senator, Shirley 183 184 AMERICAN MAGAZINE III and Jefferson laughing too, but for reasons “That's all." which the others cannot suspect. “Leave your address with your mother." His son goes out. Ryder, without turn- ing, remains sunk in the big chair, staring before him. Suddenly he rouses himself, seizes a cigar, bites it, snatches up some Ryder is at work in the library, papers, and starts to work. But for once alone and absorbed. Two weeks have he cannot sink himself in business. The elapsed since Shirley's entrance into the blow has hit home. He relapses blankly household, and already the eve of Judge into a set stare, brooding and cruel, scarcely Rossmore's impeachment by the Senate hearing Shirley's quiet entrance. has arrived. Mrs. Ryder comes in from Distracted by the approach of her father's the ballroom, primed for the assault, and disgrace, she starts with much emotion to plunges into Jefferson's defense. The flash plead for mercy—when suddenly she stops, of courage quickly goes out and instead realizing that he is not hearing her. At the champion obediently departs to spread her call he starts rudely from his disagree- the news that Jeff's wedding with Kate able reverie, and smiting the table with his Roberts will take place in a month. But fist, confesses to her that for the first time these plans are rudely interrupted by Sena- he faces defeat; that he who can rule a tor Roberts who arrives breathlessly, just government cannot govern his own son. from Washington, with the astounding This sense of defeat seems to give him a intelligence that Kate is planning to elope suggestion of age; his gestures at this mo- the next morning with Bagley. ment have a feeling of weakness. In his Ryder with a grim smile summons the desperation he turns to her and invokes secretary. His calm is unruffled, as befits her help, her woman's wit, as, in the fable, a giant about to crush a fly. The senator the lion called upon the mouse. is reporting that the vote on the impeach- “But how?” asks Shirley. ment will be close, when the phlegmatic “Ah, that's it!” he cries in exasperation. secretary meanders in quite unaware of “Can't you think? You're a woman, you the bomb that awaits him. The Hon. have beauty-brilliancy ” Suddenly he Fitzroy Bagley passes a very bad quarter stops, raises his fist, and crashes it on the of an hour, with explanations that do not desk with a cry of joy. “Marry him your- explain and become very flat when Kate self!” arrives and blurts out the truth. The Characteristic in this as in everything, young lady is bundled off by her father. he can see no obstacles. He has found a The Honorable Bagley receives orders to way, it must open to his command. He sail for England the next morning. becomes his old self again, triumphant Jefferson in a towering rage rushes in, and dominating. He absorbs everything He has heard of the report of his marriage. in his personality; the chair switching back This time he does not flinch. The father and forth becomes a gesture, so do the seeing that a crisis has arrived, goes straight telephone and the papers he crumples on to meet it. “My boy, there is no need of the desk. He will take no refusal. asking what is the matter," he says grimly “You ask me to be your son's wife, and and waits. Jefferson breaks into a torrent you know nothing about me,” says Shirley, of reproaches at his underhand methods, moved by his display of confidence. his blows in the dark. Ryder replies hotly. Ryder confesses that he himself would Jefferson, beside himself, flatly tells him miss her if she should leave. Shirley is in that he not only will not marry Kate, but dreadful suspense; if she should comply that he intends to make Shirley Rossmore and ask as her reward her father's ac- his wife. Mastering himself with difficulty, quittal - The telephone interrupts im- Ryder sinks into his chair, gives his son a patiently. terrible look and says: Judge Stott is below, begging for an “You've shown your cards, I'll show interview. Shirley stops the refusal on you mine.” Not only will he ruin the Ryder's lips and persuades him to see the father, but he'll show up the girl. Then emissary. Judge Stott begins with a per- turning curtly to Jeff, he says, “Well, is sonal plea; the judge is ill to the death, that all?" only good news can save him. Vain appeal! THE LION AND THE MOUSE 185 she comeffection has against when all "You didn't come here to tell me this," not for evil. Ryder much affected goes says Ryder with a cynical smile. over to Jeff and says: "No," answers Stott, and diving in his “You see how the girl pleads your case pockets, he produces Judge Rossmore's for you. She loves you, my boy. Make letters, and threatens to publish them in her your wife and I will do as you ask.” every paper in the land. Ryder with one At this supreme moment when all is glance at them stalks to his drawer, un- won, Shirley revolts against the deceit. locks it, and laughs—a hollow ominous Ryder's affection has so stirred her that laugh. she comes forward impulsively and re- "Do as you please," he says with a veals the truth. She herself sent the letters sneer. “It cannot affect the issue.” Point to Judge Stott; her story, her name, every- ing out their legal weakness, he adds scorn- thing is false. Turning to him she cries: fully, tapping Stott's arm, “Keep them, “I am the daughter of the man you keep them. I don't want them.” Then hate. I am Shirley Rossmore!” drawing back and growing rigid, he de- Ryder, overwhelmed at this revelation mands to know how he procured them from the woman he has grown to love, is Stott refuses. Ryder with a sneer gives stunned. Shirley, realizing how much hangs orders to summon his son, saying savagely: on the moment, takes his hand, swears to “Do you suppose I don't know who has him in a burst of sacrifice that if he will made a liar and a thief of my son, false to save her father she will never see Jefferson his father, false to his fiancée, false to his again. party!” But they have misunderstood the hesi- Stott gone, Shirley in terror watches tation of John Burkett Ryder. It was not Ryder as he rages across the room until the indecision of pity, but the blind groping at his son's entrance, he explodes angrily. passion of rage which now explodes within “What of the letters in this drawer!” him. He takes her hands from his shoulder Jeff looks at Shirley. and flings them brutally away. "You took them!” “You have the brazen effrontery to ask “Yes." me to plead for your father!” he cries "Jefferson, my boy, I think it's time we hoarsely, accusing her of deceit and lies. had a final accounting,” says Ryder slowly. “No, no! Let the law take its course. “We have arrived at the parting of the And now, Miss Rossmore," he adds with a ways. I cannot overlook your willingness sneer, "you will please leave my house to sell your father for the sake of this to-morrow morning.” woman." “To-morrow—no, to-night!” Shirley “You wouldn't hesitate to sell me,” cries. Then, her whole nature in revolt retorts Jefferson bitterly, “if your politi- against his inhumanity, she turns on him cal and business interests warranted the in fury and tells him the stinging, accusing sacrifice!” truth about himself, his vanity, his selfish- Ryder drops back into his chair, aghast. ness, and his tyranny. Ryder, barely con- Shirley breaking in, succeeds in averting trolling himself, repeats his dismissal. Jef- the crash, and turning to Jeff she begs him ferson, advancing to Shirley's side, cries out not defy his father but to implore his aid that he goes with her to make her his “You're right,” Jefferson says slowly. wife. Then going up to his father he adds, "For “No!” cries Shirley, with a scorn that God's sake help us!” arrests the contemptuous laugh on Ryder's Seeing the changed attitude in his son, lips. “No! Do you think I could marry Ryder is undecided. He paces up and a man whose father is as deep a discredit down and debates. He does not want to the human race as yours is ? No, I the break to come. He realizes now what couldn't, Jeff, I couldn't marry the son of his son means to him. But the old sophis- such a merciless tyrant. He refuses to tries of business are strong within him, the lift his voice to save my father, I refuse to familiar catch words rise to his lips--polit- marry his son!” Standing at the desk, ical necessity-survival of the fittest. In facing the great man of millions, her young an impassioned appeal Shirley pleads with face blazing with scorn, she cries, “You the bigger man for justice and truth, and think if you'd lived in olden times you'd for the Titan to use his power for good and been a Cæsar or an Alexander. No, you'd 186 AMERICAN MAGAZINE have been a Nero! Sink my self-respect to public pillory and I am going to let the the extent of marrying into your family- world know it!” never! I am going to Washington without Shirley revolts at the idea of such a your aid. I am going to save my father, sacrifice. Even to save her father's honor if I have to go down on my knees to every she cannot permit him to betray the father United States senator at the Capitol. I'll who loves him. So, rejecting his help, go to the White House. I'll tell the Presi- she adds wearily: dent what you are. Marry your son in- “No—somehow the truth will come out. deed-marry your son? No, thank you, I feel it. I know it. But not through you, no, thank you!” Jeff.” And with the room ringing with the And bending, unseen by him, she accents of her denunciation, Shirley sweeps stretches her hand over him with a look out, leaving the great master of men hud- of pity and love, the only caress her self- dled in his chair, staring out at a specter sacrifice gives her the right to show. Jeff that rises before him, the ugly, hideous starts anew to plead, but she checks him, shape of his true self. telling him that she can never again see him or his father. “Why do you always associate us?” IV he protests. But as Shirley is replying, she looks up, The next morning the maid coming in sees John Burkett Ryder, and slips from to rouse Shirley, finds that she has been up the room. all night. Shirley enters her sitting-room There is a change in the man, percepti- wearily. The intense scenes of the night ble in his walk, in the meditation of his before have reacted, leaving her limp manner, even in the simulated sternness mentally and physically. The maid in- of his rebuke to Jefferson for being there. forms her that Mr. Ryder desires to speak He goes to the bedroom door. The habit with her in the library. Shirley, surprised, of command is strong. He knocks per- remains a moment thoughtful, but refuses, emptorily, saying: repeating her refusal to Jorkins who comes “I wish to see you in the library-alone!” in on the same errand. Shirley will not see him. Jefferson com- Mrs. Ryder in dressing gown, with hair ing forward, angrily reproaches his father askew, slips in to protest against Shirley's for adding to her misery. But Ryder has departure. The whole house is upset. no such intention. He holds out in ex- Jeff has just bid her farewell. He is going planation the check he gave her in pay- off forever. Mr. Ryder sat up all night in ment of her services, which she returned. the library. Shirley ponders over this in- The contempt of that action has wounded telligence, scarce listening to the mother, him profoundly. Then Jeff, facing him, who in her effort to help her son keeps tells him earnestly how incapable he is of repeating that there is nothing in his en- comprehending her, her standards and her gagement to Miss Roberts. Jeff enters at ideals, and informs him that she alone pre- the moment when the simple lady imagines vented his going to Washington. “Be- that she has set everything right. She is cause, as she said,” he adds, "you loved preparing to steal back before her treachery me. It's true I would betray you for her. has been discove, ed, when she is horrified But you have made me what I am. You to receive a summons to the library from have destroyed me as you are destroying Mr. Ryder himself. our national integrity.” Left alone with Shirley, Jeff tries a last Yet Ryder does not answer hotly. He time to shake her resolution, but Shirley looks at his son sternly, but a little sadly. replies sadly that nothing can ever be right “So she has refused you again ?” he again until her father is restored to health asks. and honor. Jefferson answers without hope. "You're right,” Jeff answers with quiet “My boy," says the father thoughtfully, resolve. “Nothing can be right until then, "she'll come around.” and to that end I am going with you to “But her father!” Jeff cries angrily. Washington. I know my father was in “Oh, he's all right,” Ryder says, nodding strumental in putting your father in the grimly, without showing more emotion --- THE LION AND THE MOUSE 187 tnan he would display over a million-dollar advice which the son accepts with a superior transaction. Before Jefferson can exclaim, grin. Senator Roberts rushes in, protesting that the With a few strides, Ryder reaches the impeachment cannot be stopped. For the bedroom door. His hand goes up with night has brought a revolution in the soul the old authority, but before the crash of Ryder, and he is going to save the fa- falls, he pauses. Then shifting a bit, he ther for the sake of the daughter. raps softly, and in answer to her inquiry, "It can't be done,” blurts out the sen- the Great American Octopus says very ator. submissively,“Won't you please come out?' "It will be done,” Ryder snaps back, Shirley accedes. Face to face with the “if every senator has girlwho has denounced to eat his speeches!” him, Ryder opens very "I don't see,” fal- lamely, remonstrating ters the most powerful on her refusal of his senator in the United check, receiving small States. comfort from her scorn- "I do,” says John ful replies. The maid Burkett Ryder. “The announces thecab, Shir- Senate will yield to ley takes up her valise. public opinion.” “It's all right about Characteristic in his your father. I've seen pursuit of the good as Senator Roberts!” Ry- of the evil, he will der says hurriedly, ris- have no obstacles. He ing. “You've beaten cuts short all remon- me. Iacknowledgeit.” strances and subdues Then looking at her the senator, with a with the old snap of hint concerning the fu- the jaws he adds, “And ture of a certain Erie you're the first living Canal Bill. Senator soul who has ever Roberts is summoned beaten John Burkett to the telephone. Jef- Ryder!" ferson comes over si- She turns in wonder, lently, awkwardly, and unable to believe it. slips his hand into his “I am doing it be- father's. cause I want you to "It's all right, my marry my son,” Ryder boy,” says Ryder, put- says quickly, evading ting his hand on his her gratitude. “I want son's shoulder. “I'm you in my family close not doing it for him to us. I want your -it's the girl I'm af- The “ Happy Ending" respect, my girl—your ter, I've had a bad love. I want to earn night,” he adds, shaking his head; then it-I always want what I can't get.” with a nod toward the bedroom, “She · Jeff comes in, no longer to be denied. said a few things to me, didn't she?” Senator Roberts returns with the frantic “Yes, father,” says Jeff, shaking his announcement that Kate has run off with head, too, at the recollection, “and she Bagley, and the curtain comes down on said a few things to me.” John Burkett Ryder standing perplexed “I'm sorry, Jeff," says Ryder gently. and dissatisfied, feeling (for the first time) Then turning quickly from the scene, that there is something more in the world which is proving trying to both, he sends besides the might of his millions and the him away, with a caution to remain near, brutal cant of the survival of the fittest. The Rebirth of the Corporation By Peter S. Grosscup JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS The property of this country is owned by the many and controlled by the few. That is the essence of the corporation problem as Judge Grosscup showed in his article “ Who Shall Own America ? ” in the December number of this magazine. On that foundation he now be- gins to build his positive doctrines. Instead of exploiting evils, he calls attention to the seeds of reform already being sown by a few well- managed corporations and shows how the true remedy for the trust problem does not lie in government ownership, but in public control through individual ownership.—THE EDITORS. CAVATE VON my article, Who Shall Own continue to narrow; and that, unlike the CK America ? in the December statesmanship which distributed the pub- number of the AMERICAN lic landed domain—so widely that the farms MAGAZINE, I endeavored to of America are to-day the property of the bring out the distinction people of America—the statesmanship deal- dan between the thing called the ing with corporate properties has shown no “corporation " and the property domain” concern that this domain, too, should be- covered and controlled by corporate owner- come the property of the people. ship—the distinction between the actual property and its mere legal embodiment. To THE COUNTRY'S WEALTH IS CONTROLLED, comprehend the national problem that con- NOT OWNED, BY THE FEW fronts us, the keeping of this distinction in mind is vital. The corporation is no sin in I endeavored also to bring out this fact: itself. Ownership incorporated is no sin This monopoly of proprietorship by the few, in itself. The corporation as the legal this exclusion of the many, is not because method of wielding large masses of indi- the actual wealth of the country is owned vidual resources to a common end, has been by the few. The wealth of the country is one of the most helpful agencies of modern not owned by the few. It is still owned by life. But the corporation left to do as it the people. But the people at large have pleases-emancipated from all care as to its been content to deposit that wealth on character and birth, and all watchfulness of. financial streams, which in turn converge in its conduct afterwards—is the cause of the the great money centers; and, once there, great sin that has grown up within the vast these streams are turned again, in one form property domain covered by corporate or other, into the great corporate enter- ownership. prises, the ownership of which is not re- I endeavored in the article mentioned to turned to the people. To illustrate: five bring out that the pre-eminent wrong in the men have an enterprise, costing say ten property domain covered by the corporation millions, which they wish to establish. -the wrong that is father to nearly all the They are not possessed of the ten mil- other wrongs—lies in the fact that in this lions, but they have the good fortune domain control was practically narrowed to be standing where the financial streams to an exceptional class of people, and in the converge; so out of the stream they take nature of things, as they now exist, would the millions in the nature of a loan, se- 188 THE REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION 189 curing it by a lien upon the enterprise. effective competition can be shut out. To the stream they give back the bonds And the present system, by converging the representing the cost; to themselves they streams of the country's resources to points issue the stock representing the pro- accessible only by the few, effectually shuts prietorship. And thus all the possibility of out the means wherewith to create com beti- growth of successful enterprise—the wealth tion. that ought honestly to be created each year in the property domain covered by the cor- THE PROMOTER VS. THE PRODUCER poration-goes, not to the many who furnish the capital, nor in large part to the man who Look at the economic side from another furnishes the idea, but chiefly to the few angle—the angle of actual service obtained, whose advantageous position at the conflu- rather than of prices. I take for illustration ence of the streams enables them, to the ex- a well-known case. With an eye open to a clusion of all others, to lay hands upon the big return, Mr. A. comes into a large and cargoes as they come down. . growing city. He finds that its people are Such appropriation of the newly created being served by an antiquated and inade- wealth of the country through concentration quate street-car system. By a shrewd of proprietorship is bad enough, but it is not stroke or two, he gets this system into his the only evil of our corporation policy. possession. Instantly a change takes place. There is an economic as well as a political The system is enlarged, reaching territory and a moral side to this concentration of that before had gone unserved. The system proprietorship. It is responsible largely for is rejuvenated, the latest cars and the latest every extortion in the way of prices, both motive power are substituted for the oldest. those paid and those taken, that has been Thus far all is well. For the moment, and practiced; for by offering, through the go on the exterior side, Mr. A. is the genius as-one-pleases corporation, unexampled op- of a beneficial progress. portunity to make fortunes on paper in an B ut under this exterior is an interior; hour, it has bred the disposition, uncon- ' and in the center of this interior, curled up trolled by conscience, to make those for- like a worm in the core of an apparently tunes actual by any device at hand. Take, sound apple, is a purpose. The interior for instance, the enterprises that have been consists of a network of guaranties of exist- unnecessarily overcapitalized. No over- ing bonds and stocks; the issuance of capitalization, however excessive, can in- further bonds and stocks; and the mainte- crease by a farthing the intrinsic value of any nance of dividends on these new stocks. But property. Nor can it increase by a farthing the purpose is not to keep these stocks, but the earnings. To men who wish to hold the to sell them; not to make them of actual securities of a corporation as an investment, first quality, but of seeming first quality; or to dispose of them upon their real merits, and to carry out that purpose the dividends an honest capitalization is better than over- must be pushed to the highest point. capitalization. But overcapitalization is not The farmer takes out of his crop some- without a purpose. What is that purpose? thing to return to the soil to refertilize it. Well, to swell on paper one dollar into five, The manager of a corporation, looking to though both cover exactly the same frac- the real interest of his stockholders, takes tional part of a corporate property, is a of the earnings enough to maintain the vonderful appeal to the imagination. Fifty property. Not so with this promoter. A thousand dollars on the face of a certificate proper maintenance of the property would looks bigger than ten thousand. And the have meant smaller dividends, and smaller imagination justifies itself by foreseeing dividends would have meant lower stock enormous increase of business and enor- market quotations. Need anyone ask the mous economies-all of which would be result? At the end of twenty years, a very well if they only happened. But what broken down street-car system; an indig- happens usually is this: to make up for the nant public; four or five thousand share- imagined increase of business, and the holders waking up to the consciousness that imagined economies that have not come they have been trapped and the manipulator about, and at the same time make good the of the “purpose" in possession of one of the overcapitalized securities, the price lists are great fortunes of the country. Now a pub- worked and kept working just so long as lic corporation policy that had taken any 190 AMERICAN MAGAZINE thought of the public would have seen to it that throughout this period, dividends or no dividends, the efficiency of the system was maintained. A public corporation policy that had taken any thought of the four or five thousand shareholders would have seen to it that the trick could not have been worked. Having shown these things then-a con- dition of things which politically, economic ally and morally is undoing all the ideals that lie at the basis of republican govern- ment—the inquiry arises, What is to be the end of it all? Is there any cure from within? The corporation is the only struc- ture in sight into which to gather and exer- cise the creative energies of America's in- dustrial progress. Shall it be remodeled from within, or torn down from without? Or shall it be allowed to remain as it is? The remedies from without are of two kinds. First, general public ownership, and secondly, the corporation as it exists to-day, but bitted and reined in the matter of conspiracies to control prices. To each of these remedies I wish to devote a few words. WHAT GENERAL PUBLIC OWNERSHIP REALLY MEANS capability; on the other hand, government control and direction never gets, and in the nature of things never can get, all there is, or the best there is, in human capability. No one knows this so well as he who having been in private enterprise, goes into some enterprise controlled by government, or having been in government service, goes into private enterprise. To the mind of such a person the difference is tangible, clearly distinct, like the line dividing Kentucky from Ohio before slavery had been abol- ished. And the reason is not far to seek. Every enterprise of consequence has many places to fill, each place varying from its fellows in the kind of individual capabil- ity it demands. Correspondently every enterprise has many individuals to select from, each individual varying from his fel- lows in the kind of capability he has to give; so that the success of an enterprise depends, not so much upon the mere fact of acquir- ing capable men, as upon the wise distribu- tion of the men to their places—the right man in the right place. Now the government may compete with private enterprise in getting capable men, but it has not thus far shown anything of the capacity of a private enterprise to assign the right man always to the right place. The agency which in private enterprise suc- ceeds so generally, in eventually landing in the right place the right man, is not simply good intention, nor mere intelligence, but the intelligence and intention which con- stantly study the enterprise in hand—which make it the one affair in life, constantly thought of and planned for; an intelligence and intention, too, which are themselves as nearly as possible permanent. That kind of seeking out and watchfulness, few goy- ernment departments possess. The men in charge of government departments may be intelligent and well-intentioned, but they are in to-day and out to-morrow. The thing under them is not their child. They never, as a matter of fact, get their hands and their mind fully into the work. And this will always be the case, for in its nature republican government is founded on short tenures and frequent changes. Nor will civil service change this. Civil service examinations may secure capable men, but no civil service examination can assign the right man to the right place, can pick out of the thousand capable men just the kind of capability that is fitted to this In opposing a general public ownership, I do not wish to be understood as opposing the ownership by the public of such re- stricted public utilities as municipal gas or lighting plants, water plants, or even munic- ipal street railways, though many of the considerations against general public owner- ship are applicable here also; for I am not sure that as long as the city hall shall have franchises to vote, the “gray wolves" can be kept out; and it may become essential in the interest of clean city government, if for no other reason, to give up the otherwise undoubted economic advantage of private operation under public control. What I mean, when I say I am opposed to general public ownership, is that the people of this country still have it in their power so to reform and reconstruct the corporation policy of the country that, as between the corporation thus reformed and even re- stricted public ownership, the latter is to be opposed, and strenuously opposed. One controlling economic reason for op- posing public ownership is that every indi- vidual in society prospers just in proportion as industry gets the best there is in human THE REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION . 191 place and just the kind that is fitted to that Indeed, between government control and private control, the difference in that re- spect is almost the exact difference between what we call true organization and what is the merest aggregation; for in private en- terprise each man has come by a process of attrition to the place he is best fitted to fill, while in government employment each man is dropped into his place irrespective of special fitness, and under civil service is riveted there. And all this is said on the assumption that politics would have no part in government ownership and operations. When we stand before that side of the ques- tion, efficient public ownership looks almost hopeless. THE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE ALWAYS ILL PAID Government control and operation would also be found, I think, to have a disadvan- tageous effect upon the special interest of the laboring man. Labor sometimes gets less than the enterprise employing can afford to pay; but labor never gets more, at least for any length of time, than the enter prise can afford to pay. Lowered efficiency therefore means lowered wages. And public owner- ship always has been, and always will be on this account, attended by lower wages. The men who are motormen on the muni- cipal street railways of Glasgow, for instance, get a little less than thirteen cents an hour; the motormen of Chicago get from twenty- one to twenty-four cents an hour. The locomotive engineer of a German govern- ment railroad gets fifty dollars per month; the American locomotive engineer makes easily three times that much. And through the whole schedule of wages paid by public and by private enterprises, the same differ- ence runs-a difference founded on the fundamental economic law that it is intelli- gent organization, including, above all things, the intelligent selection and assignment of men, that determines what wages the enter- prise can afford to pay. But there is still another side to this objection—what may be called its personal side the effect of public ownership on organized labor. Much as labor organiza- tions have been abused here and there by opposing interests, and much as here and there labor organizations have abused their privileges, it is in labor organizations that the laboring man finds, and will continue to find, the source of bettered conditions. Asking for higher wages the one man is unheard. But the many speaking as one make themselves heard. So that the labor organization is the laborers' industrial pro- tector. But the many speaking as one must have some one to whom to speak—some concrete party with whom to deal. Under govern- ment ownership that party would be the whole public. Let not the ready sympathy of the people for alleviative measures, such as factory legislation, and the like, be given too wide a significance, for even there the task was long and hard. Nor the readiness of the public to side in, at times of labor strikes, with the employees. In those situa- tions the public is an outside party, not the other party. Until in some public controlled enterprise there is a demand by the employee for higher wages or changed conditions- some demand that will directly cost the public something in dollars and cents—the laboring man is without proof that the public can be more easily reached than private enterprise. Something in this line, however, we already know. Government servants, from the highest to the lowest, are the poorest paid people in America; put, man for man, against corresponding grades in private enterprise—the President of the United States against the presidents of the great corporations, cabinet officers against the managers of corporation departments, post- al clerks on the railways against express clerks, laborers against laborers—the ad- vantage in every case is with the employee of the private enterprise. And this we know, too, that though the matter has often been urged, the people at large will not lis- ten to any proposition for increase of pay in the government service. Given then a private employer, or the public as employer, with whom to deal—the one a thousand times more accessible, and infinitely prompter to reach results than the other- to my mind nothing is clearer than that em- ployment by the public would be followed by a severe impairment of the influence and efficiency of the labor organization, and of the good it has done for its membership. THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTION But the fundamental objection to general public ownership-an objection so funda- 192 AMERICAN MAGAZINE mental that it cannot be adequately stated corporation be bitted and reined, is no less in a line is that to transpose from the in- than before headed toward grave danger to dividual to government, the direction, the republican institutions. And if this owner- creation, and the development of those ship keeps on narrowing, the people at large things which constitute industrial progress, more and more remaining outside, the dan- would be to reverse the whole order of ger will be greater than it ever was befort. nature on which the past has been built up; Indeed, this cure from the outside is no cure the whole order that from the beginning of at all. It may palliate, but it does not eradi- things has been evolving, out of the species, cate, it does not restore. Nothing will re- the individual; out of the mass, the man; store to the people of America the feeling putting to the forefront the individual; de- that the opportunities of America are for all veloping and uplifting him by putting on alike, short of such a reconstruction of our him the task and the responsibility of work corporation policy that the corporation here- ing out the destiny of things. In the light after shall more and more come to be an of all history, natural and human, Socialism institution of the people, and for the people shows itself to be a step backward, not for- --a reconstruction which must proceed, not ward-a doubling back on the road along from those who aim to destroy; nor from which the race has come from the days when those to whom perfunctory regulation and no man had a hope of his own, or an indi prosecution is the alpha and omega of vidual part in the destiny of things. remedy; but from those who see that the So much for one remedy. Now for the thing before them is nothing less than to other cure from the outside—the corporation remove the prejudices and to change the to remain as it is to-day, but to be bitted and judgments that have been growing up reined in the matter of conspiracy to control through a generation; and to do this the prices. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act per- foundations of the corporation must be laid haps was the most significant promise anew, and laid clean and firm. toward that cure. When that act went into But some one at this point inquires: effect, we were only at the beginning of the Assume the corporation policy of the coun- period that marked the development of the try to be reconstructed as you desire, how so-called trust. How well the promise of will the peopleization of the corporate cure has been fulfilled is shown by the fact domain show itself in the concrete? What that under the shadow of that act the great- evolution may we expect? The best way to est of the so-called trusts have grown up. answer inquiries of that kind is to show True, the administration of President what has been done, and what has suc- Roosevelt has begun a number of prosecu- ceeded; and space will permit me to do this tions. But the beef trust injunction, the only by showing types of what has been railroad rebate injunction, and the Northern done, examples of what has succeeded. Securities decree contain so far their results. The examples I choose fall under three With these results I am finding no fault. heads: (a) corporate property successfully The railroads say that they are obeying the and safely owned by large numbers of ction, and thus far the law officers of people who have put their individual re- the government have not with success dis- sources into their proprietorship; (b) cor- proved, or even tried to disprove, that asser- porate property interesting as owners, or co- tion. No prosecution for contempt under partners in its profits, its wage earners; and the beef trust injunction has been instituted. (c) corporate property which in addition to serving the best interests of its shareholders fulfills the further purpose of serving the THE SHERMAN LAW DOES NOT REACH THE best interests of the community in which it operates, thus illustrating the prospective But no thinking man will say that the Sher- economic side of the corporate domain man Act, or the prosecutions thereunder, peopleized. have reached the actual disease. No candid observer will say that the sense of the public ONE WAY TO LET THE PEOPLE IN that something is wrong, indefinable as that sense may be, has been removed, or even The first type then-corporate property modified. The corporate domain of prop- successfully and safely owned by large erty narrowly owned, though the owning numbers of people who have put their in- ACTUAL DISEASE THE REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION 193 dividual resources into their proprietorship. Among railroad companies several may be instanced, one or two of them running out from Chicago. Of the capital stock of one of these roads, more than one-half is held in quantities of less than five hundred shares- one-fifth in quantities of less than one hun- dred shares. Many of the owners are mer- chants, artisans, and farmers living along the line. The arrangement of the securities is simple. The road has not skipped a dividend in forty-six years. It has declared few extra dividends-none in twenty years. The ideal of the whole management has been not stock jobbing, but investment. And, in the diffusion of ownership, this policy has borne fruit. Many other cases of like character could be cited, some of them railways, some man- ufacturing corporations. I have in mind a manufacturing corporation that has been owned by practically one set of people for forty years—a stock list which, considering the capital represented, is widely distributed and unless engulfed in some gigantic reor- ganization, will continue to be owned prob- ably by the same people and their descend- ants for as many years to come. If you ask me what are the qualities that in the corpo- rations named have given permanency to their ownership, my answer is: Simplicity of organization; immunity from over capitali- zation; attention to the duties and details of maintenance; dividends conservatively and therefore regularly earned. In other words, these are corporate enterprises which though free from governmental supervision have been conducted as if constantly under the government's eye. in person or by proxy, attend its stock- holders' meetings. The second example is that of one of the largest manufacturing companies in Chi- cago, the stock of which is held almost ex- clusively by the family of the founder, and is not for sale to the employees. In this case during the past six years all of the employees have been given from five to ten per cent. of the net earnings of the preceding year, the distribution amounting this last year to about three hundred thousand dollars. The third example is that of another man- ufacturing company, one of the largest in the country. Any employee of this company, who earns not more than fifteen hundred dollars a year, may have purchased for his account an amount of the common stock of the company equal to the amount of his annual wages; paying therefor not less than two and one-half per cent. down, and there- after four per cent. a year out of his wages. But to his credit on the purchase price also go the dividends, guaranteed to be not less than twelve per cent. upon the amount of wages actually earned by him. When the employee has been with the company for five years, he may increase his holdings twenty- five per cent., and is guaranteed dividends at fifteen per cent; and after ten years he may increase his holdings fifty per cent. and is guaranteed eighteen per cent. And under this plan nearly every employee is a stock- holder in the corporation. In the first example cited, employees come into the market for the corporation's stock substantially as any other investor, buying with their own accumulated means at the then market price. Investments like this unquestionably engage the increased inter- est of the employee, for from that time on the success of the corporate enterprise is the success of his individual enterprise. The growth of the corporate property embodies the growth of his individual property stake. But it is manifest that the cquity and good results of the arrangement depend largely on the question whether the corporation is constructed on honest lines; for a corpora- tion dishonestly created, or, though not con- sciously dishonest, at least built upon in- tricately overlapping securities, is a corpora- tion some of whose securities at some time are bound to go to the wall. And where the catastrophe involves employees who havu taken and paid for their securities out of their own savings, the perfidy is a double BRING WAGE EARNERS INTO PARTNERSHIP This brings me to the second type-cor- porate property that interests its wage earn- ers as owners, or co-partners in its profits. The precise method employed to interest wage earners is in most cases special to the particular enterprise considered. But three examples will be given, all other methods falling somewhere within the boundaries of these examples. First there is the corporation that helps its employees to purchase its shares at their market value by lending them the money. The company I have in mind has interested in this way thousands of its employees—men who regularly, either 194 AMERICAN MAGAZINE one. Indeed, the equity and the value of such arrangement depend upon that qual- ity in the corporation that in a man we would call character. In the second example the division of profits among employees—there is perhaps a more immediate approach to the principle that in the prosperity of an enterprise those who work with their hands are entitled to a share, as well as those who originate the enterprise, those who do its thinking, those whose work is that of management. The one objection that I have heard to this method, in cases otherwise fair, is that the employees' claim to such division is not a permanent property right-is in the nature of a gratuity, rather than a property right. The third example—the manufacturing corporation that enables its employees to obtain a part of its stock by paying for it almost wholly out of the earnings of the company to the value of which their labor has contributed—is perhaps the nearest ap- proach to the ultimate ideal. In this ex- ample it is recognized, of course, that dollars and cents actually put in are entitled to be first taken out—that is they are first liens— and entitled to the first earnings. There- after capital and labor are partners, each getting, not only its fair proportion of the profits from year to year, but also its fair pro- portion of the permanent results of success and prosperity—the lasting property that grows, and continues to grow, out of con- ditions of success. Were our vast corporate domain on its way to the realization of this ideal-could we see that, so far as labor is concerned, the future had in store for us a continually nearer and nearer approach to this ideal, instead of a constantly increasing distance from the ideal—the sense of injus- tice that follows us, through even our periods of prosperity, would disappear in the con- sciousness that another era had opened; that day by day, as time went on, the vast domain of the country's corporate property would become more and more the property of the people of the country. regeneration. The case in mind is that of a gas company in a city of more than one hun- dred thousand people in the central West. The method followed was this: Several of the leading citizens of the city incorporated the company. No bonds were issued. Stock was issued only for cash, each dollar of stock bringing into the treasury a dollar of cash. The total capital, issued in shares of small denominations, was offered in the first instance, not to capitalists, but to the citizens of the city who were to become the patrons of the company—the voting power of the stock being vested in trustees named in the organization agreement, the directors and trustees to be elected from time to time by the trustees. Dividends on the stock were fixed at eight per cent., and a price was put upon the gas distributed, that after the deduction of operating expenses, mainte- nance and depreciation, would pay this dividend and apply something each year upon the repayment of the money paid in upon the stock certificates; it being pro- vided that, when the stock was thus repaid in full, the price of gas should be placed at a figure just sufficient to meet operating ex- penses, extensions, maintenance, deprecia- tion and the like. The corporation was in a sense a benevolent corporation-a corpora- tion for the public good. Though it took too little into account perhaps of the dangers of such a venture, and the personal losses incident thereto, the experiment was suc- cessful. Success was due in large measure to the personal pride in the enterprise taken by the trustees who, together with the di- rectors, gave to the affairs of the corpora- tion careful personal attention and super- vision. The several officers proved them- selves capable managers. The trustees were business men; the enterprise received a business supervision and management. The trustees were not affiliated with poli- tics; the enterprise was burdened with no political pulls. In seventeen years, besides furnishing the people of the city with gas at a reasonable rate, and paying the stipulated dividends upon the stock, the corporation had repaid ninety-five per cent upon the principal of the stock; and nothing but the laws of the state-statutes that in their en- actment had no such corporation as this in mind-prevented this corporation from going on indefinitely in furnishing to the people of the city, at nearly cost, a service under private management-a service that CORPORATIONS WHICH SERVE THE PUBLIC This brings me to the third type-cor- porate property, which, in addition to serv- ing the best interests of its shareholders, ful fills the additional purpose of serving the best interests also of the public—thus ex- emplifying the economic side of corporate THE REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION 195 at once gave to the people all the calculated examples promise ?-it is assumed that not- advantages of municipal ownership, along withstanding the reconstruction of the cor- with the incalculable advantage of private poration on the lines proposed a certain few management. men will still have unrestricted command of The distinction between all these types of the financial resources of the country for corporations and the merely co-operative any purpose to which they wish to devote societies, like some of the English munici- such resources—my answer will be, that pal trading societies, must not be lost sight upon the assumption indicated the men of. The distinctions are inherent and vital. commanding the means of the country for Those co-operative societies were mere any purpose for which they may wish to use aggregations, limited in purpose chiefly to them will not be diverted from what they buying and selling, and intended only to are doing now. Between Capitalism thus eliminate the supposedly unnecessary mid- perpetuated and outright Socialism-be- dleman. They failed in most cases from tween the present tendencies continued, the lack of order—the lack of that trained and some of the perhaps madder remedies personal predominancy which, running offered-I am offering no choice. Each in through a business, gives it order and keeps the end would be calamitous. Both would it going. They were operated too much as lead to the time when the individual man town meetings are run to be entirely suc- shall have perished. cessful. The types of corporation I have referred to, on the contrary, are open to none of these risks of disorder; for through NOT PROSECUTION BUT REBUILDING them, as through any other corporation, But neither of these conditions is yet runs that trained personal predominancy fastened upon us. Neither is necessary. out which no commercial business can Both can be averted. Let me assume that ever be made to succeed. the intelligent patriotism of the country has But here again some one inquires: Are at last been reached, and aroused; that the not the corporations you have cited rare mind of the people has opened to the fact instances? Can you hope to make them the that what is wrong in the country is not the rule? Will the men who have financial corporation intrinsically, but the system of means put their means, to any great extent, self-aggrandizement and spoliation that, into enterprises from which they cannot reap under the existing corporate policy, the cor- a greater personal profit than these examples poration encourages and protects; that promise? Is not Capitalism, as human what is wanted is not the prosecution, in nature goes, bound to be hoggish-bound one form or another, of corporations simply to look upon the people, the people's labor, because they are big; or continued promises and the people's accumulated wealth only of such prosecutions merely because such as oil wherewith to light their own lamps ? promises keep up the interest of the people; but that what is wanted is the corporation, MUST CAPITALISM BE HOGGISH? big and little, so rebuilt that in the vast domain of property covered by it the people, If by Capitalism is meant the corporate who with their hands have worked, may ideal now in vogue—the child of that public hereafter see their way to participate; the policy that permits men, in the name of a people who accumulate savings may see creature of the state, and under the seal of their way to participate; the people who are the state, to practice with impunity any de- to be served may participate—the whole vice they please in quest of turning into their domain turned into a possession calculated own that which has been created out of the to invite their confidence and pride, as our money of others-I answer Yes, Capitalism landed domain invited the confidence and is bound to be hoggish, is bound to look pride of those who occupied it. upon the people, the people's labor, and the Let me assume that this comprehension people's accumulating wealth only as so by the country, of what the country needs, much oil for their own lamps. If in the is followed by an organized political and further inquiry-Will the men of financial moral purpose; that one of the great politi- means put their means, to any great extent, cal parties, or both, or some new party, has into enterprises from which they cannot been compelled to take it up; that corporate reap a greater personal profit than these reconstruction has been decreed; that the 196 AMERICAN MAGAZINE trap-laying corporation is a thing of the past; that the corporation toppling over from excessive capitalization is a thing of the past; that the corporation so dove-tailed and inlaid with securities that no man knows where his particular securities begin or end is a thing of the past; that every craft has been outlawed, little or great which has helped to drive from the seas of healthy property development the interest and participation of the people at large. Let us assume also that behind the cor- poration thus reconstructed there has grown up a national moral conviction that deceit and theft practised in the corporate domain are not different from theft and deceit in every other domain; and what will follow? One thing that will follow is this: Day by day as confidence is restored, and the old instinct for individual ownership sees a way clear to its fulfillment, the corporate do main will come more and more under the ownership of the people at large, for the bulk of the wealth of the country is still in the hands of its people. I quote from my former article in this magazine: “While the owner- ship and control of the new great property domain is narrowed to a few, the wealth on which that ownership rests—from which it largely feeds—is still the possession of the people in the ordinary walks of life. These people own the wealth that makes up the large bank deposits. These people own the largest portion of the nation's bonds. They have immense sums invested in insurance and trust companies. Though no exact facts are at hand on which to base a statement, I believe it safe to say that the people of America have the financial means at hand to possess themselves, at fair prices, of enough of the new great domain of property to make it as widely individualized as are the farms of America." business proposition. It will be also an un- prejudiced scrutiny-judgment such as is now exercised respecting a farm, or a small business venture. In short, when corporate enterprises have come to be re- garded by the people, not as an alien prin- cipality in which they have no individual interest, but as a part of their country's property possessions in which they have an individual interest, there will be brought to their study and judgment by the people at large an habitual attitude of mind, the bene- ficial effect of which cannot be overesti- mated-an attitude of the popular mind that will eventuate, more and more, into just the kind of corporate enterprises of which I have given examples; give those engaged in honest corporate enterprises, who wish to enlist in their work the men with whom they are associated, just the op- portunity public distrust now denies them. Then, too, this other thing will follow: Just as fast as popular interest and intelli- gent and unprejudiced judgment enter into the ownership and management of the prop- erty constituting our corporate domain, the present system of converging all the capital of the country into the great money centers, there to be borrowed by the few and in- vested by the few for their sole benefit, will subside; for the present system depends upon the prevailing feeling of the people at large that they individually are cut off from participation in corporate property, in con- sequence of which they do not care how their individual means are actually invested, so long as the bank to which they are en- trusted is regarded as responsible. Now inspire these people with the belief that they can, with reasonable security, have an individual stake in the domain that consti- tutes our corporate property, and they will cease to have no care into what their re- sources go. They will come to a condition of interest where they will care. And they will come to exercise that care with discrimi- nation and intelligence. The financial insti- tutions, and the men with brains to build and manage, will of course remain the lead- ers and intermediaries, and to a large ex- tent the advisers also; but corporate owner- ship more and more will become trans- actions with the people, man with man; and into such relations is breathed always a sense of responsibility, the pride of doing the right thing, a respect for others, and a yearning for that respect that distance can- WHAT PUBLIC OPINION CAN DO This other thing also will follow: The instinct of the people to participate in the property of the country, corporate as well as other kinds of property, having been stirred anew, a widespread popular habit of scrutiny will grow up never before brought into the field of corporate owner- ship. And this scrutiny will in time become an intelligent scrutiny; for, once interested and given a fair deal, the ordinary American knows how to judge intelligently almost any THE REBIRTH OF THE CORPORATION 197 not command. All history shows this. The men who have studied the labor world best know it. The men who will become the leaders in corporate enterprise will not be exempt from it. And it will prove an enor- mous factor in bringing the people of the country into the domain of corporate prop- erty, and in increasingly making them its owners and beneficiaries. A CURE FOR THE CONDITION But some one will say: What you offer is not a cure by “act of Congress.” What you offer is an industrial development, a condition of things that, though humanizing and uplifting, is dependent for realization upon the successful working out of proc- esses that no man can more than approxi- mately forecast. Exactly so. The case in hand, as I have pointed it out, is not one for the surgeon. The case, on the contrary, is one for the exercise of that higher and surer intelligence that, having brought into mind an exact comprehension of the nature of the disease, proceeds at once to arrest and bring to a standstill the causes that have brought on the disease; assured that, the causes gone, and the faith of the patient in his future revived, the corrective forces of nature will do the rest. But let no one lose heart because all that must be done cannot be done by act of Congress. All that can be done by act of Congress is to lay clean and firm in national law the foundations for the new corporation so far as they cover the great interstate industries. All that can be done by the state legislatures is to lay, clean and firm in state law, the foundations for the new corporation for the local indus- tries. Beyond that, the co-operation by the people in their own interest must be relied upon. But let no one on this account, I repeat, lose heart. For a genuine faith in the people has been the moral basis of every reform in history. And in every reform in history it was the awakened people who, taking up the formative idea, carried it to fulfillment. Besides, before any act of Con- gress that is not merely perfunctory can be passed, and before the states will fall in line behind the nation to remove the causes of the disease, the people must first be awakened, educated, brought to compre- hend just what is the matter, and how it can be mended-summoned to America's final parliament, to intelligently study and settle for themselves the problem that con- fronts them. And when that is done the evolutionary processes I have endeavored to point out will be already well on their way. Let me glance back now, with a quick look, over the field I have tried to cover: Apart from the sin which excludes the people at large from participation as owners in the corporate domain, and the moral and economic consequences which flow from that exclusion, the corporation has proven itself, over and over again, a useful instru- ment in the promotion of progress. The sin pointed at is not one necessarily inherent in the corporation. The disease is one which can be eradicated, and this use- ful agency of civilization saved. As a means of wielding, for a common purpose, large masses of individual resources, the corpora- tion can be owned as widely as the sources from which these resources come. But while the disease is not without cure, the cure must be intelligently applied. It will not come through the mere indiscrim- inate denunciation of corporations; nor by the mere passage of anti-trust acts; nor by the prosecution of the corporation simply because it is big. It will not come through the mere putting on the records of the courts of injunction decrees; nor by ignoring, or frittering away through court decisions, the just rights of incorporated property. It will not come by making angry passes at the institution of private property. It will come only when, accepting in sincerity the cor- poration as an institution of our times, a proven agency of progress and prosperity, we proceed to reform it, that it may become, also, an agency for the equitable distribu- tion of the permanent fruits of progress and prosperity. Every other institution of America is built on republican ideals—the schools, the courts, the suffrage, private property as represented in the public landed domain; and every structure built on these foundations is to-day secure in the pride and appreciation of our people. The thing to be done with the corporate domain is to put it on like foundations—to put in motion here, as elsewhere, republican ideals—to put them on a footing that is intelligent and practical. That done, they will fight their own way to ultimate victory. The Philosophy of an Adventurous American Horace Fletcher: His Creed and His Career By Arthur Goodrich AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF DR, BARNARDO ZOLDIERS of fortune have who wanted to go to the front in the early been common enough in sixties. One of them, named Fletcher, an America; men who seek eager, adventurous, red-cheeked leader of adventure, men who “do the lads of his neighborhood, had lived only er things," men who cram a dozen years when the war broke out. He C ALL their lives full of diversified ran away from home one day in a futile at- activity. But such men seldom mould their tempt to exchange the schoolhouse for a experiences into a philosophy of life, and, if gunboat in the navy, but he was brought they do, they seldom express their philos- back with promises of an opportunity of ophy in black and white for us to read. going to sea later if he earned it by study. Horace Fletcher—who is best known to the He immediately did the unexpected by hurrying masses as the man who started working hard at his books, and in three “the chewing fad," although he is, as a mat- years the promise was redeemed. He was ter of fact, anything but a faddist-has fifteen years old, therefore, when he shipped done, therefore, an unusual thing. He has aboard the whaler, Matthew Luce, bound been doing unusual things all his life. for Japan. It was the old time Japan he This is the first reason, to my mind, why saw, when the little island was scarely more his books are worth reading and why the than a name and an outline on the map to man himself is interesting, whether or not most Americans; and China at the close of one believes in his theories. His authority the bloody Taiping rebellion. That same is first hand personal experience rather than Japan, revisited many times, was to prove un-original research. A man who has the foundation of his business success, and, worked at thirty-eight different occupa- later, of part of his philosophy of living. tions, who has traveled over the greater part B ack in Massachusetts again, he studied of the known world, who has known inti- at Andover, and he went from there to Dart- mately many kinds of people in many lands, mouth. But the East called him. He left ought to have something to say. What he college before the end of his course and says may be unscientific and even uncon shipped once more for the Orient. From vincing, but it is certain to be worth listen- time to time he worked as a clerk in a com- ing to. mercial house at Canton, China. But he There were many boys in Massachusetts could not work long at any one thing or in 198 THE PHILOSOPHY OF AN ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN 199 any one place. More than that, he had ideals and of considerable artistic achieve- formed a practical business idea. He came ment-Grace Marsh of San Francisco. back to San Francisco and began to import Three years later, when he was about thirty- and to sell Oriental silks and fans and novel- five years old, he retired from business with ties in America. He originated the Ichi-Ban a comfortable fortune, which was afterward establishment in San Francisco and the increased by inheritance, and went to Nee-Ban establishment in Chicago. But, Europe to study painting. He spent a characteristically, he did a dozen other number of years in travel and in art study. things as well. He obtained a place on the staff of an He had been in Shanghai at the time of American newspaper with the single pur- the first Tien-Tsin massacre. He had com- pose of securing an entrée to famous manded a crew of Cantonese pirates on a studios, and of meeting and knowing the Chinese lorcha. He had worked his way on greater and more exclusive artists of merchant vessels. He had drudged on a Europe. Painting was a pleasure rather farm. He had tried many kinds of sport than a profession to him, but he had pro- and he had learned how to use a gun. Now, gressed far enough in his art to make a place among other things, he tried mining in the for his work in a Munich exhibition when bonanza times, tramping many miles he was called to New Orleans by the death through tangled wildernesses in search of of a relative. gold. He started the famous Olympic Club In New Orleans the management, or, to in San Francisco and, for many years, he quote his own description of his predica- was its President. He was a patron and a ment, “the mismanagement” of a French business promoter of good boxing and of opera company was forced upon him. The other athletic sports, a thorough man of the work and the irritation caused by this world with a host of friends running the unexpected and unsuccessful occupation gamut from conservative business men to wore upon him; but he did not realize the newly discovered pugilists. He organized, precarious condition of his health until he from his athletic associates, a company of was refused by a life insurance company the National Guard at the time of the Sand- on physical examination. The doctors he Lot riots, and he himself served as a private. consulted gave him no definite hope. Mr. Afterward he was a lieutenant-colonel in Fletcher is a short man but he had grown to the California National Guard. He made •be excessively and uncomfortably stout. a study of snap-shooting along with Dr. Dieting did not seem to help him, but one Carver before Dr. Carver became a pro- summer when he was living in enforced fessional “crack shot.” His skill with a idleness in Chicago he tried the experiment rifle brought him international reputation. of more thorough mastication of his food. He gave exhibitions in Germany. In Japan He lost flesh but he gained in health. The he was asked to demonstrate his ability natural thing for a man like Mr. Fletcher before the Prince Imperial and the army to do under such circumstances was to de- staff, and he taught the now famous Mar- cide to study medicine, to find out, if he shal Oyama how to shoot. He wrote a book could, whether there was any scientific about snap-shooting which the California basis for the secret he had learned. He was National Guard used as a guide and which not yet fifty years old and he had been try- was widely read and followed by the Japa- ing new occupations all his life. A well- nese Army. He invented ingenious targets known Doctor's advice decided him against for practice, and he taught, with free and such a course, however, and he has pro- easy generosity, many a young amateur the ceeded, instead, to give the rest of his life to secrets he had learned. the study, as a layman, of health and happi- During all these years when San Fran- ness. For almost any man, except Horace cisco was the center of his activities—and Fletcher, it would have been a strange thing no single place has ever been more than a to do. In this way he has developed and center of many wanderings to Horace tested his theories. In this way, with the Fletcher-his business enterprises were whole range of his varied experience to look prospering, and he was leading a genial back upon, he has moulded his philosophy. Bohemian life. He had always had a taste In this way he has written his books. for art and a genuine talent with the brush. Horace Fletcher to-day is stout rather He married in 1881 a woman of artistic than spare. The life insurance companies 200 AMERICAN MAGAZINE are glad to have him as a risk. He is gray and chewed until all taste has disappeared. haired and red cheeked and fresh minded When this process has been carried out, and and merry eyed. He is a broad-minded not until then, he maintains, we swallow Christian man and citizen of the world. He involuntarily, for nature has provided each is healthier than most men of his years. of us with a "food filter” in the throat He has more repose after a singularly rest, which works automatically as soon as the less life than most men who have always preliminary task has been accomplished by done one thing in one place. He says that the teeth and by the saliva. Any tasteless he has never enjoyed life as much as he remains of the food in the mouth, which enjoys it now. He has removed the center are not fit for the stomach, should be of his wanderings to a palace on the Grand removed. Otherwise they make extra Canal in Venice because, he says, it is the work for the digestive organs which these most convenient and delightful suburb he organs were not intended to do. His knows, to all the rest of the world. It is idea is, therefore, that we should chew and only a step to Paris or Berlin or Vienna, taste each morsel of food until we swallow only two steps to London, three to New it naturally. Incidentally he says that he York and a short distance to any other place finds more enjoyment in eating, by obtain- he cares to visit. He is on a trip around the ing the last pleasure of taste from each world now, experimenting and studying mouthful. He does not suggest any particu- and Fletcherizing and philosophizing on lar dietary. He believes in eating whatever the way. he likes whenever he is really hungry. The There are several facts in regard to essential thing is thorough mastication, Horace Fletcher's theories and personal The results of Mr. Fletcher's theories put practice which deserve emphasis. In the into practice have been first, the require- first place he does not maintain that his ment of a much smaller quantity of food ideas are new. He says that Gladstone's than most people eat; second, infinitely less famous “thirty-two chews” suggested his work for the stomach and digestive organs- first experiments in food nutrition. And merely their natural work, he maintains; back of that there was the story of Luigi third, a general purifying of all the organs Cornari, the artist. Professor Fenollosa that work upon the food; and fourth, a was responsible for his first theories of buoyant, strong physical and mental condi- menticulture. These originally grew out tion. Many doctors and scientists and some of Japanese training and Buddhistic teach- faddists, too, have come to agree with his ing. His sociological theories were startled ideas, in whole or in part. Many have ex- into him by an experience in Chicago at the perimented either upon others or upon time of the Spanish War, and, in their themselves with convincing results. His growth, they have owed much to the work books have already been widely read and of Dr. Barnardo in London, and of Mrs. many people are trying his simple remedy Sarah B. Cooper, in this country. Mr. for digestive ills, with greater or less suc- Fletcher has put forth old ideas in new form. cess. And Mr. Fletcher himself has been He has added the personal equation, and the subject of many trying tests in Venice, in his complete earnestness, developed new at Cambridge, England, at New Haven, experiments and new evidence. It is not in France and elsewhere. fair, moreover, to call Mr. Fletcher a fad- The first tests at Yale occurred three dist. He has not attempted, as yet, to form years ago when for some weeks Mr. Fletch- any cult or sect and he is not likely to do so. er's food and general condition were care- He is not a vegetarian nor a Christian fully observed in Professor Chittenden's lab- Scientist, although he has been called both. oratory. The results were startling. Dur- Mr. Fletcher's theory of food nutrition* is ing one week Mr. Fletcher, who was then so simple that the many mis-statements nearly 54 years old, lived upon a diet of pre- which have been made of it seem inexcusa pared cereal, milk and maple sugar taken ble. Taste, he maintains, is the chemist of twice a day. He was found to be in contin- the body. While the taste of a mouthful of uously good physical condition upon food food lasts, a necessary process is going on. the full value of which was about half that Liquid and solid should therefore be tasted demanded by scientific standards. His weight remained constant at about 165 *"The A. B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition," by Horace Fletcher. pounds. For four days of the seven, more- Horace Fletcher “One of the most original and sympathetic' personalities whom Massachusetts in our day has produced." - PROFESSOR WILLIAM JAMES, OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 202 AMERICAN MAGAZINE over, he took, under the direction of Dr. An- enjoy plain bread. He eats whatever his derson of the Yale Gymnasium, the regular appetite craves; he masticates his food exercises of the University crew, exercises so thoroughly; and he eats as long as he is hun- severe that they are never given to first year gry. As a result he finds that his digestion, men. Mr. Fletcher gave no evidence of which a few years ago threatened his life, is soreness or lameness or distress of any kind. perfect; that he has greatly increased Dr. Anderson testified that he did the work energy of body and keenness of mind; and more easily and with fewer bad results than that he consumes only one-third to one-half any man of his age the Yale director had as much food as he was accustomed to eat ever worked with. This was true, also, in formerly. He believes that what was true spite of the fact that for several months Mr. of him is true of most people, and that what Fletcher had taken no regular exercise ex is true of him can be true of them. And, as cept that involved in daily walks. always, he is in dead earnest about it. All Professor Chittenden naturally was inter- this and much more he has told in his books ested. Beside the question of complete as frank personal experience and as the ex- body fitness upon what seemed an absurdly perience, also, of many others who have small diet, there was obviously the matter of followed his lead in the matter of eating. economy. Mr. Fletcher's food during that Horace Fletcher has read very widely and week cost only eleven cents a day. If Mr. very wisely during all his active years, but Fletcher's system-for, whatever his diet is, his “menticulture” theories, like his ideas he consumes about the same amount of food about food nutrition, are largely the product daily-were adopted throughout the coun of personal experience. The first sugges- try, it has been figured that the nation tion he received from the Japanese. His would save $1,000,000 a day in food cost. main contention is based upon the results Other people were interested, among them he has observed in himself. His illustra- Professor Bowditch of Harvard, Surgeon- tions are from the thousand and one people General O'Reilly of the United States Army and places he has known. Here, again, and General Wood. The result was Pro- therefore, is an interesting human docu- fessor Chittenden's more recent experiments ment rather than an accurate scientific -financially supported by Mr. Fletcher- treatise. upon himself and a number of his colleagues, His mental doctrine is as simple as his upon a group of athletes, and upon a group physical creed. He contrasts constructive of "regular" soldiers. Professor Chitten- forethought and destructive “fearthought." den has described this investigation in great He maintains that fear and anger and detail in his book, “ Physiological Economy worry can be entirely eliminated like bac- in Nutrition."* In general, however, each teria, not merely repressed temporarily. test added evidence of satisfactory body He says that he has done it, and his cheery, condition upon a very considerably de- unruffled temper is fair evidence. And he creased diet. This was the single truth tells how he and others have done it; by which Professor Chittenden aimed to show. having, first of all, sound conviction that it On his fiftieth birthday Mr. Fletcher was possible. made a characteristic experiment. Starting It is an old teaching, as old as Christian- with a young and athletic companion on a ity, as old as Buddhism. To the majority cycling trip, he left the young athlete of people, unfortunately, it is a beautiful fatigued after a little more than half a day theory which breaks down woefully in prac- of hard wheeling, and himself journeved tice. The interest in Mr. Fletcher's em- until long after nightfall. He covered phasis upon it is therefore entirely in the nearly 200 miles of road that day and arose convincing human story of how he has de- the next morning without any feeling of stroyed the “fearthought” germ in himself muscular strain. He seems to have good and of how he has helped to destroy it in reason for his assertion that his method of other people. It furnishes a new and valu- living keeps him “in constant training." able sidelight upon an exceedingly inter- Mr. Fletcher says, then, that he used to esting personality and it will, in all proba- eat too much, too often and too fast. Now bility, lead many to a more careful consid- he eats only when he is hungry enough to eration of the ways in which they daily *" Physiological Economy in Nutrition." by Prof. Rus jeopardize their own happiness. There is a third phase of so-called Fletch- sell H. Chittenden of Yale University. THE PHILOSOPHY OF AN ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN 203 erism. One night in Chicago, in the midst altruist. It is said that when, not long ago, of the enthusiasm over freeing Cuba, Mr. a sportsman friend asked him to go duck Fletcher saw a little four-year-old waif shooting instead of lecturing on the Social struggling in the hands of a policeman. Quarantine, he remarked that he found Some cakes had been stolen and the plead more pleasure in saving a child than in kill- ing boy was the only one of a “gang" who ing a duck. He does not consider him- had been caught. In the end the officer let self unselfish; he has merely changed his him go with an oath and turned to tell Mr. pleasures. He believes in his propaganda as Fletcher, who was watching the pair with a a great duty, and he is finding more enjoy- new interest, of the many children who are ment in the doing of that duty than he once taught to steal from their childhood. found in his diversified pursuits of pleasure This third phase of “Fletcherism” is as and profit. Luigi Cornari discovered the yet scarcely more than an idea. A man who secret, he says, and died, after living more has learned true economy in food nutrition, than one hundred years, without making he maintains, and who has been able to get any one understand it. Mr. Fletcher means rid of his worst mental foes, wishes his en- that it shall not be his fault if the way of liv- tire environment purified. The “sub- ing, which has changed him from a rapidly merged tenth” costs upwards of one quarter aging dyspeptic who was refused life insur- the amount necessary to sustain the entire ance to a buoyant man fifty-seven years government. It threatens health and hap- young, is not known to everyone. He is not piness and even life. To lift up this low only giving his time to the work, but he is stratum Mr. Fletcher proposes a “social giving his money as well. Every penny quarantine," with the greatest effort cen- that comes to him from the sale of his books tered upon the children. It would cost less, is spent to further the cause, and he has he says, than the “submerged tenth” costs added many times the amount thus obtained us now, and, with his principle of economic out of his private purse. He has tolerated, in nutrition, its cost would be still further de- connection with the advance of his theories, creased. He hopes that a central organiza a considerable amount of personal exploita- tion can be established with local branches tion which has been distasteful to him. He to carry out this plan gradually—to “clean permits the term, “Fletcherism,” merely up the backyards of the different depart- because it seems the easiest way to express ments of the social structure with an aseptic something which originally meant economic nutrition as the basis of social cleanli food nutrition, and which now has two ness." added meanings. The secret of Dr. Barnardo's success, After all, if the Horace Fletcher of to-day which I have already described in this is a good example of the value of his theories, magazine, was, and is, through the organiza- they deserve careful consideration. If his tion he left behind him, in the home system perfectly simple ideas could change him by which the children are taught how to live from the restless, adventurous, worrying as well as how to read and write. A num- man of his San Francisco days to the calm, ber of smaller organizations have grown up genial philosopher; if they could transform in this country which are doing the same what seemed to be a fatal weakness into work with similar results. Mr. Fletcher has really phenomenal strength; if they could marked out an infinitely larger task with less make a famous authority on snap-shooting definite and less practical lines. It is, at find more pleasure in saving a child than in best, only a vague prophecy, allied dis- killing a duck, they are worth a trial by tantly to his simple panacea for bodily ills. those who envy his contentment. His main But here again Mr. Fletcher is completely contentions are obvious and there are in earnest. He has already talked upon this abundant scientific proofs of his extreme be- theme throughout the country. There is no liefs. And his books are humanly interest- knowing what he may build in time from ing. Certainly he can consider his mission this third plank of his propaganda. a success if he is able to make any consider- Horace Fletcher calls himself an epi- able number of Americans eat more slowly curean rather than a philanthropist or an and worry less constantly. NEAU 7 The Plant of Mystery By Arthur J. Burdick ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS SV Paula E F one were to canvass the en- Ch tire plant kingdom in search of a genus or family to symbolize mystery, the We selection would undoubtedly fall to the cactus. In ap- pearance, origin, habits, development and endurance it is weird and mysterious in- deed. Its very existence is miraculous, for it thrives in regions which are, the greater part of the year, wholly devoid of moisture, and often upon soil so rocky or so sandy that little else can exist thereon. It defies the enemies that are fatal to other vegeta- tion and seems to set at naught the very laws of nature. In the methods that this plant employs to defend itself from the sun and heat and drouth, as well as from its insect and animal enemies, it displays a stratagem worthy of human intelligence. One may almost come to believe that it is possessed of reasoning powers, so versatile is it, so rich in expedi- ents, so capable of adapting itself to any and all circumstances. The cactus sets aside all conventionalities of plant life, and introduces customs pecul- iar to itself. With few exceptions the 204 The stiff, ugly stem transformed by marvelous blossoms plants are leafless. They are, in most cases, There are two limits, within its native ter- armed with formidable spines and are, as a ritory, to the range of the cactus. One is rule, grotesque in shape and appearance. the snow-line, on the lofty mountains; the Comparatively few of them have beauty of other is the sea-level. form or foliage, but rare are the specimens In the desert of Southern California is a whose bloom is not of marvelous beauty. vast region which lies below the level of the 205 206 AMERICAN MAGAZINE sea. Not one cactus plant ventures below that which has no likeness in the vegetable the line which marks the ocean's level. kingdom, or elsewhere, it then chooses to This desert region is bordered by lofty furnish numerous proofs of its imitative mountains upon which the snows of winter powers. There are plants known as hedge- ever lie. Up the rocky, rugged sides of these hog cactus, veritable vegetable porcupines; mountains various specimens of cacti find the melon cactus, which resembles the lodgment, and they cling to the almost garden product, so sweet to the palate; the barren rocks and clamber up to the very mistletoe cactus, which not only mimics the point of the snow-line, and there again they foliage of the parasitic plant but imitates halt. It is the other extreme of their daring. its blossom as well; the old-man cactus, a Along the borders of the desert and in the plant covered with long, gray fibers resem- semi-arid regions, the cactus shares the ter- bling human hair; the dumpling cactus, ritory with a number of other plants which the battledore cactus, the rat-tail cactus and are adapted to extreme dry climates. many other remarkable examples of mimicry. Further on, however, the timid trees and The cactus owes its preservation to its shrubs hesitate and refuse to venture on peculiar construction and unique proper- into the burning waste of waterless sands, ties. It has, owing to location, several and the cacti hold undisputed sway. It is enemies which plants in more favored in the midst of such landscapes that the localities do not know. Besides insect and weirdness and mystery of the cactus be- animal plagues, common to plants generally, come apparent. this plant has to contend with excessive There are thousands of square miles of heat, the long and almost continuous plains in the United States and Mexico drought, and dust in smothering quantities upon which are to be found millions upon three very serious things. millions of cactus plants of almost countless Plants ordinarily breathe and give off varieties, which, in May and June espe- moisture through their leaves. The larger cially, are gorgeous with yellow, white, pink, the leaf the more rapid the evaporation. scarlet, purple, rose-colored, crimson and Because of this fact, trees and plants com- variegated blossoms as varied in size, style mon to dry regions have, as a rule, very and fragrance as are the plants in appear- small leaves. Take for example the euca- ance and dimensions. lyptus; not only is the leaf narrow and The giant sahuaro, attaining a height of slender, but to further escape the action of sixty or seventy feet, columnar and leaf- the sun it is hung edgewise, instead of flat, less, stands at frequent intervals upon the as is the case with most leaves, so as to plain-green, spiny-ridged and branched, present the edge of the leaf to the sun when interspersed with the skeletons of the elk- it is overhead and most powerful in its horn cactus, ten, twenty or thirty feet high, effect. This arrangement saves the tree which appear like so many ghosts stalking many pounds of moisture every day across the plain. Here and there are great The cactus has carried the system of green cylinders, the barrel cactus, some economy so far that, with few exceptions, times called the “Well of the Desert” be- it has done away with the leaf altogether. cause, if the crown be cut off and a hollow The stems of the plant assume the func- scooped out of the stem, the cavity thus tions of the leaf and the breathing-pores are formed will quickly fill with water which is distributed over the surface of the stems, but fairly palatable and which will quench the in so limited numbers and of so diminutive a thirst quite as well as that which flows from size as to reduce evaporation to a minimum. the earth. So perfect is the system of protection in Between these gigantic varieties are the cactus, so thick the cuticle, so active the smaller plants, pyramids of pulpy discs, tissues, that a branch broken from a plant little prickly balls, humble plants lying close will lie in the sun several weeks before to the ground, many, many varieties show- giving up all its water. ing all the vivid colors imaginable in their Nearly all the varieties are covered beautiful bloom. thickly with spines and many with hairs in While distinguished for originality and addition to the spines. These serve a three- uniqueness, the cactus is also imitative. fold purpose. They protect the plant, in a Having demonstrated by hundreds of speci- measure, from the rays of the sun; they mens and varieties its power to produce hold off the dust which, but for some such “ Like ghosts stalking across the plain” protection, would settle in the pores and smother the plant, causing it to die; and they protect it from browsing creatures. If unmolested by man or beast, the cac- tus, by reason of the wise provisions of nature, will successfully battle with the dust, heat and drought many years. Nearly all the varieties are long - lived. Some of the giant species live to be several hundred years old. Only a few of the more unique varieties of cacti can be mentioned in this article. 207 The animal variety The vegetable variety Before describing some of the more striking specimens it may be well to mention a human prototype to one of the varieties found among the Yuma Indians of Arizona. This is an aged member of the tribe whose frowsy poll and spiny face are so suggestive of the “old man cactus" (Pilocereus senilis) that even the Indians themselves have rec- ognized the resemblance, and they refer to him as the “cactus man.” One of the unique specimens of cacti, found in western Mexico, is a vegetable saw. The stem sends out frequent branches which are notched on either side in a man- ner which gives them the appearance of saw blades. The plant is stiff, erect, and not particularly pleasing in appearance, but it puts out magnificent blossoms, pure white and about six inches across, which exhale a delicious odor. The "blooming heart” is so named because the flowering branches of the plant terminate in a perfect heart, the tip of the stem, which is flat, expanding and flatten- ing to produce the effect. The blossom is five inches across, and is flesh-colored when first opened, changing to carmine. Mexico has a cactus which grows tooth- picks; another ribbed and thickly set with teeth-like spines, which furnish the natives with combs; there is another cactus the long, curved spines of which resemble fish - hooks; there is another which is an almost perfect imitation of the sea-urchin; still another resembles a porcupine; there is another covered with long red hair which is nicknamed the “red-headed cactus.” There are several varieties which serve as timepieces. One of these, the Cereus nyc- ticalus, opens its blossoms at seven o'clock in the evening and closes them at seven o'clock in the morning; another opens at eight o'clock and closes at eight the next morning; another opens at nine o'clock in the morning and closes at noon. There are several very valuable collec- tions of cacti in the United States and there are a number of enthusiastic collectors who are continually scouring the unfrequented portions of the desert for new specimens. “S. B. Bates” A Romance of Paint River By Caroline Lockhart WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LESTER AMBROSE P PAHANDALTER STOUT settled See himself in the shade of a S giant sage-brush and, un- folding the last issue of S o the Paint River Record, Q searched for his name in print. He found it among the personals. selling at $10 a sack, and eagerly bought 160 acres of land he had never seen for $40 an acre. The only consolation he found in it all was that twenty other suckers, with Home Seekers' tickets and green badges, had arrived on the same train with them. He turned again to the columns of the Paint River Record. "Walter Stout of Oak Grove, Iowa, has purchased 160 acres of choice farming land on Paint River from the Smyth Land Com- pany, and is about to settle in our midst. Welcome to Wyoming, Walter. We need hustlers like you." For Sale: 10 tons of second crop alfalfa, $8.00 a ton, delivered. S. B. BATES. Public Sale: Saturday, Sept. 1oth, 12 head of Hereford 2-year-old steers. 4 yearling heifers. S. B. Bates. Wanted: Pair of good work horses--1,100 to 1,200 pounds, Must be sound. S. B. Bates. Strayed or Stolen: Bay mare. White star in forehead; branded SBB. Suitable reward. S. B. BATES, Stout from his seat under the sage-brush could look into the bed of Paint River, which should have rolled at his feet, only it did not because Paint River was quite dry. It was filled with huge mud-caked boulders, behind one of which the skeleton of a cow had lodged. A border of drift- wood high up on either bank showed, however, what Paint River could do when it had half a chance. Behind him stretched his 160 acres, the entire surface of which looked like a macadam road before the stone crusher has passed over it. Stout twisted his lank body and looked at his farm, then he consulted the Personal again, and mentally made a correction which in type would have read: “Welcome to Hell, Walter. We need hustlers like you." Oh, he had been easy, the easiest mark that ever had listened to the silver tongue of a land agent! He had gazed at the twenty-pound beet which, in Wyoming, sold to the sugar-beet factory — still to be built-at five cents a pound. He had drunk in the stories of wheat at eighty cents a bushel and of gigantic potatocs Stout threw down the Paint River Record impatiently. The needs of S. B. Bates and the editorials outlining the dazzling future of the Paint River Valley seemed to constitute the original matter of the newspaper. Probably it was S. B. Bates who had raised the twenty-pound beet which had lured him to his financial destruction. A feeling of resentment against S. B. Bates began to rise in his bosom. Mechanically, Stout picked a cactus thorn from the side of his shoe. The thorri had been acting as a sort of counter- irritant to his mental soreness. Having extracted the cactus, he watched with indifferent eyes a hay wagon and its 209 12 AN HIV VA MILE “Slapped him first on one cheek and then on the other" load coming down the steep hill across the alleged river. In the bed of the river the team swerved. One of the front wheels rose on a huge rock and the load of alfalfa promptly turned over entirely, burying the driver who, with commendable pres- ence of mind, clung to the lines and steadied the plunging horses. Stout slid down the bank and grabbed their heads. There came a violent upheaval and a flushed and angry face appeared, then a stout feminine body buttoned into a tight fitting basque. Another lunge and a short denim skirt and a pair of men's high boots greeted Mr. Stout's astonished eyes. The angry lady, her black hair bristling with alfalfa straws, strode at once to the horses' heads, and, taking one of them firmly by the bit, slapped him first on one cheek and then on the other. "If you'll help me hist this wagon over, we'll pitch the load back on again,” she said decisively; and before Stout could quite realize it he was reeking with per- spiration and tossing up forksful to the amazon in boots who could stack a load as well as he could himself. “What's your name?” she asked when the last wisp was on the wagon. “Stout." “Oh.” The tone implied that she knew all about him-his fame as a sucker had already spread, he thought. He waited expectantly for her to tell him, but she was examining the wagon tire and seemed to have no such intention. “Say,” looking at him from the top of the load of hay to which she had climbed with an agility which had made his jaw drop, “if you are going to live in that shack over yonder, and use this road, lets get together and put up a bridge. This is a mean crossing when it rains.” “Sure,” replied Stout amiably. He had a very clearly defined desire to stand well in the estimation of this capable person. 210 “S. B. BATES” 211 "I'll furnish the team and you get out the timber.” She added, “I'll help you lay the poles.” “Sure," replied Stout again, a little bewildered by the vision which came to him of himself and this buxom lady building a bridge. As he drove into town next day, his curiosity as to the identity of his ex- traordinary neighbor increased until he determined to make a few adroit inquiries. In town, the first person who nailed him was the editor of the Paint River Record. He shook hands with Stout as vigorously as though Stout had just returned from a perilous trip to the Klondike and asked him if he couldn't give the paper an "item” from Paint River. “ We're going to build a bridge over the crick,” said Stout. “Who is 'we'?” inquired the editor briskly, his pad making a prompt appear. ance. “ Well-me and a neighbor lady," replied Stout hesitatingly. “Oh-Bates," said the editor, writing rapidly. is S. B.?" asked Stout with a sudden inspiration. The editor nodded. “Tell her thanks for that cabbage she left on our desk; we'll mention it in our next issue. Better let me put your name down, Stout, for the Record. You get the Housemaids' Own for fifty cents extra if you subscribe now.” But Stout was walking rapidly away, pondering over the remarkable coincidence which made S. B. Bates whom he detested and the self-sufficient lady whom he admired one and the same person. And so it came about that S. B. Bates and W. Stout, "the hustling young rancher from Paint River,” owned jointly the bridge over that conspicuous gash in the earth's surface which gave the locality “Why don't you go in for sheep?" inquired S. B. Bates when the bridge was completed. “Get a permit and range them in the Forest Reserve. There's nothing in cattle, and wool is going up. You can't raise anything without water, and when the Smyth Ditch is far enough along to irrigate your land you and I will be dead of old age. Have a whirl at sheep, Stout.” So sincere had become his belief in the judgment of S. B. Bates that Stout accord- ingly had “a whirl at sheep.” He bought five hundred head and thereafter his appearance in town invariably evoked the following paragraph in the Paint River Record: “Walter Stout, the sheep king from Paint River, made a flying trip to our berg on Saturday last. Come again, Walter, we are always glad to see you.' When the thermometer crept below zero and the west wind blew a gale of sixty miles an hour, he passed many pleasant evenings with his feet in the oven of S. B. Bates' kitchen stove discussing the ruinous effect of sugar beets upon the soil, and kindred other topics of mutual interest. Spring had come and a chinook was expected any day, when Uncle Sam Boucher issued verbal invitations for a ranicaboo in his log house five miles up the river. “Thought maybe I'd take it in,” said S. B. Bates in speaking of it to Stout one evening, and she looked at him rather expectantly. “Thought likely I'd go myself,” returned Stout. “It's a bad road to ride over at night,” observed “S. B.” after a pause. “Them road commissioners ought to be took up,” said Stout. “Us paying taxes and no work done on our roads." “I haven't been to a ranicaboo in two years,” went on S. B. Bates, ordinarily more than ready to give any county official a verbal hammering. “People will begin to think I am too old to dance if I don't fox up and turn out once in a while.” “I suppose your beau will be taking you, 'S. B.,'” said Stout jocosely. “Me? My beau? I haven't any more beau than a rabbit." There was a note of bitterness in her voice which Stout did not detect. He was wondering if its name. During the construction of the bridge the newcomer and the pioneer became good friends. She called him “Stout” and he called her “S, B.," as they sawed and hammered. He would have called her “Miss,” but as she swung her trusty as and moved logs which would have taxed bis own strength, the words seemed to die on his tongue. The only feminine trick Stout observed in his fellow-worker was her propensity for holding nails in her mouth. 212 AMERICAN MAGAZINE vagon. fhythm of his ank body. his cache undeli it were not nearly time for her to bring out the doughnuts. He waited until half past nine, a half hour later than he usually stayed, but S. B. Bates knitted stolidly on a woolen mitten and seemed to have quite forgotten that of all her culinary achieve- ments none appealed to Stout quite as did her doughnuts. The night of Uncle Sam Boucher's ranicaboo was admitted to be chilly, the thermometer hovering around fifteen below with a wind blowing. When Stout drove across the pole-bridge in his lumber wagon, S. B. Bates in a bearskin overcoat and a Si Prime cap, with earlaps, was just leaving the yard in her lumber wagon. "Chilly," observed Stout genially. “Cold,” replied S. B. Bates, and some of the frost in the atmosphere seemed to have got into her voice. The dance was on when they entered and Stout's roving eye took in the fact that the tall girl from the Half Way House was present. The welcome S. B. Bates re- ceived upon her reappearance into society was all that the most sensitive and ex- acting could have desired. “Hello, Batesie!” shouted Bill Barnes from the corner of the set where he was hoeing it down until the stout plank floor shook. “Proud to see you, Miss Bates," and Uncle Sam Boucher hobbled up to extend a cordial hand. “Dad” Schwenk, sawing furiously on his violin from his seat on a chair on the kitchen table, bowed low and all but upset himself without losing a note. Divested of her Si Prime cap and bear- skin overcoat, S. B. Bates looked almost feminine. She was buttoned into a blue plush basque which fitted somewhat tighter than her skin, and a blue ribbon bow adorned her hair. Also, she had exchanged her boots for congress gaiters. With her rosy cheeks and flashing black eyes, S. B. Bates was not bad to look upon. She came out with a look of anticipation upon her face and sat down upon the plank placed on two nail-kegs which served as a kind of “anxious seat” for the ladies who thereby announced themselves as candidates for the next dance. Snow, who rustled horses over the Montana line when circumstances were propitious, was calling off the figures of the square dance then in progress. His red and perspiring face rested on a high and lustrous collar which had been laundered in Billings and freighted in with the ranch supplies. "Swing your pardners, don't be slack, balance all and take a back track! First four forward and back! Pass right through, balance to, and swing the girl behind you! Birdie hop out and crow hop in, take holt of paddies and run around agin! Allemande Joe! Away you go! Swing when you meet and prome- nade seat!” S. B. Bates kept time to the music with her foot and head, waiting impatiently for her turn to “pass right through and balance to.” Uncle Sam stirred the coffee boiling in the wash boiler with the clothes stick, and “Dad” Schwenk, still sawing furiously on his violin, kept time to the rhythm of his music by the waving to and fro of his lank body. Hank Stevens made numerous trips to his cache under a sage-brush, returning each time visibly refreshed. He took his seat on a barrel of “sourcrout” in the pantry and sang “Bury me not on the lone prairee,” in a minor key, until he finally fell a-weeping at the pathos of his own song. Ben Richter, who had ridden over from the Gypsum Rim, a little scamper of sixty miles, disappeared at frequent intervals with the remark that he was "going out to run a rabbit.” After several of these disappearances, he could find relief for his exuberant spirits only in the Comanche squaw yell, a sound which made the horses in the corral fall back on their tie-ropes in fright. “Ripping up the sod to-night," said S. B. Bates, making a visible effort at small talk. “Sure are," replied Stout, his eyes following the movements of the girl from the Half Way House. “She's limber on her feet," observed “S. B.,” noting his intent gaze. “Sure is," replied Stout heartily, and “S. B." lapsed into silence. When the quadrille ended, Uncle Sam Boucher came out with an ax and ham- mered in a few nails which had ripped the soles from several of the guests' shoes. “Planks is wearin' down,” he explained briefly. “Pardners for a schottische!" called the master of ceremonies. 1 . DTEA AMOS “ Kept time to the music with her foot”. "Schottisches is my long suit,” said from the Half Way House and the brunette Ş. B. Bates wistfully, but Stout did not from over the range. As the night wore hear for he was making a bee line for the on, S. B. Bates' answers on the subject of girl from the Half Way House. crops grew noticeably curt, and finally, A flood of red turned S. B. Bates' cheeks when Bill Barnes asked her if she had a å still deeper hue, but she sat proudly bull calf for sale, she told him in a voice upright, a fixed smile on her lips. The which made Bill stare "that she talked set was made up and no one had asked business at her ranch.” Just before coffee "S. B.” to “assist” him. It was the was served at twelve, S. B. Bates announced same with the next waltz and the next that she was going. Stout, his mouth polka ; then Hank Stevens ceased to sing open in ecstasy, was whirling with the girl and, wiping his streaming eyes, claimed from the Half Way House and did not see her for the next two-step, the pleasure of his neighbor walk past him with blazing which was spoiled for her by the glimpses eyes, accompanied by Uncle Sam Boucher she had of Stout and the girl from the with the lantern. Half Way House sitting side by side on Stout, jaded and yawning, drove home the barrel Hank Stevens had vacated. at daylight. He was half asleep when he Between dances the men gathered about came to the pole-bridge, but he awakened S. B." and discussed the outlook for the to a state of alertness which was like Coming season. They asked her opinion the wakefulness of insomnia when he saw a as to the fattening qualities of the Hereford sign fastened to several poles which blocked breed, and the advisability of feeding the entrance of the bridge. The sign read: horses first crop alfalfa. They praised her thrift and energy, her blooded stock; THIS BRIDGE IS CLOSED but they continued to dance with the girl S. B. BATES 213 214 AMERICAN MAGAZINE As Stout with numb fingers laboriously hesitated. S. B. Bates' unspoken threat, removed the interlaced poles in the gray to remove his flesh from his bones in dawn, a slow wrath began to burn in his pinches, rang true. He knew also that bosom. He did not comprehend the she could do it. cause, but he realized that S. B. Bates had "I will not fight a lady," he replied turned on him. He drove home and, with dignity, backing off the bridge. after caring for his horses, printed a sign “I wouldn't advise you to," answered S. which read: B. Bates mockingly. That same afternoon it chinooked. THIS BRIDGE IS OPEN The soft, warm wind melted the snow in W. STOUT the mountains and gulches with incredible rapidity, and a yellow stream began to He attached it to his end of the bridge rush through the dry bed of Paint River. and, with a feeling of satisfaction and in the morning the yellow stream was pride in the neatly printed letters, returned a torrent, and it looked as though the to his shack to sleep. bridge might go out before night. “ ' This bridge is closed,' said 'S. B.'" Refreshed by his slumbers, he started late in the afternoon to demand an ex- planation from S. B. Bates. “S. B.” saw him coming and was waiting for him on the pole which marked the exact center of the bridge. Stout felt himself shrink before her blazing eyes. “This bridge is closed," said “S. B." Her lips were a straight line. “This bridge is open,” replied Stout, trying to force determination into his wavering voice. "I am armed,” said S. B. Bates, and from the folds of her skirt she produced a formidable pair of wire clippers. “Take one step forward and I shall use this weapon.” Stout, with his foot poised in mid-air, He followed the creek down to see if the flood had taken out the wire fence he had strung across from his property to that of his neighbor's. The fence was still in- tact, so he returned to his shack and seat- ed himself disconsolately on the doorstep. Now that Stout's wrath had subsided somewhat, he realized that the withdrawal of S. B. Bates' friendship was a more serious matter than it had at first seemed. That horse with the distemper—"S. B.” had thought she could cure it. He had talked of buying a carpet—“S. B.” was going to sew it for him. He meant to purchase Meldon's water rights on Sage creek—if “S. B.” thought well of it. But he was going to miss most of all her companionship; she was surely very “ S. B. BATES” 215 companionable. She had been patient with him in his verdancy, and her kindness had been unfailing. Her volcanic out burst puzzled and bewildered him. As he brooded, the clatter of hoofs fell on his ear. He arose and looked round the corner to see the girl from the Half Way House galloping down the road on her blue roan. “The upper bridge has gone out,” she said, pulling up at his doorstep, “and I had to ride back and cross here. Is it safe?" “Well, you see the b-bridge is closed," stammered Stout, distinctly embarrassed. "Closed? What's the matter?” “W—W—Why, S.B. Bates, you see—a- a- " He groped wildly for some plaus- ible explanation, and while he floundered he saw the stout figure of S. B. Bates striding from the house on the hill to the bridge with an unmistakable air of determination. In the exact center of the bridge she knelt and began to saw on the big log supporting the smaller cross poles which formed the structure. Stout was aghast. Who would have believed the woman capable of such vindictiveness ? S. B. Bates was going to saw the bridge in two and move away her half! Stout knew that expostulations were useless and he had no notion of exposing himself to an attack with the wire clippers. He could only stand gloom- ily watching the strong, machine-like motion of her arm as she drove the saw through the wood while the girl from the Half Way House chattered at his side like a magpie. When the log was cut, and that side of the bridge sagged into the water, she began with equal vigor upon the log supporting the other end of the cross poles. She sawed with a ferocity which was formidable even at a distance. Could it be that she was so intent upon revenge that the thought of disaster to herself did not occur to her? There was nothing of the cool, level- headed S. B. Bates in the panting, excited woman who sawed so savagely upon the hard-wood beam. In her jealousy she was truly feminine. Infuriated by the sight of the girl from the Half Way House flirting with Stout as she supposed, perhaps ridiculing herself, she had only one thought and that was to prevent the girl from crossing the bridge, and at the same time to prove conclusively to Stout that she was done with him forever. Blinded with rage as she was, her ordinarily good judgment forsook her. She meant to retreat in good time, but she intended also to thoroughly destroy the bridge as she could before she went. While Stout strained his eyes in the intensity of his interest, the log suddenly parted and, even from his doorstep, he could see the splash which followed the disappearance of S. B. Bates into the river. Stout's long legs stood him in good stead; he ran as he never had run before- the shrill, despairing cries from the river acting upon him like spurs. He reached the bank just in time to see S. B. Bates' head bobbing around the bend. She was clinging to two of the bridge poles and shrieking as she went. Stout ran along the river bank calling to her to keep up! that he was coming! that he would save her! As he turned the bend an inarticulate cry of relief broke from him-S. B. Bates had washed into the wire fence! Her ruddy face was white and she looked at him piteously, all the anger gone from her black eyes. “Hang on!” Stout begged. “Don't come in!” cried S. B. Bates. “Get a pole. I can hold on a little longer.” Panic-stricken, the girl from the Half Way House left her horse and ran in order to get to the river quicker. Hysterical and exhausted, she dropped to the ground before she reached the wire fence. “Don't go in! You'll drown'd! Please, please don't go in!” she screamed. But Stout did not even hear her. He rushed to and fro until he found a tall sapling and this he literally pulled up by the roots. He waded into the water as long as he could keep his feet and then he cautiously pushed out the end of the pole. Trusting to him, she let go her hold on the fence and Stout, wading slowly ashore, deposited S. B. Bates upon the bank. “If you had drowned, 'S. B.'!” he ex- claimed, and with the reaction from his fright came a fit of trembling. “Would you have cared?” asked “ S.B.” wistfully, looking at him with softened eyes. “Cared ?" Stout's voice choked. “As much as if it had been her?” 216 AMERICAN MAGAZINE demanded “S. B.” with more energy, jerk- ing her head toward the still hysterical girl from the Half Way House. “S. B.'!” exclaimed Stout. «OS. B.'! You were jealous!” The sudden under- standing which flashed upon him illumined his face and-in a courage born of a new and delicious sense of importance-he took her unresisting hand. “We'll build up the bridge as soon as the crick goes down-Walter," answered S. B. Bates coyly. The Parable of the Pickpocket By John McAuley Palmer AUTHOR of "A SPECULATION IN MANSLAUGHTER" REHAT reminds me of a story," was very much envied as a Napoleon of A said Colonel Lumpkin, as finance. The Napoleon of finance had TN2 Judge Docket finished his noted the success of the Benevolent Gent learned analysis of the fran- securities and recognizing our boot-black as chise question. At the sound a rising man, he invited him to take lunch G of the Colonel's voice, Come- with him at his club. While they were gys stopped yawning, and the loungers enjoying their champagne and pretzels, about the club dropped their newspapers they naturally got to discussing high finance, and drew their chairs into the circle. and the Napoleon casually announced that “Yes," said the Colonel, “that reminds he made fifteen cents a day out of his worst mè of the benevolent old gentleman and the customer, a stingy old skinflint who never boot-black. The benevolent old gentleman paid more than five cents a shine. “But how was an old bachelor and he lived in a com- do you do it?' asked the boot-black with fortable little apartment on the third floor. awakened interest. 'I brush his clothes Every morning the boot-black would come while he is shaving,' said the Napoleon of up to the old gentleman's room and black finance. 'Oh!' exclaimed the boot-black, his boots and brush his clothes and perform ‘he pays you ten cents for that, does he?' other little services for the old gentleman's Not at all,' said the Napoleon of finance. comfort and convenience. And every I pay myself. He keeps his small change morning, after these services were per- in his trousers' pocket and I simply finance formed, the benevolent old gentleman that commercial opportunity.' You pick would reach down in his trousers' pocket his pocket.' exclaimed the boot-black in and bring forth a bright new dime and give horror. "You should not use such rude it to the shoe-black. And when the boots terms,' said the Napoleon of finance. 'I were very muddy or the coat was very dusty simply seek the maximum dividend and he always gave the boot-black a quarter therefore collect all that the traffic will bear! instead of a dime on account of the extra ‘But isn't honesty the best policy?' asked trouble. In fact the benevolent old gentle- the boot-black. "Yes,' said the Napoleon man was the boot-black's best customer and of finance, that is my favorite maxim. I the boot-black knew it. The Benevolent am continually preaching that to my clerks Gent franchise was regarded as a gilt-edged and other employés. It's a safe guide for security on the boot-black's exchange, mediocrity, but it restricts financial genius. where ordinary five-cent shines are quoted Honesty is the best policy unless you can around par. afford to hire a good corporation lawyer.' “One day as the boot-black was coming “Of course this hint broadened the boot- out of his banker's he met another boot- black's horizon. He had often reflected on black who was older in the business and the exacting restraints imposed by conscience THE PARABLE OF THE PICKPOCKET 217 and he was glad to learn that he might find “The next morning the boot-black floated a more accommodating guide of conduct. his new securities. While the benevolent He therefore went down town and sub- old gentleman was standing before his mitted the case to Mr. Juggle, the eminent looking-glass in his pajamas and slippers lawyer. “Your moral scruples do you great busily engaged in shaving, the boot-black honor,' said Mr. Juggle, “but like most went behind the closet door and brushed amateurs your perspective is defective. I the benevolent old gentleman's trousers. have devoted many years of study to these It was awfully easy. It was so easy that matters and I think I may say that I am after declaring a dividend of fifteen cents generally recognized as an expert in ethics. he had time to brush the trousers again. Indeed, my dear Mr. Boot-black, your “But one morning," continued Colonel rights are very clear. Under your franchise Lumpkin, “the old gentleman's razor you are entitled to develop all of your assets slipped and he cut his chin. And notwith- and the old gentleman's benevolence is one standing his benevolence, I am bound to of your assets. Of course if you should take admit that he talked to the razor rather all of the coin out of his pocket at one time harshly. The boot-black was busy behind it would be theft, because it would lead to the door as usual and the old gentleman's discovery. It would also be poor business vigorous diction startled him so that his because it might cause a shrinkage in his hand slipped and all of the nickels and general stock of benevolence, and of course dimes rolled out of the pocket and fell that would be paying dividends out of jingling to the floor. To make matters capital. But if you are conservative and worse, the boot-black tried to withdraw his only take ten or fifteen cents a day, he will hand so quickly that it caught in the lining never miss them, and the proceeds will of the pocket and there it stuck. The harder make a safe addition to your income he jerked the tighter it stuck and there it account. The moral aspect of the matter is was when the old gentleman looked behind very simple. You are entitled to a reason the door. 'I'm sorry for this,' said the old able compensation for your services and gentleman. “If I were not so benevolent who can possibly be a better judge than I'd turn you over to the police. But I'll yourself of the value of your services? You content myself with giving your job to an have risked your capital and experience in honest boot-black. I hope you'll find a the business of blacking the old gentleman's lesson in this, my boy, for perhaps the next boots and in performing other menial man you rob will not be so gentle with services for him, and who can know better you.' than you how much you ought to collect ? “The old gentleman thought the incident This is a matter that involves great expert was closed, but it wasn't. The next morning, knowledge, which you and you only possess. just as the new boot-black opened his kit You certainly would not suggest that the and took out his dauber and brush, who old gentleman is qualified to pass on the should come in but Mr. Juggle, and what price of shines?' should Mr. Juggle do but serve a temporary “Mr. Juggle then proceeded to explain injunction on the benevolent old gentleman the law of pocket-picking. “Your legal restraining him from employing another rights are even clearer than your moral boot-black, restraining him from negotiating rights,' he said. “It is only necessary to be with another boot-black, restraining him moderate at first. After you have picked from wearing shoes blacked by another his pockets systematically for a year or two, boot-black, restraining him from wearing it will be presumed that the benevolent old trousers brushed by another boot-black and gentleman employed you to clean his restraining him from paying any money or pockets as well as his boots, and then of moneys to any other boot-black. The course your perquisite will be recognized benevolent old gentleman was further com- as a vested right. You will also gain addi- manded to appear before Judge Twiddle tional security,' he continued, 'by issuing and show cause why the said injunction bonds on the new income. Ten cents a should not be made permanent. day will pay interest on nine hundred “But the benevolent old gentleman was dollars in bonds. By selling the bonds to not so easily discouraged. “There is one the old gentleman's respectable neighbors thing I can do,' he said. 'I can black my you will make them your accomplices.' own boots,' and thereupon he went down to 218 AMERICAN MAGAZINE the grocery store on the corner and bought a box of blacking and a brush and dauber. But as he went back to his room all the other old gentlemen in the neighborhood saw him and hurried to his room to dis- suade him from such revolutionary conduct. “What are you doing?' said the first neighbor as he opened the door. ""I'm blacking my own boots,' said the benevolent old gentleman defiantly. “But you'll lose caste if you do that,' said the second neighbor. “And people won't invite you to dinner if they know about it,' said the third old gentleman. “If you black your own boots you'll be a socialist,' said the fourth neighbor. All of these arguments had their influence on the old gentleman. He began to waver. "And even if you do black your own boots you won't be able to do it econom- ically, suggested the fifth neighbor. “You will waste a great deal of blacking.' “But this argument was not convincing. It irritated the benevolent old gentleman. . “Even if I waste a box of blacking a day,' he retorted, “it won't be as expensive as having my pocket picked. “And with that he dipped the dauber in the blacking and went to work. “When the neighbors saw that he was deaf to argument they all raised their hands in horror and filed silently out of the room. “But it wasn't an easy job. The benevo- lent old gentleman was so plump and rotund that he hadn't seen his knees for twenty years, and he therefore found it quite a strain to bring his hands in such intimate contact with his foot. It made him very red in the face and it made him grunt, and the strain finally became so great that his two rear suspender buttons came off with a snap and popped up to the ceiling. That fortunate accident probably prevented a stroke of apoplexy. At this juncture the boot-black came in and the old gentleman yielded to the inevitable. “Of course," continued Colonel Lump- kin, “after his restoration, the boot-black became intolerable. His insolence ex- ceeded all bounds. He absolutely forgot that he was a servant. He didn't eve: have the grace to go behind the door when he picked the old gentleman's pockets. He smoked the old gentleman's cigars and even had the impudence to complain of their quality. The old gentleman had to change the brand in order to suit him. “But one day the boot-black went too far. As he left the room he took a fancy to the old gentleman's scarf pin and without a word he reached up and snatched it. “Please don't take that,' said the old gentleman, 'it's an heir-loom.' “Aw, g'wan!' said the boot-black in his bustling way, as he hurried off. “And here, I am forced to admit, that the benevolent old gentleman lost his temper. The blood of his youth came surging back through his veins and washed away the gentleness and decorum of thirty years. “The old gentleman took the boot-black by the nape of the neck and kicked him through the door. The boot-black sud- denly remembered that he was a servant, but it was too late. The old gentleman kicked the boot-black down the hall to the head of the stairway and then he kicked him down two flights of stairs. “As the boot-black sailed through the air in his rapid descent, he didn't have much time for reflection, but he had enough. He was bright and was able to realize that pay without perquisites is much better than no pay and no perquisites. When he finally hit the sidewalk at the bottom of the stairs, he was a wiser and a better man. “Of course," continued Colonel Lump- kin, “when it became known that the benevolent old gentleman was in earnest and that he was tired of being buncoed, the court of appeals dissolved Judge Twiddle's injunction. It was laid down in the decision that there is a distinction between a vested right and a vested wrong, and that facilities for pocket picking do not necessarily constitute property.” .“And did the benevolent old gentleman hire another boot-black?" asked Comegys. “Not at all,” said Colonel Lumpkin. “The old boot-black when he contemplated losing the whole job was glad enough to relinquish the perquisites. He became a contented and honest boot-black and learned to stand at attention and touch his cap whenever the benevolent old gentleman addressed him. But he always polished the old gentleman's right boot with especial re- spect and reverence, for he never forgot the weight of the foot that went with it." O MARGINALIA JO . NA & J.R-SHAVER Busy Bee and Busy Body By Mary Talbot Campbell AUTHOR OF "TOW head," "THE COMING OF TO-MORROW," ETC. МС OME, Busy Body, and get your bath.” “Sh-shucks! you wa- washed me yisteddy!” "Son, try speaking very slowly and maybe you can cure that stuttering habit. Mother likes to have a boy not a b-b-boy!” Ben gave a gay giggle, but loved an argu- ment. “ Didn't D-dad uster studder?” “Well-yes," came the slow assent as a modern cupid, a good deal the worse for play, was divested of his last garment. Ben rippled the water with a shrinking toe. “Ain't you t-told me you'd b-be jolly glad if I wuz eggsackly like him?”. "When you grow up, yes. But in you go, you dirty boy!” With a mighty splash, Ben plumped down, gasping, his eyes screwed tight against the soapy investigation of the washrag. Splutter- ing as well as stuttering, he made his point: “Well, all k-kittens is b-blind an' all nice men studders wh-when they's kids. Gosh! wh-what's the good b-bein' a kid if I've gotter be sloppin'round like a girl the whole b- bloomin' time. I'd most ez lief be 'er ez eat s-soap!" “You'd get less soap if you'd play Quaker meeting, rattle trap. But there! I can see mny boy at last." A squealing protest followed: “G-gee! you t-tickle! Let me wipe my b-busy body." Ben shook with hysterical laughter. The mother relinquished the towel for a time, only to end in a gleeful romp as she polished off a pink, protesting sprite. “ Come here by the window while I comb 219 220 AMERICAN MAGAZINE little chickens !” galloped the merry voice as the two entered the parlor. "Nope! I said but not the little ch-chick- ens!” TORSHAVER . “ Led stuttering away". that curly mop of yours, and don't wiggle so! Perhaps Mr. Squirrel will pop out of his hole in the big elm and sit up for us." “Ain't a feller ever old 'nough to have a g-gun?” “Cruel boy let squirrel be and blithely hop on bush and tree!' Did you know, Ben, your father's the finest shot in the country!” Pride rang in her tone and the boy gloried in his sire. "I b-bet-ouch! you're scalpin' me !— I'll sm-smash Dad's sc-score wh-when my turn comes !” and Ben took imagined aim, squinting along the air, but play gave place to tense reality in a shattered shout: “There's a squ-squ-squ— gone!” The slow tongue and swift flirt of vanish- ing, bushy tail, brought a burst of bubbling laughter from Mrs. Crozier, “You'll have to be quicker on the trigger than on the speech, Busy Body, if you go your father one better.” As she led her renovated boy down the stairs, the mother advised : “Say 'squir-rel' slowly, Ben." “Sure! if you say right fast, “The red- headed sp-speck-led hen but not the little ch-chickens !'” “ The red-headed speckled hen but not the “Benny Crozier!" “Say! there comes B-beebe again. I b-bet he's stuck on Aunt Nance. He's lookin' at her now like Fido does wh-when he's starved an' I'm eatin' a drumstick.” Anna's laughing eyes belied her grave voice: “Run out and play, Busy Body, for you mustn't bother when Nancy has company. And remember, you're not to say things like that to any one but Mother, Ben." As the boy followed Mrs. Crozier from the room, the front door opened to Nancy's touch and a high young voice inquired: “Say, mother, wh-why does everybody have to sc-scoot 'cause B-beebe comes 'round?” Strangled laughter, “Hush-h!” and bang- ing door, in a confused chorus, together with an epidemic of throat clearing; and a rosy bud of blushing girlhood swayed like a flower in her breezy mirth, while the room was filled with sweetness for the man with gay smile but tender glance. When abashed eyes struggled up to meet his, Tom Beebe, emboldened by Nancy's win- some shyness, took an aggressive step to- ward her. But the deep thrill of his voice got no further than the dear name "Nancy —!" when a rattling ra-ta-ta-tat! on the window brought man and maid back to earth. Ben, pressing whitened nose against the pane, yelled joyously : “Say, old man, wh-when you git tired o' girls, come out an' see the b-bees!” The "old man” threw a glove with exact aim and Ben dodged, with a parting flash from mischievous eyes and a rollicking, “F-face tag !" ending in a whoop. Muttering something about “bothersome busy bodies and making lemonade," Nancy fled with colors flying in her hot cheeks. Feeling a new born love for King Herod, Tom's mind jumped down the ages to John G. Ingalls, hoping with annoyed but persistent humor, that Opportunity would prove the Senator wrong, by once more knocking at the gate which had been so rudely banged in his face. Clinking glasses and tinkling ice, borne by a sedate young woman with aloof eyes and pretty primness of manner, promised refresh- ment of body, but Tom knew that the inner heart-thirst would find no assuagement. “Excuse me a moment, Mr. Beebe, and I'll ask Anna to join us." “Certainly, I'll be glad to see her," lied the man, The door caught slightly on a fold of her MARGINALIA 221 dress and Nancy neglected to close it. The low-voiced murmur in the next room rose in the words, “You simply have got to come, Anna!” and the sisters joined Tom in the parlor. “That's a fine boy of yours, Mrs. Crozier !” began the wiley one, stirring his lemonade. “Well, we think so, though Ben is a great little busy body, but boys will be — " A wail of dire anguish rent the air, increas- ing in volume, as Ben tore to the comfort of the mother-arms. Anna rose, consternation written on her face, but a guilty hope flashed from two pairs of eyes as they sped a wireless message of merry gratification. With controlled gravity, Tom relieved Mrs. Crozier of the glass, which she clutched absently, as a howling boy dashed frantically into the room. "Mother's darling! What is the matter?" The stutter was pronounced, the pain po- tent as the child replied: “A d-d-damn b-bee d-did st-sting me in the m-mouth!” — "Son!” Tom was in convulsions, Nancy in a rap- ture, while the poor puffy lip grew as Ben stuck it up for maternal aid. “Now, Busy Body, you know how doth the little busy bee!” said long-suffering Nancy. “D-d-d !” "Benjamin! not another letter!” “Get mamma to kiss the sting out, Ben, my boy!” suggested Tom. “Come, son! Never mind them. Mother'll fix it, but you must stop crying. Boys should learn to bear things in silence, like men!” But rage had dried his tears as with clenched fists and a pout of unnatural dimen- sions Ben turned on his tormentors, only to be led stuttering away: “You can j-just b-bet your sweet life I'll g-git e-e-e- !” shy dimple in the velvety pink of the living picture's cheek went to Tom's heart. Stooping with delirious haste, he gathered her close in one long-drawn kiss of hungry rapture as they sat side by side in the soft embrace of the upholstered sofa. Trembling for flight, but radiant, Nancy was about to surrender, with glowing face hidden on his breast, while Tom's virile, stammering words of manly devotion ex- plained and excused that intoxicating kiss. But a triumphant, “G-gee! that was a c-corker !” swept Nancy into swift indignation as, hot with rage, she turned on poor Tom, whose one word had exploded with a capital “D,” though he swallowed the rest. “How dare you touch me, sir! And such language !" But Tom was not to be thus thrust out of the citadel he had won. “Nancy, dear, aren't you mad at the Busy Body, not at me? ” and he made a vengeful lunge at Ben, who disappeared behind the sofa's high back, stuttering excitedly: “Now you know how d-doth the b-big b-busy B-beebe, Aunt Nance! An' you d-didn't work me with no m-measly nickel !” Nancy struggled, but laughter shook her, while delight leaped into Tom's shining eyes. “Git him to k-kiss the st-sting out, wh-why don't you?” Ben bounded like a rubber ball in his barri- caded corner. But the man's long arm fished out the imp, lifting him kicking and squirm- ing into mid air. “Now, will you be good! And shut up!" "Where is Ben?” asked Tom Beebe care- lessly about a week later. "He's gone to the store to invest a nickel I gave him." Nancy flushed at that totally unnecessary bit of information, about the source of the Busy Body's wealth, into which her impulsive tongue had betrayed her. “How far is the store?”. Veiling her dancing. eyes the girl made answer "It's twelve blocks." Tom thought he heard a knock at the gate of life. Rising, he began a study of the pic- tures on the walls. One in the corner, above. Nancy's curly head, held him longest, but a “Fished out the Imp” 222 AMERICAN MAGAZINE But Busy Body was game. “Wh-what'll you give me not to t-tell?" “A pound of chocolate drops !”. “Wh-what else?” “A dollar big as a wagon wheel!” “G-good! wh-what else?” Tom shook him as a terrier would a rat. “A sure 'nough watch that'll keep time!" “It's a g-go! Lemme down." But the boy was held prisoner between them while things were explained. “You see, Ben, we're going to be married, aren't we, Nancy?” There was a throbbing silence. “ Aren't we, Nancy?" A world of pleading pulsed in the slow words, “ Yes." It was soft but it was heavenly! “And it's right for married people and folks about to be married to kiss, isn't it, Ben?" “You b-bet!” “But we've got to be married quick so's to O. K. that kiss, haven't we, Ben?” "Sure M-Mike!” assented the bribed one as another coin was pressed into his palm. “So we'll be married next month, won't we, Nancy?" “No! Tom." “Then that kiss will have to be returned now, Nancy-! Won't it, Ben?' “G-gee!" As insistent arms bridged the intent youngster and the man's earnest heart shone through merry, coaxing eyes, Nancy clung to the strong hands, though holding Tom off. “Then, you'd rather be married next month, Nancy?" “Y-yes, Tom!”. "She studders t-too!” commented Ben. Tom took the boy astride his knee as the girl laughed with teary abandonment. “Tom, no one ever had so public a wooing as mine, I'm quite sure!” His eyes caressed her, but he spoke to the child: "Remember, Ben, you're bound in honor and mum's the word! But no one thinks anything about a kiss, these days, except kids. They think they're poison till kidnapped by some petticoat, and then- " But Ben broke in: “ You can b-bet your b-bottom dollar none of 'em don't git the sm-smack on me!". “Don't crow till you put on long pants, kid, and She puts up her hair! Even your father and mother kiss, don't they?" Ben pondered as he slid down and stood poised for flight: "Sometimes," doubtfully, “if Dad ain't gotter ch-chase a car. B-but they ain't those long st-sticky kind!” But Busy Body was too swift for the love- laden B., so he returned to his garden of Eden. Samuel Hopkins Adams In spite of the reputation gained by Mr. Adams through his exposures of Patent Medicine Frauds, his more lasting fame will be that of a story teller. His feeling for story interest, which is as keen as that of any young American writer, and his ability to develop thrilling and convincing plots have combined finely with Stewart Edward White's gifts to make “ The Mystery," now appearing in this magazine, a really notable adven- ture novel. Drawn by G. M. M Couch Illustrating "The Twin Peters" “ The small figure above us sprang into life" AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOL. LXII, NO. 3 JULY, 1906 The Taming of Rogers Attorney-General Hadley's Successful Attempt to Make Standard Oil Obey the Laws of his State—How the Way is Cleared for other States' Attorneys to do their Parts by Protecting the People Under Existing Law By Sherman Morse TEXETWEEN proof and moral new laws. He took the laws as he found certainty there is a gulf so them and proceeded along the lines of least wide that ever since the resistance. He had studied his ground with reign of Law began evil- the extreme care of an expert engineer, and doers have found in it their when his opponents balked he fell back on bu strongest weapon of defence. the laws as he understood them. In every What “everybody knows” it has too often instance it has been proved that he was happened that nobody could prove. In the right and they were wrong. multiplicity of charges which have been Result:—The Republic Oil Company- brought against the Standard Oil Company “pirate”—has been PROVED to be what by independent dealers, those having to do it has been suspected of being since its incep- with the operation of “pirate" companies tion, a mere creature of the Standard, prey- have been frequent and persistent, but it ing upon independent oil dealers and having remained for a young man from Missouri, no other purpose or reason for existence; until then unheard of beyond the boundaries cutting rates far below the point which an of his own state, to wring proof from what independent could meet for more than a amounted to little more than conjecture. brief period, but never by any possibility He stumbled on a clew which, to his interfering with the business of its masters; logical mind, held forth promise of results, losing thousands where its real owners and with the persistence for which the man would have had to lose millions; driving is remarkable he followed it day by day and independents into bankruptcy or worse month by month until he had forged a wherever they dared enter the chosen field chain of evidence in which no link was lack of the Standard. ing. He did not demand the enactment of Result:-The Waters-Pierce Oil Com- COPYRIGHT, 1906, IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN, BY COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 227 228 AMERICAN MAGAZINE pany—“privateer” if not absolutely “pi- rate”—has been PROVED to be a child of the Standard, two-thirds of its stock held in the name of a son-in-law of John D. Arch- bold, head of the oil business of the Stand- ard, and operated in complete sympathy was revoked by Texas was transferred to Pierce, in whose name all but four of the shares then appeared, but in 1904 the actual stock ownership of the company during all of this period was disclosed by the transfer of the Standard's controlling interest to 129 Herbert S. Hadley The Attorney-General of Missouri, who with youthful audacity has proved that the ordi- nary law of his state is actually superior to the higher law" of trust management with acknowledged Standard companies, although its license to sell oil in Texas was renewed four years ago only upon assurance that it was the individual property of Henry Clay Pierce. It is true that upon a reorganization of the company in 1900 the controlling interest held by the former Standard Oil trustees at the time the license Archbold's son-in-law. Senator Bailey appears in this connection as the guardian angel of the company; it was chiefly through efforts put forth by him in its behalf that its license in Texas was renewed when its stock books could be cited as proof that Pierce was virtually its sole owner. Result:— The Standard Oil Company of H. S. Priest An able attorney of St. Louis, formerly Judge of the U. S. Circuit Court, one of the brilliant group of lawyers that defended the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of the Republic Oil Company, a New York corporation, to continue to do business within the state, and a revocation of the charter of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company which would oust that corporation from the state. In any event, the moral victory is already complete. The companies have been driven into the open and if the independent dealers cannot hold their own it is because, as the Standard is so eager to assert, their business methods along legitimate lines of trade are inferior to those of the Standard. This much has been accomplished, and it is more than had been done before in a quarter of a century of conflict to hold the Standard Oil Company within the bounds of the law. And for this achievement Herbert S. Hadley, Attorney-General of Missouri, and he alone, is responsible. Hadley is to-day the most talked of man in Missouri. Men are asking one another what his future is to be. Republicans are 230 Frank Hagerman An attorney of Kansas City and a tenacious fighter for his client, the Standard Oil Company of Indiana basing their hopes of carrying the state at the next election on the prospect of having him as their candidate for governor. Law- yers of all shades of political belief are rather hoping that he will follow his destiny along the lines of the law. Thousands are waiting for an opportunity to vote for him for any office for which he is presented. The big tact is that he has the respect and admira- tion of all men in his state regardless of their political affiliations or his. In the sense that he did not seek the office he holds, he is an accident. Leader of a faction in one of the forlorn hope conven- tions, as it was supposed, of the Republican party in the state, his mission was to defeat the nomination of a certain man for attorney- general. He was successful, but in the con- fusion which followed he was himself named against his will. While a handful of his friends swept him like a football in the midst of a flying wedge to the rear of 231 “ It is quite immaterial to me what the Supreme Court of Missouri desires me to say to them” This portrait of H. H. Rogers was drawn from life during the investigation, by a member of the Staff of the New York Herald. It is now printed for the first time the hall, he was chosen by acclamation His first impulse was to decline at once, but he heeded the warning of his best wish- ers not to imperil his political future by refusing to make a campaign. That he would be elected seemed hardly a possibility. He worked hard, canvassed the state from end to end, voted and then went quail hunt- ing. When he returned to civilization three days later he was greeted by the greatest surprise in his career. He had been elected with the remainder of the Republican ticket, except the candidate for governor, and by a safe majority. He had not sought the office. He was rapidly building up a lucrative business in the practice of his profession in Kansas City. As public prosecutor he had there made a name for himself and a few years would have seen him ranked among the most successful men of his city. To serve the state as attorney-general at a salary considerably smaller than his fees would be as a lawyer in private practice; to leave a newly built and furnished home in Kansas City and form new ties in Jefferson City, a town of hardly more than ten thousand inhabitants, involved a sacrifice far heavier than any but his closest friends realize. It was while investigating railroad ter- minal charges in St. Louis that Hadley first obtained tangible evidence that the oil com- panies were operating in violation of the anti-trust laws of Missouri. He discovered that the Standard sold no oil in St. Louis. For the great corporation to pass by a city of the importance of St. Louis appealed to him as amazing. There, he learned, the 232 THE TAMING OF ROGERS 233 Waters-Pierce Oil Company had a clear headquarters of the “Trust" at 26 Broad- field except for such little business as inde- way, New York. He obtained the appoint- pendent dealers were able to gain. Then he ment of a commissioner in New York to went to Kansas City, and there he found the take testimony and retained Henry Woll- Standard of Indiana supreme; no attempt to man, a former Missourian, to arrange for the enter that field by the Waters-Pierce Com service of subpænas on all the Standard pany, ostensibly independent and sup Oil men who could be reached. Most of posedly one of the “Trust's” few worthy them escaped, including John D. Rocke- opponents. feller, by absenting themselves for months So quietly that there was no suspicion that from their homes, but by methods which an investigation was under way, he called in were as theatrical as successful, Henry H. men who ought to be able to post him as to Rogers, John D. Archbold, William G. the real situation. The suspicion that the Rockefeller and a few others were duly Republic Oil Company was not the inde- served. In addition to these unwilling pendent concern it professed to be was witnesses, the attorney-general had former made known to him. He learned that the employees whose testimony was sure to be in oil rate from Kansas City to St. Louis was his favor but from its nature by no means seventeen cents, and from St. Louis to conclusive and, lacking corroboration, not Kansas City twenty-two cents. As the dis- especially convincing. tance was identical, he could not under- When Hadley went to New York he had stand why the rates should differ until he proof that the oil companies operating in learned that the Standard has a large refin- Missouri had violated the anti-trust laws of ery in Kansas City from which oil was that state, but he had no legal evidence as shipped to St. Louis, while in the latter city to their ownership. He had proved that a the only large refinery was owned by an crime had been committed; it still devolved independent concern. The difference in upon him to prove the intent. He was rate was sufficient to prevent the profitable denied access to the companies' stock books shipment of oil from St. Louis to Kansas and witnesses refused to testify on a theory City in competition with the Standard's since upset by the United States Supreme product. Court in one of the most important decisions He brought an action on behalf of the ever rendered, that directors of corporations state to right what he believed to be wrongs. cannot be compelled to incriminate their Witnesses were called who swore to facts companies. It seemed almost a hopeless which established a community of inter- undertaking—so hopeless that nobody else ests, at least, between the two big concerns had ever undertaken it. From the men most selling oil in Missouri. Disclosures led determined to thwart him, if from anybody, from one to another, former employees of the he must obtain the evidence upon which Standard and the Waters-Pierce Company hung victory or defeat, and of these men being his chief witnesses. Henry H. Rogers was chief. The most striking piece of evidence Rogers began with a sneer and ended which he thus obtained related to a division with a snarl. As round followed round in of the state as trade territory between the the battle between Law and the power which Standard Oil Company of Indiana and the has so often proved itself Law's master, the Waters-Pierce Company, the former confin- prince of financiers became more defiant, ing its business to the northern and the lat- until the climax came when he contemptu- ter to the southern half. So arbitrarily was ously defied the Supreme Court of a sov- this system maintained that a consumer who ereign state. Rogers knew that the surest happened to live a short distance from an oil and speediest way to win a case in which distributing depot, but with this arbitrary the public is to so great an extent the jury, line of demarcation intervening, might have if not the judge, is to laugh an opponent out to travel many miles to the nearest depot on of court, and with this plan of campaign the side of the line on which he lived in order clearly outlined in his mastermind he to obtain the oil he sought. turned the shafts of his wit on this young Finally he was placed in possession of a unknown who had the effrontery to attack mass of correspondence connecting all three Standard Oil at the head center of its power. companies—the Standard of Indiana, the Rogers has himself to blame for the com- Waters-Pierce and the Republic—with the pleteness of the defeat of Standard Oil. 234 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Courtesy N. Y. Herald John D. Archbold The head of the actual oil business of the Standard just as Mr. Rogers is the head of its far-reaching financial schemes When it was too late to change front he realized his mistake. Had he met Hadley': questions by a firm but quiet and dignified refusal to reply to them, the situation would have lost virtually all of its dramatic feat- ures. The hearings in New York would soon have degenerated into dull common- places, the reports would have necessarily been little more than perfunctory state- ments of Hadley's failure, and the public would have lost interest. So it was before Rogers took the center of the stage. From the hearings in Missouri before the main action was begun in New York, the St. Louis and Kansas City news papers, whose readers had a vital interest in the success or failure of the state's action, found material for hardly more than half a column a day, and in the East the proceed- ings were dismissed with paragraphs. Rogers began by objecting to the news- paper artists. He protested against smok- ing being permitted while he was in the room. His lawyers unearthed a musty statute that all the testimony must be taken down in long hand and the most they would concede after the commissioner had to give up his task of painfully transcribing the evi- dence was the use of a typewriter. Even then they forced the reading of each ques- tion to the witness after it had been taken down before they would permit a reply. If the Standard forces had sought to in- ject all possible sensationalism into the pro- ceedings they could have done little more to effect such a result. They gained, to be sure, time for their witnesses to consider carefully each reply and defeated any possi- bility of Hadley confusing them by a rapid fire of questions, but it was a costly victory. For years the men who rule Standard Oil have dreaded nothing so much as exploita- tion of their affairs. Until this young man from the West brought them to their knees and President Roosevelt followed with one of the most bitter arraignments of a corpora- tion ever uttered, silence was to them pure gold and publicity the basest of alloys. The present employment of a press agent and the eleventh hour attempt to meet criticism by denials is the highest tribute that could be paid by Rogers and his asso- ciates to the effectiveness of Hadley's victory. Besides the ordeal of facing the scathing sneers of the man whose name alone has been enough to strike terror in the hearts of strong men, from Wall Street to the tiniest hamlet, Hadley had to meet an imposing array of lawyers of national repute, all of them trained by years of experience in the niceties of the law and ready on the instant to turn its intricacies to their advantage. Frank Hagerman, of Kansas City, who fought for his client, the Standard of Indiana, to the end, with the tenacity of a bulldog; John D. Johnson, of St. Louis, who, with former Judge H. S. Priest, ap- peared for the Waters-Pierce Oil Company; F. M. Elliott, general solicitor of the Stand- ard; Alfred D. Eddy, of Chicago, a leading Standard attorney; and William V. Rowe, of the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, of New York, hurled in objections to Hadley's every question. Beside the attorney- general sat one of his assistants, Rush Lake, a typical Missourian, but it was Had- ley alone who had to bear the brunt of the bitter conflict. Rogers reached the climax of his defiance when he refused to admit that he knew where the offices of the Standard Oil Com- pany are located, although he had acknowl- edged himself to be a director of the com- pany, and contemptuously declared his indifference to the desires of the Supreme Court of Missouri with respect to his testi- mony. THE TAMING OF ROGERS 235 Courtesy N. Y. Herald William G. Rockefeller Nephew of John D. Rockefeller. At thirty-three he is active in the management of Standard Oil For Hadley it was vitally necessary to prove the ownership of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, but in a larger sense a tenaciously maintained corporation principle was on trial for its life. For lack of the kind of proof which Hadley sought, the ouster suit brought by Kansas was dropped while Hadley was fighting for the admission which he finaly won. Had Rogers been in the end upheld in his defi- ance all corporations could laugh to scorn attempts to penetrate their secrets and de- spise investigators foredoomed to defeat. In all the bitter conflict between the master of Standard Oil and the man who was later to prove himself master of the master, there is nothing which so well illus trates the dogged persistence of Hadley and the magnitude of his task as this supreme effort to pin Rogers down to a positive statement of fact. Looking hardly more than a boy by comparison with the seasoned and grizzled lawyers whose combined wisdom and craft he had to meet and over- come, Hadley was in fact an athlete in mind as well as in body and he was trained to the hour. His strength lay in knowing precisely what he wanted and in driving toward that goal with all the compelling determination that was in him. While those opposed to him sought to divert attention from the main issue, he never lost sight of it, and to this, more than to any other single fact, he owes his success. “Do you wish," asked Hadley, "to say to the Supreme Court of Missouri that you as a director of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, do not know where its general offices are located ?” " It is quite immaterial to me," was the astonishing reply, “what the Supreme Court of Missouri desires me to say to them, other than what I have testified.” The words were uttered slowly, deliber- ately, and gave the impression of expressing the inmost conviction of the witness. Even Rogers' lawyers were astounded by the declaration of contempt for an institution which English-speaking men have been trained by centuries of experience to revere. Hagerman, Johnson and Priest, the Mis- souri contingent, were precipitately pitched into the position of having to defend a man who boldly proclaimed his indifference to the mandates of the highest court of their state. They stiffened perceptibly in their chairs, tensely awaiting the next develop- ment in the drama. The reporters, accus- tomed to surprises, turned from one to another to make sure that they had heard aright and a few minutes later the afternoon editions were loudly proclaiming Rogers' defiance. Rogers seemed to be the least concerned of anybody in the sensation his words created. As he uttered them he had riveted his piercing eyes on the young attorney-general, but a moment later he settled back into his chair and glanced care- lessly here and there about the room, cross- ing one leg over the other and folding his arms in an attitude which was characteristic of him throughout his examination. If he expected an outburst of indignation from Hadley he was disappointed. The young man was wise enough to realize that anything he could say would but weaken the effect of Rogers' defiance. His only display of emotion was to rise slowly to his feet and step a bit closer to his witness before asking his next question. He, too, has eyes which search to the soul of a man, and for the next few moments all the masterfulness in him was centered through them upon Rogers. “I do not ask your opinion of the Su- preme Court of Missouri,” said the attor- 236 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ney - general, his words biting sharply through the stillness of the room. “I asked you the question— " “Go ahead, if that is the question," Rogers replied, with chilling indifference. “Read the question again,” Hadley told the typewriter operator. “You want it for your personal informa- tion, I understand,” Rogers parried. “You understand my question, Mr. Rog- ers, I think, without evasion,” said Hadley, with a coldness equal to that of the witness. “I want an answer. Read the question again (to the operator) and I ask the Com- missioner to direct the witness to answer it.” “I think, Mr. Attorney-General,” said the Commissioner, "that you ought to ask whether it is a fact or not. You ask what the witness desires to say to the Supreme Court of Missouri, and he states he does not care what the Supreme Court of Missouri desires him to say. I think the question ought to be, is it a fact or not?” “I say it has that effect,” said Hadley. “Is it a fact, Mr. Rogers, that you, as a director of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, do not know where its general offices are located ?” “Please read that,” said Rogers, and when the question had been repeated to him by the operator he added:"I should think, on general principles, that the offices -I wish, Mr. Commissioner, that the type- writer might be stopped; I cannot dis- tinctly hear. Cannot it be taken down by the stenographer ?” Again the question was read, the Attor- ney-General adding, “I don't want your opinion; I want an answer to the question as to whether you do or do not know where its offices are located.” "Well, to be specific and absolute, I really do not know, but I suppose they are located in Indiana, the company being in- corporated there, and, further, it being a matter of record, I prefer to refer you to the records rather than to trust to my memory," was the reply, given grudgingly. “Do you wish to say that you do not know it to be a fact that the Standard Oil Com- pany of Indiana has offices at 26 Broadway (the Standard Oil building in New York)?". persisted Hadley. “I still want an answer," he added. “Do you know whether the Standard Oil Company of Indiana has an office or offices at the building known as 26 Broadway?” "I have previously answered that in my answer in regard to Mr. Moffat's office, who is the president of the company." “Well, is your answer to the effect that the Standard Oil Company of Indiana does have an office or offices at 26 Broadway?" “I don't see how my language could be construed to mean that,” said Rogers, with an air that seemed to imply that the issue was closed, but Hadley drove only the harder toward his goal. “Answer the question,” he demanded. “I ask, Mr. Commissioner, that Mr. Rogers be directed to answer the question.” “I would like the question,” said Rogers, and the query was repeated to him as to whether the Standard of Indiana has an office at 26 Broadway. “I don't think it has; I don't think my answer implies that,” he replied. “Do you know whether it has or has not an office at 26 Broadway?" Hadley again asked, with an I-can-stay-here-as-long-as- you-can manner. Rogers had the question read to him once more and then his reply was, “As I implied in my answer only." “What is the fact, Mr. Rogers ?” Hadley kept on. “Has the Standard Oil Company of Indiana an office at 26 Broadway? Now let us be frank about it and answer without evasion. Has it, or has it not ?". “I am trying to give you a fair answer," was Rogers' only reply. “Further than that I cannot go. If you wish me to look into the matter I will do so and satisfy you on the question, if you are not already satis- fied.” “I certainly am not satisfied. Do you not know it to be a fact that Mr. Moffat, as president of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, has at the present time and has had for some time past an office at 26 Broad- way?” "I think I answered that previously.” “Well, give it again." “I would like to have it read; I would like to read what I stated.” “You can state it the same way twice without any difficulty, can't you?” “You didn't ask that question twice alike,” with sarcasm which was meant to be withering. Rogers had his way, and the question was repeated, but his reply still failed to satisfy the Attorney-General. “I don't know; I have never been in it,” Rogers said. “Now, I am asking you the question THE TAMING OF ROGERS 237 again," Hadley went on, taking a long show a statement. When we were here before, breath. “Don't you know it to be a fact ? we had argued in the Supreme Court of Mis- Now just give me an answer to that ques- souri an issue between the attorney-general tion." and ourselves as to the materiality of stock “My previous answer covers the question ownership, and the only way by which we exactly, and I will further state that I could reserve our rights, as we conceived imagine he has an office in the building, but them, was to have the witnesses decline to I never have been in it." answer upon the subject. The result was a Hadley had won at last, even though petition to Judge Gildersleeve, who has Rogers would only "imagine" that the entered no order, as we understand it, on office of the president of the Standard of the issue as yet, holding it until the Supreme Indiana is in the big Standard building in Court of Missouri passed upon the question. New York. Then came the crucial ques Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Mis- tion of the entire proceeding. If Hadley souri sustained the contention of the failed to force an answer to it, his cause learned attorney-general and held that we was lost. were wrong and that he was right. Now “It is charged in the information in this nothing remains for us to do but to come case,” said the Attorney-General, while with these witnesses who had declined to Rogers settled back into a stony reserve and answer upon this subject before. We have his lawyers became more than ever alert, got to yield to the decision of the court upon " that the Standard Oil Company of In- the subject. If the attorney-general will diana, the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of indicate which of these witnesses he wants, Missouri and the Republic Oil Company of we will call him.” Hadley promptly New York are, in the state of Missouri, in a called Rogers. combination and federation, trust and agree The Rogers who faced the Attorney- ment in violation of the anti-trust laws of General that day was not the Rogers who the state. Is it not a fact, within your had contemptuously defied the Supreme knowledge, that all or a majority of the Court and had flippantly compared his stock in those three corporations is held, interest in oil refining with his interest in owned or controlled by the Standard Oil Carrie Nation. Sullenly, he prepared to Company of New Jersey, either by itself or accept the punishment which he could not through some other corporation or indi escape. Not now was there any thought of vidual?" laughing the young Westerner out of court Fiercely the Standard lawyers rushed in and discrediting him in the eyes of the with objections to the question, and when nation. Rogers' answers were given the smoke had cleared away Rogers de- promptly and to the point until the climax clined to answer it “on the advice of coun- arrived, and then he forced his lawyers to sel.” Hadley was lost unless the Law, as he make the final, crushing admission for him, understood it, upheld him in his contention that the three oil companies operating in that an individual cannot skulk behind the Missouri, against which the Attorney- cloak of a corporation to hide his misdeeds. General was proceeding, were in fact all He admits that the weeks which followed owned outright or controlled by the Stand- were the most trying of his career, but his ard Oil Company of New Jersey, the great confidence in the virtue of existing law was holding-company of the Standard organiza- not misplaced. He appealed to the courts tion, although two of the three purported to of his state and when he returned to the siege be independent. of the Standard citadel he was armed with a “My knowledge is extremely limited decree which amounted to a dictum that with regard to the details of such matters," there are laws enough if those responsible was all Rogers would say. He glanced for their enforcement will only follow them toward Mr. Hagerman, upon whom again to the bitter end. Almost meekly, the fell the duty of lowering the colors of the Standard lawyers admitted their defeat. great corporation. Frank Hagerman, of Kansas City, had the “Subject to the objection that the fact is unpleasant task of officially recording Had- immaterial and incompetent," was the ley's-Law's—victory. statement made, dictated by Hadley and "Before proceeding, Mr. Commissioner," agreed to by the Standard lawyers, “it is he said, “I would like to have the record admitted for the purposes of this case only 238 AMERICAN MAGAZINE that now and during the time charged in the information, a majority of the shares of stock of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana and of the Republic Oil Company is held for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and that all of the shares of stock of the Waters-Pierce Company stand- ing on its books in the name of M. M. Van Beuren are held for the Standard Oil Com- pany of New Jersey.” Hadley had won his case. All that remained to him then, all that remains now to be done, is to present this admis- sion to the Supreme Court of his state. There is a mass of detail, much of it of im- portance, but here is the pith of the case. Without it, all else would be of little avail. Upon the court-probably upon the Su- preme Court of the United States-devolves the duty of imposing the penalty. The Attorney-General's task is virtually ended. He has pointed a way which others have already begun to follow. Ohio's Attorney- General has under way an investigation which promises to be as effective as Had- ley's and has torn their lambs' coat from wolf-like “pirate” companies operating in his state. The Interstate Commerce Com- mission has taken testimony which, if not disproved, discloses even more unfair methods of competition than the most bitter opponents of the Standard have dared to charge. The stories of the battles in other states must necessarily follow the lines of the story of Missouri's victory. In place of the Republic will be found other “pirate" companies. Upon other attorney-generals will devolve the task of proving that under varying names most of these companies are but creatures of the Standard, as Hadley proved them to be in Missouri. What does it all mean to the country, this victory of Hadley's—to the consumer and to the independent oil producer and re- finer? Chiefly, that the day is not far dis- tant when the real independents will be freed from an enemy which strikes them in the dark and stabs them in the back--from the “pirate” Standard companies; when in this respect, at least, the independents shall have a square deal, when at last they shall have their chance to live. Ask any independent oil man and he will tell you that “pirate” companies quite as much as rebates are the main factors in enabling the Standard to maintain a virtual monopoly of the oil business. He will tell you that he can meet the Standard in fair and open competition and hold his own, but even if no secret rebates were given by the railroads he would still be always on the verge of ruin in the face of “pirate” compe- tition. To the independent a cut in price of a fraction of a cent a gallon may mean a loss of thousands of dollars; to the Standard the same cut would involve hundreds of thousands; to such a “pirate” company as the Republic the cut means even less than to the independent, for except where an inde- pendent is to be driven to the wall a “pirate" company will not accept, much less solicit, any business. It may cut the price of oil far below cost and still its loss is insignificant. Where a consumer is dealing with a Standard company a “pirate” never interferes. Its business is only with the inde- pendents, and to drive them out of a field it will resort to every extreme and no hamlet is too insignificant for it to conquer. Protesting its own hatred of trusts and monopolies, and always under the cover of being the independent of independents, the “pirate” descends upon a hard won field of some insignificant rival of the Standard and enters upon a fight that can have but one outcome. Compared with the immense profits of the Standard, the losses of the “pirate” are trivial, yet to meet the cuts and slashes in prices the real independent must sacrifice not only all possibility of profits but soon he has had to go far below actual cost or lose his trade. When bankruptcy or worse has ended the unequal struggle, the "pirate” retires from the field, which is then cleared for the only remaining dis- penser of a necessity of life the Standard. Until human nature changes there will be only here and there a consumer who will permanently place his principles above his pocket, and until “pirate” companies are exterminated, as Hadley has exterminated them in Missouri, the independent will have but scant opportunity for a square deal, rebates or no rebates. Hadley has not only removed this thorn from the flesh of competition in Missouri- he has blazed a clear trail which others must follow if they are true to their oaths. No longer is it possible for attorney-gen- erals to say it can't be done, for Hadley has opened the doors so wide that he who does not now enter acknowledges that it is not because he cannot but because he will not. VA y “Smilin' like chessy cats " Mrs. Teasley's Summer Boarder By Mrs. L. H. Harris AUTHOR OF "MARY FRANCES," "LITTLE APRIL," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES PRESTON E Z T was prayer-meeting night wa l k at old Zion church, and nearing the revival season. About this time every year E4 Pappy Corn was wont to As bestir himself spiritually. During every service he sat like an old gew- gaw saint in the amen corner listening to Deacon Snow's exhortations, to Bob Teasley's confessions or to Prim Mayberry's experience, with a solemn face which con- tradicted the twinkle in his eye. But no degree of religious excitement ever induced him to break his own shrewd silence upon such occasions. And even the Stranger did not know his real mind concerning revivals or the spiritual state of the community. But on this particular evening he heard a story which proved Pappy's worldly wisdom in comprehending some phases of religious emotions. They were seated upon the horse-block in front of old Zion church 239 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ſ pamilsko ob "Deacon Snow's exhortations" awaiting the hour of service. Pappy always broke his own silence. Meanwhile the Stranger watched the coming of the sum- mer night, which was always a sort of sad miracle in the Valley. In the morning the sun promised that it should never happen again, there was so much light everywhere, so many reflections of it from the earth and streams and green tree-crowns, that dark- ness seemed the one thing incredible. Then night stretched wings from peak to peak above the encircling mountains, and all hope of light changed to starlight. Sud- denly in the midst of this rhapsody of thought the Stranger caught sight of a smile upon Pappy's face which was like an ancient translation of youthful folly, it was so impertinently out of keeping with the dignity of the hour. “Th’ mind of er man air er mighty cur- ous country, son,” he immediately retorted to the look of astonished inquiry upon his companion's face. “Thar's so many dif- ferent ways of gittin' inter hit. Now, I reckon thet sunset an' them sorrel lights 'pon top of Blood Mountain hev been like an aurora borealis ter th' thoughts in yo'r mind. I reckon yo've been settin' here enjoyin' 'em upon th' tablelands of yo'r own soul, er wharever hit air thet er man keeps his speritual hilltops; bet they jest remind me of one of th' most ongodly ex- periences we ever hed in this Valley, becase hit were an evenin' like this thet I seen her fust, settin' right here whar we air now." “Her? Who was she?” “In th' fust place, she were Missis Teas- ley's summer boarder; in th' second and - third place, she were, by nater an' vocation, er croquett." "A croquett'! What do you mean?” asked the Stranger, who had only an epi- curean definition of the term. “Yo' needn't pertend, young man, thet yo' don't know what she air. Er croquett air er female with th' sentimental sense of irresponsibility too highly developed in her. An' she air borned ter mischief ez th’sparks fly upward. An' ef one of 'em ever makes er pass at yo', yo' hain't likely ter fergit hit." “You speak with feeling." Pappy's face smoothed out suddenly, then wrinkled wittily, shamelessly, as he replied, “Twenty years ago I hed right smart feelin's, one sort an' t'other. I hain't sayin' thet they wuz allers ez moral ez Deacon Snow claims hissen air, bet I be gol derned ef they wan't erbout th' most natchel I ever hed in mer life!” “Tell me about them.” “Oh, no, I wouldn't go so fer ez thet, bet I'll tell yo' erbout Missis Gurley, an' th' revival she brung on here at old Zion. An' then yo'll onderstand why I sets up an' smiles like th' blamed old Pharisee thet I am when them fellers gives in ther experi- ence. Fer they don't tell hit all from A to Izzard, an’they know thet Billy Corn hain't no better manners 'an ter remember t’other part right thar while they air expurgatin' hit. Th' truth is, I wan't no better off mer- self, bet I didn't get ketched out in th' open same ez they wuz.” Pappy clasped both hands over the knob of his walking stick, leaned forward and began. “Ez I were tellin' yo', hit all happened mor'n twenty years ago, an' by this time Missis Annie Belle Gurley may be er saint in heaven, harpin' on her harp, bet then she were er snatchin' young widder, restin' up here in th' Valley fer her next winter's frolics. I've heerd sence thet she weeded er wide row in society whar she came from, an' she wan't erbove doin' er little gyardinin' even amongst us. “One day Bob Teasley's youngest gal, Loretta, come over ter our house an' telled 240 MRS. TEASLEY'S SUMMER BOARDER 241 Marthy thet her ma hed took er summer boarder. Said th’ boarder's name were Missis Annie Belle Gurley, thet she hed er white poodle dorg with har longer 'an hern, an' thet she wore pink silk petticoats. She said th’ dorg slept in th’ same bed with th' boarder an' thet her ma wuz afeered they'd git fleas in th' house. I don't know which riled Marthy th' worst, th’ dorg er th' col- ored undergarment. I hev allers said she were prejudiced agin Missis Gurley afore she ever laid eyes on her. Anyhow, th’ next night were prayer-meetin' time, an' th' fust thing we seen when we come in sight of th' meetin' house thet evenin' were th' Teasleys' boarder. She were sittin' on th' hoss-block, pink petticoat an' all. An' ev'y deacon in old Zion church wuz standin' round her, clawin' at ther gray beards an' goatees, an' smilin' like chessy cats. The women hed drawed off ter one side, lookin' at one another an' then at her like er passel of barnyard hens tryin' ter make up ther minds ez ter what kind of fowl hed lit amongst 'em. Bet th deacons knowed. Lord, yes! She'd bridled ev'y one of them old turkey buzzards. So they wuz ready ter receive her inter th' church, Sabbath school, any place she'd er notion ter shine! “I were fer stoppin' with th' deacons ez we come by, bet Marthy took one look at thet little peafowl saint on th' hoss-block, drawed back her head like she'd peck at somethin', an' she sez, "Yo' come on in th' meetin' house with me, Pappy, whar yo' belongst!' I knowed what were passin' under her big gold breastpin, same ez ef I'd been her heart's blood, bet jest ter try her I sez, “Th’ Teasleys' boarder air er mighty fine-lookin' woman.' “Marthy set down fust, then she set up turrible straight, an' sez she, “Now, don't yo'git took in by thet little huzzy, Pappy!' “Marthy!' “Don't “Marthy” me, Billy Corn; I knowed th’minit I set eyes on her what she wuz. Thar's too much color ter her under- close an' too much lightness ter her top ones. I heard her say somethin' ter old Jonathan Snow ez I went by erbout Moses, bet she hain't th' right tone of voice ter be talkin' erbout them Bible people. Thar hain't no peace er quietness in her ways. She's fiz- zlin' up out thar afore them old tom-cats too much ter suit me. Yo'mark my word!' “Well, sir, things happened so fast arfter thet, I didn't hev time ter mark her words. I reckon th' boarder were used ter bein' in th’ thick of things at home, an’ ez thar wan't much goin' on here thet summer out- side th' church, she jest natchelly lit inter th’midst of thet, an' kept on bein' what she were already, er croquett. Maybe she didn't know no better. Some folks kin keep mighty ignorant of th’ devilment they kicks up. Anyhow, in less 'an er month th' whole community were swimmin' in er pink an' yaller maze of glory, created fer th' most part by th’ color of Missis Gurley's har an' her smile. She took er class in Sunday school, called 'em th' 'prodigal sons,' an’I be gol dern ef ev'y decent man in th’ Valley didn't try ter jine hit! She come ter prayer meetin' with fust one deacon then 'nother, an' Bob Teasley wan't no more'n her lackey boy. Pore Missis Teasley couldn't git out much. She hed ter stay at home with th’ dorg when Missis Gurley went off ter meetin', becase th’ dorg were more spiled 'an er teethin' baby, an' Missis Gurley wan't willin' hit should be left alone. An' bet fer Marthy, I reckon I'd'a'been in th' thick of hit. One Sunday mornin' I heerd her sniff ez she caught sight of Deacon Snow amongst th' 'prodigal sons' with er zinia pinned in his buttonhole. He were er widder man fer th' third time, an' he were buddin' out like James Reston "Like the blamed old Pharisee thet I am" 242 AMERICAN MAGAZINE an old cherry-tree do sometimes durin’er warm spell in th' winter. “We hed preachin' onst er month, bet when th' pastor come he 'lowed he felt sech er tide of speritual emotion risin' in th' com- munity thet he'd stay an' hold er revival. An'we hain't never hed sech er quick revival ez thet one. Missis Gurley acted like er live coal on th' altar. She hed wonderful success with them foolish prodigal sons, and I didn't know whether ter be sorry er tickled years then, mister. An' 'thout knowin' hit we'd got ter be like th' vine an' th' branches – Marthy bein'th' vine an' me th' branches! 'Tain't beauty ner jest charms thet keeps er man faithful ter his old wife, mister, hit's becase they gits ter be one. They don't ‘make love,' no more'n yo' talk ter yo'r- self. Bet ef anybody'd a-told me thet I could be onfaithful ter Marthy, even in th' sheet lightnin' of mer ongodly mind, I'd 'a' knocked him down. Still this is what hap- lul “ Th' pruttiest thing I ever set eyes upon" at th' young preacher. He were er good man, an' no more knowed what were th' matter with him 'an ef he'd been er baby. When Missis Gurley looked kisses at him from th' pew, with th' tears in her eyes (an', mark yo', I hain't sayin' she knowed they were kisses, but maybe she'd jest got in th' habit an' blinked 'em in childish inner- cence), th' pore feller thought hit were th speret movin' him, an' he'd light in ter preachin' like er archangel. 'Twere good sound doctrine, too, an' must o' made th' devil feel foolish, seein' whar th’inspiration come from. “Marthy an' me hed been married thirty pened—an', mark yo', I hain't th’ one to ac- cuse Billy Corn of onfaithfulness, bet I'm jest tellin' what happened. “One day in August arfter th' revival hed closed, an' ev'ything hed settled down on th’ way back ter nater from the sublime heights whar we'd been callihootin', I were settin' on th' end of th' footlog acrost Brass- town creek fishin'. Me and Marthy wuz th' only members of old Zion thet hedn't received er blessin' endurin' th' meetin', bet ez I set thar watchin' th' meller-bugs skeet in th’ water, I never felt more inner- cent sence I been er man. Then I heerd er voice, er little soft bob-o-link female voice. MRS. TEASLEY'S SUMMER BOARDER 243 “Oh, Mister Corn, how yo' frightened wouldn't set. She helt on tight, opened her me!' hit says. eyes ergin mer shoulder an’sez, “I looked up an' thar stood Missis Gur- “Oh! Mister Corn, yo’ve saved mer ley, half way ercrost th' footlog, with her life!' skirts tucked up an' four inches of white “No'm, I didn't,'sez I, very perlite an' stockin' showin' erbove her little high-heel tryin' ter git loose. 'I jest saved yo'r clothes. shoes. I wished I may die, mister, ef she Th’ water hain't more'n four foot deep wan't th' pruttiest thing I ever set eyes here!' upon. She'd done her har in some operatic “Bet I reckon she were too dazed ter fashion thet wan't wise, bet were fetchin'. onderstand, an' afore I knowed hit, I were Her mouth, sorter tipped open, showed all standin' out thar high an' dry with th' wid- ris James, Pustry on “ A-holdin' of a woman that wan't no moral kin to me" th’ red; an' she stood thar lookin' at me, poised, ez ef she'd take ter th' treetops er ter th' water, bet she wouldn't come a step nigher me. I say thet's th' feelin' she give me afore I hed time ter jerk up an’set down on mer feelin's. Then she drawed her dress er mite higher, put t'other hand on her breast, shet her eyes, an’sorter swayed like she'd drop in er minit. “Thar wan't bet one thing to do, an’I done hit. “Goddlemighty!' sez I, runnin' out an' getherin' her up in mer arms. Bet when I went ter set her down on th' bank she der in mer arms, an' without th' grace of God ter set her down on th' ground whar she b’longt. I know'd in reason she didn't hev no more feelin' erbout th’ situation 'an ef I'd been er skeercrow out thar in th' cornfield. I hain't er doubt she were laughin' in her sleeve at me th' whole en- durin’ time. Bet thet didn't help me none. Well, sir, hit were beginnin' ter git dis- graceful, me standin' thar on th' water aidge of th' entire neighborhood a-holdin' of er woman agin mer breast thet wan't no moral kin ter me. An' hit flashed inter mer mind ter wonder what Deacon Snow er 244 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Prim Mayberry would think ef they come primpin' long ergo. Bet she hed honor an' up behint an' seen th’ sight. Thet fetched peace writ deep in th' wrinkles of her face, me ter me senses. I've heerd some folks let an' hit seemed ter me I could feel hit shinin' on ter despise public opinion, mister, bet erbove me thet evenin' like er golden text. I've been at th' place mor'n onst in mer life Ner I wouldn't hev changed her fer th' whar hit stimulated me ter do th' squar prutty gal I brung home years before ez thing, when ef hit hadn't been fer thet I mer bride." mought hev acted like th' rudimentary sav. Pappy's mind slipped away into the past age er man air by nater. I eased her down with Marthy, and there was silence for a on th' grass very gentle an' perlite, took off. moment. Then he drew back into the mer hat, scraped mer foot back in er fine present with a quizzical, deprecating smile, bow ter her, an' then I lit out fer home, leaned back, clasped his hands above his lickety split. Ner I never looked back no head, and went on with his story. mor'n ef she'd turned ter er piller of salt. “Bet hit hain't natchel fer er man ter stay “Marthy were ironin' when I stepped in sanctified fer long at er time. Th' experi- th' do', bet I knowed something hed ter be ence air too high fer him, I reckon. Any- done quick, fer ev'ywhar I looked I seen how, ez I set thar with mer very soul restin' thet little yaller-headed, blue-eyed woman agin th' quiet of Marthy's speret, th' sun lookin' at me. Of course hit were jest mer drapped behint Blood Mountain, th' road imagination, but yo' can't fool with yo' from Brasstown seemed ter rise erbove th' imagination any mor’n yo' kin with yo' ground an' float out of sight among th' hills morals in er case like thet. like er long white scarf. An' all at onst, “Marthy,' sez I, drappin' down on th' right in th' midst of sech scenery an’ mer do'-sill, ‘git th' bresh an'er fine-tooth comb own redeemed sensations, I ketched sight of an’ rake mer head fer me.' She set down Missis Gurley comin' ercrost Sockwell's her iron, looked at me outen her kind old meadow from th' creek, like er fancy pow- eyes an’sez in her kind, scoldin' voice, der puff thet were blowed erlong by th’ “I hain't time ter be foolin' with yo', breeze, she moved so light, an' looked so Pappy; I gotter finish this ironin?.' feathery. I set up, ez fur from Marthy ez “Yes, yo'hev. I'm obleeged ter hev mer th' East air from th’ West, an' I sez ter her head combed this minit,' sez I. Mister, ef ez deceitful ez Satan—'Well, I must be one of them irresponsible croquettish goin' ef I aim ter git back from town afore women ever makes er pass at yo', jest cut night. Much obleeged ter yo', Marthy!' fer home, an'git yo’r wife ter rake yo’r head She riz an’ went back ter her ironin', an' I with er fine-tooth comb. She kin comb took out fer Stallin's store arfter Missis Gur- more devilment outen hit at one settin' than ley. I didn't hev no business at th' store, er preacher kin with er year's sermons. ner none with Missis Gurley, an' ter this Marthy put th’iron back ter th' fire, brung day I don't know what possessed me. Ef her cheer an’set down, an’I laid mer old I'd come up with her, I couldn't er said tomfool head agin her knees. nothin', ner done anything. I were jest "Did yo’ketch any fish?' she ast, bresh actin' th' blame fool an' couldn't help hit. in’ mer har down soft. An', mark yo', I hain't complainin' of thet “No,' sez I, 'bet I mighty nigh ketched woman any mor'n I'd complain ef th' wind th’ devil!' With thet I be blamed ef I didn't come erlong an' blowed th' hat offen mer drap mer face down in her ap'on, an' bust head. What's th' use of complainin' ergin out cussin’. th' wind? Tain't responsible-an' thet's “Pappy,' sez she, 'what's th' matter?' mer pint. Er croquettish woman air Fer she knowed I wan't th’ man ter blas- dang’rous, not becase she air weeked, fer pheme jest ter be er blasphemin'. .. nine times out of ten she hain't weeked. “I'm sick,' I 'lowed; "hed er turrible Bet she air like th’wind, she hain't respon- spell yonder by th’ river. Bet yo’ keep on sible ernough. She blows too much whar breshin' mer head. Hit's doin' me er heap she listeth, an' yo' cain't teach her better of good.' So hit were. Th’ stroke of her any mor'n yo' could teach er June breeze smoothin' hand riz an' fell like th'wing of er ter kurry er cow!” • Pappy chuckled de- bird. Son, thar's virtue in er good woman's lightedly at this startling simile and went hand which outlasts ev'y other charm. on. Marthy were gittin' old then, she'd give up “Well, sir, yo' cain't never tell when th' MRS. TEASLEY'S SUMMER BOARDER 245 US Lord'll retch out an' save yo’ from th' error of yo'r ways in spite of yo'r gol- dern foolishness. So He done thet day. Fer ez I were polin' long arfter Missis Gurley, I seen Jim Bledso comin'. Jim were er big, good-natered, out- breakin' sinner thet warn't afeerd of nothin' whether he'd saw hit afore er not. Th' only mean trait he hed were naggin' th' church members with ongodly frankness erbout ther mor- tial shortcomin's. All thet summer he'd been winkin' et Missis Gurley's prodi- gal sons. Onst when he seen er bunch of 'em study- in' ther Sunday school les- son afore church time, he lit inter bellerin' like er bull yearlin', an' when Deacon Snow didn't hev no better sense an' ter ast him what were th' matter, he 'lowed he were th' fatted calf. Now, of course, I hain't James Peston Too excusin' his sacrilegious ways, bet hit's er mighty “ Yo'-contemptible-coward—” good plan ter fight th’devil with fire when yo' can't do no better, an' gardin'angel fer even er prodigal son, much as I seen him comin' I were lead by er sper- less fer old Deacon Snow an' Bob Teas- et ter do thet same thing. I hain't sayin' ley,' he 'lowed. what kind of speret hit were, bet th' idee “No, she hain't, bet she don't know hit, popped inter mer head from somers ter Jim. Thet pore, innercent, ongodly little sick Jim Bledso on ter Missis Gurley an' woman don't hev no sense of th' harm she see if hit wouldn't clear up th’ moral atmos- air doin'. She air jest out of somethin' ter phere which were gittin' too full of pisen do, an' she's fer havin' er high feelin' time sweetness ter be healthy. with our old boy saints up here. Bet she "Wait er minit,' Jim, sez I, 'I got er goes erbout hit th' same way she flirts with favor ter ast.' We set down beside th' them society sinners whar she comes from. road, an' after I spit er time er two, I sez, Now saints cain't stand thet kind of foolin' Jim, yo' hain't never done much fer th' nigh ez steady ez them hardened fellers salvation of this community. she's been dealin' with, an’ I'm here ter ast "Not much, Pappy,' he admitted, 'be yo' ter bring Missis Gurley ter er sense of yond tryin' ter keep th' church members what she air doin'. Yo' air th' only man in straight, an' they air gittin' erhead of me th’ Valley equal ter her in irresponsibility in now!' He looked mournfully down th'road them matters, an' I appeal ter yo' ez er at Missis Gurley trippin' erlong like er publican an’ er sinner ter bring thet wom- pink an' white cloud out of th' sunset sky an ter her senses afore some of us loses “Thet's th' pint, Jim. I'm here ter ast ourn! yo' ter do 'em one more good turn. Yo've “I'll do hit, Pappy!' sez he, an' I saw Missis Gurley, I reckon ?' turned round ter go home with rest in mer “Yes, an' she hain't what I'd call er safe mind, fer I hed er right smart confidence in 246 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Jim Bledso when hit come ter doin’er piece of devilment. “Next day word went round thet Jim Bledso 'ould give er corn shuckin' at his house th' comin' Sa'day night. 'Twan't th' time of year fer corn shuckin's, an' I smiled ter merself. An' we all went. Th' widder were ez much intrusted in th' frolic ez she'd been in th’revival, an' fer th’ same restless, shinin' reason. She wanted er chanst ter fluff herself an' ter be entertained, an' hit were all one ter her whether th' occasion were er revival or er frolic. “Th’ rest of us were thar settin' round th' pile of corn when her an' Bob come in. An' she were th' pruttiest, whitest, pinkest, sweetest smellin' thing yo' ever see. She come in er talkin' an' she fluttered erbout er right smart tryin' ter make up her butter- fly head I reckon ez ter which old thistle- top she'd light on. Bet afore she could decide betwixt me an' Deacon Snow, Jim looked up at her with them sweet calm, dare-devil eyes of hissen, an' 'lowed he'd took th’ liberty of keepin' er seat fer her by him. She flopped right down in hit an' lit in ter tickle th' heart outen his body with her fetchin' ways. Th’ boys wuz huntin' fer red years of corn, so, cardin’ter rule, they'd hev th' chanst ter kiss th’ gals, an' nobody paid much attention ter Jim an' th' widder but me. She never thought onst of gittin' kissed herself. She wouldn't go so fur ez thet, an' she never suspicioned thet ary one of us 'ould dar ter take sech er liberty with er highferlutin' lady. Bet she didn't know Jim. Toreckly he helt up er red year of corn, an’ we all hollered an' laughed an' ast him which gal he'd kiss. Then there were er skeert silence, fer we seen him fix his shinin’devilish eyes on Missis Gurley. An'afore she could primp her mouth ter holler, he gathered her up an squeezed her ter his mouth same ez ef she'd been er pocket handkerchief. I never see er man kiss ez fast an’I never see er woman wiggle more. “Thar!' sez he, drawin' breath. “Them wuz fer yo'r pore prodigal sons, bet I hain't done yit! With thet he fetched her another hard one on th' jaw. 'Thet,' he 'lowed, 'were fer Deacon Snow, who hain't hed th' courage ter take hit fer hisself, an' this air fer pore Bob Teasley, who didn't hev th' right ter nary one.' Right thar, mister, I begun ter sweat, becase I seen him gittin' ready ter give her 'nother one ez soon ez he could dodge his head in betwixt her pro- tectin' hands, an' I were afeerd he'd call out my name. Bet he didn't-jest planted one last big one on her mouth an' cut his eye round at me ez he set her down. “Thar now!' sez he, 'I reckon yo'll know arfter this what yo'r little dern ways really mean ter men, saints or sinners!' Ez er rule I hain't in favor of er man cussin' afore women, mister. They hain't th'nerve ter appreciate th’speret in which we uses sech languidge. They air jest natchelly narrer-minded erbout hit, bet thet were one time when I felt she needed er dust of th' strongest words Jim hed. “Well, sir, yo' never hev saw er woman take on so. She reminded me of er pullet thet hev been chased up er rail fence by er mischievous puppy. She drug her wings, so ter speak, balanced this way and thet, rarred, an' talked so fast hit sounded like cacklin'. “Yo'— contemptible — coward- yo'-onfeelin'—wretch! sez she, steppin' up an' down afore Jim like she hed spurs on her legs. “Not onfeelin', mam!' sez he, breakin' in. 'I felt ev'ything yo' looked an' said an' acted; thet's how come me ter do like I done. I hed th’ courage of mer feelin's, which some of these other pore old tom- cats yo've been foolin' with hain't got!' With thet she jerked up her skirts an' flew outen th' house, while the women laughed an' all the men bet Jim looked sheepish. Deacon Snow were so embarrassed an' chawed so fast on his quid thet his white chin whiskers went up and down like er goat's beard. Then Bob Teasley riz an' follered Missis Gurley. I reckon hit taken er right smart courage ter do thet under th' circumstances, an' I've allers thought better of Bob. Ez he passed Jim, he 'lowed in er low tone, “Dang yo', Jim Bledso!' “Dang yo’rself,' sez Jim out loud, ‘fer lettin' her make er fool of yo'. I hain't meanin' by what I done thet she hain't er good gal. She's got ez much virtue ez any, I reckon, bet she air too go! dern keerless erbout mine an' yo'r'n!' sez he. “Th’ next day were Sunday, an' thar wan't er prodigal son at th’ Sunday school, ner Missis Gurley wan't thar nother. She'd took th' stage fer Blue Ridge Sa'day night. An’ she hain't never been back.” Reaping Where We Have Not Sown Practical Forestry as Distinguished from Sentimen- tal Preservation or Stupid Destruction-Habits and Characteristics of Trees in the American Forests -Splendid Achievements of Government Experts By Julian Willard Helburn ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE BUREAU OF FORESTRY C 6512AFAVOUTHERN lumbermen take Ou r great delight in a story of C N certain scientific gentlemen who were sent by the Gov- ernment at Washington to was study the growth and uses of the bald cypress, at a time when cypress lumber was comparatively new to the market. They went direct to a large camp, presented credentials to the superintendent, and watched with minute care the processes of cutting the timber and floating it down stream. Cypress is a light, spongy wood that grows in swamps and absorbs water readily. The scientific gentlemen requested the superintendent to throw some logs into the river separate from the main rafts, and fol- lowed their progress down stream in a boat. After floating south for some distance, the logs with one accord sank. Much surprised, the scientific gentlemen returned and fol- lowed another consignment. The phe- nomenon was repeated: at a certain dis- tance from the camp all the logs sank. The gentlemen from Washington, being very scientific, did not think to question the unlettered superintendent about the power of cypress to become water-logged, but after numerous observations and much compar- ing of notes reported to their Department the startling discovery that cypress floated north of a certain parallel of latitude, and south of it invariably sank. Of the cause they were not yet certain, but hazarded the suggestion that it might lie in the rotary motion of the earth, increasing in speed as the logs approached the equator until it was powerful encugh to draw them under. If there is any germ of truth underlying the yarn, it pertains to a past epoch, for the United States Forest Service today is a body of men as practical as they are scientific. Most states now have forest services. Lumber companies, match companies, rail- ways, paper-mills and other private timber owners are employing more foresters every year. But these confine their attention to their own immediate problems. The na- tional Forest Service, with its vast field for study in the national forest reserves, its large if not ample funds, and a propaganda as important as its field work, guides, where it does not direct, practically all American forestry. Forestry is a strictly practical science. It has nothing to do with abstract theory or landscape gardening. Young as it is in this country, it has quite shattered the concep- tion that once prevailed of it here as an amiable hobby of persons desirous of pre- serving scenery and wild game. It meas- ures its results solely in dollars and cents. Indeed, the youthful graduate of a school of forestry sometimes takes a perverse pride in his ability to stand unmoved in a magnifi- cent grove and figure on its stand per acre and the advisability of improvement cut- tings. “Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, And I'll protect it now." “Certainly, madam,” doubtless replies the forester, lifting his hat. “Those wide, branchy trees make the rankest kind of 247 248 AMERICAN MAGAZINE - - II. knotty lumber. Couldn't waste time chop- the sunlight plays on its leaves; its whole ping 'em.” Unless, indeed, the space oc- life and growth depend on it. Trees die of cupied by the spreading chestnut tree is exposure, they are killed by parasites and needed for more valuable younger growth, pests, but the only disease to which they are in which case he is as likely to heed the constitutionally liable is dyspepsia. If any poetic protest as the beef trust to defer to the chance cuts the sunlight from their leaves, outcries of the vegetarians. His own ideal they starve to death in the midst of plenty. tree is a glorified telegraph pole with leaves The death rate from this cause is appalling.. on its arms: one long, straight piece of The infant mortality alone is about 99 per lumber and as little else as possible. His cent. sole aims are wood and water, the protection The struggle for existence in the forest is of our important streams and the continu- usually the struggle for light. Sometimes ance of the lumber supply in the face of a there is not enough water or nourishment threatened wood famine. The protective to go around, and the struggle for these forest, the safeguard of the surrounding complicates the struggle for light. The re- country, is a subject in itself: it is with some sult is almost always a forest of peculiar aspects of the productive forest, the source type, the “open forest,” like that of the of the wood crop, that this article is con- Rocky Mountains, where water is scarce, cerned. or of parts of the South, where the soil is poor, so that one tree drains the resources of many yards of ground. The trees stand far apart, without underbrush, as if in a Habitually, we associate the forest with park. The ordinary close forest has plenty . the idea of peace. Its stillness, its majestic of food and water; its character and com- strength and extent, its extreme slowness of position depend entirely on the outcome of growth and change, make it seem the the struggle for light. "foster-child of silence and slow time." Now the forest is a community. Com- In reality, it is the scene of the fiercest and petition in it is fearfully keen, but the citi- most relentless struggle in nature. The zens pay taxes. They unite to maintain the warfare of the trees lasts for centuries with water supply and the street-cleaning sys- out a moment's let-up. It makes a fatal tem, the militia and the public schools. weapon of the most trivial advantage or To translate: by standing together they accident, and tallies a hundred victims for protect one another against high wind, one every survivor. Every tree that reaches of their worst enemies. They shade the maturity is hero of a dozen duels and ground and keep it moist, cool and rich, veteran of a continuous free fight. not merely for the benefit of their own roots, As an organism, the tree stands on its but for the protection and nourishment of head. Its roots, through which it takes its their delicate young. The young seedlings frugal diet of water and mineral salts, are are as sensitive to heat and drouth as to its mouth; its leaves are its stomach and darkness and excessive moisture, and even lungs. The water and its dissolved minerals when the parent trees, around and between are pumped to the leaves, which absorb which they spring up, give them just the carbonic acid gas from the air, break it up, right amount of shade and coolness they exhale its oxygen, and combine its carbon grow very slowly at first, often only an inch with the water into the organic compounds or two a year for four or five years. To of which the tree is formed. These are dis- meet the ravages of dyspepsia trees are very tributed in the sap to the various growing fecund, and if only a small proportion of parts of the tree, twigs, bark, sapwood and their seeds germinate, the crop of seedlings roots, and built up into cells. will probably spring up only a few inches The gastric juices of the tree, that carry apart. After a few years of slow growth on in the leaves the complete processes of their crowns begin to meet, and the ground turning water and carbon into wood, cleans- at their feet, now completely shaded, be- ing the surrounding air of carbon dioxide comes much cooler and moister than before and restocking it with oxygen, are two. At once they begin to grow rapidly, and the One is chlorophyll, the green compound struggle for light is on in earnest. The that gives the leaves their color; the other lower branches, shaded by the interlacing is sunlight. The tree can digest only when upper ones, die of indigestion, and all the 1 . A forest without underbrush : dense stand of redwoods nourishment from the roots goes to help the crowns, which are racing for life. As the saplings grow, there is not enough space or light for all, and the one that grows fastest in height and spread rises above its neigh- bors, overshadows them, kills them of dys- pepsia, and takes their room. The process is repeated again and again (for there may be hundreds of saplings on the space needed by a single mature tree) with the precision of a tennis tournament, the victors in each round meeting in the next, until four big 249 250 AMERICAN MAGAZINE saplings, those which happened on the best soil, or were least disturbed by insects, or showed the greatest innate power of growth, with vigorous crowns and stems already stripped clean by “natural pruning,” the shading off of the lower branches, are left to fight it out in the semi-finals. Eventually one of these will kill the others as the price of its own life, but the struggle eases up a little, while the trees make their greatest gains in height and diameter. Finally the trees which have succeeded in reaching maturity attain a height beyond which they cannot go. The mysterious machinery that pumps the sap from roots to leaves is taxed to its limit. The power of this machinery not only depends on the species, being greatest in the 500-foot giant View of a forest in its natural state with all trees standing eucalypti of Australia and our own 400-foot sequoias, but seems to vary arbitrarily with out by endurance. They can survive any individuals, one tree of a kind towering over amount of dyspepsia, and wait fifty or a the rest just as one boy in a family grows hundred years, overshadowed and stunted, taller than his brothers. for their taller neighbors to meet the tall tree's Immediately the limit of height is reached fate and make room for them. Many trees the struggle becomes fierce again. The find standing room by their willingness to crowns, heretofore conical, become flat, use ground that the others avoid. The bald and cannot expose as many leaves to the cypress and the ash grow in swamps, where light as before. Symptoms of dyspepsia ordinary seedlings would drown; the juniper set in, and to save themselves the trees must in the open, where other seedlings would be spread sidewise for more light, again crowd- frizzled by the direct sun. The bull pine ing one another, overshadowing and killing and the nut pine prosper where any other the weakest members. Here nature reveals tree would die of thirst, and the Engelmann one of her simplest and most ingenious de- spruce and the Alpine larch monopolize the vices. Not till they reach this stage do the highest mountain slopes, where they alone trees become prolific seeders, so that almost can stand the bitterness of the weather. all the seedlings of the new generation are The least difference in the surroundings the offspring of the strongest and fittest of makes one tree's weapon more available the old. than another's, and so changes the character The struggle is now over. Already the of the forest. In the Southern swamps, younger generations are well up between wherever the ground rises so much as a foot the isolated veterans of the old. The tree above the water, the cypress, which lords which survives the last, sidewise struggle, if the rest of the region, must give way to the it escapes the enemies of the forest, fire, pines. The northern slope of a hill may be wind, insects and the ax, dies at last of old monopolized by a swift-growing, delicate age and decay. Only the giant sequoias, tree that needs coolness and moisture, while three thousand years old and sound as ever, the southern is given over to a much slower are immune from decay. They seem to be species that can stand great heat in summer immortal. as well as frosts in spring and fall. Of course, trees don't grow naturally in neatly timed generations. In the virgin forest, trees of all ages grow together in III. grand confusion, carrying on the struggle for light with half a dozen kinds of weapons. The various character of our great The walnut, for instance, and the poplar, forests—we have five, not counting our semi- win out by sheer speed—they grow almost tropical flora—is the result of the conditions visibly. The hemlock, on the other hand, in which they have arisen and the different and the spruce, very poor sprinters win weapons that conditions have favored. REAPING WHERE WE HAVE NOT SOWN 251 base on the edge of the Plains, and tapering to the Atlantic seaboard, where it edges between the interlacing tentacles of North- ern and Southern, lies the great Central broadleaved forest, “nowhere equalled in the temperate zone in extent and perfection of form, and hardly in the number of species.” A sybaritic forest it is, growing only where it can find rich, deep soil; a forest of extraordinary variety, never twice the same in composition, yet falling into a few fairly stable types according to the moisture of its soil. On the dry ridges and gravelly uplands are the tanbark oaks, the rock elm, the chestnut and the hickories. On lower, well-drained tracts, the beech and sugar-maple, in equal numbers, often Same forest after improvement cutting. Several trees have been removed because of their condition make up most of the stand, with the bass- wood usually at their heels. The ash, the Four of the five forests are composed of bald cypress of the broadleaved forest, conifers, and one of broadleaves. The rules the swamps and lowlands, with the conifers—pines, firs, cedars and so on-are silver maple, the water elm, the poplars and what we used to call evergreens; and the the yellow birch for subjects, while in the broadleaves — oaks, birches, elms—what cool, moist coves and hollows just above, we called deciduous trees. Forestry has the choicest and most exclusive spots of the changed the names because certain of the forest, is gathered a small, aristocratic pine family, like the larches, are deciduous, coterie of our most valuable trees. Its and certain of the oak family, like the live- social leader is perhaps the tulip-tree, a oaks, evergreen. forest personage of delicate constitution, but The Northern forest stretches in what distinguished presence, with a marked ten- was once an unbroken carpet from Maine dency to race suicide. With it are the costly to Minnesota, and picks its way down the walnut and cherry, the retiring butternut cool, high slopes of the Appalachians far and the yellow birch, the last a parvenu into the South. It is a forest of hardy coni- from the vulgar lowlands. fers, indifferent to cold, queened by the The oaks, by right of their historic promi- white pine, once the finest timber tree in the nence, pose as the wardens of the broad- world. Once, for the white pine is the bison leaved forest and thrive luxuriantly every- of the vegetable kingdom, a sacrifice to where, seeming to keep tab on the conduct American recklessness. Her rivals, now of all circles. her survivors, were the Norway pine, the West of the Plains the broadleaved trees spruce, the balsam fir and the hemlock, cut hardly any figure, either in size or num- sturdy, indomitable trees all. ber, among the great conifers. The Rocky Symmetrically with the Northern, the Mountain forest runs out from the Sierras Southern forest sweeps up from the Texas to the edge of the Plains, clothing the slopes coast to Chesapeake Bay, with outposts of the innumerable ranges wherever the following the sunniest lowlands into Mis- altitude and rainfall will permit. Begin- souri and even into New York City. In ning at 3,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level and swamps, where the cypress holds sway, its climbing to timber line at 10,000, it is great, gaunt trunks knee-deep in the black snapped off at either end with almost abrupt water, the Southern forest is tropically precision, forming a clearly marked stripe tangled, but for the rest it is a belt of sad, of somber green between the yellow-brown spacious woodlands, of yellow pines, tall, of the open country and the purple and languid trees with naked trunks and plumy white of the peaks. Its overlords are the tops, growing far apart in the thin, sandy bull pines, big shapely trees, their heavy soil. shafts yellow on the south, black on the In the triangle between the two conifer- north. Living on the least possible rainfall ous forests, a thousand miles wide at its fifteen inches during the growing season 252 AMERICAN MAGAZINE -they stand far apart so that each may acre on the Pacific Coast yields fifteen to have plenty of soil to drain, rising unen- twenty thousand. Telescope the Southern cumbered from the mountain bunch-grass- and Rocky Mountain forests, toss the "like picnic groves," one tenderfoot put it. Northern on top of them and stuff the Cen- Above them, on the cool slopes where the tral Broadleaf into the chinks and, acre for snowbanks lie in the hollows all summer, acre, the Pacific forest will outweigh them are the Engelmann spruces, smaller, thicker all. Leaving out the Big Trees, of which trees, with a furry, well-clad air. And there are only a few groves, its monarchs, where even the bull pine would die of heat the redwoods in California, the Douglas and thirst two little outliers, the nut pine in spruce in the north, grow commonly to Arizona and the red juniper farther north, three hundred feet or more. Plant a well- bob up in twos and threes and patches on grown redwood in Fifth Avenue and a good the very edges of the desert. average Douglas in Broadway, and they It is almost impossible for one who has would interlace their crowns over the Flat- seen only the Eastern or Rocky Mountain iron Building. A single redwood often forests to imagine the woods of the Pacific yields a hundred thousand board feet of Coast. Pictures of the Big Trees are as lumber—as much as twenty to forty acres common as postage stamps, but the most of Eastern forest. wonderful thing about the Big Trees is that The redwood forest is open and park- they are scarcely bigger than the rest of the like, with little brush, but the woods of the forest. The Pacific Coast bears only a Northwest are as impenetrable as those of tenth of our woodland, but nearly half our the Northeast-on a thrice larger scale. timber. An average acre in the Rocky All the trees grow to immense height and Mountain forest yields one to two thousand diameter, but the Douglas spruce, which is board feet of lumber, in the Southern forest the Douglas fir, which is the yellow fir, three to four thousand, in the Northern which is the red fir, which is the “ Oregon forest four to six thousand. An average pine" of which the masts of cup yachts are S ] Conservative lumbering No trees felled less than a foot in diameter; tops cut to cordwood and brush piled for burning A greater enemy to forests than the woodman's ax made, and which is really neither spruce nor fir nor pine but a species of its own, is lord of them all: the most picturesque as well as the most valuable tree of the den- sest forest in the world. IV. The chief difference between the old style lumberman and the forester is that the one regards his forest as a speculation, the other as an investment. The one wants the quickest, the other the largest and steadiest return for his money. The old method is to fell all the big sound trees of a desirable species in a forest, without regard to their surroundings; withdrawing the necessary shelter from a crop of seedlings in one place, killing others in the fall and removal of the timber; here felling all the seed-trees, so that there will be no repro- duction, there clearing the way for a worth- less species that will promptly choke out the valuable ones; cutting the best sections from the fallen timber, and leaving the tops and boughs and parts of the trunks to dry and rot and clutter the forest floor with highly inflammable rubbish. Those parts of the timbered forest that do not degen- erate into mere brush grow a thin second crop of very inferior lumber, and sooner or later the inevitable spark, dropped by the locomotive or the camper or the lumberman himself, finds its way into the dry refuse, and what is left of a thousand acres or a thousand miles, as may be, of woodland goes up in flame. old-style lumbering started in incon- tinently with the ax. Conservative lum- bering begins with a working plan, which is a compromise between the forest and the market. For every tract of lumber the nature and habits of the forest and the distance and requirements of the market present a new problem: the forester must devise and follow a forest policy that will combine the largest returns and smallest expenses with the greatest productiveness of his forest. 253 254 AMERICAN MAGAZINE For his knowledge of the history and proaching old age (the last rings are pretty habits of his timber he is indebted mainly thin). Hold on a minute; here's a false to the way in which trees grow. If you ring—twenty-forty-forty-six years back. drive a nail into a young sapling at a point Two very thin rings-see? instead of one four feet above the ground, and return when thick one. Means that something inter- the sapling is a fifty-foot tree, you will find rupted the growing season-probably a late the nail still four feet from the ground. frost. Let's ask the oldest inhabitant." The tree does not stretch: it adds to its And the chances are ten to one the oldest height. The only parts of it that grow in inhabitant remembers the hard spring of length are the yearling twigs; the annual 1860 and has heard tales of the great wind gain in height and spread is precisely the in 1806. length to which the new twigs, put out in the A few such studies of typical trees and an spring as buds, have attained when the estimate of the average stand per acre give frosts come. After their first year they are the forester his data; which trees are best fixed, and grow only in thickness. The new adapted to the local conditions, which grow wood is now laid on in a thin layer between the fastest, which can endure enough shade the old wood and the bark, over the whole to grow successfully under the others, when tree. That which is added in the spring, each species reaches maturity, and above all when the sap is running, is built of thin the period of life at which each species walled, open cells; the summer wood, put grows fastest in volume, the stage at which it on when the sap needs less passageway, is makes most lumber per annum. Then he much closer and darker. Each annual ring turns to his market. If he has but a single of new wood, consisting of a light and a dark valuable tree and the market for its lumber stripe, is distinct from the others. in large sizes is steady, his problem is sim- With this slight basis, the forester reads ple: to discourage other varieties, and to the history of a tree in great detail. After cut all of his marketable species as soon as taking out a few “borings” to the center of they have reached, or nearly reached, the the tree at different heights and counting end of their stage of greatest volume- the rings on them, he may spin you such a growth, always leaving a small percentage yarn as this: as seed-trees, and always piling and burn- “This tree is 150 years old-(150 rings ing his refuse. He may begin with an im- at the base). During its first five years it provement-cutting, removing trees that grew only seven inches (145 rings, seven are dead or dying of dyspepsia, and giving inches from the base). Evidently it then their room to the successful trees. If this began to touch crowns with other saplings, pays for itself in cordwood and rails, as it for it took a spurt and put on fifteen inches often does, he will repeat it every few years. a year steadily till it was 40 years old (40 Or, if his marketable trees are scattered, he rings, 447 feet above ground). It was not may leave standing large numbers of an growing as fast as its neighbors, however, absolutely worthless species, partly to pro- for at this point it began to be overshad- tect the seedlings, partly to crowd the valu- owed, and its growth declined for the next able trees, for too little crowding is almost ten years to as little as four inches a year as dangerous as is too much. If the sunlight (45 rings at 48 feet and 50 at 50 feet). penetrates below the crowns to the lower Just in time to save its life, something hap trunks, they will branch, and branches pened to its big neighbors, presumably a mean knots, and knots mean bad lumber. wind-storm-let's see, that would be 1806— For quality as well as quantity, the forester and it resumed a steady growth of about six wants his trees as close together as their inches a year, having passed its fastest health will permit. growing time. Its growth in thickness If his forest is spruce in the Northeast he doesn't seem to have varied much: about will probably find it more profitable to cut an inch every three years; but it grew for pulp for the paper-mills than for lumber, faster and faster in volume, of course, as its and perhaps to cut his trees younger than height increased: a little over a cubic foot he would for lumber, since tops and boughs a year in its prime of life, I should judge. make as good pulp as trunks. If his forest About thirty years ago it reached maturity is spruce and white pine mixed, he may be and stopped growing in height (30 rings at able to grow small spruces for pulp (the the top of the main stem), and now it is ap- spruce is almost proof against dyspepsia), - -- - - - - - Na Heavy stand of red fir, nearly pure; hemlock underwood under big white pines for lumber, and get a supply ties to the nearby railway. Any double profit, producing an impromptu wood does for ties, so he will cut all he can "two-story forest” like those carefully de- spare at first and then encourage his fastest- veloped in European forestry. growing variety. If he has any broadleaf Or his forest may be too far from the trees or redwoods, he will promptly cut timber markets to compete with more most of them close to the ground, and wait accessible tracts, and his only chance to for sprouts. The stumps of the redwood 255 Trees as a protection against sand How one spot of land along the Columbia has been reclaimed and most of the broadleaves send up shoots which, nourished by the disproportionately large root system, grow much faster than the original trunks. They never grow very large, but those of some species are big enough for ties at thirty years. In every forest conservative lumbering is a different process, but always with the one end in view: to harvest an even annual crop if the product is valuable enough to pay good interest on the investment; if not, to clear off the available timber in such fash- ion that the forest will profit rather than suffer by its removal, and then to return as soon as the new crop has reached market- able size and repeat the performance; to encourage, where possible, the most valu- able trees and keep them growing as close together as safety permits, so that the stand on each acre may be a large one of clean, straight lumber and may produce a new marketable crop at the shortest possible interval. Once his scheme of conservative lumber- ing is fairly working, the forester's chief concern is to protect his property from its natural enemies. Against wind and drought and frost, of course, he can do nothing. Against destructive lumbering and the grazing of sheep, which nibble and trample the seedlings, a force of a few rangers will suffice. The great danger is fire. The chief task of the rangers is to prevent it, for though it is sometimes started by lightning and more often by sparks from engines, it is usually due to carelessness with camp- fires and brush-fires and cigarettes. Once started, it may burn underground or along the ground, feeding chiefly on the “duff” or humus, the thick forest carpet of decay- ing vegetable matter. The underground fire is a treacherous enemy; it may smolder for weeks without even a sign of smoke, but does little damage till it emerges as a ground fire. Then, if the season be autumn and the woods dry, it may do a vast deal of harm, destroying seedlings, weakening sap- lings, scarring the larger timber and con- suming the vegetable mold without which the next crop of seedlings cannot get a start. If the fire has good headway it can only be stopped by a ditch cut across its path through the humus to the mineral soil below, and the first protection of a forest against fire is usually a system of such ditches, known as fire lanes. In hilly coun- try, they follow the tops of the ridges, where the fire, which burns naturally uphill, is 256 An example of bad lumbering The result of freshets due to removal of timber from headwaters sure to be weakest: in flat country they are half as many lives. In New Brunswick, in laid out like streets, at convenient intervals. 1825, a fire swept a path 25 miles wide and Even the fire lane will not stop a bad fire, 80 miles long down the Miramichi River in but it always serves as a base of operations, nine hours, killing everything in its path. from which a back-fire may be started. Even the fish in the river were boiled. against the wind, in the path of the oncom- But such catastrophes, even under the ing flames. When the two fires meet, both reckless old régime, were mercifully few, go out for lack of. fuel. and in a well-kept forest, properly logged, Sometimes in the resinous coniferous with rangers to attack ground fires the mo- forests, a ground fire, fanned by a powerful ment they are discovered, the danger is wind, will become hot enough to climb the minimized. trunks of the trees and run through their tops. When this happens, there is no way of fighting it. The only protection against a top-fire is to run, and to run like blazes. So much for the work of the forester. It is a convulsion of nature, against which Now how about this rumored extermina- man is as powerless as against an earth- tion of our forests that he feels called on to quake. It moves as fast as the wind behind prevent? It is not an easy thing for the lay- it, and nothing can stop it but a change in man to conceive. We have all stood on a the wind, turning it back over its own dev- hilltop and looked over an expanse of forest astated track, or a broad river across its vast enough, apparently, to keep the whole path. One such fire in Michigan in the civilized world in lumber until kingdom early 70's swept a lane forty miles wide come. And over a third of our enormous from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, kill- territory is covered with just such forests. ing several hundred people and destroying But our history tells a different tale. When seven thousand square miles of the finest the first settlers landed, the area now com- forest in the country. The Peshtigo (Wis- prised in our boundaries was distributed consin) fire, of 1871, destroyed two thou- something like this: sand square miles of timber and more than Forest, 62 per cent.; brush land, 8 per 257 258 AMERICAN MAGAZINE doubled or nearly doubled in price, while falling off sharply in quality. The situation is easily summarized. In 1898 Dr. Fernow, ex-Forester of the United States, made this estimate of our total standing timber in his report to Congress: Northern States..... 500 billion board feet Southern States..... 700 Rocky Mountains.... 100 Pacific Coast........ 1,000 " " " cent.; open country, 30 per cent. At present 18 per cent. of our territory is under cultivation. Of this one-third, 6 per cent., has been reclaimed from the open country and two-thirds, 12 per cent., from the forest, so that, allowing for the legiti- mate demands of agriculture, we should ex- pect the present distribution of surface to be: farm land, 18 per cent.; forest, 50 per cent.; open country, 24 per cent.; brush land, 8 per cent. As a matter of fact, it is, roughly: farm land, 18 per cent.; forest, 35 per cent.; open country, 24 per cent.; brush land, 23 per cent. Nearly a third of our nominally remaining forest, that is, has become brush land: nearly a sixth of our entire area thrown on the brush-pile. Practically every acre of this is chargeable to one ac- count: lumbering. Perhaps two-thirds of it, 10 per cent., has been actually cleared with the ax, and the remaining 5 per cent. destroyed by fires, due almost wholly to our fatal methods of lumbering. As the country has been settled nearly three centuries the mere fact that we have used up three-tenths of our forests is not appalling. At this rate, the remainder should last us for seven centuries more, and by that time we will probably have found substitutes for wood, both as fuel and for construction. But nearly all our lumber- ing has been done in the last sixty, and most of it in the last thirty years. Our con- sumption of wood increased by leaps and bounds till about a decade ago, when it settled to a comparatively steady gait, and that decade has sufficed to bring the crisis upon us. In ten years our most valuable lumber, the white pine, has been practically exhausted, and our other woods have Total ............. 2,300 " which, he adds, is a very liberal estimate. For the Twelfth Census, Henry Gannett estimated the total stand, in 1900, at 2,150 billions of board feet. This year, Mr. Defe- baugh, editor of the American Lumberman, estimates it at 2,000 billions of board feet. Allowing for the annual cut in the intervals between them, the three estimates are strik- ingly close, and probably accurate. The Twelfth Census placed the annual cut at 35 billion board feet. Other estimates place it as high as 40 billion. On the basis of the lower figure, our forests have about 57 years to live. : If the loss by fire continues, as heretofore, to be half as large as the annual cut, the goose that lays a billion dollars a year in golden eggs will gasp its last in 1944; and unless forestry comes to the rescue, we may expect our grandchildren, opening the re- vised edition of the dictionary for 1950, to turn with some curiosity to the definition: Tree, a large, arborescent form of vege- tation, extinct (save for a few specimens in captivity) in the United States, the greater part of which it formerly covered: still ex- tant in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South and Central America and Canada. Cf. Bison. ORN co Annie Keenan's “Hit” By Gilbert P. Coleman WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROSE CECIL O'NEILL EV EN HY, what a charming ga-url -gay-url-ga-a-y-erl.' Oh, rats!” exclaimed Annie Keenan, as she flung the manuscript petulantly on the is bed and looked helplessly over at her mother. “What's the matter, Ann?” asked Mrs. Keenan from her comfortable chair near the little wood stove. “I just can't say it-I mean, I cahn't say it like Miss Ardavani does. She's our lead- ing lady. She's got it down like them Eng- lish; makes it sound kind o’ high-salaried like.” “What you tryin' to say?" “Why, goil; just goil. Here's the lines,” she said, picking up the manuscript: “Why, what a charming goil you are, to be sure!' and then she hustles across the stage and lifts her skoits. Say, maw, you ought to see th' embroidery on that under-skoit; it's simply great. She dresses to beat the band.” "Well,” said Mrs. Keenan, who, having been born on the old sod, had contrived to preserve a pronunciation free from the in- fectious imperfections of the East Side, "why can't she say gur-r-1 an' be done wit it? An' there's nothin' to this play actin' nohow, wit your photygraphs, an' your em- broidered skirts, an' your comin' home late at night, an' your face all red as a herrin' wit'th' paint. Ye'd betther get a job in th' 259 260 AMERICAN MAGAZINE stores an' be a dacent saleslady, an’ stay at their wonderful tales of the fascinating life home at night wit' your mother.” Where- behind the footlights had early settled in upon Mrs. Keenan, with whom her daugh- Annie's mind what her life work should be. ter's choice of a profession was a constant She would join a “show”; she would work though not altogether unpleasant griev- hard; and she would wear "gowns," and ance-for it afforded her unlimited oppor- have her photographs in the magazines. tunities for objection and argument-with- It happened, therefore, that one day, drew to attend to the washing. shortly after arriving at the mature age of Annie's apartment was about six feet seventeen, she had, through the mediation wide by ten long, and was disposed in what of a former schoolgirl friend who had been was conceived to be a manner suitable to a whole year in the business, been presented one in the “profession.” It was four flights to the favorable notice of the manager of a up-four very dark, carpetless, ill-smelling musical comedy company-one of those flights. The right half of the ground floor productions that appeal to the eye, and in a was used by Mr. Terrence Sullivan, truck- less degree to the ear, but are not much con- man, for the stabling of his horses and dray cerned with the understanding. The man- in the night season, and on the left half of ager had looked her over critically. Her the ground floor Mrs. Keenan and the other face, with its half-comical, partly turned-up housekeeping ladies of the tenement had nose, with its Irish gray-blue eyes and fair established a sort of communistic wash- complexion, was very attractive, there room. But, however depressing the effect could be no doubt of that. Her figure, of the approach to Annie's room may have though girlish, was well proportioned and been, the interior afforded a striking and entirely fit and proper for the exigencies of cheerful contrast. There was a carpet, and musical comedy costuming; she could hum the windows, opening on the street, were a tune and was very fond of dancing. bright and comfortable with lace curtains. These particulars eminently satisfied all the On the right as you entered the room was most exacting requirements, and in short Annie's “road” trunk, a huge cubic box, order, to her unutterable delight, she had of the kind to be obtained at a bargain in the found herself engaged for the chorus of the department stores, with her name stenciled “Land of Nonsense" company at the munif- in large black letters on either end, and icent salary of twelve dollars a week, with “New York" underneath. Annie, it is true, six changes of costume, all of which were had not yet been on the road, but she had supplied free of charge by the management. purchased the trunk with her very first earn- Annie could scarce believe her good for- ings, in order to be prepared. All first-class tune. It seemed as if her most extravagant artists, she had been informed, were thus dreams had been crystallized into glorious equipped. reality. And, as she had expected, she Between the two windows was the found the work fascinating. She was bureau, the first and last essential of any always early at rehearsals. Extra matinees lady's boudoir. This was a small, unam- served but to whet her appetite for more. bitious piece of furniture, with a mirror that Annie was ambitious and determined to failed miserably to do justice to Annie's live up to that pretty little room at home, somewhat irregular but altogether piquant whose artistic embellishment plainly de- style of beauty. It was rendered formidably manded a complete professional success. decorative, however, by being made the But it was slow, disappointing work, espe- receptacle for a bewildering multitude of cially so as all the girls in the company were photographs, many of them pictures of her bent on that identical object, though none own pretty face, signed across the front with so heartily and with such undiscouraged her “stage name” in an unsteady, angular devotion. In one respect, at least, she was hand, obviously aiming at the usual eccen- in her element and far the superior of the tric, theatrical effect: “Faithfully yours, other girls in the chorus. For even in her Dorothy Darrell.” girlhood days on the East Side she had been It is not surprising that to a girl of Annie's noted as the best dancer in her block, and exuberant fancy the stage should have made when the hurdy-gurdy men came around, a strong appeal. A number of her acquaint- crowds would gather to applaud her, pir- ances had already joined the vast and con- ouetting and skipping about with all the stantly growing ranks of the chorus, and grace and abandon of one who had been “ I think I can do the part” 262 AMERICAN MAGAZINE trained to the ballet. A keen-eyed manager successful run, Miss Flossie Duprée, the would perhaps have observed some of these company soubrette, had been suddenly in- indications of superiority: the hardening of disposed-a privilege peculiar to actresses the calf of the leg like a boy's, the easy grace and prima donnas when ordinary mortals with which the knees were bent, the absence are either sick or ill. It was therefore “up of those jerky motions so often noticed in to” Miss Flossie's understudy, a young the ordinary chorus; and, more than all, that woman who rejoiced in the name of Venus evident relish and zest for the music, the Lemonde, to take the part. This particu- almost irresistible inclination to keep time lar young lady, unfortunately for the peace to the rhythm, the swinging of the head from of mind of Abe Meyer, the stage manager, side to side, and the romping yet graceful had been subjected the week before to what carriage of the whole body. she had regarded as a highly indecorous and The play had been running to crowded humiliating “calling down," right in the houses for more than two months, but in presence of all the ladies and gentlemen of spite of all her efforts Annie had not yet the chorus. She had, in fact, been chidden succeeded in advancing herself to the favor- for lateness at rehearsals, and had further able attention of the manager. She was been summarily fined two dollars. There- still a “back-liner” and her salary was still fore, being already disaffected with her twelve dollars a week. But she was not position and prospects, as she declared discouraged. On the contrary, setting to through her tears, and having a much better work harder than ever to make her way to "job" in view (a circumstance almost the front she had evolved a scheme which, invariable under the conditions), she had to one of a less determined and buoyant abruptly terminated her engagement and disposition, would have appeared hopelessly taken herself off in a huff. Thus, whereas impossible. the manager was in the possession of a In the “Land of Nonsense” company principal and an understudy for every part each leading character had an understudy. in the cast except one, for that particular These substitutes were chosen on account part he had no one at all. of an ability which had already been proved It was already half-past seven o'clock, by the acceptable performance of some the doors had been opened, the lights were minor part. Annie was well aware that she up. Mr. Meyer, a small, bald-headed had very little chance of being selected as gentleman, was fretting and swearing on the the understudy of any particular character, stage behind the huge asbestos curtain, yet it occurred to her, in one of her exuber- walking nervously about in a maze of ropes, ant moods, that if she learned the parts of drops, properties and general paraphernalia. all the women principals, and thus, as it A messenger who had been dispatched to were, became a second understudy for every the residence of Miss Duprée, stating the female rôle in the cast, Fortune would have desperate nature of the case and urging her a considerably larger opportunity of smiling to come if it were by any means possible, upon her. It seemed at first a formidable had just returned. It was out of the ques- undertaking, but in reality was not. Con- tion for the lady to leave her bed; the doctor stant presence at all the performances and had absolutely forbidden it. close attention to the “lines,” dances, music A small, commiserating group of stage and“ business” soon enabled her to become hands had surrounded the manager and fairly familiar with each of the four rôles offered from time to time various sympa- contemplated in her enterprise. In the thetic and impossible suggestions. spare time at home she supplemented her “Cut out her part, Abe," urged the car- work at the theater and made herself letter- penter. perfect by copying out the lines and reciting “Cut it out! Cut it out!” he exclaimed them to her mother, a critical and not irascibly as he pranced up and down, duck- altogether inspiring audience. ing a “drop” that suddenly descended from At first it did not seem that this method, the flies. “You talk d- nonsense. How arduous and somewhat desperate though it can I cut out the soubrette? You might as was, would accomplish the desired result, well cut out the lights and music.” though never for a minute did Annie waver. It was at this crisis that Annie Keenan, It chanced, however, that one night, when arrayed to represent a gorgeous and totally the production was in the midst of a very impossible butterfly, with bare arms, legs “ Brace up. You've made a hit” encased in pink “strip” tights, her face cov- ered with paint and rouge, her gray-blue eyes set in a frame of unnatural, almost uncanny blackness, and with two flaps of gauze protruding from each shoulder to represent her flying apparatus, stepped for- ward to the knot of men and, addressing the perspiring stage manager, said in a hesitat- ing way, “Mr. Meyer, I think I can do the part.” He paused abruptly as he was about to whirl around for another reckless dash across the stage, and stared at this unex- pected apparition of human butterfly in very evident astonishment, not unmingled with indignation. “What, you?” he said, while the crowd circled about them curiously. “Yes, sir.” "Now look here,” he exclaimed, brusquely recovering his wrath, “I don't want no but- tin'in. I won't stand for no joshin'. I'm in no mood for it." And he started to make his way through the throng. But Annie knew her chance had come and was determined to stick to her guns. "Well, Mr. Meyer,” she replied as calmly as her rapidly beating pulse would permit, “I've studied the lines, and I know 'em. I know the dances, too—and the 'business.'” He stopped and looked at her again in- credulously, though he was visibly im- pressed by the bright light of truth that shone manifest in her eyes. “You know the lines and the dances,” he replied. “Where'd you learn 'em? What'd you learn 'em for?” Annie felt herself reddening even under the generous varnish of paint that overlay her own pretty complexion. “Oh, I just done it for fun," she said in some embarrassment. It was now nearing eight o'clock. The asbestos curtain had been raised. Every inch of room off the stage, in the wings, up in the wooden galleries, on the staircases leading to the dressing rooms, in the large open space behind the back drop, was crowded with a heterogeneous mass of men and women, extravagantly and fancifully costumed and “made up," looking, when seen close by, like grotesque creatures from another planet-all ready for the opening chorus. The manager in his torture of per- plexity stepped to the peep-hole in the can- vas curtain that still separated the audience from the stage, and gazed out into the front. 263 264 AMERICAN MAGAZINE The house was filling rapidly. The musi- cians were already in their places. He turned again and looked at the butterfly carefully. "Sure you can do it without breaking down? Got your nerve with you?” It was not, perhaps, the best way of im- parting assurance, but Annie, who saw fame already within her grasp, was not the one to let it slip without a struggle. “Sure,” she replied. “Do you know the cues?” asked Meyer, haunted by persisting doubts. The situa- tion was quite beyond him. He could not comprehend how this miracle of a chorus girl could come to his relief at the eleventh hour and solve a difficulty that threatened to wreck the performance. “Sure," repeated Annie. “How about the costumes ?” he asked glancing at her figure. “Guess you'll do, though. Well, hurry, get into your clothes. And say!” he shouted as Annie started off joyously for the wings, "if you get stuck in the dances, just fake a few steps. Steevens will pull you through.” Steevens, the chief comedian, was “doubled" with Annie in the two dances in which she was to take part, and the stage manager hurried off to put him on his guard. Fortunately for the smooth conduct of the performance, at least during the early stages, Annie was not to make her appear- ance until the first act was nearly half over, a circumstance that enabled her, with the assistance of the wardrobe mistress, to work her way into the costume usually oc- cupied by the less copious person of Miss Flossie Duprée. She was cast as the leader of a female bandit gang, and the costume was purposely intended to give her a ridicu- lously fierce aspect. Wound about her head was a gaudy red turban, of the kind thought to be affected by enterprising Italian brig- ands. The jacket was of black velvet with yellow silk slashes and big black beads. In her belt were thrust a murderous knife and a brace of old - fashioned dueling pistols. VII F 22 SK “ I've read about your success in the papers" ANNIE KEENAN'S “HIT” 265 The skirt, of yellow, black and red, reached below the knees, and in order to render the effect sufficiently incongruous she wore, instead of boots, a pair of dainty, low-cut dancing slippers. This ferocious lady bandit was scheduled to appear at every performance on an elevated ledge of rocks at the rear, somewhat in the “Fra Diavolo” fashion. A series of rustic steps led from this ledge steeply down to the level of the stage. Never for a moment had Annie expected to be troubled with stage fright. She had, to be sure, heard of that dread disease, and had occasionally seen small symptoms of it. The life that she had led on the East Side was not of the kind that tends to establish or develop an inclination toward diffidence But now, as the minutes wore on and the time for her cue approached, she experi- enced a queer, unaccustomed sinking in the pit of the stomach-her fingers grew cold at the ends, her tongue and lips became dry and parched, and in her eyes there was an unusual sparkle of excitement. Mr. Meyer, who had stationed himself in the wings, eyed her narrowly as she climbed the steps behind the scenes leading to the ledge on which she was to make her initial appear ance. With the keen observation that had come from long experience he noted the nervousness in her manner, and there was despair in his attitude and remorse in his soul. And when at length the fateful mo- ment came, he swore softly to himself. Annie, standing high up on the top step behind the scenes, got her cue, and, walking out unsteadily over the rickety ledge, ap- peared in full view of the audience. It would not have been so bad, possibly, if the wings had not been so crowded with the company, gazing at her curiously, un- sympathetically, ruthlessly. She could not get the swarm of their staring, painted faces from before her eyes. They seemed to haunt her and to mock her, even as she arrived at the middle of the parapet. The audience, which had been warned of the change in the programme, gave a few friendly hand-claps of encouragement, and Steevens, the comedian, stood alone down on the stage waiting anxiously for her to take up her cue. But she saw and heard nothing. The feeling of vacuity inside her changed to giddiness and seemed to switch to her head. She arrived at the top of the steps where she was to speak her first lines; but they would not come to her. And then she suddenly realized what was about to happen. For the first time in her life she was going to faint! Yes, strive as she would to break through the awful cloud that was settling over her senses, she could utter no sound. Her tongue was literally locked to the top of her mouth. The cruel glare of the limelight for a moment dazed her and then seemed to go abruptly out and to leave her in total darkness. Her legs began to tremble miserably at the knees. Reaching out blindly with both hands for support she lost her footing, and then, with a clatter and a crash, fell precipitately, un- compromisingly, hideously down the full length of the “practical" steps, and struck the stage with a thump. From his station in the wings Meyer raved and swore like a madman, the curious crowd of the chorus stared with eyes wider open than ever. Steevens, after recovering from his first astonishment, was about to rush forward and with gentlemanly cour- tesy inquire of the lady bandit if she had been seriously injured. At this point, however, a strange thing happened. With her first misstep Annie had instinctively thrown out her arms, and thus securing a balance, had fallen per- pendicularly to the stage, and, emphasizing each step of her descent with a very audible bump, had landed squarely on her feet. The audience with customary perversity, readily assuming that this was a novel acrobatic feat on the part of the substitute soubrette, rendered a tribute of hearty laughter and applause. Nor did it desist when Annie, whose tumble served partly to bring back her wandering senses, looked about with wide-open mouth, her pert nose and ridiculous make-up giving her the ap- pearance of anything but a dreadful ban- dit chief. Steevens' long experience had made him intimately acquainted with the public pulse, especially with that of the play- going public, and he grasped the situation in an instant. Stepping quickly to Annie's side he muttered under his breath, “Brace up. You've made a hit!” The unintentional passed unnoticed. For the situation was gradually beginning to dawn on Annie herself. These people were applauding her! She had made them laugh! She-Annie Keenan, of the rear line of the chorus—was getting “hands” by the hundreds! She had made a hit, accidental, it is true-and 266 AMERICAN MAGAZINE it began to hurt a little—but it was a bigger hit than even Flossie Duprée had made. The applause and the laughter and the boisterous shouts from the gallery were like a stimulant, and set the blood once more stirring in her veins. She felt a sharp twitch of joy as she beheld the house in a tumult before her. “Speak up!” again excitedly whispered Steevens; and he prompted: “Well, here we are, my hearty!” The lines came back to her like a flash. “Well, here we are, me hearty!" she re- peated. They were the first words that Annie had ever uttered to an audience in a public per- formance. But they were successful. It is true that her voice quavered somewhat, and her manner seemed a trifle uncertain, but perhaps this very circumstance, taken in connection with the generally fierce aspect of her costume, and the still open-mouthed wonder with which she surveyed the house, and, above all, the strangeness and totally unexpected precipitation of her “entrance," afforded an ingredient that sent the audi- ence off into convulsions of laughter. Staid old gentlemen down in the orchestra chairs fairly wept for joy, women searched the programme in vain for the name of this extraordinary gifted young woman, hitherto unknown, and the gallery, always appre- ciative of cleverly executed acrobatic “stunts,” howled its approval. “You're all to the mustard," again whispered Steevens before going on with his lines, pending the subsidence of the tempest in the audience. In the meantime Meyer stood at the edge of the wings, distracted by a spasm of doubt. Were they, to use his favorite expression, “ joshing" her? Had she “queered the show"? Had he made a big fool of himself to send on this wholly untried chorus girl to take an important part ? Should he cut out the number-ring down the curtain ? But his doubts were presently dispelled. For, when the storm of really hearty and spontaneous laughter had passed off, Annie, encouraged further by the inspiring sotto voce of her partner, quickly recovered her assurance, and with the restoration of her confidence the tremor went out of her voice, the natural gayety and vivacity of her man- ner returned, and the lines and the “busi- ness” went on as smoothly as if Miss Flossie Duprée herself had been present. B ut it was when the dance came that not only the audience, but Meyer himself, and the still curious and puzzled chorus, and the stage hands, and even the phlegmatic Ger- man gentlemen who composed the orches- tra, were astonished. Never had there been such dancing on that stage before. Steevens had been “tipped” to take the responsibility of the number on his own shoulders, but he soon found that he could relieve himself of any anxiety on this score. Indeed, whereas hitherto he had attracted at least half the attention and applause of the audience by a certain lumbering, awkward, comical agil- ity, he was now merely an appendage-a foil. Once the familiar strains of the dance struck up, Annie was at home. With all the old abandon and childish delight of her hurdy-gurdy days, intoxicated by the lights, by the applause, by the smiling approval of the audience, she entered into the swing of the music, bounding about with the untiring elasticity of a rubber ball, executing the most difficult steps with that appearance of perfect ease which comes only with natural ability supplemented by practice-swing- ing her curly head from side to side, romp- ing through the measures in a complete and contagious enjoyment. And when at last she danced herself off the stage, exhausted but supremely happy, there was a storm of applause, of vigorous, insistent, applause that warms the cockles of the managers' hearts, of applause to which she and Steevens-who had suffered total eclipse were obliged to respond by a double en- core. Thus it was that the most difficult part of Annie's task had been accomplished. The ice had been broken;, the rest of her work passed off without a hitch. She had scored a hit, even as Steevens had said, a palpable hit--the biggest personal success in the entire run of the “Land of Nonsense.” It was at the end of the performance that Meyer rushed up and seized her by both hands. The stage manager was not usually given to demonstrative betrayal of approba- tion, but on this occasion the sudden change from apparent rout to overwhelming vic- tory perhaps put him off his guard. “Say,” he exclaimed, by way of congratu- lation, “that piece of business was great. Who put you on to it? You tumbled a- purpose, didn't you?” A nnie, overwhelmed in a flood of tri- umph, a flood that drowned or at least ANNIE KEENAN'S “HIT” 267 temporarily submerged her usually sturdytion of the music, seemed somehow to fade and assertive conscience, answered: away, and in their place there came an "Sure. I thought it out meself.” Nor anxiety, and something else besides, which did she count the cost when Meyer replied, she could not define, but which weighed "It was all to the good. We'll make it a down her spirits like lead. A pathetic pic- regular feature. I'll have a mat on the stage ture of her little room at home kept recur- to-morrow night, so if you don't fall on your ring to her mind. She thought of all the feet you won't hurt yourself.” preparations she had made for her fame-a The congratulations of the company were fame that had been acquired only to be voluminous, though perhaps not propor- rudely snatched away. tionately sincere. But Annie was swim- For three nights she suffered a torture of ming in a sea of delight and scarce heard dread and anxiety, and then, determined what they said. And that night, as she left at least to end the period of suspense, she the theater and, according to her custom, sought out the stage manager and asked made her way home alone through the de- him abruptly when Miss Duprée would be serted cross streets, the only words of all the well enough to reappear. congratulations that recurred to her were “Don't you worry about that, my dear,” those of Steevens, when he had muttered replied Mr. Meyer heartily as he regarded during the thundering of the applause, her with a smile of approbation. “I'm "You are all to the mustard.” going to give you the job. You've made For a week afterward Annie lived in fairy- good, and you'll get her salary, beginning land. She was now one of the principals. next month." She was in the limelight both literally and bright light of exultation flickered in metaphorically. Her stage name-Dorothy Annie's eyes for a moment, and then as sud- Darrell-had appeared in all the papers denly died away. Here was the very assur- with highly commendable notices. A rep- ance that she had longed for, a virtual guar- resentative of one of the illustrated week- antee of future success, and yet in some lies had interviewed her and she had pre- strange, incomprehensible way it failed to sented to him one of her photographs with give her comfort. For a moment she was the “Faithfully yours, Dorothy Darrell” on silent, and then with an effort at unconcern it. Her world was cloudless, full of song, she asked: and success, and gladness. All her most “What'll you do with Miss Duprée ?” extravagant dreams had come true. "Oh,” he returned-heartlessly this And then at the beginning of another time, as it seemed to Annie-"she's got no week a speck appeared on the horizon, and contract. I'll let her go. Or," he added, this speck became a smudge, and then the with a diabolical grin, “she can have your whole sky was overcast. For one night, place in the chorus.” after she had scored her customary second And now, in spite of all she could do to encore in the dance and had returned prevent it, a heavy, deadening pall settled breathless to the wings, she overheard a down over her spirits. She fought against it, member of the company make a chance tried to reason it away, but all in vain. The allusion to Miss Flossie Duprée. bright light of her happiness had grown Miss Duprée! In all the tumultuous joy quite dim. The overflowing cup of joy had of success she had never had time to think lost much of its sweetness. She had, indeed, of her for a moment. To be sure-Flossie as the manager had assured her, “made Duprée! What of her ? good.” She would be "featured” among She began to be vaguely troubled. All the “head-liners”; her salary was to be this must have an end, then. Miss Duprée, more than doubled. Yet, in spite of all the real soubrette, the rightful owner of the this-- rôle, whose place she was usurping, must And then one morning late in the week, ultimately recover, and “Dorothy Darrell” in one of her impulsive moods, incited pos- must step out of the limelight; she must sibly by the prompting of a conscience that take her old place in the back line, and the had not been hardened by repeated rebuffs curtain would fall on all her dreams, on all and denials, she made her way straight to her success, on all her glory, forever! Her the home of Miss Flossie Duprée. heart sank within her at the thought. The S he found her in a comfortable, pretty glamour of the lights, the rollicking inspira- front room on the second floor of a West 268 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Side theatrical boarding house. She was for that night, after the performance, looking pale from her illness, which had still wearing the now familiar costume of a been quite severe, but there was a sweet bandit leader, she again sought an inter- earnestness and genuine frankness in her view with the stage manager. There were manner, not altogether to be expected under tears in her eyes and desperate choking in the circumstances, as she held out her hand her voice that she struggled hard to conquer. to Annie and asked her to take a seat. Yet she was collected and gravely insistent, “I've read about your success in the while Meyer, argumentative, protesting, papers,” she said in a manner quite free raging and petulant, pumping wildly with from affectation or insincerity, "and I was his arms, swore and ranted about the stage, so glad to hear it. It was one chance in a as was his weakness. thousand. I am sure it will lead to your A ll is grist, however, that comes to the getting something good before long." mill of the press agent. And on the follow- The gloomy pall settled itself down stilling Saturday there were sent to all the morn- more hopelessly over Annie's soul. A flush ing newspapers, for publication on Sunday, came to her cheeks, and her eyes fell in manifold typewritten notices, which duly embarrassment. She felt like a culprit, like appeared as follows: one who must say something in extenuation "The Land of Nonsense' continues its for the commission of a grievous fault, but career of uninterrupted prosperity at the she could only mutter some obvious com- Metropolis Theater, and will reach its one monplaces by the way of reply. hundredth representation on next Tuesday “You know,” continued Miss Duprée night, on which occasion a handsome sou- cheerfully, “I'll be well enough to go on venir will be presented to each lady attend- again Monday night, and when I see Mr. ing the performance. The many friends of Meyer I'll put in a good word for you. Miss Flossie Duprée will be pleased to hear They say your dancing is elegant. You that she is sufficiently recovered to resume ought to have something better than the her rôle as Felippa, the female bandit lead- chorus." er, in which character she had scored one And then she told Annie of her own of the biggest hits of the season. Miss career, of her own obscure beginnings, of Dorothy Darrell, who undertook Miss Du- her own early home on the East Side-of prée's part during the latter's absence, and her days in the chorus, her ambitions, her whose work has been quite satisfactory, will failures, her heartaches, her ultimate suc- resume her former place in the chorus, cess. It was a story wonderfully like which, by the way, is said to be one of the Annie's— indeed, the minuteness of the handsomest and most capable in the busi- resemblance fairly startled her. It was a ness.” story that had been duplicated over and over again in the life of many a girl of the chorus, who by persistence, ability, sensible “Well, by gum!” said Mr. Steevens, come- living and the final arrival of the lucky op- dian, after he had read this notice, and was portunity had at last arisen from obscurity talking it over with another member of the to prominence. company, “I thought Abe Meyer knew a Annie's visit was not a long one, nor was good thing when he found it. It looks to it one to make her happy. But it strength me like a case of throwing away good ened her in a great, bitter, a heartbreaking money. But maybe," he added, on careful determination. She had made up her mind. reflection—“maybe Flossie's got a pull.” The Confessions of a Life Insurance Solicitor A Bona Fide Narrative from a Veteran's Note-Book By William McMahon JESTERDAY I was talking placing the page so I could see, proceeded insurance to a rather un- as follows: promising prospect who an- “Your deposit is $289.50 per year for nounced that all life insur- twenty years—at the expiration of the ance agents were liars. He twenty year period you draw out in cash, was a smaller man than as you can see, $7,750.00. Or you can myself, so I refrained from hitting him. take the option of a paid up policy amount- However, it set me to thinking anew over ing to $17,000.00—or you can choose a number of experiences in my own life option No. 5 of an annuity—or life income which I should like to set down here to of $450.00 a year for the entire period of show the kind of thing upon which the your life, even should you live one hundred public's idea of the life insurance agent is years. Of course at your death, if it occur based. any time during the twenty years, your Thirteen years ago I rented an office estate is paid $10,000.00, the full face of for the practice of the law in Buffalo, your policy, or you can make it payable to N. Y. At the end of eighteen months I anyone you desire or designate.” had never lost a case, for I never had a This was the first intimation I had had, case to lose. One afternoon I was sitting so far, of the size of the policy he was talk- at my desk in idleness, almost in despair, ing. While he was setting forth the latter when a gentleman opened the door of my part of this information, he drew from his office, walked over to where I sat and ex right hip pocket a ponderous pocketbook tending his hand inquired, “Is this Mr. of several compartments and selected from McMahon?" one of these a certain blank. I answered, “Yes." “You look in perfect health,” said he, “Jones is my name,” said he. “though you will have to be examined I bade Mr. Jones be seated. He did so. by a physician. I cannot insure you at From this distance I remember that the all. The doctor is usually the main spoke. two predominating characteristics of the There's a lot of formality in this business, man were deliberation and perfect ease you know. It costs you nothing for ex- of manner. He handed me his card. amination. The company pays the doc- From it I learned that he was special agent tor. There are no fees, no dues, no charges, for one of the large life insurance com- nothing of any kind to pay-now.” panies of New York. He complimented He ran all this off with great speed, mean- my office and chatted pleasantly on topics, while adjusting his fountain pen and shak- for the most part, of interest to myself. ing it vigorously to get the ink in flowing He asked incidentally if I contemplated order. Looking me in the eye he said increasing my insurance holdings. Shame- sharply: facedly I admitted that I was carrying no “Have you a middle letter, Mr. Mc- insurance. He seemed a little surprised, Mahon?" then inquired my age. I told him twenty- So far I had not put in a word. He two years. Out of his left hip pocket he spoke all the lines. While he was writing drew a green rate-book, opened it and, my name in the blank I said hurriedly: 269 270 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “I can't take out any insurance, Mr. thousand dollars due your estate the sum Jones. I-really cannot afford it. I- " of $189.00. Should you live the twenty “You never will be any younger, Mr. years the company would deduct from McMahon-constantly growing older—the $789.00 the cash value of your policy, younger you are the less it costs you and $513.00, leaving you a margin of profit the sooner you get through." of $276.00. There you have an illustra- Then suddenly, as though a new thought tion of how compound interest rolls up, had struck him, he said, with an air of one because from an investment of less than inviting a confidence: $90 you derive a profit of $276.00 besides “Possibly, Mr. McMahon, a ten-thou insurance protection for twenty years." sand-dollar policy would be a larger one than A ll these figures were plainly to be seen you would care to begin on. Perhaps it in his rate-book, he pointing them out to would be better for you to begin on a me in the course of his explanation. smaller sum. As your practice increases I was amazed at the beauty of the thing you can always increase your insurance. -at the liberality of the company. I About how much, Mr. McMahon, do you wished I had the money. He stopped and think you would care to start in on?” Icoked at me steadily for some time. He regarded me lovingly, even as a Neither of us spoke. father looks into the face of his offspring. At length I broke the silence. I sat there perspiring freely. It is a “You see, Mr. Jones, I am not married wonder he did not write me up then and and there for the whole ten thousand. I could “Is your mother living ?” he asked. not have carried a policy had it cost five I said, “Yes.” cents—though not for the admitted assets “My dear fellow," he began, leaning of all the life insurance companies of New over and placing his hand on my knee, York would I have confessed the truth to “do you not owe as much to your mother Jones. as you would to a wife? Has not your I felt chained to a stake, inextricable. mother suffered as much, or would she not I was hot, suffocated, vertebrateless, help- suffer as much for you as a wife would ?" less. After writhing awhile, faintly affect- Then, in a lower tone, looking afar off, “Oh, ing to calculate, I answered, “If I were the pain that begins with birth and the going to take out any, I could not begin anxieties that end only with death! No on more than a thousand—though-I one rejoices as much as your mother at don't want any insurance at all now. I'll your successes, no one grieves as much think your plan over and let you know— " at your failures. Your mother never will Before I had finished Jones interposed: forsake you, even though you be in the “The third year you are safe. You can gutter. Think of the word-Mother. quit paying the third year, or at the end Why, let a man stand in the awful shadow of any subsequent year without loss to of the gallows, hated and despised, with yourself. The third year if you drop out the world against him and a hundred eyes the company will sustain your policy showing only curiosity, no pity, his mother through to the end of the twenty-year is there suffering even more keenly than period. The loan values increasing every he suffers. Do we owe no obligation to year enables the company to do this for our mothers? Why, sir, this is not a you. To illustrate the third year, as matter of privilege or pleasure. It is a you see, the company will loan you on a duty-more necessary to do and to do now thousand-dollar policy $38.00. Out of than any other under the sun.” that you pay $28.95 for your fourth premium He saw that I was not yet quit, there, and you have money left over. The fourth but that I was coming. year you can borrow $68.00, of which you “Should you not die but live you are pay the last year's loan, $38.00, leaving merely permitting a little money to work you $30.00 with which you pay the next for you. No man ever secured a com- year's premium. So you can continue petence by work alone. He must make through to the end. Should you die, say money work for him. Money works more the tenth year, having paid out, you re- faithfully than we if we give it a chance. member, only three payments, the com- There is no eight hours a day law demanded pany would only deduct out of the one by money. It works night and day and CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE INSURANCE SOLICITOR 271 Sundays-rolling up, increasing, com- out what money I needed immediately. pounding. You are only putting a fraction Then I was eighty-five dollars in debt to the of your income away during your produce office so far and no prospect of business. ing period where it is safe and busy. The Still I felt confident and the future was of only way any of us fellows can save money a roseate hue. is to owe it. Ninety men out of a hundred It was early spring. Trees had begun die poor. Two only out of a hundred to leaf and flowers were blossoming. And succeed in business. Are you sure that I was in the southland, the land of sun- you are going to be one of the two ? Vir- shine and roses, of beauty, of chivalry and tually you are buying a bond backed by of hospitality! the State of New York and paying for it In the course of time I started out to in installments, with a death claim thrown make my first solicitation. I would first in. The policy helps your credit, makes you tackle the principals of schools. The stiffer and stronger financially, gives you city directory told me of one who lived on a competence at middle age and protects Broadway, and the day being Saturday, those whom you care for should you die. I set out for his home. My plan of cam- Procrastination is the thief of time-delays paign was definite, my way of talking are dangerous—you are in good health to- vague. On reaching his number I found day, you may not be to-morrow. If a my courage oozing away. I walked past, thing appeals to your judgment as good soon retraced my steps and made bold to and wise to do, don't put it off, but follow turn in. I rang the doorbell—a man my motto.” So saying he turned the appeared. I told him my name and he cover of his rate-book and there printed invited me in, bidding me be seated. We in large capitals was the legend—“DO were in the principal's study, and I was IT NOW.” perspiring like a blacksmith in the pres- “When do I pay the thirty dollars ?” I ence of the principal himself. He handed asked. me a fan, which I plied vigorously. I "When would it be convenient, Mr. informed him that I represented the - McMahon-how would the first of the Insurance Company. He said that he was month do?" not in the market for any insurance. I "I know I wouldn't have the money felt relieved. We conversed for some time then," I answered; “it would be six months on various topics and I began to enjoy my at least before I could spare that amount.” stay in his cheery study. At length he “Very well,” he returned, “that will be asked: perfectly satisfactory.” “What would be the premium on a Thus he wrote me an application, which I Continuous Installment policy, aged thirty- signed, together with a note due six months nine, for five thousand dollars ?” from date. I was piloted to a physician's He was talking Choctaw to me. I office and examined the same day, and in drew forth my rate-book and feigned to be two weeks' time my policy came and I was reading and calculating therefrom. I was insured. really doing nothing of the kind, for my It was not a month later that Jones, with mind was as much a chaos as the array of whom I had in the meantime become figures before me. Finally I said: familiarly acquainted, suggested to me “Here, professor, is the rate-book; I that if I was not finding the law too lucra- can make nothing of it. See if you can tive to abandon, I had better enlist in the find out anything about it.” And I handed service of his company. He undertook the book to him. to recommend me. All I had to do was “Are you new at the business?” he in- to select my territory and strike the general quired, taking the book. I told him that manager for an advance big enough to get he was the first person that I had ever me going. The deal went through. I se- solicited. He seemed to enjoy the situa- lected Little Rock, Arkansas, as my virgin tion and began to study the rate-book. field-why, I don't know. Transportation He took up his pencil and figured-then was advanced and after I had talked to the stopped and calculated and figured some Little Rock manager in his own office, with more. Meanwhile I sat there perfectly all the self-confidence of a professional solic- silent, feeling idiotic. In the course of itor, he instructed the cashier to count me about twenty minutes he said: 272 AMERICAN MAGAZINE "I believe I will take out this policy for to abide by a positive statement, “Yes” five thousand.” I handed him an appli- or "No." I have always sickened at the cation blank, which he filled out himself, prospect of becoming a nuisance, yet I signed, even putting my name in as wit- have stood in the hot sun for hours at a nessing agent. He asked who the examin- stretch waiting and anxious to hear some- ing physician was. I had forgotten. He thing positive, even hoping that the fellow called up the office by 'phone and inquired. would say “No”-order me off, anything Then he telephoned to the doctor and but stand there, resting on one foot then made an appointment for examination on the other, saying nothing. This is a I arose to leave. The situation was so wonderful trait of human nature found fraught with the ludicrous that neither everywhere, but fully appreciated only by of us could help laughing. a solicitor of life insurance. I have known That afternoon I made about one hun- men having reputations for positiveness, dred dollars, or rather the professor made priding themselves like Murdstone on their it for me and the manager patted me on firmness, writhe and wriggle for hours, the back. Then it was that I confessed lacking the courage and decision of a baby. to him that I was a fake—that I knew On one occasion I called to see a prosper- nothing of life insurance that I had never ous farmer living in the outskirts of a small written an application in my life, and that Western village. I reached his residence the professor that day had solicited and at about nine o'clock in the morning and written himself. He seemed amused, say- a cold rain set in, which threatened to con- ing that he had suspected as much alltinue throughout the day. The farmer was along. He assured me, however, that I occupied in the barn mending and greasing was all right and would win out; that he harness. I sat upon a smooth planed would put me with an experienced agent board and proceeded to talk insurance. for a few weeks, so that I could learn by Whenever I would make an attempt to observation-afterwards I could go it alone. write the application he would shake his I assented to the plan and very soon was head and say, “I declare I jest don't know honored with an introduction to the man what to do.” who was to be my partner. I talked until noon and he invited I will pass over the next few months, me in to dinner. After dinner we lighted which were on the whole successful and our cob pipes and sat by the stove for a remunerative. I spent them in the city half hour, after which we returned to the and its environs. Then I struck into the barn-he resuming his harness-making country and began to learn enough about and I my insurance talk. I had begun at the life insurance problem to see all sides first on a ten-thousand-dollar policy and by of it. And right here I want to say a good slow and laborious gradation descended word for the agent. to one thousand. He was as doubtful as An old citizen famous as a juror said: ever. In the course of explanation I made “I have diskivered that every question figures on the end of the board on which has two sides.” How often an applicant I sat. He would stare at the figures as if seeks to kick out of an honest contract, charg- he understood them. Each time when I ing misrepresentation on the part of the came to a climax and would look at him agent! In such instances it is rare for the as if expecting action, he would say: solicitor to be given the benefit of the “By jiminy, I'm right on the fence. doubt. It more often happens, however, I know it's a right smart thing, but I jest that the charge of undue persistency is laid don't know what to do.” at the door of the agent. “He talked me Again I would begin at the beginning into it”—“He kept at me until I had to and go over the same old arguments. The take it out to get rid of him”—“The agent day was disagreeable and, deciding not to lied to me"—these and similar wailings ride around in the rain, I resolved to follow are heard frequently and the “poor victim” General Grant's plan and fight it out on finds ready sympathy. It is usual to think this line if it took all summer. of an insurance solicitor as one who never The sun had nearly run its daily course lets up, as the embodiment of everything and still I talked and still he shook his bothersome, yet the rôle is not relished head. At length we heard the tinkle of by the agent, who often would be willing the supper bell, and my nose told me of CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE INSURANCE SOLICITOR 273 fried bacon and onions. He invited me that dadburned insurance. You come hang- in to supper, whither we went together. ing around my house all day and all night After supper we lit our pipes again while a-pesterin' the soul out of me, and I had the children went out to do the chores. to take it to get shet of ye.” After awhile I started in on my insurance I could hardly keep from laughing in his talk. He listened as though it was the face. I called him off in the corner, put first tire he ever had heard it. He had my hand affectionately on his shoulder, not yet "gotten off the fence.” At nine bent down close to his ear and said in o'clock he began to yawn and one by one tones of lady-like softness, “Go to the members of his family went to bed. After devil.” a particularly eloquent period I drew forth At this point my troubles ended and the my application blank again. He was state manager's were to begin. Next day “still on the fence.” Again I started in the farmer boarded a train headed for the on the same old story. I was very nearly manager's office and I learned what fol- “all in" myself. In about two minutes lowed from the manager sometime after- he said: ward. The manager politely ushered him "If you won't say all that over again, into his private apartment and for some I'll sign up." minutes the farmer sat there saying nothing, Remember this was only a thousand- the power of speech seeming to have left dollar application which I talked all this him. He carried a large telescope and time and the farmer was amply able to finally proceeded to open it. He drew have carried twenty thousand. I prepared therefrom a smooth piece of board covered the papers which he signed, giving me a with figures and, handing it to the manager, check in payment of premium. I grabbed said: my hat and bolted. “Ther was a feiler out to my house Did my troubles end here? No. As yisterday and he hounded me into takin' I trudged along through the mud something out an insurance policy. He made them 'er of mental telepathy told me that he would figgers on that board, and I jest thought stop payment of the check first thing in the I'd saw the end off and bring it right here morning. I made up my mind to "beat to headquarters. Now, I'd like to know him to it.” Early the next morning I what them figgers mean.” went to the cashier's residence and found The manager took pains with him, him at breakfast. I presented the check making explanations, pouring balm on his and asked him to cash it, explaining that I troubled soul. He returned to his home wished to get an early start for the country satisfied. and could not wait until the bank opened. About three years afterward I revisited He did as I requested and I returned to that same section of country and immedi- the hotel. At a little before nine o'clock ately called upon my farmer friend. He I stationed myself in the hall of the court- was genuinely glad to see me. I arranged house, which stood in the center of the with him to ride with me, and for several public square, and watched the door of the weeks we rode peacefully together over the bank. Promptly at nine o'clock my man hills and through the swamps of that section walked in with hurried step. “Aha," of the country. thought I—"foiled!” “You'd better let this man write you up Did my troubles end here? No. without any foolin' around,” he would say That night when I returned to the hotel to some of his friends, “or he'll stick to from my ride in the country, my farmer you all day if you don't.” friend was awaiting me with blood in his The farmer has steadily maintained his eye and probably murder in his heart. policy, has never failed to make his pay- “See here,” he began, “I want my money ments promptly, and I trust does not regret back and them papers too. I don't want my long visit. These confessions will be concluded in the August number How the Prince Saw America By Susan Keating Glaspell WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. R. GRUGER L HEY began work at seven- thirty, and at ten minutes past eight every hammer stopped. In the Senate Chamber and in the House, G on the stairways and in the corridors, in every office from the Gov- ernor's to the custodian's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet. A long whistle had sounded through the building. There was magic in its note. “What's the matter with you fellows?” said the attorney-general, swinging around in his chair. “Strike," declared one of the men, with becoming brevity. “Strike of what? Whose striking?” “Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One,” replied the man, kindly gathering up a few tacks. “Never heard of it," announced the attorney-general. “Organized last night,” said the carpet- tacker, putting on his coat. “Well I'll be,” he paused expressively, and then added: “Say, what's your game, nerves. Did you ever get rush work done at a laundry and not pay more for it? No sir; you never did. And besides there's a lot of us turned down bigger jobs just as a matter of accommodation. We was anxious as anybody to get the Capitol in shape for the big show this afternoon. But there's reason in all things." “Yes,” agreed his auditor, “there is." The man looked at him a little doubtfully. “Our president-we elected Johnny Mc- Guire president last night-went to the Governor this morning with our demands." “'Um,”-he was smiling a little; he knew the Governor pretty well—“and what did he say?" “Said we could all go to hell.” “Brief and emphatic," said the Gov- ernor's fellow-official. “Also, convincing and final.” “He may feel like hell himself,” ventured the man, now standing with his hand on the knob, "when next election time comes 'round.” “True," responded the attorney-general, cheerfully, “he may. And then again, he mayn't.” Someway that did not appear the psy- chological moment for a good exit. The striker rubbed his foot uncertainly across the floor, and took courage from its splin- ters. “Well, there's one thing dead sure, and that's this: When Prince Ludwig and his trainload of big guns show up at four o'clock this afternoon they'll find bare floors, and pretty bum bare floors, on deck at this place.” The attorney-general rubbed his own foot across the splintered, miserable boards. anyway?” “Well you see, boss, this executive council that runs the state house has re- fused our demands." “What are your demands ?” “Double pay." “Double pay! Now what in thunder do you want of double pay?" “Rush work. You see we were under oath, or pretty near that, to get every carpet in the state house down by four o'clock this afternoon. Now you know yourself that rush work is hard on the 274 HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA 275 “They are pretty bum,” he said reflectively. getting extra money as it was, but you see "I wonder," he added, as the man was they just figured it out we'd pay anything half way out of the door, “what Prince rather than have these wretched old floors Ludwig will think of the American working for the reception this afternoon. But those man when he arrives this afternoon ?" fellows don't know the Governor as well as "Just about as much,” retorted the not- we do.” to-be-downed carpet-tacker, “as he does “Turned them down—did he?" asked a about American generosity. And he may member of the House. think a few things,” he added weightily, “Well—rather. And the council backed "about American independence." him right up. They thought the Governor WE 70 WM F.R.GRUGER “ Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One" “Oh, he's sure to do that," agreed the would argue the question, and then give in, attorney-general. or at any rate compromise. They never "Did you ever hear anything like it?" intended for one minute that the Prince he burst forth to his clerk, when the door should find bare floors here. And I rather was closed. “Of all the small, r an, con- think,” he concluded, wisely, “that they temptible tricks-isn't that just the limit?” feel a little done up about it.” And with growing wrath he walked out into “What's the situation?” asked a stranger the corridor. within the gates. Every one else was walking out into the “Well, you see it's like this," a news- corridor at the same time, and every one paper reporter told him. “About a month was excited and mad. “Clear straight ago there was a fire here and the walls and case of hold-up," declared the Governor's carpets were pretty well knocked out with secretary. “They never would have thought smoke and water. The carpets were mean of a carpet-tackers' union only they sup- old things anyway, so they voted new ones. posed they had us on the hip. They were And I want to tell you”—he swelled with 276 AMERICAN MAGAZINE commendable pride—"that the new ones are swell. The whole place'll look great when we get 'em down. Well, you know Prince Ludwig and his crowd cross the state on their way to the coast, and of course they were invited to stop. Last week Billy Patton-he's running the whole show- declined the invitation on account of lack of time, and then yesterday comes a tele- gram saying the Prince himself insisted on stopping. You know we've been pretty strenuous in politics”—the reporter grinned _"so he's interested in us, and then we've got war traditions to burn. So Mr. Bill Patton had to make over his schedule to please the Prince, and of course we were all pretty tickled about it, for more reasons than one. The telegram didn't come until five o'clock yesterday afternoon, but you know what a hummer the Governor is when he gets a start. He made up his mind this building should be put in shape within twenty-four hours. They engaged a whole lot of fellows to work on the carpets to-day-it's in a good many pieces, like it is sometimes for big buildings, so a lot of them could get at it at once. Then what did the beastly mob do but get to gether last night-well, you know the rest. It wouldn't matter so much if we had marble corridors and stairways. Pretty bum-looking old shack just now, isn't it?” and the reporter looked ruefully around. It was approaching the hour for the legis- lature to convene, and the members who were beginning to saunter in swelled the crowd in the rotunda. Numbers but added to the indignation. “Thought they'd bluff the state-did they ?”“Nice-looking place to receive a prince!!!—“Well I'll be d--!" And so it went, faster and faster, louder and louder. The Governor, meanwhile, had been trying to get other men, but Carpet-Tackers' Union Number One had looked well to that. The biggest furniture dealer in the city was afraid of the plumbers. “Pipes burst last night,” he said, “and I know they won't do a thing for us if we get mixed up in this. Sorry—but I can't ask my cus- tomers to get pneumonia." Another furniture man was afraid of the teamsters. For one reason or another no one was disposed to respond to the Mace- donian cry, and when the Governor at last gave it up and walked out into the rotunda he was about as mad as he allowed himself to get. “It's the iaea of lying down before a crowd like that,” he said. “I hate it! I'd do anything-anything!—if I could only think what to do.” A member of the House, a bright young fellow whom they all said would go right on up the ladder, overheard the remark. “By George, Governor," he burst forth, after a minute's deep study—“say-by Jove, I say, let's do it ourselves!” They all laughed, but the Governor's laugh stopped suddenly, and he looked hard at the young man. “Why not?” the young fellow went on. “It's a big job, but there's a lot of us. We've all put down carpets at home; what are we afraid to tackle it here for? Why not now? Are we going to let a crowd like that tell us what's what?". Again the others laughed, but the Gov- ernor did not. “Say, Weston," he said, “I'd give a lot-I tell you I'd give a lot- if we just could!”. “Leave it to me!”—and he was lost in the crowd. The Governor's eyes followed him in- tently. He had always liked Harry Weston. Someway he was the sort of fellow one believed in. And he was the very sort to inspire people to do things. The Governor smiled knowingly as he noted the men Weston was approaching, and his different manner with the various ones. And then Weston had mounted a few steps of the stairway, and was standing there facing the crowd. “Now look here," he began, after silence had been obtained, "this isn't a very formal meeting, but it's a mighty im- portant one. It's a clear case of the Carpet- Tackers' Union against the state. What I want to know is—is the state going to lie down?”. There were loud cries of “No!”_"Well I should say not!” “Well, then, see here. The Governor's tried for other men and can't get them. Now what I want to know is—What's the matter with us?” They didn't get it for a minute, and then everybody laughed. “No sir—it's no joke. Now look here, boys, you've all put down carpets at home; what's the use of pre- tending you don't know how to do it? Oh yes—I know, bigger building, and all that, but there's more of us, and the principle of carpet-tacking is the same, HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA 277 S now!" big building or little one. Now my scheme That was the lighted match, and the is this—Every fellow his own carpet- kindling was in good shape. Finally tacker! The Governor's office puts down Harry Weston made himself heard suffi- the Governor's carpet; the Secretary's ciently to suggest that when the House and office puts down the Secretary's carpet; the Senate met at nine o'clock a motion to Senate puts down the Senate carpet-and adjourn be entertained. “And as to the we'll look after our little patch in the rest of you fellows," he cried, “I don't House!" see what's to hinder you getting busy right “But you've got more fellows than any- body else," cried a member of the Senate. There were Republicans and there were “Right you are, and we'll have an over Democrats; there were friends and there flow meeting in the corridors and stair were enemies; there were good, bad and- ways. The House, as usual, stands ready no, there were no indifferent. An un- to do her part," and then everybody looked precedented harmony of thought, a millen- at the senators and laughed. nium-like unity of action was born out of “Now get it out of your head this is a that sturdy cry—Every man his own carpet- joke. The carpets are here; the building tacker! The Secretary of State always is full of able-bodied men; the Prince is claimed that he drove the first tack, but coming at four-by his own request, and during the remainder of his life the Super- the proposition is just this: Are we going intendent of Public Instruction also con- to receive him in a barn or in a palace? tended hotly for that honor. The rivalry Let's hear what Senator Arnold thinks as to who would do the best job, and get about it.” it done the quickest, became very intense. That was a good way of removing the Early in the day Harry Weston made the idea of it being a joke. Senator Arnold rounds of the building and announced a was past seventy, and it would be a long fine of one hundred dollars for every search for a man who did not have a good wrinkle. There were pounded fingers opinion of him. He looked about him now and there were broken backs, but slowly, with a kind of earnest humor in his eyes. steadily, and good-naturedly the state Slowly he extended his right arm and tested house carpet was going down. It was a his muscle. “Not very much," he said, good deal bigger job than they had an- " but enough to drive a tack or two." And ticipated, but that only added zest to the then everybody applauded, and drew a undertaking. The news of how the state little closer to everybody else, and the officials were employing themselves had atmosphere warmed perceptibly. “I've spread throughout the city, and guards fought for the state in more ways than were stationed at every door to keep out one,"–Senator Arnold was a distinguished people whose presence would work veteran of the Civil War—"and if I can harm than good. All assistance from serve her now by tacking down carpets, ladies was courteously refused. “This then it's tacking down carpets I'm ready is solemn business," said the Governor, in to go at. Just count on me for what response to a telephone from some of the little I'm worth.” fair sex, “and the introduction of the Some one started the cry for the Gov- feminine element might throw about it a ernor, and he responded without any social atmosphere which would result in show of reluctance. “Prince Ludwig is loss of time. And then some of the boys being entertained all over the country in might feel called upon to put on their the most lavish manner," he began, with his characteristic directness in stating a Stretch-stretch-stretch, and tack- situation. “By his own request he is to tack—tack, all morning long it went on, visit our Capitol this afternoon. I must for the state house was large-oh, very say that I for one want to be in shape for large. There should have been a Boswell him. I don't like to tell him that we had there to get the good things, for the novelty, a labor complication and couldn't get the the unprecedentedness of the situation carpets down. Speaking for myself, it inspired wit even in minds where wit had is a great pleasure to inform you that the never lodged before. Choice bits which carpet in the Governor's office will be in at other times would fairly have gone on proper shape by four o'clock this afternoon.” official record were now passed almost ore 278 AMERICAN MAGAZINE unnoticed, so great was the surfeit. Instead a duty. Here was America in undress of men going out to lunch, lunch came in uniform! Here was not a thing arranged to them. Bridget Haggerty, who by for show, but absolutely the thing in itself! reason of her long connection with the Prince Ludwig had come with an honest boarding house across the street was a desire to see America. Every one knew sort of unofficial official of the state, came he was not seeing it at all. He would go over and made the coffee and sandwiches, back with an idea of bands and flags and all the while calling down blessings on the people all dressed up standing before him head of every mother's son of them, and making nice polite speeches. But would announcing in loud, firm tones that while he carry back one small whiff of the spirit all five of her boys belonged to the union of the country? Again Senator Bruner she'd be after tellin' them what she thought looked about him. The Speaker of the of this day's work! House was just beginning laying the stair It was a United States Senator who did carpet; a judge of the Supreme Court was the awful trick, and really the Senator did contending hotly for a better hammer. not think of it as an awful trick at all. He “It's an insult to expect any decent man came over there in the middle of the morning to drive tacks with a hammer like this," to see the Governor, and in a few hurried he was saying. Here were men—real, words-it was no day for conversation, live men, men with individuality, spirit. was told what was going on. The Senator When the Prince had come so far, wasn't thought it was about the richest thing he it too bad that he should not see anything had ever heard of, and it was while he was but uniforms and cut glass and dress suits standing out in the corridor watching the and other externals and non-essentials ? perspiring dignitaries of the state that the Senator Bruner was a kind man; he was a idea of his duty came to him, and one good fellow; he was hospitable-patriotic. reason he was sure he was right was the He decided now in favor of the Prince. way in which it came to him in the light of He had to hurry about it, for it was TËT NATULT F. R. RUGER. “ Gave a long, steady stare" HOW THE PRINCE SAW AMERICA almost twelve then. One of the vice- presidents of the road lived there, and he was taken into confidence, and proved an able and eager ally. They located the special train bearing the Prince and ordered it stopped at the next station. The stop was made so that Senator Pat- ton could receive a long telegram from Senator Bruner. “I figure it like this," the Senator told the vice-president. “They get to Boden at a quarter of one and were going to stop there an hour. Then they were going to stop a little while at Crey- ville. I've told Patton the situation, and that if he wants to do the right thing by the Prince he'll cut out those stops and rush right through here. That will bring him in-well, they could make it at a quarter of two. I've told him I'd square it with Boden and Creyville. Oh, he'll do it all right.” And even as he said so came the reply from Patton: “Too good to miss. Will rush through. Arrive before two. Have carriage at Water Street.” T. 7. GRUOTR. “That's great!” said the Senator. “Trust Billy Patton for falling in with a good “ This is us" thing. And he's right about missing the station crowd. Patton can always go those keys. There'll be a good deal of you one better," he admitted, grinningly. climbing, but the Prince is a good fellow, They had lunch together, and they and won't mind. It wouldn't be safe to were a good deal more like sophomores try the elevator, for ten to one Harry in college than like a United States Senator Weston would be in it taking somebody a and a big railroad man. “You don't bundle of tacks. The third floor is nothing think there's any danger of their getting but store rooms; we'll not be disturbed up through too soon?” Mr. McVeigh kept there, and we can look right down the asking, anxiously. rotunda and see the whole show. Of “Not a bit," the Senator assured him. course we'll be discovered in time; some one “They can't possibly make it before three. is sure to look up at the wrong minute and We'll come in just in time for the final see us, but we'll fix it so they won't see us skirmish. It's going to be a jolly rush at before we've had our fun, and it strikes the last.” me, McVeigh, that for two old fellows They laid their plans with a method like you and me we've done rather a neat worthy of their training. The state library job.” building was across from the capitol, and It was a very small and unpretentious they were connected by tunnel. “I never party which stepped from the special at saw before,” said the senator, “what that Water Street a little before two. The tunnel was for, but I see now what a very Prince was wearing a long coat and an great thing it is. We'll get him in at the automobile cap and did not look like any- west door of the library-we can drive thing at all formidable or unusual. “You've right up to it, you know, and then we walk saved the country,” Senator Patton whis- him through the tunnel. That's a stone pered in an aside. “He was getting a floor"—the Senator was chuckling with little bored. Never saw a fellow jolly up every sentence"so I guess they won't so in my life. Guess he was just spoiling be carpeting it. There's a little stairway for some fun. Said it would be really running up from the tunnel-and say, worth while to see somebody who wasn't we must telephone over and arrange about looking for him.” 280 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Senator Bruner beamed. “That's just we are.—This is us. You see that fellow the point. He's caught my idea exactly." hanging a picture down there? He's It went without a hitch. “I feel," president of the First National Bank. Came said the Prince, as they were hurrying him over a little while ago, got next to the through the tunnel, “that I am a little situation, and stayed to help. And-say, boy who has run away from school. Only this is good! Notice that red-headed I have a terrible fear that at any minute fellow just getting up from his knees? some band may begin to play, and some- Well, he's president of the teamsters'union- body may think of making a speech.” figured so big in a strike here last year. They gave this son of a royal house a I call that pretty rich! He's the fellow seat on a dry-goods box, so placed that he they are all so afraid of, but I guess he could command a good view, and yet be liked the idea of the boys doing it them- fairly secure. The final skirmish was on selves, and just sneaked in and helped.- in earnest. Two state Senators-coatless, There's the Governor. He's a fine fellow. tieless, collarless, their faces dirty, their He wouldn't be held up by anybody-not hair rumpled, were finishing the stair even to get ready for a Prince, but he's carpet. The chairman of the appropria- worked like a Trojan all day to make tions committee in the House was doing things come his way. Yes, sir—this is the the stretching in a still uncarpeted bit of sure-enough thing. Here you have the the corridor, and a member who had re boys off dress parade. Not that we run cently denounced the appropriations com- away from our dignity every day, but-see mittee as a disgrace to the state was pre- what I mean?”. siding at the hammer. They were doing “I see,” replied the Prince, and he most exquisitely harmonious team work. looked as though he really did. A railroad and anti-railroad member who “You know-say, dodge there! Move fought every time they came within speak- back! No—too late. The Governor's ing distance of one another were now in an caught us. Look at him!” earnest and very chummy. conference The Governor's eyes had someway relative to a large wrinkle which had turned upward, and he had seen. He just been discovered on the first landing. put his hands on his back-he couldn't Many men were standing around holding look up without doing that-and gave a their backs, and many others were deeply long, steady stare. First, Senator Bruner absorbed in nursing their fingers. The waved; then Senator Patton waved; then doors of the offices were all open, and there Mr. McVeigh waved; and then the Prince was a general hauling in of furniture and waved. Other people were beginning to hanging of pictures. Clumsy but well- look up. “They're all on," laughed meaning fingers were doing their best with Senator Patton, “let's go down.” “finishing touches.” The Prince proved At first they were disposed to think it himself endowed with a lively interest in mighty mean. “We worked all day to things human, and with a humor almost get in shape," grumbled Harry Weston, American. "and then you go ring the curtain up on “And I'll tell you,” Senator Bruner was us before it's time for our show to be- saying, “it isn't only because I knew it gin.” would be funny and unusual that I wanted But the Prince made them feel right you to see it, but-well, you see America about it. He had such an awfully good isn't the real America when she has on her time that no one could possibly mind. best clothes and is trying to show off. You And he said to the Governor as he was haven't seen anybody who hasn't prepared leaving: “I see that the only way to see for your coming, and that means you haven't America is to see it when America is not seen them as they are at all. Now here seeing you." The Single Woman's Problem An Educated Woman's Struggle to Support Herself and those Dependent upon Her—Practical Suggestions concerning the Probiem C072 ZHE experience which I am near my home. My salary at first was about to narrate does not $500 and later $750. I had offers several differ in essentials from that times of positions which were considerably of thousands of others. It better in salary, but which were so far would be without interest, from home that my parents objected to DEG except that it may fairly be my accepting them. taken as typical of the case of an increas While I enjoyed teaching, I cherished ingly large number of women. It is the the dream which bookish young people commonplaceness of the situation and of are prone to indulge of some day becom- the problem involved in it which con- ing a writer. With this idea in mind I stitutes its only claim to consideration. formed the plan of going to New York To make plain the individual case, to try to get work on daily papers, hoping which will serve to illustrate that of many, to grow from that humble beginning to it is necessary to give certain facts in my writing for magazines and perhaps in the personal history. My father was a lawyer far-off future to becoming an author. in a Western town of about four thousand This scheme was so strongly opposed by inhabitants. His income from his pro- my father and mother that it was aban- fession was usually from three to four doned. No doubt they were right, for I thousand dollars a year. In the quiet was not sufficiently practical and self- community in which we lived that was reliant at that time to have made such a sufficient to give us a very comfortable venture with a prospect of success. Prob- living. A sister a few years younger than ably, also, my physical strength would myself and I were the only children. not have permitted it. As a child I was largely taught at home W hen thwarted in this project I wished until I was ready for the high school. I to take the necessary post-graduate study took the four years' course in that and was for a doctor's degree to fit myself for a graduated at the age of seventeen. The position in a college. That plan also I next year I was sent to an Eastern col- gave up on account of the opposition at lege, from which I was graduated four home. My father and mother did not years later with a good average in scholar- wish me to look forward to a life of teach- ship and an especially high rank in English ing, and thought it a waste of time and composition, literature, and languages. money to spend two or three years in Like many other girls after leaving school, preparation for work which would soon I was restless and discontented without be given up. In that view they were, in some definite work. I had been occupied the light of subsequent events, mistaken. all my life with books and all my interest It would undoubtedly have been better was in them. The one thing that occurred for others as well as for myself if I had had to me, therefore, to do was to teach. My my own way in this particular. father and mother objected to that because So I taught for nine years altogether, they hated to have me away from home, when a gradual decline in health com- and also for the reason that from child- pelled me to stop work for a time. A hood I had never been physically strong year's rest restored me to my usual health; and they thought the work too hard for but my father and mother dreaded to have me. At last, however, I prevailed and me leave home again, and I had arrived secured a position in a high school in a at an age when the thought of the in- neighboring town. I taught there five evitable separation which must come made years and afterwards in a private school me loath to lose any of the time which we 281 THE SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM 283 of exercises to build up my physical that I have sometimes spent hours on a strength, and have endeavored to keep task for which the remuneration would myself in health by a strict adherence to amount to less than twenty-five cents an the laws of hygiene. I have so far suc- hour. For a year I edited a weekly jour- ceeded that I have had fewer interruptions nal. The pay for that added to what I to work from slight illnesses than ever received from my other regular employ- before. I have tried to acquire habits of ments was sufficient to support us, but at industry to make all my time count for the end of the year the journal changed something. I do not mean that I never hands and the new proprietor made his rest. It would be impossible for me to son the editor. work steadily fourteen hours a day as I Writing has proved my most successful have known women to do, but I have tried means of earning money. At first my lack never to dawdle, to work hard for as many of practical knowledge of what would be hours as I could and to spend my resting suited to the character of different journals time in open air exercise that would re- often made my work wasted. But ex- store mind and body. perience has taught me what is likely to I have striven hard to acquire nervous be available and what I am able to do. and mental self-control, so that I might Therefore, my articles rarely fail of ac- always be cheerful, courageous, and hope- ceptance somewhere. I have written for ful. Naturally of a nervous temperament, newspapers, for several of the prominent this effort has been hard. Night after religious and literary weeklies, and for a night I have lain awake for hours in such number of the leading magazines. Sev- a panic of fright that I shook as if in a chill. eral editors with whom I have become ac- The awful dread of not being able to sup- quainted tell me that with the success I port my family, of not knowing what to have had, I ought to be able to make a do, seemed as if it would drive me out of living by writing. my senses. An absurd picture was always The difficulty is that the ordinary writer in my mind. I used to imagine myself, who has not a position on the staff of some after all efforts had failed, going with my journal cannot be sure at the outset of a mother and sister to the county infirmary steady income. Many even of a good and saying, “We haven't anywhere to go class of periodicals pay on publication and I don't know what to do. Won't you instead of on acceptance, and they may take us in?” I suppose that isn't the keep an article for a year or more before method by which people ordinarily become using it. There is always the chance that inmates of that last earthly refuge, but it a manuscript may not be accepted on a was the one my imagination furnished. first trial, and may have to be sent to two Still worse fears lurked in my mind, or three periodicals before finding a place. obtruding themselves in the darkness. The For these reasons the average writer with- desperate deeds to which many unfor- out at least a year's support ahead of him tunates have been driven rose before me would have a hazardous calling to depend to suggest that an insanity of fear and upon for a regular income. The only safe despair might yet take possession of me in way for me has seemed to be to cling to the same way. These spasms of nervous work which paid a regular salary, however fright so aggravated a constitutional heart small, and give the spare moments to trouble that I would be unfit for work writing, hoping in time to make that the after them. I had to control them or sole occupation. break down. In the main I have got the Unforiunately, writing is not a work to better of them, although still a sudden be done easily or well with a fagged brain panic will sometimes seize me, by which or body. Any literary composition except every bodily function will be suddenly a matter of fact newspaper article is a disordered as if I had taken poison instead mental exertion for which one is unfit after of my natural nutriment. eight or ten hours of other labor. My literary During these years of struggle I have work has necessarily been done largely in been so anxious to earn money that I have the evening. Often the pencil and paper not dared to let any opportunity slip, and dropping from my hands have repeatedly so in my free hours I have done any work waked me up to begin work again. In which offered itself. The result has been the effort to overcome drowsiness, I have 284 AMERICAN MAGAZINE frequently at intervals of a few minutes dashed cold water in my face, walked the floor, and gone out of doors for fresh air. Under such conditions it is perhaps not strange that the writing of an article of twenty-five hundred words requiring care- ful work should sometimes take two weeks. I have given these details because, as I said at the outset, I believe my own case may be taken as typical of a large number. It is true that many women have the ad- vantage of me in the class of occupations to which they can resort for a living. A woman capable of managing a dressmaking establishment, a millinery shop, a good restaurant and bakery, or a laundry, could make a living anywhere. The intellectual occupations are by no means so reliable for a livelihood as the practical ones. On the other hand, a broader education and more than average mental ability are advantages on the side of the brain worker. But whether one belong to the class of head workers or hand workers, the situa- tion of a woman suddenly cast upon her own resources at middle age is bad enough. The majority of men find themselves taxed to the utmost to make a living for their families. If, however, disaster overtakes them in middle life, so that they have to begin anew, they have the advantage of knowing some means of earning a living and of having acquired business habits. How much more heavily handicapped is the ordinary woman, if late in life she is sud- denly obliged to make a living for herself and others. The number of women who are support ing not only themselves but their families is increasing every year. Nowadays a woman neither too old nor too feeble to work is ashamed to be dependent upon relatives, even upon a brother. It is as keen a mortification to a self-supporting woman as to a man not to be able to earn an income adequate to her needs. She wishes to do her part in the community as much as a man. If earning a living for others as well as for herself, it is neces- sary to her self-respect that, besides sup- plying the immediate needs of her family, she should be able to make a provision for sickness and old age, and have some- thing to spare for the numerous demands upon her generosity. Given an equal chance the average woman is probably as capable of doing this as the average man. But when a woman has dropped out of the ranks of money earners for from ten to twenty of the best years of her life, or is compelled late in life for the first time to earn her own living, the situation is one to make the most courageous despair. The training of women to earn a liveli- hood is now more than ever a matter of serious importance. Teaching is still the occupation to which the majority of women college graduates naturally turn. But the profession is greatly overcrowded, and the advantage in it is so decidedly on the side of the young that the woman who stops work for a few years has great diffi- culty in getting in again. It is not an oc- cupation upon which one can fall back in time of need. Salaried positions of any kind are few in comparison with the hosts of employment seekers. Since the busi- ness activity of the majority of women is more or less intermittent, it is far safer for them to have some independent way of making a living. Then if need comes, they have a means of maintenance at command. Unfortunately, the majority of women money earners remain amateurs in their work as well as in their accomplishments and studies. They often work for years without considering if their time and labor could not be spent to better advantage. If a woman is to earn money at all, why should she not put ambition and energy into her work to accomplish as much as possible? She should not allow herself to be satisfied with doing anything short of her best in whatever she undertakes. It is by no means desirable that all women should be money earners, but it is most important that all should be capable of earning enough to support themselves and those dependent upon them. It is a pitiful thing to see a woman attempting to make a living by lecturing to women's clubs and saying at the end of a course, when there seems no great demand for another series, “Well, how many would like to subscribe for half of the second course?” And again, when that brings no response, “How many then will sub- scribe for two more?” Everyone knows the difficulty in assisting a woman who can do nothing for which the world has a real need. The teaching of bridge whist or giving embroidery lessons may bring in some much-needed dollars, but either THE SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM 285 would be hazardous to depend upon for a thing for which there is a steady demand. living. The ability to do well some useful is the only safe reliance. Editorial Note MORE than most men perhaps, editors M are thrown into personal contact with the problem of occupations for women. Frequent intercourse with writers and the constant spectacle of heroic but often futile efforts by women of education to earn com- fortable livings, keep the question always before us. But it is a question that cannot be escaped by any one interested in life. It is presented in every family that includes unmarried girls, in rich as well as in poor families, for where the need of bread win ning does not exist there is always the need of some occupation to fill lives that are not sufficiently filled with family affairs and unsatisfied by social duties and pleasures. The preceding article affected us deeply. It is such a sincere and genuine narrative that it must appeal to every reader with sympathies. It brings close to every one who reads it the lives of thousands of women who face conditions just as severe and trying as were faced by the author of the article. Some of the conditions affecting her life are individual and are not repeated in the lives of many of our readers. But after making all necessary allowances for exceptional circumstances, the article is suggestive and leads us to consider a very big problem in several of its phases. The matter of woman suffrage has been in the center of the stage for some time, but it has not come close to the heart of the people. But the question of the occupations of women has grown more and more impor- fant. Present conditions in this respect are based on a simple enough theory of life: man attends to everything outside of the home and woman to everything in it; man earns the money, woman rears the family and makes the home. Outside this natural and traditional province for woman's activity and such related occupations as teaching, women even now do little of the work of the world directly. Men are in arge of the world's activities. They call women to help them, of course; they give Women jobs which women can do more y or more cheaply than men, but, peaking generally, men are the responsible ors of everything outside of the home. The unknown author of the foregoing article appears to accept this theory of life as final and inevitable. Her suggestions contemplate no change or modification of it. Women are to be educated to meet present conditions and be trained to some occupa- tion that in time of need will serve for sup- port. The extension of opportunity she desires, is merely an increase in the number of jobs women may take under man's direc- tion. She contemplates no widening of woman's own sphere. Is there not another view ? Must the sphere of woman's initiative and respon- sibility always be confined to the home and schoolroom? The great importance of that sphere and the work in it cannot be exag- gerated, and the possibilities of accom- plishment in this sphere are far from real- ized. A woman's life is grander and fuller when she is happily united with a man to maintain a home and do a joint work. But women themselves are calling for wider opportunity and are asking for occupations that will help them to an independence of thought, purpose and life. They may grant that an ideal union between a man and a woman offers the chance for greatest happiness, yet when that is not attained they rightly seek for a share in the activities of life that will satisfy their individual long- ings and ambitions. Cannot the sphere of their effort be enlarged and yet remain quite womanly? Are there not realms of activity bordering on those of the home and the schoolroom that can be occupied exclu- sively by women, and occupied by women far better than by men, wherein work will not interfere with home life? Or must the alternative be direct competition with men at every point where conditions do not shut the door absolutely in a woman's face? We shall welcome any opinions our readers care to express on this problem, or accounts of experiences bearing on it. To stimulate further discussion, we shall pub- lish in our next number intensely interesting comment on the foregoing article by Mrs. L. H. Harris, Miss Dorothy Canfield, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and others thor- oughly competent to write on the subject. directors of ever “The Enigma”-A Special Sale By William Hamilton Cline WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G. DOVE 59 PR. BRINDLEY MORRI- dignified "raise” from Bamberger's, and lose SON POPKIN was worried. had left books in the Broadgauge to handle Na M y Being floor manager of the a similar line for its chief rival. Good work book department of the huge in tinware by Popkin had been observed; Broadgauge store was an his ambitions were known, and when WESSUES honor he long had coveted, Healey was gone, the position he coveted but here, after his first week in that posi- was his. It was now Saturday night, the tion, was Mr. Popkin, wondering if, after end of his first week there. all, it was worth while. Ever since he had And he was worried? Yes, vastly. The entered the employ of the great establish- red carnation in the buttonhole of his ment as a cash boy, he had set the head “Prince Albert”—for tradition says that of this particular floor as the height of his all floor managers shall wear “Prince ambition. Every step that he took up- Alberts” with red carnations attached - wards was but one more towards his goal. the red carnation withered in the baleful When he became bundle wrapper, he felt glare of his countenance, and his accus- that his cause was advanced; when he tomed suavity, the rubbing together of the stepped behind the cotton goods counter, hands, the slight bow and the smile, all his upward leap was almost like a flight to parts of his store makeup, were purely the blue dome of Empyrean; when he was mechanical to-night; the eye carried no given charge of the tinware and iron goods cordiality and the voice was weary and in the bargain basement annex, he believed far away. that it was merely a test of his ability to For Healey, now of Bamberger's, had handle higher things. And he had then avowedly set out to "put the Broadgauge told Mame in all the pride of his heart that books out of business," and Popkin had “things were coming his way.” been warned twice during the week that this True, this last move took him off was in a fair way to happen, according to the Mame's floor. She was in hosiery and views of one Mr. Wilkerson, the store lingerie; she was tall, haughty and digni- manager. The Broadgauge trade in the fied: but he counted the promotion as six best-sellers was showing a decided worth more than a temporary absence from slump, and there was even danger that the her vicinity, especially as he knew that Bamberger record would be taken as books were in the next aisle from hosiery, authoritative for the city, rather than that and that when he reached that stock, he of the Broadgauge; and so dire a calamity would be better off than ever. Also, true, could mean only one thing for Popkin-a Tim Healey was now its head, and Tim's new place. So it was, as he had told him- eyes fell on Mame with no uncertain gleam. self, "up to” him to stem the rush. But even this could not stay the force of “Your department,” Mr. Wilkerson Popkin's ambitions, and to the bargain had said, “shows a decided falling off. basement annex he had gone, to take the Mr. Healey seems to have a certain per- headship of his first stock. sonal following which you, having been so And a week ago, he had come into his long in tin, haven't acquired. You do reward. Healey had been attracted by a not know liter'chure like he does. Nor 286 “THE ENIGMA”-A SPECIAL SALE 287 lit'ry people. Your run on ‘The Enigma, open for candy and the the - ayter, but- our best exclusive novel, was a failure.” cook on no salary, in a flat for two? All of which was quite true. The hint Nixie!” contained in the Wilkerson address could And, though rather slangy, it was plain not pass unheeded, and Popkin was dis- to the individuals most concerned, this re- tinctly discouraged and worried. Hence, ply, and they had set themselves to accom- amid the Saturday night throng, he stood plishing the tasks she had demanded, distraught stroking the ends of his taffy- while she drew favors from each, encour- hued mustache and smoothing his coat aged them, played one against the other, front, mechanically. and pushed each ahead, "W'at's wrong?” while she went her way cheerily inquired Mame, in freedom and rejoicing. sticking her head around So, too, as they climb- the end of her counter into ed higher and higher the ribbon department, in keen rivalry, did the which move enabled her two men come nearer to hail Mr. Popkin when the prize of Mame's she deemed it expedient heart. Now, Healey was or needful. She didn't participating in the do this too often; Mame Bamberger sales and on was a sort of belle in the a basis to insist upon Broadgauge, and she his demands, while Pop- didn't care to go too far kin was so near that he in encouraging attentions could see the accomplish- that would deter in num- ment of his effort of many bers, however much they years — till this week's might make up in dire results seemingly strength. She possessed set him back hopelessly a certain style of rather in the race. And so he bold beauty; she had a was downcast, and dis- good figure, which show- ma yed, as Wilkerson ed well in the black garb passed on after this sec- the store demanded. Her ond warning. brown pompadour was The cheery greeting a bit straggly in the rather of Mame was like a ray close atmosphere of the of sunshine in a gloomy place, but she gave it a land. Popkin left his pat or two and re-skew- literary mart for a mo- ered it with a couple of Within Wonin ment, to reply. bone hairpins colored to “It's my first week,” look like shell, before “ Two counters to the left” said he, “and it has been she spoke to Mr. Popkin. a bad one. The sales are Mame was the ideal of Popkin-and she less than when Healey was here. The run knew it. She was also the adored of I arranged on “The Enigma,' my first, is Healey—and she knew that. In her heart a failure, and Wilkerson has spoken about of hearts, she had made up her mind, but it twice. I've pushed forward the very heither man had she vouchsafed more books that Healey made his best show- na tacit encouragement. For Mame ings on, and people have gone right past was wise in her own generation and she did them, and have bought them from him not propose to surrender her $15 a week at Bamberger's.” she could find something like an “O'course!” exclaimed Mame, rather equivalent in her husband's finances. scornfully. ence, to each had been her reply: Mr. Popkin sighed. lake good! When you get to be a “Two counters to the left, fourth aisle," manager, with an int’rest in the sales, he answered, without knowing that he did around and talk business. Mean- it, as a woman asked for thread-and she on matrimony, skiddoo! Mame's was back in a moment, berating him be- come around and while, on matr 288 AMERICAN MAGAZINE cause it was the second aisle to the right, which spotted it like coral islets on a tropic second counter. sea. “See here, Popsky," said Mame, fa- “Nivir moind,” muttered Healey. “'Tis miliarly, “you take this thing too hard. wid him she walks now, but wid me she O course you can't sell Healey's trade the will walk nixt wake. Aha, the havoc I'll very books that Healey used to sell 'em. work wid him, an' 'Th' Enigma!”” That's why he's got a trade; he can carry Whereupon he posted off down to Bam- it with him. Now, you feed your people berger's again, and till the forms closed on something else-see?” the last Sunday morning paper, and no “Speakin' o' The Enigma,' did you more “copy” would be received, he and see th’ evenin' paper's announcement ?" the advertising men were busy. “No, more misfortune?". The hint of a sale of “The Enigma" “Well, Bamberger's is announcin' a that would startle the city was told in the special run on it, at $1.18, for Monday. Saturday papers—a hint only. When the Your price is $1.25, ain't it?" natives arose Sunday morning and found "Never less, and we have it exclusively. pages devoted to the same sale, they mar- They can't have such a sale. Where veled. Some papers contained little be- could they have obtained the books?” . sides the Bamberger advertisement; the "I dunno what they can or they can't mere announcement of such a run on a have, but they announce it. And, say, I book known as an exclusive Broadgauge see Irene and Belle and some more o' stock, was startling. their people up here every noon this week, “The greatest surprise bargain ever buyin' ‘Enigmas' just the same. Say, known," read the announcements. “Our Pop, now, look here—ain't a run on ‘The motto is: “We sell for Less,' and this is Enigma' what you been wantin'?” , the proof of it: 'The Enigma,' Broad- “It certainly is.” gauge price, always $1.25; Our price, “An' ain't Bamberger's telling about a $1.18!” sale at $1.18, when they ain't got any Popkin dropped in on Mame that after- more ‘Enigmas' than what they bought noon. His courage needed bracing up; from you?" Healey was making this a bigger thing “Yes.” than he had expected. “Will you take a tip from me?” “If he makes good on that,” he said to “O’ course I will." Mame, “it will finish me. The very book " Then you walk home with me to that we boast is our own!”. night, an' I'll put you next to a scheme “You ain't got the nerve of a cat!” de- that'll be a winner-see?” clared Mame, scornfully. “He can't beat Out into Broadway, when the closing you if you have Mr. Mays' consent back gong clanged, Mame and Popkin went, o' you, t' carry out our plan.” arm and arm. The cool night air was re- And so it was that with much encourag- freshing, and even the drooping spirits of ing, Popkin was sent off after tea to vio- Mr. Popkin revived under the combined late all store ethics—to carry right up to atmosphere of Mame's good cheer and the Mr. Mays, the owner, a most daring plan balmy breeze that swept through the bril- to crush this bold scheme of Healey and liantly lighted thoroughfare. The beauty Bamberger's. And on Sunday too! and the relief of it drew them unconsciously In fear and trembling, Healey rang the closer together, and not even Healey Mays' bell, and with shaking knees he was did they see, as they wandered on up the admitted. But in an hour he came forth street and into Christie's, where, over a with head held high, smoking one of the nut sundae, they talked long and earnestly best of Mays' cigars, and as satisfied a of matters that to Healey would have been look on his face as if he had been a mill- a revelation. ionaire. And that night, it was Popkin That worthy, however, had turned back and Mays' advertising men who worked when he saw the pair. He had decided for many hours, in secret and, on all but in his own mind that this was the night Popkin's part, in amaze, the while, too, for his say, and the very thought of it that Healey had his chance with Mame. brought his face to the color of his brick-dust Right well did Healey plead his cause, hair and totally obliterated the freckles and Mame wavered. “THE ENIGMA”-A SPECIAL SALE 289 "'Pop' is a good fellow," she said to herself, “but he ain't got the courage of a flea, while here's Healey, already with an int'rest in the sales, and a cinch on his job. He ain't pretty, but, lands, yuh don't eat beauty! I've a notion t take Healey." But Popkin's appealing face filled her mental vision again, and her love of fair play stood betwixt Healey and her own heart. "No," she said to herself, again. “I'm partment, and the demand for “The Enigma” set in. And such a demand! Healey and his clerks were overwhelmed; they called for extra help; they waited on two and three at once, and Healey watched the stacks of books melt away with mingled feelings of wonder, delight and amaze. Customers took two and three copies, and returned for more. It was inexplicable; the cut of seven cents did not justify so great a rush, and Healey could not understand it. GA REDUCED DALE and “A ray of sunshine" goin't wait till this ‘Enigma' scrap is done: I'm goin't give Pop his show.” "Mr. Healey,” said Mame, "you're a good feller, an' I like you.” Healey beamed. “But I ain't goin't say t'night what I'm goin' t' do. Will yuh wait a week, an come nex' Sunday night for th’answer?" “'Tain't me that knows why ye can't say "Yis' t'night,” said Healey, slowly. But nayther is ut me that'll priss ye, whin ye'd ruther wait. An Sundhy night, is ut? I'll come thin fer me furst kiss!” In fact, he was in a small-sized panic. It was all right to gather in some few hun- dreds of the Broadgauge's leader in books, and cut under cost on them; he could afford the small loss, for the sake of hurt- ing the prestige of the rival establishment; but when it came to supplying a demand that was little less than a riot, and which meant a serious inroad upon his profits for weeks ahead, that was cause for alarm. And just that was what threatened. For already the supply of “The Enigma” was almost depleted, and the calls for it were more insistent than ever. And, he must meet that demand; this he well knew, no matter what it grew into. The prestige of the entire store was in- volved. To advertise such a sale as this, Bargain day at Bamberger's had seldom seen such a rush. Before the doors opened Hat Monday morning, the sidewalks were Docked. As soon as admittance was se- ted, the throng made for the book de- 290 AMERICAN MAGAZINE and then to fail to have all the books that and buying—tons and tons of “The En- were called for, with a few left over, would igma," and wondering in his soul where be a disaster. He must secure more copies the Broadgauge got all its supply, and if of “The Enigma,” at any price, and he he never would see the end of it and of his must keep on securing them till he had ill-starred plan, which was losing him sold every one in town. money with every book that was sold. He "Thank fortune, th' Broadgauge didn't was a glad man when closing time came, have very manny o'thim t' start with," he and he viewed with great satisfaction the said to himself, as he mopped his brow, counters now cleared of “The Enigma," and hurriedly sought Meyer Bamberger, and sighed that his scheme had rather to whom he told his woes. miscarried. “Of course, get them,” said this head As for Popkin, he now began to be of the firm. “But really, Meester Healey, busy. He had only time to nod to Mame, it loogs like you hat de vorst o' dis. Und as the closing gong rang. Popkin had dis house don't like to lose moneys, eh?” work ahead. Healey groaned, but he acted. Sum- “Mame, you're a brick!” he exclaimed, moning clerks from the other departments, as she smiled at him. he imparted his instructions. “Go on; you've only begun," was her “Go uptth' Broadgauge,” said he. reply. Yet she smiled back as she jabbed “Quick! Buy “The Enigma. Yis, pay big hatpins through her beplumed hat, and $1.25 fer 'em. Come in th’ back way, she swung her handbag at him in friend- an’take 'em to the stock room, an' thin liest fashion as the door closed on her. git more. Kape on till I till ye stop!” Popkin was satisfied. A lively, and, to most of the clerks, an Till far into the night, Popkin and his inexplicable demand now sprung up at the helpers worked. Each separate volume of Broadgauge for “The Enigma.” Breath- “The Enigma” passed through their less young women, a few men, and sundry hands, and in this handling, a certain rub- boys and girls, arrived, demanded the ber stamp with large letters figured mys- book, and hurried away with several copies teriously. And the advertising manager apiece. Sometimes they came back for came in for a long talk, which resulted in more. Extra help was needed in Popkin's increased activity in several newspaper section. More and more, the stock room offices in the early morning hours. was called upon for fresh piles of the vol Results showed with the dawn. Each umes, and the whole store was electric paper carried a page from the Broadgauge, with excitement. A few clerks understood; and on each was the announcement, in they had heard Mame, all forenoon, at the flaming letters: telephone, calling up one friend after an “Everlastingly the Lowest! We will other, and to each repeating the same in- not be undersold! 'The Enigma,' regu- junction: lar price, $1.25; rivals' price, $1.18; at “Go down to Bamberger's, and get me our store only, $1.13! Come early; only ‘The Enigma. Yes, get me all you can, a few left!” and then go again. Yes, yes; pay for And in the windows of the Broadgauge, them, and fetch them here, and I'll have and on the piles of books were similar an- the cash for you. What? No, I can't nouncements, on big signs: “The Enig- get away, and they're selling it less 'n we ma,' $1.13. Everlastingly the lowest!” are. Hurry!” Healey had a severe shock when he saw And they had noted the stream of friends this latest move. He recognized in it a who came to Mame's counter, each with forcing of his hand. But it was too late a parcel, which they exchanged for coin, for retreat. He knew that his course was and which parcels immediately went to plainly mapped out for him, and he looked the stock room, post haste, in the care not back from the plough. of strong-armed porters, whence they ap. Hence, it was with no surprise that Pop- peared quickly in Popkin's region, and kin recognized, in the rush that ensued, the made hasty exits over his counters. These now familiar faces of Healey's aides. few understood the Napoleonic contest The word passed quickly to the Popkin raging—but they merely smiled. clan. “Sell all you can to the Bamberger And meanwhile, Healey was still selling crowd; sell to them in preference.” And MIZARI K THE ENIGMA DUR PP UR TPS 1.13 ONLY “ Mame, you're a brick ! ” the instructions were obeyed. By noon, And finally, he ordered a huge electric The Enigma" was eliminated from the sign, that the very darkness might be em- Broadgauge stock, and no more were to be blazoned with his words. His clerks were had. The signs were withdrawn, and the kept busy for hours wrapping each copy of rush was done. “The Enigma” against the morning. And Healey grinned. He knew now that Healey went home to sleep the sleep of victory was in sight-a costly victory, it is the just. true, but a triumph. And he laid his Popkin also slept, but not till he did plans for the final coup. To all the papers two things. One was to duplicate all the he telephoned: Healey advertising arrangements, but with “Give me wan page,” he said. “Put the mere announcement: “Read Page in it, right in th’middle: ‘Git it fer less! 13." This queer statement was in papers, "The Enigma,” here only, $1. Come airley on wagons, on men and on signs, before in the mornin'; only a few left!!” closing time, and even Healey had won- Then he ordered similar signs placed on dered at it. He devoured page 13 of every all the delivery wagons, and in all the win- evening paper, but not a word did he see dows. He hired “sandwich men,” dec- that enlightened him. He finally resolved orated them with placards of the same im- that it was a hoax on Popkin's part, and port, and sent them to parade Broadway, let it go at that. especially in the vicinity of the Broadgauge. Popkin was summoned by Mr. Mays 291 GAS ENIGMA B AOW OIVLY $113 11 NE T+. Boors ASSO inica TE $1.13 CUTNA "Inior WU “Read that, you cheat !” when business opened the next day. “Well, young man,” asked the head of the establishment, “how are we coming out?" “Very fairly, I think, sir," was Popkin's modest reply. “Will you see the figures ?” “Yes, let us have them.” “Well, sir, you know we had originally 2,000 copies of 'The Enigma' which cost us 77 cents each; publisher's sale price, $1.25.” “Yes; 2,000 copies, at 77 cents--" “Making them cost us $1,540." “ Certainly." “We had sold about 700 copies up to Monday. These, sir, at $1.25, or $875. I have reason to believe that the bulk of -In fact, about all-were taken by Bamberger's agents.” “Umph! Well—-" “They opened their sale with, say, 700 copies—I am dealing in round numbers- bought at $1.25, sold at $1.18, a loss on every one of 7 cents. I had our clerks and their friends at the sale, and they soon bought up his supply, whereupon Healey began to send here for more. We sold him the balance of our stock, some 1,300, at $1.25, or $1,625. These they soon re- sold us at $1.18, or a net loss of 7 cents to them. This we repeated above seven times during the day, making over 14,000 copies sold at $1.25, but bought at $1.18, thus making our profit on them only 7 cents, the same as Bamberger's loss, or $980. Our sales so far figure, therefore, $3,480, as against a cost of $1,540.". “Very well done.” “At the close, we had 400 copies, which had cost us 77 cents, or $308, and these 292 “ THE ENIGMA”-A SPECIAL SALE 293 cents we sold the next day at a loss of 5 away, and every letter burned itself deep into Healey's frozen brain. "Small matter-small matter. You have “Stop th' sale!” he yelled, frantically, cleared nearly $2,000 for us.” “Ra-fund ivery cint! Buy back ivery "If you please, sir, I didn't do it. I copy! It's an us; we're bit! We're faked!" was only the agent. I would like very And he rushed for the telephone. much to have you hear from Mame-1 Mr. Mays had just listened to the joint mean Miss Bailey, sir-as to how it was tale of Popkin and Mame, and the laugh- planned." ter was still in his eyes. “Go and get—Mame!” said Mr. Mays, “You're a Napoleon of cleverness," as his eyes twinkled. “So that's the way said hebut he spoke more to the girl. of it?” he murmured to himself, “and “Popkin, I'd be glad to have you accept if I want him, she'll have to go along? the position of general sales manager-at a Well, she's pretty smart if this is her commensurate salary, of course—if you doings. And he's square to give her the will?”. credit for it, too. Ah”-as they re-entered “Oh, thank you, sir,” injected Mame- -"now, tell us all about it.” whereat Mr. Mays laughed again. And they did. “Provided " Meanwhile, there was excitement down Popkin grew cold, and Mame stepped at Bamberger's. The calls for “The En- close to him and patted his arm. igma” at $1 were so strenuous that it “Provided Mame -- eh — Miss Bailey, seemed as if not a copy had ever been sold now will resign, and-eh-as it were, give before. Healey was overwhelmed, and he you the benefit of her advice-eh-eh and his clerks were congratulating them- --catch the idea, I hope?-huh ?” selves heartily that they had with keen Mame blushed till her pompadour foresight wrapped the volumes the night seemed like a cloud above a sunset, but before. Healey, truly, was still puzzled she laughed. over that Bamberger announcement, and “Oh, he's asked me, often enough, his search of page 13 in every newspaper Mr. Mays,” she declared. “And y'know, was renewed with each edition, but never I'd like t do it. But I promised Healey a word did he find in one of them. t answer him Sund’y-if it wasn't for that “'Tis beyant me," he declared, as he I could o' course, I like Popkin " watched the sandwich men pass and repass. The telephone bell rang. Healey was “But divil a bit I care; 'tis makin' th' at the other end of the wire. And “Mame" books sell like doughnuts av a frosty marn- was his demand. in’. But wait till I git that Popkin-th “Is that you, Mame?" came his voice, dirthy dog! Whin me an' Mame is mar- plaintively. “This is me. Ye nadn't ried, ye won't see no Popkin at th' widdin' wait till Sunday, Mame; I'm ra-signed, f'ast!” an' I l’ave town to - night. 'Tis too much There was a hurried call for Healey at fer Healey; I got me answer— 'tis an page the front counter. An irate woman wanted 13. Good bye!” her money back. She held “The Enig- Mame dropped the receiver. ma” open before the little Irishman's “Healey says he's got his answer; "'Tis face and gesticulated wildly. on page 13,' he says. What does he “Read that, you cheat!” she shouted. mean?” Back of her, customers were ripping “That settles the only secret I've had open their copies, and one after another from you,” said Popkin, as he handed her with the celerity of rapid - fire guns, were the last remaining copy of “The Enigma," shoving them at Healey and declaring that opened at page 13. Thereon, stamped in he was a fraud, that Bamberger's was a huge red letters, but indelible, Mame read cheap "joint” and that they had no faith the words that had killed the Bamberger in it. And every second, the throng grew sale, and had settled Healey's and their more and more like a mob. fate for life: Healey gave one glance at the book SOLD thrust at him. It was opened at page 13, (originally, exclusively and only) and across the black lettering was a huge by the red smear. It could be read ten feet BROADGAUGE STORE! The Quickening Spirit The San Francisco that Survived By Julian Willard Helburn WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY H. A. PARKER On the third day of the San Dua Francisco fire two men met Ben E in front of us on a street in V the Mission district-scarce MO R a street, but a paved road. Let through a great barren flat of crumbled brick and smouldering em- bers. One was staring at the little plat of ashes that had been his home, when the other came up, and “Hello, Billy,” he said, “what you got left ?” Billy looked up. “My health,” he said. He threw his arm over the other's shoulder and they went away laughing. Billy had more than his health. He had his share of the spirit of San Francisco. We landed at the foot of Russian Hill, where the refugees from the very poorest of the burned districts, largely immigrants, were camped on the open ground at the waterfront. They had rigged up pitiful little tents of broomhandles and blankets, whipped by the dust-laden wind. These sheltered a little bedding and were flanked by a trunk or two, a chair or a bird-cage: more no one had saved. One family had an old overturned skiff for sole shelter. When they saw that we were photographing it they clambered out and posed with evident en joyment, one man proudly displaying a skilletful of eggs—a great luxury at that time. “How did you come out ?” I asked the woman of the party. "Oh, losers!” she said gaily. “Like the rest-there ain't any winners in this game!" Just beyond the City Hall, in the very midst of the embers, a household had set up in a clever little shack of roofing-tin, gleaned from the ruins. It was inscribed broadly in charcoal, “Camp de Bum. Rooms to let- on the roof.” In Golden Gate Park one tent was labeled “Hotel St. Francis,” an- other “Camp Contentment”; a third drew smiles from everyone with the inscription, “God bless our home.” There was a story current on the streets of two friends who met in Golden Gate Park. “Where are you staying now?” one asks. The other takes him by the arm. “See that tree over there?" “Yes." “See the third branch from the top on the left-hand side?” “Yes.” “Well, that's ours." Another sign, painted on the only stand- ing wall of a big Market Street store, read: · CRASHED, BUT NOT CRUSHED. CD DOWN, BUT NOT OUT! That same afternoon some of the soldiers, who had been on duty night and day since the quake, volunteered to go on half rations that a few more of the people might be fed. I n Oakland a refugee entered a restau- rant and asked for a job as waiter. “Sorry," said the proprietor, “but I've as many waiters as customers now." “I've just got to have work,” said the applicant. “I've got a wife and kids in Golden Gate Park, and I've got to get 'em over." One of the waiters stepped up and offered his apron. “I'm a single man,” he said, “and I got friends in Berkeley. You take my job.” Such a crisis is the measure of a man or a people. That infinitesimal shudder of the earth's skin, an inch or two in either direc- tion and three-quarters of a minute long, brushed aside our proud fabric of civiliza- tion as a horse shakes off a fly. Water, light, power, telegraphs, telephones, street- 294 THE QUICKENING SPIRIT 295 cars and railways went instantly out of squares of crumbled brick bounded by gray commission. Wealth, social distinctions, streets: save the blackened Fairmont, still were wiped out. The city returned in its beautiful in its ruin, not a wall standing. hour of trial to the stone age. It was left In the valley to the right, behind the haze with bare hands. of smoke and brickdust, the gaunt skeletons And with bare hearts. The sordid wrap- of skyscrapers rose over a Stonehenge of pings of civilization, the husks of conven ruins. Desolation as lifeless, as awful as tion, isolation, protection, selfishness, fell the desert. from the Man. He stood forth naked, and The pioneer swept a hand toward the -truly, he was made in God's image. line of the naked hills. “So it was when I He met the greatest catastrophe of mod- came here," he said somberly. “So bare. ern times not despairingly, not grimly, not Only then it was green; now it is red.” serenely. He met it laughing. On the Of the shock the worst effect, beyond the news of the disaster we rushed to San setting of the fire, was on the people. The Francisco, sick with anticipation of the actual physical terror of the sensation horrors we must see. No sooner were we seems to have been something that no one landed than we caught the exhilaration of who did not experience it can realize. that spirit, indomitable, unselfish, gay. People standing in the streets were thrown Save the charred dead, there were no hor- from their feet. Those who had been rors, no panic, no hysterics, no wailing or asleep woke to find their beds and the rest gnashing of teeth. We walked the streets of the furniture sliding out from the walls for days, and saw three or four tear to the center of the room and back again. swollen faces—that was all. The San The floors seemed to circle, first one way, Franciscans were busy making the best of then the other, then-everyone uncon- their terrible situation, helping one an- sciously chose the same simile—“the other out, and planning for the restoration house was picked up and shaken as a of their city. They had no time to mourn. terrier shakes a rat.” The shaking grew San José, fifty miles south, had a taste of worse at it went on, and ended with a the earthquake-a score of dead and a few vicious snap. The rumble of the earth, the buildings wrecked. With a number of deafening roar and crash of falling walls other refugees we were stranded there for a and chimneys, ended abruptly. There was while on our return trip and found many of a tense, dead, expectant silence. Then the the natives still pale and trembling, six people began pouring into the streets. days after the shock. I commented on it Only a few even claim to have kept their to one of the refugees. He laughed. heads during the quake. One man, indeed, “You see,” he said, “they're not occu- turned over and went to sleep again, and pied, as we are, in being thankful we're appeared on the street about nine o'clock, alive.” exclaiming, “Why-why-I didn't know it In the city, the spirit of the people and was anything serious!” There was little the magnificent efficiency of the martial panic, little hysterics. But most of the rule left no time to marvel at the complete- people were thoroughly terrified. Nearly ness of the disaster. The biggest thing in all were dazed. Hours later, men and San Francisco was the San Franciscans. women were seen on the streets in aimless The next biggest was Funston. The de- flight, clutching an alarm - clock or an struction seemed a minor matter. empty bird-cage. Not many such, of Perhaps its own size helped to dwarf it. course. But for nearly two days the fear of On the spot, it was too big to grasp. To a repetition of the quake was in the minds those who knew and loved the city, the of a great number-I think perhaps of the old and the new San Francisco are simply majority-a deadening influence which different places. allowed them to watch the destruction of the Nothing is left but a few wharves and city with a sort of numb indifference. factories and the thin outlying residence Anything-anything but that awful sensa- districts. I stood with Holliday, the tion of terror and helplessness, that impo- pioneer, by the little house he built thirty- tent agony of waiting for the angry earth to six years ago on one of the outlying hills. make an end and swallow you. Before us rose the long slopes of Russian Five minutes after the shock threads of and Nob Hills, a checkerwork of red smoke were rising in twenty places on the 296 AMERICAN MAGAZINE water front and along Market Street. The steadily beaten back, and before these a fire department was out at once, helpless. ring of soldiery, forcing the people from The water supply was destroyed. Sullivan, their homes. Often they resisted, some- the Fire Chief, a brilliant executive and the times desperately. The soldiers drove them only man who might have a plan for fighting at the point of the bayonet. a general conflagration, had been fatally Strange, tragic processions, those four. injured in his bed at the first shock. The Families in carriages, in carts, trucks, de- little dynamite at hand was soon exhausted livery wagons, piled high with what they In two hours the flames were beyond con- had saved of their household goods. Fami- trol. lies afoot, old men and women and little It took General Funston about an hour children staggering under bundles of bed- to grasp the situation. By seven o'clock the ding, men dragging trunks—"the squealing first troops were at the fire, on the watch for of trunks dragged on asphalt" was the looting, and the streets were full of others characteristic note of the disaster-it rings on their way. From that time on the sol- still in my ears. Trunks on baby-carriages, diers were the saviors of the city. Nearly trunks on wheelbarrows, trunks on toy everyone in authority did good work; the express wagons, bicycles fastened side by machine Mayor rose unexpectedly to the side, bearing improvised platforms loaded occasion, co-operated well with the mili- with trunks and bedding. Brave proces- tary, and a verted much violence by his sions, taxing their strength to drag along the prompt orders to close all saloons, destroy few possessions that stood between them all liquor, and shoot all looters. But even and destitution, yet laughing, jesting, lend- before martial law was declared, Funston ing a hand. had the reins. It was he and his engineers A prominent attorney, once a rancher, who came to the rescue with dynamite from who is over six feet tall and built in propor- the military stores. It was he and his 3,700 tion, went down to his office a few hours regulars-artillery, marines and jackies all after the first shock. The fire was raging pressed into service-reinforced by 1,200 of only a block away and the street was the state guard, who kept almost perfect jammed with the fleeing. In the throng he order in the chaos of the worst catastrophe spied a truckman whose truck was empty. of recent times. It was he who found ways He hailed him and asked him how much he to communicate orders and news to every would charge to move his books and papers. inhabitant of the city within two hours after “Fifty dollars," said the truckman, pull- their issuance. It was he who, the momenting his horses in to the curb. food came, fed a whole city so that not one The attorney had but $10 in coin. He went hungry. And it was he who, when the pulled it out, with it a big revolver, and other dangers were over, with his sanitary shoved both under the nose of the truckman. and signal corps averted what seemed “That's enough, isn't it?” he demanded almost inevitable pestilence. His work was calmly. a marvel of lightning organization and “More than enough,” replied the truck- thorough efficiency. In the worst of the man, climbing from his seat while the disaster the victims themselves stopped to crowd paused in its rush. “The $10 will be wonder at it. plenty." Immediately after the shock the people So Attorney William Denman saved his swarmed to the burning district, but long library and his clients' papers. before noon the exodus had begun; four Two days later this same man found that great steady streams of people, unceasing one district of the city was very poorly sup- from dawn till dark for three days, to the plied with food. Inquiry showed that there ferries, the Presidio, the Park and the hills were no vehicles to convey the provisions beyond the Mission. The fire gained a from the wharf. Also it appeared that block an hour, and every hour made ten there were no teams to be had. thousand homeless. They say it was a sea Denman sniffed. “I know where there of fire, that the waves of flame visibly are some good teams,” he said. “I know surged and broke. From afar the city my neighbors.” And he departed. seemed a volcano: the smoke rose above Two hours later a procession of 22 teams Mt. Tamalpais. Before the flames the and all sorts of fancy rigs reached Broadway fighters with their dynamite, doggedly 'but wharf, three miles away. At the head of the The Last Stand Half a mile of flames on the third night, along North Beach, between Russian and Telegraph Hills “ Serene, indifferent to fate— " Leland Stanford smiling amid the ruins of lower Market Street 2 II UTRUSTNING The Four Mile Camp One hundred and fifty thousand refugees, spread along the north shore from Telegraph Hill in the foreground to the hills of the Presidio, just visible through the hase THE QUICKENING SPIRIT 299 procession was Denman, in the middle was a private soldier and at the rear a grim sergeant. Knowing ones recognized the carriage pairs of some 22 of San Francisco's wealthiest. And the sergeant detailed with relish how he and his private had been led into stables where grooms and stablemen had been forced at the point of a revolver to surrender their charges. But Denman seemed provoked. "I had 23 teams," he explained. “I've kept my eye on 'em all the way and I told my men to shoot the first son-of-a-gun that left the line. But I landed here with only 22 instead of 23. I'll on I came upon them again. She was ex- postulating with the man and his grimy face showed signs of physical distress. “I have forgotten the very things I MUST save,” she announced, while a couple of hundred of us listened. “You MUST come back with me and get them.” “But you say your house is on Bush Street," said the man. “That's a good mile and half back. I've carried your stuff almost a mile now and you ask me, a per- fect stranger, to go back and save more.” “That's right,” one of us chipped in. “He threw his own stuff away to save yours. What the Earthquake Did Union Street buckled and shattered in three directions by the shock give that 23d man $100 cash if he'll tell me how he made a sneak.” And he refused to be comforted. Into the throng that struggled down Van Ness Avenue to Fort Mason through the heat and smoke of Thursday afternoon swept a tall, well-dressed young woman, lugging an immense suit-case, which she frantically changed from hand to hand, as if her strength was utterly gone. A young man whose eyes were not yet blinded to beauty in distress saw her plight. He wearily stacked his own cases and blankets on the curb, threw them a lingering glance of farewell and relieved the fair one of her burden. A half mile farther You can't go back. The city's a-fire there now.” She stamped her foot and the ones of us closest began to wilt. But an elderly man broke the tangle. “What is it you've for- gotten,” he said mildly. “Maybe you didn't forget it, after all. Suppose you look in your case and see.” “I'm sure," she began. But the elderly man had stooped over and unfastened the lock of the suit-case. It opened before us. “You see you didn't forget them, after all,” he said, still mildly. “Here they are;” and he lifted out the total contents of the case-a package of invisible hairpins and a corset. And the bearer of this burden never 300 AMERICAN MAGAZINE After Eight Hours The North Beach fire from Russian Hill , same view as the night scene on p. 297 flinched. With the utmost politeness he took the articles from the elderly man's hands, put them back, closed the case, and without a smile bore the young woman and her possessions away and on towards safety —the very climax of courtesy, the most excellently polite act I ever saw a man perform. The return to the stone age was as com- plete as sudden. In a day the whole popu- lation was camped on the edges of a de- serted and perishing city. Most of those whose homes remained abandoned them for the first few days, fearing either another earthquake or the approaching flames. And how gaily they took their destitution, these people! They built fireplaces on the side- walks with the bricks of fallen chim- neys. “You will observe,” said one dig- nified elderly man, as we paused to snap his establishment, “that my oven is built of the best Philadelphia building-brick. I scorn the common red article.” Under a corner of the Mint a little German who had saved the chairs from his barber- shop set them up under a bit of canvas and did a land-office business while the embers across the street still smouldered. Among the miscellaneous salvage in Jefferson Square were a couple of pianos, a few banjos and guitars. On Thursday afternoon, when the little food and water that the refugees had brought with them was gone, and the six-mile bed of coals that had been the heart of the city was throwing out an almost intolerable heat, the owners of the instruments got together and cheered the rest of the encampment with impromptu concerts. At one of the bakeries on Friday there were two bread - lines, one five, the other eight blocks long. On Wednesday some of the grocers had thrown open their shops and bidden the people take what they needed. Others had asked famine prices; bread a dollar a loaf, canned goods a dollar a can, soda crackers five cents each. On these the soldiers descended as on the ex- pressmen; their goods were confiscated and distributed. For three days money could buy nothing. Pauper and capitalist lined up together, basket on arm for rations or pail in hand for water. It was no forced equality. Class and wealth were forgotten in the common disaster, and each man spoke to his fellow on the street and lent a hand as he could. For the matter of that, as the banks were closed, no man was worth more than he had in his pocket, and many a prominent and prosperous citizen could reckon his wealth without the use of a dollar mark and might have starved as thoroughly as his poorest neighbor had food been at a price. Much of the efficiency of Funston's work was due to the automobiles. Nearly all in the city were requisitioned, and many of the owners volunteered to stay with them and Five Canaries All they had saved, except the clothes on their backs THE QUICKENING SPIRIT 301 drove them night and day in the govern- ment service. Autos brought the injured to hospitals and, as one hospital after another was reached by the fire, bore the patients to safety. Daredevil chauffeurs tore through half-impassable streets with loads of dyna- mite. Orders were wigwagged from hill to hill as if the city were the desert, and from each hilltop were given to men in autos who hurried through the camps and streets, shouting the orders aloud and scoring them with chalk on blank walls and across the sidewalks. In two hours an order from headquarters could be known to everyone in the city. It was the speed and thoroughness of this service by which Funston averted a How the Horses Survived pestilence. From Friday to Sunday the Every park and garden in the city was a fasture for danger was critical. Severe cases of con- weeks before fodder could be had tagious diseases had been found in the streets. The sewers were broken, there was But the greatest thing in that week was the little running water, and typhoid was immi- spirit of the people of San Francisco. nent. To the stricken city quarantine With the plans for the new San Francisco would have been the last straw. Prompt this story is not concerned. They were sanitary orders, enforced with the rigor of under way before the fire was out, and they martial law, prompt impressment of all promise a more substantial, a safer and a able-bodied men to bring about sanitary beautiful city. But the new San Francisco conditions, saved the day. It was Funston's will be only a matter of steel and stone. final victory. The people, the spirit, will be those of the old Martial law is no kindergarten game. In San Francisco—the bravest city on earth. S the closing of the water-front saloons, where the worst characters of the city had begun rioting after the earthquake, many were shot out of hand. Innocent men were taken IS for looters and shot while entering their own houses. But the soldiers, regulars and militia alike, were almost without exception splendid. On duty practically without sleep for three days, they were not only effi- cient but patient and helpful; protection was only half their service. It is not pleasant to think what the disaster might have been without them and Funston. Or without the rest of the country. Re- lief came with marvelous promptness. Physicians, nurses, medical supplies, poured into the city twenty-four hours after the shock; food, blankets, tents, a few hours later. The news of the nation's swift gener- osity thrilled and inspired everyone in the city; we all felt a deep personal gratitude, a deep personal pride in our countrymen. Dr. McIntyre of Los Angeles called the week following the earthquake the greatest Breakfast on Pacific Heights in the history of the country. No one who A prosperous San Franciscan entering into his new went through the disaster will doubt him. role with grace and enthusiasm A crop like this means a year of plenty to one-third of the universe The Slave of Cotton How the South is Grapplingo with Her Gigantic Problem By Henry Kitchell Webster AUTHOR OF "CALUMET K.," ETC. SECOND ARTICLE * X F you will take a look over King Cotton has somehow imposed upon S o the whole cotton situation, him. you will see one thing loom- In a late number of this magazine, we K ing altogether too large to be told the story of the great discovery made by S VR ignored, and that is the the cotton-planters of the South during the La Southern Cotton Associa- year 1903; namely, that the price of cotton tion. As to whether it is solid or not, a was not the remote, inevitable grinding of permanent factor in the world of cotton or the law of Supply and Demand, as they had not, there is much difference of opinion; always supposed, but a mere man-made but there can be no doubt that it is very big. affair. We told how Brown, of New Or- It has upwards of a half million of members, leans, and Sully, of Providence, Rhode it has a complete organization in every Island, demonstrated the fact that you cotton state, and it has done, in the single could put the price of cotton as high as you year of its existence, some things of national pleased if you would only buy enough of it; importance. and finally, of Sully's catastrophic toboggan It has this further claim to be treated se- slide and his disappearance into the chasm riously: its generation was spontaneous. It where his kind always go at last. That came into existence at once, all over the was the end of one story, but it is the begin- South, to meet a situation which was really ning of another one. Sully was lost to sight tragic. It is an honest attempt to do some- in March, 1904, when the descending rush thing which badly needs doing; namely, to of prices reached fifteen cents, and at this rescue the planter from the slavery which point the descent was for a while checked. * The first article appeared in the AMERICAN MAGAZINE for March. 302 THE SLAVE OF COTTON 303 The price was still around fourteen at the three-quarters cents a pound, on the New end of May, or in other words, until the York exchange. whole of the 1904 crop had been planted. I don't know whether these figures sound And the planters, instead of regarding this dry to the layman who is reading this price as abnormally high, thought it was a article or not; at any rate they spelled dis- temporary depression, the result of profes- aster to the South. Serious as they are, sional manipulation in Beaver Street; any- they do not fully reflect the situation in the where from seventeen to twenty-five was cotton belt. Farmers who brought their where they thought the price belonged. crops into the small interior concentrating When you stop to figure out that at fif- points often parted with them at as low a teen cents and with good weather a man price as four and a half cents a pound, who had a thousand acres in cotton would which is actually less than it costs to raise it. get seventy-five thousand dollars for one The banks which had loaned money on the year's crop, you can easily understand why staple at eight cents a pound, and often every inch that would bear cotton that year higher, now owned the collateral at a ruin- was planted with it, to the unheard-of total ous loss, and merchants, manufacturers, acreage of thirty-one million. And the and professional men suffered their share. weather, as if Mother Nature enjoyed a And this says nothing of those who had gone rather grim joke, proceeded to make those into the speculative market months before acres yield as they had not yielded before in and bought cotton for December and Janu- years. When the crop was in, it was found ary delivery at fifteen cents a pound; for to total about fourteen million bales, or these there was no haven but bankruptcy. nearly four million more than the year The sum of it all is this: the South stood before. to get for its fourteen - million - bale crop The price, of course, must have sagged fifty million dollars less than for the ten mil- under a load like that, but as a matter of lion bales they had raised the year before. fact it fell to depths that the most pessimis- No wonder they were dazed. They were tic planter never dreamed of. It never ruined by a bumper crop! Something was stopped falling until it reached six and very wrong indeed with the machinery; Richard Cheatham, Vice-President of the Southern Cotton-Growers' Association Whose energy stopped the “leak" in the Department of Agriculture Theodore H. Price, Whose Reputation for Accurate Cotton Forecasts is Unercode V whether by the malice of man or the blind Mr. Harvie Jordan, of Montice rage of economic law, they were being Georgia, called the convention to orde ground up, and they wanted to know why, it was the Honorable Tom Watson and what to do. So when the call came really stated the case. for a great convention to debate the matter, “What a singular situation is ours there was not a cotton county in the South brethren! The world has never se but answered, and the three thousand dele- similar to it. Famine has its millions of gates met at New Orleans on the 23rd of tims in India because the crops have f January, 1905, in a good deal the spirit of We sent the offerings of our charity those who met at Philadelphia in 1776. ago to Russia because her crops had failed ne 304 THE SLAVE OF COTTON 305 To-night in Ireland starvation clamors for its victims throughout the length and breadth of that afflicted country, and it is because they didn't make the crop. Here we are threatened with bankruptcy and with commercial ruin, because we did make the crop! "It is a curious state of affairs. I starve to death, not because I have no crust to eat, but because the table is bountifully spread. If we make no crop it's ruin, and if we do make one it's ruin too. It's the old predes- tination cry: You can and you can't, you will and you won't, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.” It was all very bewildering, but there was little difference of opinion as to where the blame for their troubles should be laid; it was consigned on all hands to the should- ers of the “dear” speculator, the man who was backing his opinion that cotton was not low enough by selling “futures.” This piratical bird of prey came in for some very incandescent oratory, and a good many ingenious devices calculated to put him out of business and to help the patriotic and benevolent Sullys and Browns. The more immediately practical suggestion, however, was picturesquely stated by Tom Watson. "Spot cotton is king and always will be king if you will be true to it. The mills can't run on cotton futures. The railroads can't get rich on cotton futures. The fer- tilizer companies won't get fat on cotton futures. The gambling contracts made on Wall Street itself can't always be settled by other contracts. Sooner or later they have got to have spot cotton. "What is Wall Street doing? It is sim- ply betting that you will sell your cotton in April, May, June and July at six and a fraction. For them to win the game you have got to do it, for if you don't do it they lose the game and you win it. Put your selves with spot cotton, just where Sully stood a year ago. Let us keep in our hands that which they are obliged to have. Let us hold it like grim death and when they want it let them come to us and pay us our prices for it.” That, in the main, was the line taken by the convention. They organized a per- manent association with Mr. Harvie Jordan as president, for the purpose of making concerted action possible — the Southern Cotton Association. The convention de- veloped the machinery of its organization in every cotton-growing state, county and civil subdivision of the counties. It ap- pointed or elected general and local officers, inspectors, reporters on the crop and acreage, and it provided liberally for money enough to keep all this machinery in opera- tion. Aside from the general doctrine of strength in union which underlies every organization, the Southern Cotton Associa- tion stands for two cardinal propositions. (1.) The cotton-grower should hold his cotton for a minimum price of ten cents a pound. (2.) The members should pledge them- selves to reduce the acreage to be planted in cotton for the next crop, and also their con- sumption of fertilizer, by at least twenty- five per cent. The association was formed along these lines and at the moment of writing has been in existence more than a year. It is ably officered and as an organization it has pros- pered. It wears one very large feather in its cap which the convention had no thought of its acquiring—the exposure of the leak in the Cotton Bureau at Washington. The convention had expressed a good deal of dis- satisfaction with the government estimates, published monthly, on the acreage, condi- tion and probable size of the crop, as these estimates had seemed to the grower to give undue aid and comfort to their enemies, the bears; and shrewd observers among them began to note that the effect of these reports was always anticipated by a day or two on the New York Cotton Exchange. Perhaps half the rise caused by a bull report or the drop caused by a bear report would occur before the report was supposed to be known to anybody outside the chief statis- tician's office in the Department of Agricul- ture. There was a sinister look to this when one came to think it over, and the secretary of the association, Mr. Richard Cheatham, after a particularly flagrant case of this sort and after chancing on a clue to some definite evidence, went to New York to investigate. It will be well remembered how completely he made his case how it was nothing less than documentary demonstration that he carried to Washington and laid before the incredulous eyes of Secretary Wilson. It proved more than was anticipated; the report had not only been sold in advance of publication, it had been falsified in the interest of certain cliques of speculators. The chief statistician, John D. Hyde, re- 306 AMERICAN MAGAZINE signed, pending the investigation, and went they be true there can be no question of the to Europe; his private secretary resigned incalculable harm that speculation, as at and Edward Holmes, Hyde's chief subor- present conducted, does the South. But dinate and the most obvious culprit, de- can it be, and ought it to be, abolished on parted for the West in advance of a criminal that account? prosecution. Texas thought so and passed a law to that Along the direct line of its activity, hold- effect, only to have it rendered nugatory by ing the crop and reducing the acreage, the a court decision that the transactions com- Association is also able to give a good ac- plained of do not take place in Texas at all count of itself. The downward trend of but in New York or in Louisiana where the prices was checked and the acreage reduced exchanges are located. And Georgia has so that last year's crop will hardly count tried to mitigate the evil by a high license more than ten and one-half million bales. which makes the rural exchange of Texas But of course you must remember that the impossible but merely concentrates the great economic engines called Supply and business in the larger towns. North Caro- Demand, and Action and Reaction, were lina passed a prohibitory statute with the working their way. What will happen effect of warming up the telephone and when they try to push against these forces is telegraph wires leading across the line into matter for conjecture. her sister state. Still it is perhaps not im- The situation which confronted the cot possible to prevent by law all but the most ton-growers a year ago was fully as serious surreptitious dealings in future contracts. as they took it to be: it was really little short But, after all, is the speculator a mere of tragic. They were facing ruin because bird of prey, or has he a place in the econ- they had made a bumper crop, a wider omy of commerce and is he, in the broadest spread ruin than they would have had to sense, a producer?. There is, of course, no face if the crop had failed outright. Before sort of trade or industry but has some ele- that grim paradox they were right in crying ment of chance about it. The merchant out that something was very wrong indeed. who buys goods with the idea of selling The Convention, as I said, laid its trou them at a profit, may see the demand for bles, without misgiving, to the bear specu- them disappear while they lie on his shelves; lator. But if the bear is responsible the bull or the wholesale price of them may go down, is equally so. Abolishing the bear and en- so that his competitors, who bought later couraging the bull is a notion off the same than he, can undersell him. The manu- piece with taking the last car off all trains.facturer must always speculate when he with a view to doing away with rear-end buys his raw material; if he thinks the price collisions. It is to say, let everybody buy is going up he buys a great deal, if he thinks cotton futures and let nobody sell them. it will lower next week he buys as little as Sully had just as much to do with seven-cent he can get on with. You cannot go into any cotton as the bears had. So the question line of commercial or industrial activity we must ask is whether speculation, whether without becoming a speculator, and whether all buying and selling of cotton for future you succeed or fail will partly, at least, delivery, is the cause of the cotton-grower's depend on whether your guess on the future plight. was right or not, whether or not you rightly If it is, the thing to do is to legislate it foresaw at the beginning of the transaction, absolutely out of existence. It is needless the conditions which would prevail at the to say that there was no hint of this at the end of it. Convention. Probably not many of the The element of chance is there, always, delegates could affirm that they had never and the only question, then, is, who shall taken a flier in cotton futures themselves. take it? If it is small, it will probably be I tried to show in my last article what is absorbed by the merchant or the manu- true, that the whole South plays at that facturer himself. But if in the nature of the game, that large planters and small farmers, case it is large, so large that it is altogether merchants and clerks, women and boys, the big end of the operation, then he will all essay this perilous short-cut to wealth. I look for some one to share it with him. That have shown my conclusions to many men person will be the professional speculator; who know the South far better than I, and he is a man not hampered by the problems have not heard them seriously disputed. If of manufacture or sale of the finished prod- THE SLAVE OF COTTON 307 uct, who has specialized in the one art of foreseeing the probabilities. He has the best information that can be got and he has learned the trick of striking a balance from it, so he is willing to back his opinion and to carry the risk. Now the yearly value of the crop which the cotton-spinners of the world must con- sume is about five hundred million dollars. A fall of one cent a pound in the price of cotton after the spinner had bought his year's supply would wipe out his entire profit for a year's work. Obviously the chance is the big end in this operation and is much too big for the spinner himself to assume; he needs somebody to stand between him and the planter, to carry that colossal load of cotton safely across the year, as steadily as may be and without letting it drop on anybody. Theoretically, then, the speculator has his place, is a real producer and not a bird of prey. Ideally, mind you, “a speculative community of highly trained intelligence would constitute an insurance company” But do these ideal conditions prevail? Is the machinery of speculation as good as it should be? Is the speculator altogether guiltless of the widespread ruin I have been describing in the South ? I am very glad, in so technical a matter as this, that my case does not rest on my own unsupported observation. The man who made that remark about the insurance company was Mr. Theodore Price. He is not only the most important figure in the speculative cotton market, he dominates that market to an extent to which no other market that I know is dominated by any one man. What he says is additionally im- portant from the fact of his singular power of detachment from his own point of view. He can talk about cotton with the even temper of the man who never invested a dollar in it, and with the information of the man for whom it has made two fortunes. To begin with, he makes a distinction between gambling and speculation that is worth noting; the basis of it is the degree of intelligence behind the operation. The man who takes a blind hazard is a gambler. The speculator must be a man capable of “intelligent theorizing with regard to the operation contemplated.” And he adds that “in so far as the speculator is intelligent thoughtful and well informed, his influence is probably in the direction of good.” He then proceeds to a sweeping and fun- damental indictment, on three separate counts, of the methods of speculation as practised by the two great exchanges of the country. It would be impossible to quote a higher authority on this subject. “The machinery of speculation,” says Mr. Price," in the great cotton exchanges of the world is faulty in that it stimulates over- trading. It is practicable for a man to-day to go into the office of a broker in New York, New Orleans or Liverpool, with five thou- sand dollars margin, and buy or sell, if he has reasonably good credit, five thousand bales of cotton, for delivery, say, next October. At current prices these 5,000 bales are worth about $275,000. The $5,000 margin deposited is about two per cent. of the total value of the cotton thus bought or sold. In no other business that I know of is it practicable for anyone to enter into a contract of such magnitude upon so small a cash commitment. The inevitable result is that where a speculator sees a pos- sibility of doubling a two per cent. margin in a few days he will buy or sell more cotton than his means justify.” It seems to me that here is a more prac- tical distinction than Mr. Price's, though I admit it is less interesting, between the gambler and the legitimate speculator. The man who bought 5,000 bales of October cotton for $5,000, stood to double his money if the price advanced one-fifth of a cent a pound, a frequent daily fluctuation. And, contrariwise, he stood to lose the whole of it on a decline of a fifth of a cent. That man, no matter how intelligently he may have theorized, is a gambler. It is the gambler's instinct which has taken him into the game. If his $5,000 had availed only to buy him five hundred bales, and if, there- fore, the probability was of his making or losing ten per cent. on his money in a single day instead of the whole of it, it seems safe to say that the game would not attract him. It is upon this gambler's basis that the game is played throughout the South. The lucky one in the small town who “cleans up” five thousand dollars in one week is the nine days wonder; the scores who have seen their hundred dollars or their twenty- five, for it is these amounts that are dealt in, swallowed up, have pocketed their losses and said and thought as little about it as possible. It is the dazzling possibility of extravagant gain that constitutes the lure, 308 AMERICAN MAGAZINE and it is reasonable to hope that with the into cloth. The reason is that though cotton demand for a margin that represents an is the most minutely graded perhaps of all investment and not a bet, cotton specula- agricultural products and though the grade tion in the South would be drained of its has the most to do with determining its venom. value, yet this contract simply provides for There are two more serious flaws in the cotton, and a single hundred bales may machinery of the great cotton exchanges, contain twenty different grades, and may both of which Mr. Price exhibits very not contain a single grade available for the clearly. particular needs of the spinner who bought it. It may be said by way of preliminary The cotton contract is not,then, a commercial explanation, that if you “sell” a hundred transaction at all. It is a speculative de- bales of August cotton and have not dis- vice, pure and simple. It bears the same posed of the contract in advance, you must relation to a genuine contract that a fiat, deliver that cotton before three o'clock of inconvertible currency bears to gold certifi- August thirty-first. It will do you no good cates, and it produces the same evils, the to come around with it the morning after, same fluctuation and confusion in values, the nor even one minute after three on that day. same irresponsible speculation that a fiat The men who are covering August cotton currency produces. price till three o'clock of August thirty-first. What happens to September cotton doesn't matter. "In its last analysis,” says Mr. Price, “speculation in cotton is or should be sim- ply anticipatory of its value to the con- sumer, and it is obviously absurd to say that cotton on the thirty-first day of August at 2:59 P.M. is worth three or four or five cents a pound more than the same cotton is worth one minute later or the next day. It is not conceivable that a difference of two minutes in the time of delivery of one hun. present machinery of cotton speculation; it permits trading on so narrow a margin that the gains or losses, whichever they may be, are of a magnitude, compared to the original stake, that constitutes it a gambling and not a commercial transaction; its arbitrary regulations for delivery make various sorts of juggling with the price enormously profit- able; and, at last, it deals throughout with a fiat and not a real contract. And after all, are we really at the bottom of the question? Is the speculation we have been concerning ourselves with, the cause, ence of four or five cents a pound in its of it? value to any consumer of the article, and it Look at the history of cotton! It wasn't is a well-understood rule of equity that puni- with Brown and Sully and their little opera- tive damages cannot be rec )vered for de- tions that it began its career of enriching fault in a commercial contract. If this and then enslaving, making great and then principle shall come to be generally under- grinding in the dust, a whole society; that it stood and accepted, corners in cotton for first proved itself a blessing and a curse, a delivery in New York, New Orleans, and great strength and a fatal weakness, a hope Liverpool in any particular month will and a despair. Always, beginning with the become a thing of the past, and the menace Whitney gin, that has been its history. to trade which is always latent in the possi In my last article I tried to show that cot- bility of such corners, will be removed. ton is a cash crop; it can always be sold, Such corners are in fact the very reductio but it is useless to the planter, except to sell. ad absurdum of speculation in cotton. There is nothing that he can do with it; They are not business or commerce, but from his point of view it has no intrinsic simply an attempt to get something for value. So the same cotton that gave the nothing and to wrest money from another South the wealth and leisure which enabled without an adequate quid pro quo." her to govern the country all the years be- The third defect which Mr. Price points fore the war, was what rendered her helpless out is that the contract cotton is not, from during the blockade. the spinner's point of view, actual cotton at Everybody knows the heroic struggle she all. In other words, he cannot buy Septem- made, during those four years, to grow an ber cotton, for instance, allow its delivery to adequate food supply and to manufacture him during that month, and manufacture it those necessities which it had always been THE SLAVE OF COTTON 309 so much easier to buy from the North or not raise his own corn and sorghum, and from England; and it is easy to say that she so achieve at least that measure of inde- should have kept it up when the war was pendence, you will learn that this, precisely, over. But the country was not only impove is what the merchant did not want him to erished, it was exhausted, and the average do and was in a position to prevent his price of cotton for five years after the war doing. The farmer was given clearly to was thirty cents a pound. Not to devote all understand that if he wished supplies on your energies to growing it was like refrain- credit he was not at liberty to devote any of ing from washing the gold that you knew his time or of his acres to raising any of was in your pasture creek. So it is not won them himself; he must grow as big a cotton derful that the South went back to her old crop as possible and plant nothing else. thralldom, went back to producing some- It sums up to this: the merchant could thing she could sell and to relying on the make exactly as much as he pleased, both proceeds of the sale to furnish her with food, going and coming, as the phrase is. clothing, lumber, tools, everything, just as So it is not wonderful that with all the in the old days. Cotton was King again. immense quantity of cotton that the South But he had a new viceroy, the credit mer- was raising and selling, the hundreds of chant. millions of dollars that each year's crop The South had never been served with brought into the country—it is not wonder- banks in any adequate degree; in the old ful that the merchant still had the producer days the planter had been financed by his of all this wealth in his debt; that the mort- factor at the port or at some great inland gage on next year's crop had to be renewed point of concentration; the factor had car- each planting time. ried him through bad years or expansive The credit merchant has seen his best ones, amply secured by his instantly salable days. He is not obsolete yet, but his root, property in slaves. But the planter had and that of his brother, the warehouseman, given place to the farmer who had no secur- who did the same thing in a little different ity to offer for a loan, who was not only way, has really begun to wither. Banks are poor but likely to be thriftless, who could springing up all over the South, and the day only be trusted, if at all, by some one dwell- when credit shall become a commodity in- ing at his elbow, intimate with all his most stead of a weapon of a highwayman, is minute concerns. That person proved to visible to the eye of hope. be the country merchant. But now that the merchant is reluctantly He took up his position at the cross-roads accepting cash instead of cotton mortgages and made himself the universal purveyor for his goods, he has only to look across the to the neighborhood; the farmer came to him street at the wide-open door of the rural for food, clothing, agricultural implements, “cotton exchange" to see his successor, the everything; there was no one else who new agency, that will infallibly rob the South would sell to him. Every spring the mer- of the fruits of its labor, just as he did: that chant took a mortgage on the as yet un- will do far more than he ever did to demoral- planted crop of cotton. All through the ize its society. Cotton is still King, but he year he let the farmer have his supplies as he has got a new viceroy. needed them, charging them up against the They talked a good deal at the great day of harvest and of reckoning. When the convention of the fact that the South has a crop was picked and ginned he bought it monopoly in the production of the world's of the farmer and paid him in cash any sur- cotton; but this is the more important fact, plus that there might happen to be over the that Cotton has a monopoly of the South, amount the books showed he owed. of all the South, all its life, all its activities. The farmer had no way of knowing where It was said in one of the speeches that he stood, no way even of reckoning the rate Cotton has enslaved those whom it has of interest he was paying on every pair of not enriched. But Cotton has enslaved shoes and every gallon of molasses he those it has enriched as well as those it has bought, every pound of corn-meal or pork, impoverished; it has enslaved the whole let alone of resisting it; and in the end he had South, ever since its history began with the to sell, within rather wide limits, at the mer Whitney gin. It has been the great slave- chant's own price and on the basis of his holder, the only one, if you will go to the own grading. And if you ask why he did last analysis. 310 AMERICAN MAGAZINE So, when all is said, I think we must go past that pair of extortioners, the credit merchant and the warehouseman, past the professional speculator, with all his imper- fections on his head, past the bogey of over- production, which the Southern Cotton Association is fighting so lustily, to account for the paradox which Tom Watson stated with such picturesque irony. I think we must come to this: that no farmer or planter can be independent until he grows what will feed him. The man with a crop of cotton alone cannot live on it and therefore, unless he is a whole year ahead of his necessities, he cannot keep it. Whatever the price, he must still sell. That fact accounts, I think, for the farmer-speculator, for the credit merchant, and for the terrific monster, Overproduc- tion. And here again, I am glad to offer the evidence of a man who really knows. The words I shall quote are the keynote of the first speech which those three thousand deleg at New Orleans heard. They were spoken by the man who presided, whom they pro- ceeded to elect to the presidency of the South- ern Cotton Association, the Hon. Harvie Jordan: “While we need and must have a better system for financing the cotton crop of the South, yet I tell you, the strongest financial institution for every farmer is a well-filled corn-crib and smoke-house." The Mystery By Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL CRAWFORD SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS.— The schooner "Laughing Lass" is encountered under sail, but deserted, by the U, S. S. “Wolverine" in the North Pacific. A crew under Ensign Edwards with bos'n's mate Timmins is put aboard. When she again appears she is again deserted. Previous to her appearance on each occasion, a shaft of light and brilliant glow are seen. A new crew of volunteers is put aboard, after which the schooner disappears completely. The next morning the cruiser picks up a dory of the “ Laughing Lass" containing the body of bos'n's mate Timmins and Ralph Slade, newspaper correspondent. Slade's story begins with the chartering of the “ Laughing Lass" in San Francisco by Prof. Schermerhorn, experimental scientist, on a secret mission. Slade, who overhears the professor's arrangements with Capt. Selover, a shady character, signs as mate of the schooner. Accompanied by his assistant, Percy Darrow, the professor brings on board a mysterious brass-bound chest. Slade berths in the forecastle and makes the acquaintance of the crew: “Handy Solomon," a sinister individual with a hook for a hand, Thrackles, Pulz, Perdoza, a Mexican, and “Nigger," a negro cook. The schooner sails at night. PART II—CHAPTER III. THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES FTER my watch below the I thought him clever, the next an utter ass; next morning I met Percy now I found him frank, open, a good com- Darrow. In many ways panion, eager to please—and then a droop he was the most extraor- of his blond eyelashes, a lazy, impertinent dinary of my many ac- drawl of his voice, a hint of half-bored con- les quaintances. During that descension in his manner, convinced me first half hour's chat with him I changed my that he was shy and affected. mind at least a dozen times. One moment He was tall and slender and pale, languid THE MYSTERY 311 of movement, languid of eye, languid of how long? I shall know in good time. For speech. His eyes drooped, half-closed what purpose? Same answer. What ac- beneath blond brows; a long, wiry hand commodations shall I engage? I experi- lazily twisted a rather affected blond mus enced the worst shock of my life-he will tache, his voice drawled his speech in a engage them himself. What scientific ap- manner either insufferably condescending paratus ? Shock number two: he will and impertinent, or ineffably tired—who attend to that. Is there anything I can do? could tell which? What do you suppose he says?”. I found him leaning against the taffrail, “How should I know ?" I asked. his languid, graceful figure supported by his “You should know in the course of intel- elbows, his chin propped against his hand. ligent conversation with me,” he drawled. As I approached the binnacle, he raised his “Well, he, good, old, staid Schermie with eyes and motioned me to him. The inso- the vertebrated thoughts, gets kittenish. lence of it was so superb that for a moment He says to me, ‘Joost imachin', Percy, you I was angry enough to ignore him. Then I are all-alone-on-a-desert-island placed; and reflected that I was here, not to stand on my that you will sit on those sands and wish personal dignity, but to get information. within yourself all you would buy to be I joined him. comfortable. Go out and buy me those “You are the mate?” he drawled. things—in abundance.' Those were my “Since I am on the quarter-deck,” I directions." snapped back at him. He eyed me thought He puffed. fully, while he rolled with one hand a corn “What does he pay you?” he asked. husk Mexican cigarette. “Enough," I replied. “Do you know where you are going?” “More than enough, by a good deal, I'll he inquired at length. bet,” he rejoined. “The old fool! He “Depends on the moral character of my ought to have left it to me. What is this future actions," I rejoined tartly. craft? Have you ever sailed on her He allowed a smile to break and fade, before?” then lighted his cigarette. "No." “The first mate seems to have a remark “Have any of the crew ?” able command of language,” said he. I replied that I believed all of them were I did not reply. Selover's men. He threw the cigarette butt “Well, to tell you the truth I don't know into the sea and turned back. where we are going," he continued. “Well, I wish you joy of your double “Thought you might be able to inform me. wages,” he mocked. Where did this ship and its precious gang So he knew that, after all! How much of cutthroats come from, anyway?" more of his ignorance was pretended I had “Meaning me?" no means of guessing. His eye gleamed “Oh, meaning you too, for all I know," sarcastically as he sauntered toward the he shrugged wearily. Suddenly he turned companion-way. Handy Solomon was at to me and laid his hand on my shoulder the wheel, steering easily with one foot and with one of those sudden bursts of confi- an elbow. His steel hook lay fully exposed, dence I came later to recognize and look for, glittering in the sunlight. Darrow glanced but in which I could never quite believe at it curiously, and at the man's headgear. nor disbelieve. “Well, my genial pirate," he drawled, “I am eaten with curiosity,” he stated in “if you had a line to fit that hook you'd be the least curious voice in the world. “I equipped for fishing." The man's teeth suppose you know who his Nibs is ?” bared like an animal's, but Darrow went “Professor Schermerhorn, do you on easily as though unconscious of giving mean?" offense. “If I were you, I'd have it ar- “Yes. Well, I've been with him ten ranged so the hook would turn backward years. I am his right-hand man. All his as well as forward. It would be handier for business I transact down to the last penny. some things-fighting, for instance.” I even order his meals. His discoveries He passed on down the companion. have taken shape in my hands. Suddenly Handy Solomon glared after him, then he gets a freak. He will go on a voyage. down at his hook. He bent his arm this Where? I shall know in good time. For way and that, drawing the hook toward him 312 AMERICAN MAGAZINE softly, as a cat does her claws. His eyes cleared and a look of admiration crept into them. "By God, he's right!” he muttered, and after a moment: “I've wore that ten year and never thought of it. The little son of a deck, even in my watch below. The wind was strong, the waves dashing, the sky very blue. From under our forefoot the flying fish sped, the monsters pursued them. A tingle of spray was in the air. It was all very pleasant. The red handkerchief around Solomon's head made a pretty spot of color against the blue of the sky and the darker blue of the sea. Silhouetted over the gun!” He remained staring for a moment at the hook. Then he looked up and caught my . kih GRU “ Twist her half way, like that" eye. His own turned quizzical. He shifted his quid and began to hum: The bos'n laid aloft, aloft laid he, Blow high, blow low, what cared he! “There's a ship upon the wind'ard, a wreck upon the lee,” Down on the coast of the high Bar- bare-e-e. We had entered the trades and were mak- ing good time. I was content to stay on flawless white of the deck-house was the sullen, polished profile of the Nigger. Beneath me the ship swerved and leaped, yielded and recovered. I breathed deep, and saw cutlasses in harmless shadows. It was two years ago. I was young-then- At the mess hour I stood in doubt. How- ever, I was informed by the captain's fal- setto that I was to eat in the cabin. As the only other officer, I ate alone, after the THE MYSTERY 313 others had finished, helping myself from the “She was a brigantine aloft, but alow she dishes left on the table. It was a handsome had much the same lines as the Laughing cabin, well kept, with white woodwork Lass." He whirled on his heel to roll to spotlessly clean, leather cushions-much one of the covered yacht's cannon. “Looks better than one would expect. I afterwards like a harmless little toy to burn black found that the neatness of this cabin and of powder, don't she?” he remarked. He the three staterooms was maintained by stripped off the tarpaulin and the false the Nigger-at peril of his neck. A rack brass muzzle to display as pretty a little held a dozen rifles, five revolvers, and—at Maxim as you would care to see. “Now last-my cutlasses. I examined the lot with you know all about it,” he said. interest. They were modern weapons—the “As for the Professor," he went on," he new high power 30-40 box-magazine rifle, knows all about it. He told me all about shooting government ammunition—and had myself, and everything I had ever done from been used. The revolvers were, of course, the time I'd licked Buck Jones until last the old 45 Colt's. This was an extraordi- season's little diversion. Then he told me nary armament for a peaceable schooner that was why he wanted me to ship for this of one hundred and fifty tons burden. cruise.” The captain eyed me quizzically. On deck I talked with Captain Selover. “Well, where are we bound, anyway?" "She's a snug craft," I approached him. I asked. He nodded. The dirty, unkempt, dishevelled figure "You have armed her well.” stiffened. He muttered something of pirates and the “Mr. Eagen,” its falsetto shrilled, "your China seas. duty is to see that my orders as to sailing are I laughed. carried out. As to navigation, and latitude “You have arms enough to give your and longtitude and where the hell we are, crew about two magazine rifles apiece- that is outside your line of duty. As to unless you filled all your berths forward!” where we are bound, you are getting double Captain Selover looked me direct in the wages not to get too damn curious. Re- eye. inember to earn your wages, Mr. Eagen!” “Talk straight, Mr. Eagen,” said he. "What is this ship, and where is she bound?” I asked with equal simplicity. CHAPTER IV. He considered. “As for the ship,” he replied at length, THE STEEL CLAW "I don't mind saying. You're my first officer, and on you I depend if it comes to No one knew where we were going, nor -well, the small arms below. If the ship's why. The Professor and the quantity of a little under the shade, why so are you. his belongings puzzled the men. She's by way of being called a manner of “It ain't pearls,” said Handy Solomon. hard names by some people. I do not see it, “You can kiss the Book on that, for we myself. It is a matter of conscience. She ain't a diver among us. It ain't Chinks, for has taken in Chinks by way of Santa Cruz we are cruising sou’-sou’-east. Likely it's Island—if that is smuggling. She has car- trade, trade down in the Islands.” ried in a cargo or so of junk; it was lying on We were all below. The Captain himself the beach where a fool master had piled it." had the wheel. Discipline, while strict, was “But the room forward ?" I broke not conventional. “Contrabandista," muttered the Mexi- “Well, you see, last season we were pearl can, "for dat he geev us double pay.” fishing." “We don't get her for nothing," agreed “But you needed only your diver and Thrackles. “Double pay and duff on Wed- your crew,” I objected. nesday generally means get your head “There was the matter of a Japanese broke.” gunboat or so,” he explained. “No trade," said the Nigger gloomily. “Poaching!” I cried. “Why not?” demanded Pulz. Captain Selover's eye lit up. “No trade," repeated the Nigger. “I've commanded a black brigantine, “Ain't you got a reason, Doctor?” asked name of the Petrel,” he admitted simply. Handy Solomon. in. 314 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “No trade," insisted the Nigger. military precision at the end of his score of An uneasy silence fell. I could not but strides, and re-entered his cabin at the observe that the others held the Nigger's lapse of the half hour. After he had gone, statements in a respect not due them as remained Percy Darrow leaning indolently mere opinions. against the taffrail, his graceful figure Nobody said anything for some time, swaying with the ship's motion, smoking nobody stirred, except that Handy Solo- always the corn-husk Mexican cigarette mon, his steel claw removed from its socket, which he rolled with one hand. whittled and tested, screwed and turned. One evening at the close of our day- “What is it, then, Doctor?” he asked watch on deck, he approached Handy Solo- softly at last. mon. It was at the end of ten days, on no “Gold,” said the Nigger shortly. “Gold one of which had the seaman failed to tinker -treasure.” away at his steel claw. Darrow balanced in “That's what I said at first!” cried front of him with a thin smile. Handy Solomon triumphantly. It was “Too bad it doesn't work, my amiable extraordinary the unquestioning and entire pirate,” said he. “It would be so handy faith with which they accepted as gospel for fighting -- See here," he suddenly fact the negro's dictum. continued, pulling some object from his No further soothsaying could they elicit pocket. “Here's a pipe; a present to me; I from the Nigger. They followed their own don't smoke 'em. Twist her half way, like ideas, which led them nowhere. Some one that, she comes out. Twist her half way, lit the forecastle lamp. They settled them like this, she goes in. That's your prin- selves. Pulz read aloud from Duvall on ciple. Give her back to me when you get Alchemy. I haven't the slightest idea through.” where he could have got it. He thrust the briar pipe into the man's This was the program every day during hand, and turned away without waiting for the dog-watch, Sometimes the watch on a reply. The seaman looked after him in deck was absent, leaving only Handy Solo open amazement. That evening he worked mon, the Nigger and Pulz; but the order of on the socket of the steel hook and in two the day was not on that account varied. days he had the job finished. Then he re- They talked, they lit the lamp, they read. turned the pipe to Darrow with some growl- Always the talk was of the treasure. ing of thanks. While Pulz read, Handy Solomon worked “That's all right,” said the young man, on the alteration of his claw. He could smiling full at him. “Now what are you never get it to hold, and I remember, as an going to fight?” undertone to Pulz's reading, the rumble of strange, exasperated oaths. Whatever the evening's lecture, it always ended with the CHAPTER V. book on alchemy. These men had no per- spective by which to judge such things. THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. They accepted its speculations and theories at their face value. Extremely laughable Captain Selover received as his due the were the discussions that followed. I often most absolute and implicit obedience imagi- wished the shade of old Duvall could be nable. His men did not love him, not they; permitted to see these, his last disciples, but they feared him with a mighty fear, and spelling out dimly his teachings, mispro- did not hesitate to say so, vividly and often, nouncing his grave utterances, but believing when in the privacy of the forecastle. The utterly. prevailing spirit was that of the wild beast, Professor Schermerhorn appeared on cowed but snarling still. Pulz and Thrackles deck seldom. When he did, often his fin- in especial had a great deal to say of what gers held a pen which he had forgotten to lay they were or were not going to do, but I aside. I imagined him preoccupied by some noticed that their resolution always began calculation of his own, but the forecastle, to run out of them when first foot was set to more picturesquely, saw him as guarding the companion ladder. constantly the heavy casket he had himself One day we were loafing along, every- carried aboard. He breathed the air, thing drawing well, and everybody but the walked briskly, turned with the German Professor on deck to enjoy the sun. I was SANAAN TIVE TIMIT ANN US We V MUHSIN SWAN " The spirit of the wild beast, cowed but snarling still” in the crow's-nest for my pleasure. Below me, on the deck, Captain Selover roamed here and there as was his custom, his eye cocked out like a housewife's for disorder. He found it, again in the evidence of ex- pectoration, and as Perdosa happened to be handiest, fell on the unfortunate Mexican. Perdosa protested that he had had noth- ing to do with it; but Captain Selover, enraged as always when his precious deck was soiled, would not listen. Finally the Mexican grew sulky and turned away as though refusing to hear more. The cap- tain thereupon felled him to the deck, and began brutally to kick him in the face and head. Perdosa writhed and begged, but without avail. The other members of the crew gath- 315 316 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ered near. After a moment, they began to in the shadow of the extra dory on top of the murmur. Finally Thrackles ventured, deck-house. The moon was but just beyond most respectfully, to intervene. the full, so I suppose I must have been prac- “You'll kill him, sir," he interposed. tically invisible. Certainly the Nigger did “He's had enough.” not know of my presence, for he came and “Had enough, has he?” screeched the stood within three feet of me without giving captain. “Well, you take what's left.” any sign. The companion was open. In a He marked Thrackles heavily over the moment some door below was opened also, eye. There was a breathless pause; and and a scrap of conversation came up to us then Thrackles, Pulz, the Nigger and Per- very clearly. dosa attacked at once. “You haf dem finished ?" the Professor's They caught the master unawares, and voice inquired. So? that iss well”—papers bore him to the deck. I dropped at once rustled for a few moments. “And the to the ratlines, and commenced my descent. r-result-ah-exactly—it iss that exactly. Before I had reached the deck, however, Percy mein son, that maigs the experiment er was afoot again, the four hanging exact. We haf the process— ” . to him like dogs. In a moment more he had “I don't see sir, quite," replied the voice shaken them off, and before I could inter- of Percy Darrow with a tinge of excitement. vene, he had siezed a belaying pin in either “I can follow the logic of the experiment, of hand, and was hazing them up and down course—so can I follow the logic of a trip to the deck. the moon. But when you come to apply it- “Mutiny, would you?" he shrilled. How do you get your re-agent? There's no “You poor swabs! Forgot who was your known method= ". captain, did ye? Well, it's Captain Ezra Professor Schermerhorn broke in: "Ach, Selover, and you can lay to that! It would it iss that I haf perfected. Pardon me, my need about eight fathom of stuff like you to boy, it iss the first I haf worked from you tie me down.” apart. It iss for a surprise. I haf made He chased them forward, and he chased in small quantities the missing ingredient. them aft, and every time the pins fell blood It will form a perfect interruption to the followed. Finally they dived like rabbits current. Now we go ". into the forecastle hatch. Captain Selover “Do you mean to say,” almost shouted leaned down after them. Darrow, “that you have succeeded in free- “Now tie yourselves up,” he advised, ing it in the metal ?". "and then come on deck and clean up after “Yes,” replied the Professor simply. yourselves!” He turned to me. “Mr. I could hear a chair overturned. Eagen, turn out the crew to clean decks." “Why, with that you can- " I descended to the forecastle, followed “I can do efferything,” broke in the Pro- immediately by Handy Solomon. The lat- fessor. ter had taken no part in the affair. We A pause ensued. found the men in horrible shape, what with “Why!” came the voice of Percy Darrow, the bruises and cuts, and bleeding freely. awe-stricken. “With fifty centigrammes “Now, you're a nice looking Sunday only you could-you could transmute any school!” observed Handy Solomon, eyeing substance—why, you could make anything them sardonically. “Tackle Old Scrubs, you pleased almost! you could make enough will ye? Ain't you never tackled him afore? diamonds to fill that chest! It is the Philos- Don't remember a little brigantine, name of opher's Stone!” the Petrel! My eye! but you are a pack of “Diamonds-yes. It is possible,” in- damn fools.” terrupted the Professor impatiently. “If it To this he received no reply. The men was worth while. But you should see the sullenly assisted one another. Then they real importance- ". went immediately on deck and to work. The ship careened to a chance swell; a After this taste of his quality, Captain door slammed; the voices were cut off. I Selover enjoyed a quiet ship. We made looked up. The Nigger's head was thrust good time, but for a long while nothing hap- forward fairly into the glow from the com- pened. Finally the monotony was broken panion-way. The mask of his sullenness by an incident. had fallen. His eyes fairly rolled in excite- One evening before the night winds I sat ment, his thick lips were drawn back to ex- “ Forgot who was your captain, did ye ?" pose his teeth, his powerful figure was gath- ered with the tensity of a bow. When the door slammed he turned silently to glide away. At that instant the watch was changed, and in a moment I found myself in my bunk. Ten seconds later the Nigger, detained by Captain Selover for some trifling duty, burst into the forecastle. He was pos- sessed by the wildest excitement. This in itself was enough to gain the atten- tion of the men, but his first words were startling. “I found de treasure!” he almost shouted. “I know where he kept!” They leaped at him—Handy Solomon and Pulz—and fairly shook out of him what he thought he knew. He babbled in the forgotten terms of alchemy, dressing modern facts in the garments of mediæval 317 318 AMERICAN MAGAZINE thought until they were scarcely to be dodge the conclusion that it was a made-up recognized quarrel designed to impress me. “And so he say dat he fine him, de Phil. The affair did not come to blows, but it osopher Stone, and he keep him in dat did come to black looks on meeting, mut- heavy box we see him carry aboard, and he tered oaths, growls of enmity every time don' have to make gol' with it—he can make they happened to pass each other on the diamon's—diamon's—he say it too easy to deck. Perdosa was not so bad; his Mexican fill dat box plum full of diamon's!” blood inclined him to the histrionic, and his They gesticulated and exclaimed and Mexican cast lent itself well to evil looks. breathed hard, full of the marvel of such a But Handy Solomon, for the first time in thought. Then abruptly the clamor died to my acquaintance with him, was ridiculous. nothing. I felt six eyes bent on me, six un About this time we crossed into frequent winking eyes moving restless in motionless thunders. One evening just at dark we figures, suspicious, deadly as cobras— made out a heavy black squall. Not know- Up to now my standing with the men had ing exactly what weight lay behind it, I been well enough. Now they drew frankly called up all hands. We ducked the stay- apart. One of the most significant indica- sail and foresail, lowered the peak of the tions of this was the increased respect they main-sail, and waited to feel of it—a rough- paid my office. It was as though by prompt and-ready seamanship often used in these obedience, instant deference, and the em little California wind - jammers. I was phasizing of ship's etiquette they intended pretty busy, but I heard distinctly Handy to draw sharply the line between themselves Solomon's voice behind me: and me. There was much whispering apart, “I'll kill you sure, you Greaser, as soon many private talks and consultations in as my hands are free!” And some mut- which I had no part. Oridinarily, they tered reply from the Mexican. talked freely enough before me. Even the The wind hit us hard, held on a few mo- reading during the day watch was inter- ments, and moderated to a stiff puff. Then mitted-at least it was on such days as I followed the rain, so of course I knew it happened to be in the watch below. But would amount to nothing. I was just twice I caught the Nigger and Handy Solo- stooping to throw the stops off the staysail men consulting together over the volume on when I felt myself seized from behind, and alchemy. forced rapidly toward the side of the ship. I was in two minds whether to report the Of course I struggled. The Japanese whole matter to Captain Selover. The only have a little trick to fool a man who catches thing that restrained me was the vagueness you around the waist from behind. It is of the intention, and the fact that the after part of the jiu-jitsu taught the Samurai- guard was armed, and was four to the crew's quite a different proposition from the ordi- five. An incident, however, decided me. nary “policeman jiu-jitsu.” I picked it up One evening I was awakened by a sound of from a friend in the nobility. It came in violent voices. Captain Selover occasion- very handy now, and by good luck a roll of ally juggled the watches for variety's sake, the ship helped me. In a moment I stood and I now had Handy Solomon and Per- free, and Perdosa was picking himself out dosa. The Nigger, being cook, stood no of the scuppers. watch. The expression of astonishment was “You drunken Greaser swab!” snarled fairly well done I will say that for him- Handy Solomon. “You misbegotten son but I was prepared for histrionics. of a Yaqui! I'll learn you to step on a sea- “Señor!” he gasped. “Eet is you! man's foot, and you can kiss the Book on Sacrosanta Maria! I thought you was dat that! I'll cut your heart out and feed it to Solomon! Pardon me, señor! Pardon! the sharks!” Have I hurt you ?” “Potha!” sneered Perdosa. “You cut He approached me almost wheedling. I heem you finger wid you knife.” could have laughed at the villain. It was They wrangled. At first I thought the all so transparent. He no more mistook me quarrel genuine, but after a moment or so I for Handy Solomon than he felt any real could not avoid a sort of reminiscent im- enmity for that person. But being angry, pression of the cheap melodrama. It and perhaps a little scared, I beat him to seemed incredible, but soon I could not his quarters with a belaying pin. THE MYSTERY 319 On thinking the matter over, however, I stood navigation. The next morning I d to see all the ins and outs of it. I approached Captain Selover. could understand a desire to get rid of me; “Captain,” said I, “I think it my duty there would be one less of the afterguard, to report that there is trouble brewing and then, too, I knew too much of the men's among the crew.” sentiments, if not of their plans. But why “There always is,” he replied, unmoved. all this elaborate farce of the mock quarrel I told him of the Nigger and the treasure- “ Take this, it'll make a man of you" and the alleged mistake? Could it be to guard against possible failure? I could hardly think it worth while. My only the- ory was that they had wished to test my strength, and determination. The whole affair, even on that supposition, was childish enough, but I referred the exaggerated cunning to Handy Solomon, and considered it quite adequately explained. It is a minor point, but subsequently I learned that this surmise was correct. I was to be saved because none of the conspirators under- box. Captain Selover listened almost indif- ferently. “I came back from the islands last year,” he piped,"with three hundred thousand dol- lars' worth of pearls. There was sixteen in the crew, and every man of them was blood hungry for them pearls. They had three or four shindies and killed one man over the proper way to divide the loot after they had got it. They didn't get it. Why?" He drew his powerful figure to its height and spread his thick arms out in the luxury of stretch- 320 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ing. “Why?” he repeated, exhaling island, and raggedly clasping its sides, hung abruptly. “Because their captain was Ezra a cloud, the only one visible in the sky. Selover! Well, Mr. Eagen,” he went on I joined the afterguard. crisply, “Captain Ezra Selover is still their "You see?” the Professor was exclaim- captain, and they know it !” ing. “It iss as I haf said. The island iss “Last night in the squall one of them there. Everything iss as it should be!” tried to throw me overboard,” I said. He was quite excited. Captain Selover grinned. Percy Darrow, too, was shaken out of his “What did you do?” he asked. ordinary calm. “Hazed him to his quarters with a belay- “The volcano is active," was his only ing pin.” comment, but it explained the ragged cloud. "Well, that's all settled then, isn't it? “You say there's a harbor?” inquired What more do you want?” Captain Selover. I stood undecided. He mused a moment. "It should be on the west end,” said Pro- “You have a gun, of course?” he in- fessor Schermerhorn. quired. “I forgot to ask.” Captain Selover drew me one side. He “No,” said I. too was a little aroused. He whistled. “Now wouldn't that get you ?” he “Well, no wonder you feel sort of lost and squeaked. “Professor runs up against a hopeless! Here, take this, it'll make a man Norwegian bum who tells him about a vol- of you." canic island, and gives its bearings. The He gave me a Colt's 45, the barrel of island ain't on the map at all. Professor which had been filed down to about two believes it, and makes me lay my course for inches of length. It was a most extraordi- those bearings. And here's the island! So nary weapon, but effective at short range. the bum's story was true! I'd like to know “Here's a few loose cartridges,” said he. what the rest of it was!” His eyes were “Now go easy. This is no warship, and shining. we ain't got men to experiment on. Lick “Do we anchor or stand off and on?” I 'em with your fists or a pin, if you can; and asked. if you do shoot, for God's sake just wing “I have orders from Darrow to get to a 'em a little. They're awful good lads, but a good berth, to land, to build shore quarters, little restless." and to snug down for a stay of a year at I took the gun and felt better. With it I least!” could easily handle the members of my own “Joyous prospect," I muttered. “Hope watch, and I did not doubt that with the there's something to do there." assistance of Percy Darrow even a surprise The morning wore, and we rapidly ap- would hardly overwhelm us. I did not proached the island. It proved to be utterly count on Professor Schermerhorn. He was precipitous. The high, rounded hills sloped quite capable of losing himself in a problem easily to within an hundred feet or so of the of trajectory after the first shot. water and then fell away abruptly. Thou- sands of sea birds wheeled in the eddies of the wind, thousands of ravens perched on CHAPTER VI. the slopes. With our glasses we could make out the heads of seals fishing outside the THE ISLAND surf, and a ragged belt of kelp. When within a mile we put the helm up, I came on deck one morning at about four and ran for the west end. I was ordered to bells to find the entire ship's company afoot take a surf-boat and investigate for a land- Even the Professor was there. Everybody ing and an anchorage. The swell was run- was gazing eagerly at a narrow, mountain- ning high. We rowed back and forth, puz- ous island lying slate-colored across the early zled as to how to get ashore with all the morning. freight it would be necessary to land. We were as yet some twenty miles dis- I don't know exactly how to tell you the tant from it, and could make out nothing manner in which we became aware of the but its general outline. The latter was cove. It was as nearly the instantaneous sharply defined, rising and falling to a high- as can be imagined. One minute I looked est point one side of the middle. Over the ahead on a cliff as unbroken as the side of a THE MYSTERY 321 cabin; the very next I peered down the I made my report. The two passengers length of a cove fifty fathoms long by about disappeared. They carried lunch and ten wide, at the end of which was a gravel would not be back until nightfall. We had beach. I cried out sharply to the men. orders to pitch a large tent at a suitable spot They were quite as much astonished as I. and to lighten ship of the Professor's per- We backed water, watching closely. At sonal and scientific effects. By the time a given point the cove and all trace of this was accomplished, the two had re- its entrance disappeared. We could only turned. just make out the line where the headlands “It's all right,” Darrow volunteered to dissolved into the background of the cliffs, Captain Selover as he came over the side. and that merely because we knew of its “We've found what we want.” existence. The blending was perfect. Next morning Captain Selover detailed We rowed in. The water was still. A me to especial work. faint ebb and flow whispered against the “You'll take two of the men and go tiny gravel beach at the end. I noted a ashore under Darrow's orders,” said he. practicable way from it to the top of the Darrow told us to take clothes for a week, cliff, and from the cliff down again to the an ax apiece, and a block and tackle. We sand beach. Everything was perfect. made up our ditty bags, stepped into one of We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the the surf boats, and were rowed ashore. men, very reluctant, and ascended a natural There Darrow at once took the lead. trail to a high, sloping down over which blew Our way proceeded across the grass flat, the great trades. I walked to the edge. through the opening of the narrow cañon, Various ledges, sloping towards me, ran and so on back into the interior by way of down to the sea. Against one of them was the bed through which flowed the sulphur a wreck, not so very old, head on, her after- stream. The country was badly eroded. works gone. I recognized the name Golden Most of the time we marched between per- Horn, and was vastly astonished to find her pendicular clay banks about forty feet high. here against this unknown island. The sky These were occasionally broken by smaller was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. tributary arroyos of the same sort. The It fled before the trades, and the red sun bed of the main arroyo was flat, and grown alternately blazed and clouded through it. with grasses and herbage of an extraordi- As there was nothing more to be seen here, nary vividness, due, I supposed, to the I turned above the hollow of our cove, skirted sulphur water. the base of the hill, and so down to the After a mile of this, the bottom ran up beach. nearly to the level of the sides, and we It occupied a wide semicircle where the stepped out on the floor of a little valley hills drew back. The flat was dry and almost surrounded by more hills. It was grown with thick, coarse grass. A stream an extraordinary place, and since much emerged from a sort of cañon on its land- happened there, I must give you an idea ward side. I tasted it, found it sulphurous, of it. and a trifle worse than lukewarm. A little It was round and nearly encircled by nearer the cliff, however, was a clear cold naked, painted hills. From its floor came spring from the rock, and of this I had a steam and a roaring sound. The steam blew satisfying drink. When I arose from my here and there among the pines on the floor, knees, I made out an animal on the hill crest and rose to eddy about the naked painted looking at me, but before I could distin- hills. At one end we saw intermittently guish its characteristics, it had disappeared. a broad ascending cañon-deep red and I returned along the tide sands. Seals blue-black-ending in the cone of a smok- innumerable watched me from just outside ing volcano. The other seemed quite the breakers. The salt smell of seaweed closed by the sheer hills; in fact, the only was in my nostrils. I found the place pleas- exit was the route by which we had come. With these few and scattered impressions The hills were marvelous of hue-not at we returned to the ship. It had been all like the smooth, glossed color of most warped to a secure anchorage, and snugged rock, but soft and rich. You've seen paint- down. Professor Schermerhorn and Dar- ers' palettes—it was just like that, pasty and row were on deck waiting to go ashore. fat. There were reds of all shades, from a ant- 322 AMERICAN MAGAZINE veritable scarlet to a red umber; greens, from “Think the place is going to blow up?" sea-green to emerald; several shades of blue, he inquired with a tinge of irony. “Well, and an indeterminate purple-mauve. The it isn't.” He turned to me. “Here's where whole effect was splendid and barbaric. we shall stay for awhile. You and the men We stopped and gasped as it hit our eyes. are to cut a number of these pine trees for a Darrow alone was unmoved. He led the house. I'll be back by noon." way forward and in an instant had disap We set to work then in the roaring, steam- peared behind the veil of steam. Thrackles ing valley with the vapor swirling about us, and Perdosa hung back murmuring, but at sometimes concealing us, sometimes half a sharp word from me gathered their cour revealing us gigantic, again in the utterness age in their two hands and proceeded. of exposure showing us dwindled pigmies We found that the first veil of steam, and against the magnitudes about us. The labor a fearful stench of gases, proceeded from a was not difficult. By the time Darrow re- miniature crater whose edge was heavily turned we had a pile of the saplings ready encrusted with a white salt. Beyond, close for his next direction, under the rise of the hill, was another. Be He was accompanied by the Nigger, very tween the two Percy Darrow had stopped much terrified, very much burdened with and was waiting. food and cooking utensils. The assistant • He eyed us with his lazy, half-quizzical was lazily relating tales of voodoos, a glim- glance as we approached. mer of mischief in his eyes. (To be continued) - -- -- - Little Son By Percy L. Shaw HEN twilight shakes her hourglass at the sun And fairies from their poppied fastness flee, Then, little boy, with empty arms I wait To sing you: “Bobby Shafto's gone to sea.” I LIKE to think that up among the stars We used to count 'twixt dusk and Land of Nod- You listen still at even for my song There in the shadow of the hand of God. | LIKE to feel that still you watch my ways 1 And hand in hand go with me, just as when We saw a thousand wonders in one flower, Flaunting our joy before the eyes of men. COR that brief time I offer thanks. It sheds 1 Its radiance down the years to guide me on; And at the last, sing me our lullaby And I will hear and hasten, little son. The Twin Peters By John Fleming Wilson WITH AN ILLUSTRATION (FRONTISPIECE) BY G. M. MCCOUCH Men den per offsho VT is unforgettable, like a sud- my hail and another climbed slowly up the den perfume of spices borne companionway from the cabin. This last L X on an offshore breeze. I man nodded at me. “Here's the second shall remember it always, mate, mister,” he explained to the heavy- not slowly and continuously, faced man, the mate. Then he nodded to but by gusts, by sudden mo- me again. “I was expecting you," he re- ments. At the very last, even if it be in the marked hesitatingly, as if that were not very hottest toil to save my ship, I know what he really meant to say. I dropped that it will come back before me, just as it down on the deck and my bag followed me. was. I shall be on the old Algaroba once My porter knelt on the stringer and passed more. I shall hear the creak of her rudder down with great care my sextant case and a head, the wildgoose call of the gaffs swing- roll of charts. ing overhead against the dry masts, the “Huh!” ejaculated the captain from the clink-clank of the traveler blocks. I shall companionway. “It will be something new see her huge bowsprit holding out like a to have a second mate who's a navigator. hand the slender jibboom; the clumsy Huh!” anchors on the fo'c'sle head; the cook shift- I blushed. I had never been an officer ing his galley pipe while we tacked ship; before. It suddenly struck me that I had the carpenter smoking in the door of his been presumptuous, that after all I had set room; the man at the wheel cocking a lus- too high an estimate on my new dignity. terless eve up at the topsails. Yes, it will What was an officer of an old schooner, all come back, even to the huddled form of any way? What was a second mate? I the captain, seen through the skylight-the blushed again. I paid the porter double captain, eternally pouring over the grimy what I owed him. I stood on that dirty deck chart pinned down on the cabin table. likea dumb fellow, my sextant under my arm. At the last, the very last, in the flash of a The captain bellowed for the boy. He shutter, I shall see the Twin Peters, squat came hastily and picked up my stuff. ted on the soaring jibboom amid the tatters “He'll show you your cabin,” said the cap- of the headsails, dumb, deaf, sightless, tain. “I'm glad you know navigation. clinging to that perilous perch over the seas Huh!” that split against the derelict Algaroba's As he made way for me to pass down into stem and threw her staggering skyward. the cabin he exploded again in a husky and interrogative, “Huh!” as if he were unde- I came aboard the Algaroba in the after cided and amazed. noon. She lay at the wharf at the foot of It was all so commonplace. I was sick Powell Street, and as I trod the crazy to think of the dreariness of the voyage planks I saw, when I dared look up, Alca- ahead of me. The cabin smelled of musty traz Island, and the squat ferryboats cross- days, of damp and miserable calms, as if no ing the bay from San Francisco to Sausa- fair and impetuous wind ever blew rousingly lito. I looked down on the littered deck of a through it. I stumbled on down and turned schooner. A heavy-faced man stared up at into the little room assigned to me on the 323 324 AMERICAN MAGAZINE starboard side. I changed my hat for a cap, her off,” he responded gently. “Keep her my coat for a jacket. Then I went on deck, off!" echoed a shrill voice from behind me. ready for work. I jumped around. A small boy was The captain was lounging on the poop, climbing out of the lazarette hatch. He one arm thrown across the spanker boom, raised his chubby face to my eyes and still in the crutch. “I think we shall get smiled. “You're the second mate? Huh!" away to-day,” he said briskly. He started he demanded. up. “Is the cargo all in, mister ?” he “Yes. Who are you?” bellowed to the mate. The mate threw up. “I'm Peter,” he replied, scrambling to his his hands in assent. “Please see that the feet. “My father's the captain.” hatches are put on and battened,” the It was not hard to see. Captain Finn had skipper continued. “I think the wind will a big, ungainly form with a heavy and unde- hold fair. We will use this tide.” cided face. His very mustache seemed un- As I left the poop I heard him shift his certain, his whiskers nothing at all. And position. I heard, too, a grunt-"Huh!” here was his son, big of face, awkward, with It struck me as queer. It denoted bewilder- the same deep perplexity in his blue eyes. ment and uncertainty. Then that "Huh!” quite the same. I started to work and suddenly fell to “What were you doing in the lazarette?" humming to myself. The men answered I inquired. my orders nimbly. I swelled. I was an “I was putting Peter to bed," he an- officer! For the first time I was out of the swered. “Peter always sleeps there in cold fo'c'sle and I waited for the final degree. weather.” It came. The skipper came down off the “But you said you were Peter," I insisted. poop. He called to me, “Mister! get the “He's Peter, too. Don't you know covers off the sails!” Yes, I was Mister Peter?” Without waiting for an answer he now. With dignity I pulled on a lacing. It sniffed the air. “Oh!” he shouted, “sup- gave and I stepped back. Let the hands do per's on! Why didn't cooky ring the bell ?” the work. I was Mister. He ran to the companionway and scuttled We got the old Algaroba ready for sea. down. A tug came puffing alongside, took a line The man at the wheel shifted it a spoke from our bow and we swung stem to the and looked at me apologetically. “That's channel. The tide caught her and I saw one of them,” he said gently. “I've been the skipper throw off the towline himself. on the schooner before. They're the Twin We were off. We hoisted the sails to my Peters, sir." call. They rose creakingly, the gaffs com “The Twin Peters!” I echoed. plaining as we tugged. The wind from the “The other one isn't rightly a twin,” the north filled them. I went to the poop with man explained. “It's a rum business. my men and we flattened the spanker sheet. He's a monkey, sir.” The captain stared up. “I think you'd I laughed heartily. I knew perfectly well better set your topsails,” he said. “Hook the joke. I saw in my mind the chubby- the sheets on the port side. Huh!” faced boy and the small, wizened monkey I set the topsails, hoisted them high, trotting beside him. What a conceit to call sheeted them down till they sprang in the them the twins—the Twin Peters! breeze. The mate came by, putting on his The mate came up the companionway, jacket after a wash in the main hatch. “I'm puffing at his freshly lighted pipe. He hungry,” he said. “I'm going to eat.” stumped up to the poop deck and grunted, I went to the poop. The captain was like a man filled to the throat. “Southeast staring into the compass. A channel buoy by south," I said. “Sou’eas' by sou’,” he lifted alongside and bobbed astern. “Keep responded, peering into the compass. I her full," he said. “I want to make a was still chuckling, and he grinned sym- straight course for Honolulu. I will—if I pathetically. “Dinner's pretty good,” he get a good start, huh!” He went below said. slowly, leaving me to watch the schooner. The carpenter and I ate in silence. As The jibboom pointed into the eye of the we were at the last of our meal the boy came sun and the breeze listed her over gently in laughing. He stopped to talk to me The topsails shook a little. “Keep her off," when his father passed through. Instantly I cautioned the man at the wheel. “Keep I caught the prodigious resemblance be- THE TWIN PETERS 325 tween them. It was amazing. I shall never then looks don't always tell. Huh?” He forget it. “The wind is hauling. Huh!” stared at me in perplexity. said Captain Finn. He looked at me unde- . "I think I'll overhaul them," I said cidedly. “If it hauls into the south, we're finally. He looked relieved. “Of course," in for a blow." He paused, then came the he assented. When I had run the new ones expected “Huh!” I saw him picking at the old rope, puzzled. “How's the glass, sir?” I asked. The I came by and said, “They needed to be question seemed to flurry him. He hadn't renewed, didn't they?" looked within an hour. One couldn't He pulled at his beard, and as I passed trust the glass. He thought it must have aft I heard him grunting by himself. fallen. He passed on, leaving the boy be- We ran the Algaroba down into the hind. trades and the nights grew soft. The fly- "Have you seen Peter yet?” the lad de- ing fish scuttered away to windward, the manded. big sunfish dipped to safety as we blew I had not. He could call Peter. Peter along and the Twin Peters slept together understood everything like any boy. Only on a tarpaulin in the lee of the wheelbox. he couldn't talk. He was born that way. More interesting to me than the captain It was too bad, huh? Then Peter, the boy, and his unseamanlike qualities was the went and tapped on the bulkhead that monkey, Peter. As the days went sono- divided us from the lazarette. There was rously by and the nights, one after the other, a scratching like that of a dog, a rustle and held us in their vast and tropic circle, I a skipping overhead. Down the compan grew to watch him fascinatedly. He was ionway came a monkey. He jumped from so small, so self-contained, so vigilant. the bottom step to the chair at the captain's Many a time in the middle of the night I place and nodded at me most familiarly, would see his dark figure on the weather poising himself on the back of it. rail, poised there determinedly. Once in a "That's Peter," said the boy. “Isn't he great while he would suddenly emerge all right?" from some shadow and thrust his head into I looked over at the grotesque hanging the binnacle and stare at the compass with to the high rail of that chair and suddenly profound and inscrutable sagacity. While guffawed. Of course he was all right. the other Peter slept on the deck, stirring These were the Twin Peters. But my childishly in his slumber, the ape kept me laughter ebbed. The monkey straightened company. Did the change of wind justify himself a little and thrust a blue, hairy paw setting the spinnaker, I would wipe my face out to me. I shook it. There was firmness after hauling lustily to find his dark, hairy in that paw, sinews in those fingers. Little form beside me on the fo'c'sle head. Even as they were, the grasp was significant. I . up aloft, sometimes, I would feel his swift drew back and the carpenter grinned. passage in a mere brushing of his hairy coat "Shakes hands like a stevedore," he across my wrist. But let the boy Peter remarked. “This Pete's the real man of awake, call, or cry, and the Twin-so we the fambly. He goes ahead without any came to call him—would rush back as hums and huhs and does what he thinks is though driven by furious anxiety. He right.” The carpenter got up and went would drag the tarpaulin smooth, with to his room, wiping his mustache. The infinite little dabs of the paw pat out its monkey looked at me humanly and repeated wrinkles and then hold the boy tightly in “Chips's” gesture to the life. Then he his meager arms until he slept again. laughed noiselessly, as monkeys laugh. The mate himself, steady of thought, In two days I knew the Algaroba like a spare of words, interminably ruminating, book. She was a bit old, a bit tender. Her bent his thoughts on this. “That monkey gear was some of it good, some of it bad. is more a man than the lot of the Finn Captain Finn would look at me when I said fambly. The Twin is Peter's guardeen," the foretops'l halliards were no good and he said. “I never rec'lect seeing a monkey debated it with me several times. “They're so affect'nate and overseeing in general. soft as putty,” I protested. “How am I to Little Peter says 'Huh!' just like the old tell when they'll give and somebody get man. If the Twin talked he'd never say hurt and we lose gear?” ‘Huh! He's too set in his ways. That "They look tender,” he admitted. “But monkey, mister, is a darned sight more of 326 AMERICAN MAGAZINE a man than either the skipper or his wash the men at work over the side. Sud- boy." denly the man shouted. He dropped one It was a long passage, and we grew very arm swiftly from the wheel and an instant silent as the days went on and the stars of later jammed a soft body against my legs, the tropics burned more brightly in the sky. between us on the grating. I looked down Gradually the captain had fallen into let quickly. It was the Twin Peters, the boy ting me navigate the schooner. He gave huddled in the small and wiry arms of the some excuse about his eyes, or something monkey. There they stayed during the last But, though I do not think he ever fully hours of darkness. trusted my reckonings, he cunningly con- With the dawn we saw our plight. The cealed the fact. I became sure that he mate came dripping aft, waving his arms could not trust his own; not for lack of feebly. When he reached the poop he knowledge, but because he was forever looked sharply at the skipper and then hesitating. I never knew a man so incapa- stumbled against me. “She's leaking like ble of immediate address and skill. a sieve,” he bellowed. “Opened up!” We were only a few days' run from Koko His voice died hoarsely. Head when Captain Finn came on deck in The wind dropped. The seas rose less his pajamas during the middle watch. It threateningly. But the old Algaroba did not was very dark. The Algaroba was plung- recover. Her leaps were springless; she ing a bit in a cross-sea and I had taken in rolled sluggishly, the water running oilily the tops'ls, feeling too much weight in the across the deck. shifting wind. “I don't think it will blow The sun came up and we grew dry in its any. Huh?" said the skipper. But his warmth. The captain came over to the face, as he peered down into the compass wheel and stared into the compass. “We're and the light struck upward on it, was wet off our course," he said futilely. “Huh?” with sweat and not the face of a man at ease. “We're sinking,” said the mate. “She “It looks to me like a gale," I said. won't last an hour. We must provision the “More, there's an ugly sea getting up. I boat. We must get away.” don't like to push her too far.” “I think she's making better weather of “Keep her going," he said curtly. Then it,” the captain continued slowly. “Don't he trailed off. “I see it's freshening. I you think so ? Huh?" wonder how much she would carry. Some- We looked at each other, the mate and I. body that had her before told me the He went forward again, calling to the men Algaroba was tender.” to get the boat stowed over the galley Before the words were well out of his ready to launch. mouth I saw something that brought the I n an hour they had the long boat out of blood into my eyes. Half an hour later the. her chocks and balanced on the rail, now Algaroba was hove to, careening dizzily up only a few feet above the sea. We had tried the slopes of the huge seas that foamed from the pumps. They were useless against the the darkness, roared down and thundered inflow. "All that saves us is that forehold past. I stood at the wheel myself. The full of empty oil barrels,” said the mate. mate was forward, trying to save the “She'd have gone down long ago. She'll remains of the gear. The captain clung go yet.” He got the boat over. miserably to the rail, balancing himself T he time had come. The cabin boy and with difficulty in that hot and howling storm. the cook ran wildly out with provisions and The sailor at the wheel with me worked tumbled them into the boat. The crew spasmodically, as we tried to keep the came up on the poop, now but a bare schooner from diving completely under the fathom out of the water. The Twin Peters sweeping surges. He nodded to me from clung to the lashed wheel. The captain time to time. We both knew she had too stumbled around the little deck, his un- much sail on her. The captain seemed gainly form coming between us and our helpless. The mate was still forward try- work, his mouth opening continually to ing to save the headgear. Until he had emit a puzzled, distracted “Huh!” finished there was no chance of reefing the “We'd better get away,” said the mate. foresail down, and it needed all our strength “Those oil barrels are keeping her for us. to hold the Algaroba in control so that none But she's going by the stern, fast. There of the combers should crash over her and ain't no time to lose.” THE TWIN PETERS 327 Everything stopped for a moment. Cap- and sparkling ocean we saw, as we thought, tain Finn stood outside the huddled crew. her masts dip for the last time. How often He stared knowingly up at the topsails we stopped rowing to watch that old bundled against the masts, his eye ran schooner's last agonies, I do not know. along the deck, clear to the jibboom fork- And all the time we were getting farther ing out wildly as the waterlogged schooner away from the wreck, driven down the wallowed in the sea. We waited. He was wind in our clumsy boat. We seemed to the captain. There was not a sound strive to get closer many times. We tore except the scrape of a boot on the deck as at the oars and flung oaths out over the we tried to keep our balance. The skipper brilliant sea. But it was in vain. seemed at a loss. He scanned us question. In that afternoon breeze, on that sapphire ingly, shifted his hands. Still we waited for sea, we were like men paralyzed inwardly. him to give the word for us to take to the Our gestures, our words, were those of boat. It came at last, slow, inquiringly, as resolve. We would save them, by Heaven! if the problem was too deep. “Huh?” We cared nothing for that reeling hulk's Then, again, “Huh!” menace on the sealine. And yet, when We piled ourselves down into the boat those thin masts flung wildly over, and the like school boys. We tumbled over the seas poured like cream from the poop, we seats, we pulled frantically at the lashings stopped. Our arms refused to struggle. of the oars. We seemed panic stricken. Our minds became vacant of courage, and And on the deck above the old man we stared, groaning, shifting in uncer- loitered, undecided, quite oblivious to the tainty on our seats while that awful agony haste that the moments called for. He went on in the silence under the purple even gazed down on us, profoundly, as if eastern sky. And all the time we receded, he would read our souls. We shouted up at as if by some irresistible impulse, until we him, shook our fists wildly, swore tumultu- no longer saw the surging hulk, but only ously. We could not leave him. It was the tapering masts, moving faintly. seconds. He still stayed. Night came with her burning stars and The Algaroba careened far to leeward, the moon rose delicately. The Algaroba her rail dipped underneath our boat, then was swallowed up at last. We bent our sail the stern rose ponderously, sucking us under in silence and I took the helm while the the counter. “She's going!” bellowed the wearied men sank into sleep. The mate, mate. We pulled frantically away. only, kept awake with me. He looked at me We rested on our oars a cable's length continually and wagged his head. A dozen away. The schooner was still afloat, her times he reached over, whispering hoarsely, masts still stiff against the sky. We saw “Weought n't to ha'forgot the Twin Peters!” the big figure on the poop and shouted at The morning came again and we saw the top of our pipes. He made no response. nothing on the horizon except a feather of A sailor stood up in the rocking boat and smoke rising out of the southeast. “That's tossed his arms up. “The Peters!” he a mail boat,” said the mate. “We'll signal cried, “the Twin Peters!” her and get aboard. It's luck, ain't it?”. It was true. We had forgotten them. It was luck. Two hours later the big They were on the sinking schooner. We liner China flung her side ladder over and paddled about, headed our boat for the we grasped at it. We clambered up on wreck, and struggled over the high seas. deck. We reported the loss of the Alga- We were helpless. Suddenly we saw roba. It was all over in fifteen minutes. the schooner roll her tall masts far over, her The tragedy was finished. I sat down in jibboom heave high into the air, the rags of the third officer's room to pull off my boots. the headsails flutter a last time in the My host stood over me comfortably with a breeze. We stopped rowing and looked into whiskey bottle. “All saved ?” he inquired. the bottom of the boat. I hesitated. I suddenly saw the Twin But we could not lose the Algaroba. Peters, the huge bulk of the captain. ... When we looked again she was still there. “The captain and his son went down She drove her fo'c'sle head clear of the seas with the schooner,” I said. for an instant and we saw the brine fall “Ah!” he ejaculated. He seemed to white and foamy over the catheads. She think awhile. He glowed. “It was a bully went down and down until over the blue thing to do, wasn't it?" He took a personal 328 AMERICAN MAGAZINE pride in that gallant captain, who lived a small figure untangled itself from a piece straitly up to the ideals of the sea. of rope. The wave slid from under us and At noon a steward put his head in at the we dropped. We rose again, the officer door. “You are wanted on the bridge, shouting. As we hung under the dripping sir,” he said. “The captain asked me to bows a sailor drove his arm out. In- present his compliments, sir.” stantly there was a cry. He thrust out his I went on deck, to the bridge steps, then other arm, and the small figure above us up, very slowly. As I passed up, far on the sprang into life. It tugged wildly, it starboard bow, four masts tossed slowly leaped with incredible quickness over the above the sea line. I ascended. rest of the huddle while we panted in that The captain nodded to me. “Is that swinging boat. We dropped away a third your schooner over there?” he demanded time, and the huge bows of the Algaroba I stared for a long time. It was the drove furiously out of the sea that seemed Algaroba, still on the sea, still struggling for determined to plunge her under. Once life. “It is," I said. more our boat rose to the jibboom. A “I believe the captain stayed on her ?” small body fell off the spar. The sailor in he pursued. the bows caught it. It was a boy, thrust "He did.” from his dizzy perch by the little arms that “I think we'd better run down and see if had held him so long. It was Peter! there's life aboard.” He altered the steam- Without an order the men surged the er's course. boat under those towering bows again and The China stopped a half mile from the a brown, hairy body tumbled among us. derelict. A boat was called away and I It sat feebly up in the bottom of the boat asked to go in her. and, as we pulled furiously away, turned We pulled out for the schooner. She lay white-lidded eyes up to us. “A monkey!” in that burnished sea as if in agony. Her yelled one of the men. stern was all submerged. Her bows were The Twin paddled weakly with a blue out, and the rake of her masts indicated paw, turning around on the boards. He but a few moments more of life. The saw Peter curled up in a jacket between the officer in the boat spoke to me. “I don't officer's knees. He stumbled to him. wonder you quit her,” he said. “Looks to Peter stirred. A shivering paw went trem- me as if we'd have to be careful ourselves. bling round his neck and the Twins slept. There's no one alive there." The liner's officer swore deeply and But we pulled on. We came up within a gently. He swung his boat round once hundred yards. We yelled. There was more. “We must get the skipper,” he said. no response. A creamy sea broke over A sailor pointed out toward the schooner. her and the spume boiled under our gun- We stopped rowing. The jibboom was wale. We pulled closer. And then— pointing straight to the sky, as if suddenly I see it yet. The strong arm of the jib- fixed in an irrevocable gesture. “She's boom thrust valiantly out of the ocean, the going this time," said the officer, under his rags of the headsails beating against it like a breath. With the swiftness of a hand with- torn sleeve, and, far out on it, a huddle that drawn the jibboom slid down into the sea, was not gear. Another sea broke over the a rag of headsail fluttered whitely in fare- after part of the schooner and its weight well. The ocean was vacant, except for the propelled the bows out, in all their vast bulk, liner riding a mile to windward. The their wooden strength grimly holding out officer turned his gaze down on the Twins that jibboom, as if for the last time, a final at his feet. “I'm sorry we didn't get the and resolute gesture. old man. I wonder what became of him.” We shouted in response to that dumb He raised his eyes to mine, as if hugely call. The huddle on the soaring spar puzzled. Then he looked down again. stirred, disintegrated. A small, dark arm As he turned the boat's head toward the was thrust out. We cheered. “Run her China he looked at me directly. He shook up, men!” thundered the officer. The his head slowly. His breath came shortly, boat sprang forward. A sparkling wave finally, as if expressing the ultimate doubt lifted us, as a man lifts his son, up to that of our life, half contemptuously, half in strong jibboom. The arm became two; amazement.-"Huh!” Every Day Living By Annie Payson Call AUTHOR OF "THE FREEDOM OF LIFE," " POWER THROUGH REPOSE," ETC. EXCUSES AND “BACK TALK” JHEN we were all ready and ness to see myself as I really am. If I am about to start for the mati- wrong and will not own up to it, there are née, someone said: “Where two causes of abnormal strain: first, the are the tickets?” Where- wrong itself; and, secondly, the series of upon Jane exclaimed with lies which I must tell myself and other El e characteristic vehemence, people in order to keep myself in the false “What a terrible thing! I forgot to order persuasion. If I am in the wrong, and them!” We telephoned at once, but the acknowledge it in a clear and clean-cut play was drawing immensely, and at that spirit, then I have clear light by which to late hour there were no tickets to be had. mend the wrong; and, generally, both the Everyone had been counting on the pleas- mistake and the acknowledgment are done ure of the afternoon, and everyone was dis- within a brief space of time, and we find appointed. ourselves moving on to something better; "Why, Jane," said her mother, “I asked whereas, without the acknowledgment, we you to speak for the tickets a week ago.” may drag a dead weight of sham along with "I know it, mother; but I have been so us for an indefinite length of time. busy all the week that I have lost my head If we have a spot on our face, we must about everything." look in the glass to see where it is, in order “You were not busy on Monday after- to wash it off. If we have a bad habit which noon, dear, for I saw you reading a novel.” cannot be reflected in the glass, and some “Yes, but then you went out; and, just friend will kindly serve as a mirror, and after you left, I remembered the tickets for show us by imitation just what the habit is, the theater, but did not know in what part we may thus become clearly conscious of it; of the house you wanted to sit.” and if, at the same time, we can find the "But on Tuesday," said her mother, “I proper remedy, there will be nothing to was in the house all day, and you were, too; prevent our working steadily until we have you might have asked me at any time." . gained our freedom. We must first become "Well, I did go to the telephone once, so thoroughly conscious of a nervous habit but the line was busy." as to be ourselves annoyed by it, in order to And so the talk went on, and Jane made get free. It is a very difficult matter to one random response after another; saying bring ourselves into a state of mind in which anything-anything rather than what would we are fully willing to become entirely con- have been a good direct acknowledgment of scious of our faults; it is so difficult that a dead failure to do what had been given people often prefer to retain their extreme her to do, and what she had promised to and selfish peculiarities, because their habits attend to. are already formed, and they feel at home The circuitous line of reasoning that in them themselves, although all those about some people-indeed, at times, most people them may suffer. -will adopt, rather than face the fact that I once knew a woman who articulated they are entirely in the wrong, is curiously so badly that no one could understand her stupid. If I am wrong let me own up without great difficulty. She learned to squarely and clearly that I am wrong; then articulate perfectly; but, after this, her I can do all in my power to make it right correct articulation seemed to her so un- without being befogged by my unwilling- natural and uncomfortable that she pre- 329 330 AMERICAN MAGAZINE mossible ferred to relapse into her habit of confused who has put a parapet of suffering in front speech rather than to speak slowly and of herself and is hiding behind it. Such an plainly, and so save her friends the strain of attempt will only provoke "back talk," and a painful effort to understand her. Her even an habitually clear-minded person excuse was that the slow, distinct speech finds it most difficult to keep out of a human made her conspicuous to other people, and fog when he is once launched into a volley she could not bear to draw attention to her- of “back talk.” The only way is to live self; when in reality it only made her con- quietly what you know to be right, and say spicuous to herself. In many cases people as little as possible. have lived in abnormal habits so long that When you are in a position where you normal ways appeaſ to them abnormal; and must hear excuses, answer them with ques- then, if even a slight attempt is made to tions, and not with accusation or assertion. help them to understand themselves, there “Do you really mean that I cannot tell comes excuse upon excuse, and argument you what I think about this because you upon argument, to prove the impossibility cannot bear to feel that I think you may or futility of any change. have made a mistake in the matter?” There are some women, especially, who “Yes, I do." . cannot be told of very grievous faults-be “Then we cannot discuss it at all ?” cause it makes them ill. That is their “No, we cannot-I cannot bear it.” excuse for not seeing and recognizing their “Very well; if we cannot, then we will own selfishness. Of course, they do not not." put it to themselves thus baldly. They say: And the whole matter, so far as talking “If you are going to think such things of goes, stops there; you go off and leave your me, I cannot bear it-it is too terrible.” friend-or you turn the conversation to They accuse you of being unfeeling and anything that may be light or interesting. cruel—and sometimes make you believe The result of such a series of questions that you are so; and you go away with a and answers will often appear later. The “whipped-puppy” feeling until you have absurdity of her excuse as brought out by been out of their atmosphere long enough your quiet questions will ultimately become to see the truth of the matter, which is that apparent to her in spite of herself, and she your accuser has been attacking you to hide will acknowledge it later and give you an her own selfishness. She has made the opportunity for a quiet talk which you could excuse that she cannot bear your criticism not have had before. Whereas, if instead because it is too terrible for her to bear. of the questions you had made bald asser- The question as to whether your criticism tions or accusations, she would have re- is correct or not, has never occurred to her. sented them, and spent her time in nursing I once knew a man who complained bit- her resentment, instead of in discovering terly that his mother kept him in bondage the emptiness of her “suffering” excuses. through her own imperious love of posses One thing is an absolute necessity, if you sion. He could not move without being want to break through the obstruction of a dogged by her, and he had no freedom of false excuse, and that is quiet, kindly at- life whatever. When I asked him why he tention. If you cannot put your questions did not try, kindly and quietly, to show her kindly, you had better not put them at all. the truth about herself, he said: “I have This quiet attention to the excuses of tried to, but it made her so ill that at one other people is a very "eye-opener" to us time she thought she was going to die, and as regards our habit of excusing ourselves. told me so." The man, of course, was “He makes me so angry that I cannot talk weak to allow himself to remain in such with him!” Such common excuses for bondage; and yet, when a relative who is rudeness or injustice rise up and strike us very near and dear to you tells you that it in the face; and, for the first time, we will kill her if you try to show her that she is recognize how stupidly vapid they are. in any way at fault, it seems like useless It may never before have occurred to us cruelty to insist upon reiterating the truth that we should learn not to allow our anger while you are being accused of causing in- or irritability to be aroused; that we tense suffering, and perhaps committing should bring ourselves to the state of quiet murder. willingness in which it would be out of the It never does any good to argue with one question for anger or irritability to possess EVERY DAY LIVING 331 il us. No matter how unjust or disagreeable a person may be, as far as I am concerned it is only my own fault if I am angered or irritated by him. Although we may often excuse other people because they do not see or understand, it would seem to be a good universal rule that we should never excuse ourselves. We all have our own special temptations to excuse: “I cannot bear to be irritated.” “No one ever helped me in that way. If you want to do me any good you must go to work some other way.” “I suppose I ought to do better, but I have not a strong enough character—I have not got there yet.” Are you finding your way there? "Well, I do not know how it is, but some- how I never can be on time, and I never can be orderly-I am not made so.” Where did you get the idea that you must stay as you were made? Then again, “It is my temperament.” Do you not know that the perversions of a temperament are not the temperament itself? There never was a temperament that had not its good as well as its evil possi- bilities. The truth is that we inherit our temperament with its natural perversions, and it is our business in life to shake off the perversions, in order that we may find the veritable temperament itself, and that it may carry us on truly to the best work that such a temperament can do. If all who have excused themselves for selfishness and evil because of the “artistic temperament” had recognized that they were really excus- ing the perversions of their temperament, and not the temperament itself, much need- less pain and sorrow might have been avoided. When a man excuses himself for wrong-doing with a pretense which has absolutely no real foundation, there im- mediately comes up in his mind a line of argument the object of which is to per- suade himself that he is right. The stupid- ity of the argument will often irritate the person with whom he may be talking, and there will follow a course of “back talk” which is the logical development of irra- tional excuses, and very often ends in child- ish and unkind nonsense. Back and forth -back and forth-how many times we have heard it! How many times we have done it ourselves without thinking! It reminds one of the story of the two negroes who were fighting. The most volu- ble one was pouring out invectives upon the other, and when at last he stopped for want of breath, the other, too full of wrath to say all that he would like to say, stammered forth, “All dose tings dat you say I am, you is !” In such useless “back talk” we are really no better than the two darkies. In our hearts we are really calling each other ugly names all the time, no matter how grace- fully our sentences may be framed. The only safe procedure is to stop whenever we feel the beginning of antagonism in an argu- ment. Stop !-no matter how unjust your opponent may seem, or may really be. If we feel ourselves growing irritable, we must stop. If we can drop our antagonism while we are talking, well and good; but it is not safe to trust oneself to do that until one has had good practice in stopping off short. If the other man is antagonistic, his very antagonism will serve to goad us on; but it is possible, with perfect courtesy, to explain that we feel antagonistic, and that, as we never talk sense when we feel in that way, we ask to be permitted to wait until we have quieted down. Then follows the real and valuable work in ourselves: to clear up the antagonism—to shun it, and yield out of it with such a force of will and quiet prayer that, whenever it shows itself again, it will find no soil to lodge in. “Back talk” is not only cheap and use- less, it is destructive and dangerous, and the tendency behind it must be entirely up- rooted before we can feel that the habit is conquered. We must be in the process of giving up the desire for our own way before we can be liberated from the slavery of “back talk” and become secure in our inner quietness and freedom; and the first result of such freedom will be a blessed unwilling- ness to excuse ourselves for anything, and a habit of quiet, respectful attention to what any other man may say. Excuses generate “back talk," and ex- cuses and "back talk” together cut off all real human communication. Let us be rid of both, and gain the inestimable power and joy of open communication with our fellow men. MARGINALIA A Mushroom of Collingsville By Eleanor H. Porter U Z HERE were three men in the os hotel office that Monday evening: Jared Parker, the T S proprietor; Seth Wilber, town authority on all things past and present; and John wow Fletcher, known in Collings- ville as "The Squire”-possibly because of his smattering of Blackstone; probably be- cause of his silk hat and five-thousand-dol- lar bank account. Each of the three men eyed with unabashed curiosity the stranger in the doorway. “Good-evening, gentlemen," began a depre- catory voice. “I-er-this is the hotel?” In a trice Jared Parker was behind the short counter “ Certainly, sir. Room, sir?" he said suavely, pushing an open book and a pen half-way across the counter. “H’m, yes, I-I suppose so," murmured the stranger, as he hesitatingly crossed the floor. “H'm; one must sleep, you know," he added, as he examined the point of the pen. “Certainly, sir, certainly,” agreed Jared, whose face was somewhat twisted in his en- deavors to smile on the prospective guest and frown at the two men winking and gesticu- lating over by the stove. “H'm," murmured the stranger a third time, as he signed his name with painstaking care. “ There, that's settled! Now where shall I find Professor Marvin, please?” “ Professor Marvin!” repeated Jared, stupidly. “ Yes; Professor George Marvin," bowed the stranger. " Why, there ain't no Professor Marvin, that I know of.” " Mebbe he means old Marvin's son," in- terposed Seth Wilber with a chuckle. The stranger turned inquiringly. “His name's 'George,' all right,” continued Seth, with another chuckle, “but I never heard of his professin' anythin'—'nless 'twas laziness.” The stranger's face showed a puzzled frown. “Oh-but-I mean the man who discov- ered that ants and— " “Good gorry!” interrupted Seth, with a groan. “If it's anythin' about bugs an' snakes, he's yer man! Ain't he?” he added, turning to his friends for confirmation. Jared nodded, and Squire Fletcher cleared his throat. “He's done nothing but play with bugs ever since he came into the world," said the Squire, ponderously. “A most unfortunate case of an utterly worthless son born to hon- est, hard-working parents. He'll bring up in the poorhouse yet-or in a worse place. Only think of it—a grown man spending his time flat on his stomach in the woods counting ants' legs and bugs' eyes!” "Oh, but-” the stranger stopped. The hotel-keeper had the floor. “It began when he wa'n't more'n a baby. He pestered the life out of his mother bring- ing snakes into the sittin'-room, and carrying worms in his pockets. The poor woman was 'most mortified to death about it. Why, once when the parson was there, George used his hat to catch butterflies with-smashed it, too." “ Humph!” snapped the squire. “The little beast filled one of my overshoes with water once, to make a swimming-tank for his dirty little fish.” “They couldn't do nothin' with him," chimed in Seth Wilber. “An' when he was older, 'twas worse. If his father set him ter hoein' pertaters, the little scamp would be found histin' up old rocks an' boards ter see the critters under 'em crawl." 332 11 “ Extraordinary-very-so it is," murmured the stranger spreading it open with shaking hands. As he read, he ran his finger down the column, singling out a phrase here and there, and stumbling a little over unfamiliar words. “Yes, but—" again the stranger was si- lenced. "And in school he didn't care nothing about 'rithmetic nor jography," interrupted Jared. “He was forever scaring the teacher into fits bringing in spiders an' caterpillars, and asking questions about 'em.” “Gorry! I guess ye can't tell me no news about George Marvin's schoolin'," snarled Seth Wilber-"me, that's got a son Tim what was in the same class with him. Why, once the teacher set 'em in the same seat; but Tim couldn't stand that-what with the worms an' spiders-an' he kicked so hard the teacher swapped 'round.” “ Yes; well-er-extraordinary, extraor- dinary-very!—so it is," murmured the stranger, backing toward the door. The next moment he was out on the street asking the first person he met for the way to George Marvin's. On Tuesday night a second stranger stopped at the hotel and asked where he could find Professor Marvin. Jared, Seth, and Squire Fletcher were there as before; but this time their derisive stories—such as they managed to tell—fell on deaf ears. The stranger signed his name with a flourish, en- gaged his room, laughed good-naturedly at the three men--and left them still talking. On Wednesday two more strangers arrived, and on Thursday, another one. All, with varying manner but unvarying promptitude, called for Professor George Marvin. Jared, Seth, and the Squire were dum- founded. Their mystification culminated in one grand chorus of amazement when, on Friday, the Squire came to the hotel hugging under his arm a daily newspaper. "Just listen to this!” he blurted out, banging his paper down on the desk and “ The recent ento-mo-logical discoveries of Professor George Marvin have set the scientific world in a flurry. ... Professor Marvin is now unanimously conceded to be the greatest entomologist living. He knows his Hex-a-poda and Myri-a-poda as the most of us know our alphabet. ... The humble home of the learned man has become a Mecca, toward which both great and small of the scientific world are bending eager steps. ... The career of Marvin reads like a romance, and he has fought his way to his present enviable position by sheer grit and ability, having had to combat with all the narrow criticism and misconceptions usual in the case of a progressive thinker in a small town. Indeed, it is said that even now his native village fails to recognize the honor that is hers." “Jehosaphat !” exclaimed Seth Wilber, faintly. Fletcher folded the paper and brought his fist down hard upon it. “There's more-a heap more,” he cried ex- citedly. “But how-what-” stammered Jared, whose wits were slow on untrodden paths. “It's old Marvin's son-don't you see?" interrupted Squire Fletcher impatiently. “ He's big !-famous !” “'Famous'! What for?” “Zounds, man!-didn't you hear? " snarled the Squire. “He's a famous entomologist. It's his bugs and spiders." "Gosh!” ejaculated Jared, his hand seek- ing the bald spot on the back of his head. "Who'd ever have thought it? Gorry! Let's 333 “ I've known him all his life, sir" have a look at it.” And he opened the paper and peered at the print with near-sighted eyes. It was on Monday, three days later, that Jared, Seth, and the Squire were once more accosted in the hotel office by a man they did not know. “Good-evening, gentlemen, 1— " “You don't even have to say it,” cut in Jared, with a flourish of both hands. “We know why you're here without your telling.” "An' you've come ter the right place, sir -the right place," declared Seth Wilber, pompously. “What Professor Marvin don't know about bugs an' spiders ain't wuth knowin'. I tell ye, sir, he's the biggest enty- molylolygist that there is ter be found.” “That he is," affirmed the Squire, with an indulgently superior smile toward Wilber- “the very greatest entomologist living," he corrected carefully. “And no wonder, sir; he's studied bugs from babyhood. I've known him all his life—all his life, sir, and I always said he'd make his mark in the world.” “Oh, but—" began the stranger. “'Member when he took the parson's hat to catch butterflies in?” chuckled Jared, speaking to the Squire, but throwing furtive glances toward the stranger to make sure of his attention. “Gorry—but he was a cute one! Wish't had been my hat. I'd 'a' had it framed and labeled, and hung up on the wall there." “Yes, I remember,” nodded the Squire; then he added with a complacent sinile: “ The mischievous little lad used my overshoe for a fish-pond once-I have that overshoe “Have ye now?” asked Seth Wilber, en- viously. “I want ter know! Well, anyhow, my Tim, he went ter school with him, an' set in the same seat," continued Seth, turn- ing toward the stranger. “ Tim's got an old writin'-book with one leaf all sp'iled 'cause one of young Marvin's spiders got into the inkwell an' then did a cake-walk across the page. Tim, he got a lickin' fur it then, but he says he wouldn't give up that page now fur forty lickin's." The stranger shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes, yes," he began, “but ” “You'd oughter seen him when old Mar- vin used to send him out to hoe pertaters," cut in Jared gleefully. “Gorry!-young as he was, he was all bugs then. He was smart enough to know that there was lots of curi- ous critters under sticks and stones that had laid still for a long time. I tell yer, there wa'n't much that got away from his bright eyes-except the pertaters !—he didn't bother them none." A prolonged chuckle and a loud laugh greeted this sally. In the pause that fol- lowed the stranger cleared his throat deter- minedly. “See here, gentlemen," he began pomp- ously, with more than a shade of irritation in his voice. “Will you allow me to speak? And will you inform me what all this is about?” "About? Why, it's about Professor George Marvin, to be sure," rejoined Squire Fletcher. “Pray, what else should it be about?" "I guess you know what it's about all right, stranger," chuckled Seth Wilber, with yet." 334 MARGINALIA 335 a shrewd wink. “You can't fool us. Mebbe you're one o' them fellers what thinks we don't know enough ter 'preciate a big man when we've got him. No, sir-ree! We ain't that kind. Come, ye needn't play off no longer. We know why you're here, an' we're glad ter see ye, an' we're proud ter show ye the way ter our Professor's. Come on, 'tain't fur." The stranger drew back. His face grew red, then purple. "I should like to know," he sputtered thickly, “I should like to know if you really think that I-I have come 'way up here to see this old bug man. Why, man alive, I never even heard of him!” “What !” ejaculated three disbelieving voices, their owners too dumfounded to take exceptions to the sneer in tone and words. “Zounds, man!—what did you come for, then?" demanded the Squire. The stranger raised his chin. “See here, who do you think I am ? ” he demanded pompously, as he squared himself before them in all his glory of checkered trousers, tall hat, and flaunting watch-chain. “Who do you think I am? I am Theophilus Augustus Smythe, sir, advance agent and head manager of the Kalamazoo None-like-it Salve Company. I came, sir, to make ar- rangements for their arrival to-morrow morn- ing. They show in this town to-morrow night. Now perhaps you understand, sir, that my business is rather more important than hunting up any old bug man that ever lived!” And he strode to the desk and picked up the pen. For a moment there was absolute silence; then Seth Wilber spoke. “Well, by ginger !—you—you'd oughter have come ter see the Professor, anyhow," he muttered, weakly, as he fell back in his chair. “Say, Squire, 'member when Mar- vin " Over at the desk Theophilus Augustus Smythe crossed his t with so violent an energy that the pen sputtered and made two blots. All Figured Out Cabby (disgusted at fare) : “Wot's this fer? ” Patron : “ That's your fare, plus your tip, minus my rebate.” 336 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Sentiments of the Schoolmaster By Creswell Maclaughlin OUR fathers and mothers laugh while they watch us trying to train their grandchildren. IT is easy to be liberal with what does not belong to you. THOSE who heal are those we love. LERE'S a cure for many maladies and disappointments—back to I work again. ENTLEMEN who want the earth often get it before they ex- pect it. U FOOL will find a flaw in the finest work of art. Dobles YOU DONT Belppoki A Fish Story G. Beverly Towles Mr. Towles is familiar to our readers as a suc- cessful designer of covers. The particularly attrac- tive cover on the present number is to his credit Drawn by H. W. Ditsier Illustrating "The Derelicts" “We'll toss for the job" AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOL. LXII, NO. 4 AUGUST, 1906 The Derelicts By L. Frank Tooker WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. W. DITZLER a 612 NAHEN a captain goes ashore “Wha''d I tell ye!” exclaimed the second at Greytown, he does not mate with sudden fury." "Don't it beat set the time of his supper- the deuce!” He rushed forward, and a hour aboard. Even in calm moment later Grove watched a sailor going V weather the bar is to be sullenly aloft to make the royal snug, while la reckoned with, and when the second mate stood below and loudly the sudden norther sweeps down across called all heaven down upon the heads of the gulf, there is nothing left for the ship- the misguided landsmen who palmed them- master ashore but to watch his vessel selves off as sailormen in these degenerate wallowing far out in the gray roadstead days. Grove smiled. He was standing and pray that her anchors may hold. by the taffrail, looking off at the dim line In the end of March of a year that is of of land beyond the black waste of water, no moment to this tale, the brig Skylark when the second mate came aft again, had been for six days thus masterless, and breathing heavily. the crew was worn out and ugly with the “I'm sick of it,” he snarled—“sick to endless thrashing in seas that rolled her death an' tired of it, an’ I don't care how foreyard-arm under at every dip. The swift soon it ends, any way it will. It's all right twilight was falling on the last day as John for the old man; he's always ashore, an' I Grove, the mate, making the rounds of the suppose the old wagon's insured up to her deck to see that everything was snug for eyes. He don't care what's goin' on off the night, mounted to the poop and came here, an' prob'bly he's guzzlin' himself upon the second mate re-coiling the running full an’ watchin' them señoritas dancin' rigging through sheer restlessness of spirit. fandangos in some snug place ashore. Oh, He looked up as the mate stopped at his Lord!” He turned away, in the impotence side and threw a coil over its belaying-pin of his wrath, and stared moodily forward, in sudden temper. away from the land, where pleasure was “Can't trust them squareheads for'ard possible to captains. to do anything shipshape,” he grumbled. The next morning the two stood watching “Did ye ever see sich a lot ? Say, did ye?” a boat coming off over the bar. The wind He was turning to follow his superior aft had fallen before midnight, and the sea when somewhere aloft the sharp snapping was now smooth. As the boat drew of loosened canvas caused both to look up near and Grove turned to go forward to quickly, to see an inflated bag bellying in hang the side ladder out, Ketchum nudged the gale from the end of the royal yard. him with his elbow. COPYRIGHT, 1806, IN THE UNITED STATES AND QREAT BRITAIN, BY COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 343 344 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “Hello!” he whispered excitedly; “look and he kept himself aloof throughout the o'there! Say, I guess I was more'n half morning. right when I prophesied the old man was He did not see the bride again until he watchin' them señoritas. Blame' if he went to the table at noon. His eyes swept ain't brought one off with him!” He her face in a casual way as he took his giggled behind his hand as Grove moved seat, widening with keen surprise in spite off, trying not to stare at the girlish figure of his effort at control. She was unmis- sitting by the captain in the stern-sheets. takably pretty and very young, with a As the girl, dressed in black and heavily certain innocent shyness of manner that veiled, came up the side of the brig, Grove was far from being the hard sophistication helped her over the rail, with a countenance that he had expected to see, and in his one that, in his desire to hold it unmoved by a quick impression of dark eyes and hair surprising situation, became the battle- and oval contour of face that was foreign, ground for contending emotions: his lips yet familiar too, it was the thought of smiled, while his eyes frowned. Barely this youthfulness and innocence, rather touching his hand, she sprang lightly to than of beauty, that lingered on in his mind. the deck, turned uncertainly with a quick T here had been no introductions and look about her, and then stood waiting the meal was eaten swiftly in the stolid while Captain Hewlett came laboriously silence that is usual on shipboard where aboard. the captain makes no initiatory advances. He was a thick-set man of sixty, with Now and then he addressed a bare word iron-gray beard and a reddish tinge to his to his wife, which she answered as briefly, bronzed face. His mouth, wide and almost and twice he asked Grove a question con- lipless, drooped at the corners in irascible cerning the cargo, listening to the replies lines. As he reached the deck, his small, with the remote, withdrawn unresponsive- half-closed eyes glanced keenly about the ness that is the curious social attitude of vessel, then turned to Grove. the shipmaster toward the narrative of his “Stand it all right?” he asked ab- officers. ruptly. The sky was cloudless when Captain “ All right, sir," Grove answered. Hewlett ascended to the deck. He nodded "Well, send that luggage right aboard,” to the men in the shore boat to bring her went on the captain, “and then have those alongside, and as he went down the side fellows drop their boat astern. I've got to ladder he paused, with his shoulders above go ashore again right after dinner, but I'll the rail, for a last word with the mate. be off before sundown." Half-way down “I'll be back by sundown," he said. the companionway he paused. “Send the “The lighters will be off early in the morn- steward aft to clear out the spare room," ing. I guess, with good weather, they he ordered. “My wife will have mine." can finish loading us in two days, so you'd As three of the crew carried the baggage better be overhauling your tackle and down into the cabin, Ketchum brushed sails. Don't want to lie out here a minute against Grove. longer 'n I must.” “The old skeezicks!” he muttered ex- “Everything's in shape, sir,” Grove citedly. “Don't that beat hell on a Sunday replied. “I saw to that during the blow." mornin'! Him with a wife! Say, he “Well.” The captain nodded, and, ought to have a guardeen. Don't need without further speech, descended to the a wife more'n a cow needs a pocket. Wha' waiting boat. 'd she look like?". “You old brute!” muttered Grove. “Didn't see," Grove answered curtly, “You old brute!” and turned away, his handsome face He went down to the main-deck, busying clouded, in spite of his effort at indifference. himself with some trifling task, and there He had, in the shock of his surprise, the Ketchum joined him, drawing a light sail natural resentment of the young in the to the hatch, and settling himself to the contemplation of what they must ever con- task of putting on a new leech-rope. sider a sacrifice. Nevertheless, it was “Say, ain't she a reg'lar little chromo?” nothing to him, he told himself. His he began at once. “An' there she is down innate refinement was repelled by the in the cabin all alone, with two handsome eager inquisitiveness of the second mate, fellers like you an' me ready to make our THE DERELICTS . 345 selves agreeable, an' can't do it. No, sir; With a muttered exclamation, he jumped we've got to moon about on deck all the to his feet, and swept the horizon with his afternoon, with nothin' under God's canopy gaze. The sea to the north was gray and really to do, while that old flugee, who ruffled with wind. Even as Grove looked, could stay below, goes kitin' off ashore a vibrant bit of rigging aloft sang softly at the word go. There's luck for ye! and a loose end of a gasket flapped against Well, some folks have it all.” the foreyard. “Who?" Grove grimly asked. “That Ketchum was coming up out of the booby-hatchway as Grove reached the girl ?” Captain Hewlett “Her? Lord, no!” replied Ketchum. “The old man. I don't call this business her good luck; not much, my son. Well, I guess that's life all right.” Grove moved away irritably, going from one small task to another, and finally settling himself to sennit-making. The sun had been hot early in the afternoon, but, in his preoccupation, he had quite forgotten its glare when a cool air blowing across his cheek caused him to look up quickly, to see that the sun had disappeared. break in the deck, and the second mate's mouth widened in a malicious grin. “Where's the happy bridegroom now ?” he jeered softly. “Well, he'll stay there, wherever he is.” He nodded to windward. “It's owly over yonder all right: the norther's broke loose again. Say, ain't this one on the old man all right? Well, I guess!” To the young people in the cabin, that first night at supper, beginning in em- barrassed silence, gradually took on the air 346 AMERICAN MAGAZINE of a festival. The rough-weather rack was end of a chain? Why, it made me cross- already in place on the table, so rapidly eyed to watch her. Ever be'n to sea had the sea risen, and as the girl, swaying before?” he asked the bride, abruptly. on her stool and clutching wildly for sup- She looked up, startled, then shook her port, looked about at the unsteady cabin, head. the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the glasses “I have been not anywheres, me," she clicking in the rack under the mirror, she said. laughed in gay wonder, but with nothing “You'll like it all right-you're the of fear. kind,” he declared. “An' you'll like the "Well, you are a good sailor," once north. I guess you'd like anything, after Grove said admiringly. “Some young Greytown.” ladies would be wild in this roll, though “My father was also from the north- it's nothing." what you call Yankee. It was New Or- “They have told me I will not find it leans where he is born. He tells me of most agreeable, no," she confessed, with some difference there from my home, ves. just the touch of accent that seemed prop- There is great difference. My mother was erly to belong to the suggestion of for- the Spanish. You think that?” Her eignness in her face; “but it is not as they questioning eyes appealed to them both. tell me. It is-how you say—amusing ?” “Not on your life," asseverated Ketchum, She looked from one to the other, smilingly stoutly. “Say, ye talk jus' like a Boston questioning. girl. Took ye for one right off, soon's I “Why, this is what I call real comfort,” heard ye speak.” The thought came to declared Ketchum, beamingly—“plenty of him that his speech might seem like a re- air, no dust, an'a reg'lar cradle: Gives ye flection on her Spanish blood, and he a kind o' rock-me-to-sleep-mother feelin', hastened to add: “But, say, them señoritas don't it? Suppose we'll have any callers? are great-finest girls on earth.” Better hang the lantern over the front “That is very nice speech I think, yes, gate; wouldn't want 'em to walk on the 't is so," she said, with a little laugh. She flowers.” glanced at Grove, and her face sobered at The girl laughed joyously, and Ketchum, sight of his grim countenance. “You delighted with her appreciation, rattled on think the wind shall become more worse?" “Ye ought to be'n aboard last week,” she asked, timidly. he told her; "this ain't much. But last “No, oh, no," he replied. He shook off week she fairly turned handsprings. Why, his moodishness with an effort, adding: when ye got up to walk across the cabin “I was thinking of the north, and won- to your room, it was a toss-up whether dering how you'd like it, I guess.” you'd reach the door walkin' on the They were very gay, and lingered on at ceilin' or on the floor. It is an actual the table long after the steward had cleared fact that when I woke up one mornin' the away the supper dishes. She sat with her blanket was under me at the bottom of the arms across the rack, slipping off and on bunk an' the mattress on top of me. The a ring set with green stones. Once she old boat had turned over so many times dropped it, and it rolled across the slanting in the night, we'd got all mixed up.” table. Ketchum seized it, and looked at She looked at him with a puzzled look it with a laugh. in her eyes; then, leaning across the table, “Green's forsaken," he said. “Don't she laughed gayly. ye want me to put it on with a wish ?” he “I think that you shall exaggerate the asked, as she held her hand out for it. trifle, is it not so?" she said demurely. “I believes not in wishes,” she answered, He roared with laughter. and Grove pushed back his chair and “Not on your life," he declared. “That went up on deck. Ketchum stood, linger- is straight. A vessel does queer tricks ing uncertainly, but Grove called to him sometimes when she's anchored in a nasty from the deck. sea. She's natural enough when she's “She's a little bit of all right,” said under way, but stick her nose up to a gale Ketchum as he joined the other. “But o' wind an' snub her on a cable"-he jus' think of her tied up to that old gram- turned to Grove—"say, wasn't she jus pus! Don't it make ye sick ?”. like a bull pup dancin' an' yelpin' at the Grove made no answer, and presently Annunciata Він не - а не са на ва на ден на жен а, и даже даа. " “ I can't pray for him or the boys, I'm not fit". THE DERELICTS 349 Ketchum went on: “How'd ye suppose Y et the sun was shining, though hazily, she come to do it, heh?” it is true, and the cool rush of the wind “You might ask her,” snapped Grove. was exhilarating after the stuffy cabin, Ketchum laughed. and Grove went back to it, to find the girl “Blame' if I don't, if this blow lasts," sitting at the table gazing ahead with un- he declared. “An' I don't know 's I'm seeing eyes. She seemed a pitiably forlorn likely to do much prayin' for a change o' little creature, and he had a guilty feeling wind, either.” He turned and stared as of having acted the spy. Nevertheless, he Grove rose abruptly and walked forward; said briskly: and when he seated himself on the rail by "Don't you want to go up on deck, Mrs. the main-rigging, Ketchum flushed an- Hewlett ? It's pleasanter there. We'll fix grily. “Hello!” he muttered. “What's a chair for you, and help you up. It will struck his lordship now? Wants her all not seem so lonely." to himself, mebbe. Well, I guess he ain't She went gladly, and all the rest of the got no patent on her; not by a long shot. morning she sat by the rail of the quarter- I'm right on deck myself.” deck in a dreamy inaction-an inaction The sea had not gone down,-indeed, it that always awoke in a kind of metallic had grown heavier,—but the mental dis- spring of joyousness whenever they ap- turbance had passed when the three met proached her and spoke. at breakfast the next morning. Sharply T he days passed, and it grew to be the at the stroke of the steward's bell the young most unchanging thing in their little world men had appeared, but the girl still lin- of small activities to see her sitting there; gered in her room. Then as the brig came and more and more they fell into the way up on her cables with a jerk, the door of of lingering long, with less thought of her her stateroom flew sharply open, and they amusement and more of their own pleasure saw her standing helpless on the threshold, in being near her. So five days passed laughingly clinging to the jamb of the and the twilight of the last found her again doorway. on deck. " It is of the great roughness," she said. Ketchum was forward and Grove sat on “No”-she waved them back as they the bitts, facing her. Suddenly she spoke, sprang to assist her—"no; I shall acquire waving her hand outboard toward the em- the independence.” She slipped along purpled seas, now fast deepening into black. the short wall and dropped into her place “Has it ever been more different ?" she at the table with a little cry of triumph, cried. “I think not-me. A thousand lifting her hands to her hair to pat it softly. years I have looked and behold the waves "It is of great disorder,” she told them go march by. It shall never change, no.” demurely, “by reason of no glass. I could She laughed. not remain standing to that glass, no.” “It's too bad,” he replied; "but I guess “I'll have the steward lower it after the wind will shift soon. Of course it's breakfast,” said Grove. hard for you and your folks ashore." “That shall be very kind,” she told him. “But I care not that it shall change,” “You'll be all right in a day or two," she declared. “It is satisfaction thus. said Ketchum. “It's a little hard at first. And I have no-folks—" She hesitated They ain't many sailormen take a hold as over the colloquial word. “It is nobody to you do; no, sir," he added, admiringly. possess the worriment, no.” She asked them nothing about the prob- “Oh, I'm sorry,” he said pityingly. ability of change, and they, on their part, Her face took on an illumined look, and said nothing. Indeed, the condition that she leaned toward him. had formerly been well-nigh intolerable, “That is of great kindness," she said. had now, with her coming, taken on a “It is of sympathy very much appreciate wholly new aspect; and when, after break- by the heart,”—she laid her hand on her fast, they ascended to the deck, both looked breast,—“but my mother she has died eagerly windward, feeling for once a com- when I was child; my father he had not mon sensation of pleasure in that they saw the great regard for some children. It in the smoky horizon and the sharp-edged, has been lonely.” blue-black seas no signs of any abatement “But he would worry to have you off in the gale. here alone,” he said. 350 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “He is dead since ten days," she an- The haze still lay over the sea the next wered, with the awe of the mystery of morning, though the wind had fallen. As death in her voice, rather than with grief. they rose from the breakfast table, Grove He looked up quickly, with new compre- walked to the barometer. The girl was hension in his face. watching him curiously. “Was Señor Bourdet your father?” “I understand not the small clock," She bowed gravely. she said. “ It is he," she replied. “Oh, that's a barometer," explained He had known him, a tall, dark, saturnine Ketchum glibly—“kind o' like lookin' in old man, a ship-broker, and a crony of the bottom of a teacup to tell your fortune Captain Hewlett in a companionship in by. Don't take much stock in that sort which the bond was mainly a common o' thing myself. Know enough about the capacity for drink. In a flash Grove saw future when I git there, an' gen’rally too the whole situation, previously so inex- much.” plicable—the girl left alone without friends He followed Grove up to the deck and or protectors, the captain stirred by her the two walked to the rail, looking off into beauty or by his sense of loyalty to her the mist with anxious eyes. father, the marriage as a refuge in her be- “Did ye ever see anything fall like that wildered desolation. A suffocating rage barometer?” said Ketchum, in a low against the captain for his share in the voice. “Say, the bottom's dropped out solution clutched his heart. of the blame' thing. I guess we're in for Yet he hesitated a moment, and then it all right.” said: The wind dropped, the smoky haze “I, too, am alone-or nearly so." thickened, as the morning wore on, and “Ah,” she murmured pityingly. “That presently there was neither land nor sky, is also sad; but a man—" They heard but only a long succession of swells that the step of Ketchum coming aft, and she vaguely took shape to windward and swept went on, with a new note in her voice past. Later, Grove went down to scan one less intimate: “It is like what-the the barometer again, returning at once to place where I shall go ?” the deck and going forward. Grove looked up at Ketchum, who had “We'll heave in on the chain a bit," paused beside them. he said to Ketchum, as he passed him. “What's Baymouth like, Ketchum ?” “Get the men on the windlass.” he asked. “You know the place.” Ketchum's brow wrinkled and he “It's all right.” Ketchum replied, “Two whistled. thousand inhabitants, five churches, two “Fallin' yet ?” he asked, and Grove weekly papers, fine harbor, plenty of nice nodded. girls." He paused uncertainly, evidently They “hove in” till eight bells, and in doubt as to the illuminating adequacy when they went below to dinner a little of the description. “Why, I guess it's ruffled blotch of wind-blown water was about like the average town,” he went on. creeping out of the southwest. “In summer the girls go out on the bay “Is it that you go away?” the girl asked or ridin', an’in winter they go to revivals or almost eagerly. dances an'attend the lit'rary club-some “Just offshore," replied Grove. "I of 'em. Know much about them fellers, wouldn't want to be caught anchored off like Longfeller an’Whittier, Mis' Hewlett ?” the bar in a bad blow. If nothing comes She smiled in a puzzled way. “I under of this, we can sail right back; if it's a stand not the meaning,” she said. gale, we're safer in open water. Either “Oh, well, I guess they don't cut much way, you see, we'll be all right." He ice,” he declared easily. “If they let me smiled reassuringly. alone, I'll let them alone; that's the way “Kind o’ like 'heads, I win; tails, you I look at the proposition. But you'll git lose,'” explained Ketchum. “If it don't along all right. Anybody that can stand storm, all right; same if it does.” this sort o' thing the way you do, could git Grove ate hurriedly, and once before he along in h-h-"-he coughed to hide his finished his meal he went up to the deck embarrassment-“could git along any for a moment to study the sea. As he where." stood by the rail, far off, dull and muffled the bar, we can in open all right. THE DERELICTS 351 like the sound of a heart-beat, he fancied roar. Yet the, moved sluggishly, with an he heard a cry in the thickening fog. Again ominous drift to leeward. he heard it. It was impossible to dis- Once Ketchum came hurrying aft, tinguish the sound, but the broken length where Grove, with a sailor beside him, of the cry had the measured beat of a hail. was still at the wheel. In his brain he could hear" Skylark, ahoy!” “Ain't she like a lame duck?” he almost thundering. shrieked. “Say, ain't she?”. He took a quick step toward the cabin “She's down by the head,” Grove an- to bring up the automatic fog-horn, but swered. “I kept telling that stevedore to at the companionway he paused to listen fill her up aft; but it didn't do any good. again. From the cabin floated up the I couldn't see to everything." drawling flood of Ketchum's chatter and He gave the wheel a vicious turn, and, the girl's amused laugh; the hail was not muttering, peered forward into the bin- repeated. Grove's troubled face hardened. nacle. Through the inner glass he saw “Must have been a pelican, or some- the girl standing at the door of her cabin. thing I just imagined,” he said to himself. Then he called Ketchum. “The old man's got on my nerves. Any- “Take hold with John a minute," he way, if he's fool enough to venture offshouted in Ketchum's ear. “I'll be right to-day, it's not my place to pilot him.” back. Keep her as close as you can." Then he dropped his head quickly below He watched his chance as the quarter- the slide, fearful of again hearing the cry deck rose high on a wave, and, dodging after he had settled it with his conscience in at the cabin door, slammed it behind that there had been no cry. him, and descended to the girl, dripping. The wind was coming out of the south The worn look left her face at sight of west in puffs when, the dinner over, they him. began to make sail; but it gained no force. “I had the great fear,” she said. “I "I kind o' thought the old man might think I am solitary, with all passed to try to git off,” Ketchum said musingly: death. I listen, but hear nobody.” “'Twould be like him to risk it. He'd "I saw you," he said; “I had to come.” see a gale was brewin’.” For a moment they looked at each other Grove gave him a quick glance of sus with eyes from which all the conventions picion. of the world had passed. After that look “Well, you don't expect me to stand by no words could matter to them. He was and wait for him, do you?” he snapped. the first to speak. “I've got the vessel to look out for. If he “I couldn't bear to see you here alone. came over the bar, I guess he can get back, and frightened,” he said. “I couldn't if he starts soon enough. We're not re- bear it.” sponsible.” "Is it that we will die?” she asked. “Well, I might start up the fog-horn,” There was no fear in her voice. “Only suggested Ketchum. I desire not to die alone,” she continued. “And lead them out to sea ?” asked “I have the great dread of the loneliness.” Grove, satirically. “I don't see how that “I hope you will live many years," he would benefit him." said; "but if anything happens, I will come “Oh, well, I guess there ain't anything to you. Remember that.” He moved to do," replied Ketchum. “Like as not, toward the companionway, but with his he's ashore too full to think about us.” foot on the stairs, he looked back. “I “Yes," said Grove, almost eagerly. "I thought up there—it seemed funny, we've guess that's about the way it is. I don't learned to know each other so well—that think we need" Then suddenly a top- I didn't know your name—your Christian sail slatted overhead, and both looked name. Do you mind telling me? I up quickly, to see the upper sails aback. thought--" The wind had come out ahead. It was “It is Annunciata," she answered. “It the first premonitory puff of the gale. was the name also of my mother.” An hour later they were staggering along “Annunciata,” he repeated slowly. “Now through a howling tempest, the lee rail I have something to think of. It seems awash, the cordage shrieking, and the just right for you, I don't know why. But bellying canvas vibrant with a muffled now you must rest; and remember that 352 AMERICAN MAGAZINE nothing will keep me from coming to you “This makes me tired-tired. Say,” he if anything happens.” added, with a grin, “I guess I'll get out As Ketchum gave up the wheel, he an oar an' row awhile. Got to do some- caught at Grove's shoulder. thing." “Was she scart ?” he shouted. The It was still black night when they struck, words, in that tumult of discordant sounds, and heard under the keel the shuddering seemed called from a great distance. snarl that, even above the hiss of a snake, Grove shook his head. is the most fearful sound known to the "Not really, no," he called back. “She children of men. The bow rose, thump- heard no one; she thought we'd been swepting, and the stern swung around and overboard.” grounded, while the canvas, thundering Ketchum stood back, his face working. in the gale, whipped itself into rags as they “Poor little kid!” he muttered. “She carried the girl into the main-rigging. ain't nothin' but a kid, really.” Then he Thirty feet above the rail, where they had began to swear, and gripped Grove's paused, the spray from the seas breaking shoulder again. “Say,” he yelled, "we've on the deck rose about them in clouds. got to pull through for her sake; we've Grove looked up. got to, I tell ye. Wha'd that old fool “Might as well keep on to the cross- bring her off here for? Why didn't he trees," he shouted. “We'll be dry there, leave her alone?” Then he turned away and safer if the mast goes. We'd fall on and went forward, raging, to rout out the it here.” watch from their stations to pull on the “All right,” replied Ketchum, and He had had no orders; he did not care. In his blind rage at inaction he strained at the braces till his temples throbbed and his hands were torn, and stirred them not an inch, as he had known that he could upward. Unreeving the topsail halyards, they made a network over the cross-trees, upon which they spread the topsail for the girl's greater comfort. Morning came at last, but light brought he walked to the windward rail, his body bent to the wind and the spray, and glared out at the great seas sweeping down upon them and breaking in his face in sheets. “Blow, blow, blast ye, blow!” he mut- tered between his clinched teeth. “Why Through a ragged bank of clouds, blotched with purple and edged with an angry yellow, they saw the sun leap up above the rim of the tumbling, wind-swept sea, and behind them the coast of Llanuras, bare and houseless, with the mile-long the rail, struck him fair in the face and swept his feet out straight behind him. Gasping for breath and coughing, he clung to the rail till his feet dropped to the deck again. In a blind fury against the relent- less power of the storm he snatched his sou’wester from his head and flung it into the teeth of the wind, with a muttered curse too impious to repeat. Yet it was not impiety; it was his only known way of protest against the malign puzzle of life that seemed to hold him bound to suffoca- tion and powerless to stir. As he went aft again, Grove glanced at beach white with the curving crests of great rollers. Even above the uproar they could hear their sullen pounding on the shingle, like an antiphonal roll of far-off drums. It was nearly noon when they saw the foremast rock, and the crew, who had taken shelter in the top, scurrying down to try to gain the main-rigging. As they stood huddled together at the foot of the shrouds, watching their chance to make the run across the slanting deck, over which the seas broke almost continuously, Grove saw the girl watching them with scarcely comprehending eyes. He laid his hand lightly upon her arm. "Don't look!” he cried. “Don't!". Even as she turned her eyes away, the mast fell, with their own topmast falling with a splittering crash into the sea. A great wall of green water swept the deck clean, and when it passed, through a him. "What's the matter ?” he shouted. “Where's your sou’wester?” Ketchum put his hand to his head. “Oh, that,” he answered. “It's gone.” Then he walked to the corner of the house, and, leaning his arms upon it, flung back: THE DERELICTS 353 ragged hole forward a white column was with long lines of racing wave-crests—he spouting like a geyser. saw it all, vivid, yet unreal, like some Once, as the afternoon wore on, Ketchum strange panorama. Then a great sea, lifted his hand to the wind. falling aboard, buried the hull deep under “The gale's goin' down,” he said. green water, and Grove saw the leeward “If we only had a little brandy for her, bulwarks sag, and, falling outward in a and food!” Grove lamented. “And to long line of snapping timber, whirl shore- think there's plenty below!” ward like a straw. And somewhere on the Both turned their eyes downward upon outward surge of the retreating flood, with the cabin. a pomp and circumstance more than royal, “It don't look so scarey,” said Ketchum, the soul of the second mate passed out. and slipped stiffly toward the shrouds, but They seemed a benediction—the quiet Grove put out a detaining hand. stars that night. Out of that tumult of “You stay here,” he said grimly. “It's sound, in the slow disintegration of their my place to go.” man-reared superstructure--it seemed an Ketchum grinned as he answered: altar holding aloft the sacred flame of life- “Say, we'll toss for the job.” He pulled the two watched the stars march across a coin from his pocket, and, closing his the heavens, while something of their hands over it, shook it. “You call,” he serenity, remote and detached from that said. tumultuous scene, imparted itself to their “Heads," said Grove. souls. Ketchum thrust out his palm, and both “You are very brave,” once he said, in leaned forward. Ketchum chuckled. wondering admiration. “Tails,” he announced, and turned to She shook her head slowly. descend. “Think not so," she answered. “It is “I'll go with you to the deck,” said that nothing matters any longer. I am Grove. “I might be some help.” so little, the sky and ocean are so mighty. “You stay where you are,” replied I have the great bewilderment. I cannot Ketchum. “Where'd she be if we both even weep because the Señor Ketchum is failed to come back, heh? If I don't git dead.” out, it'll be because they ain't anything “He would be sorry to have you grieve,” worth sa vin'; so don't you bother. It's he said. all in the day's work." He glanced to- “He had the kind heart,” she said ward the girl, who had not opened her eyes softly. “I have not known so many of or stirred; then waved his hand to Grove such kind heart." as he took the first step downward. “So “He was brave and good,” he replied. long!” he called softly. She was quiet so long that he thought “Good luck to you!” replied Grove, and she slept, and moving softly, not to disturb the second mate nodded and grinned. her, he peered over the edge of the cross- He went down stiffly, cramped as he trees. The sea was still breaking heavily was by the long watch in the rigging, and upon the deck, but with less force, he told when he reached the sheer-pole, he took himself; and with growing hopefulness he off his coat and shoes, and, standing up, glanced about the deck, and at the en- looked seaward, awaiting a favorable tangled spars under the lee, planning a raft. moment. Only the spray flew across the Then, even as he gazed, out of the dark- quarter-deck; a shaft of sunlight lay upon ness behind him, gathering force and the house; it was almost peaceful. Making height as it neared the shoaling water, a dash for the companionway, Ketchum swept the great wave that was to make disappeared below. a mock of his hopes. To the man watching in the rigging time Over the bow it leaped, a wall of falling then stood still. The deck below, now water, and as it flooded the shattered fore- white with foaming water, now dark and body of the brig, he saw the deck rise like glistening, with a great drift of sand al- a curled-up shaving before the carpenter's ready banked against the bulkhead; the plane, and felt the mast swing unsteadily ragged hole forward through which the through a wide arc. With one stroke of sea momentarily spouted; the sea about his knife he cut the lashing about her them blue, flecked with foam, and ridged waist. 354 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “Has it come?" she asked in a steady little group of helpers stepping softly voice. away. “Yes," he said. - He stood for a moment, and then dropped “Shall it be soon?” to his knees, burying his face in his hands. "I cannot tell,” he replied. “We can “God!” he muttered, “I can't pray for only wait. Be ready when I give the word, him or the boys. I'm not fit.” He laid and trust to me.” his hand softly upon the mound that “I have the trust,” she answered. rested above Ketchum. “Good-by," he “I wish it were worthier,” he told her. whispered. “You were good and true, She made no answer, but presently, and never did a mean thing in your life. quite irrelevantly, she said: You make me ashamed.” “There was something I shall say; it is He went back to the girl after that, best. When my father has died, they say going thoughtfully, for he had found more to me: “There is nothing; your father's than his dead; and his face was grave and property, it has vanish. What shall you worn when he stopped by the hammock now do?' Madre de Dios! I know not. where she languidly swung in the shade. I have nobody who is of my family. It is “Did you find him?" she whispered. then the Captain Hewlett, being to my “Yes,” he answered; "and some of the father the great friend, has said: 'I shall men--not all, though we searched the take you to my country, yes. You shall beach for two miles. We have buried marry with me, and have no longer the them. I did not come for you; you have worriments. I shall be father and family had enough to bear.” altogether.' What is to do? There is She was weeping quietly, and he waited, nothing. I know not the world, being so for he was thinking for the first time in his young, without anybody. So I marry life how the consequences of our acts run with him the morning you have seen me on eternally through our lives, and what come to the ship, yes. But always was I he had to say was not easy. Finally he frightened of him, and now I have the great spoke. sorrow that it shall be so. Therefore it is “There is something else," he said better to die.” slowly. “While we were at dinner the “I thought it was like that,” he said. last day off Greytown, do you remember "I hated him for it.” my going up on deck? It was thick- The hours dragged on, but the mast foggy, you know—and I thought I heard still stood. Meanwhile Grove slept, open- a hail-some one calling to us. I thought ing his eyes at last upon a sky red with it might be Captain Hewlett, and listened; the coming of a windless day; and it was but I heard it no more. It seemed almost his spontaneous shout at the sight that as if I imagined it, or heard a sea bird. It awakened her to instant alertness and fear, seemed more likely.” to ask tremulously: She looked at him wonderingly, not “What is happen ?”. comprehending. “We've won!” he cried exultingly- “The wind had fallen, you remember," “we've won, and are saved!” he went on hurriedly, “and he might have He rigged a boatswain's chair to the come across the bar-he would have seen peak halyards, and, tying her in, lowered that bad weather was brewing. It was her to the deck; and it was not yet noon so thick he would be likely to miss the brig, when they reached the beach, where a and he would have hailed us. You know group of natives who had come down the the boat you came off in-Coral Sam's? river with fruit for Limón stood waist-deep She was a good boat, and Cap'n Hew- in the water to pull them in through the surf. lett always used her to go back and forth. Leaving the girl at a small cabin by the Well, she lies on the beach, a mile below, river, in the care of a shy little native stove and bottom up.” woman, Grove went with the natives along She looked at him with a growing fear shore, collecting his dead. Back of the in her eyes. beach, in a shaded spot, they buried all “You mean—" she began. that they found, Ketchum among them, He nodded. and Grove stood up at the end of the “I guess they missed us, going too far row of graves to say a prayer, with the to the east, and when the storm broke, THE DERELICTS 355 Sam ran her down the coast, hoping to there when the captain of the fruiter, make one of the rivers by daylight. But coming up behind him, tapped him on no boat could have lived that night. She's the shoulder. He jumped back guiltily, down there now, wrecked. I'd like to be his face white. lying out there with them all. I feel like “All ready?" the captain asked briskly. a shirk and coward.” “We'll get right aboard and off. My She crossed herself, and he, seeing her agent kept me longer'n I expected. You lips move, turned quickly away. know how they are down here-slower'n “I was going to take you back to Grey- molasses in January.” town,” he said heavily; “but I guess there's As they seated themselves in the stern- no need now. Cap'n Hewlett lived in sheets and the bow of the boat swung off, Baymouth; I suppose you ought to go the girl turned her eyes toward the dark there; you're his widow.” hull of the steamer. A plume of black She made a quick gesture of dissent. smoke rose lifelessly from her smokestack, " It is of a bad dream;" she exclaimed. blotting out half the starry sky; the roar “I am only Annunciata Bourdet, and of the exhaust-pipe was almost deafening. my father is dead. I have nowhere to Then all at once it ceased, and in the go.” Then she turned her face to the sudden hush they heard a glass strike hammock and began to weep hysterically. sharply against a table, and a voice, "I have had the great wickedness, also. angry, discordant, raucous, roll out from I shall be punish by God.” the fonda. "Don't!” he pleaded, “don't! I can't The girl turned, shivering. bear to see you like that. And I'm going to take you to my mother's; after awhile The captain laughed lightly. “Only some sailor ashore for a little down to Limón and sail as soon as we outing," he said soothingly. “They have can." few enough chances, poor devils!” But she continued to weep, and in miser- But Grove, whose face had suddenly able silence he waited. The thought came grown haggard and grim, said nothing, to him constantly that she was now a free for he had gazed into the fonda and had woman, but, in very shame, he put it away, learned that which was not good for him only to be overwhelmed by the greater to know. It was Captain Hewlett, ugly thought that his contributory negligence, with drink, sitting alone and impatiently or worse, had possibly made her so. awaiting the steamer that would take him “I didn't know it was the old man,” he back to Greytown. said to himself over and over in justifica. He was still there when, a little later, tion; and he found further balm for his the steamer's bow, turning slowly in a conscience in this, that even if the captain wide arc, steadied to her northern course had gained his vessel, old as he was, he and left the lights of Limón a mere blur would have stood small chance of being of scintillating sparks close down at the alive when all the ship's company but two edge of the sea. The dark loom of the had perished. coast vanished; above, the four white Two hours later they sat in a boat at the stars of the Southern Cross gleamed faintly landing in Limón, waiting to be taken off to through the horizon haze. a little steam fruiter that was to sail that for a long while Grove and the girl night for the north. He had spoken of leaned against the rail and in silence gazed his mother again. back over their foaming wake. She was "Is she like you?" the girl asked shyly. the first to speak. He laughed. “All my life lies back there,” she said “She'll like you,” he answered, ignoring softly; “but these last days—it is the bad her question. “She'll never let you go dream I shall desire not to remember.” away.” “And you shall not,” he replied almost He grew impatient in time, as they fiercely. “Nothing of it shall ever come waited for the captain of the fruiter. From back to you, if I can guard you from it. a fonda near there came out to him the You have a right to that happiness. And murmur of voices. Idly he stepped to perhaps I, too, may be happy-if I am the door and looked in. He was still true to myself.” tove heter and the Birds of Paradise of a r a dise By Harrison Jewell Holt with ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK VERBECK OGOBURN is not a patent cage of parrots in his hand. I thought he preparation for taking vitriol was one of them Eyetalians workin' at th' marks off the face, nor is it a wharf next us. short way of saying “Go to “Hist!' says he as soon as he claps eves blazes.” It is the name of a on me, puttin' his finger to his lip, an'lookin' three-masted bark trading 'roun' over his shoulder like th' villain does between New York and the West Indies. at th' theayeter, 'I am pursued.' Quite as odd as the ship's name is the name “‘Be you indeed ?' says I; for I know of the cook; and more remarkable than Spanish pretty well, an' that was th' lingo either was the visit he received last Decem- he spoke. "Well, I don't wonder none at it. ber from the man with the cage of green You ought to be anyway: you look th' part parrots. This man must have arrived on all right.' Howsomever I takes him in, him the S. S. Esperanza, which got in from an' his cage of green parrots, an' asks him if Havana early the same day. At any rate he was hungry. the man was a Cuban, and knew no Eng “No tengo hambre,' says he: “tengo lish. miedo.' Meanin' he was too scared to eat. Stoveheter, the cook of the Gogoburn, “Well,' says I, what can I do for you?' was at work in the galley washing up “I have here,' says he, 'th' r'yal birds of dishes and putting the pots and pans in paradise stolen long ago from th’ hangin' order, when he happened to look up and gardings of Babylon.' An’ he held up the saw this man climbing aboard. cage for me to see. Inside was four little “He had a dark, furrin'-lookin' face," green parrots sech as I have seen hundreds said he, “an' it give me quite a start to see of in th' woods 'roun' Santiago. They was 'im, so I puts down the pan I was scourin', settin' on a couple of wooden benches half an' goes out to see what he wants. Th' froze, an' lookin' solemn as owls. Of first thing I noticed about 'im was that he course I see then that he was loony, an' I had on a longish kind of opery cloak with a reck’n I oughter've gone for th' police; but big hood to it, an' then I see that he had a he didn't look a mite dangerous, only 356 STOVEHETER AND THE BIRDS OF PARADISE 357 scared to death, so I waits to hear what “Gracias á Dios!' he cries. 'Foun' at more he has to say. First he takes a good last, M' long-lost son of th' Empress- look out of th' winder to see if anyone was dowager!' An' he makes a glad rush for after him, an' then he puts th' cage on th' Bill, who promptly skips behind th' table, floor, an' sets down. an' picks up a chair. “I am th' last of the Merryvingians,' “Call him off," he yells, 'or I'll bash his says he, glarin' at me. crazy head in.' "Too bad,' says I soothin'ly, shakin' my “Why, Bill,' says I sorrowfully, 'this head. 'I'm all broke up to hear it; but ain't no way to treat an ol' friend what's glad somebody's got to be th' last of ev'ry family, to see you. He says you're th' long-lost son an' you'll get over it in time. Was your of th’Empress - dowager, an' I reck’n you people well-known on th' island?' I asks must be one of his relations.' him. Merryvingia sounded some like a “Relations be blowed!' says Bill. 'Mek Spanish name: they most generally ends him set down, an' behave himself. Why in 'ia' or 'ez' or 'os' like Garcia, or ain't he up in Bloomingdale I sh'd like to Velasquez, or Campos, or any of them know 'stid of chasin' aroun' scarin' honest titles you finds on th' band of a fifty-cent seamen, an' callin' of 'em names?'. cigar. “Sho,' says I, ‘he don't mean no harm “Well-known!' cries he, scornful-like, by it. He's quiet enough now: jest look at an' lookin' daggers at me. "Well-known!I him. Merryvingia had caʼmed down con- sh'd say they was. My ancesters was kings siderable when he found Bill warn't ex- of Tarshish.' actly achin' to throw himself into his arms, "Oh, ho,' thinks I,‘was they?. I'll bet an' stood there all kerflumuxed up gapin' it's a heap more likely they come from at 'im. Ethiopia;' for he was one of th' blackest “No habla Español?' says he at last, Cubians I ever lays eyes on. p'intin' at Bill. “You've quite a pedigree,' I observes pleasantly. “Looks to me like you'd oughter have kin-folks all 'roun' th' world. Anyone here 'n New York you know?' "He jumps up like a shot when I asks him that. Anyone here in New York I know!' he says. "Caramba! hay muchos, muchos. There's my cousin, th' Dook of York, an' my uncle, th’ Gran’ Alarmer of Thibet, an' my father-in-law, th' Shah of Persia. At any moment I'm lookin' for 'em to discover me, an' make me give 'em back th' birds of paradise.' “Well, this is too many for me,' thinks I: 'I'm goin' for help.' 'You jest set there for a moment,'I says to him: ‘I'll be right back;' an' out I starts to look for a cop. But I hadn't mor'n crossed th' gang-plank when I runs inter Bill Gladox, who's actin' third mate aboard th’ Gogoburn, though he ain't no real certifiket. “Bill,' says I, 'ther's a party aboard named Merryvingia, a kind of Cubian, I reck’n, an’ worse locoed th’n a bed-bug. He's got some grass-colored paroqueets in a mouse-trap that he says is birds of paradise.' “Sufferin' Moses! gasps Bill, let's have a squint at him.' So back we goes, an' I hadn't mor'n opened th' galley-door when Merryvingia catches sight of Bill, an' .. lets loose a yelp of joy. 'I have here," says he, "the r'yal birds of paradise" 19 This file prek “ Foun' at last, th' long-lost son of th’Empress-dowager !” “Not a word he don't,' I says. 'He's a “Well, you don't have to take them plain, ornery, unejucated, ignorunt sailor wastes,' says I,ʻunless you want 'em. What man, for all he has a third-mate's bunk, an' I'd like to know is how we're goin' to get calls himself an officer.' It done me good rid of him. If th' old man finds him here to talk about Bill like that right afore his when he gets back, ther'll be th' devil to face without his knowin’a word of what I pay.' was sayin' even if it was only to a crazy “An' no mistake,' adds Bill. Cubian. “So then we all sets there,” went on “Well, Bill cools down a lot when he sees Stoveheter, “starin' at one another, me an’ what a little man it was as had frightened Bill tryin' to figger out what to do with him; an' then he begins to grin, watchin' Merryvingia, an' that ol' party ruminatin' old Merryvingia blinkin' across th' table at mos' likely on his titled relatives, an' their him with his beady little eyes. distress an' fondness for birds of paradise. “You might ask if th' ol lady's dead, “I sees nothin' for it,' says I to Bill says he winkin' at me, 'an' if she lef' me after a lot of hard thinkin', 'but to go for a any money.' cop, an' have this old bird put in th' cage “He tells me she's ben undergroun' for where he belongs. We cain't have him set- some time now,' I says when I had sounded tin' 'roun' here much longer; for when th' ol? Merry on th’ subjec', 'but that she give old man comes back he'll pitch him an' his you th' great wastes of Teheran afore she feathered pets clean overboard, an' like as died. not me an' you after 'em.' "Kind of her, I'm sure,' says Bill sarcas- “He sure would,' says Bill gloomily; tic; 'but no great waists for mine, not if I 'but for all that it seems a kind of heartless knows it.' thing to do. I hain't never ben up to th’ 358 STOVEHETER AND THE BIRDS OF PARADISE 359, asylum, but I don't guess it's just th’ sort of place you'd want to go to for a real bang-up time. I minds as how I've read some- where it ain't exactly a happy domicile for th' afflicted.' “Rats,' says I:'it's a good enough place of its kind. Them newspaper stories you reads about galoots being starved and tor- tured and all that, is rot. Howsomever I don't go s' far as to say, mind you, that ol Merry would find it in all respec's a happy home. I don't reck’n he would, though he'd run up against enough Dooks, an' Czars, an' Gran' Alarmers generally to satisfy him. If you have a better plan, speak up,' says I, for time is passin'. "What's th' matter with keepin' him here?' says Bill. "We can hide him down in th' hold where th’ old man won't see him until that Eyetalian slop-bucket alongside is due to sail, an' then smuggle him aboard of her. He'll be better off there anyhow than up-state behind th’ bars. “It's a thunderin' resky thing to do, says I soberly. "We'd lose our jobs like lightnin' if th' old man got onto it.' “He won't,' says Bill, 'not if we takes proper care, an' works th' thing right; an' there ought to be somethin' in it for us, too, Ask ol' Merry what he'll pay to be nicely stowed away for awhile where his baffled pursuers cain't ketch him. I done so. “No tengo dinero, ni un centavo,' says Merryvingia, meanin' he was dead broke. I explains this to Bill. “What be them birds of his wuth?' he inquires. 'I knows a man who would buy 'em if they was genuine.' "Genuine birds of paradise!' I cries, ashamed of Bill's ignorance. “Why, you looney, ther' ain't no sech creatures. They're extinct long ago, if ther' ever was any, which I don't believe. "I don't care what you calls 'em,' says Bill. “They ain't wood-peckers, or Eng- lish sparrers, be they? They're wuth somethin', enough anyhow to pay for our trouble in hidin' him for a day or two, I guess,' “You're right there,' I says. “Parrots like them is worth a dollar apiece, mebbe two. He'll make an awful row, though, at partin' with 'em.' “Let him,' says Bill unfeelin'ly. 'It's either that or th' bug-house for him, which- ever he pleases. Once we git him aboard that dago wash-tub, he can yell all he likes: it ain't nothin' to us what he does. He'll be outer harm's way at any rate.' “Meanin' as how Bloomin'dale won't be put to no extry expense for his feed an' lodgin',' I says; 'but will he be any better off on th’ Caravelo with a lot of spaghetti- eatin' furriners? Tell me that.' “He will, an' he won't,' says Bill in response to my interjection. 'He'll get more excitement outer life gen’rally, but he'll have to work, if that's what you mean. Ther' may be things doin' to int’rest him when th' first-mate fin's he's aboard. I wouldn't wonder a mite if a tryin' time was in store for 'im at th’ start-off; but after th' row's over, an' he's got anyways recovered from th' effec's of it, I ain't a mite of doubt but what he'll enj'y himself first rate. Ther' ain't no dif'rence much as I can see between th’ lingo he speaks an' th’ line of talk them Dagoes slings at you, so I guess he won't have no great difficulty makin' himself understood, an' that will sure be a real comfort to him.' “Yes,' says I, “it will, no doubt of it. He'll enj'y it, an' so will they, that is if they're at all int'rested in geneol’gy, orni- thol'gy, an' family-trees an' sech-like, which I don't reck’n they are.' “Never mind if they ain't,' says Bill, kind of puzzled, I c'd see, by all them big words I had fired at him. “They'll like to hear tell about them birds he lost, an' how he is descended down fr'm kings an' emp'rors; an' has Gran' Dooks, an’ Czars, an’ Gran’ Alarmers gin'rally right in his family. Why, it'll be as good as circus for 'em. An' when they gits to Italy,' goes on Bill, growin' quite enthousiastic as you might say over th' idee, 'he'll have th' time of his life ruminatin' 'roun’ them old palaces of the Dogs. “Dogs!' I gasps. 'Palaces of the Dogs!' "Doggies, then, I s'pose you might call it,' says he, “if you're so blamed pertiklar, though it ain't spelt that way. It's spelt dogs only with an “e." ““Bill Gladox,' says I, 'for an unedju- cated man you are th' most ignorunt I ever see. Do you mean to tell me you ain't never heard of th’ Dodges of Venice that has ben mayors of th' town for th' last hundred years or more?' “No, I ain't,' says he, 'an' no one else neither. Ther' ain't any sech folks there. Dodge ain't an Eyetalian name nohow. It 360 AMERICAN MAGAZINE b’longs in Connecticut. Not but what ther's a few mebbe in New York an' Rhode Island, but not in Italy, not by a derned sight.' "I was jest startin' in to tell him what I thinks of his schoolin', when somebody screams, ‘Aw, quit yer kiddin', quit yer kiddin', quit yer kiddin'.' I gives a jump, an’ so does Bill, an' then we both of us bust out laffin'. Blamed if it warn't one o' which we won't be long a-doin' of; an' then —Caracoles !—you do th' great disappearin' act in th' last chapter with red-fire burnin' on th' deck, an' them bird-fanciers ye're so sot ag'inst hull down in th’offin', with th' wind outern their sails an' every seam leakin’' “Hope you handed it to 'im strong,' says Bill when I had finished, an' Merry- vingia sot gapin' at me,' an' that you didn't “ Lettin' on as how me and Bill was angels in disguise" them birds of paradise, that had thawed say nothin' about th' sad partin' in stor' for out a mite, an’ was jest tryin' his voice to 'im.' find if it worked all right. “Trus’ me for that,' I says. “I never “Thunderation!' says Bill. 'We'll have lets out a word. It'll be as complete a to gag th' bunch of 'em if they're goin' to s'prise-party for 'im as ever was.' . squawk like that.' “Well," he went on," it took a lot more “Not down in th' hold they won't,' says palaverin' afore I convinces his ryal nibs I, 'where it's good an' dark. They'll be as of th’ wisdom of our plans; but he agrees quiet as mice. finally, an’ me an' Bill pilots him down in "An' then I proceeds to explain th' game the hold, an' stows him away amidst a lot to Merryvingia, lettin' on as how me an' of empty ile-barrels. In course we takes th' Bill was angels in disguise app'inted special parrots along too, an' then I warns him to deliver 'im outern th' hands of his ene- most partiklar not to stir outern there on mies, an' to say how providenshul it was for peril of his life. 'im he had found us. “Me an' my compañero are takin' desprit " All you have to do,' I says to him, 'is chances on your account,'I says; ‘for th’ jest to lay low for a while till we contrives to gendarmes is very likely on yer trail this stumble on a vehicle of escape for ye, minute, an' if they finds as how we're STOVEHETER AND THE BIRDS OF PARADISE 361 aidin' an' abettin' your escape thisa way, it'll be muy peligroso for us, comprende?' “Merryvingia lets on as how he does, an' goes on to proclaim how grateful he is for what he calls our unswervin' loyalty to th' crown in time of danger. For this act of devotion,' says he, 'I makes you twin rulers of Mesopotamia, an' gives you each ten thousand ducats. Is it enough? '. “Quite a-plenty,' says I solemnly, 'an' remember, yer r'yal highness, no monkey- shines, or wanderin's up on deck. You secretes yerself right here till me or Bill gives th' signal, an' don't you have nothin' to say to nobody but us nohow no matter what happens.' “So then we goes on deck ag'in," con- tinued the cook, “an' jest in time too; for we hadn't mor'n stuck our heads above th' hatch when we sees th' old man comin' down th dock, an' a policeman with him. "Glory be!' says Bill, "it's Merryvingia he's after sure enough.' “Well, what if he is?” says I. 'We'll fool him good an' plenty. You let me do th' talkin',' I says, 'an' it'll be all right. “Mr. Gladox,' says th' capting to Bill when he an' th' officer had clumb aboard, this man tells me he's after a crazy Cubian what was seen last meanderin' about this wharf with a cage of parrots which he stole from parties off'n th' Havana boat; an he thinks he's on my ship now. Have you laid eyes on an individual answerin' to any sech description?' “I have,' says I afore Bill had time to open his mouth. “He come nosin' around here about two hours ago, an' asks me could he engage his passage here to Italy.' “You bet you cain't,” says I to him. “This ain't any immigrant ship,” I says. “Go down to Bowlin' Green, an' apply there.") “'He ain't ben seen to leave this here dock, sir,' says th' cop, speakin' to th' old man, 'an’ if he ain't aboard your craf', he must have throwed himself off’n th’ pier, or else stole a boat, an' rowed off in it.' “Mebbe he's aboard th' dago tub t'other side of us,' sugges's Bill coolly. I sh'd ast them if I was you. You didn't tell me nothin' about no sech party, Sam,' says he to me. "Furgut clean about it, I reck’n,' says I cheerfully. “You see I was so busy gittin' th' cockroaches- “"Well,'breaks in th’ old man, scowlin'at th' cop, air ye satisfied now? Didn't I tell ye ye wouldn't find any rubbish o' thet sort aboard my ship?' An' he walks off to his cabin without so much as sayin' good-bye to th’ feller. “Ther' ain't no time to waste,' says I to Bill after th' cop had gone. “We'll have to git old Merry outer'n here as soon as it gits dark, an' dispose of him somehow if we has to throw him into th’ river.' “I'm for gittin' a cab, an' drivin' with 'im to some lonely spot, an' leavin' of 'im there,' says Bill. “An' a right smart thing that would be to do,' says I, sarcastic. “Lettin' alone th' cost of gittin' a cab, an’drivin' to th' kind of place you mentions, which I reck’n would take us about a week to locate anywheres hereabouts, you don't calc'late, do ye, that Merryvingia is goin' to stan' there like a wooden Injun an’ watch us drive off with them birds of hisn—for we'd have to fetch them along — an’ never open his head? Why, he'd make night hidjus with his cries.' “We c'd gag 'im,' says Bill, obstinate. “An' sew him up in a bag, too, I s'pose, an' tell th' cabby we was jest doin' of it for a lark, so's he wouldn't think nothin' was wrong,' I goes on scornful. “No, I got a better idee than that.' “Well, what is it?' says he. “It's this,' says I. “We goes an' has a talk with that frien' of yours what has sech a hankerin' after birds of paradise, an' brings him back here along about four bells when th’ old man is smokin' his pipe in th' cabin, an' th' crew is all asleep. Then I goes down an' fetches up Merryvingia an' his pets while you converses amiable with your frien' in th' galley. Merry an' I slips ashore without your seein' us, an' as soon as ever I gits him off'n th' dock I gives him th' slip in th' dark an' comes scuddin' back under full sail carryin' them parrots with me. Afore Merryvingia has got over his s'prise at partin' with me an' th’ birds so onexpected-like, an' has located th' Gogo- burn ag'in, which I don't reck’n he will make out to do nohow, me an' you has sold them feathered prizes an’ is asleep in our bunks blissfully onconscious of th’existence of any sech party, an' most indignant at bein'roused up fr'm our slumbers, if we be, by his comin' aboard ag'in.' “Soun's all right,' says Bill, “if you con- trives to lose th' old party, an’git back to th' ship afore mornin'. I cain't set there talkin' to th' bird-man all night without his gittin' 362 AMERICAN MAGAZINE to wonder why you don't come up with th' on," for when I had tore up on deck, an' parrots.' peeked in through th' cabin-winder, th' “In course you cain't,' I says. “Who's first thing my eye lights on is one of them askin’ you to? I ain't gone over twenty gol-derned parrots settin' perched on a piece minutes, an’ wher. I comes in I explains my of coral over th' door, an' that crazy Cubian bein' late an' outer wind by tellin' him two talkin' away for dear life with his arms of th’ birds got outer th' cage, an' I had a wavin' like mad. Thank th' Lord th' old. devil of a time capturin' 'em.' man don't know no Spanish, an' ain't no “«Well, if you ain't got a head for busi idee what Merryvingia's drivin' at; but I ness!' says Bill admirin'ly. can see he ain't impressed what you'd call “I warn't born yisterday,' I says. “I fav'rable with that old party's harangue; ain't so all-fired smart as some folks be, an' when his lungs gives out finally, the but now an' then I has an idee come to me capting gits a chancst to throw in a few that ain't ben in col' storage for centuries.' words calc'lated to make old Merry's hair “An’so," Stoveheter went on, “we has it stan’ right on end if he had knowed what all fixed up, an' long about seven bells after they was. But bein' as English is all Greek I finishes with th' dishes an’ sneaks down a to him, he misses one of th' ch'icest flows of bite of grub to Merryvingia, me an' Bill langwidge I ever hears. starts off to find th' bird-man. It takes us “Fr’m what th' old man says it's easy to considerable longer to come up with him see that he ain't at all acquainted with th'n we allows it would, seein' as he is one of Merryvingia's geneal'gy, an' that he mis- them migratory sorts as don't lay-to th' first takes it for somethin' teetotally diff'rent chancst they gits an' ride out th’ gale right fr’m what it was. He ain't a suspicion ap- there, but goes fittin' 'roun' fr'm one parently that he is talkin' to one of th' anch'rage to another. blood-ryal of Tarshish an' connected by “Howsomever we overhauls this fowlmarriage or otherwise with th' Gran' sharp, Skillin's was his name, after a long Alarmer of Thibet. No, th’ winder bein' stern-chase, perusin' of a ham-sanwidge an' a mite open, I hears quite plain what he a glass of beer, an' acquaints him with th' says, an' ther' ain't no ref'rence in it to no bargain in birds of paradise. He don't sort of aristocracy that I can see, not of th' seem over-enthousiastic none regardin' it human kind anyways. An' right in th' at first, but me an' Bill waxin' quite elo midst of his discourse, jest as he was quent on th’ subjec', he consents at last to swingin' himself off’n th' last limb, as you go an' have a look at 'em. Out we troops might say, of Merryvingia's family-tree, accordin’ly, me leadin' th’ way, an' Bill an' that blasted parrot wakes up an' yells, ‘Aw, this. feller Skillin's follerin' arm-in-arm quit yer kiddin', quit yer kiddin', quit yer a-singin'. kiddin'! “When we gits to th' ship I see a light “Things warn't a great while happenin' burnin' in th' capting's cabin, but as he after that," continued Stoveheter thought- often sets up till all hours of th' night readin' fully. “In fact they occurs with a rapidity an' playin' solitaire, I thinks nothin' of it that most takes my breath away. Some- further'n to ask them two happy songsters thin' I allows to be a human body kinder to take a reef in some of their top notes. shuts off my view inside for a minute, an' Th' which they done most obligin', an’ we then th' cabin-door opens, an' that on- goes into th’ galley where I leaves him and happy furriner shoots out with an alacrity Bill swearin' they was th' best of friends an' that don't appear altogether human, an' nothin'sh'd ever part 'em, an' goes down to skips toward th’ gang-plank with th' old git Merryvingia an' th' birds of paradise man hot-foot after him. accordin' to th’ program. “Merryvingia gits there first, howsom- “An' then I gits a jolt. They warn't ever, an' boun's ashore, an' while th' cap- there: not s' much as a feather left. I sets ting is tryin' to yank loose a b'layin'-pin to down on an ile-barrel an' tries to figger out chuck after him, th' galley-door opens, an' where they have went to, an' all of a suddint out comes Bill an' th' bird-man to see what I remembers th’ light in th’ old man's throw's about. quarters. By th' great jumpin' Jehosha “Ther'll be somethin' doin' now all phat,' thinks Í, 'if they ain't there! right,' says I to myself. They didn't see "An' I warn't wrong neither," he went who it was at first, an'mistakin' th' old man STOVEHETER AND THE BIRDS OF PARADISE 363 for me, Skillin's sings out: ‘Have you got “N-n-nothin',' says Bill in a kind of 'em?' whisper. 'He's only a frien' of mine come “Got what?' yells th' capting. 'Got the aboard to-to-to- D. T.s do ye mean, ye impudent cod's-head, “To buy some birds,' says Skillin's. ye long-legged land-lubber, ye hatchet Bill gives a groan. faced bank-clerk? What in hell air ye doin' “To buy some birds!' says th' capting, aboard my ship anyway, I sh'd like to 'buy birds ?' know?' An' he goes on a-callin' of him “Yep, parrots they was,' goes on Skillin's names till he gits out of breath. calmly. Green ones I b’lieve you said 14 Ее ус, “ I makes you twin rulers of Mesopotamia” “Don't stop,' says Skillin's admirin’ly they was, Mr. Gladox? Ver' fond of par- when he was through. 'I likes to hear you: rots, always was fond of 'em, pass’nately it does me good. It's ben years now sence I fond of 'em, most int'restin' fowls-sh'd say heerd anythin's' fine as that. When I was birds—I knows.' cabin-boy on th' Mary Powell- “I was expectin' th' old man to throw a “'Bill Gladox,' breaks in th' old man in fit when he hears that,” concluded th' cook; a voice that made me glad I warn't in Bill's “for in course he sees then how it was shoes, 'what is this party doin' aboard my Merryvingia happens to be aboard. But he ship at this hour of th' night?' don't do nothin' of th' kind. Instid he gives "I was M “ Shoots out with an alacrity that don't appear altogether human" a sort of grunt, an' grabbin' Skillin's by th’ arm, walks off to th' cabin with 'im, leavin' Bill leanin' up ag'inst th’ deck-house too all-fired flabber-gasted to move. Bein' as I ain't quite sure what's goin' to happen to th' bird-man, I follows along after 'em, an' peeks in ag'in through th' winder, kinder expectin' mebbe th' capting is goin' to lick th' stuffin' outern 'im where it can be done quiet without raisin' th’ perlice. “But I'm away off'n my reck’nin'. He don't do nothin' of th’sort. Instid he gives Skillin's a chair, an'a seegar, an' then-an sells him them birds of paradise, yessir-ee, sells 'im th’ whole four of 'em for a five- dollar bill! I see Skillin's give it to him. An' then he helps him off'n th' ship with 'em as perlite as can be, an' tells him he hopes he won't fall down a-carryin' of 'em home. You oughter've seed Bill's face! I guess it warn't a bit more s'prised-lookin' th'n mine be, howsomever. “Th' next mornin' when I brings th' old man his breakfast, he says to me: 'You ain't seed nothin' of any parrots on board, have ye, Sam?' “No, sir,' says I, 'I ain't.' “Well, if you was to,' says he very sol- emn-like, 'I hopes you'll wring their necks. It's a bird as I cain't abide th' sight of.” 364 Where Skill Matches Danger The Record of an Ideal Vacation on Fast Waters of the North Told in Photographs by Julian A. Dimock It looked like swamping but the canoe righted. The Indians said this rapid had never before been run by a canve Though less spectacular, this type of rapid is more dangerous because of shallow water and many rocks Poling upstream in the slower water close to shore The whole camp outfit in a tight place A short steep plunge Poling up the rapids The last rush into quiet water Hugging the shore to avoid the current A situation that would bring disaster to any but the most skilful canoeist Quick team work and no time to think Poling cautiously where rocks are scarcely seen till you are on them Holding fast in a lively current to let the bow swing round Swinging over bodily without time to change his grip on the padale “Quiet water" ESTRE Trolley speed and nasty going Several weeks before, three men lost their lives in trying to run the falls over which the canoe has just come A FOA Pienc Drawn by A. de Ford Pitney " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands" Wave The Strength of Hera Boyd By Harriet Gaylord AUTHOR OF "THE CAREER OF JEAN RANDOLPH " WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY A. DE FORD PITNEY WHEN the stork came to the little white parsonage on the Vermont hills to bring Abbie Boyd her first daughter, she stretched out her arms from the quaint four-poster in the gaudily flower-papered, green window- curtained bedroom, sighed happily as she clasped his donation, and murmured: “A girl at last, thank God!” . Later, when the Reverend Joseph Boyd was allowed to enter the room and pay his respects to their new pink-fleshed, solemn- eyed guest, his wife looked up with a physically weak but mentally courageous smile and announced: “Joseph, I am going to call my daughter Juno.” Even the limited experiences of a country parson suffice to teach him that a man needs infinite wisdom and caution in dealing with the vagaries of womankind, and Joseph Boyd at that moment gave no verbal ex- pression to the shock his non-pagan, evangelical instincts received, or to the feeling that the expression “my daughter” was hardly generous. The next day and the next and the next would be time enough for argument. In point of fact they were not. It was only on the eighth day that his brute nature, or better judgment, according to one's point of view, succumbed to a woman's tears, and a satisfactory com- promise was effected. “I don't see why my daughter must be called Esther, after your grandmother," sobbed Abbie. “I kept still and let you name the boys Samuel and David, and I should think that would be enough Jews for one Christian family. I don't care if Juno was a heathen, she was so beautiful and strong. Don't you remember that address you gave before the Ladies' Circle last winter on Hamlet? You said that almost all tragedies in life could be traced to weak women. It made a deep impres- sion on me, and all these months I have willed that if I had a daughter she should be different, a righter of wrongs, an inspira- tion to high living.” The Reverend Joseph Boyd strode up and down the room, for a time vouchsafing no reply to a woman's unreason. Finally he suggested mildly: “Wouldn't you like Hera better than Juno? It's your friend's Greek name, you know. Your daughter could be under the protection of your tutelary goddess just the same.” His wife reflected. “It is more unusual,” she admitted at last. “Hera! I do like the name. Very 381 382 AMERICAN MAGAZINE well, dear. I will yield entirely to your yond. The odor of mignonette rose to her wishes, and allow you to name my daugh- vigil, damp and sweet. After a few mo- ter.” ments she reached down and pulled in Hera Boyd entered upon her heritage some clusters of honeysuckle which climbed with only the ordinary number of puzzled nearly to the window ledge, crushing them new-comer questions, and projected herself against her face. upon the expectant atmosphere created “They're nicer than the sunflowers and about her by her determined mother, with · dahlias and hollyhocks and gladiolus," she a self-assertion and authority delightfully whispered, “and people like them better reassuring to that fond heart. The result because they don't stand up straight and was a strong, handsome, Juno-like animal, stiff and strong. They just look modest and an unthinking prig. Not until she and clinging and sweet and cuddly. I was sixteen did she vaguely awake to the love them better myself.” injustice of having an unusual personality For a long time she sat absolutely motion- foisted upon her by the allied powers of less, miserable. Suddenly she burst into creationalism, heredity, .environment, and convulsive sobs which she tried to smother mother-compulsion. The awakening came in her tiny lace-edged handkerchief, hastily with a shock on the evening of her first snatched from her muslin bodice. young lady party at the end of her second “O God!” she cried, “I am lonely, so year in the high school. lonely! It's awfully lonely for a girl to be When the children returned, Abbie Boyd so strong!” reached up to kiss her tall daughter affec- From that moment there was a subtle tionately, and asked: difference in Hera which baffled and “Did you have a good time, dear?” worried her mother. From being free, “Lovely, thank you, mother," answered outspoken, dictatorial, she became reserved Hera without enthusiasm. in manner and speech, self-conscious, “Aw, come off!” broke in her brother appealing. It was as if she had found Samuel rudely. “You sat in a corner herself, only to lose herself again. All in more'n half the evening. Must 'ave had vain! Her strength was inherent in her a lovely time!” being; an inexorable Nemesis from whom “Who'd want to talk to such stupids ?” there was no escape. retorted the girl hotly. “I know more'n sacrifice was made, and the girl was all of 'em put together. No fun in playing sent to a college where a certain amount of games with such empty skulls!”. manual work would help to pay her expenses. “Sour grapes!” taunted the boy. It was The boys, who cared little for books, were the first time he had broken loose from already located, Samuel in a village store, petticoat tyranny, but he was sore from David in the publishing house of his father's unfavorable comments he had overheard college chum in Boston. Hera made an about his sister that evening, and fierce to honest freshman effort to enter her college speak his mind. “Much you like being a life on metaphorical knees, but was soon wallflower! None of the fellows like you, forced to stand erect and accept the con- and you know it fast enough, too. You sequences of her predestination. Her think you are the biggest toad in the puddle changed attitude of mind and desire, how- and lord it over everyone till — ". ever, had taught her to use her strength “Samuel,” interrupted his mother firmly, more gracefully; among women, at least, “that will do! Don't let me ever hear you she was able to charm and not repel. She speak in that way to Hera again. She was sought out, consulted, made the doesn't need or wish all sorts of silly ex recipient of the bouquets and adoration citement and flattery like other girls. Hera of the weak; elected class president; is strong." forced by the teachers' meek subservience The girl stooped to kiss her mother once to the law of her destiny to lead her class more. in scholarship, and by her own good “I'm tired,” she said. “I guess I'll go nature, vanity, and discouraged resigna- upstairs. Good night.” tion to that same imperious law, to stifle She did not undress, but throwing open her qualms of conscience and hand over the window, sat looking out over the moon- her mathematics papers to inefficient souls; lit, tree-shadowed garden to the hills be- help them write their theses; give advice THE STRENGTH OF HERA BOYD 383 in love affairs; in short, do everything slipped to her knees, and resting her head which befitted that state whereunto, through on the window sill, sobbed for joy; sobbed no fault of her own, she had been called, away all the accumulated burden of her and miss that delightful dreamland, border twenty-six years of burden-bearing. land, where her gentle, clinging, tender “Oh, I was so tired, so tired of it all before mates were dwelling upon whose lives a Horace came! Thank you, dear God, for Man had dawned. She winced at their letting me be just a woman at last. Horace willingness to share their masculine visitors is so strong, and I am so weak, with the with her; at the inevitable choice of herself wonder and delight and peace of resting when a gooseberry was needed. These my heart on his strength. Forgive me my silly, fluttering little butterflies knew the rebellious past, dear God, and thank you potency of their charm! One or two callow for sending me Horace.” brothers, did annoy Hera with attentions. For a time Hera was submissively, “Hm! they were probably women last clingingly, exclusively, her husband's wife; time!” she asserted drearily. “Otherwise but little by little she slipped into the work I wouldn't attract them. No real man will of the parish; at first consulting with him, ever love meI am too strong. My soul after a time giving her advice, and eventually must have come from some dead great man, becoming the support of all the feminine condemned for his sins to dwell unwilling- clingers and their parish organizations. ly in a woman's body.” Amused resignation formed an alliance She was sitting on a stone wall off in the with her desire to help her husband. They fields, where she had gone for a solitary had been married two years before the tramp. In bitterness of soul she reviewed tempter really assailed her, and her critical her past life, faced her future. The hot spirit came to the fore in cold, interior tears welled to the surface. judgment of Horace. Her heart bowed “It's not a fair game!" she cried angrily. before him still, but her intellect soared “I didn't ask to be born or to be made free from forced and unnatural thraldom. after this pattern. I don't want to be an The glamour of her love and his impassioned, old maid. I loathe old maids. They are magnetic delivery no longer blinded her to monstrosities, blots on the universe, creation the fact that his sermons were a bald gone awry. Bad luck to me, I usurp rehash of commonplace truisms, devoid the masculine prerogative! Nothing but a of intellectual or spiritual stimulus. puppy-dog man will ever deliver me from At first she flayed her soul with scorn, spinsterhood, and that because he wants and smothered her critical spirit in the dust a master!" she declared with gloomy con- and ashes of self-abasement, but she was viction. naturally too direct and capable not to But four years later she looked back at try to subordinate the situation before it this prophecy and laughed joyously. Love, became more intolerable. In bitterness love, and a strong man had found her, she was forced to acknowledge that the thank God! He was young, just out of the great redeeming, transforming love of her theological seminary, the new minister in life had become the love of the strong for the factory town where she was teaching in the weak, and the curse of her predestina- the high school; but he was big and hand- tion followed her still. some, dangerously handsome, and his It was only a step farther to the inevitable magnetism as a preacher had already been decision. To stoop, to lift, to help, was acclaimed. In two weeks they were en- the work of the strong, and love must find gaged; in June she resigned from the ranks a way. She must protect him from him- of schoolmarms; and in August abhorred self, make him accept the aid of her in- spinsterhood became a bugbear of the tellect. He must stand worthily as the past. teacher of his flock, win the admiration The night before the momentous event, which was his due as a man, and escape she sat again by her window. Horace from those harrowing platitudes which had gone at eleven; it was now after could not fail to make even his simple twelve. Again the odor of flowers rose congregation wish he had pronounced the to her nostrils, faint and sweet. Again benediction immediately after he had read the silence and brooding immensity of the the words of the text. night. Overcome by her emotions she On Friday morning she tapped at his 384 AMERICAN MAGAZINE - - - - -- - closed study door, breaking an inviolate custom of their married life. She heard some commotion within, books and papers pushed aside, drawers closed; then Horace opened the door. “Oh, it is you!” he exclaimed. “Why yes, dear. Who else could it possibly be?” He smiled in a preoccupied, confused way. “You never came before when I was grinding a sermon out of my rusty mill, that is all.” “Honey, it never occurred to me before that I might help you. When it did, I had to come. Can't I write to your dic- tation or help you straighten out the thoughts? I never told you, but my college theses were the envy of my class- mates." He looked at her in surprised relief. “I believe you could help!” he exclaimed. “I never thought of it either. Some way one doesn't connect a woman with sermons. You are a godsend. I have such a head- ache to-day that I was in desperate straits.” “Poorboy!” she said. “Kiss me! There, now we will go to work. It is what wives were invented for—to help their husbands. What shall I do?" He sat down at his desk and drew from a drawer some notes he had thrust into hiding. He kept them covered with his hand as he said: “Just take a pad and pencil and sit around there in front. I've got the skeleton here. I'll read it to you first, and then you help me straighten out my muddled thoughts. To-morrow I'll revise your rough copy, and Sunday it will be our joint sermon, and a woman shall be heard in the church in spite of Saint Paul.” There was keen relief in her heart at his boyish acceptance of her aid. When she had heard the outline, she said: “Why, that is excellent, dearest. It will expand into the best sermon you have had in many a long day. I have often noticed what a clear head you have for out- lines,” She wondered vaguely at the uncom- fortable expression which flitted over his face as he moved uneasily in his chair and said: “I muddle the thoughts up afterward, though, don't I? I know it.” “Oh,” she answered, “but your delivery is so wonderful. I often think what a great actor you might have made." “A good actor spoiled for a bad parson, eh?” His manner was still uneasy. “What would you say under that first heading ? I will read what Jeremy Taylor said. I was just going to work his thought over when you came.” He pulled a book from the pile before him, opened it where an envelope had been thrust between the pages, and read a passage aloud. “That's good," she commented, “very good, and yet there is another way in which you might develop that topic.” In the end her way was adopted. So it was all through the forenoon. When it was time to get dinner, she rose reluctantly, then came impulsively around the desk, and kneeling at his side, laid her cheek against his, not noticing that he slipped his notes hurriedly under the blotter. “You old darling,” she said, “it is sweet of you to let me help you. You just take your good-for-nothing wife and make her your instrument to do good, and she basks in your glory. Kiss me again!” Laughing joyously, and almost believing her little fiction, she ran down stairs to minister to the creature comforts of her lord and master. Sunday after Sunday for three years she sat and listened to the sermons she had written with the fierce joy of a mother. She had given birth to those thoughts; they were her children. If an occasional moral scruple assailed her because Horace unquestioningly delivered her work as his own, she would declare defiantly: “I am Horace's chattel, body and brain. Husband and wife are one flesh, one soul. May not a man do what he will with his own ?" At last one Friday morning he handed her his notes, saying: “Dearest, do you think you could do without me altogether to-day? Baxter has just stopped at the gate to tell me his mother is worse, and I ought to drive up on the mountain to see her. You know so perfectly how to say what I feel, but am not clever enough to formulate.” “Hush!" she answered, her finger on her lips. “Why of course I will write the sermon alone and try to make it the best ever.” In her heart, however, was a dull, troubled regret that the moment THE STRENGTH OF HERA BOYD 385 after. you?” had arrived when Horace was willing to before whom she was forcing him to live throw overboard that cherished pretense the devil's lie. She wanted him to seem of mutual effort. strong that she might pretend to lean upon Left alone, she examined his notes. him, and so save her pride. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall “O my God! I am a vampire. I can gain the whole world, and lose his own sell his soul, but he must pay the cost. In soul?' St. Mark viii., 36. the judgment it will be 'one by one.'”. I. How do men sell their souls ? When Horace returned at noon, she Discuss the seven deadly sins. lifted to his face her own, haggard with Emphasize forms of pride; selfish- thought. ness, ambition, theft, deceit. "Sit down, dear,” she said quietly; II. For what profit do men sell their "sit down. Horace, a dreadful awakening souls? . has come to me through the text you chose. Wealth; ephemeral pleasures; For three years I have practically written reputation. This last stolen under your sermons, and you have delivered them false pretenses and at the sacrifice as your own. I haven't helped you, I of character here, salvation here- have done your work. It is wholly my fault. I stifled my conscience and gratified III. Contrast the flimsy rewards and my pride. We have been selling our souls, galling thraldom of the devil's Horace; but, thank God, it isn't too late! chains with the freedom of I shall never do your work again.” righteousness. . When he spoke it was as quietly as she, IV. Contrast the awful awakening of but his big, boyish face was white and the sinful soul, stripped of all strained with the crucial moment." pretenses at the final judgment, “Suppose I tell you I cannot release you?" with the bliss of the faithful serv- he asked. “Would you then leave me in ant who hears the Master's the lurch after making me dependent upon *Well done! V. No man sinneth unto himself! She winced. 'For the evil that men do, two by two, “I must, Horace. But you will release They must answer, one by one.'” me and be glad to be honest once more in Trite, commonplace, uninspired though God's sight." the outline was, from it there flashed an He reflected. accusation to Hera's soul. “It will mean peddling tin instead of “O my God!” she gasped. “O my preaching," he said bitterly. “If you can God!” stand that, I suppose I can." At first the stab of her awakening dulled “But you got on without me at first, all power of thought. Only her heart Horace.” pounded: “Yes, but how?”. “Guilty! Guilty!" It was not a moment for equivocation, Then through the stupor stole the light and she made no answer. He paused, of a hope: then went on: “Did Horace do this to bring me back “You are infinitely more clever than to God? If he did, I shall kneel at his I- " feet forever.” “Don't! don't!” she cried sharply. But as her brain cleared, the hope died “For God's sake, don't! That is the last still-born. thing a man should ever admit to a woman, No, his dullness had stabbed her un- because her vanity will make her believe awares. She had blunted his morality it, and that is so intolerable." with hers, as she was paralyzing his in He looked at her strangely, reprovingly. tellect and substituting her own. For “You know it is true and has been true what? always, Hera. No pretending will alter “O my God!" she cried again. “O my that fact. I loved you first because you God!” were so strong." For the good opinion of these poor, “Oh!” she moaned, hiding her face in her honest, uncultured souls who believed in hands. “Oh!” him; to whom he spoke God's truth; When she looked at him again, all pre- 386 AMERICAN MAGAZINE tense of strength was gone from his mouth. The muscles twitched. Only weakness remained. "Don't leave me in the lurch like this!” he said. “Don't, Hera!" “Oh!" she cried, “don't plead with me. Be strong!” “But what shall I do? I have got to have a sermon Sunday.” “Oh, dearest, write one yourself. Take that text. Preach fiery words to you and me which will burn away our sin!” “But help me! I have forgotten how." “Oh, I can't, I can't!” She was wring ing her hands. “Won't you please see that I can't? It breaks my heart to refuse, but we must be honest once more before God and man. Please, please tell me you see it as I do!” He stared at her moodily, refusing to speak. After a little she went out and closed the door. When she called him to dinner, he made no response. She forced herself to eat, sick at heart. All the after- noon he sat in his study. After supper he pleaded with her once more: “I can't write, I can't; and it means ruin!” he declared... “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?!” she quoted miserably, and he turned and left the room. A moment later she heard the outside door slam. All day Saturday he remained in his study. At eight o'clock he came down stairs, a hunted, desperate look on his face. “Horace!” she protested, coming into the hall as he seized his hat. “Horace!” He shook her off impatiently, and went out into the night. It was two in the morning when he re- turned, and her awful dread was put to flight. He was coolly, almost diabolically himself-debonair, gay. “Oh, did you sit up? That was foolish. Is there a cold bite left ?” “There's chicken in the pantry. Let me get it for you." “Oh, go to bed!” His mood changed suddenly. “There has been enough fuss to last a year. I want to be left alone.” “Good night, Horace,” she said meekly. When he came upstairs later she heard him go to bed in the study, and lay herself with open eyes until the morning. At breakfast he was cool, indifferent, aloof; she tender, worried, frightened. He suggested strength; she fluttering weakness. What was he going to do? She dared not conjecture. When he stood up in the church to read his sermon, her heart almost choked out her power to breathe. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.'” The words poured forth, clear, incisive, brilliant. She was swept on in spite of herself, not by the magic of his voice, but by the irresistible logic of his thought. He dwelt on earthly marriage and its duties; then on the symbolic marriage of the Church to Christ. But when it was over, the pain of it all! A weaker woman might have been deceived, but Hera knew no such power dwelt in himself. Where had he found that sermon? And oh, the hardened indifference he had shown in choosing that text: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands!'” It was a pitiful nightmare of a year which followed. She would not spy upon Horace, and try to learn the secret of his long evening absences from home, but they lived as strangers under one roof. Love lay bleeding, but not dead. She had no theory; she dared formulate none. Only she suffered. One Saturday evening he came home early. There was something unfamiliar in his dragging footfall as he entered the sewing-room, where she was busy with the week's darning. “Well,” he said noisily, slamming the door behind him, though they were quite alone and the room was small; “well, I may as well tell you. The whole damned business is up. I've got to quit preaching." Her heart stood still. Had the moment of redemption, for which she had prayed every moment of every hour since her own awakening, arrived ? “Yes, dear?” she said, quietly, without turning her head to look on his misery. “I thought it must come to that. How good it will seem to be happy together once more, won't it?”. The silence was portentous. Try as she would, she could not bring her needle one inch nearer the darn in his stocking. Her hand remained paralyzed in the air- waiting. Suddenly, with an incoherent cry he sank at her feet, clasping her knees, burying his face in her lap, his great frame shaken THE STRENGTH OF HERA BOYD 387 with tortured sobs, heaved from the depths “They do that in books usually, don't of the hell to which he had fallen. they? But at such a moment a man hasn't Her first feeling was wonder. Did men just his own soul to consider. These ever cry, and cry like that? Then her people have believed in you, learned the arms closed over him; her hand stroked way of life from your lips. If you destroy his hair, her lips whispered tender words; their faith in yourself, you may also destroy the mother in her comforted her child. their faith in the life you taught them to After a long time, when he was quieter, lead, God only knows how unworthily. she raised his convulsed face to hers. Your teaching has been true. Leave them “I am not worthy! not worthy!” he pro that." tested weakly, but she only answered, her He raised her hand to his lips. eyes commanding his: “You are wonderful!” he breathed. "I love you as I never loved you before, Her mind again flashed ahead to the my husband." morrow. A little later they sat hand in hand upon “Dearest,” she said, “I think you would the sofa and faced the future. First of better just read your resignation in place all, with averted face, he stammered out of the sermon. Tell them—tell them how his confession. His grandfather had been heart-broken you feel at leaving them, a brilliant dissenting preacher in England. but you must go. You are shattered by At his death a trunk of his sermon skeletons the strain of the past year. They won't had been forwarded with other effects to understand, it will be hard, but we must Horace's father, who had always intended make it final." his handsome son should enter the ministry. “And afterward?” he asked sadly. The boy, who longed to be an actor, had “Afterward? Why, dearest, another deferred to his parents, in spite of the fact honeymoon first of all. Then-oh, I wish that at school and college essays were his ministers who are not gifted as writers Waterloo. After his ordination, fortified could read openly the sermons of great by his grandfather's legacy, he had struggled preachers of the past! You do everything on rehashing other men's thoughts until else so well.” she offered him the masterly aid of an “How shall we live?” he persisted. original woman's intellect. She knew the “Mother is so ailing, we will visit at rest until she failed him, leaving his brain home till we catch our breath. I think in a hopeless lethargy. In his desperation David can get me some publisher's reading he had humbled himself to appeal for aid to do, and we can take lodgings near to a factory book-keeper, a deformed man Boston. Soon you will be yourself again, of wonderful ability, but limited and and find work of some sort." crushed down by his infirmity. Clifton With an adorable comprehension of his had made his excuse a temporary mental immediate need, she drew his head down strain and the fear of disgrace, and during on her shoulder, and laughed tenderly: the past year of groveling bondage, his "Blessed boy! We'll be happier than manhood had suffered the torments of the ever. No more secrets-just our love." damned. To-night the man, in a towering In his bewilderment he was conscious passion, had turned upon him; called him only that the protecting arms which scoundrel, sneak and thief; washed his wrapped him round seemed strong enough hands of what he called “the whole dirty to uphold the universe. business"; and threatened to expose Clifton. Afterward when she was undressing "He won't do that," interrupted Hera upstairs and heard him pass through the promptly. “I saved his child from being rooms, bolting doors and windows for the run over once, don't you remember? I'll night, she sobbed a choked little sob and see him myself to-morrow.” said: “But don't you think I ought to humble “My life went wrong because I kicked myself to confess my sin before the whole against predestination. From now on I'll congregation?” accept my bitter birthright, support my Hera thought, then answered: family if necessary, and be strong." The Mystery By Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL CRAWFORD SYNOPSIS of Previous INSTALIMENTS.— The schooner “Laughing Lass” is encountered under sail, but deserted, by the U. S. S. “Wolverine" in the North Pacific. A crew under Ensign Edwards with bos'r's mate Timmins is put aboard. When she again appears she is again deserted. Previous to her appearance on each occasion, a shaft of light and brilliant glow are seen. A new crew of volunteers is put aboard, after which the schooner disappears completely. The next morning the cruiser picks up a dory of the “ Laughing Lass" containing the body of bos'ni's mate Timmins and Ralph Slade, newspaper correspondent. Slade's story begins with the chartering of the “ Laughing Lass" in San Francisco by Prof. Schermerhorn, experimental scientist, on a secret mission. Slade, who over hears the professor's arrangements with Capt. Selover, a shady character, signs as mate of the schooner. Accompanied by his assistant, Percy Darrow, the professor brings on board a mysterious brass-hound chest. Slade berths in the forecastle and makes the acquaintance of the crew: "Handy Solomon," a sinister individual with a hook for a hand, Thrackles, Puls, Perdoza, a Mexican, and "Nigger," a negro cook. The crew become excited by the belief that the professor possesses the secret of the philosopher's stone. The voyage ends at a deserted, zolcanic island, where Slade and the men are sent ashore to prepare a habitation for the professor and Darrow in a valley at the base of the volcano. PART II-CHAPTER VII CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE LIVED in the place for experiments, and hot and cold water led three weeks. We were afoot from the springs. And we were utterly un- shortly after daybreak, under skilled. It was all Percy Darrow. way by sun-up, and at work After the laboratory was completed, we before the heats began. put up sleeping quarters for the two men, es Three of us worked on the with wide porches well screened, and a buildings, and the rest formed a pack train square heavy store-room. By the end of the carrying all sorts of things from the shore third week we had quite finished. to the valley. The men grumbled fiercely Professor Schermerhorn had turned with at this, but Captain Selover drove them enthusiasm to the unpacking of his chemi- with slight regard for their feelings. cal apparatus. Almost immediately at the “You're getting double pay," was his close of the freight-carrying, he had ap- only word—“earn it!” peared, lugging his precious chest, this time They certainly earned it during those suffering the assistance of Darrow, and had three weeks. The things they brought up camped on the spot. We could not induce were astounding. Besides a lot of scientific him to leave, so we put up a tent for him. apparatus and chests of chemical supplies, Darrow remained with him by way of safety everything that could possibly be required against the men, whose measure, I believe, had been provided by that omniscient young he had taken. Now that all the work was man. After we had built a long low struc- finished, the Professor put in a sudden ap- ture, windows were forthcoming, shelves, pearance. tables, sinks, faucets, forges, burners, all “Percy," said he, “now we will have the cut out, fitted and ready to put together, defense built.” each with its proper screws, nails, clamps, He dragged us with him to the narrow or pipes ready to our hands. When we had part of the arroyo, just before it rose to the finished, we had constructed as complete a level of the valley. laboratory on a small scale as you could find “Here we will build the stockade de- on a college campus, even to the stone pillar fense,” he announced. sunk to bed-rock for delicate microscopic Darrow and I stared at each other blankly. 388 TU 11 “ These sheep had become as wild as deer" “What for, sir?" inquired the assistant. “I have come to be undisturbed," an- nounced the Professor, with owl-like Teu tonic gravity, “and I will not be disturbed.” Darrow nodded to me and drew his prin- cipal aside. They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then the assistant re- turned to me. “No use," he shrugged, in complete re- turn to his indifferent manner. “Stockade it is. Better make it of fourteen-foot logs, slanted out. Dig a trench across, plant your logs three or four feet, bind them at the top. That's his specification for it. Go at it.” We built the stockade in a day. When it was finished we marched to the beach, and never, save in the three instances of which I shall later tell you, did I see the Valley again. The next day we washed our clothes and moved ashore with all our belongings. “I'm not going to have this crew aboard," stated Captain Selover positively; "I'm going to clean her.” He himself stayed, however. We rowed in, constructed a hasty fire- place of stones, spread our blankets, and built an unnecessary fire near the beach. “Clean her!” grumbled Thrackles. “My eye!” “I'd rather round the Cape," growled Pulz, hopelessly. “Come now, it can't be as bad as all that," 389 390 AMERICAN MAGAZINE I tried to cheer them. “It can't be more than a week or ten days' job, even if we careen her.” “You don't know what you're talking about,” said Thrackles. “It's worse than the yellow jack. It's a six weeks', at least. Mind when we last 'cleaned her'?” he inquired of Handy Solomon. “You can kiss the Book on it,” replied he. “Down by the Line in that little swab of a sand island. My eye, but don't I remem- ber! I sweated my liver white." “That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's—that stockade-like," ventured Solomon after a little.. “He doesn't want any intrusion," I said “These scientific experiments are very deli- cate." “Quite like,” he commented non-commit- tally. We slept on the ground that night, and next morning, under Captain Selover's di- rections, we commenced the task of lighten- ing the ship. He detailed the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty. “I'll just see to your shore quarters,” he squeaked. “You empty her.” All day long we rowed back and forth from the ship to the cove, landing the contents of the hold. After supper, Cap- tain Selover rowed himself back to the any of us; again the men, drugged by toil, turned in early and slept like the dead. We became entangled in a mesh of days like these, during which things were ac- complished, but in which was no space for anything but the tasks imposed upon us. A nd how we did clean ship! We stripped her of every stitch and sliver until she floated high, an empty hull, even her spars and running rigging ashore. I understood now the crew's grumbling. We literally went at her with a nailbrush. First we scrubbed the Laughing Lass, then we painted her, and resized and tarred her standing rigging, resized and rove her run- ning gear, slushed her masts, finally careened her and scraped and painted her below. When we had quite finished, we had the anchor chain dealt out to us in fathoms, and scraped, pounded and polished that. These were indeed days full of labor. In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor fashion, just at the edge of the beach. There we sat at ease and smoked our pipes in silence, too tired to talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still. Outside the circle of light were mysterious things- strange wavings of white hands, bendings of figures, calling of voices, rustling of feet. We knew them for the surf and the wind in the grasses; but they were not the less mysterious for that. Logically, Captain Selover and I should have passed most of our evenings together. As a matter of fact, we so spent very few. Early in the dusk the captain invariably rowed himself out to his beloved schooner. What he did there I do not know. We could see his light now in one part of her, now in the other. The men claimed he was scrubbing her teeth. “Old Scrubs” they called him to his back: never Captain Selover. The seaman's prophecy held good. Seven weeks held us at that infernal job-seven weeks of solid grinding work. The worst of it was that we were kept at it so breath- lessly, as though our very existences were to depend on the headlong rush of our labor. And then we had fully half the stores to put away again, and the other half to transport painfully over the neck of land from the Cove to the beach. So accustomed had I become to the rou- tine in which we were involved, so habitu- ated to anticipating the coming day as exactly like the day that had gone, that the ship. : “Eagen," he had said, drawing me aside, “I'm going to leave you with them. It's better that one of us--I think as owner I ought to be aboard— ”. “Of course, sir,” said I. “It's the only proper place for you.” "I'm glad you think so," he rejoined, ap- parently relieved. “And anyway,” he cried with a burst of feeling, “I hate the gritty feeling of it under my feet! Solid oak's the only walking for a man." He left me hastily, as though a trifle ashamed. I thought he seemed depressed, even a little furtive, and yet on analysis I could discover nothing definite on which to base such a conclusion. It was rather a feeling of difference from the man I had known. In my fatigue it seemed hardly worth thinking about. Next morning Captain Selover was ashore early. He had quite recovered his spirits, and offered me a dram of French brandy, which I refused. We worked hard again; again the master returned at night to his vessel, this time without a word to THE MYSTERY 391 completion of our job caught me quite by them busy? I've sweat a damn sight more surprise. I had thrown myself down by the with my brain than you have with your back fire prepared for the same old half hour of thinking up things to do. I can't see any- drowsy nicotine, to be followed by the ac- thing ahead, and then we'll have hell to pay. customed heavy sleep, and the usual early Oh, they're a sweet lot!” rising to toil. The evening was warm; I half I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a closed my eyes. new point of view, and also a new Captain Handy Solomon was coming in last. Ezra. Where was his confidence in the Instead of dropping to his place, he strad- might of his two hands? dled the fire, stretching his arms over his He seemed to read my thoughts, and head. He let them fall with a sharp ex- went on: halation. “I don't feel sure here on this cussed land. It ain't like a deck where a man has “Lay aloft, lay aloft,” the jolly bos'n cried. some show. They can scatter. They can Blow high, blow low, what care wel hide. It ain't right to put a man ashore “Look ahead, look astern, look a-windward, alone with such a crew. I'm doin' my best, look a-lee." but it ain't goin' to be good enough. I Down on the coast of the high Bar- wisht we were safe in Frisco harbor " baree-ee. He would have wandered on, but I seized his arm and led him out of possible hearing The effect was electrical. We all sprang of the men. to our feet and fell to talking at once. “Here, buck up!” I said to him sternly. "By God, we're throughl” cried Pulz. “There's nothing to be scared of. If it “I'd clean forgot it!” The Nigger piled on comes to a row, there's three of us and we've more wood. We drew closer about the fire. got guns. We could even sail the schooner All the interests in life, so long held in the at a pinch, and leave them here. You've background, leaped forward, eager for stood them off before.” recognition. We spoke of trivialities almost “Not ashore," protested Captain Selover, for the first time since our landing, fused weakly. into a temporary but complete good fellow “Well, they don't know that. For God's ship by the relief. sake don't let them see you've lost your "Wonder how the old Professor is get nerve this way—” He did not even wince ting on?” ventured Thrackles after awhile. at the accusation. “Put up a front.” "The devil's a preacher! I wonder ?” He shook his head. The sand had com- cried Handy Solomon. pletely run out of him. Yet I am convinced “Let's make 'em a call,” suggested Pulz. that if he could have felt the heave and roll “Don't believe they'd appreciate the of the deck beneath him, he would have compliment,” I laughed. “Better let them faced three times the difficulties he now make the first call: they're the longer estab- feared. However, I could see readily lished.” This was lost on them, of course. enough the wisdom of keeping the men at But we all felt kindly to one another that work. evening. “You can wreck the Golden Horn," I I carried the glow of it with me over until suggested. “I don't know whether there's next morning, and was therefore somewhat anything left worth salvage; but it'll be dashed to meet Captain Selover with something to do.” clouded brows and an uncertain manner. He clapped me on the shoulder. He quite ignored my greeting. “Good!” he cried; “I never thought of “By God, Eagen,” he squeaked, “can it.” you think of anything more to be done?” “Another thing," said I, "you better give I straightened my back and laughed. them a day off a week. That can't hurt “Haven't you worked us hard enough ?” them and it'll waste just that much more I inquired. “Unless you gild the cabins, I time.” don't see what else there can be to do.” “All right,” agreed Captain Selover. Captain Selover stared me over. “Another thing yet. You know I'm not “And you a naval man!” he marveled. lazy, so it isn't that I'm trying to dodge “Don't you see that the only thing that keeps work. But you'd better lay me off. It'll be this crew from gettin' restless is keeping so much more for the others.” 392 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “That's true," said he. "No," growled the Nigger. That evening I sat apart considerably “Well, they are women, wonderful, beau- disturbed. I felt that the ground had tiful women. A man on a long voyage dropped away beneath my feet. To be would just smack his lips to see them. They sure, everything was tranquil at present; have shiny gray eyes, and lips red as rasp- but now I understood the source of that berries. When you meet them they will tranquillity and how soon it must fail. With talk with you and go home with you. And opportunity would come more scheming, then when you're asleep they tear a little more speculation, more cupidity. How hole in your neck with their sharp claws, was I to meet it, with none to back me but a and they suck the blood with their red lips. scared man, an absorbed man, and an indif- When they aren't women, they take the ferent man? shape of big bats, like birds.” He turned to me with so beautifully casual an air that I CHAPTER VIII wanted to clap him on the back with the joy of it. THE WRECKING OF THE "GOLDEN HORN”. "By the way, Eagen, have you noticed those big bats the last few evenings, over by Percy Darrow, unexpected, made his first the cliff? I can't make out in the dusk visit to us the very next evening. He whether they are vampires or just plain sauntered in with a Mexican corn-husk bats." He directed his remarks again to cigarette between his lips, carrying a lan- the Nigger. “Next time you see any of tern; blew the light out, and sat down with those big bats, Doctor, just you notice close. a careless greeting, as though he had seen us If they have just plain black eyes, they're only the day before. all right; but if they have gray eyes, with “Hullo, boys,” said he, “ been busy?" red rims around 'em, they're vampires. I “How are ye, sir?” replied Handy wish you'd let me know, if you do find out. Solomon. “Good Lord, mates, look at It's interesting.” that!” “Don’ get me near no bats,” growled the Our eyes followed the direction of his Nigger. forefinger. Against the dark blue of the “Where's Selover?" inquired Darrow. evening sky to northward glowed a faint “He stays aboard,” I hastened to say. phosphorescence, arch shaped, from which “Wants to keep an eye on the ship.” shot with pulsating regularity long shafts of “That's laudable. What have you been light. They beat almost to the zenith and doing?" back again a half-dozen times, then the “We've been cleaning ship. Just finished whole illumination disappeared with the yesterday evening." suddenness of gas turned out. “What next?”. “Now I wonder what that might be!? “We were thinking of wrecking the marveled Thrackles. Golden Horn." “Northern Lights,' hazarded Pulz. “Quite right. Well, if you want any help “I've seen them almost like that in the with your engines or anything of the sort, Behring Seas." call on me.” “Northern Lights your eye!” sneered He arose and began to light his lantern. Handy Solomon. “You may have seen “I hope as how you're getting on well them in the Behring Seas, but never seen there above, sir?” ventured Handy Solo- them this far south and in August, and mon, insinuatingly. you can kiss the Book on that.” “Very well, I thank you, my man," re- “What do you think, sir?” Thrackles plied Percy Darrow dryly. “Remember inquired of the assistant. those vampires, Doctor." "Devil's fire," replied Percy Darrow He swung the lantern and departed with- briefly. “The island's a little queer. I've out further speech. We followed the spark noticed it before.” of it until it disappeared in the arroyo. “Debbil fire?" repeated the Nigger. Behind us bellowed the sea; over against Darrow turned directly to him. us in the sky was the dull threatening glow “Yes, devil's fire; and devils too, for all I of the volcano; about us were mysterious know; and certainly vampires. Did you noises of crying birds, basking seals, rus- ever hear of vampires, Doctor?”. tling or rushing winds. I felt the thronging THE MYSTERY 393 an ghosts of all the old world's superstition We became in a manner intimate with swirling madly behind us in the eddies that him. He guyed the men in his indolent twisted the smoke of our fire. fashion, playing on their credulity, their We wrecked the Golden Horn. Forward good nature, even their forbearance. They was a rusted out donkey-engine which we alternately grinned and scowled. He left took to pieces and put together again. It always a confused impression, so that no one was no mean job, for all the running parts really knew whether he cherished rancor had to be cleaned smooth, and with the ex- against Percy Darrow or kindly feeling. ception of a rudimentary The Nigger was Dar- knowledge on the part of row's especial prey. The Pulz and Perdosa, we assistant had early discov- were ignorant. In fact, ered that the cook was we should not have suc- given to signs, omens and ceeded at all had it not superstitions. been for Percy Darrow From a curious schol- and his lantern. The first ar's lore he drew fantas- evening we took him over tics with which to torment to the cliff's edge he his victim. We heard of laughed aloud. all the witches, warlocks, "Jove, boys, how could incubi, succubi, harpies, you guess it all wrong?” devils, imps and haunters he wondered. of Avitchi, from all the With a few brief words teachings of sacred and he set us right. Of course profane, Hindu,Egyptian, we went wrong again, but Greek, Mediæval, Swe- Darrow was down two or denborg, Rosicrucian, three times a week, and theosophy, theology, with gradually we edged every last ounce of horror, toward a practical re- mystery, shivers and sult. creeps squeezed out of Thus we came grad- them. They were gorge- ually to a better acquaint- ous ghost stories, for they ance with the Professor's were told by a man fully assistant. In many re- informed as to all the spects he remained al- legendary and grewsome ways a puzzle to me. details. At first I used Certainly the men never to think he might have knew how to take him. communicated it more He was evidently not only effectively. Then I saw unafraid of them, but that the cool, drawling genuinely indifferent to manner, the level voice, them. were in reality the high- Yet he displayed a cer- " It was an empty brandy bottle" est art. tain interest in their needs At last the donkey-en- and affairs. There was, as you remem- gine was cleared and reinstalled atop the ber, the matter of Handy Solomon's steel cliff. The Nigger built under her a fire of claw. He showed Thrackles a kind of black walnut; Captain Selover handed out lanyard-knot that deep-sea person had never grog all around. We started her with a used. He taught Captain Selover how to cheer, and joyfully commenced the task of make soft soap out of one species of sea- pulling the Golden Horn piece by piece up weed. Me, he initiated in the art of fishing the side of the cliff. It took us eight months with a white bone lure. Our camp itself he and profited us—nothing. But we were reconstructed on scientific lines so that we quite happy for the eight months. enjoyed less aromatic smoke and more I t was now well along toward spring. palatable dinner. And all of it he did The winter had been like summer, and, with amusedly, as though his ideas were almost the exception of a few rains of a week or so, too obvious to need communication. we had enjoyed beautiful skies. The seals 394 AMERICAN MAGAZINE had thinned out considerably, but were now island would keep the men busy for a while. returning in vast numbers ready for their Then I would assign them more work to do. annual domestic arrangements. They proposed at once a tour inland. During the last few days of our wrecking, We started up the west coast. After Captain Selover had omitted his daily visit. three or four miles along a mesa formation, The fact made me uneasy, so that at my where often we had to circle long detours to first opportunity I sculled myself out to the avoid the gullies, we came upon another schooner. I found him, moist-eyed as short beach, and beyond it a series of ledges usual, leaning against the mainmast doing on which basked several hundred seals. nothing. They did not seem alarmed. In fact one “We've finished sir,” said I. old bull, scarred by many battles, made He looked at me. toward us. We left him, scaled the cliff, “Will you come ashore and have a look, and turned up a broad, pleasant valley to- sir?” I inquired. ward the interior. "I ain't going ashore again,” he muttered There the later lava flow had been de- thickly. flected. All that showed of the original “What!” I cried. eruption were occasional red out-cropping “I ain't going ashore again,” he repeated rocks. Soil and grass had overlaid the min- obstinately, “and that's all there is to it. eral. Scattered trees were planted through- It's too much of a strain on any man. Suit out the flat. Cacti and semi-tropical bushes yourself. You run them. I shipped as mingled with brush on the rounded side- captain of a vessel. I'm no dock walloper. hills. A number of brilliant birds fluttered I won't do it-for no man!” at our approach. I gasped with dismay at the man's com- Suddenly Handy Solomon, who was in plete moral collapse. It seemed incredible. advance, stopped and pointed to the crest of I caught myself wondering whether he the hill. A file of animals moved along the would recover tone were he again put to sea. skyline. “My God, man, but you must!” I cried “Mutton!” said he, “or the devil's a at last. preacher!” "I won't, and that's flat,” said he, and “Sheep!” cried Thrackles. “Where did turned deliberately on his heel and disap- they come from?” peared in the cabin. "Golden Horn,” I suggested. “Remem- I went ashore very thoughtful and a little ber that wide, empty deck forward? They scared. carriet sheep there.” The men separated, intending fresh meat. CHAPTER IX The affair was ridiculous. These sheep had become as wild as deer. Our surrounding THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE party with its silly, bared knives could only look after them open-mouthed as they Truth to tell, after the first, I was more skipped nimbly between its members. relieved than dismayed at the Captain's reso- "Get a gun of the old man, Mr. Eagen," lution to stay aboard. His drinking habit suggested Pulz, “and we'll have something was growing on him, and afloat or ashore he besides salt horse and fish.” was now little more than a figure-head, so The island was like this as far as we that my chief asset, as far as he was con- went. When we climbed a ridge, we found cerned, was rather his reputation than his ourselves looking down on a spider web of direct influence. In contact with the men, I other valleys and cañons of the same nat- dreaded lest, sooner or later, he do some ure, all diverging to the sea, all converg- thing to lessen or destroy the awe in which ing to the outworks that guarded the vol- they held him. cano with its canopy of vapor. I put in some time praying earnestly that On our way home we cut across the higher the eyes of the crew might be blinded, and country and the heads of the cañons until that the Professor would finish his experi- we found ourselves looking down on the ments before the cauldron could boil up valley and Prof. Schermerhorn's camp. again. The steam from the volcanic blow-holes My first act as real commander was to swayed below us. Through its rifts we saw announce holiday. My idea was that the the tops of the buildings. Presently we “ Drop it, you fool !” made out Percy Darrow, dressed in over- “Quien sabe?” shrugged he. alls, his sleeves rolled back, and carrying a We turned in silence toward the beach. retort. He walked, very preoccupied, to Each brooded his thoughts. The sight of one of the miniature craters, where he knelt that man dressed in overalls, carrying on and went through some operation indis- some mysterious business, brought home to tinguishable at the distance. I looked each of us the fact that our expedition had around to see my companions staring at him an object, as yet unknown to us. The fascinated, their necks craned out, their thought had of late dropped into the back- bodies drawn back into hiding. In a mo- ground. For my part, I had been so im- ment he had finished, and carried the retort mersed in the adventure and the labor and carefully into the laboratory. The men the insistent need of the hour that I had sighed and stood erect, once more them- forgotten why I had come.. selves. As we turned away Perdosa voiced The men, too, seemed struck with some what must have been in the minds of all such idea. There were no yarns about the “A man could climb down there,” said he. camp-fire that night. Percy Darrow did not “Why should he want to?” I demanded appear, for which I was sincerely sorry. sharply. His presence might have created a diver- : 395 396 AMERICAN MAGAZINE sion. For some unknown reason all my old below, showing the bottom as through a sea- apprehensions, my sense of impending dis- glass. aster, had returned to me strengthened. Suddenly the place let loose in pande- In the firelight the Nigger's sullen face monium. The most fiendish cries, groans, looked sinister, Pulz's nervous, white coun- shrieks broke out, confusing themselves so tenance looked vicious. Thrackles's heavy thoroughly with their own echoes that the bull-dog expression was threatening, Per- volume of sound was continuous. Heavy dosa's Mexican cast fit for knife work in the splashes shook the water. The boat rocked. back. And Handy Solomon, stretched out. The invisible surface was broken into leaning on his elbow, with his red headgear, facets. his snaky hair, his hook nose, his restless W e shrank, terrified. From all about eye and his glittering steel claw—the glow us glowed hundreds of eyes like coals of wrote across his aura the names of Kidd, fire-on a level with us, above us, almost Morgan, Blackbeard. over our heads. Two by two the coals were They sat, smoking, staring into the fire extinguished. with mesmerized eyes. The silence got on Below us the bottom was clouded with my nerves. I arose impatiently and walked black figures darting rapidly like a school of down the pale beach where the stars glim- minnows beneath a boat. They darkened mered in splashes along the wettest sands. the coral and the sands and the glistening The black silhouette of the hills against the sea - growths just as a cloud temporarily dark blue of the night sky; the white of darkens the landscape-only the occulta- breakers against the indistinct heave of the tions and brightenings succeeded each other ocean; a faint light marking the position of much more swiftly. the Laughing Lass—that was everything in Suddenly Thrackles laughed aloud. the world. I made out some object rolled “Seals!” he shouted through his trum- about in the edge of the wash. At the cost peted hands. of wet feet I rescued it. It was an empty Our eyes were expanding to the twilight. brandy bottle. We could make out the arch of the room, its shelves and hollows and niches. Lying on CHAPTER X them we could discern the seals, hundreds and hundreds of them, all staring at us, all CHANGE OF MASTERS barking and bellowing. As we approached, they scrambled from their elevations, and The next day we continued our explora- diving to the bottom, scurried to the en- tions by land, and so for a week after that. trance of the cave. I thought it best not to relinquish all author- We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then ity, so I organized regular expeditions, and silence fell. There persisted a tiny drip, ordered their direction. The men did not drip, drip from some point in the darkness. object. It was all good enough fun to them. It merely accentuated the hush. Suddenly But we soon grew tired of climbing and from far in the interior of the hill there turned our attention to the sea. came a long, hollow boo-0-0-m! It reverber- With the surf-boat we skirted the coast. ated, roaring. The surge that had lifted our It was impregnable except in three places: boat some minutes before thus reached its our own beach, that near the seal rookery, journey's end. and on the south side of the island. We The chamber was very lofty. As we landed at each one of these places. But rowed cautiously in, it lost nothing of its returning close to the coast we happened height, but something in width. It was upon a cave-mouth more or less guarded by marvellously colored, like all the volcanic an outlying rock. rocks of this island. In addition some The day was calm, so we ventured in. At chemical drip had thrown across its vivid- first I thought it merely a gorge in the rock, ness long, gauzy streamers of white. We but even while peering for the end wall we rowed in as far as the faintest daylight slipped under the archway and found our- lasted us. The occasional reverberating selves in a vast room. boom of the surges seemed as distant as ever. Our eyes were dazzled so we could make This was above the seal rookery on the out little at first. But through the still, beach. Below it we entered an open cleft of clear water the light filtered freely from some size to another squarer cave. It was THE MYSTERY 397 now high tide; the water extended a scant tasks for the other men. Handy Solomon ten fathoms to end on an interior shale met me half way. beach. The cave was a perfectly straight “Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," said passage following the line of the cleft. How he, “I want a word with you." far in it reached we could not determine, “I have nothing to say to you," I snapped, for it, too, was full of seals, and after we had still excited. driven them back a hundred feet or so their “It ain't reasonable not to hear a man's fiery eyes scared us out. We did not care to say,” he advised in his most conciliatory put them at bay. manner. “I'm talking for all of us." The next day I rowed out to the Laughing He paused a moment, took my silence for Lass and got a rifle. I found the captain consent, and went ahead. asleep in his bunk, and did not disturb him. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," Perdosa and I, with infinite pains, tracked said he, “we ain't going to do any more use- and stalked the sheep, of which I killed one. less work. There ain't no laziness about us, We found the mutton excellent. The hunt- but we ain't going to be busy at nothing. ing was difficult, and the quarry, as time All the camp work and the haulin' and cut- went on, more and more suspicious, but tin' and cleanin' and the rest of it, we'll do henceforward we did not lack for fresh gladly. But we ain't goin' to pound any meat. Futhermore, we soon discovered that more cable, and you can kiss the Book on fine trolling was to be had outside the reef. that.” We rigged a sail for the extra dory, and “You mean to mutiny?” I asked. spent much of our time at the sport. He made a deprecatory gesture. Thus we spent very pleasantly the “Put us aboard ship, sir, and let us hear greater part of two weeks. At the end of the Old Man give his orders, and you'll find that time I made up my mind that it would no mutiny in us. But here ashore it's dif- be just as well to get back to business. ferent. Did the Old Man give orders to Accordingly, I called Perdosa and directed pound the cable?” him to sort and clear of rust the salvaged “I represent the captain," I stammered. chain cable. He refused flatly. I took a He caught the evasion. “I thought so. step towards him. He drew his knife and Well, if you got any kick on us, please, sir, go backed away. get the Old Man. If he says to our face, .“Perdosa,” said I firmly, "put up that pound cable, why pound cable it is. Ain't knife.” that right boys?”. “No,” said he. They murmured something. Perdosa I pulled the saw-barrelled Colt's .45 and deliberately dropped his hammer and raised it slowly to a level with his breast. joined the group. My hand strayed again “Perdosa," I repeated, “drop that knife.” toward the sawed-off Colt's .45. The crisis had come, but my resolution “I wouldn't do that,” said Handy was fully prepared for it. I should not have Solomon, almost kindly. “You couldn't cared greatly if I had had to shoot the man kill us all. And w'at good would it do? -as I certainly should have done had he I asks you that. I can cut down a chicken disobeyed. There would then have been with my knife at twenty feet. You must one less to deal with in the final accounting, surely see, sir, that I could have killed you which strangely enough I now for a mo- too easy while you were covering Pancho ment never doubted would come. I had not there. This ain't got to be a war, Mr. before aimed at a man's life, so you can see Eagen, just because we don't want to work to what tensity the baffling mystery had without any sense to it.” strung me. There was more of the same sort. I had Perdosa hesitated a fraction of an instant. plenty of time to see my dilemma. Either I I really think he might have chanced it, but would have to abandon my attempt to keep Handy Solomon, who had been watching me the men busy, or I would have to invoke the closely, growled at him authority of Captain Selover. To do the lat- “Drop it, you fool!” he said. ter would be to destroy it. With what grace Perdosa let fall the knife. I could muster, I had to give in. “Now get at that cable,” I commanded, “You'll have to have it your own way, I still at white heat. I stood over him until suppose," I snapped. Thrackles grinned, he was well at work, then turned back to set and Pulz started to say something, but 398 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Handy Solomon with a peremptory gesture, of his eye. Then he gave a little hitch to his and a black scowl, stopped him short. red head-covering, and sauntered away “Now that's what I calls right proper and humming be:ween his teeth. I stood watch- handsome!” he cried admiringly. “We ing him, choked with rage and indecision. really had no right to expect that, boys, as The humming broke into words. seamen from our first officer! You can kiss the Book on it, that very few crews have “Oh quarter, oh quarter!” the jolly pirates such kind masters. Mr. Eagen has the cried, right, and we signed to it all straight, to Blow high, blow low, what care we? work us as he pleases; and what does he do? But the quarter that we gave them was to Why he up and gives us a week shore leave, sink them in the sea. and then he gives us light watches, and all Down on the coast of the high Bar- the time our pay goes on just the same. baree-ee-ee. Now that's what I calls right proper and handsome conduct, or the devil's a preacher, “Here, you swab," he cried to Thrackles, and I ventures with all respect to propose “and you, Pancho, get some wood, lively! three cheers for Mr. Eagen!” They gave And Pulz, bring us a pail of water. Doctor, them, grinning broadly. The villain stood let's have duff to celebrate on." looking at me, a sardonic gleam in the back The men fell to work with alacrity. (To be continued) vanhoe and the German í easles IVANIN By Dorothy Canfield WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BLANCHE GREER C SE S EIS name was Reginald Ger- S a a ld Whitefield, and he was y the sort of little boy who surprised observers by not having freckles. He e had the honest look that goes with freckles and a turned-up nose, although his complexion was irreproachable and his nose neither turned up or down but was quite uninterestingly straight. He was the sort of little boy who endures a scientific and expensive bringing up and is not spoiled by it. He had a French house- governess, he took “talking walks" with a spectacled and conscientious German, he was sent in a black velvet suit to dancing- school, he took riding lessons from a se- vere ex - cavalryman who contrived in a miraculous way to exclude from the exer- cise all the fun that naturally goes with it; he was taken to the concerts of the Boston Symphony, and bore with fortitude lec- tures on “What the Nibelungenlied may mean to a child," and he became neither priggish nor misanthropic. It must be plain, therefore, that he was a remark- able little boy. In short he did not deserve his exuberant name. At the period when this story begins he did not, as a matter of fact, bear his unfor- tunate name except at home. His real name was Wamba, and Wamba he had DO WN INT PRO TAHU MINE GUDA HAP LIE “ Sir! Though all the world forsake thee- " become. In the model and scientific school which he invented with such wonderful where he was being educated, the old facility. fashioned “reader” was scorned and the The authorities of the school, being savor taken out of spontaneous novel- highly scientific, believed on principle in reading by using the classics for drill in allowing much scope to “individual initia- declamation and spelling. The class to tive," although, as a rule, they made every which Reginald Gerald Whitefield had kindly and mistaken effort to shut off this attained always read“ Ivanhoe.” They did valuable quality by thinking of all pleasant more than read “Ivanhoe” the year he was in enterprises before the children possibly it—they lived and moved and had their be- could. The proposition of the Sixth Form to ing in “Ivanhoe,” they talked and dreamed make a play of "Ivanhoe” and act it before and discussed and played and ate and drank the school was received, therefore, with the “Ivanhoe.” The class was organized on most modern and up-to-date approval, a completely feudal basis, with the charac- almost enough to take the fun out of the ters of the novel distributed as far as they scheme. But with Wamba's eager spirit would go, and the rest were known vaguely flashing from desk to desk, interest could and collectively as “vassals.” Reginald not fail to rise high. The play was writ- Gerald's imagination had been the torch ten by the Sixth Form en masse, a feudal which had fired all this conflagration of loyalty so welding them together that they interest, but Wamba was the only rôle he acted as one mind. Beside that, they had was allowed because he was short and thin- “played 'Ivanhoe” so much that there was legged and not in the least imposing. In really little to do beyond arranging chrono- fact, he was irresistibly comic in appear- logically the various scenes they were accus- ance, in spite of the careful distinction with tomed to act with prodigious vigor in their which his mother always dressed him. His model and scientific playground. bullet head, little twinkling gray eyes and with a truly modern feeling for spectacular clown's flexible smile, wide and undigni- effect, the parts had been cast long ago ac- fied, made him impossible for a picturesque cording to looks. Helen Armstrong was the rôle in any of the imaginative games worst speller in her class (and that is saying 399 400 AMERICAN MAGAZINE a good deal); was slow and stolid and un- with his own part. There was a single- utterably spiritless in her acting, but anyone hearted ardor about that speech which the with such large blue eyes and such an aston- teachers did not applaud as they sometimes ishing flood of golden curls was evidently did the fiery remarks of Front-de-Bæuf or intended by Providence to be Rowena, and, Ulrica, but nobody offered him any sugges- forgetting the qualities of the real Helen tions as to how it should be said, and there Armstrong, the Sixth Form accorded to was always a little hushed silence after he Rowena, the fair symbol of their ideal, a had finished and caught Ivanhoe's fat devotion which could not have been greater Dutch hand in his, which he rightly, in the Dark Ages. Peter Stuyvesant, Jr., although but half-consciously, took to be a never could quite make out the sequence of tribute to his interpretation. the story in spite of many repetitions, but a There was another advantage about his boy who was so astonishingly big for eleven part: it took up very little of his time, and as years, and who had so handsome a dull, he was stage-manager, scene-shifter, prop- blond face was “Ivanhoe by the grace of erty-man and guardian of the costumes, it God," as Wamba put it to their teacher in was essential that he be left free. As the explaining the matter to her. He, himself, fateful day approached his excitement grew accepted the rôle of faithful fool, which no- more and more intense. His laughing, body else would take, and lost himself in a little gray eyes gleamed with a breathless very passion of loyalty to Ivanhoe which interest in every detail, and his thin little was quaintly disassociated from his accurate hands ached with pulling and hauling on estimate of Peter Stuyvesant, Junior's, the home-made scenery, and with much heavy and thick-witted personality. manufacture of armor from wire-ring dish- He had only one speech to make in the cloths. His unfettered originality had seen play, although he appeared in many scenes the possibilities in these clanking imple- His time came when he followed Ivanhoe ments of the cook at a time when chain- into exile, after everyone had deserted him. armor had seemed an unattainable ideal. Kneeling before him he cried out, “Sir! The presentation of Ivanhoe by the Though all the world forsake thee, Wamba Sixth Form had come to be the central event the faithful fool will ever be thy loyal servi- of the whole institution, and Wamba held tor!" Into this one sentence he put all the his head high with pride as he overheard imaginative fervor which this feudal game the big boys and girls from the High School of his invention kindled in his heart. He talking curiously about it. His geogra- did not envy the others their long and phy and arithmetic lesson went by the grandiloquent remarks, taken bodily from board as the actual performance grew the book. Brian de Bois Guilbert might nearer and nearer and as rehearsals grew shout with all the force of his ten-year-old thicker. He was now prompter in addi- lungs, “Then take your place in the lists tion to all his other duties, as, from much and look your last upon the sun, for this hearing of the rôles, he had come to know night thou shalt sleep in Paradise.” And the words the other children spoke better Ivanhoe might answer, boldly, “ Gramercy than they did. He walked to school for thy courtesy, and, to requite it, I advise through the park with a base-ball mitt thee to take a new lance, for, by my honor, dangling from one button of his coat and thou wilt have need thereof!" But Wamba, the self-manufactured bauble of a medi- looking on the stirring combat which fol- æval fool hanging from another. lowed, would shout with an excitement un To Wamba, as the head of this fantastic tinged by envy of their distinguished rôles, enterprise, there came, the evening before even untinged by disillusion in the face of the play, a blurred and tragic scrawl from the fact that Ivanhoe had revealed to him a Peter Stuyvesant, Jr. few minutes before that he thought the “gramercy” of his speech referred to the Dere Wamba, the doctor says I've got the german meesels and can't go to school for a park on which he lived. weak. What shall I do, Ivanhoe. The hermit in the scene with Richard Cour-de-Lion might rollick most jovially (They learn feeling for Botticelli in mod- and win laurels untold by making the teach- ern scientific schools, but English spelling is ers present at the rehearsals laugh over his a lost art, there as elsewhere.) singing and jokes, but Wamba was content Wamba was stunned, overwhelmed. It “ He was abstracted during the reading by his French governess" was impossible so hideous a catastrophe came upon him like a thunderclap. When he caught his breath, however, his valiant and intrepid mind faced the situation bravely. What could be done? The play must go on, of course, but how could it? At once there flamed into his mind the vision of himself as Ivanhoe, resplendent in tin armor and floating plumes. Why not? He knew the part, he was the only one who did, and how he could act it! He saw him self putting fire into the scenes where Peter Stuyvesant, Jr., had lagged and mumbled; he heard his own ringing, high treble deliv- ering those speeches which were like chased gold and glowing purple to his boy's imagination. In a moment his humble rôle of Wamba lost its value. He felt that his former content with it had been, after all, but making the best of what he had. With the possibility of this glorious opportunity before him, his one poor speech seemed homespun and dull. He rushed down the street to Ivanhoe's house, his heart on fire with ambition, reciting aloud, “On foot, on horseback, with spear, with axe or with sword I am alike ready to encounter thee!” and other choice bits of his hero's rôle. He was transfigured into Ivanhoe, and Gram- ercy Park was the veritable Forest of Robin Hood, as his thin legs, clad in silk stockings and irreproachably bench-made shoes, cai ried him to Peter's door. Peter's mother was out of town, his father was still at his office, and the butler knew Wamba well, so that there was no hindrance to his rushing directly to the room of the sick boy who was sup- posed to be quarantined for a con- tagious disease. Of so much avail are the decrees of Boards of Health when con- fronted with youth, even scientifically edu- cated youth. Wamba found Ivanhoe in a deplorable state. His pillow was wet with tears, unmanly but not to be choked back, in spite of careful training in self-control. The disappointment was more than he could bear. At intervals he howled aloud violently, like any other child in the clutch of desolation. “It's too dern mean!” he sobbed as Wamba stood by the bed, awed at the sight of his schoolmate's suffering. “I'd just like to kill that doctor, I would! He could have put it off another day if he wanted to! He just did it to be mean!” He relapsed into incoherent exclamations and cries, the vocabulary of a boy who is scientifically brought up being lamentably weak in objurgations. Wamba lost, for a moment, his usually keen knowledge of the other's far from elevated point of view, and fell into the error of attributing to him the 401 402 AMERICAN MAGAZINE generosity of grief which would have been his own in like case. “Well, Ivanhoe, old boy, don't feel so bad. We'll pull through somehow without you. You needn't feel as though you were to blame for breaking up the whole show. Somebody can take your place, though it won't be so good.” Ivanhoe sat up in bed, and shouted an indignant disclaimer of any such considera- tion for the common good. “I know you'll get on without me!” he cried bitterly. “And that is what makes me so mad at the doctor! Somebody else will wear those clothes, and that helmet-you probably and somebody else will fight with Bois Guilbert, and everybody will applaud; and I'll never have a chance again 'slong as I live to be Ivanhoe. It's not fair! It's not fair! I had the best part. Now if it was you with your measly little speech-anybody could say that! And I just finished putting a new dishcloth on the back of the helmet!” He writhed in agony and motioned Wamba furiously away when he tried to speak. Gramercy Park was no longer the forest of Robin Hood as Wamba walked back through it very soberly, with his head hang- ing; nor was he Ivanhoe. He was two per- sons-one Reginald Gerald Whitefield, wild with delight and excitement over the sudden opening of a path of gold before his feet to certain glory, and the other, Wamba the soul of unreasoning devotion, plunged deep in poignant sympathy with the sorrow of his liege lord and whipping his invention feverishly to contrive some way by which a loyal servitor could help him. He was silent at dinner, and abstracted during the reading to him by his French governess of selected passages from French classics. After he was in bed he lay wide awake in his carefully ventilated room, staring into the dark. All at once he gave a little start and cried aloud. "Qu-as tu, mon petit?” asked Marie open- ing the door. “Rien,” he said bravely, with iron resolu- tion, “Rien-une pensée.” But after she had shut the door he was ashamed to let even the dark see the crumpled and tragic dis- composure of his clown's face and he hid it in the pillows with a moan of shame at his own weakness. Peter's butler scarcely knew Reginald Gerald the next day, so white and stern was his odd little countenance, as he marched up the stairs to Peter's room. “Here, Pete, you get up and dress and skin out to the school. You'll get there in time for the first act. I'm going to undress and get into bed and be asleep every time the maid comes in. I'll draw the covers all close around my head and she cannot tell our hair apart. We'll pull down the cur- tains and make the room dark and I told her I'd seen you and you wanted to sleep all the afternoon. You can be back by six o'clock and it won't make any difference if they do find out then, and maybe we can bribe Simmons to keep still about letting you in. Here, get a move on you!” Peter fell out of bed in trembling, incred- ulous joy, obeying without a word, as he invariably did, the all-wise mandates of his friend. In frantic haste one boy dressed and the other undressed, Wamba assuming the discarded pajamas of the sick boy with- out a murmur, although, being scientifically brought up, he was as much under the nightmare spell of germs as the most en- lightened of us. Ivanhoe's mind worked slowly, and it was not until he had opened the door and made a wary reconnoiter of the hall to see whether the coast was clear, that he thought of Wamba's side of the transaction. “Say!” he whispered to the tuft of sandy hair, all that was visible of his substitute. “You'll catch it, lying in my bed in my nightclothes.” “Who cares?” said Wamba, gloomily. “Say, it's too bad you have to miss it!” No answer. “Well, yours was such a little part, any- how," was Ivanhoe's excusing farewell, as he crept cautiously down the stairs. In the darkened room which he left be- hind him it was very still. The clock ticked loudly, marking away the quarter hours at which the maid came faithfully to look at the silent head buried in the covers. Wamba did not sleep. The time seemed interminable to him. As the clock struck half-past three he knew that the play was beginning. He followed in his imagination every scene of it, speech by speech. He waved his gay and tinkling fool's cap in the crowd about the lists where the tourney took place, he crowded among the people in the streets of York, he crouched at the feet of Rowena during the banquet scene, he mocked at Isaac and he pitied Rebecca with all the fervor of a sore and aching heart. Then his scene— his great scene came. Ivanhoe was cast out from his inheritance, “Wamba the witty, the invincibly humorous, fell forward on his pillow ". all his friends deserted him, an intolerably his cup was full, but it brimmed over with cruel and irrevocable fate hung over him, the appearance of Peter Stuyvesant, Jr., alone but for the hero of devotion who was ex-Ivanhoe. about to speak. In his imagination Wamba “Why, I thought you were quarantined!” felt the audience looking at him with their he cried, his head whirling. thousand eyes, he felt within him the swell- Peter looked confused. "I was just sure ing power to move them, and as an actual that old doctor didn't know what he was fact he lay in a hot bed in a darkened room. talking about. He says now it isn't Ger- He drew long breaths and blinked his eyes man measles at all, but just a rash from rapidly as he realized that his great oppor- something I've eaten. I might have come tunity was passing by. But at least Ivanhoe to school as well as not on Friday, too." was there, with his handsome, dull face Reginald Gerald looked at him, quiver- happy in the marvelous helmet. Wamba ing with an intolerable sense of bitterness, felt, through his misery, unutterable pride rent with the pangs of furious rebellion that he had been able to rescue his lord, and against fate. It seemed that he was called self-forgetting joy in another's pleasure. upon for more endurance than flesh and He half rose to his knees, the sheets tum- blood could muster. But Ivanhoe went on, bling about him. “Sir!” he cried in ringing “Say, Wamba, you acted awful square about tones, “Sir! Though all the world forsake that. I didn't have time to think much thee, Wamba the faithful fool will ever be about it then, but I have, since. Say, thy loyal servitor!” And then it is to be there's not another boy in school who'd feared that Wamba the witty, the invincibly have done that.” humorous, fell forward on his pillow and wet Wamba's heart suddenly glowed with the it with the tears of a very bitterly disap- pure and generous flame of final disin- pointed little boy. terestedness. The flower of the feudal This was on a Friday. On Monday spirit was his, the essence of loyalty, the Wamba went to school to face, with what fine disregard of material outcome. grace he could, the reproaches of the Sixth “Oh, anybody could say my little Form for his desertion. He had no answer speech," he said, and, although his voice to give beyond, “Oh, I couldn't get here. quavered a little, he held his head bravely Had something else to do." He thought high. 403 The Judgment of Daniel By Henry Milner Rideout WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LOUIS D. FANCHER AAR. DAN TOW brassbound shafts, flying wheels, broad bobbing disks of Chinese hats, and the quick trot of naked legs, stout-calved and saffron. To young Mr. Towers, with his feet mounted on the long arms of his chair, and with the ice tinkling in the stengah at his elbow, the stale menace of bankruptcy was no more a worry than it might be to one of those coolies, pattering down the humid vista of sweet-scented greenery under nad R. DAN TOW- ERS was wonder- ing how long his money would hold out, and whence the next would come. A less tranquil man might have worried; but to him it was a pleasant process, as when a child wonders about the stars, or the habits of angle-worms, or the estate of being a big man. Below his hotel verandah, up the broad sweep of Orchard Road, the rickshaw lanterns flitted past like a procession of jog- ging fire-fies; street-lamps over-arched with waringin foliage of a mineral, theatric green, cast here and there a snowy glare of light on the buff road, showing the gleam of ars. The new chance, therefore, came quickly. Navigating among the deserted tables, appeared two huge Dutchmen, shaven- headed, large-faced, with the national swag- belly set more generously off by their clothes of white duck. “Pardon, sir, is this Mr. Too-verss?” "Towers is my name, sir," replied the 404 THE JUDGMENT OF DANIEL 405 young man, rising, and signalling a Chinese “That's all right, then,” decided Mr. boy to bring chairs. Towers. “It's a go.” “Ah, thank you," puffed the fatter of the “Here iss the cone-tract,” announced two strangers, as they seated themselves Romeijn, drawing forth a paper and a foun- heavily. “Mr. Tau-yerss, may we haf a tain stylus. “Will you please to sign?” few minutes'-ah-conversation with you? . "Nanti s’ikit," said Mr. Towers, craftily. Yes? It will be profitable to us both-that “Till to-morrow. Let me size it up by day- is to say, all three; if, as I learn, you are a light.” mining engineer?” Next day the three men signed the docu- "A job,” thought Dan joyfully. “That ment, with general satisfaction, and the * Profession' column in the register is good partners paid over to their new employee joss.” Aloud he said—“You have learned three thousand six hundred guilders, as correct, Mr.- " half-pay in advance. "Romeijn,” breathed the man-mountain. “In six months we will deposit the rest " And this is Heer Openhym, my co to your order at the Hong-Kong bank here,” partner." said the senior partner. “We haf been Bows were solemnized. obliged to-ah-charter a steamer for your “You are not now professionally-ah- travel—the Bintang Berékor; she will sail engaitched?” continued Heer Romeijn, in three days. We will—what iss it?—see elevating his pudgy feet to the chair-arms, you off.” He laughed heartily over a tall and puffing furiously to re-kindle his che- pahit, drank it, and smacked his lips. root. "No? What expeer-yence haf you “This,” thought Dan, as he trundled in a onter-gone?” rickshaw along the glaring streets of Singa- Dan recited briefly a few years' history pore to buy supplies, “this looks like a that would have made Ulysses appear a square deal with a new deck. Charterin' a domestic rate-payer. steamer—for me!” "Goot!” sighed Romeijn.. “Then we He visited many shops, acquiring biscuits, now proposs to you a goot work.” chlorodyne, candles, mineral water, tinned He explained their plans, the “co meats, powder, shot, cartridges, tobacco, partner” assisting from time to time in a boots, the complete works of Mr. Jacobs, bass grumble, or disputing in Dutch, with and whiskey. In the middle of these pur- shifty glances at Dan. chases, he was struck with an omission. “So that iss our offer,” concluded Ro- “Hold on!” he addressed himself. “'Fore meijn: "twelf hoondert guilders a month, the money gives out, go get your life insured and expenses to and from Kajigambang. again.” Mr. Towers, though anything but A six months' cone-tract. Hallf the salary a cautious young man, had formed this in advance, hallf at the end. And you to habit; “because," he had told scoffing examine and report fully on the deposits of friends, “if I ever did go out, it would keep the-ah-region. Of course, it iss all to brother Joe in cigars." keep secret from now forwarts. You do In a dusky office on Collyer Quai, over- accept, Mr. Tau-verss?” looking the intricate bustle of vehicles and Dan feigned to consider: the flotilla of tossing sampans, he found a “What kind of a country is this Kajigam large, wholesome young Englishman busily bang?" reading a pictorial weekly under a punkah. Heer Romeijn looked at Heer Open Dan liked his looks; insurance business did not seem to be pressing and they had a “Oh, most wholesome," grunted the co long talk on weather, ships, cricket and partner. “Most healthsome.” base-ball, the unloveliness of Germans, war, “O'course," said Dan drily. “But I and the delights of going Home with a for- mean the what-you-call-it-the topography, tune. Then coming regretfully to business: and the people?” “It's a joke to call you a risk,” declared Openhym explained that the approach young Mr. Scarlett. “Just fill out this inland from the coast was by a most lovely blank, will you ? — And I say, why not navigable river, leading up among hills that come round to tiffin with me? Right-oh! were a natural sanatorium and paradise. Then we'll go see the doctor from there The natives, like the Javanese, were simple and have him thump you, and all that rot." and peace-loving. “Thanks,” said Mr. Towers, abstract- hym. 406 AMERICAN MAGAZINE menticajiend enou do edly. “Can-do.—Say, how do you spell this Kajigambang?” “What!” said the agent. “You're not going there?” “Sure," affirmed his client. “Good-morning!” cried Scarlett cheer- fully. “It's all off.—Not the tiffin, of course; only the policy." “Look here,” said Dan, in mild astonish- ment. “What's wrong?”. “Kajigambang," stated Mr. Scarlett. “Not good enough. You'd live-oh well, say three weeks down there." “That's nice," drawled Mr. Towers. “ 'Cause I've signed on for six months.” “Not you! Not really!” said the other with genuine interest. He shut his desk with a bang. “I've done enough work for one morning. Let's toddle out and have a drink and talk this over. My dear chap, it would be about worth my billet to issue you a policy." Over their drinks and their curry, the reason became more evident. Kajigam- bang, declared Scarlett, was one long fever marsh of trackless jungle, inhabited by an eccentric little naked people who, lying in bushes, shot poisoned darts out of blowpipes. As for Heeren Romeijn and Openhym- "Did they speak of getting you a toe- latings card to travel in the Netherlands Indies ?—No?-Well, there you are: they're trying to run you in on the quiet, because the authorities would never allow you to visit such a place. You'd need the whole Dutch army along with you. Those two are the biggest pair of wasters unhung. Do you know what they'll do?" inquired Mr. Scarlett, smiling politely. “They've paid you one-half, and that's all they ever will pay. After your report's in, you can go to their bank and whistle for the rest. Abis! finish!” “This is awful interesting news to me," Dan averred. “I wish I'd met you first.” “And I don't like to be disagreeable about it,” rejoined Scarlett, “but I shouldn't touch the job at any price. I've seen that lot before. They want some cheap informa- tion-enough to float a company on and get government support. Those two are just taking a long chance that you'll get there and back.” “There's no use being sour-ball about it, is there?” inquired Mr. Towers, cheerily. “Look here, what'll you bet I don't come back alive in six months?”. “Well, by Jove! Are you serious ? Now I call that sporting,' exclaimed the English- man. “Let me see. - If you like, I'll lay you five to four-or say dollars to guilders- that you don't come back at all. Fifty a side, to be called for by the winner after- well, two years, eh?-Done? Right-oh;": he scribbled in a book. “Do you know, I'd be very glad to lose that bet.” "Thanks,” replied Dan, “I've got a kind o prejudice that same way.” The character of his purchases that afternoon was strangely different. After a painful searching out of obscure shops and rusty go-downs, they included six ancient Winchester rifles and some fifteen revolv- ers, all of the same noble calibre; three dozen gardener's trowels; several thousand rounds of ammunition; three great rolls of copper trolley wire, new and shining; a second or third-hand tricycle, extremely clumsy and solid; strong wire screening, in many sheets, of a microscopical mesh; a bale of old gunny-sacks, much rice, and a small grindstone. Surveying these, as the bullock-cart crawled off toward the quai, Dan allowed himself to smile. “There,” he said, to the mystified clerks, “I've done a little insurance, all on my own.” On the night before the Bintang Berékor was to sail, Dan, stretched along a mattress on the bridge-deck, woke to find himself being kicked by a group of shouting bar- barians. He leaped up, and was affection- ately man-handled. “You old Injun! Hi, Dan, wake up! What's the game now? Where you going? Same old hombre, ain't he? Why didn't you wait for us?”. So began an all-night session, by candle- light and over many glasses, with his friends Bassett, Jimmy Folsom, and Samuel Bird, returned from prospecting in the outskirts of the Shan States. Through the blue cigar-smoke there sounded strange, furious narratives; the explosion of long pent-up jokes; and bitter complaints that the three were not ready to sail with Mr. Towers. That gentleman said nothing of young Scarlett's revelations. He never believed in talking before the event. At noon, in the middle of a lively recep- tion and “Duck-and-Dorises,” the Bintang got up anchor. Romeijn and Openhym, Scarlett, and the three Americans, dropped astern in their sampans. WS “ Dan swept the thicket with a crashing volley" “We'll come anyway!” shouted Samuel Bird defiantly. “Bring plenty o' these!” returned Mr. Towers, shying a bottle down at him. And then it was “Chin-chin,” “Adios,” the waving of helmets, and a fantastic panto- mime from Mr. Scarlett, closing with the ejaculation, through his stick, of imaginary darts at the two Hollanders. A weary fortnight afterward, Dan learned with some surprise that he was to be landed at the port of Fak-Fak in New Guinea. “But you were chartered,” he told the friendly German captain, “to carry me to Telok Kaji.” “Ho-ho!” laughed Captain Thies. “So dose two, dey toldt you zo? My poy, dot iss komisch! I go now to Wahaai of Ceram, und zo to Boorookoomba of Celéybes, und zo to Batavia. Dose two, dey pay your passaitch to Fak-Fak, dot iss alles. You take prau to Kaji. Ho-ho! Dose two char- ter me. Dot iss goot choke!” And so Dan, with a new grievance against the gentlemen from Holland, sailed southward in a verminous prau with a crew of piratical brown men. The blistering, perpendicular sun-blaze, the sour smell of bilge and sweating blacks, the imperceptible drift of the prau through the dancing blurs of heat over the steel floor of ocean, these wore into the brain with a bitter, mad, over- whelming monotony. Yet the masterless spirit of the youngster kept him working- in the brief coolness at sunrise and by the pinpoint flame of a midnight lantern, grinding a razor edge upon his trowels, and fitting together ingenious mechanisms of stout wire. In a fortnight of this, the prau raised against the dawn a black saw-tooth rim of palm coast, ragged pearly mists exhaling from fever-lands, and a wide river-mouth that shone toward the orient sun like liquid copper. He landed his mound of supplies at a vicious little outcast village of woolly Papu- ans and stray Malays. “These are orang-laut, sea-people, pi- rates,” the crew informed him, timorously. “Good,” said Dan. “I want all the orang-lauts I can hire. Need them in my business. Follow me, and you won't get hurt.” Established in a bamboo hut, he went on preparing his expedition. To his first half dozen men he served out one trowel each; these, set on heavy staves of rattan, made most lethal spears, greatly to be desired. “Use these well,” he promised, “and I shall give each of you a loud gun-magic such as kills rats—and men.” The story of that magic, skillfully spread, created in the village the equivalent of peace. When rumor declared that thirty more beautiful spear-heads were forthcoming, a small camp of unemployed warriors ate and slept before Dan's bungalow. In the mean time, the village tailor was making, to his order, some fifty suits of gunny-sacking- loose jackets and trousers, which Dan him- self coated thickly with coal-tar. The six 407 408 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ancient Winchesters, radiating fan-wise and cunningly connected by the wire mechan- isms, he mounted on the rusty tricycle; this, when weighted with an ammunition box and the grindstone to withstand recoil, became a machine-gun capable of firing sixty-six shots with twelve turns of a crank. Next, of the wire netting he made large globes, much like enormous fly-traps or the screens for stage gas-jets in an old-fashioned theatre, “Now," said Mr. Towers proudly, "let's see your old poison brads come a-blowin' through those, or that coal-tar armor make-up!” At this point, finding himself half-dead with fever, he announced that for two weeks no one must approach the hut; the soonglap paling besar, the Greatest Magic for this journey, must be prepared slowly and alone; and so, shutting his doors, he lay down among the provisions, and in that stifling hovel wrestled with delirium and death. All he remembered was, how many years it took to open a bottle of mineral water, how the quinine throbbed and crashed full orchestra in his head, how hard it was to persuade a distant, invisible Scarlett that this fellow wasn't dead yet. . . . “I leave it to an umpire,” the squatting villagers heard a strange voice cry within the hut. “I leave it to an umpire.... Hear that? ... don't pay bets till he's dead, he says. . . I know better . i . he ain't!” Then followed sounds of threshing, and snatches of quavered song. A great magic must have been toward. But in four weeks he was on the march with an army that called him Tuan Nakim, the lord magistrate. With six-and-thirty spearmen, a long train of bearers, and the tricycle battery, he tramped painfully inland. The first battle of this anabasis opened silently, in a clearing, with tiny puffs of white showering from deep-bosomed thick- ets. Two bearers who had broken orders and marched in the van, suddenly sat down, and with faces calm but ash-gray, plucked from between their brown ribs the thorns of death. More darts hopped and glanced on the black tarred buff-coats. The spearmen hastily donned their fly-trap helmets, while Dan swept the thicket with a crashing volley from the machine gun. Leaving two men to re-load and advance it, he charged with his troops, and emptied Krag and revolver at fleeing brown bodies. Three ETC 28 VOR “• There is my sacrifice !' shouted the new priest” . “ It was an exalted life" C times the enemy made a venomous stand; but the tricycle gun worked well, the spear- men fought ferociously, and the rout was bloody and final. That evening, at a muster of troops which lacked only four men, the Tuan Hakim made oration and eulogy. Conspicuous in the pursuit had been one valiant bearer, armed simply with his wooden piculan. “Stand forth, Mistuh Geo'ge Wash'n- ton,” Dan commanded. He encased the brown hero in a buff-coat, round the body of which he painted a white stripe. “That,” said Dan, “is the D. S.O.” He slipped over the warrior's head a heavy neck-ring of shining copper wire. “That," he continued, “is the V. C.-No seniority or political pulls in this army.- Mr. Geo’ge Wash'n'ton Robert Fitzsim- mons Lee, I promote you to the rank of brigadier general.” And he handed the new general an army revolver mounted on a shoulder-stock of ironwood. So fierce was the emulation thencefor- ward, that after five skirmishes and two pitched battles, four more brigadier gen- erals, Peter Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, George Dixon, and Napoleon Erastus Bonaparte, received D.S.O., V.C. and the Loud Magic. All the coolie-bearers were armed with seven-foot carven blow-pipes taken from the slain. And the army marched on victoriously, “with our heads, " said Dan, “in bird-cages.” At last scouts reported the rising of spurs and foot-hills before them, and a great campong by a lakeside. Two days later, unopposed, the army marched up to the vil- lage walls. Neither guard nor lounger ap- peared; the place might have been desolate; but from within the walls of split bamboo, came the heavy beating of drums and sav- age chanting. Dan marched through the open gates with his followers. In a clear space among the squatting huts, the whole populace had formed a wide ring. Bush-headed warriors in russet armor of tree-bark, huddling women in gay skirts with naked babies astride their hips, all were intently watching a transaction within the circle. The drums had ceased, and in a silence of broiling noon, Dan heard the wail of a child. Alone in the center stood a little girl, bound with nanas cord, whimpering before an altar of fresh sods; and striding towards her, horrid with finery and paint, a tall priest held aloft a knife. Dan seized his interpreter by the arm, and ploughed through the ring of villagers. “Stop!” he cried in Malay. “What god demands this sacrifice?” The interpreter echoed the question, loud as a herald. The astonished priest replied. “A local godling,” sneered Mr. Towers. “I am high priest to Arvana, god of sword- hilts. I am King of the Loud Magic.” A murmur circled the villagers, and died in a pulsing silence. Dan stooped, cut the cords and patted 409 “ Salaam Alikum ! Hoch der Kaiser!” the head of the terrified baby. She scam- pered off like a rabbit; and with a cry of joy a little brown woman ran forward and caught her up. Suddenly the priest rushed with the knife. But Dan was an old hand at gun- play:—the magic spoke first, and the savage fell sprawling. “There is my sacrifice!” shouted the new priest. He paused for the drama to take effect; then, before an uproar could rise, called loudly:- “There shall be no more killing of chil- dren. The god is satisfied. Send the kapala to me at sunset, and I shall tell him how to end your troubles, without payment and without sacrifice.” Turning, he stalked out of the village, followed by his troops. The wicker gates slid to, amid shouts and babel. All that afternoon, a loud chatter of politics re- sounded from within. But at sunset, while Dan sat waiting on his camp-stool under a tamarind tree, the headman drew near, humbly, for conference. “Tuan Sultan,” translated the inter- preter, with a new and deeper respect, "the jungle fighters and devils' men whom the Tuan Sultan gloriously overthrew from his path, these and others like them have long harassed the village. Many years and every year it has been the same. Also there has been famine. The priest that the Tuan Sultan slew, he would have offered up the daughter of the ka pala against the evil luck. Therefore the heart of the kapala runs toward this new god, Sparer of Children.” “Gee!” remarked the Sultan. “This is what Scarlet calls a little bit of all right.” “But first the ka pala asks, What will the new god perform upon these jungle men?” "This,” said Dan. A kalong hung head downward from a top branch; he jerked out his revolver, fired, and the huge bat thumped the ground like a heavy fruit.- “So will I abolish and destroy the enemies of this campong." The kneeling chieftain bowed his fore- head to the ground. “I will live in the village, and it shall grow fat. They shall build me a sultan's house. But the ka pala shall in all things rule, steering the prau of government with the rudder of my wisdom.” So Mr. Daniel Towers became emperor above this village king; and the temple, en- larged, and beautified with red, and gilt, and new carvings, became the imperial quarters. His army settled amicably down 410 THE JUDGMENT OF DANIEL 411 among the villagers, while from a verandah could see the naked children scampering in piously supplied with chickens, mangoes, the dust, their bellies tight-ballooned with fish, chillies, and pisengs, the Sultan fatness. searched the headman's heart with ques The six months flowed by, and others, tions. It was an exalted life; not utterly before he explored the countryside for gold. alone, for Ketchil, baby brother to the little He was gone many days, and when he re- Iphigenia, dared with fat and incoördinate turned, they saw that the heart of the Sultan legs to crawl upon the very matting of the was heavy. Often in the cool half-light Sultan's throne, and to play with the silver before dawn, when the tillers of the field chain of his compass. An exalted and a trudged by shouldering their wooden happy life; not an idle one, for when Dan ploughs, they found the demi-god smoking had learned the country and the disposition pensively before the gate, or pacing in of the enemy, he fought a series of crushing meditation, a tall figure in his red robe. battles, beat off a besieging party of allied “Well,” he would conclude, with a sigh, Papuans, and terrified into peace a wide “I don't just know what to do.” strip of jungle. After these victories, he At last, rumors came of other white demi- was deified and children were carried before gods marching toward the hills. Dan the verandah for his blessing. swore, briefly. Gold, thus far, he did not go about to “It's some damned Dutchman or other," seek; for though an unwilling deity, Dan he growled. “Here's where the whole found himself a happy, absorbed, and thing goes futt.” He laughed, rather bit- fatherly emperor. His villagers were poor terly. “Guess I must be turnin' black-in in food-stuffs; he made them till the land, love with this crowd. Humph! It's a established paddy nurseries, and taught them funny world.” to grow rice by the“ Na Dum" method of That night he stayed awake and sorrow- Siam. Drawing timber from a neglected ful, listening to the chant from distant huts, forest of teak, he built such a palisade as the cooing of sleepy wood-pigeons, the boom changed the wattled hamlet into an impreg- of the time-log beating away, perhaps, the nable city of refuge, and would have made last hours of his happy reign. his fortune if supplied to ship-builders. Next morning, when Messrs. Folsom, Wells he sank inside and watch-towers he Bassett, and Samuel Bird swung cheerfully raised at the four corners and the gate down to the village gate, they saw, within, a watch-towers which the ka pala persisted in tall, black-bearded, royal figure robed in adorning with hornéd statues of the Sultan vermilion. Dan, in black, polished tamarind wood, - “It's him!” shouted Bassett. “Ya- scowling effigies, popular, but not flatter- a-a-ay!” “The old hoss!” Folsom cried in amaze- Months of serene authority sped by in the ment. enchanted silences of lake and valley and "Hello, Dowie!” called Mr. Samuel dusky, pointed aisles of bamboo. Like Bird. Alfred the Great, Dan divided the un- The three rushed forward, yelling. But counted days into hours, hanging in the tur- even they were checked by the gesture of rets at the gate a hollowed log for the command. This was not the same man watchmen to beat. He set out fields of they had known. millet. He found groves full of stick-lac, “Boys,” said the bearded king, “I sure and his grateful subjects dyed for him im- am awful pleased to see you. But don't perial robes of scarlet. He cured fever and throw my game. No glad hands here in the colics of infants. He caught young ban public. I'm a sultan-also a god. Do me a teng, and broke them to the plough. And so, salaam to save my face; then afterwards from the sacred verandah, after busy days, we'll talk private.” he could hear the songs of contented little After a second of blank wonder, the three people pattering homeward along the wind- fell prostrate, roaring joyfully—“Salaam ing paths; could see the girls, in pink or alikum! Hoch der Kaiser! Man Suey.” yellow loin-cloths, as slender and erect “First-rate,” said Dan calmly. “I under their head-burdens as a procession of hereby appoint you all demi-gods and Greek goddesses, file through the gate, re- ministers of agriculture.” turning from the mountain-village markets; Inside the hut assigned them-for the ing.. 412 AMERICAN MAGAZINE spring up, in the West, grim and roaring, full of gamblers and scum and drink and strife; and here in the Orient, with the slaving of coolies. ... This wattled village, ex- isting slowly and happily under the gleam of sunny foliage beside the enchanted lake “It's mine!” he declared. “I've made 'em! They're my kids”—he saw it harried, changed forever, ruined, to fill the pockets in two Dutchmen's breeks. . . “And I've got to leave you all.” He spoke aloud, regretfully, to the slumbering houses. “Well, then I'll-I never did it before, did I? But those two have broke their half of it already. Maskee! here goes!” H e laid before him a sheet of paper, dipped his pen, and in the terse style of Julius Cæsar, began his report:- Sultan kept his temple to himself—they held a loud reunion, all talking at once. " ..So we thought you might still be alive. Have a drink, god.-A rescue party... came round from Batavia, and our schooner's waitin' down at Telok Kaji... Jimmy, get out a box of cigars for this here King ... Sure! a good job up Sumatra way... Pay enough for all hands. . . . Bzzzz! the wind blew through his whiskers! ... so you come along up with us to Singapore. Oh, and here's a chit for you from Scar- lett.... Say, ain't it good to see this old hombre again, boys? . . . Came straight up without pulling a gun: you sure have got those niggers scared all down the line. ... Look here, Dan, I don't like this Elijah II. make-up o' yours. . . . So you pack up and come along with us. . . . It was a long day and night of talk, but of only moderate carouse, for Dan enforced upon them the dignity of responsible gods. Next day, while they slept after their jour- ney, he sat considering in his verandah. Scarlett's letter lay open before him, and Ketchil, the baby of privilege, drowsily studied it over the Sultan's knee. “ ... as I said, those two Dutch- men never deposited their money... hope you'll be able to get back . . ." Dan read. He grinned at the sleepy infant, then pondered gravely. “And all these hills full o gold!” he thought. The richest vein of it led straight down under the new rice-fields. He looked about the peaceful campong, sadly. He had no illusions about the glamour of gold- mining: often he had seen their towns “Messrs. Romeijn and Openlym. “ GENTLEMEN : I have examined thoroughly region inland from Kajigambang, as per con- tract. Regret to report difficulties in way of transportation are insurmountable, natives ex- tremely hostile and dangerous ” (he patted the chubby legs of the sleeping Anak Ketchil) “and the deposits not worth a d- “ Yours truly, “D. TOWERS." “Humph! Not even tell the boys,” he mused. He drew a long breath, and once more looked down upon the village, smiling queerly. “It's prob’ly just a sort o' reprieve for you,” he said slowly. “But-I'm leavin' you to-morrow, and prob’ly won't ever see you again, and”—something choked him -"and this way I can kind o' leave my blessin', can't I, sort of, on-my people.” OTHERFORD BOYD 1906 Cauquomgomoxis By Robert R. Logan THE birches bow their heads as if in prayer, 1 No sound is borne across th' unruffled lake Save of the loon whose bugle notes awake The unseen bells and crystals of the air; A sound so free, so wild beyond compare, So passionless, its quavering echoes make The loneliness more lonely as they break Upon an ear attuned to mortal care. U Lake of the wilderness! whose waters lie Beneath the forest and the shadowy glen, Reflecting the far mountains and the sky And evening clouds which crown their peaks again, Slowly I turn from thy tranquillity Back to the camp-fire and the speech of men. A Gas Tale of Two Cities A Study in Contrasts : What Has Been Done in Indianapolis and What Is Being Done in New York By Sherman Morse ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS IN the article contributed to our June num- I ber by Judge Grosscup dealing with the necessity of reconstructing our corporations in the interest of the people, the author re- ferred to a gas corporation in “a city of the middle West” which conducted its business in the interest of the public and made money by so doing. That a gas company of this type actually exists in this country seems to a New Yorker sufficiently incredible-but, if true, wonderfully encouraging. To learn the history of this model company THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE sent Mr. Sherman Morse to Indianapolis.—THE EDITOR. ASHAVN its battle with the Gas interests, there could be no question to-day Trust, New York, al- of years of litigation to secure the enforce- though aroused to an ex- ment of a law driven through the Legisla- treme of bitterness, does ture under pressure from public sentiment. not fully appreciate the If the millions of dollars of water in the merits of its own case. It stock of the Gas Trust of New York could has for so many years been be squeezed out, the enforcement of a assumed that all gas companies are enemies maximum rate of eighty cents a thousand of the public, that the Trust has been feet, as fixed by statute, would be so far saved from the added obloquy which would from confiscatory that a liberal margin of have been heaped upon it if the public had profit would be left to the company's stock- realized the fact that even a gas company holders. may be conducted honestly and efficiently So true is this, that the question of cost and with as much regard for the interests of manufacture and distribution of gas to of the people as for those of its own stock- consumers is only a secondary consideration holders. in the present phase of the struggle to en- One does not have to turn to Glasgow force the statute rate. When the Supreme or Edinburgh. In Indianapolis, a typical Court of the United States shall render a American city, amid conditions which are decision, several years hence, the question virtually universal, the problem which thus determined will be the right of a New York is still facing was met and corporation to demand dividends upon its solved years ago. Instead of being a thing capitalized earning capacity, made possible accursed and hated, a gas company there by the existence of a monopoly, and upon became an institution of which the whole the value of its franchise, which was a free city was proud. To be selected to serve gift from the people, rather than the cost on one of the company's boards without to the company of supplying gas to con- compensation save in the plaudits of their sumers. Even the Trust has so far not fellow citizens was an honor which the dared contend that it could not sell gas at best men eagerly sought. Best of all, it eighty cents a thousand feet and still have was established by years of experience a wide margin of profit, if it sought to earn that a company so conducted can be made dividends only on the real money invested to pay. in its plants. If the people of New York had thus pro- New York decided a little more than a tected themselves against the encroach- year ago that one dollar a thousand was an ments and extortions of a monopoly, instead excessive price to pay for gas. A com- of abandoning the lighting of their city to mittee of the Legislature made so com- Henry H. Rogers and the Standard Oil plete and efficient an investigation that a 414 Alfred F. Potts, of Indianapolis Originator of a Gas Trust designed to serve the public similar committee was welcomed to in- vestigate the insurance companies a few months later, and it was determined by the committee that the Gas Trust ought not to be allowed to charge more than seventy-five cents. Last winter the Legis- lature enacted a law limiting the price to eighty cents a thousand. But that, it has since developed, was but a skirmish in the real struggle which is now in progress. The Trust maintained that to compel it to sell gas at less than one dollar a thousand was nothing short of confiscation, and obtained an order in the United States courts the effect of which has been to compel payment of the old rate pending a final decision. It has since been held by the State courts, on the con- trary, that a consumer may enforce his right to be furnished with gas at the new statute rate of eighty cents, provided he has the money to appeal to the courts. 415 416 AMERICAN MAGAZINE The Appellate Division of the Supreme ing of a plant by the city, but against Court of the State had the last word in a this proposition was the insuperable objec- decision rendered on June 20, in which it tion that the debt limit of the city would was held that “in exercising public fran- not permit the raising of the money neces- chises and special privileges the defendant sary for the enterprise from the public owes a duty to the public to furnish gas to funds. Public sentiment was, moreover, the consumer at reasonable rates, which the strong against any action which would Legislature may regulate and the courts deliver over to either political organization may enforce. It is competent for the the spoils which necessarily accrue to the Legislature to regulate the price that the operation of a municipally-owned plant. defendant may charge consumers, pro- Out of this discussion was gradually vided it does not require it to supply gas evolved the plan of the Consumers' Gas at a rate that will not admit of reasonable Trust Company. It was recognized that, profit to the stockholders upon the actual if an independent company was organized value of the plant and property of the com- on the usual lines, the existing corporation, pany.” Upon a final decision on the with its great wealth, would almost cer- merits of that question depends the issue tainly buy it out, to preserve the monopoly. of the gas controversy in New York. For this reason, it was determined that Other cities, too, are awakening to a stockholders in the new company must be realization of their rights. Boston has a deprived of the power to sell it out, without law which provides that for every increase at the same time so restricting their rights of one per cent. in the company's dividends as to leave no inducements for investment. the price of gas must have been reduced It was provided that subscribers must place five cents a thousand for the preceding their stock in the hands of trustees who had year. But in New York the man with irrevocable power, or proxy, to vote it for orders to lock the meter will have for a directors. While the holders of the stock considerable time to come a shade the best thus remained the actual as well as nominal of the argument with the man who refuses owners of the certificates and could transfer to pay what the Trust demands. them at will, they had no control of the Soon after the discovery of natural gas operations of the company. Opposing near Indianapolis the Common Council interests might buy up the entire issue of of that city adopted an ordinance limiting stock, but could not by reason of such pur- the price that could be charged. It was chase elect a single director in the inde- known that the supply of gas was very great, pendent company. Special inducements, and at that time it was supposed to be in- however, were offered for subscriptions to exhaustible. Almost the only expense in the stock by the promise of eight per cent. volved in delivering gas to consumers was dividends and the redemption of the en- for the laying of mains, and it was deter- tire issue at par as soon as the profits of mined that the people of the city should the company would warrant it. receive at least their share of this free gift Having the interests of the public, and of nature. not their own pockets, at heart, the pro- But such a limitation of their profits moters of the enterprise sought to fix the was by no means included in the plans of fairest possible charge for gas, and the the men who maintained a monopoly of exactly fair charge is, of course, at cost, the manufactured illuminating-gas industry after a reasonable return has been made of the city and of those who had piped the to investors, in any enterprise which it is natural gas from the wells to the city line. sought to direct solely in the interests of Demand was made that the rate for natural the public. No ground is then left to gas as fixed by ordinance be doubled, under complain of the taking of excessive profits, threat that otherwise Indianapolis would nor is there occasion to reduce efficiency be left to shift as best it could with coal as in order to squeeze out an extra dividend fuel, while other towns in the gas belt were for purposes of stock manipulation. With forging ahead because of the cheapness no capital stock on which to pay dividends, and convenience of gas. there would be no motive for seeking to In this extremity the people determined make a profit from the business. to fight. Various plans were discussed. This was an extreme reversal of the usual and there were many who favored the build- method of organization of corporations. The late Henry Schnull Indianapolis merchant and one of the trustees of the Consumers' Company Instead of paying small dividends out of of their capital, but so capable was the large profits and creating a surplus fund management of the company that, in fact, to form a basis for watering the stock for dividends were paid promptly, all other speculative purposes, the profit, according expenses were met, and within a dozen to this plan, could not fail to go to the public years all but five per cent. of the original in the reduced price for the service, as soon capital had been redeemed. Since that as the investors had had returned to them time extra dividends have been declared the full amount of their investment. until now there has been paid 150 per cent. There was, of course, the chance that the on the original investment, in addition to investors would receive no returns, either eight per cent. dividends as long as any in the form of dividends or in the repayment certificates were outstanding, and only the 417 418 AMERICAN MAGAZINE failure of the supply of natural gas three years ago prevented the complete consum- mation of the project as planned--the re- duction of the charge for the service to the actual cost of delivery. So much for the interests of the investors in the enterprise. There being no other disposition possible of the profits arising from the sale of the company's property, the holders of the stock will eventually receive at least twice the amount invested, in addition to dividends twice as great as they would have been likely to obtain from ordinary investments. There never was any complaint on the part of the stock- holders that they were not receiving their entire due; on the contrary, the demand for the stock was so great that much of it was bought in by an investment company organized for that purpose, the promoters of which will double their money. Nor had the public any ground for com- plaint. Because of the operation of the independent company, the low rate for gas fixed by ordinance was maintained the old gas company, which also furnished natural gas, being forced by competition to sell its products at the ordinance rate. Natural gas could be had for one-third the cost of coal, until the supply was ex- hausted, and for fourteen years the people of Indianapolis were enabled to save one million dollars a year which they would have had to pay if they had meekly yielded to the demand of the old monopoly to have the ordinance rate doubled. From first to last there was not even a suggestion of scandal in the conduct of the company. It was allowed to have no affiliations with political organizations. Economy and efficiency were the only ends sought by its trustees and directors. And this result was attained in spite of the fact that, as the supply of natural gas began to fail, because of the extravagantly wasteful use to which it was put, enormous expense was necessitated in pushing farther and farther into the field to secure a supply. Pumping stations had to be built until the total investment finally reached two and a half million dollars, but in the end a bond- ed indebtedness of $750,000 was paid off, all other obligations were met and the stock issue of $600,000 will have been repaid twice over. But all this was not accomplished with out a tremendous amount of hard work and self-sacrifice on the part of the men who put their shoulders to the wheel. Alfred F. Potts, retiring president of the Commercial Club of Indianapolis, an office to which he could be elected as often as he chooses, bore the brunt of the struggle. Associated with him as trustees, upon whose integrity and ability it was acknowledged that the success of the enterprise depended, were Albert G. Porter, a former Governor of Indiana and Minister to Italy; John M. Butler, a prominent attorney; Thomas A. Morris, president of the Indianapolis Water Works Company; and John W. Murphy and Henry Schnull, prosperous merchants. These men, with others who realized that the city's immediate future was in great measure dependent upon their efforts, went before the people and explained just what it meant in dollars-millions of them --if the demand of the monopoly to have the gas-rate doubled was complied with. Mass-meetings were held night after night in all the wards of the city. The Indian- apolis News took up the fight on behalf of the people and in a short time the public was so aroused that there was no longer a thought of yielding. Hundreds of house- holders ventured to take small stock hold- ings in the company, and by the time the men in control of the old company, who had been scornfully biding their time, awoke to their peril the baby enterprise had grown into a lusty child and was well on toward maturity. In order to induce a widespread interest in the company through the medium of small holdings widely distributed, the stock was offered directly to those who would become the company's customers, in shares of twenty-five dollars each, and in consequence of this general distribution of the stock among the voters of the com- munity no council dared pass any regula- tions detrimental to the interests of the con- cern. Within a few weeks more than four thousand stockholders were obtained, their subscriptions ranging from $25 to $5,000. It is undeniable that the success of such an altruistic enterprise as the Consumers' Gas Trust Company must be dependent in large measure upon the character of the men who direct its fortunes. But who would venture to suggest that in any city in this country there cannot be found men equally patriotic and unselfish who have The late Albert G. Porter, former Governor of Indiana Who was prominently identified with the movement for a people's gas trust the requisite ability to conduct the oper- ations of a great public utility ? One does not have to turn from Indian- apolis, in fact, to find proof that this is so. Nobody could be as good judges of the success of such an enterprise as the Con- sumers' Gas Trust Company as the people who for fourteen years had daily experience of its operation, and the highest compli- ment that could be paid to the men who carried on that undertaking so successfully is found in the fact that another gas com- pany has been organized in Indianapolis on similar lines. The new company will have to manu- facture its gas, while the Consumers' had only to pipe it from the wells, but in other respects the conditions are virtually alike. In fact, if it were a street railway or any other public utility, the principles involved would be the same. The new company agrees to furnish gas at sixty cents a 419 w James M. Beck One of the foremost legal champions of New York's Gas Trust thousand feet, while the company which now enjoys a monopoly is charging ninety cents. The earnings of the company are to be devoted to the payment of dividends of ten per cent. on the stock, after matured debts and operating expenses have been met. Any surplus must next be used to make such extensions and betterments as may be ordered by the Board of Public Works, and any further profit over the amount thus expended is to go toward the repayment of the money subscribed for the stock. As soon as the stock has been thus redeemed, the entire plant is to be transferred to the city, to be owned and operated or leased by the municipality. It is provided that the price of gas shall then be reduced to actual cost. As in the case of the old Consumers' Gas Trust Company, the new company is to be managed by nine directors who are to be chosen by five trustees who hold the 420 A GAS TALE OF TWO CITIES. 421 voting control of all stock issued, and even As the courts have held that the city had if eventually the property should be owned the right to sell to whom it pleases the by the city this method of control would right to purchase the property of the Con- be retained, thus eliminating the dangers sumers' Company at an appraised valua- involved if one or other of the political tion, it now remains to be seen how long machines had the disposition of the patron- the present administration will dare stand age and the placing of contracts. out against an overwhelming public senti- The capital stock of $1,000,000 is divided ment which demands that the option on the into shares of only $25 each, so as to insure mains be transferred to the new company. a wide distribution among the residents How different is the story of gas in New of the city, and provision has been made York! And yet what was accomplished that there shall be no increase in the capital in one of the smaller cities could have been except at public auction of the stock upon done as well in the country's metropolis, thirty days' notice to the public. If the if men of as great executive ability as Wil- stock is sold at a premium, the excess over liam C. Whitney, for instance, who or- the face value shall go to the surplus capital of ganized the electric lighting industry and the company and shall bear no dividend. De- subsequently sold out to the Standard Oil; tailed statements of the affairs of the com- if Rogers himself and the men associated pany are to be published in two newspapers with him, who already controlled all of the twice a year and the Comptroller is to have gas companies, had taken the public into the right to examine the books of the com- partnership with themselves, instead of pany at any time, while the City Engineer working exclusively for their own pockets. may inspect the plant and other property Long ere this the real money invested at his pleasure. to establish the gas plants in New York The Board of Trustees is a self-per- would have been repaid to the subscribers petuating body, but a member may be to the stock, if the Indianapolis plan had removed by the United States Circuit Court been followed, with interest at a rate so upon evidence that he is employed by, or high as to invite a furore among investors, holds stock in, any other company or- and the people generally would be receiv- ganized for the purpose of manufacturing ing the highest possible gas service at not or delivering gas to consumers residing in, to exceed sixty-five cents a thousand feet; or in the vicinity of, the city, “or for any there would be no thought of turning to corrupt practice or any misconduct which municipal ownership of gas plants as said court may deem detrimental to the affording the only means of relief in sight, interests of said company." with a Tammany director of the enter- Men whose probity and ability have prise such as Oakley, perhaps, who coolly been as thoroughly tried as those who signed away the city's rights to the Trust conducted the affairs of the Consumers' less than two years ago while he was Com- Company have been chosen to carry on missioner of Gas, Water and Electricity. the venture, and Mr. Potts has again W hen Charles E. Hughes recently come forward as general adviser to charged that there are millions of dollars the new enterprise, with the added benefit of water in the stock of the Consolidated of the experience he gained through the Gas Company of New York he had incon- organization and conduct of the former trovertible figures to prove the truth of the undertaking. But, unfortunately for the assertion, but the placing of fictitious values people of Indianapolis, it has so far been on the property of the company, or even impossible for the new company to begin the insistence upon the right to earn divi- operations. One of the requisites to its dends on nearly $80,000,000 at which the success is the possession of the mains of company values its franchises, is not a the Consumers' Company, now lying idle, greater moral crime against the people than at a figure at least approaching their actual repeated manipulation of stock which has value. It is sought, however, by those poured other millions into the laps of those who bought up a majority of the stock who, as Judge Grosscup has said, control of the Consumers' Company to sell the the strategic points at the confluence of the mains to the existing gas company, which country's financial streams. stands ready to pay a very high price for When the capital stock of the Consoli- them in order to stifle competition. dated Gas Company was increased in 1900 422 AMERICAN MAGAZINE from $54,595,200 to $80,000,000, there was The significance to the public in this a burst of generosity on the part of those lies in the use to which this $17,000,000 in control of the company's affairs which the $9,000,000 and the $8,000,000 handed at first glance seemed almost astounding. over to the Trust's stockholders in addi- The new issue of stock was sold to the tion to their regular dividends of eight per company's shareholders, but at a premium cent.—could have been put in the carrying which brought more than $10,000,000 into out of such a plan as was perfected in In- the company's treasury, in addition to the dianapolis where such a surplus would par value of the shares. And this in view have been devoted to the redemption of of the fact that there was nothing to prevent the original stock of the company and a a sale of the new issue to the stockholders long step would thus have been taken at par, although the stock was then worth toward reducing the price of gas to cost. nearly 200 in the open market. It was with precisely such a possibility But the real significance of the transac in mind that the organizers of the new in- tion was disclosed by Mr. Hughes when dependent company in Indianapolis pro- the company was under investigation last vided that in case its capital is increased year. With the remarkable power he the sale of stock shall be public and that possesses of leading from a mass of detail any premium over the face value shall go direct to the heart of a question, he brought to the surplus capital of the company. out the facts of this seeming generosity Reduced to the last analysis, it means only to strip it of its cloak of virtue and to that if the Consolidated Gas Company had disclose the nakedness of a direct appro- done nothing more than reduce its capital priation of at least $8,992,071. He let the stock by this $17,000,000 it could have officers of the Trust paint this rosy picture cut the price of gas ten cents a thousand of corporate honesty until they had filled feet without reducing its profits, accepting in all the lines and were satisfied that they its own figures as the basis for calculation. had left it a finished work of art. Then As the annual income of the company from he drew the reverse side of the picture and the sale of gas is approximately $14,000,000 the only figures he had to use were “1938." at one dollar a thousand feet, and if By an oversight such as has seldom oc- there were no further occasion to pay eight curred in stock manipulations engineered per cent. dividends on $17,000,000, which by men like Rogers, 900 shares had slipped amount to $1,360,000, the sale of gas into the open market, and were snapped at 903 cents a thousand would have up at an advance of 403 points above the brought in an income which would in no price at which the remainder of the issue measure have decreased the value of the had been sold to the company's stockholders. property to its stockholders. Stripped of all high-sounding verbiage That, however, is but one of many about the rights of vested interests, the illustrations of the difference between privileges of stockholders and the sanctity existing conditions and what might have of contracts, this was nothing less than a been accomplished if the interests of the direct looting of the treasury of the com- "widows and orphans," who, the Standard pany for the benefit of its stockholders to Oil men would like to have it believed, own the extent of almost $9,000,000. most of the stock of the Gas Trust, had not But that is by no means the whole of the been considered to the exclusion of the story. Authority was obtained two years interests of the general public. The $20,- ago to increase the capital further to 000,000 of debentures recently issued, for $100,000,000, and in this instance the instance, are bearing six per cent. interest, stockholders get the whole loaf; there is not although the money their sale brought into even a pretense of generosity with regard the company's treasury has in great part to the company itself. The stock has not not been expended; and when the Trust yet been issued, but debentures have been argues that it cannot afford to sell gas for sold to the shareholders which are con- less than one dollar a thousand, it includes vertible into stock of the company at par payment of the interest on these debentures at the option of the holders, in spite of the as part of its legitimate fixed charges. fact that the same stock could be sold in Eventually, most of the new issue of $20,- the open market at an advance of almost 000,000 will be used in the erection of a $8,000,000. new plant in Long Island City, which A GAS TALE OF TWO CITIES 423 ought to result in reducing considerably who are fighting the battle for the Trust the cost of manufacture of gas, but mean- have any ground at all on which to base while the only interest the people generally an argument against the enforcement of have in the matter lies in the fact that they the eighty-cent law. They could not show are compelled to pay $1,000,000 a year to that the actual plant of the Consolidated provide for the interest on the debentures which is used in connection with its gas The company has $11,000,000 of the $20,- business is worth a dollar more than 000,000 invested in Government bonds and $27,298,576, except for such additions as New York corporate stock bearing a low have been made since these figures were rate of interest, pending the time when obtained by Mr. Hughes last year, although the money is needed, but this income is the capital stock of the company alone is comparatively small and upon the public $80,000,000. It was established by Mr. has fallen the burden of meeting the Hughes that the cost to the company of the deficiency. gas it sold was only sixty-one cents a thou- But the worst feature of the gas situation sand, including all charges except interest. in New York, so far as the interests of the At the eighty-cent rate the company still general public are concerned, lies in the has a margin of profit of almost ten per disposition of the money which has poured cent. on the money actually invested, but into the treasury of the Consolidated Gas the fact remains that the profits would Company. Instead of using these mil have to be spread very thin to cover the lions strictly in the development of its gas $80,000,000 of stock issued and the $20,- business, the company has devoted the 000,000 which has been authorized. greater part of them to the acquisition of "Pity the poor stockholder who has the the securities of electric lighting and other hard-earned savings of a lifetime invested companies which have so far paid either in the stock of the company," is the cry very low dividends or none at all. of the Trust's lawyers, and they loudly Without regard to this state of affairs, assert that to compel the Trust to reduce however, the Consolidated has continued the price of gas below a dollar is nothing to charge its customers enough to enable short of confiscation. “We'd have to it to pay eight per cent. dividends on its charge $1.34 a thousand to make ten per own capital of $80,000,000, although only cent. profit,” one of the Trust's lawyers, about one-third of it is invested in its gas Charles F. Mathewson, went so far as to plants, with the result that the gas con- assert in open court a short time ago in the sumers are in fact being taxed through their course of an argument against the enforce- gas bills to meet a deficiency created by ment of the eighty - cent rate. “Very the investment in securities which have so likely," retorted Mr. Hughes, with fine far proved unprofitable. Eventually, these sarcasm, “in view of the fact that you have electric lighting companies are certain to been paying eight per cent. dividends right make enormous profits, and as they are along and been getting only a dollar a owned by the Consolidated Gas Company thousand for your gas.” these profits will pour into the Consoli- There seems to be no conception on the dated's treasury. What then is to become part of the company that the public has of the public's interest ? Will the price any rights in conflict with those of stock- of gas be voluntarily reduced because of holders. It is insisted, among other things, the Trust's greater income, or will the that the company has a right to include in prosperity be made the basis for another its assets franchises which are valued at watering of the stock? Whatever the $7,781,000 and to earn large dividends on future has in store, the fact remains that that amount, although the people have at the present time competition has been received no return for what they so freely stifled, and whether one uses gas, electricity gave. “But a bargain is a bargain,” the or only kerosene, it is all the same to the Trust insists. “That incident is closed; men who are waiting with open pockets the interests of our stockholders must be at the confluence of the golden streams. protected.” It is because of this manipulation of It was only after months of searching stock, strictly lawful though it may have investigation that Mr. Hughes, on behalf been, that James M. Beck, Joseph H. of a committee of the Legislature headed by Choate and the other corporation lawyers Senator Frederick C. Stevens, dragged from 424 AMERICAN MAGAZINE unwilling witnesses the facts and figures on which the Trust was later convicted by the Legislature and the State Gas Com- mission of charging an exorbitant price for gas at one dollar a thousand. And until the Supreme Court of the United States has finally passed, four or five years hence, on the merits of the question the report of this committee must remain the highest authority on the questions in- volved. “The fact that the company," this re- port declares, “by rendering competition impossible, has been able to earn large dividends does not justify it in adding to the value of its plant an additional amount for good will or earning capacity and thereby justify a continuance of excessive charges. If this were permitted it would be able to secure in perpetuity the maintenance of exorbitant rates. Extortion for a series of years would be the sufficient excuse for further extortion. Indeed, there would seem to be no escape from the conclusion that successful imposition upon the public would warrant increased charges upon the ground of enhanced good will. “The company is entitled to a fair return upon its capital actually invested, but it is not entitled to capitalize its grip upon the public. The fact that it may be proper to value good will due to efficient organiza- tion and to the securing of public esteem through good service under ordinary con- ditions of competition, furnishes no reason for an addition to capital in order to main- tain high charges of an amount which, while termed good will, is really an es- timate of an earning capacity due to a monopolization of a public service.” The Single Woman's Problem Some Definite Ideas Called Forth by the Article in Our July Number I. One Phase of the “ Problem” strive mightily and as intelligently as may be to make the movement productive of as By Dorothy Canfield much good and as little suffering as can be managed during the very trying period of WORN whatever manner the transition from one set of standards to | woman problem may have another. arisen, whosesoever fault it What are the various remedies suggested was originally and still is, by people interested in this problem? In it is a reality. We are con- the first place there is a singular unity of fronted by a condition and opinion about the end to be gained. What not a theory. Women can- everyone wishes is to see conditions of not be put back into the economic status society, or women, or both, so altered that when marriage was their only wav of earning there shall be little or no chance of a normal a living, and it is utterly futile to discuss the woman being left a helpless and useless desirability of accomplishing the impossible. dependent, that she may be fitted to earn The only thing to do is to accept things as her living without hardships and suffering. they are, recognize that, rightly or wrongly, One class of advisers cries, “Let her society has directed its course towards some marry, or become a useful old-maid aunt or unknown new phase of women's life, and to sister in the household of some of her THE SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM 425 family.” Others say, “She cannot always marry, and many times must make pos- sible a household for her family; therefore, all women should devote themselves as assiduously as men to perfecting them, selves in some profession." There is another word of advice which is almost never heard in this, our prosperous, luxurious, self-indulgent America, where frugality is a vice and extravagance a matter of course. I have said that the end sought for by all is that women may be fitted to earn a living (and this includes fitting them for marriage of course) without hardships and suffering. The usual interpretation of this for the unmarried woman is that she must be able to earn a very considerable sum of money, which under ordinary condi- tions taxes all her powers beyond the point of safety or pleasure. Turn the situation about and look at it fairly and honestly. Is there not a reverse to the medal-a negative to this positive? Instead of seeking fever- ishly to give her power to earn much money to satisfy her desires, why not strive ear- nestly to give her the power to live con- tentedly on what she can earn without over- straining body and mind? It is a circle, that question of supplying your desires. You can run, panting and exhausted, around it in one direction, or you can walk comfort. ably around it, in the other-supply a great deal or desire little. And it behooves people who have little strength to spare, to choose wisely how they expend their vital forces. I see rise before me the shocked faces of my American readers-generous as always in their championing of women. I hear the repetition of the economists' phrase that greatness of desire is what moves the world, the proud assurances that it is the absence of cramping restrictions which has made the American woman what she is. Very true, but among many admirable things it has made her often materialistic and ner- vously selfish. She is but human and can- not, without discipline-any more than other people-learn the lesson of the beauty of restraint. The original phrasing of the end in view was “to enable her to earn her living with out hardships or suffering.” It is important to teach her to earn her living: that is being done admirably by education both general and technical. But it is no less important to teach her to know honestly and intelli- gently that she is undergoing neither hard- ship nor suffering if she cannot do exactly what she seems to wish to do. I say “seems'' to wish, advisedly, for in many cases it is the non-satisfaction of desires entirely fictitious and unreal, which makes her unhappy. The American educated woman is sup- posed to be an intelligent being, but, like all creatures so called, there are vast breaks in her intelligence. A married woman insists upon living in an expensive locality because “Oh, you simply can't live down there! Nobody lives there but carpenters and masons and workmen!” She is often called callously deaf to the over-taxing demand she puts upon her hard-working husband, and the usual observer thinks her cruelly, though perhaps unconsciously, selfish. But what can you say to the thin, heavy-eyed, exhausted school-teacher who pays, herself, for the same folly with her quivering nerves and overwrought brain? Simply that she is an intelligent person only in appearance, and that her education is but skin-deep, since she has not clear sight and courage enough to choose between what she really wants and needs, and what she feels she ought to do to keep up to other people's standards. The chivalrous American says, “Ah, but women should not know privation —they should have their wants supplied.” That is the treatment for a child. Why have American women been allowed great freedom of development if not so they may grow of fibre fine and strong enough to bear without complaint that discipline which has always been the making of men? Would I cut off from refined women the possibilities of a refined life? The pleasures of the most actual refinement are famous for their cheapness. We are all in the condition of Europe in the face of the proposal to give up standing armies. If all would, everyone would heave a sigh of relief and many of the cruel com- plications of industrial life abroad would cease. In society everyone is yearning con- sciously or unconsciously to lay down his defensive arms of “keeping up appear- ances” and devote himself to the infinitely simplified task of supplying his real needs, and of giving society the best there is in him. This ancient truth has a two-fold relation to the problem. Just as the standing army bears hardest on the poorer nations, so the feeling that it is necessary to do things “because every- body does” bears hardest on those for 426 AMERICAN MAGAZINE whom the problem should be simplified as come by “The Woman Problem.” Some much as possible. As they lose most by of them have been trying to leave Nature putting their weaker forces at work in false out of their order of things. The fashion and unnecessary directions, so they would among them is to feel mentally and morally gain most by a new era of true standards of superior to her. Then the old dame humped value. her back up into a problem for them to In the second place, women should be solve. able better than anyone else, to fight effec- It is not so long since the women had no tively against it. Married and unmarried, problem, and their men-kind had only the it is the women in this country who set the little extra duty of providing for a few standard of living. Who, better than the grandmothers and spinsters. But about intelligent, courageous American unmarried twenty-five years ago the spinsters deter- woman, often free and untrammeled, with- mined to become "independent." An hon- out the complication of children to educate, orable and innocent ambition, to be sure, if can start a crusade against the folly of killing one must be a spinster. The point is, they yourself in the effort to get what you don't mustn't if they can avoid the adversity. want—which is now the favorite occupation And there is where they missed their cue. of our good American people? If, with her since then their number has greatly in- trained mind, and carefully fostered inde- creased and they have developed problems pendence, she cannot learn to distinguish for everybody besides getting themselves between essentials and non-essentials, can- into an attitude to life which they cannot not summon up the courage to enjoy hon- sustain to the end with courage, peace and estly what she does enjoy, and, as honestly, happiness. They have brought trouble into not to repine because she has not things she the industrial world by lowering the wage does not care for, although she sees other scale. They have done what they could to people giving their lives for them, then we make married women dissatisfied with their must know sadly that many cycles must inevitable lot in life. They are largely pass by before some new factor will arrive responsible for the growing antagonism in society which may enable us to dismiss between the sexes. And they have taught the burdensome and useless standing armies themselves to believe that marriage is the of our pretences. last resort of incompetent women, rather Of course, one of the reasons for wanting than their natural vocation. The woman a thing is that other people seem to value it. who tells her story here* declares that after But what is civilization but a steady struggle leaving school she was "restless and discon- against human nature? Will the civilized tented without some definite work.” That woman sell her flesh and blood to gratify a is the situation exactly. Every girl comes desire, or turn her forces to the acquiring of home from school nowadays with a bee in contentment and serenity without its gratifi- her bonnet. It may be that the teacher of cation? In the past, only the greatest phi- English told her that she had a gift for losophers have attained the lofty height of writing; or the professor of biology stimu- being content with obtaining what they lated her young ambition with the story of really wished and needed without regard to that maiden lady who spent twenty years other people's opinions, but that is a pin- studying earthworms; or the doctor of chem- nacle towards which all our efforts should istry said women make good doctors. tend. If the American educated, free Anyhow the poor young thing comes home woman cannot lead in this movement, so fired with the ambition to emulate at least perfectly adapted to her capacities, why has one or two of the greatest men of the age. the nation educated her and made her free? And now and then, a woman does succeed in doing it, but, after all, it is just emulating a man, wh‘ch is not the business of any II. Why the “ Problem" Exists woman who can fulfil her own particular destiny. It is better to be a good mother By Mrs. L. H. Harris than to be a great artist or a great musician, or a great anything else. The more these THERE is nothing like experimenting women succeed in escaping marriage, the I with the natural order of things to pro- duce a “problem." This is how we have * American Magazine for July. THE SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM 427 worse it is for the state and for society, and not in competition with men, but it is over the greater their own problem becomes. men. They have all the advantages which The personal independence” which is so nature, love and chivalry can afford in their dear to them is only temporary. For the favor; in the other case, nature is against working life of a woman is shorter than that them and love abandons them. of a man; it is usually harder, and always less remunerative. Eventually she becomes dependent in her old age with no children to III. Some Light on the “ Problem” depend upon. Besides, women are as likely as men to have others dependent upon them. By Charlotte Perkins Gilman No one can hope to hold out against such odds. This woman's case is indeed typical. THE trouble with the people in the case And it is a sure sign that something is wrong I so clearly set forth by an article on when life grows harder, more complex as “The Single Woman's Problem” in the she grows older. The pity is that the rem- July number of the AMERICAN MAGAZINE edy lies out of reach in the past. There was was, first, parental ignorance; and, second, a time when she could have provided natu- the lack of true standards in ethics and rally and unconsciously against this day of economics. hardships by marrying. Her parents were The girl was never strong-poor heredity not so far wrong when they objected to her or wrong education or both. teaching or studying for doctor's degrees. We have so little right feeling as to These things fit women for old-maidhood parental duty that we praise a mother for and for occupied loneliness. They wished her tender care of a sickly child, instead of to preserve her from this adversity. If she blaming her for having such a one. Pa- had followed their wishes and nature's rental duty begins in bestowing a good con- order of things, she would have been mar- stitution; and if, through no fault of the ried and would now have had children old parents, the child is weak, then we need but enough to support her and those dependent apply the resources of modern science and upon her. That is the way we used to man- let it grow strong. age these family extras, and there was no This girl was handicapped from the start “woman problem" in those days. Doubt- by this drawback in constitutional energy. less the young woman experienced the same S he did get a college education, however- “restlessness” in those times that this which shows some recognition of the needs woman felt, and imagined that it was a call of our present day womanhood; but the to “some definite work.” So it was. But moment this was over these estimable any lover could have satisfied it who could parents set up the usual claim of filial duty, have placed the marriage ring upon her and effectually handicapped the daughter's finger and given her children to care for. efforts at social service and self-support. Nobody ever heard of a woman with a Note here the paradox of the parental family of her own feeling restless for "some position: definite work" and craving after Ph.D. “We do not wish our daughter to work degrees. for a living; we wish her to marry. Then In short, we do not solve a problem we set up the plea that she must not go every time we experiment with it. And away to work because we cannot spare her these women are making theirs worse all from home." It is easy to see that if she the time. It would be wiser to leave it alone marries she must leave home-parents and return to the natural order of things willingly submit to lose their daughters in To be sure there are some inconveniences this way; yet refuse them their own freedom and some injustices connected with the mar- on the ground of parental need of their ried life of women, but if they expended half society. the energy and shrewdness they show in These loving parents successfully opposed their absurd struggle for independence every step the daughter wished to take learning to please and to manage their hus- toward strengthening her position in the bands, these little objections would soon world, with the usual result of leaving her pass. The monumental stupidity of women alone at last and without any place of her is that they are so long in learning that their own. most successful manifestation of power is When the still feebler sister and the aged 428 AMERICAN MAGAZINE mother who had brought all this about were The child does not owe to the parent the left on the hands of the still courageous sacrifice of a stunted, crippled life-because elder daughter, her efforts to support them it does no one any good and prevents the were pitiful in the extreme. fulfillment of the social duty. It is high time that parents learned to “But this was a woman,” some will say, rightly estimate their duty to their children; "and women must marry.” Must they ? first, in starting them with vigorous health; Suppose there are not men enough to go and, second, im helping them establish around--must they go to Utah? themselves strongly in life while yet the But, granting that women and men ought parents are there to help—that they may to marry, what assurance has any parent not be left as elderly orphans-a position that this marriage will come off more both pathetic and ridiculous. surely at home than elsewhere? Perhaps, Then comes the error of the daughter in if this special young woman had insisted on misreading her own duty; in being held in going away to do her work as she ought, she leading strings after she was quite old would have met the man she could marry, enough to choose for herself. Being free, and have had companionship and happiness white and twenty-four, she should have said: as well as her profession. “My dear father and mother, I love you We are living in a time when women are very much and am grateful for all you have entering the field of productive industry in done for me, but my first duty is to the tremendous numbers, which is a blessed state—to society, which has done more for thing for the world. What we have to do is me than even you. I must do my work in to recognize the woman as a human being, the world to the best of my power. By so with her human rights and duties, and to doing I shall fulfill my own special purpose, learn how to reconcile happy work with a do my duty to the community, and be able happy marriage. to take better care of you by and by than if I stayed at home now.” Here is where our false economics and IV. Women and Wage Earning crude ethics come in. None of these people apparently thought By Mary Schenck Woolman of the girl's work as a duty to society; that Professor of Domestic Art, Columbia University she owed to the world the best that was in her. We look at work as something done W HAT do the idealists suggest that merely to earn a living, which is our eco VV the large and increasing body of nomic fallacy. If she had been a boy it women shall do to support themselves and would have been different; boys are not ex- their families and yet keep their precious pected to return parental care with personal persons from contact with the world? service. A good son strikes out for himself; She may write, say they. In this allur- develops his business, serves the com- ing field very few succeed at all. For munity and incidentally takes care of his those who manage to get their heads parents, if he has to; but no parent says to above water it is a precarious existence, him, “You must not go away to take this wearing out both soul and body. Again, good opportunity or promotion because we women may dabble in art or in the various need you at home." By and by we shall see handicrafts. These employments are worse that as an economic agent the woman must than writing. The world may say that so improve in her work as a man must, not occupied, woman is in her right sphere, but stay puttering at home because her parents she, poor soul, can not make enough to need her. If they really need her she can far keep herself in the world at all, for the in- better meet their need as an expert pro- come from such labor is in inverse propor- fessional than as a helpless middle-aged tion to the beauty of the occupation. She maiden-lady of no profession. may teach, say these idealists, who are so We need a sharp revision of our ethical tenacious of the idea of woman's sphere. It code. is true that here is the best field of the three. The first duty of the individual is to serve Many have had great success in educational humanity by doing his or her best work. work, but every woman is no more a born The parent owes to the child all care and teacher than she is a born housekeeper. help to establish him or her-in the world. The ranks of woman teachers are full to THE SINGLE WOMAN'S PROBLEM 429 overflowing, and in many places the salaries attention that the courses offered in many are entirely inadequate to meet the de- institutions have attracted the college manas upon the individual. student. These intelligent graduates are On finding the conservative fields allowed raising the whole standard of these occupa- her by the idealist failing to give her ade- tions not only in teaching, but in the home. quate compensation, it is no wonder that she They have been the first to see that a cul- turns to anything where there is promise tured woman can study the dressmaker's of even small success, and thus we have art, organize a business, gather a number of women occupied in ways which cause our workers together, and go into the homes to idealists to mourn over the degeneracy of render efficient service in the manufacture the sex in giving up their “divine right” of clothes. Good returns in money can be and becoming hardened and coarsened in obtained, and the organizer can be as much attempting work which belongs to man. respected in the conducting of her specialty But even here she is less satisfactory than as any man in his business. Students of the man, and in order to get a position, she cooking and housekeeping have also con- has to be content with smaller pay, thereby ducted bakeries, organized lunchrooms, often affecting men's wages. There are, catered for families, or supervised hospital however, indications that she may make a kitchens or hotels, with dignity as well as success in still new lines of employment if success. she will only give up her feeling of conserva- Students of costume-designing and dress- tism, and refuse to be swayed by those men making have also opportunities for organ- and women who croak every time she izing practical business ventures. In such attempts something new. To accomplish positions as these intelligence is greatly this result, she must look into the question needed, and good returns in money are of what at present are the greatest needs of assured. It is extremely difficult to obtain humanity. She will not have to go into the expert, cultured, and experienced women enterprises of men, but will have to study either for business houses or for technical how to supply intelligently certain increas- teaching. The successful women in these ing demands in her own special sphere. occupations are making large salaries. It is There was a time when it was not consid- ridiculous for women who need to support ered respectable for a cultured man to themselves to keep out of such employ- choose anything but one of the learned pro- ments because it is not "the thing." Let fessions. When these failed to support them make it “the thing,'' as men have him, he turned his ability toward the me- done in their field. chanical, industrial, and commercial occu- A few years ago a teacher of sewing, pations, and made professions of them. dressmaking, or cookery was looked down There is no reason why women should not upon. The women who have brought their organize and promote those employments education and intelligence to this field have from which the cry for help comes inces- not only overcome this prejudice, but have santly. Housekeeping, cooking, dress- made these professions well paid and honor- making, costume-designing and the care of able. children are down in the depths for want of Why should a woman of high attainments cultured, intelligent organization. Because be contented to prepare herself to make they have been considered menial does not $600 a year in some small conservative make it necessary for them to remain so. position, when her energetic but less highly Every one knows instances where some educated sister is making from $3,000 to brave and clever woman has boldly dashed $5,000 a year in an industrial employment? in and made a success in some of these direc- The woman of to-day should refuse to be tions, and was honored for it by all who kept to the old conservative fields, and knew her. should make herself a place and livelihood One trouble has been that the necessary in occupations needing development, be- training for success in any of these directions longing to her birthright, and where man has been difficult to obtain. Here the times as yet has little knowledge. When he does are favorable. The industrial side of wom- enter these positions he achieves success, an's work has lately received so much expert but comparatively few have as yet entered. The Confessions of a Life Insurance Solicitor A Bona Fide Narrative from a Veteran's Note-Book By William McMahon Iva SECOND PART O WR A NY-SIDED indeed must VO be he who would succeed soliciting life insurance in the country. He must be quick of perception, broad s in sympathy, with a dis- w ar position capable of adjust- ment to environment. How often have I slept in the spare room. There is the bed, long and wide and thick and high-so high that you think of a stepladder with which to climb into it. Once in, you sink down, down and are swallowed up in a sea of feathers. If you must read yourself to sleep, there is nothing for you save the family bible. There are family portraits on the wall frowning down on you from out round frames, and Grandma's and Grandpa's pictures, done life-size in crayon, haunt you in your dreams and you seem to be living in the old Mayflower days. Over the head of your bed is an artistically wrought wreath of cloth flowers inclosing a tablet “in memoriam.” On the opposite wall is a picture of the first born, taken after death. In the corner stands a high organ on top of which are vases and shells. In another corner there is the whatnot. No spare room could be complete without the what not. From your abyss of feathers you study the cheerful appurtenances of the room until they melt into dreams. You start up—some one is pounding at your door -you grope for your voice and the man of the house shouts “Breakfast!” What! It must be in the middle of the night. You wrestle with yourself in your efforts to get out of bed, and with the aid of matches locate your clothes; but no match is bright enough to reveal the presence of any water with which to perform your morning ablu tions. At length clothed, and partially in your right mind, you emerge from your room and wander about in the darkness looking for a ray of light. Some one rescues you, and you whisper something about bath and water. He leads you to the pump in the back yard where, in the darkness, you manage to bathe your face, using your handkerchief as a drying towel. You afterwards discover that the family have been waiting breakfast for you, and you sit down to a feast of coffee, biscuits, bacon and wheat cakes, all of which you relish most keenly. Is this overdrawn? I might tell you of bed-chambers with snow drifting in upon you through cracks while you sleep-of bunches of seed corn depending from the rafters above your bed-of rats nibbling at your toes. Yet all this is the darker side. There is a brighter one, and the stranger can find entertainment as agree- able in many a country home as any afforded by the best hotel in the world. I have seen homes a score or more miles from a rail- road fitted out with every convenience and furnished in excellent taste—there would be a profusion of rugs and cushions and easy chairs—books and periodicals in abundance, with evidence of having been read. Rural free delivery brings the daily mail and newspaper, and the telephone adds to the comforts of life. Day by day this type of farmer is becom- ing more the prevailing one and the rustic hayseed, with a wisp of whisker, as typified by the cartoonist and the vaudeville “ar- tist,” recedes into the past. After a year or two I began to acquire the restlessness of the typical agent. I moved with the seasons to keep in the climate I liked best. For some time I lived 430 CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE INSURANCE SOLICITOR 431 in New York. While there I often fre- support of her aged parents who lived in quented a French café on University Place a little up-state town, and, moreover, was for lunch. All about me the French lan- sending a younger sister to college. She guage was spoken and I sought to add realized that she was the source of sup- thereby to the meagre knowledge of French port of her family and saw the impor- acquired in student days. On one occasion tance of providing protection for them in I met a Frenchman who sat at a table with event of her death. No teacher in New me— conversation beginning in a casual York had a wider acquaintance among way. He lost no time in assuring me that teachers than she, having met them in his residence was Paris—that he was of meetings and assemblies for years. noble family, famous in France. He spoke “Why don't you begin on a small policy?" English well and roomed at one of the said I. “Then bear in mind the subject of principal hotels. At one o'clock each day insurance and speak of it to your friends we met thus, so that I soon began to count -if a friend shows an interest make an on his company, for he was interesting appointment and I will call and present and possessed a fund of historical and the matter. If I succeed in securing the social lore. We were about the same application I will divide my commission age. with you." He was particularly interested in the The idea struck her as novel-not with- work of the life insurance agent, always out a certain humor. drawing me out concerning my experiences “Why, I can't talk life insurance," she and methods of working. One day he came said; “besides, my time is all occupied.” glowing with enthusiasm over a scheme he I explained how the plan would not had in view. interfere with her regular duties—that I "Let us go to Paree," he exclaimed, and not she would do the talking—that “and work there togethaire for your com all she need do was to discover an interest panee!” and make the appointment, and then advise The proposition at first blush sávored me of the time and place by letter. She of the preposterous, but the more my mind assented to the arrangement finally and dwelt on it the more feasible it looked. He I wrote her application for a small policy. pointed out that the Paris population of About a week afterwards I received a English-speaking people equalled that of note from her bidding me call at her apart- an average American city—that soon I ments at a certain hour in the evening. I should have acquired a fair knowledge of did so and with her was a friend, a fellow- the French language—that his part would teacher. I succeeded in writing the friend lie in introducing me to his friends—that and the next day mailed a check to my the partnership would be an irresistible teacher-helper for her share of commission, one and that wealth would descend upon amounting to thirty dollars. After this, us like manna from the skies. letters of appointment came frequently, I dreamed of Paris, of European capitals and within two weeks' time I paid her nearly -working myself into a fever of eagerness one hundred dollars. Soon after sending to make arrangements with our Paris the last check she wrote that she wished managers and to sail at once. As suddenly, to see me on a matter of special business. however, as my ardor reached its height it I called and she immediately began on the was dashed to woeful depth. It was a case business in hand. of “fallen idol.” My friend negotiated a “I have been thinking,” she said, "why little loan with me and disappeared, never I cannot be writing the applications myself, to be seen or heard of thereafter. My and thus, instead of only sharing the com- Paris scheme died the death. mission, make it all.” In the course of business in New York “The thought does credit to you," I I solicited a woman who, for twenty years, answered; "there is no reason in the world had taught in the public schools of the why you cannot”—then and there paying city. She manifested an earnest desire secret homage to wit of woman. to carry a policy, but expressed a doubt I arranged a top contract for her, direct of her ability to spare the amount of the with the office of the district manager, for premiums. For the whole of her earn- which service she thanked me. I never ing period she had contributed to the saw her again, but heard of her many times 432 AMERICAN MAGAZINE in various ways. At the outset she dis- Luckily, on reaching the abode of my counted me in writing business. She “prospect," time and place were favorable made arrangements with other teachers in and we found ourselves in a room without different parts of the city, similar to the one danger of molestation. The man was I at first had made with her. In the course immovable, insisting that nothing or nobody of time she resigned her position in the could induce him to carry life insurance. schools and had a dozen women working “I had to work hard for what little I for her. To this little army of lieutenants have,” he said, “and when I die the folks she would give frequent luncheons in her can do the same thing." apartments, and over the teacups would The size of the policy at issue was not discuss with them ways and means of secur- large, though he seemed to fear that such ing business. bounty for his family would mean a gay The last I heard from her she had de- widow and spendthrift children. clined an offer of ten thousand a year, and “I don't want to leave money for a second in her letters telling me of her success she husband to blow in, and as for the children, declared that she “had just begun to live.” they will get along some way—besides, after All parts of the country have their char- I'm dead, if they do have a hard time I acteristics and the good insurance man won't know it." must learn to adapt himself to the require I then sought to appeal to his selfishness ments of his surroundings. In Massa- and dwelt on the investment feature of the chusetts you had best keep close to figures, policy, pointing out the returns he himself but down in Missouri you may be flowery would derive at the maturity-still he re- and indulge in spread-eagleism in your mained as imperturbable as ever. Byrne insurance talks. There the public will sat silent. I had about run out and a pain- forego the theatre and gather in great num- ful pause ensued, spelling defeat, while a bers to hear a political spellbinder. I shall twinkle of triumph gleamed in the eye of never forget a circumstance illustrative of the obdurate one. At length in a low voice, the potency of eloquence in moving a hard- addressing neither of us in particular, headed man to insure his life. Byrne began: One evening I was lounging in a hotel “I see a girl, glad of heart and free as office in a county-seat town when some the birds that flutter about the open window one bade me wake up and come to the of her home. I see the rough security of lecture. I went, prepared to suffer bore-- a father's love and the tender anxiety of a dom. The orator was under the direction mother's care. I see the dawning of first of one of the Eastern lyceum bureaus, love, the secret smiles and musing and and his subject was, “When we die, are we mystery of being wooed and won by the dead?” He was tall, angular, with piercing strength of one man's love, the man of all black eyes and long black hair, young, the world to her. I see a little church with smooth shaven and theatrical in manner. the sunlight streaming through windows His voice resembled that of Booth, being of amber, of emerald and of gold, playing deep, sonorous and perfectly under his on eager faces, mingling its changing hues control. He was a veritable race - horse and harmonies with those of 'Lohengrin's' of oratory, a master of word painting strains floating over the soul as if wafted The audience was his, hanging breathless by angel's wings. I see the man lead the on his periods. After the lecture I met him girl to the altar, holding her little hand at the hotel, where we conversed until tremblingly in his, and hear his earnest a late hour. I said to him that if I had his words spoken in the very presence of his eloquence I would write everyone for insur- God, 'to honor, cherish and protect.' ance with whom I talked. He answered The minister pronounces the words making that I might be mistaken, for given a rate them man and wife and they bow their book and all paraphernalia, he would in all heads to receive his benediction. Laughter probability starve. I conceived the idea and tears mingle with congratulations of over night to have Mr. Byrne go with me friends and the organ lifts its triumphant to interview an obdurate “prospect " whom minstrelsy. I had failed to move. I broached the “Time passes and babes are born, the matter to him next morning and he agreed flowers of love. Then comes responsi- to go “just for a lark." bility, with strife and struggle and alter- CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE INSURANCE SOLICITOR 433 nating calm and storm-sunshine and lings I rise up and denounce my father as shadow-joy and sorrow-when fate with being responsible for the death of my blind caprice leads them on and on mother!” down the darkening pathway of life. A The effect of this recital was magical: star appears, the star of hope, of duty and the obdurate one melted like wet sugar of consecration. The husband and father and lost no time in assenting to the in- -tireless pioneer of the future's impene- surance arrangement Byrne and I walked trable forests, now sees it not. Then comes out in the street together, neither speaking opportunity, lingering an instant only, for some moments, I feeling loath to inter- then gone forever. The star of duty dims, pose a word which would mar the sacred- while fostering care of wife and child fades ness of the glimpse lately revealed into his away, and selfishness is born. I see the life. He broke the silence laughing loudly. coming of the shadow. The strong man's “What's the matter with me as an insur- limbs grow weary, a fever racks his brain ance agent?” he asked. and the little household is hushed. For “Magnificent !” I exclaimed. “But many an anxious day and night the wife wasn't it all true—the story?" I inquired. watches by the bedside, ministering, sooth “Of course not,” he answered. " It was ing, hoping, while body and mind are tired, one of my pipe stories. I assumed that to and the fluttering spirit of him she loves be an insurance agent it was necessary to is struggling to be free. At length the be a liar, so I tried to make good at both.” end is come and trembling fingers press I assured him that he had succeeded, the eyelids down. The wife, bewildered, that he was entitled to the bun as champion falters from the room and finds her way artistic and benevolent liar. to the bed where orphan babies sleep. A story such as this may go far in many She kneels beside them and sobs in silence minds to strengthen the widespread opinion lest baby dreams be broken. Alone. that insurance “rottenness” permeates the Alone. The rugged pathway is dreary agency force, as well as the central offices; now and steep, and there is naught in all and that insurance soliciting is about the last the world but black despair. A week business on earth for a man and a gentle- passes and the young mother pauses in man. But, my friends, this is not so. The her grief wondering what to do and whither immense majority of us are not only honest to go. Time brings lull of sympathy, and men, but we believe in our profession as neighboring friends forget her weight of emphatically as the lawyer and the doctor, woe. The little mortgage on her home and what is more, we love it. intrudes itself-the knowledge and memory After all is said and done, we life insur- coming upon her like a pall. In the course ance solicitors do not have such a hard time of time a knock comes at the door—it is of it. We get a drop of appreciation now the sheriff bearing legal process of fore- and then, which compensates for the re- closure. He reads the decree of dispossess- buffs. We know no boss and can go any- ment, while she stands like one at bay. where in the world we wish and work for The tragic moment is closing in and from the same company-if we are good. We afar she hears the surge of the sea and can turn our backs on hard winters and go breakers beating on the shore. She sinks South-we can go North where the cool beneath her cross and feels and hears no lake breezes are and leave our friends to the more. Angels bear her spirit to her God. midsummer madness of “a hundred above." “Two little children were carried to a We are gloriously free like birds and as distant city and placed in an asylum as continually on the lookout for the good foundlings. They grew up separately and things of life. Yet we are not finicky knew each other not. This was many and never turn up our noses because the years ago and may heaven forgive me toast is overdone or the eggs boiled too At this the speaker bowed his head in hard. We remember not long since when silence for a moment-not a word was we gladly would have rebated our whole spoken. The stillness was tense. At length commission for toast and eggs in any form. he roused himself and in the most tragic We know how to enter a drawing-room tones I ever heard, looking straight into the and we know how to sit in a farmer's eyes of the astounded man, exclaimed: kitchen and discuss the price of pork, “To-day as one of those orphan found while the wife is trying out lard. 434 AMERICAN MAGAZINE We know lots of things because we must, Dakota. Some time previously I had writ- and possibly some which we ought not to ten a man of the neighborhood for two know, but men, women and fate conspire thousand dollars of insurance under great to give us wisdom and we would not quarrel pressure. His wife protested vigorously with the three of them for the world. at the time, saying she needed a sewing We are actors, essaying burlesque comedy machine more than insurance. Sitting in sometimes and often tragic rôles, but the hotel office one day, the news came to me always holding ourselves in readiness to that some one had been killed on the railroad smile when we may feel like fighting and track. On inquiry I discovered the un- to weep when it would be easier to laugh. fortunate victim to be the man whom I Nothing can disturb us and no human had written. Immediately I hurried about being can bowl us over. It is all the same and secured the necessary proofs of death whether you call us wise or foolish, because and sent them in to the office, requesting we know how little we know, which is the that draft for policy be mailed to me with- beginning of wisdom. out delay. Less than a week after the We are law-abiding Christians, going funeral I went to the home of the widow, to church on Sunday-sometimes. We bearing a draft for two thousand dollars. subscribe to charity-if we have the money, She met me at the door with her baby in for charity's sweet sake, and sometimes her arms. All about there were signs of we subscribe in public if the subscription deprivation, almost of want. can be defended as an investment. I did not reveal the purport of my visit When we are glad, people will know it, at once and the woman talked tremulously and if we have the blues, no one is aware about her late husband. but ourselves—and the manager. “I found these in his overcoat pocket," I have been taught a lesson in these she said softly. She handed me a small twelve strange years—that honesty is the rubber doll and a little package of nuts and best policy, and more than that, I have candy. found out that the best investment is “He bought these ” she said, "for honesty for honesty's sake alone. the baby's Christmas.” Then she broke I have lied in writing insurance but down in a torrent of grief. always found that it recoiled upon me, and “Your husband sends you this for your if I gained thereby the little increment of Christmas," I said, handing over the draft. commission, I straightway lost a hundred- I then explained that it was her insurance fold as much. I poisoned a good field, money. She thanked me. I said that I got people to despise me and so despised was not entitled to thanks. She thanked myself. If you do not sell a policy by the company, and I insisted that the com- telling the truth, at least you have not sold pany was not entitled to thanks. yourself by telling a lie. I have learned “Thank your husband," I said to her, that life insurance is good enough to be "for this is his legacy of love to you and to sold upon its merits. his child." We are ministers and preach sermons, Later, seated in my hotel enjoying my teaching independence, industry, sobriety, cob-pipe, I mused, “This sort of thing is economy and love of wife and child and one of the few that make it worth while to friend. We point out duty—the saintli- peddle life insurance.” ness of self-sacrifice, the sweetness of con In closing, let me quote Tom Paine's secration. We may not lift mortals to the words, for surely he had us in mind when skies, but we do not drag angels down. he said: We take the middle ground and try to make “You have caused the cry of the orphan men assume some of the trappings and to cease—you have wiped the tear from habiliments of manhood. the eye of the suffering mother-you have It is ours to act to the letter of the scrip- given comfort to the aged and infirm- tural mandate, according to the Apostle you have penetrated into the gloomy re- James who says: “Visit the fatherless and cesses of wretchedness and have banished the widow in their affliction.” it. Welcome among us, ye brave and About a year ago this last Christmas I virtuous representatives! And may your was working in a little town in South example be followed by your successors!” The . Tie That Binds By J. George Frederick Gothenomeni WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G, DOVE EXHE president of the whole- sale lumber and furniture house gazed at the card in his hand with speculative interest. On it he read the Zb y name “C. Dudley Guy Hamilton, A.M., Ph.D.” “Show him in,” he said to the tow-headed office boy in the doorway, and then he pushed back his chair a bit, took an unim- portant letter and leaned back to read it. Very soon the door opened and a most curious and imposing figure entered. A tall and strongly built man it was, with a swarthy face and fine oval brown eyes, carrying an air of dignity and importance quite beyond the ordinary. He was clothed in a rusty black frock coat, wrinkled white trousers and an enormous cravat. He car- ried in his hand a high-crowned straw hat, a dog-eared volume and a light cane. “I believe you are the president of this company,” he said as he advanced, in a deep and strikingly musical bass voice, and an inflection almost as patronizing as if he were about to relieve the whole concern from bankruptcy. “I have that honor," replied the presi- dent, quizzically, unconsciously rising and putting on his dignity. To have feigned business and remained seated with crossed legs before this man's imposing presence would have been exceedingly incongruous, in spite of the splotch of the yolk of an egg on his caller's under lip. “I am an ah-tist, Mr. Jennings," pro- ceeded C. Dudley Guy Hamilton, the same curiously pompous dignity manifest in his tone as in his manner; "and as the de- mah-nd for portraits is rah-ther inconsider- able at present I should not mind occupying myself with some—ah-commercial work for a time. I presume that you occasion- ally use illustrations of your furniture?" The president's eyes twinkled, though he felt a trifle ill at ease. “Oh, yes,” he replied, rather vaguely,"we use them quite often. Sit down, won't you?” “I thank you—no," was the reply, with a movement of the left hand which would have graced a king. “I do not wish to de- tain you longer than necessary.” “Well," said the president, contracting his brows thoughtfully, “I really have been thinking of getting a lot of illustrations for our new catalogue. Perhaps we can make some arrangement. Sit down, and we'll 435 436 AMERICAN MAGAZINE talk it over. The work will be consider- able,” he continued, “and would require your presence here every day for some time. We could probably not pay you more than a flat rate of fifty cents per drawing, how- ever." “I should really be quite satisfied with that amount,” slowly replied the artist, gazing speculatively through the smoke of his cigar; “ — yes, I believe I should." Some of the cigar smoke reached the president's nostrils, and he was forced to cough. “I trust my cigah does not annoy you," said the artist, with grave concern. “It is really a very good cigah-my last, or I'd offer you one. I walk eight blocks out of my way every day to get them-I do, by Jove." "Indeed!” commented the president; “thanks, but I don't smoke. Can we con- sider the matter arranged? You can begin next week, if you are prepared. I have no doubt that you will find the work quite easy." “Very well,” replied the artist, deliber- ately, "you may expect me on Monday. I am greatly indebted to you, my dear sir, for the opportunity.” “I shall make room for you somewhere by that time, Mr. Hamilton, and shall have the necessary materials provided. Are you a native of this city, may I ask?” “A native of this town?” repeated the artist, a phlegmatic smile taking possession of his face; "you are jesting, my friend! I was bah-n across the pond, in merry Eng- land, where the air is full of mellow mem- ories, and where a poet's buried at every crossroad. I was bah-n, my dear sir, in a country which has more romance and more historic human interest to the square mile than any other spot on the surface of the earth. But”—with a magnanimous con- descension — “this is quite a clever little town-quite clever, by Jove. It is only fifty years old, isn't it?" “That's all,” replied Jennings, regarding his visitor with curious interest. Just then the tow-headed office boy again thrust his head into the office, with another card, and Hamilton shoved his book under his shoulder, and grasping his hat and cane, took his leave with the same impressive dignity. The president smiled after him for a few moments, and then rose suddenly and flung open the window. "Really a very good cigah!” he mimicked, in the artist's delib- erate bass; and then he laughed heartily. At nearly eleven o'clock on the following Monday the president suddenly remem- bered that the artist he had engaged was due. Nearly a half hour later the artist stepped from the elevator, jaunty and cool in a fresh pair of white duck trousers- shrunken a trifle short in laundering. He bowed gravely to the salesmanager as he passed through toward the office of the president, swinging his cane contentedly. “Good mah-ning, Mr. Jennings," he said when he entered, his rotund bass vibra- ting over the whole office. “Good morning, Mr. Hamilton,” re- plied the president; "we've been wonder- ing whether you had forgotten us.” He led the way to a desk at the end of the room, near a number of other clerks. “We would like to give you a room to yourself, but as we are not a very large concern, we cannot afford the space.” “I shall be quite content here, I'm sure,” replied Hamilton unconcernedly. “I see you've got plenty of Bristol board, etc., and I can begin at once." And he deposited his cane and hat immediately with an air of proprietorship. Just a few days later the president passed by the artist's desk and saw him at work, his long hair disheveled and perspiration stand- ing on his swarthy face. The desk was cluttered with a most unsightly jumble of cigar stumps, ashes, waste paper, and a various miscellany. He caught the aroma of the “really good cigahs” and he felt sorry for the young women working nearby. He stopped to inquire about the work and the artist kept him there with a continuous conversation on art, in his deliberate and self-sufficient manner, until the president was obliged to excuse himself and leave He did not venture near again for more than a week, not because he was not inter- ested in the artist and his conversation, but because he had not the time to lend from his business. One day the salesmanager came into the president's office with a comical expression of vexation and amusement. “That artist of yours," he said, “is cutting up some shines that I don't know how to handle.” “So?" asked the president, with inter- est; “what's the matter?”. “Well,” was the reply, “he's been send- 193T23 WHTSION กงยหน 1 39UTINUT YMAMOO 1 Anthon, von Brings him apples and fudge and makes googoos at him ing around to the girls some notes with nuttying for a reply, “what do you think I poetry on them, for instance, and one of the ought to do about the matter? He is for- girls has been silly enough to take them to ever smoking some of the vilest cigars I heart. She is neglecting her work, and think I ever smelt, and he struts into the brings him apples and fudge and makes office every morning about the time some of goo-goos at him until she's on the verge of our clerks are going out for lunch, walking upsetting our whole force with it. Here like the cock of the place, too. He gets some is one of the notes he's been sending of the billing clerks and bookkeepers together around.” every now and then, and he orates to them The president took a piece of soiled paper for an hour at a time, until I've got to inter- upon which was written the following: fere. He doesn't seem to understand what ... For several virtues business means. When he talks or laughs Have I liked several women; never any he is as loud as a sailor, with that bass-viol With so full soul, but some defect in her voice he has.” Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, And put it to the foil: But you, O, you, . “You think we ought to fire him then, do So perfect and so peerless, are created you?” asked the president, still smiling. Of every creature's best."- Shakespeare. “Well," replied the salesmanager, uncer- The president smiled for his reply as he tainly, “I don't know that he's doing us handed back the note. any particular good.” “Well," asked the salesmanager, wait- “Suppose that you give him that little 437 THE TIE THAT BINDS 439 ilton; "I wish you could come up to my W hen Jennings found the tenement rooms some evening. I've got a lot of house, the stairway was dark, indeed, and books you might want to read." he did stumble over the broken step, in spite “I'll come up to see you some night this of the warning. As he walked back through week,” replied Jennings promptly; "where the hall he heard an instrument strumming do you live?" softly, though it was drowned several times The artist named a street in a notoriously by the cries of quarreling children. poverty-stricken district without hesitation It was the room from which the music “ I will finish up this matter in the morning, madame" or embarrassment. As they were about to issued that Hamilton occupied. “Ah,” he part at the office on their return, Hamilton said, with a gratified guttural bass, as he turned back. “Mr. Jennings-ah-if it's extended his hand, “awfully glad to see you, dark on the stairs when you come up,” he by Jove. Have a seat”—with a graceful said, “watch out for the missing step on the motion of his hand. third flight. Some blah-sted fool broke it Jennings advanced, willing enough to not long ago, and you might injure your seat himself after the exertion of the climb, self. I'm on the fifth floor, at the rear of for he was inclined to stoutness; but he saw the second hall." nothing that might be sat upon but a low 440 AMERICAN MAGAZINE stool. There was a chair, but it had a impression that Jennings came again within drawing board upon it; and there was also a a week or more. ramshackle old sofa, but thereon lay several “Won't you tell something about your- coats and the artist's famous high-crowned self?” he asked suddenly, after the artist straw hat. had finished an Irish love song. Hamilton A glance around the small room, opening put aside the harp slowly and seemed to into a bedroom alcove, revealed a table with frown. an ink-stained chenille cover, piled with an “That is, if you care to," interrupted indescribable miscellany, and topped by a Jennings sensitively. harp of pretentious ornamentation. The “It's not much of a story," replied the wall was covered with posters and tacked artist, with deliberate dignity. “My father with drawings, and at the lower end of the -ah-is a trusted man in the diplomatic room was a small trunk quite full of books, service, and he's quit me. He was away as well as an easel and a small table with an from home a great deal, and I was reared oil lamp with a crooked shade and broken by an aunt, and left pretty much to my own globe. The air in the room was hot and devices. I never saw my mother. My stuffy. father wished to educate me for the consular “I was just playing on my harp before service, but-don't-chu know I wasn't you came,” said the artist, pleasantly, as he cut out for that. I refused a beastly secre- strummed the instrument carelessly in pass- taryship that he procured for me when I ing the table; "there are several strings out took my degree, and he grew angry and we of order, but it's a fine harp-gift of my had words. He gave me a thousand pounds aunt when I took my degree.” and arranged with a tenant, on some Cana- “Won't you play for me?” asked Jen dian land that he owns, to keep me, and nings, interestedly, as he finally made room told me to 'take my dummed canvases and for himself on the sofa. books and blah-sted dreams and go across The artist sat down on the low stool, and stay there.' strummed a few chords, and then, much to “I lived on the thousand pounds in Mon- Jennings' surprise, began to sing. Before treal until I-ah-got short of funds, and he had sung one stanza of a ballad Jennings then I hunted up the farm. I stayed for a had leaned forward and held his head summer and pah-t of a winter, but, by Jove, poised with strong interest and keen enjoy- I couldn't stand the climate. I enjoyed the ment. The artist possessed a splendidly summer. I used to stay out under a huge w and sympathetic voice. though a oak by the side of a little stream with my trifle careless and negligée. It filled the air easel and books, and have a pretty com- with enchanting melody, quite incongruous fortable time of it; but when the cold came with the surroundings. I couldn't get my fingers warm enough to “Fine!” exclaimed Jennings, with keen paint. I packed up my effects one day and pleasure, when he had finished. “You left, with a little money the fah-mer re- didn't tell me that you had such a fine voice funded from my father's payment. I came and could sing." directly to this city, and have been here The artist smiled with almost boyish nearly two years." gratification. “I just drawl a little now and then for my own amusement. It sort S o insistently did the artist, his life and of takes me back to ye olden times, don't- peculiarities, cling to Jennings' mind that he chu know, and lifts me out of this life. I came to the little room quite often. One used to sing in an Episcopal choir when I evening he had just reached the top when was a boy." he heard a rather excited female voice “Sing another song, won't you?" asked in a harangue-interrupted at intervals by Jennings eagerly. the calm and dignified bass of C. Dudley For over an hour the artist continued his Guy Hamilton. As he neared the door of entertainment, alternately singing and de- the latter's room, he found it ajar. claiming from Homer or Virgil or "Cyrano “Do you think I'll carry you along for- de Bergerac,” using his voice and hands so ever and stand chances of losin' it all?” well that Jennings was kept thrilled contin- piped the shrill voice. ually with their dramatic effectiveness. The artist caught sight of Jennings at The enjoyment of the visit made such an this point and refused to make answer. ! I Arthur dore “ Stared toward the other end of the room ” “My dear Jennings,” he said with unruf- fled dignity, “how do you do? Awfully glad to see you." And then turning to the stout woman, who had a splotch of red in her cheeks and fire in her eye, he said calmly, “I will finish up this matter in the morning with you, madame.” The woman looked sullen and unsatisfied, and moved into the hallway slowly. “You pay by 8 to-morrow or you move out!” she suddenly announced with a shrill accent of determination. “Very well,” replied Hamilton care- lessly. And then to Jennings: “Pah-don this little scene. · The fact is, I am in rah-ther an embarrassing position. My landlady insists that I make a payment on my rent, and I happen to be out of funds at present. Pah-don my boldness, but do you happen to have a dollar in change?” “Of course," replied Jennings quite eagerly, as he pulled out his wallet. He passed over a compartment in which were bills of small denomination and drew a ten- dollar bill from another roll. “I guess you'll have to accept a ten," he continued, as he handed it over. The landlady was still in the hall and Hamilton called her in. “I am ready to make a payment on my account,” he announced with dignity. The landlady took the proffered bill with rather a supercilious air, which she quickly changed to one of satisfaction when she examined it more closely. “Do you have a piece of paper?" she asked, conciliatorily. “A what?" asked Jennings with a frown. “A piece of paper to write a receipt,” she repeated. 441 442 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “Never mind the receipt, my good lady," was the artist's quick reply, with a curl of the lip and an inimitable deprecatory motion of his arm. "I'll send it up in the morning,” she replied as she left. A month or more later the president's visits to the artist became more frequent than ever, and his absorption in the music so freely rendered by the artist amounted to moodiness. He sat gazing out of the win- dow, silent and undemonstrative, with his brows puckered, but his eyes showing the appreciation he felt. The artist seemed not to tire, and followed song with recital and recital with discourse of his own—which was only replied to in monosyllables by Jennings—until late at night. On one of these evenings the artist said concernedly—just as he was taking his leave “By Jove, Tennings, you don't seem to look right in the face. Lost sleep lately?” “Some,” replied the president, shortly, as he left. Weeks passed and Jennings did not again put in an appearance at the little room. The artist waited for him night after night, often going to the head of the stairway to look for him, and watching the small part of the street visible from his window. Several times he went to the office to see him-his work there was finished by this time—but on each occasion Jennings was either out or engaged with callers, of whom a larger number than usual seemed to be about. He did not touch the harp once in the interval, although he began to sing a song occasionally, only to drop it in the middle of the melody, and sit staring moodily into space. Swinburne was his sole companion One morning he picked up his palette and brushes, dusty and dry with disuse, and started a little work at the easel. But after working diligently for a half hour he let his arms drop and stared toward the other end of the room. Suddenly he rose and jammed the straw hat onto his head—though it was November-and walked over to Jennings' office. He walked up to the door leading into the firm's offices, tried the knob and found it locked. With a muttered exclama- tion of surprise he surveyed the door closely, and found a notice up. It took some minutes before he fully com- prehended the failure of the Northwestern Lumber and Furniture Co., and when he did his phlegmatic expression gave way first to a look of much amazement and then of solicitous concern. “By Jove! By Jove!” he kept muttering to himself, in a vague kind of a way, as he left the building and walked on without direction. Then, recollecting his thoughts, he swung off toward Jennings' apartments. The sleek and lamb-voiced attendant ushered him into the den, telling him that Jennings would soon be in. Jennings entered with a quick, hurried step. He stopped short when he saw Hamil- ton. “Why-er-how are you?” said he, with an odd, nervous inflection. “By Jove, Jennings," replied the artist, gripping his friend's fingers mightily, while he stared with awkward surprise and con- cern into haggard, bloodshot eyes and drawn features. Jennings shifted nervously under the eyes fixed upon him, and tried to disengage his hand, but Hamilton kept it tightly held. “Sit down, won't you ?” he asked, finally, and the artist obeyed without comment. For the first time since Jennings had known him, Hamilton seemed awkward and self-conscious. After exchanging some commonplace remarks in an absent and strained manner, Jennings suddenly said, “Let's go out and get something to eat-I haven't had anything since this morning.” The dining table restored somewhat their old relations and relaxed the strain of self- consciousness for both. “I guess this will be the last time I shall see you,” said Jennings, suddenly. Hamil- ton dropped his fork and expressed his puz- zled surprise by a fixed stare. “You know I'm ruined, don't you? The papers have been full of it,” continued Jen- nings with a nervous and hurried voice, revealing the deep hurt which the blow had inflicted. “I'm left without a cent-every- thing I own is lost. I can't stay here, I'm going to Chicago, where I'll have to begin all over again.” As he spoke the concluding words, he drew in his breath sharply, poignantly pained at the thought of the un- known, unconquered future which had so suddenly yawned before him. “Ruined!” repeated the artist,' me- chanically; “without a cent!" and he con- tinued his puzzled stare for some time, in silence. Jennings was about to take the two checks which the waiter had, as a matter of habit, laid by his plate, when his wrist was THE TIE THAT BINDS 443 SERWER suddenly held in a vise-like grip, and Ham- very earnestly; "I-you-" but the words ilton took the checks. stumbled, and he gulped in confusion. "Really, Hamilton,” protested Jennings, “By Jove,” said Hamilton, as if suddenly with some confusion, “I have enough——" recalling something, “if you are really going “Cah-n't you come over to my rooms to Chicago, I must straighten out a little to-night?" inter- matter first." He rupted the artist, reached up to a shelf, drawing him out to- dipped his hand into ward the door, with a tobacco jar and a deprecatory wave fetched out a bunch of his hand. of keys, a handful of “Yes," replied tobacco and a five Jennings rather dollar bill. Reach- weakly and uncer- ing down into his tainly. pocket he supple- As soon as the mented the bill with meagre oil lamp had some silver until he been lit, and the had ten dollars president of the de- counted out. “I funct company was have always had it once more in his ac- in mind to go to customed place, Chicago, too, some Hamilton got the day,” he said in an harp and sat on his absent manner," and low stool. “I haven't I mean to, just as sung for a long soon as I am in funds while," he said light- again. There's more ly, “and we want chah-nce there for a something with life man of my talents, in it to-night. Have I hear. ... This I ever sung ‘Nancy is the ten you helped Lee' for you?” me out with in an "I don't remem- embarrassing posi- ber,” replied Jen- tion." nings, absently. Jennings started He sang from and backed rapidly verse to verse with away from the out- an increasing ardor stretched hand, of expression, and hardly knowing Jennings followed whether to smile or with awakening en- be serious. “I don't joyment. Song after “ Found a notice up" want that," he song followed and it finally blurted out, seemed to Jennings that the artist had never with some vehemence. “I don't need it.” sung so well. “I insist,” said Hamilton, advancing with Suddenly he began to sing Oxford songs determination; "it's a debt and I cah-n't and glees; some of these were very funny, leave it unpaid.” and Jennings was surprised into a peal of “Oh, I'll tell you what we'll do,” said laughter, which ended a little lamely when Jennings suddenly with a bright smile after it became conscious. But it acted as an an awkward moment: "keep it—and we'll entering wedge and surprisingly restored go to Chicago together!” his spirits. “By Jove!” said the Englishman, stop- Jennings rose to go, quite reluctantly and ping short in deep surprise, while a boyish awkwardly. He put his hand on the artist's smile of keen pleasure spread over his face. shoulder and grasped his palm tightly. “By Jove!”—and he gripped Jennings' “You're a good friend, Hamilton,” he said hand with a pressure that hurt. OS* DA Sias LOvoulalllad'aswallow's wings, de for then la fly and fina it, woulal had a swallows heart, forthen I love to roam. With an orchard on the hillside 'andan olaola manto raind it, It's thereldliftmy lodgeat last, and make my home. N TE t here ld see the tide come in along the whispering reaches, Othere Id lie and watch the sails go shining to the west, And where thefirwood followson thewide unswerving beaches, Othere la lay me down atlast and take my rest 223 BGBSE se So MARGINALIA SO Oliver Bass, Incorporated By Arnold M. Anderson BAD Amos Bass died two weeks She is earlier, his son, Oliver, would have inherited several odd millions of dollars, but as it was, he inherited nothing and for the first time in his life was confronted with the ne- cessity of earning his livelihood. Esau Pit- kin, the old personal friend and fiercest busi- ness antagonist of Amos, in trying to ruin whom the latter had ruined himself, was touched at the thought of this unfortunate youth, and he pondered in his heart how he might aid him. Accordingly he sent for Oliver and generously expended forty-five minutes of his precious time in expatiating upon the virtues of honest toil and the op- portunities open to a young man of integrity who was not ashamed to begin at the bot- tom. He then intimated that there was a vacant position in his own office where a young man who was not proud could begin at the bottom at once. This offer Oliver re- fused without a moment's hesitation. “Well, uh-what would you like to do?" “I would like to earn my living by writing poetry," answered Oliver simply. “Ollie," said Mr. Pitkin condescendingly, as he placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, “I will not be angry with you; you have a right to choose your own pro- fession, but the point is this: Can you make a living by writing poetry? Will you have a ghost of a show? I understand that some writers make a good thing at it; maybe you can if you hustle and conduct the business upon modern, progressive, wide-awake prin- ciples. I'm interested in you, my boy; I wish to help you get a start-suppose you give me a day or two to think this over. I'll see if I can't hit on some scheme that will give you a fighting chance even in the poetry line; that is, if you insist on following that trade. To be frank with you, poetry doesn't look a live issue to me." A few days later when the two met again, Mr. Pitkin was glowing with good humor. “Ollie,” he began, “I've thought of just the thing for you! How would you like being incorporated ?" Then he went on to ex- plain: “It's simple as A B C: your brains will be the assets; you'll be granted a charter and capitalized for-say ten thousand dol- lars! You issue shares and from the sale of these you can peg along until you are in shape to pay dividends." “Who in thunder would invest a penny in a poet?" “Never mind about that; I'll undertake to underwrite the concern!” “Charity?" “Not a bit of it! This is a cold blooded business deal, pure and simple. I like the idea. It's unique! That stock will be the greatest novelty ever put on the market!” “Is it possible that a hard-headed business man like you can take this matter seriously?” “Not too seriously, no! It's a long-shot speculation, at best, but the field is new. You've got to experiment to get a line on a new proposition. I believe there is a chance to make money out of mental produce. Thousands of poems are published through- out the country every month; why can't we butt into that market? If we produce a first- rate article and handle it with up-to-date methods, why can't we hold our own? If you prove to be a paying speculation, what is to prevent us from incorporating others like you and then, eventually, forming a gigantic mental-produce trust that will control the en- ; tire output of all the writers, artists, com- posers and the like, in the country, or even the world! How many poems can you reel off a day?" “ I'm not a machine, Mr. Pitkin! I might write one a day, or two, or three; then again, I might not write one a week; it would all depend upon my mood. Poetry is an art, it cannot always be produced at will." “I don't pretend to know anything about the art side of it—that doesn't interest me! You produce the stuff in your own way, or any way; my point is this: somehow the 446 MARGINALIA 447 article can be manufactured! We have an assured market; the vital part is the selling! The idea is to advertise! Boom the brand! The percentage of profit per poem is enor- mous; the only outlay is ink, stationery and postage. Great guns! I believe with the right kind of publicity we could create a tremendous fad for poetry. We've got to educate the public; give the poetry germ a to say, the flotation was "gobbled.” B.P. stock, or “Jingles," as it was immediately nicknamed on the Exchange, was regarded as a prime joke and, in great part, the stock certificates were in demand as souvenirs to frame and hang up in brokers' offices. Shares being only ten dollars, this was not wanton extravagance. At the first meeting of the shareholders, G ZINE “ Could never marry one she did not respect " and” chance to hatch; then supply the created de- mand." After a week of cogitation Oliver surren- dered himself to Esau Pitkin to be incor- porated, and in the due course of events the Bass Poetry Company sprang into existence. Mr. Pitkin had wished the corporation to bear the euphonious title, “The Apollo Brain-Produce Company," but as Oliver had objected to this name as being too bombas- tic, the former was agreed on as a compro- mise. One thousand shares of stock were issued, five hundred and one of which were reserved for Oliver, he having insisted on retaining the controlling interest, and the re- maining four hundred and ninety-nine ad- vertised for sale by Mr. Pitkin in a circular teeming with rhetorical superlatives. Strange Oliver, Esau Pitkin and a Mr. Sampson were elected directors, and these three constituted themselves the officers of the corporation : Oliver, president; Mr. Sampson, vice-presi- dent, and Mr. Pitkin, secretary and treasurer. The poet began his labors : he conscien- tiously wooed his muse, producing a goodly amount of tolerable verse, but, though he used up a quantity of postage stamps, the gross receipts at the end of the first year amounted to only $71.40. The other side of the ledger showed expenditures of $2,586.35 in the aggregate. At the annual meeting of the directors there was no show of enthu- siasm at this state of affairs, and the presi- dent had so much difficulty in persuading his fellow-directors to vote a stock assessment to meet the deficit that, in order to guard “What? Do you think you can freeze me out?" against like contingencies in the future, he loaned out a few of his own shares, and at the meeting of the stockholders caused a shake-up in the board of directors. Mr. Sampson was dropped, Mr. Pitkin was made vice-president, Oliver remained president and a personal friend named Sutten, who was secretly pledged to follow the lead of the president in all matters relating to the com- pany, was made secretary and treasurer. The new board, by a majority of one, voted the president a salary befitting the office. These maneuvers resulted in a sudden manifesta- tion on the part of many to close out their holdings at once for what they would bring. “ Jingles” was becoming a trifle too uncer- tain for a joke. Esau Pitkin may have been somewhat startled at the astuteness of the poet presi- dent, but he was not to be "bluffed out of the game," as he remarked. As a utilitarian move he deemed it wise to keep on the right side of the young man, and with that end in view he invited Oliver to dine with him at his home. Since his father's death Oliver had been “out of it” socially, and at this time Mr. Pít- kin's hospitality was exceedingly welcome. He became a frequent caller at the Pitkin mansion. Esau Pitkin had a daughter, Ruth, whom Oliver had known since childhood; the two had grown up together and, as has been known to happen before in similar cir- cumstances, they were blind to each other's attractions by reason of long familiarity. Now it dawned upon the poet that Ruth was a beautiful young lady, gifted with a most pleasing personality, and straightway he fell in love with her. This love marked a turning point in Oliver's career; the poet within him was “born again," the intense yearning in his heart knew expression in his poems; his soul overflowed and his muse showered gar- lands of posies in his path; with lover en- thusiasm he wrote and wrote while the little god guided his pen. The affairs of the Bass Poetry Company began to “look up"; edi- tors scented a new genius and solicited copy. Here was a singer who sang from the heart; here were poems inspired! The demand grew; it outgrew the supply and prices soared. At the close of the second year the cor- poration had earned a net profit of sixty-five per cent. for the investors. The stockholders were dumbfounded. At the directors' meet- ing Mr. Pitkin hinted that the earnings were a “trifle too conspicuous," and suggested that it might be well to “water the stock a bit." The matter was put to a vote and carried. Two thousand additional shares were issued and divided proportionately among the stock- holders without the formality of depositing equivalent capital, the issue being warranted, according to the books, by “newly acquired interests," duly tabulated and itemized with fictitious securities. Also, at that meeting, it was voted—with a majority of one vote-that the president's salary be doubled. Flushed with the success of the corpora. tion and his sudden fame as a poet, Oliver 448 MARGINALIA 449 considered himself ready to broach the mar- riage question to Miss Ruth, and this he did with magnificent assurance. He was refused. Miss Ruth coldly informed him that she could never respect anybody who would pros- titute his art for sordid commercial gain, and that, no matter what might be her feelings toward him personally, she could never marry one whom she did not respect. A more crush- ing blow could not have been dealt to the over-confident president of the Bass Poetry Company. A depressing gloom weighed down upon the heart of the poet; the melan- choly permeated the few poems that he forced himself to write and before long the critics began to shout that another promising light in the literary world had dimmed; the poet had lost his magic touch; had succumbed to the dangers of over-production; had been blinded by success! Editors ceased to clamor for his work, and the business fell off until, at the end of the third year, there were no profits to divide, but instead, a deficit much larger than the first one. · The directors held a solemn meeting, in which it was found advisable, by the usual vote of two to one, not only to assess the stock to defray the out- standing debts, but also to issue bonds for the purpose of providing funds for the con- tinuance of the business. “Gentlemen," said Mr. Pitkin pompously, at this audacity, "you can issue bonds till the sea dries up, but who will buy them?" "I purpose to buy them myself if no one else does," replied Oliver boldly. “What?” gasped the old man. “Do you think you can freeze me out ? ” The expression of Esau Pitkin's face underwent a succession of subtle changes : from anger to bitterness; from bitterness to scorn; then gradually the hard lines relaxed until his lips formed a reluctant smile. “Ollie," he said, half meekly, and with a touch of pride in his voice, “there's my hand. You've shown yourself a chip of the old block. Any time you want a job as president of any company of mine, just call around. You fooled me; you operated like a professional, and I predict a great future for you. I see your little game! It's in your power to do what you wish with the busi- ness! I'll get out. I don't care a hang for the money—there isn't enough money in the whole she-bang to sneeze at-but what rankles is the way you came the all-hog act on an old moss-back who thought he was at the head of the procession! You've taught me a valuable lesson. I'll never play easy with a greenhorn again." When the latest development of the Bass Company became public, “ Jingles " dropped to within a few points of zero, and Oliver began buying. He gained possession of all the stock that the corporation had ever issued, except ten shares which Mr. Pitkin had pre- sented to his daughter as a birthday gift; these latter were not for sale. Upon learning of the precarious condition of the poetry company, Ruth Pitkin gave orders to her broker to buy up, if possible, all the bonds outstanding against the con- cern. This commission was executed without great difficulty, though Ruth had to deny her- self bon-bons for a whole month afterward in order to pay back the money which she borrowed for the purpose. The young lady's next move was to file a petition in court to have the books of the corporation examined. As a result the company was found to be in- solvent and was placed in the hands of a receiver. Then, in the natural course of the proceedings, all the shares that Oliver held were turned over to Miss Ruth to satisfy her claims, since she was the sole creditor. Oliver was at a loss what to do when con- fronted with this embarrassing predicament. Here he was, a young man still in his twen- ties, owned body and soul, practically, by the girl who had jilted him. As long as the charter was in force he could not engage in another business, for that document expressly stated that his brain was bound to the service of the Bass Poetry Company. If there were only some way of getting the charter an- nulled he would be free. How could he ac- complish this ? Fight it in the courts? He was penniless; besides, Ruth had political in- Auence which undoubtedly would bias a legal decision. On the other hand, if the charter were annulled, he would lose an assured living, for, according to the terms, he was entitled to bed and board at the expense of the corporation. What would the creditor do: feed him and keep him her slave, or dis- solve the company and let him starve to death? He was battling with this enigma when a knock sounded at the door. “Ruth!” he exclaimed as he admitted the visitor. “Yes. I thought I'd drop in to look over the works!” “ Exactly!” “I've been so busy with my dressmaker that I really have not had time to come be- fore. Is there any mail?” Oliver waved his hand toward his desk, which was heaped high with letters, papers and packets. “There's the whole shootin match! I haven't been in a mood to touch it for two weeks." Ruth seated herself and pitched into the task of opening letters. She worked furi- ously for half an hour, and then turned to Oliver and remarked: “ There are a good many bills here. Remember, in the future 450 AMERICAN MAGAZINE you are not to run up any bills in the name of the company. I will allow you a certain amount of credit for necessities, but I warn you not to charge up unitemized sundries.” “Ruth!” “Miss Pitkin, please.” “See here!” “Don't interrupt me, please; I must get this mail off my hands:" No word was spoken for a long time; then Ruth said: “How many letters there are from editors demanding your work!” "It's' all on account of that confounded free advertising I've been getting lately! The story of the bankruptcy has been copied in every newspaper in the country! I'm a literary curiosity now." "I see! Perhaps we could make the com- pany pay dividends again if we resumed operations ?” “What advantage would that be to me? You own all the stock ! ” “Of course I would allow you a salary- no, not a salary—that would be too risky. How would a commission of—say ten per cent. of all you earn, suit you?” “Ruth! This farce has gone far enough. I'm sick and tired of this whole mess! I tried to clear myself-I would have done so, too, if you hadn't stepped in and called for an investigation. I meant to redeem those bonds when they became due; then I in- tended to dissolve the company. That's why I wanted to get hold of all the stock. Those ten shares of yours spoiled everything! I want to be free! Money isn't my ambition ! All I want is the chance to do good work. I went into this scheme at the instigation of your father; I didn't realize what the conse- quences would be. I started out to be hon- est and honorable, but when I learned that I was regarded as a mere money-making machine, and placed in the same category with a slaughter-house or an oil well, I got angry; I resolved to pay back those investors in their own coin, and I did! I'm not sorry, though I don't pretend to consider my actions honorable from an ethical point of view. Now I am worse off than ever! How will it all end, I wonder!” "How would you like it to end?” “I would like it to end now!” “Ollie,” said Ruth, after an impressive silence, “I respect you for saying that; I have misunderstood you; I did not know that you were trying to reform." This being purely a tale of business, it is fitting to skip a paragraph or two dealing with love and reconciliation and simply re- mark that Oliver called at the Pitkin home that evening, and as Ruth and he sat before the grate fire in the library, they watched with eager satisfaction the burning of the Bass Poetry Company's charter. This event was to celebrate a new arrangement, a proposed partnership, entirely non-commercial. BEL VI Co ., “Of course I would allow you a salary—". Arthur Goodrich, Whose first novel, “The Balance of Power,” has just been published, has been a regular con- tributor to this magazine for two or three years. For a year he was the foreign editorial repre- sentative of this magazine and of the "Outing Magazine.' Earlier he was a member of the "World's Work” staff from that magazine's beginning, and its managing editor for three years. He is twenty-eight years old, a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Wesleyan University “A desperate and angry man with a rifle, his back to the roots and commanding all in front of him” -“ Old Noel of the Mellicites," page 550 AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOL. LXII, NO. 5 VOL. LXII, NO. 5 SEPTEMBER, 1906 An Awakening in Wall Street How the Trusts, after years of Silence, now speak through authorized and acknowledged Press Agents By Sherman Morse ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS both sides of a question, offered to publish explanations or denials from men under fire, advantage of the opportunity was seldom taken. Newspapers under the con- trol of those criticised refuted accusations with increasing frequency and directness, and in their news columns suppressed any- thing more than indefinite references to them. Independent publications, if they discussed such questions at all, presented what facts they could. Il MHE time is easily recalled when men at the head of great combinations of cap- ital were indifferent to blame. Because of the ineffectual criticisms aimed at them, their indifference was perhaps natural. But that was before the day of specific information, well circu- lated. In place of abuse and inaccuracies the public began to get facts. Instances of violations of law were presented, and expla- nations were generally demanded. Masters of finance whose ears were close to the ground began to realize that a new force had to be reckoned with. Still they remained silent. They were not yet driven into the open. Such men as H. H. Rogers remained unknown, even by sight, to most newspaper men. Evidence piled higher and higher, and for years remained unchal- lenged save by general denials sent out at rare intervals. Even when editors of careful newspapers, honestly desirous of presenting FIRST STEP TO STEM THE TIDE A BAD ONE It was inevitable that the corporations would take measures to stop the growth of public indignation to which their policy of silence had in considerable measure con- tributed, but the means they first took were disastrous. Newspaper men were induced here and there to color their “stories” and to influence other reporters to be friendly to powerful financial interests, but most re- porters and editors treated with contempt COPYRIGHT, 1906, IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN, BY COLVER PUBLISHING HOUSE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 458 AMERICAN MAGAZINE these chances at petty graft. It was the day of the anonymous statement when the man “who should be in a position to know,” “whose sources of information have hereto- fore proved reliable," "whose name for obvious reasons cannot be used” was quoted at length by reporters and editors who were willing to face the reasonable suspicion that some of the corruption fund had gone into their pockets. Striking use of this method of trying to reach the public by means of anonymous statements was made in the early days of the life insurance scandals. Because of inability to obtain direct information, even the best newspapers published the “news” as it was given out by friends of the con- flicting interests, but only for what it was worth-taking pains to explain to their readers that ulterior motives prompted most of the utterances. The purposes of the men engaged in the insurance squabble were served, but it was becoming more and more evident to “big men” that this system of trying to direct public sentiment was a shameful failure. How much money was wasted in this vain effort to buy their way into the newspapers is not known, but some “special expense" accounts were well up in the thousands before the men responsible for fooling away the money awoke to their folly. This attempt to gain unrighteous publicity de- feated its own purpose. friendly to most of the reporters. He treated them with consideration and frankness. What he said was presented with such directness and sincerity that it was neces- sarily reflected in the news reports. If a joint conference of operators and miners was held, it was his version of the affair which the public read, because it was the only version obtainable. It has never been charged that he misrepresented things, but facts, like figures, are open to varying inter- pretations, and may be made to indicate conditions that do not exist Therefore the public was influenced to sympathize with the miners, rather than with the operators. And because of this aroused public opinion the miners were assisted in their efforts to gain a few of the concessions for which they were contending. Had the operators and the other great financial interests involved in the struggle realized then as they realize to-day how far-reaching is the power of public opinion when fully aroused, it is reasonable to believe that they would have pursued a different course. Only within the last few months has there been an awakening. THE LOOSENING OF TONGUES LONG SILENT THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM “Mr. Baer is not here to-day. I'm sorry, but I really can't tell you where he is or whether he will be back. A meeting of the operators? I haven't heard of any; cer- tainly no meeting has been held in this office." Such was the insurmountable barrier of silence behind which the heads of the Coal Trust stood day after day while the whole country was in a fever of apprehension of the great strike of 1902. To reporters they had “nothing to say.” Newspaper men were denied admission to the presence of George F. Baer, the most powerful factor in the councils of the operators. It was almost impossible to obtain any reliable informa- tion regarding the plans or real sentiments of the operators. John Mitchell, on the other hand, was How different things were last spring when another great strike was impending! The Sphinx became talkative. News of importance and interest was easily obtain- able from operators as well as from miners. Ivy L. Lee, formerly a reporter on the New York Times, was openly employed as spokesman for the Trust. For weeks he carried on a campaign of education on behalf of the operators. Knowing just what the newspapers want, he was able to obtain the publication of many columns of matter favorable to the Trust, which, at the same time, had distinct value as news. It would be interesting to know the real weight of the pressure that moved Mr. Baer and his associates to depart from the established policy of silence. The first indication that there was to be a change came in an “authorized statement" to the city editors of newspapers throughout the country by the Coal Operators' Committee of Seven, consisting of George F. Baer, W. H. Truesdale, J. B. Kerr, David Will- Ivy L. Lee Formerly a New York Times reporter, now publicity man for the Coal Trust cox, Morris Williams, E. B. Thomas and J. L. Cake. STATEMENT FROM BAER! EXTRA! EXTRA! papers through Ivy L. Lee. He will also answer inquiries on this subject and supply the press with all matter that it is possible to give out.” Consider this from the man who four years ago admitted that he was the master of the coal production of the United States! And the results justified the con- cession. The newspapers, weary of anony- mous interviews and underhand methods, welcomed the change. Newspaper readers recall that almost every day while the “The anthracite coal operators," the announcement stated, “realizing the general public interest in conditions in the mining regions, have arranged to supply the press with all possible information. Statements from the operators will be given to the news- 460 AMERICAN MAGAZINE struggle was in progress there appeared statements of the operators' view of the situation, as well as that of the miners. The miners have admitted that the cam- paign of publicity carried on by the opera- tors was the most ready weapon used against them. give to the public almost as satisfactory an account as if they had been present in person. They were but human if they recalled their troubles of four years ago, when they were confronted by all manner of difficulties in obtaining mere scraps of information, and but frail if they were more inclined to give the operators the oppor- tunity they sought of presenting to the public their side of the controversy. PLATFORM OF A PRESS AGENT . THE TRAINING OF THE GAS MAN At the same time Lee sent to city editors a declaration of principles. These princi- ples reveal the position that will have to be taken by all publicity agents of corporations if they are to make a “go” of their business. “This is not a secret press bureau," said Lee. “All our work is done in the open. We aim to supply news. This is not an advertising agency; if you think any of our matter ought properly to go to your business office, do not use it. Our matter is accurate. Further details on any subject treated will be supplied promptly, and any editor will be assisted most cheerfully in verifying directly any statement of fact. Upon inquiry, full information will be given to any editor con- cerning those on whose behalf an article is sent out. In brief, our plan is, frankly and openly, on behalf of business concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about. Corporations and public institutions give out much informa- tion in which the news point is lost to view. Nevertheless, it is quite as important to the public to have this news as it is to the estab- lishments themselves to give it currency. I send out only matter every detail of which I am willing to assist any editor in verifying for himself. I am always at your service for the purpose of enabling you to obtain more complete information concerning any of the subjects brought forward in my copy." The Consolidated Gas Company of New York, which includes all of the gas and electric lighting companies in Manhattan and the Bronx, and is controlled by Stand- ard Oil interests, was among the first corpo- rations to abandon the underground line to publicity. A few months ago it proclaimed that Robert E. Livingston, for twenty years on the staff of the New York Herald, would be in charge of a publicity bureau organized in the company's behalf. W hile Mr. Lee serves various clients, Mr. Livingston has an eye single to the Consolidated. He demonstrated his ability to fill such a position by his work as a reporter for the New York Herald. He is extraordinarily resourceful. When the Herald received a cable message from its correspondent in Martinique that pictures and a detailed "story" had been forwarded to New York by a tramp steamer, Living- ston was assigned to meet the vessel. After spending several days on a tug outside of Sandy Hook, he finally sighted the tramp late one afternoon-just in time to get the photographs to his office in time for publi- cation the next morning if he met with no delay. Running alongside the vessel, Livingston hailed the tramp's skipper, only to learn, to his chagrin, that the captain had no photo- graphs or anything else for the Herald; in fact, he did not know that he was expected to be the bearer of a letter or pictures. But he had a pouch of mail from Martinique aboard, and in it Livingston was convinced the precious pictures were buried. His appeals to the skipper to open the pouch were laughed at; and the time within which the pictures could be rushed to the office for use in the next morning's issue was growing dangerously short. It was a situation discouraging and hope- THE MILLENNIUM AT HAND FOR REPORTERS The work of the reporters assigned to the coal strike “story” was vastly simplified Instead of being left in doubt, even as to the place where a meeting was held, they were furnished a complete report of the proceed- ings by Lee within a few minutes after the meeting was ended, and were enabled to Robert E. Livingston For twenty years on the New York Herald, now in charge of the publicity bureau of the Consolidated Gas Co. less, but Livingston's resources were by no means exhausted. Racing against time, he ran his tug into Sandy Hook and was able to get into telephonic communication with a man high in the post-office service. Red tape was ruthlessly slashed, and before the tramp steamer reached the Quarantine station off Staten Island Livingston was again alongside her and this time armed with the authority of a post-office inspector. It was a matter of seconds for him to open the mail pouch and to race up the bay with the first pictures to reach New York of the destruction of St. Pierre. He had not only proved his ability to press one of the most conservative arms of the government into the immediate service of his paper and himself, but quite as a matter of course he had risked a long term of imprisonment by violating the strictest pro- vision of the sanitary code in boarding a vessel before she has passed Quarantine. 461 462 AMERICAN MAGAZINE And unconsciously he had incurred an even greater risk in thus boarding the vessel, for as soon as she was inspected suspicion was aroused that there was bubonic plague aboard. She was held up in Quarantine for a week, and had it not been for Livingston's the time of the Lord Dunraven charges growing out of an international yacht race a dozen years ago. How he obtained this information is not even an office secret, for Livingston did not disclose the source of his "beat" even to his superiors. SARAN J. 1. C. Clarke, press agent for the Standard Oil Company Mr. Clarke, born in Ireland in 1886, came to this country in 1868. He was for years managing editor of the New York Journal. He was Sunday editor of the New York Herald for three years. He is the author of several plays and stories HOW THE DARK LANTERN CAME TO DIE OUT resourcefulness the pictures would not have been delivered until long after other photo- graphs had arrived, and their value to the Herald would have been all but lost. Another of many “beats” which Living ston had to his credit when he abandoned newspaper work to become publicity agent for the gas interests was the obtaining of a transcript of the testimony taken by a com- mittee from the New York Yacht Club at Livingston has been especially useful to the gas interests since the state law limiting the price of gas in New York to eighty cents a thousand feet was defied by the lighting combine. There has been no less criticism of the gas companies because of Living- ston's connection with them, but at the same time his employers have frequently been AN AWAKENING IN WALL STREET 463 same length of time he was managing editor and part owner of the Journal while that newspaper was conducted by Albert Pulit- zer. He returned to the Herald as editor of its Sunday edition four years ago and remained in that position until about a year ago. Meanwhile he had written several successful plays, “Robert Emmet, a Trag- edy,” “The First Violin,” “Her Majesty; Lady Godiva.” Lately he dramatized “The Prince of India,” which has had a remarkably successful run in Chicago and is to be presented in New York next winter. accorded a hearing in the newspapers to present what they had in the way of defence of their position. In striking contrast with this situation was the attitude of all newspapers at the time of the investigation of the lighting com- panies by a legislative committee a year ago last winter, when Charles E. Hughes devel- oped a "moral certainty” that all the gas and electric lighting companies of New York are controlled by the same interests into legal proof that such is the fact. Instead of fighting in the open, the gas interests, while under investigation, em- ployed a semi-secret agent who was paid for a few weeks' work as much as a first-class reporter could earn in a year, on the theory that he could influence the reports of the hearings and obtain the publication of “statements” from day to day in contradic- tion of the evidence wrung from unwilling witnesses by Hughes. Few of these “state- ments," however, were published, and the employment of Livingston to act as the acknowledged publicity agent of the lighting companies was a direct result of the utter fail- ure of the dark lantern method of procedure. PAUL MORTON'S PUBLICITY MAN H. I. Smith is another reporter who has recently become a publicity agent. He was employed on a Cincinnati newspaper when he was sent to Martinique at the time of the eruption of Mont Pelée. By his work there he gained a reputation which landed him in the Washington bureau of the New York World under Samuel G. Blythe, the World's great correspondent in that city. There he gained the esteem of Paul Morton to such an extent that when Morton became presi- dent of the Equitable Life Assurance So- ciety Smith accompanied him to New York. ENGAGEMENT EXTRAORDINARY! RESULTS WILL BE INTERESTING But the greatest surprise of all was the announcement a short time ago that the Standard Oil Company, most mysterious and silent of corporations, had employed a press agent. J. I. C. Clarke, for forty years one of the most prominent newspaper men in New York, is the man retained by the Standard. He is supposed to be receiving a salary of $20,- 000 a year, but even at that figure he is not far ahead of Livingston and Lee. Only four officers in the Gas Trust get salaries greater than Livingston's, and Lee's fee for what he accomplished for the Coal Trust would have been gladly accepted by almost any lawyer in a litigation of equal importance. Mr. Clarke's usefulness to the Standard Oil Company remains to be proved. It is through him that the company has issued denials of the truth of charges brought against it this summer. But so far his appointment is significant as evidence of the company's belated willingness to discuss its affairs. Mr. Clarke is sixty years old. He was employed in various capacities on the Herald for a dozen years, and for the The new plan has not been in effect long enough to enable one to foresee its real meaning. At present it is simply interesting. Much depends upon whether it results in disclosing all the facts in which the public has a right to be concerned, or whether it results merely in obtaining for the corpora- tions greater publicity for such facts as are directly favorable to them. N ewspapers throughout the country have favorably received the change. One im- portant newspaper says: “This is a day of publicity and the press is the means of com- munication. Whenever any public or quasi-public organization tries to conceal from the people that which the people think they have a right to know the people grow suspicious and are apt to imagine the worst. It is always best for corporations to be frank and open in all their dealings, and so long as they behave themselves they need have no fear in taking the public into their confi- dence,” The Transgressor The Story of a Mother's Afternoon 1001 By Margaret Busbee Shipp 2 y dear Mrs. Lambeth—I til fear that I have shirked 3 an unpleasant duty in not calling your attention before to your son's conduct at A school. His violations of discipline have been serious and repeated, and matters came to a climax this morning, when Mrs. Mayhew wrote that she must withdraw her little daughter from school unless Richard be expelled I wish to call at four this afternoon to con- sult you regarding this matter. Very truly yours, MARTHA R. RODMAN. The immediate result of this note was to bring the letter which Anne Lambeth was writing to an abrupt conclusion: “I can't scribble any longer to-day, dear- est. If I wrote on for an hour it would just be one cry—I want you so—I need you so!” A woman demanded that her boy should be expelled; his teacher had postponed the ordeal of telling her of Dick's bad behavior. What could he have done? Mrs. Lambeth shut her ears to war whoops and the banging of doors; she shut her eyes to roller-skate scratches in the halls, to bruises and bumps that fairly flaunted Dick's frequent conflicts, even to the singed hair that betrayed his unsuccessful attempt to climb her four-posted bed while balanc- ing a lighted candle on his head. All her force was concentrated on two rules of con- duct: Be truthful, be clean. As to the former, she had no fear. She smiled as she thought how squarely Dick's honest blue eyes met hers, when he made his con- fessions. But the other—that touched the world where she could not follow-she, his mother, could not follow her little lad of eleven. The boys who told unclean tales, questionable jokes, whose minds were eager to acquire knowledge of evil, how could she distinguish these among the crowd of Dick's playfellows-alike in blue serge and torn stockings? She was beset with vague, indefinite fears, which had lain dormant hitherto, but which had been hidden always in her heart since first her man-child was laid in her arms. They loomed up now, still formless, but threatening, powerful, nearer. Captain Lambeth, an officer in the Navy, was beginning a year's sea-duty. When he was at home during the autumn, his wife had consulted him in regard to sending Dick to the graded school. “He thinks Miss Rosa's is too babyish for him. I've been reading the advice of a prominent sociologist, who advocates the public schools, but I'm afraid of the con- tamination.” “Well, everybody has to run the g of measles, mumps and chicken-pox. I don't see any use in guarding Dick from them.” “I meant moral contamination, you goose!” Her husband had laughed at that, and his laugh was such a buoyant, whole-hearted affair that all her perplexities were swept away on its tide. “Don't bother your dear heart about Dick, he's going to come through all right. Hasn't he the finest head you ever saw ?" Mrs. Lambeth promptly and enthusiasti- cally agreed to this—for the hundredth time. Outsiders had never expressed the same opinion; they proceeded no further than the superficial observation: “Did you ever see such an ugly shock of hair as the Lam- beth boy has?' So stiff and sandy!” 464 THE TRANSGRESSOR 465 Oh, if her husband were only here now, ard's conduct has become insupportable. when things were not “all right,” and when I have taught five years in the graded she felt inadequate to cope with possible school, and in all that time,” her words complications! came slowly and emphatically, “I have She had been so afraid that a boy raised never had any pupil who talked as much as by a woman might be effeminate—"sissy,” Richard Lambeth.” as Dick called it—that perhaps she had “Talked!” repeated his mother in a voice swung too far to the other extreme and had of incredulous happiness. “Only talked! granted him too much freedom. Dick sold Oh, thank God; thank God!” a weekly magazine on the street to earn the She burst into tears and buried her face money for a bicycle. She encouraged foot in the cushions of the sofa. Miss Rodman ball, baseball, hunting, swimming, gymnas- waited in rigid disapproval. Small wonder tics—though she understood the emotions that Richard was ungovernable when his of Barrie's Mary: mother hysterically thanked her Maker that her son had upset the equilibrium of the “ But how she suffers that he may achieve! I have seen him climbing a tree while she Fifth Grade! stood beneath in unutterable anguish; she Anne mastered her paroxysm quickly, but had to let him climb, for boys must be brave, her face, radiant through its tears, looked but I am sure that, as she watched him, she somewhat as it did on the day the cable- fell from every branch." gram came after the battle of Santiago, Anne longed for Dick, but on Thursdays when the anguish of suspense was ended he always went from school to dine with his by the blessed monosyllable, “Safe.” grandmother. Restlessly she sought the “Forgive me—what must you think? nursery. Her two little girls were drinking But my husband is away, and I am so often tea demurely from tiny, rose-sprigged cups, alone I grow fanciful. I was afraid Dick placed alternately to their dolls' lips and had done something—worse.” their own. She looked at the spotless white Miss Rodman acknowledged this lame dresses, their dainty ribbons, their carefully apology by a slight inclination of her head. brushed hair. “There may be worse things than upset- A dry sob caught her throat: ting an entire grade for months, Mrs. Lam- "O Christ, Thou knowest I could not beth, but that is sufficiently bad. Richard love one of these precious little ones more is punished, but nothing affects him-he than another--my equal blessings, my begins to buzz as soon as he returns to his babies! It is a difference in kind, not de- seat. I have never whipped him”—an gree, that makes my soul yearn over my son ominous gleam in her listener's eyes caused as it cannot over my daughters. They are Miss Rodman to continue hastily, “because so sheltered, they will be kept safe from I have never believed in temporary physical barm or hurt or stain-their father and I subjugation as a corrective measure. He stand between them and all the world, the has established such a record as a pugilist world where my man-child must go alone, that he has cowed many boys into following and I can follow him only with my pray- his lead who had previously given me no ers!” trouble. For instance, the day after the She started as the door-bell rang, and hur- election, the superintendent came into my ried back to the sitting-room to greet Miss room to hear the boys recite ‘The Battle of Rodman. Ivry.' It went off correctly until they It was a most unworthy emotion, but reached the last line, where Richard had Anne Lambeth was conscious of an instant privately coached them to make an addi- dislike to that placid young woman, to her tion: immaculate shirt-waist with its crisp col- “Now glory to the Lord of hosts from lars and cuffs, to the straight line of her lips. whom all glories are- “I never saw such a mathematical mouth And glory to our sovereign liege, King in my life,” thought Anne. “She doesn't Henry of Navarre! look as if she could say anything more And glory be to Roosevelt, hurrah, hur- human than nine times nine!” rah, hurrah!' “I regret to trouble you, Mrs. Lambeth, “It was delivered with such tempestuous but I feel sure that when I shall pass to enthusiasm that the superintendent was be- specific instances, you will agree that Rich- trayed into laughing, which lessened the 466 AMERICAN MAGAZINE effect of my subsequent reproof. And Rich- children should have the regular course, but ard says the most unexpected things— " under the circumstances I think it would be “He certainly does,” concurred his expedient for Richard to join Mr. Curtis's mother. class." “In his grammar lesson for Monday, How doubtful a venture she thought it, mention was made of the proper use of the her tone conveyed. But Anne was de- terms, “To be continued, etc. Richard lighted. seemed to be paying unusually close atten- “Mr. Curtis—the University quarter-back tion, and suddenly he burst out: ‘Wouldn't the boys like so much? How fortunate we it be fine if babies were born marked like are to have his work among us! I'll see him that on the bottom of their feet? Then at once about transferring Dick." Fatty and Susie and Polly and Snooks Her enthusiasm made Miss Rodman's Thomas would have been marked to be manner a degree more glacial, so in com- continued,' and Lizzie would have been 'to punction Anne tried the thawing effect of a be concluded,' and the baby'd be “the cup of tea. end!'” Mrs. Lambeth tried to preserve a grave demeanor, while she determined to add a Three small boys in the ailantus tree postscript to her letter. watched their teacher as she went down the “I brought a jar of honey to school the front walk and out of the gate. other day, to show the Nature Reader Class “Gee! It's her!” exclaimed Fred Allen. the construction of the honey-comb. Rich Snooks Thomas twisted himself around ard exclaimed, though of course he knew the branch for a better view. better, ‘Preserved wasp-nests! You reckon “Betcher life you're goin' to ketch it, all the wasps are dead?' Though I repeat- Dicky-bird! She always tattles when she edly reassured the children and ate some comes." myself to substantiate my statement, some “B’lieve I'll go see,” said Dick. His voice of them were afraid to come near it, and was puzzled-and his conscience clear. Gladys Mayhew insisted that a wasp had As soon as he reached the front door, the stung her tongue!” other two climbed down and followed, partly “Is she the child whose mother objects from curiosity, partly from the human de- to Dick?” sire to be “in at the death." Dick, leaving “If you choose to put it so, Mrs. Lambeth. all doors open behind him, as was his wont, Gladys is in the spelling class with Richard. made straight for his mother, and deposited She dissolves into tears every time she is a kiss that savored of licorice on her cheek. tripped, and Richard has laid down the law He always kissed her when he came in. His that no boy shall go above her. So she stood father did, so Dick felt that it was the manly at the foot of the girls, and all the boys in and proper course for naval officers, and he the class were below her. I was completely meant to be one. at a loss to understand the boys' poor les “What'd she come for?" sons, until I received Mrs. Mayhew's note. Mrs. Lambeth delayed a moment, coun- Her son is in the same class, and Marma- tering his question with hers: duke finally tripped his sister. Whereupon “How did you get so muddy?” Richard fought him twice, giving him-he “After dinner me and Fred went to the told me with his own lips-'an extry lickin, creek back of Grandma's, and Mother, we 'cause he was a mean pup to make his sister made the bulliest dam! It's most two feet most bawl her head off!' The result is that high, and I caught a spring lizard and two Gladys, who is lazy, keeps her place, while little crawfishes for my 'quarium, and Fred Marmaduke, who is ambitious, is kept back caught a whopper and I swopped my knife because intimidated by Richard. I spoke for it—the one with one blade broke, you of this to Mr. Curtis, who professes a great know—and Ed Hunter he come up and said interest in your son. He is a theorist rather he'd gimme two gold fishes for my air-rifle, than a practical worker, I think, and he is and I told him I was goin' to wait 'til spring perfecting a plan to select a class of twelve and shoot bull-frawgs with that rifle and sell boys for experimental work. He has a fad their legs, and I could buy all the gold fish for outdoor instruction and little restriction. I wanted, let alone his old pair, and he said Naturally, most parents prefer that their I couldn't hit a pond much less a frawg, and A PRISONER 467 then we fought, and I reckon that's how some mo' mud got on, 'cause it was red clay there, and then Fred— ”. Anne stopped the full tide of his words with a kiss. It was all sweet to her, but she didn't wonder that poor Miss Rodman found it an unendurable “buzz," and she determined to do something for that young woman's pleasure to atone to her. “Dick, you've worried your teacher by talking too much in school. Just as you tried to protect Gladys from the other boys (though it was in a mistaken way, dear). you should have tried to protect Miss Rod- man's busy hours from vexation.” Her own hour of suspense came to the surface with the impetuous question: “Dick, you have kept your promise to your father?” “You mean about not talkin' ugly? Yes’m. He said if I wouldn't 'til I was four- teen, I'd have too much sense after that. I think it's silly, anyhow. A d, Mother, can't I shoot bull frawgs? How much'll they pay for legs, and had I better sell 'em here in town or send 'em to a city?”. “Why, your grandmother and I like them so much, we'll buy every one you shoot,” she promised. “Run back to the boys now. To-night I shall tell you what a fine plan Mr. Curtis has.” Her arms closed tight around him, his happy, eager face, his candid eyes, had never seemed quite so dear. “Oh, Dick, I love you so! I love your eyes, and your mouth that's just like Dad's, and I love the precious freckles on your nose!” At the crack of the door, Snooks and Fred looked at each other. Snooks sniffed and broke into profane speech: “Ain't that the doggone outbeatingest scoldin' you ever heard in your life?” A Prisoner By Theodosia Garrison rison His youth was like that mariner of old, Keen with the daring that makes dreams come true Who steered a course courageous to those new Strange lands that ever beckoned to the bold; To whom adventure was a cup of gold From which the valiant, thirsting spirit drew That wine of singing life, the old gods' brew, To make their heroes glad with strength untold. This was his youth triumphant. See to-day How life hath thrust him crippled 'neath her bars Of ceaseless toil and sordid hopes and gains- A prisoner of Fate who needs must stay With dulled eye turned forever from the stars, A bound Columbus weighed by many chains.. : The Younger Generation By E. S. Johnson WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSEPH STELLA B ST had been a romantic runaway match, and this their first quarrel was fast and furious. Gracie posted herself behind the sewing e machine-where Mary Carini's blue cashmere dress lay unfinished and prepared to fight it out. Gracie was blonde, small and agile, pretty, and eighteen. Crimson of face, with tears of fury checked upon her lashes, Gracie ignored a herring which fried immoderately upon the stove. Casimir stopped in the act of pulling on his mine boots. “Why wouldn't I go in a milliner store if I wanted to ?” he demanded, visibly ruffled. “I ain't sayin' I did. But why wouldn't I take an interest in the styles, if I like?” -"A married man ain't got no business runnin' after— ". “Say it!” shouted the accused one. “Say it, I tell you. Say what you mean if you talk to me!” "— Hats,” concluded Gracie lamely. The gray eyes flashed an appealing look at him; a faint, wistful smile lurked be- tween the corners of her lips. But the master of the house was fairly roused at last, and reconciliation became for the time impossible: the herring was destined to yield up its incense to the fiery end. “You think — " began Casimir thickly. “You think I n Utterance failed him: hurt pride, right- eous anger, the tenderness of past weeks, the fury of love disdained, brought his Slav blood to boiling point. Yet there was nothing to say, nothing to do. The overwhelming fact confronted him that acie was jealous and said outrageous things. What part was there left a man to play ? He stooped and pulled on the other shoe. He was old, of course-much older than Gracie: but the experience of twenty-two years had somehow not provided him for this emergency. A Casimir Naktis of the old style say his uncle or his grandfather, Russian born and bred-would have closed the incident with boots, the poker, and the broom-stick. But Cass Knight, who had grown up in America, passed a mine-fore- man's examination, and voted for Roose- velt, was distinctly at a stand-still. The rigid limits of the American code of man- ners left him no corrective powers. “I don't think nothing of your taste, I must say,” Gracie went on. “I never seen nothin' in those thin, long-necked, black-eyed girls." Cass Knight the Americanized could only glare. “I'd better 'a' listened to ma,” gasped the girl, terrified at her own daring, but venturing further with each desperate charge. “She said you wasn't particular -you'd put up with all kinds—all the Naktises would. She said you was marry- in' me 'cause o' pa's ownin' so many houses an' things. She said — ". “You shut up.” Casimir's brevity was grim. . Theuntempered rage and pain of Gracie's heart broke out in a flood of wild invective Lithuish, Polish, English; crimes possible and impossible, failing of man, beast or demon, were not spared from the list. The boy husband swung around the corner of the table to stand facing her. He was very pale and his eyes were ugly. Gracie dodged. “Who's hittin' you? I ain't.” He took his dinner can from the chair and stood swinging it. There was a tense pause. “I'm goin'. I'll be late to work,” he said finally. “It's kinda early for her to be down there," raged foolish Gracie. “You wouldn't hardly expect her to be down to the shop before half-past six-not unless you'd thought to tell her to expect you, I mean!” 468 470 AMERICAN MAGAZINE spring sunlight, the young man saw only that February twilight of their return. Snow in the street, snow on the path, snow on the fence—the sag of the broom handle on his shoulder, the parcel of meal on his right arm, the rocking-chair and the frying pan on his left—the echo of Gracie's laugh- ter, the challenge of Gracie's poise as she fumbled a door-key still strange to her fingers. Then they had made tea over his mine-lamp, and dined gloriously in the fireless room on cheese, a loaf of bread, and baker's cookies. Afterward, by the wavering flame of the little tin lamp they had begun an enthralling conversation, which dropped insensibly away from Eng- lish as Gracie accepted half his last cookie with the old-world acknowledgment: “ Asz tavé bucziou visada” (I kiss you all the time). “She said you'd have to buy a loaf of bread in the morning, 'cause there's only enough for your can.” February dropped into memory. The child's voice brought back the present with its incomprehensible dead weight of Mrs. Walconitis pain. It was May. The peach-trees were in bloom, radishes and onions all a-row the hooks in the closet. It was a bitter in their garden beds, violets banked against quest. the fence where the snow had lain: and He came out again to the kitchen, where Gracie had gone from his house because his the child's presence gave him a certain bread and salt were bitter in her mouth. “She cried awful hard, she felt bad," “She ain't here," he admitted. lied Francie valiantly. Young as she was, Francie raised wistful eyes. “I wisht something in her heart responded to the she'd come back. She's my petikler friend, desperation, the sullen pallor, of the boy Gracie is. She told me to get the kettle bridegroom. hot for you every day by two o'clock, an' “I don't believe it. If she felt bad she I said I would.” needn't to have gone. She went because No answer. she chose to, that's all.” “It's not nice here no more. It gives “Honest she did! She cried awful. And me a kind of a funny feeling inside, like her ma said to come along or you'd be I was hungry or somethin'. Kinda hungry gettin' home from your milliner shop. to see her, you know. Did you ever have Have you got a milliner shop, Cass? I'll that feelin'?" tell my mamma to buy my new hat off of The master of the house glanced over you, if you have. So she said alright, she his shoulder into the deserted room. Every would; and she fixed the fire an' put on her piece of furniture had its history. There hat an’ tied up Mary Carini's dress in a flashed back upon him a bit of the past, bundle to take to her, an' kissed me good- with the gay improvidence of that first bye an’ went away. I think it's her ma, week after their marriage. It was one of you know. I think her ma makes you an' the days when the cook-stove had not me a regular nuisance don't you say so?" come, and he had scoured the mine-black Casimir set his teeth. A slow, smoulder- from his face with ice-cold water and gone ing anger began to glow behind the mists up to town with Gracie to choose a table of his grief and perplexity. He swore and chairs. aloud, one of his rare, all-embracing male- Staring with puckered lids out into the dictions. THE YOUNGER GENERATION 471 " “That's cursing,” observed the matter- matters stood. And if the child were of-fact child. “You always swear in right? Pain and hope struggled together. English, don't you? Say, can you swear . as big as that in our language? I don't The Walconitis home was at the end of believe so. Say, do you swear 'cause you a long row. A crowd of neighbors and want Gracie back? Or 'cause she went boarders sat about the front door. The away?" lamp from the living-room shone through "I want her, all right,” the boy admitted the doorway upon Mrs. Walconitis, en- with a miserable laugh that was half groan. throned in the centre of the scene. Gracie, “No, I don't, either—not unless she wants foolish, unhappy heroine of the occasion, to come.—Oh, yes, I do too! Whether she sat inside peeling potatoes by lamplight, likes it or not I'd keep her. If I got my tears, potatoes, and parings falling into hands on her now, I'd learn her who was the same kettle. boss! Oh, I dunno— From a convenient shadow, Casimir “Then you'd better wash up an' go an' listened while his mother-in-law discoursed tell her she's got to come home. Ain't upon his character. His wife heard too. you her man?" “She does not say nothing!” gasped poor Francie leaned forward, head aside, Casimir in Lithuish. “This is said about hands on knees, a gnomish, earnest little her man and she does not speak a word! figure in magenta gingham. The boy's Alie! all lies! An' her to set there, an' wide gaze met hers full, but the grand listen, an' shut up like as if it was true! motherly wisdom of her advice was lost Oh, I'd show her!” upon his senses. Grief mastered him; Gracie, in truth, had protested until shelter he must find. He staggered to his courage and endurance failed; but the feet, entered the house, and shut the door. most vehement denials, effecting nothing The silence of the empty rooms drove except to stimulate new and more atrocious him out again after dark. The kettle charges, she had at last taken refuge in had boiled itself dry and the fire had gone silence. All the company there present out before he thought of cooking; bananas, had heard her defense as well as her mother's boiled beans, and yesterday's loaf raised slanders. She would let them choose for no desire for food. Supperless, miserable, he carried food and water to the chicken- coop, then wandered up and down the little garden. Memories followed every- where-foolish, happy, torturing snatches of the last eighty days. The garden was haunted: he retraced his steps and sat upon the kitchen door- stone. The peach-trees glimmered pale in the soft darkness; talk and laughter came from near-by houses. Only two days ago, as he had sat there pretending to sleep, Gracie's starched dress had rustled nearer, and Gracie's fingers had locked beneath his chin. But everybody knew by this time that the runaway bride had repented her bargain and become a runaway wife. Casimir groaned aloud in his solitude and clenched his hands. At twenty-two, to be a broken, a dishonored man! Drawing his soft hat far down upon his forehead, he opened the gate and hurried up the unpaved street. Ere he had gone far, Francie's last advice recurred to him, “Wash up and go tell her she's got to come hone.” Perhaps not that exactly; but at least one might go down and learn how Mr. Walconitis 472 AMERICAN MAGAZINE themselves, one story against the other: him and the final stroke, when Death she could do no more. Casimir, however, should walk the dark lanes underground. had not arrived in time, the entertainment Some time they would give her back to having proceeded at full swing for three him—at a suitable bargain. Some time hours and more; and Casimir, of all the she would come back to the five-room group, had failed to hear some justice done house, cook, laundress, sewing-girl-mother the absent husband. and nurse, perhaps—his lawful drudge. “Go back to him? Oh, perhaps so, Blushes and shy laughter, mirth, hope, some time,” continued his mother-in-law, and a high heart, they could not give again. in answer to a question from one of the Things may be stolen that are not weighed boarders on the bench. "I suppose so. and measured. What they had taken A good Catholic as I have raised her to from his life revealed itself utter loss. be. And of course so pretty a girl has to Yet at the worst-she did not wish him have some sort of a husband: you know dead. Fickle, shrewish, suspicious-trai- how things go, this side of Paradise. But tor and runaway—weak daughter of a not in a hurry, I tell you! Let him pay heartless woman:-all these reason named for his fine furniture himself, and get tired her. But then, for weeks, for weeks, she of that black-eyed claybank heifer of his. had loved him! Then when he eats alone and washes his clothes and sweeps out his house and buys At dawn, Casimir turned homewards. his food for himself without a word or a Scarcely conscious of his night's wanderings, look from anybody, he will come to his he yet obeyed the call of the early whistles. senses. He can come here and crawl on The instinct of generations, the imperative his face to my door. I will kick his fore- duty of labor, drew him to the little house head first and ask what he wants afterwards. to put on working clothes. Then we shall see what terms he can make. He ate a handful of the cold food in- There's no hurry. Gracie can help me differently and placed what was left in his with my work and take in dress-making. dinner can. His mine lamp, too, had to She can earn her living here as well as at be filled. All being ready, he started down his house.” the path but turned back. To-day of all “You are hard on the young sprig,” days he would not go early to work. They observed Gracie's father from his couch should be free, those others, to stand about on the cellar door. “You have got an the air-shaft and speak their minds on his ugly tongue, boba (old woman). He is affairs. not so bad. Now I know him long, long; He was still sitting in the doorway when and always I rather like him, too, even if the postman brought him a letter. He he does run away with my daughter." knew instinctively whence it came. His “A good thing for everybody if he would heavy heart leaped, then lagged again. blow himself up in the mines to-morrow. Thus to receive a first letter from Gracie! Yes, I say I hope it!” It was very brief; and all about money, "Shut up!” commanded her husband despite certain tear-stains. peremptorily in English. And Gracie, hearing the wish, crossed Cass, you think I don't do what is fair but herself and cried out, terror in her face. I will do them. Your Pay all you give me “Oh, not that, not that!” and other money is in the bank and the book is under that box where bread is where no Casimir heard and saw, and stole away one cant find it. I go home but I will make in the darkness. Half his fury turned to dresses all the time and I will give you the yearning pain. At least she was not quite money on that furniture to help pay. Becaus heartless, his girl; at least she wished him it is so expansive. Take care and save your Pay. dont Waste none of it no great ill. She had grown weary of him, Yours truely forsaken him-lied with her mother's GRACIE. tongue against his good repute-shamed by deed and word and now by silence a Cass Knight studied the single sheet white nameless glory that had dwelt, even intently. Then he folded it, laid it care- yesterday, upon his hearthstone. The magic fully in the drawer of the kitchen table, and had gone out of life for her too—that he went upstairs. From the pocket of his felt; but even yet her prayers stood between best clothes he emptied what ready money THE YOUNGER GENERATION 473 he had, and counted it. His next pay only I can't stop to fool no longer with the would not come for four days, and the Welsh. 'Bye, Evans. 'Scuse me, won't money in the bank he could not bring him- you?” self to touch; but this would do. Cass walked off down the gangway, . "Two-eighty-five," he announced to the stepping with exaggerated precision be- bare walls. “That's enough, I guess tween ties. For all the details of work A gallon o' what Stacey keeps goes a long his head was clear enough, his hands and way." feet quite tractable, his senses keen. Only He turned and went downstairs, his tread a something neither of the intelligence nor echoing drearily through the silence. Coat, will experienced the effects of what he had lamp, dinner can—then out, away, any drunk. Somehow, the rule of habit, the where, to work, to smother thought. abiding purposes of life, seemed to be lost. The quarrel had begun on Wednesday, Whims, fancies, strangest crochets of the and it was Thursday afternoon when brain, came to take their place. Casimir brought home the whiskey. His Yet through the morning, as he cut his sewing machine canvass, one of several coal and bade his Italian laborer do this undertakings which went to supplement or that, he was repeating to himself an his monthly wages, was overdue, but he exchange between the footman and the dismissed the matter with a shrug; for the boss which his ears had caught. “I thought time, at least, he could not face a chaffing, he let it alone. I never saw Cass drunk gossiping world. Forgetfulness he must before.”—“Sure. But they say his wife- have. He shut himself into his dreary that girl he was so stuck on-everybody house. wondered could it last-well, she " Promptly on time on Friday morning, His thoughts buzzed and whirled about Naktis reported for work. The inside the words; sometimes he half forgot their boss stood beside the footman at the land- meaning; and again he knew and would ing in Marcy vein as the men left the cage. not think. Withal, his work did itself He inclined a critical ear to the perform with painful rapidity. He finished and ance of one who was singing. went up with the first eight men at eleven. “You're drunk, Knight.” “I know it. If you was me. I guess Little Francie, faithful to her charge, you would be, too. Just begun on a gallon slipped through the fence at one o'clock o' Stacey's damnedest. Got a dose in my to light a fire. Casimir was already there. can, too, any time this wears off.” He sat at the kitchen table, chin supported “You ain't fit for work. You go home.” on his hands, heavy eyes staring at the wall. “No, thanks! 'Home, Sweet Home '— Jug and glass were at his elbow. say, I might smash up the sweet home if I “Hello,” he said, recognizing her. was back there now." . “My, you're early, Cass!” Her little “You're no good, I tell you. Get out o face expressed a grandmotherly solicitude. here! Get out o' here, I say! You're “I wasn't 'spectin' you, 'cause you wouldn' fired, Cass. Come back to-morrow an' hardly ever be done your work till the I'll give you your job back again. Under- afternoon.” stand? You get right back up where you “I don't want no hot water. I washed belong." up good enough out at the hydrant. I'm “No, you don't,"returned the tipsy miner, busy bein' a tank, I am. You run home; flourishing his can and starting down the your ma wants you.” gangway to his chamber. “I ain't too F rancie stood still; her lip quivered. drunk to work. I ain't goin' to lose a day. The grief and loneliness of the past few days My God, ain't I bought a house full o' would not down, fight as she might. She furniture on the installment plan? Say, broke into tears. don't you butt in, Evans. You're a good C asimir stared dully for a moment, then fellow-nice, tidy, intelligent fellow for a reached out and drew the child to his knee. mine boss—knowed you all my life—but The eldest of a family of eight, he had them wheels in your head gets to squeakin' soothed weeping babies as long as he could when you don't grease 'em. Say, you run remember, and Francie sobbed comfortably up to the engine-room an' ask Ed: he's got upon his shoulder. plenty of oil, an' he'll fix you up. I would, “There, there. Listen to me, Little 474 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Bean. Don't cry, don't cry; I didn't mean hard-drawn breath, tore at his own hurt. to frighten you. Hark! I can tell you The pain which had seemed to sink and something. Pay day comes this week: sink, slipping to a depth infinitely far off what shall I bring you that is nice? Say whence it could scarcely touch him, surged what, for I have lots of money. There, up anew to stab his heart. Presently he don't cry.” could bear no more. He set the child down. The soft staccato of the Lithuanian “There, Blossom. Don't mind what I vowels fell upon deaf ears; Francie locked said. You're a good girl. Run home now; her arms about his neck and sobbed the Gracie isn't coming. This is no place for Cass Knight little girls to-day. You come and play with me another time. Too much whiskey in that bottle now. Shut the door after you." harder. It was long before her grief found words. “Everything is bad, everything is nasty!” she moaned. “I want my Gracie, but my Gracie is gone. My mother is gone away till to-night and they've drownded all my kittens. And I burned my finger. And now you are drunk, too, Cass, and you smell so nasty. Oh dear, oh dear! And everything used to be so nice! That thief of a Gracie has stolen all the fun.” Casimir laid his cheek against her fore- head and petted her into quiet. The clutch of her hands on his collar, her tears, her Shortly before two o'clock, Francie, still tear-stained but resolute, reconnoitred the length of Graham Street from the hill-top. Mrs. Walconitis in her best hat was walk- ing away toward town. “I hate her,” announced the nine-year- old with venom. “I'll get even with her some time. Now you just watch me fix that Gracie!” The magenta gingham sped down grade. THE YOUNGER GENERATION 475 Gracie, working furiously at the sewing affairs. Francie made her choice; she ing machine but listening between heart spoke in English. beats for the sound of footsteps—footsteps "No, he ain't died. Come on, quick that did not come heard a shrill childish -quick, I say! The two feet of him is scream. Francie was upon her like a cut off!” catamount, clawing, hugging, writhing. The child had steeled herself to bear some “My Gracie! My Gracie! Quick! outcry and wild lamentation as a matter of Come on home quick! Your ma's gone out; course. Instead, things were unexpectedly come on before she gets us. It's—it's Cass!” easy. Casimir's wife, despite her Slav Francie Casimir's wife gave a wild cry. Ashen fear was on her face. “I seen the amb’lance. Come on-do be quick!” “What—what?" “He was awful drunk when he went to the shaft this morning," began Francie. She paused and eyed her victim with shrewd calculation, revising the story which was to "fix that Gracie.” “You mustn't be cross at him for drinkin', will you? He told me last night he just had to." Now a good lie well told is a splendid lever in controlling the machinery of human blood, merely set her lips and took the blow in silence. After a moment she bent her head with arms extended along the machine table. “Christ forgive me, it's better'n I de- serve!” she moaned. “Cass, Cass-my poor boy! Oh, come on; we must go.” It was a terrible run through the clear may sunshine-up-hill, across the fields by the footpath-by the railroad tracks to Klingel's Patch-down one hill and up another-past Mill Hollow shaft, around by the corners and the silk mill; and down the length of Cinder Street. The child 476 AMERICAN MAGAZINE was left behind at the first stretch; and though to her, watching, it seemed that Gracie sped like one with wings, Gracie herself found the road endless, her speed the unhurried pace of night itself. There was no stir about the little house. The door was shut. Under the peach-trees, pale, frail petals lay upon the grass. Ah, the dear, dear place! Very quietly, she stepped into the kitch- en. The fire was out, and Cass's mine coat lay upon the floor; otherwise all was as usual. She peered into the front room: it was empty. But in the bedroom some- thing-some one-she opened the door, falling upon her knees. Upon the bed lay Casimir. His face and arms were clean, but he had not changed his mine clothes. The jug and glass were propped in the crook of his elbow. A strong smell of liquor hung upon the air. And, whatever might have happened to his feet, unquestionably he had worn hobnailed boots to bed! “You go home, kid,” spoke Casimir thickly. His face was turned away. "Didn't I tell you you wasn't to come near me again to-day? You go along home.” “Neera,” the girl answered, just above a whisper-“Neera" (It isn't). . He groaned. There followed a moment's silence. “I most thought 'twas her," he said. “Don't you try no tricks on me, you little devil. I don't feel like foolin'. It's so awful easy to fool me, too. But I tell you I don't feel like it. Your ma wants you." “Casimir!” He sprang up with a great cry. The room surged and whirled about him; with one hand he braced himself against the wall. A flame of intelligence, of hope, blazed for a moment across his swollen features. Gracie, seeing, sprang upon his breast. “My girl! my girl! It's my girl back again!” His arms drew her closer though the two swayed perilously. “No, I won't be fooled. I don't believe it! I don't believe it!" “Your girl comes back.” “Talk English. No, I don't believe it, no way. Somethin's foolin' me-a dream, maybe. My head ain't right. Just a dream. Say, your mother's a devil, Gracie. How'd you sneak away on her? Only you ain't Gracie, so I guess you don't know her.” “Your girl comes back.” “No,” said Casimir. “No, she ain't.” He knit his brows in the effort to under- stand; his knees gave uncertainly, so that the two were within a point of falling. “D'you think I wouldn't know it if she was? Whose was she? Well, then! But I tell you this here house is empty. There ain't nobody here but me." “I run so fast, so fast, all up hill. And I come to you, Cass. I come back. Just to see you, to feel you. Do you understand, do you hear me? Nothing else can hurt us now. But without you it was a pain like those in hell.” Casimir stared down at the blonde head upon his breast, clasped the slight figure yet more firmly, tightening merciless arms. The dream was strangely like reality. “Talk English,” he commanded thickly, “because I got to think. Oh, say, it's that whiskey, that's what it is. Stacey's would put wheels on any fellow, wouldn't it? 'Twon't last long. I wisht it would. It's the whiskey.” “Me got no English.” “Greenhorn!” he responded instantly, and bent to kiss her hair. The numbed part of his brain kept watch upon his action, wondering. How was it that, when knowl- edge and judgment were gone, when one's very self seemed dead or sleeping, memory flashed out the silly, simple formula so readily? To remember that was easy enough. But to think, to try to think, was another matter. Who was he, anyhow? And the little impish, ugly thing that sat inside his head to watch the world and keep count of the whiskey and observe how Casimir Naktis got drunk? — And Gracie? Who was Gracie ?-Well, it was all very puzzling. ... “You-you remember?” “I remember. There are some things we do not forget, you and I. And if you talk our own language to me, perhaps I -Because you know such hard words in English — such a scholar — and you seem ". “ --Not real. There, I cannot feel her hands any more. She is not real. A dream. Just a dream. Gracie said I gave her work and a beating, work and a beating, so she went away. Gracie went away. Nothing can change that. Whiskey can't change it. Go away: it troubles me that you are only a dream." THE YOUNGER GENERATION 477 alle ping you make you listen to e n hou jou he has not really can hear ise "I am not real? Whether I am not real, arm's length, gripping her shoulders hard. Casimir?” Then he shook her, shook her for a long "— I was down there; I stooped down three minutes. behind the fence and I heard her mother When it was over, the girl laughed. His talk. 'Everything for him and nothing arms fell powerless; whereat she laughed for her, the pig-eyed scamp.' Stop, stop! again, lifted a crimson face, and clung to What are you doing? Take your hands him anew. off my shirt! This is no time to listen to “If you was only to do that–in the first the heart beat. Keep your hands off, I place!” say!-you-you won't ?-Gracie, Gracie!” “But-but-what was I doing? I might “Whether I am not real, Casimir?” have hurt you. You are so little : what Then after a silence—“I can hear it just could you do against me? What was I as always; it pounds so hard. And listen. doing!” (Can you hear me when I talk softly, “I don't care if you did.” Cass?) Well, I cannot hear a single beat By a mighty effort, Cass pulled his about any milliner woman; I guess she was scattered wits together. all a lie. But it has a most sensible way “Gracie-my girl—you can see how it of beating.—You are so still. Are you is. I ain't fit-you can't tell what I might listening to what I say?" do—just for awhile. Gracie, 1-oh, you “God, yes! My girl! my girl.” want to go away from me, just yet. I'm “ Then- But you do not seem glad." drunk—I'm crazy drunk." Casimir bent his head. “I am. But, He had spoken in English and with almost, you hurt me. Why is that? It is labored distinctness; but Gracie's palm like a great pain-as if it would choke me.” brushed his lips, Gracie's breath was soft “Children's talk. ' It does not hurt me. upon his throat, and Gracie's whisper came Ah, there, my hair is caught on that button! in the old homely tongue. And I shall smother here, I am sure. Oh, “I do not care! I do not care! Not if for shame, for shame, not to take off your you killed me I should love it. Do what mine clothes when you come home! Did you will. Do I care what happens ? What you make my face all black ? Look and is there that I do not deserve? Only, I see.” stay with you. Even if you send me, I Blushing, laughing, with a soft flame will not go away. I am here; I do not go.” in the gray eyes, Casimir's wife raised her And in the silence following, old hurts face for examination. Casimir looked. were healed, old scores faded away and “It's—nearly clean.” were forgotten. As by a miracle, that “English again! Who wouldn't quarrel nameless glory that had gone out in anger with him? Do you-do I choke you now kindled itself anew and shone within their with that great pain?" house. Feeling its splendor, Casimir Nak- The reality grew very real: Casimirtis, son of peasants, put his wife gently gazed and gazed, and the weight of his arms from his arms. hardened to iron. “ Casimir, I tell you I will not go!” “He does not believe I have come back," He met her look with a smile. whispered the girl. “And listen! He keep “You bet you won't,” he returned crisply. Friday; there are no kisses served out on “That's it. I'm goin' to try the hydrant; that day.” She raised one hand and struck I've got to sober up some, haven't I? I him lightly across the cheek. “Take that can't be playin' off no circus clown stunts - priest!” round the house, now you're here. Say, The man gasped. I'd hate to have you see what a fool I can "You! You! Oh, I need to teach you make of myself with just some whiskey! who's boss!” Oh, I won't be long." The proof had come. With sudden Hecrossed the room quickly, if unsteadily; fury, Casimir Naktis held his wife off at the door latched behind him. A “Bad Man” Who Made Good By Edwin B. Ferguson son ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAIT MONG the many appoint- Belve m ents of the President that have raised issues and drawn criticism was * the nomination five years ago of Benjamin Franklin Daniels for the office of United States marshal of Arizona. The President has a faculty for raising issues. The issue raised in this case was whether a man who had once been convicted of a criminal offence was a fit man to be a chief executive officer of the Federal courts. After the appointment was made, had gone to the Senate for confirmation, and had been confirmed by that body, it de- veloped that Daniels was the same Daniels who in the early days when Wyoming was a territory had been charged with raiding the government corral at Camp Carlin near Cheyenne with two or three com- panions and stealing a bunch of mules. He had been convicted and had served a term in the penitentiary. The writer has reason to believe that, had the exact truth about that escapade appeared at the time, Daniels would have been cleared. But mitigating circumstances did not con- cern his political rivals nor the “good” people that uphold our morals. Daniels had been to the penitentiary and the stigma was upon him. Get into the penitentiary yourself, gentle reader, and see how nice the world will be to you when you come out. The rumpus was so loud that the President cancelled the appointment-and at Daniels's own request. But the issue had been raised and the President was on his mettle. The ques- tion was not what bad tales could be told about Daniels, but whether Daniels, here and now, was a man of qualities such as make an efficient United States marshal. The President happened to know Daniels and he was convinced that Daniels was the man. Accordingly, last March, he again appointed Mr. Daniels to the mar- shalship, and, since the appointment has been again confirmed by the Senate, Daniels is now a fully commissioned officer. “What do you think of him, anyway?" asked the writer of a prominent member of the Arizona bar. “First rate man for the job.” “And what does the bar in general think?” “Same thing." “Is he a man of force, is he the proper man to look after the business of the United States Courts in a district where smuggling, land grabbing, Indian, Mexican and Chinese troubles, cattle and mining disputes make that business a somewhat trying one; or, is he the kind that sit in a swivel chair and chew cigar stumps ?” “Have you seen Ben Daniels's eye?”. “Well? I thought it was his ear that was missing.” “Well, my friend, Ben Daniels is a very quiet man, an exceedingly quiet man and he never hunts trouble. But if I were to get into a row with Ben, I should figure this way, namely that whatever move I made I would make it with the idea that Ben was going to stay in the game. We have had marshals that got more often into the local papers, so that we could read of them, “Mr. Blank is now leaving town to take care of his duties in connec- tion with the coming term of court at Prescott' or 'Mr. Blank has gone to Nogales for the purpose of handcuffing some smugglers there,' and I notice as regards Ben that he doesn't talk to the press very much. Also that, on the other hand, he isn't very good at delegating all the work to his deputies. If it's charges you want, I might allege such things against him. But really, take it all in all, and apart from these little shortcomings-- which he may outgrow, you know-there 478 A “BAD MAN” WHO MADE GOOD 479 doesn't seem ers — father to be much was from Vir- ground for ginia, mother complaint." from Ken- But the tucky. Never writer had knew much assumed the about my role of inquis- mother. When itor and as I was a mere such must baby, the hold his man cholera came guilty till and took off proven inno- seven of us, cent. This including my testimony was mother. They far from satis- laid me out factory. He for dead, but would see Mr. somehow I Daniels for came to and himself. He fooled ?em. had to wait a Then, when I while, how - was eleven, ever, for the my father, marshal was with four of engaged just us children, then in tak- left the place ing a convoy at Ottawa of Chinamen and struck tothewrecked out over the San Francisco plains for for deporta- Kansas. We tionandinget- travelled in ting wrecked wagons and himself to- we brought gether with up at Prairie the prisoners City. We while aboard lived there Benjamin Franklin Daniels the train near for a while, San Jose. Place of honor and responsibility but it wasn't When, finally, long before, Mr. Daniels was found at the court boylike, I got ambitious and started on house in Tucson, he was indeed in a my own hook for Texas, going into the swivel chair, and was smoking a cigar-a cattle business. It was during this cow- big, broad-beamed, square rigged man boy experience that I first ran against the with an eye that seemed to be kindly Indians-Kiowas and Comanches. They enough and nothing particularly belligerent used to raid down from Fort Sill and steal about him unless it was the sheen of red our horses." that played upon his brown hair and droop "How did you feel when you shot your mustache when the sun struck them right. first Indian?" This was as it should be, for a good mar- “Don't want to talk about it. I don't shal should be both Irish and a wee bit like the idea of killing anybody.” red-headed, that is, he should have latent “When you were marshal at Dodge belligerence. City, Mr. Daniels, you had rather a lively “Yes, I'm a middle Westerner,” said time, didn't you?” Mr. Daniels. “I was born near Ottawa, “Yes, passably. You see the Civil War Illinois—my father had a farm there. But was over and the rag-tag and bob-tail both my father and mother were Southern- from both armies were getting in there. 480 AMERICAN MAGAZINE It was new and thriving cattle country- free range and there was a good deal of rough práctice among the cow men. It was also being settled rapidly and there were several small wars, as you know, that had to do with the location of county seats. All in all, 'twas probably the 'bad- dest' town out West at that time. Bat Masterson, now deputy marshal in New York, could tell you something about those times. Yes, the West was new then. Buffaloes were so thick on the plains that you had to get out an’ shoo 'em away in front of a wagon. “Yes, I've been a sheriff and a marshal, and an express messenger and several more kinds of a policeman in my time.” “Ever have a lynching?” "Nope, never happened to. I always told 'em that, if they came after us, I'd arm the prisoners an' turn 'em loose, and we'd all fight it out together.” "How did you come to be a Rough Rider?" “Well, I guess it was those yellow news- papers that really got me interested. I was in Cripple Creek at the time and I used to read that Rocky Mountain News, and learn how Spain was going to an- nihilate this glorious republic of ours, and it all seemed to me a good deal of a joke. So, when I heard that the Rough Riders were being organized, I took train for San Antonio and tried to enlist-I say tried, for the recruiting officers wouldn't have me at first. They said I was too big for cavalry. But I schemed round, saw Mr. Roosevelt and Colonel Wood, and, finally, they took me.” “What do you think of President Roose- velt ?" "Finest president we ever had, and I'm proud to be his friend!” In fact, the admiration of the man Daniels for the man Roosevelt is almost youthful in its ardor. There is a legend that Daniels saved the President's life at San Juan by shooting a Spanish sharp- shooter who was in the act of shooting the President. But Daniels said nothing about that. The President, too, is equally ready with his praise of Daniels and in a letter written to Senator Clarke of the Senate Judiciary Committee tells how Daniels was always at the front in an emergency, how he nursed his comrades when they were down with the fever, and how, when himself a very sick man, he was employed in conducting on foot to the hospitals in the rear the carts containing the fever- stricken. The President has been accused of partiality to Rough Riders, anyway, and the accusation may be somewhat just. Yet, how can the spirit of “civil service reform" be better realized than by getting into office the men that are most compe- tent to do the work the offices impose? And, in so far as appointive offices are concerned, how can a president better judge a man's competency than by know- ing him through intimate personal con- tact? Such appointments are in quite another category from party preferments in compliance with a "spoils system” and are in another category, too, from appointments based solely on the ability of the candidate to answer the questions on a printed slip. Mr. Daniels is a son of the old West- the old, red-shirted, six-shootered West- and he is also a graduate into the new West — that anomalous new West with a "culture” which, in spots, is held to outshine Boston, and with a sober, per- sistent industry that daunts at no labor at all. The new is the out-flowering of the old and the stages of growth are all still to be discerned. It will be well for us to have for our servants men who know this West from the ground up. What is wanted in political servants is competent men, not machines, men of the very best efficiency. They should be chosen for efficiency, and for that only. Mr. Daniels makes a good United States marshal be- cause he knows the kind of men with whom he has to deal and because he deals with them humanly, firmly, with neither false sentiment nor bravado, but “on the level.” Chicago's Five Maiden Aunts The Women Who Boss Chicago Very Much to Its Advantage By William Hard ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS OrgGHE more democracy there Calcos is in a city the more power- le ful will its women be. ✓ Once upon a time, not so very long ago, an official of the City of Chicago was e lunching with three women. To maintain the historic privilege of his sex, he was telling them his troubles. They, recognizing his rights, were sympathizing with him. But suddenly one of them, in a manner most un historic and unbecoming went straight through all frills and tucks to the very heart of the trouble. “Why not take those garbage teams right out of politics for good ?". The city official laughed. “Try some- thing easy,” he said. “The garbage teams are pretty nearly the last piece of pie for our friends the politicians. The civil service law has gobbled up almost everything else. Would you deprive Pat White of his last hold on the game? And it's a matter of good citizenship, too. There wouldn't be anybody at all at the primary elections if you took the fearless garbage-team drivers out of politics. I'm afraid you'd better work up gradually to those garbage teams They're the climax.” The women were unconvinced. As La Rochefoucault said, “Women haven't in- tellect enough to be terrified by the im- possible.” Faith is their forte. A week later the Mayor issued an order to the effect that thereafter garbage teams should be hired on their merits. The horses should be chosen for their weight and health and not for their political convictions. No one in Chicago had hoped to live to see that day. How was the trick turned? It was per- fectly simple. The three women had gone to see their friends and their friends had gone to see the Mayor. Their argument was unanswerable. Political teams didn't collect the garbage. Children died of typhoid fever. Political teams were slow murder. It is hard to face a woman and excuse slow murder. “There's Mary McDowell,” said a prominent politician the other day. “And there's Margaret Haley and Julia Lathrop and Cornelia DeBey and Jane Addams. Did you ever have a maiden aunt? Well, Chicago has five of them. It's lucky for us they never got married and had children of their own. We'd have been cut out. But now we're in it right. They have to look after somebody. That's their nature. And so they look after the whole city of Chicago. If Chicago has a sore throat there's one of them running for a flannel bandage and if we work too long at night there's always another of them coming around the corner with a child-labor law to stop it. If they didn't look after us, who would? I tell you, you ought to write them up some day. There's not another city in the country that's got five maiden aunts, healthy and active, worrying about it all the time." S o here, dedicated to the genial boss who himself is a cause of extreme worry to the ladies he so much admires, is the story he suggested. A conscientious aunt naturally has to spend a good deal of her time keeping the peace among the members of her family and bringing their childish quarrels to a happy end. The packers and their em- ployees, for instance, at the time of the strike of 1904, had to be separated by force after they had become so interested in punching each other's heads that they couldn't think of anything else. Cornelia DeBey did the job that time. There was no particular reason why she should. She was no intimate friend of the union leaders. Mr. Armour she did not even know. She had no more standing in 481 @ NA ON SAW INS w WA SAS Miss Margaret A. Haley Instigator of the franchise tax figit and a leader in the municipal ownership movement Miss Mary McDowell A trade-union organiser among women and a force for peace in times of strike the situation than any other individual ought to do was too much for him. That among several million innocent spectators. night he saw Mr. Donnelly, the president Having no standing, she secured a letter of the Butcher Workmen. The strike of introduction and went directly to Mr. was ended. Perhaps anybody else could Armour. The letter was taken in to him. have ended it. But Cornelia DeBey was She followed it. When Mr. Armour fin- the sole possessor of the necessary amount ished his reading of it he looked up to see of conviction. standing beside him a very slight woman, There was another woman, though, who with very delicate features. She might had a good deal to do with that strike. have seemed a candidate for a convent if Mary McDowell's settlement, founded by she hadn't been careful, as usual, to wear the University of Chicago, stands on a sad a man's collar and tie and a fedora hat. street that leads desolately to the great From this unexpected visitor Mr. Armour stockyards gate where hundreds of men learned that he was responsible for a great every morning look vainly for the opportu- deal of suffering among women and children nity to earn a living. in the stockyards district. The strikers Once during the strike there was a great were whipped. They were willing to come massmeeting of the members of the union. to terms. But as long as Mr. Armour re- Miss McDowell sat on the platform. The fused to see their leaders there would be no union leaders, as they arrived, seemed to peace. His obstinacy might be no worse take her presence as a matter of course. than theirs but it was less becoming. When they had finished making their Besides, it was easier to corral him and talk speeches there were calls for Miss Mc- him into submission than it was to do those Dowell. She was known to be a friend. same things to 50,000 enraged working. In fact, she was more or less of a trade-union men. organizer herself. She had gathered the Mr. Armour submitted. He had read stockyards girls into that embattled fem- the newspapers with equanimity, but a inine society known as “First Woman's strange lady who knew exactly what he Local Number 183 Amalgamated Meat 482 Miss Julia C. Lathrop Member of the State Board of Charities. Single-handed she reformed conditions in the charitable institutions of Minois Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.” But Miss McDowell's speech was all about the loyalty the men owed one another in their fight for better conditions and about the injury they would do one another by acts of violence. There was no rant in it or hatred. The union afterwards printed little cards advising its members to cultivate their families instead of the saloons and warning them that they would arouse public sympathy for the scabs if they incautiously inflicted physical pain on them. During the course of that summer the number of arrests, instead of rising, dropped. It was the most peaceful summer the stockyards had ever known. The Superintendent of Davis Park, a few blocks from the stockyards, was once being complimented on the unmarred and intact appearance of his outdoor gymnastic apparatus. This superintendent, as was natural in a Polish and Lithuanian district, was an Irishman. “I don't know how it is,” he said. “They told me this was a rough neighborhood. But I don't lose 483 484 AMERICAN MAGAZINE anything. And nothing gets hurt. I guess classes by means of an impartial distribu- it's a woman that lives around here, Miss' tion of garbage awaits some future Na- McDowell. She seems to be it. She poleon. came over here on opening day and told Settling strikes and preventing rowdy them not to lift anything. And they ain't young men from walking off with the giant lifted anything that I know. I guess she's swings of public parks are duties congenial got them buffaloed.” to the peacemaking disposition of women On being informed she had buffaloed the in general and of aunts in particular. But people of her district, Miss McDowell the Union Traction Company arouses evil seemed resentful. Even now she is dubious passions in the gentlest breast. And it The only failure Miss McDowell's per- is partly because of the Union Traction suasive charms have encountered was when Company that Margaret Haley is not widely she besought the Commissioner of Public regarded as a pacific person. Works of the City of Chicago to dump Margaret Haley, who is as Irish as garbage on the pavements of one of the Cornelia DeBey is Dutch, began her busy city's most exclusive residence districts. career in Chicago by making the Union Plump, jolly, blue-eyed and Scotch, Traction Company pay a lot of taxes which well-fitted to be an aunt for any group of it had always forgotten to pay and which two million people, Miss McDowell showed the taxing authorities had never been dis- up at the City Hall one happy morning agreeable enough to bring to its attention. with ten or fifteen Polish and Lithuanian But women have a way with them. They ladies in tow. She wished to offer a re- bridge over a social difficulty of this kind spectful remonstrance on the subject of with ease. garbage. The Director of Garbage, was Miss Haley was a school teacher, the dumping hundreds of tons of it in the holes leader of the Teachers' Federation. The in the pavements of her sphere of influence salaries of the teachers had been cut. The around the stockyards. Why this dis- reason given was lack of money. Why a crimination ? lack of money in a city like Chicago ? The Director of Garbage asserted that Among other explanations Miss Haley he was a benefactor of the stockyards discovered the Union Traction Company, district. After a year or two the odor of the gas company, the electric light com- the garbage disappeared and then the pany et al. They were paying no taxes on people had lovely pavements instead of the value of their franchises. big holes in front of their houses. And Miss Haley went down to see the State the garbage had to be dumped somewhere. Board of Equalization. They didn't like Hence, however, Miss McDowell's far- her. They said afterwards that with a reaching suggestion. If garbage was a woman in the room it was difficult to smoke fine thing for pavements in the stockyards at ease and that their embarrassment made district, why not in Hyde Park? The Polish them nervous and irritable. But here was and Lithuanian body-guard cordially sec- a case for feminine tact. Miss Haley onded the motion. Dump 'about three went to the Supreme Court and secured a thousand tons of garbage in the bad places mandamus. She brought this mandamus in the pavements in front of the homes of back to the State Board of Equalization our very best people. Result: a new and and shared it up among the members. improved system of garbage removal for They were at once mollified. They levied the city of Chicago inside of a week. franchise taxes on all the public utility It looked reasonable. And Miss Mc- corporations of Chicago. And they have Dowell looked charming. But there are continued levying from that day to this. limits to the daredeviltry of even a munic- Little Miss Haley has added several million ipal ownership administration. To put dollars to the income of the city of Chi- the nostrils of Hyde Park and of the stock- cago. yards district on a par would be to reduce But the tax fight was only the first taste all parts of the city to the same uniform of blood. The next thing Miss Haley did dead-level of mediocrity and would destroy was to circulate municipal ownership those picturesque contrasts which now petitions. She was not satisfied now with make life worth living. So Miss Mc- getting taxes from the Union Traction Dowell's ingenious plan for unifying social Company. She thirsted for its extinction. Miss Jane Addams Head of Hull House. Perhaps the best citizen of Chicago And she had learned things about it which in between he couldn't do better than to induced many people to agree with her. take the personal history of the little Irish Those municipal ownership petitions school teacher who five years ago was so were the first drops in the heavy shower ignorant of politics that she was surprised that has been falling on the traction com- to learn that such a body as the State Board panies of Chicago for now five years. At of Equalization was in existence. first they were sure it wasn't going to rain. This spring Miss Haley was a member All that they could see were a few medicine of the steering committee that managed men, a woman among them, beating tom- the aldermanic campaign for the adminis- toms and trying to conjure up a storm. tration. The number of municipal owner- Now they are looking for a water-tight ship aldermen in the council was increased submarine. And if anybody wants a by seven. Of course it was an amateur thread to all the events that have happened committee. The Mayor had been deserted 485 Dr. Cornelia DeBey A physician by profession; by avocation an educator; a member of the Board of Education by the real committee of the Democratic party. The Municipal Ownership Ad- visory Committee took its place. When the campaign was over and the new munic- ipal ownership aldermen had been elected Miss Haley had enjoyed a stretch of prac- tical political experience to which perhaps no parallel can be found in the history of any other woman in any American city. But enough of traction. Even a Chi- cagoan sometimes gets enough of it and, if coaxed, will pass on to other subjects. Which is a remark naturally leading to a few words about Julia Lathrop. Miss Lathrop is the only Chicagoan who has managed to keep completely away from traction. But that is probably because she started out to reform the charitable institutions of the state of Illinois. She will be kept busy at that task till even the traction question has had time to get settled. When Miss Lathrop first became inter- ested in public affairs the privilege of mal- treating the inmates of the poorhouses and insane asylums and hospitals of the state of Illinois was invariably conferred upon such gentlemen as had shown themselves most proficient in carrying primary elections. Miss Lathrop investigated. She breathed the air, ate the food and slept in the beds 486 CHICAGO'S FIVE MAIDEN AUNTS 487 of the charitable institutions of Illinois. Then she saw to it that the results of her investigations reached the newspapers. But they always reached them indirectly. Miss Lathrop has a large stock of fern- seed or whatever it was that enabled mediæval magicians to make themselves invisible. Hundreds of articles were writ- ten on Illinois charity scandals when the authors of those articles themselves did not know that they were using information originally quarried by Julia Lathrop. On a few occasions, however, they caught sight of a skirt disappearing around a cor- ner and at last a city editor said: “There's been a lot doing about asylums for the last few days. Julia Lathrop must be in town. Go down to Hull House and get an inter- view from her.” Having been decoyed into the open, Miss Lathrop was made a member of the State Board of Charities. As she was unde- niably a woman, the Governor tried to play politics right under her nose. This was a personal insult as well as a dastardly attack on the welfare of thousands of help- less sick and insane people. Miss Lathrop resigned. But she also wrote a letter The wards of the state had been abused, neglected, forgotten. Miss Lathrop's letter helped to transform them into the main issue of the last state campaign.. That campaign is over now. Miss Lathrop is back on the Board of Charities. There is a prospect that lunatics will cease to be beaten in Illinois and will be given a chance to get well. Such work cannot be spoken of frivolously. But perhaps it is because of a reaction from the gloom which oppresses her field of labor that Miss Lathrop herself can be fully frivolous enough for ordinary human life. Of all reformers that ever reformed she is least a nuisance. When she comes into a news- paper office, as she does infrequently, the tired editor has a good time. He has so often been bored into doing his civic duty that he welcomes an occasional coincidence between civic duty and a good story. And Miss Lathrop never comes in unless she has a good story. It has been fortunate for the unfortunates of Illinois that they have had a wit for their champion. But this story has got ahead of itself. Sickness and poverty and feeble-mindedness come more or less toward the end of life. There Miss Lathrop is on guard. But all previous periods of existence have likewise their dangers, and for each period Provi- dence has provided the necessary amount of feminine intervention. Miss Addams leads off with a distribu- tion of pasteurized milk for babies. From this point on the Chicagoan is under a suc- cession of beneficent feminine influences until he is finally committed to Miss La- throp's care at Kankakee. Having been nurtured on Miss Addams's pasteurized milk, the Chicago boy enters the school system. Here again he en- counters Miss Addams. She is a member of the Board of Education. So is Cornelia DeBey. Both of them will leave their mark on the educational system not only of Chicago but of the whole United States as well. If the Chicago schoolboy tries to run away from school, he impinges on the com- pulsory education law. This law is a monument to feminine lobbying. If the Chicago schoolboy runs away a second time he impinges on the juvenile court and is handed over to a probation officer. This system is another monument to feminine lobbying. And for years the women of Chicago out of their own endeavor raised the money for the salaries of the juvenile court officers. If the schoolboy tries to work before he is fourteen or tries to work more than eight hours a day before he is sixteen he once more enmeshes himself in a barbed wire fence thoughtfully erected by his sisters and his cousins and his aunts. The child- labor law, like almost all other laws bear- ing upon the earlier years of life in Illinois, is indissolubly connected with the labors of the women of the state. The first Chief Factory Inspector, charged with the en- forcement of the child labor law, was Mrs. Florence Kelley. The trouble with upsetting anything that these women try to do is that they not only have emotions but facts. The low nature of the male animal can overlook emotions but it has a stupid reverence for facts. Once Miss Addams went down to Springfield on the request of a committee of the state legislature to argue for an amendment to the child labor law that would prevent the appearance of young children on the stage at night. “But, Miss Addams,” said the attorney for the theatrical managers, "you haven't 488 AMERICAN MAGAZINE seen these plays.” This remark of his government had condemned the bulk of was a clever shot in the dark. He had the population of Russia. As long as this heard that Miss Addams was a “reformer" policy continued there was no hope either and he sapiently assumed that she didn't for Russian or for Jew, either for persecutor go to the theater. In about ten minutes or for persecuted. Race hatred and race he was sorry that he was such a profound warfare would accomplish nothing. The analyst of human character. Miss Addams trouble was deeper. There must be free- had not only seen all the plays he could dom for all. The Russian and the Jew mention but she had followed the children must unite to secure the only form of gov- from the stage to their homes and she knew ernment under which both could live in all about their affairs. The amendment peace and in happiness. Their common was passed almost without debate. enemy was ignorance and slavery. The habit of attending plays is not a All these things Miss Addams said in her discordant note in Miss Addams's life. usual manner, her shoulders slightly stooped, Like all of the greatest of the great, she has her head thrown slightly back, her hands in her a note of the universal. Selecting folded in front. By far the best public beautiful pictures for the walls of Hull speaker in Chicago, she discards all plat- House, founding a co-operative club-house form artifices. When she had finished her for young workingwomen, conducting a speech on Russian freedom, the people on famous political fight against a corrupt the platform were dubious. She had alderman, bringing out young people with spoken well. But she had expressed no a talent for painting or for music, toiling detestation of the Russians. And she had on the Board of Education, providing a conceded no superiority to the Jews. She stage at Hull House for local dramatic had spoken of them just as she would have societies, shaming the city into enforcing its spoken of any other group of human beings. health laws by publishing a study of the The people on the platform hesitated. causes of typhoid fever in a tenement dis- But the people in the audience recognized trict-all these things and a thousand the ring of true metal. The applause that others engage her daily attention and yet burst from all quarters of the house was her writings show an intimate familiarity worth waiting years to hear. It rose and with novels and with poetry. Action and fell and rose again, and again. It had in it taste unite in her. Yet they are far from that quality of reverence which can seldom forming the total. They are simply the be discerned in the barren clapping of instruments of her majestic and yet gentle hands. But before it was well under way character. The difficulty in writing about Miss Addams was on the street, making her is to seem judicious to those who do toward Hull House and her work. not know her. John Burns just saw her There was a learned professor that night and broke out with the impulsive remark at Hull House. He was talking about the that she was the first saint America had Drama to an uplifted audience. He knew produced. more about Ibsen and Hauptmann than Shortly after the Kishineff massacres there almost anybody else. When he sat down, was a large sympathetic mass-meeting in a there was a discussion. This discussion West Side theater. Jane Addams was the wandered along on its noble and tedious last speaker on the list. The men who way till a vulgar interloper addressed the preceded her did not spare the bloodthirsty Ibsen authority and wanted to know if he Russians. Neither did they omit a single didn't think that the twenty-five-minute virtue in their description of the character vaudeville sketch might be developed to the of the Jews. Their efforts roused the point where it would have the same honor- audience to yells of approval. When Miss able relation to the drama that the short- Addams rose there was a hush. As story has to the novel. The Ibsen au- she went on with her speech the silence thority doubted whether such a develop- deepened. She spoke of the stupid laws ment were possible. He hadn't attended which had confined the Jews to a com- very many vaudeville performances, but mercial life. She spoke of the commercial from what he had seen he was inclined to vices which had irritated the Russians. be sceptical. The vulgar interloper felt She spoke of the ignorance and the bes- abashed. Everybody let an arrow fly at tiality to which the policy of the Russian the vaudeville sketch. That is, every- CHICAGO'S FIVE MAIDEN AUNTS 489 body except Jane Addams. When she spoke she seemed to know something about vaudeville. She didn't say whether she went or not but she seemed to think that a twenty-five-minute action fell in with the terseness of the age. It was clear that she at least understood the idea. The vulgar interloper felt grateful. But he had merely seen one more illustration of Jane Addams's universality. Jane Addams and Julia Lathrop are close friends. They live together at Hull House. They both come from the prairies of Illinois. Margaret Haley, Cornelia DeBey and Mary McDowell come from different sources. They can be called Irish, Dutch and Scotch respectively, while Miss Addams and Miss Lathrop cannot be specifically assigned to any nationality. Yet there is one strong link binding all five of these women. That link is democ- racy. It is not accidental that in the most democratic city in the United States there should be five such powerful women. And it is not accidental that all five of them should be fundamentally democratic in their own personalities. Miss Haley is so far democratic as to be herself a delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor. It was a famous step that she took when, with the Teachers' Federation, she applied for admission to that body. It indicated a unity between the fight of the teachers for a larger voice in the man- agement of the school system and the fight of workingmen and workingwomen in general for a larger voice in the manage- ment of the whole industrial system. With Miss Haley in her ambitions for the teachers stands Cornelia DeBey. Miss DeBey is a doctor. She has a large and profitable practice. And she is deeply interested in her profession. But after all she uses it mainly as a means of support. The main current of her life is the school system. Whenever she has time for it, she goes off on an educational spree. Her most agreeable duties are those which fall to her as a member of the Board of Edu- cation. Dr. DeBey's great aim is to make edu- cation so democratic that it will forswear its leisure class affectations and will fit every boy thoroughly and directly for his duties as a wage-earner and as a voter. Miss McDowell could never have organized her girls' union if she had not been demo- cratic to the core of her heart. Miss Haley, with her tax-fights, her referendum petitions and her municipal ownership committees, is a kind of epitome of the history of political democracy in Chicago for the last few years. Miss Addams and Miss Lathrop, living at Hull House in the Ghetto, have given an unanswerable proof of the sincerity of their conviction that the real pivot of modern life is in the homes of the lowly. This common conviction of democracy removes these five careers from the expla- nation of irrelevant coincidence. So far from being an irrelevant coincidence, they are a kind of cumulative prophecy of the part which women will bear in the more perfected democratic society of the future. Meanwhile at Hull House Jane Addams maintains the salon of democracy. If Kipling had known Hull House he would have added it to Charing Cross and the Suez Canal in his list of places where, if you wait long enough, you will meet any- body that you are trying to find. Through the Hull House drawing-rooms there passes a procession of Greek fruit venders, uni- versity professors, mayors, aldermen, club- women, factory inspectors, novelists, re- porters, policemen, Italian washerwomen, socialists looking hungrily for all persons yet unconverted, big business men find- ing the solution of the industrial problem in small parks, English members of Parlia- ment, German scientists, and all other sorts and conditions of men from the river wards of the city of Chicago and from the far corners of the five continents. And among them all moves Jane Addams, the softened reflection of all the emotions that agitate the age, the center from which they radiate with their harsher colors all lost in the white purity of her thought. She is a prophecy for men as well as for women. The Smoke Sale By Wilbur D. Nesbit WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR G. DOVE EXHOMAS OGDEN had been was the man who was now the resident E put upon the approach to partner. A young man then, he had the toboggan slide. Two opened his campaign for business with the months as a clothing sales- most amazing line of advertising ever seen man, two more as a hat up to that date, and he was still the best salesman, and a short try-out clothing advertiser in the country. That is, in the men's furnishings had demonstrated he was when he was at home. As resident that nature never had meant him to be the partner he did not have to be there very intermediary between his fellow men and much; the store could run itself. He had their garments. He could sell things to his rheumatism and dyspepsia and a good part personal friends; but the mysteriously hyp- of his time was spent in travel in search of notic quality which enables a man to induce that elusive but desirable commodity- a perfect stranger to purchase something he health. Ogden had heard of him, but had doesn't altogether want had been omitted never seen him. There was another resident from Tommy's make up. So he had been partner, who was in and out from time to started for the toboggan, but he did not time, but Blackwell was The Resident know it. Partner-the Man Who Did Things and The other salesmen knew it; Miss Ren- Made Them Hum. His name was not to be low, the interesting and pleasant book- spoken in ordinary tones. He was Mr. keeper, knew it; and it would have been a Blackwell and you did well to utter his name kindness to warn him. But then, we are with an awed face and a most respectful air. never willing to bear bad news to a fellow. So, Tommy Ogden, genial, earnest, en- worker, are we? Ogden had been given the thusiastic Tommy, was “on the skids,” as preparation of the advertisements of the Forty-Eight confided to Twelve, and didn't store, or part of that task, in connection know it. And, in the inmost recesses of with his other work. Manager Ferguson Ferguson's mind it was known that the act had two avenues of exit for employees of decapitation would be performed on the whom he wished to let down easily. One first day of August, when there would have was to request them to assist him in writing been a month of dull business as a better the ads.; the other was to put them “on the excuse than any other. July is ever the floor.” Frimmer was already tottering along terror of the retail clothier. July and Jan- the greased plank as floor-walker, conse- uary are months that he wishes were not on quently the manager put Ogden on the the calendar. companion plank--the ad.-writing. Most Come we now to the morning of the Glori- large stores employ an advertising manager ous Fourth. The store was to be closed all on a regular salary. All he has to do is to day. At 5 A. M. Thomas Ogden is dis- prepare the ads., arrange for proper display covered hurrying along the street to be at and space, and see that all the other adver- the station in time to catch a train that will tising literature is ready at the proper time. carry an excursion party to The Shades of But in this clothing-store matters were differ- Death. The Shades of Death, gentle ently arranged. The manager had the reader, is one of the prettiest natural beauty- advertising to look after; and he wanted to spots in the United States, no odds what do so, for he felt that he was the Atlas on impression you have from its name, and it whose shoulders sat the little world of sales is located in Indiana. And it would be men, customers and “men's wear" in doubly attractive on this particular day which he lived, moved and had his being because Miss Renlow was to be one of the Then, away back yonder, fifteen years ago, excursionists. when the store was established, its director However, again, Thomas Ogden did not 490 THE SMOKE SALE 491 go to the Shades of Death, albeit Manager “I've missed the excursion,” Ogden ob- Ferguson and nearly all the others of the served to himself. “Now what's to do?” store family went. Ogden was passing the The watchman solved the problem for store when he smelled smoke. More than him. that, through the bright morning sunlight, “Well, I guess I can turn this place over he saw smoke, and it was curling from one to you till your boss comes down,” he said to of the basement windows. Ogden. “Some one has dropped a firecracker “The boss isn't in town. He's gone to the where it fell into the basement,” he told Shades of Death with an excursion, but you himself as he raced to the fire-alarm box on needn't lock up,” Tommy added, thinking the corner. Smashing the glass in the key quickly. “I'd have to stay here all day, door and pulling the hook were acts that anyhow, under the circumstances. There's happened unconsciously, and he stood and a lot of work to do now." waited for the clanging gongs that should Ogden sat down to think. As assistant tell him the fire department advertising man it clearly was on its way. was his duty to assume the “Good work,” he mut- initiative in this crisis. The tered, when from afar up store was filled with smoke; the asphalt street he heard the windows were grimy with the rumble of an opening it. The public would know door and the clatter of hoofs. there had been a fire. Un- Then it was bingety-bangety- der such circumstances it clang! on four streets at once, was the time-honored custom for an alarm from the busi- and prerogative of clothiers ness district early on the to have fire sales. morning of the Fourth is “But we haven't had something that induces ear- enough stuff burned to ad- nest haste in the firemen. vertise a fire sale," Ogden The chief's wagon swooped said to himself. Then the . to the box and Ogden inspiration came to him. shouted: He went to the shipping “Right down there at the room, got huge sheets of clothing store, chief!” wrapping paper and a mark- Now clothing that is ing brush and paint. On the stacked up in a basement paper he printed: “Smoke smoulders, and does not Sale.” One of these pla- blaze. The fire had eaten cards he pasted in each along through one table of window. Beneath each of coats. them he pasted other pla- “Won't need any water," cards advising the public to the chief remarked. “You “Watch the Papers Tomor- boys can get action with the row.” chemicals all right.” If there was to be a Smoke He went upstairs and sent Sale, necessarily the stock the hose-wagons and steam- The Stranger would have to be ready to ers back to their houses. sell. He did not know what Ogden stayed with the chemical crew and the sort of price reductions Ferguson would want captain until the burning clothing had been to make, but he did know there was plenty of tossed and tumbled about and thoroughly stuff in the basement-held-over winter and drenched with the extinguishing compound. spring stock, for instance—that might be Then they, too, went upstairs and found the worked off under the stress of low prices and watchman standing in the doorway keeping alluring argument in the ads. To the base- out a crowd of curious folk who had assem- ment he went, but the smoke was still too bled. It was now nearly half after six thick there for him. So he came back, and o'clock, the celebration had begun, and the concluded to move some of the goods on the reverberations of firecrackers were filling tables in the sales-room and make space for the air. the marked-down stuff. He tugged and 492 AMERICAN MAGAZINE lugged it. Trousers, vests and coats he took a mackerel, anyhow, in spite of cut prices, to rear tables and rearranged in bigger but with the argument that there isn't any- stacks. By the middle of the morning he thing the matter with the goods except the had four long tables clear. Then he sat on smell of the smoke that will disappear when one of the tables and swung his legs boy- they are in the air a few hours, there's no ishly and smiled with satisfaction. reason why we can't catch all the business “There's some fun in this thing of being in town this month.” monarch of all you survey,” he mused.. “Good idea, Mr. Ogden." “Wait a minute, though! There's got to be “But there's no one to help me fix this some newspaper ads. tomorrow morning.” stock up, and it ought to be practically He sat at one of the tables, with paper ready for pricing by tomorrow. It'll mean a before him, to write an advertisement an- whole day saved. Want a job helping me?" nouncing a smoke sale. It should be a bare “You're not the manager. How can you statement that one would occur, because hire anybody?” asked the stranger. he could not give any price figures or par "I'll—I'll guarantee you wages. How ticulars of its time of beginning. He had much do you want?”. made a rough draft of such an announce “Whatever's right.” ment when he heard some one fumbling at “All right. Shuck your coat and get to the latch of the doors. work and we'll fix it satisfactorily when "Had a fire here?" asked a man, walking Ferguson gets here tomorrow. Come on to in with an air of interest. The stranger was the basement." a middle-aged man, who used a cane when “You're a funny kind of a man, to want walking, whose eyes were keen, and whose to work on the Fourth when everybody else mouth was concealed by a thin mustache is having a good time.” that drooped at the corners as though he “Great Scott! Who's going to have any were in the habit of tugging at it. more fun than I will? This is the first es, sir," Ogden replied, wondering chance I've had to play boss since I came if the caller were a reporter. here and I like the feel of it.” “Getting ready for a sale?”. The stranger laughed softly at this and “Trying to, but I'm alone. The force is took off his coat. off for the holiday.” “You'll help me, then?”. "Um—just so," commented the stranger. “I'll have to, I suppose." “You the manager?” "All right. Say, what's your name?” “No, sir. Mr. Ferguson is the manager. “ Jones.” My name is Ogden.” “ All right, Jones. Now, you help me “Work here?” bring up enough stock to cover these tables.” “Yes, sir.” Jones proved his assertion that he was a “How do you happen to be here alone?” clothing man. He knew even better than Ogden told him all about it, and then Ogden how to handle goods. He grunted asked: somewhat, and swore under his breath at “Are you a detective?” times when his elbow struck the wall of the “No. I happened along, saw there had basement stairway, and he limped just the been a fire and looked in. See you've got least bit, but when it came to putting the the front tables fixed for the sale stock.” coats in orderly stacks he was a past master, “Yes. You a clothing man?" and Ogden told him so. “Yes.” “You know your business, Jones,” he “Working anywhere?” said as they clumped down the stairs for a “Off and on." fresh load, to begin filling the third table. “Say,” Ogden asked eagerly, “why can't “I ought to, but I haven't hustled like you get to work and help me put things in this for a good while." shape for this smoke sale?” “Work here, and you'll have to hustle. “Smoke sale?” When anything is to be done it has to go "Sure. Fire sales are old stories through with a whoop.” There's a chance here to wake 'em up with “There's a good bit of old stuff down a new one. These goods are all right, ex- here,” Jones said abruptly. “Why not cept that every thing in the house will smell dump some of it on those tables ?” of smoke. July business will be deader than “How do you know it is old ?" THE SMOKE SALE 493 "By the lot-marks." versed in the store affairs, was much older Ogden saw nothing strange in this. The than one numbered 4,432. This being in. store was one of the “one price' kind, and stinctive with a clothing man, it was per- did not use the cryptic price-marks and cost- fectly natural that Jones should know the marks of some of the others. But each coat oldest stock of the back-number stuff in the bore on its price-tag a certain number rep- basement. resenting its lot. Not only did this number “Yes,” Ogden said. “Let's put some of indicate where to look for its original cost in it up there; then in the ads. say it is stuff the books, but according to its numerical that has been carried over a season or two, value was the age of the garment to which it and for that reason, as well as the smoke, applied. Thus, a garment with a lot-mark the sale price is a tremendous cut in value." of 9,855 you might know, if you were “That ought to sell the stuff.” BLACKWELLSCO. - Suits PENS & BOYS CLOTHING MARVELDUS WHATSALE UNHEARD OF E EARLY THE PRICES % OFF SMOKIJALE PRICES UT I HALEN UL5) Anthan 7 dore “ Paused in their efforts to celebrate to read and smile approvingly" 494 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Ogden went to the restaurant at noon and printers put it in horse-sale type. Then go brought back enough sandwiches and pie on and say “Somebody got too patriotic and coffee for their luncheon, and the two early yesterday morning and dropped a men worked until after 3 o'clock fixing the lighted firecracker into our basement. The suits on the tables. Then Ogden said: whole force was on a picnic, but the assist- “Now, I've got to slam up some kind of ant advertising man' (that's you, Ogden) an advertisement for the morning papers." 'was on his way to the excursion train when “You want to make it a corker," ob- he saw it. He pressed the fire button and served Jones. the department did the rest. No real “I wish I could take plenty of space, but damage done. Only smoke. Well, what Ferguson will kick if I use more than our does smoke do to clothes ? It smells them regular hundred lines double column." and its sells them. One-third off for smoky “If he kicks, he's a fool. If I were you clothes. That's our policy. A horizontal I'd take half a page anyhow.” reduction of one-third in the already low “Half a page! Say, Jones, do you know prices.' (There, put that in display.) 'Air what advertising space costs?” is a sure cure for that smoky smell. Smoke “If you want to have a successful sale you doesn't hurt quality, style or fit. It only don't want to know what the space costs. hurts prices. Pick out your suit and it's It's the big talk you make at the start that yours for two-thirds its price, smell and all. counts. Take half pages in the morning “It's the smelling that does the selling.' papers." (Display that.) 'Doors open at eight “I wish I dared.” o'clock.'” “By thunder! If I dared to take posses- Ogden shook his head as he wrote the sion of a whole store, and get the goods last word. ready for a special sale without consulting “That would make a smashing ad. in the owners or manager, I'd have nerve half a page,” Jones remarked. enough to do the right kind of advertising.” “Oh, Ferguson would curl up and have a “Yes. And then get canned.” fit if I dared to print this ad. Don't you see, “They don't can men for doing the right I haven't the authority.” thing at the right time, Ogden. It's for “You've got it today.” doing it at the wrong time." “Ferguson would— ” “Well, how do you like this for an ad. ?”. “Ferguson be-be jiggered!” Ogden showed him what he had pre Jones was persuasive. Besides there was pared. Jones looked it over thoughtfully, common sense to the proposition. There and observed: was no reason why, the prices should not be “Well, it's an ad. It tells what is going to reduced as Jones had suggested. There happen. But— " was every reason for beginning the sale at “But what?” once. The public likes firms that move on “Your sand seems to have run out. This the jump. ad. hasn't the backbone you have. You And then there was the incentive of ought to be yourself in an ad.” taking the initiative of running things for “But that's all they want to know—that once. This is a great big appeal to a young there is going to be a big sale." man. And Ogden had worked-worked “Not nowadays. They want to know like a dog, he thought—to get things in why, as well as what, and when. Tear that shape for the sale. Why shouldn't he take up and give it to 'em straight from the the only remaining responsibility and shoulder. Tell 'em the truth. Some folks launch the sale properly? believe a lie in an advertisement, but all of “If Ferguson wants to kick, he'll kick them believe the truth." about what you have done so far," Jones “There aren't any lies in this." smiled, easily. “If I were you I'd swing in “There isn't enough truth. Here, write and have things ready for him to handle one from my dictation, just to see how it will when he comes to work tomorrow.” read.” "I'll—I'll do it if it throws me!” Ogden Tommy listened and wrote while Jones exclaimed. talked. He marked the ad. for half a page, indi- “Smoke Sale.' That's for the big dis- cating the few display lines, and, at Jones' play line clear across the page—have the suggestion, ordered that the body of the ad. THE SMOKE SALE 495 be set in a large, plain Roman-faced type, with plenty of white margin and plenty of space between the lines. “That'll be an eye-catcher," Ogden said, after he had copied the ad. “The store won't lose any money, at that,” Jones observed. “Getting this stuff out of here in July will be like picking money off of trees.” "You stay here and keep your eye on although you and I will board up those basement windows before we leave." “Now," said Tommy later, as they put on their coats and prepared to leave, “you show up here in the morning and I'll speak a word for you to Ferguson, and try to get him to put you on during the sale, if you want the job. Anyway, I'll pay you out of my own pocket for today's work if Fer- guson kicks about allowing your bill.” SMOKE SALE WERE $2 NOW CAPS I Athan), dan “ Produced a child's sailor hat in response to a request for a black Stetson” things while I run around to the Herald and Pioneer offices with this copy and arrange for space," Tommy ordered. "All right. Anything for me to do while you are gone? Any heavy lifting?” Jones asked, genially. "I guess not. Take it easy. But don't smoke," Ogden laughed. “And while I'm out I'll arrange at headquarters for a detail of police to watch the store front tonight, “Thank you. I'll try to be on hand, but my legs are aching like the deuce now and it may be I'll not feel like getting out to- morrow. If I can come, I will, though. You may depend on that.” “It'll be a good chance at a permanent situation for you,” Ogden urged. They walked down street, stopping to admire the effect of Tommy's “Smoke Sale” placards in the show windows. 496 AMERICAN MAGAZINE Little knots of people paused in their And then it got its size and paid the price, arduous efforts to celebrate the nation's deducting one-third. Even the displeasure natal day to read the placards and smile of Ferguson could not dim the joy of Ogden approvingly. in beholding this rush and jam to get the “Looks to me as if you'd hit on a good things he had promised. He got into it idea,” Jones said. himself, and helped sell anything and every- “I hope so. Tomorrow will tell, though.” thing. But all the while he was wondering Ogden was dead-tired and he slept until what sort of an ad, he should prepare for the after 8 the morning of the fifth, when he morrow, or whether Ferguson would insist should have been on duty at the store at that upon preparing the ad. himself. He won- hour. He leaped into his clothes and dered if Ferguson would call the sale off! rushed breakfastless for a car, buying a This was so appalling a thought that he morning paper on the run. And the first produced a child's sailor hat in response to thing he looked at was his half-page ad. a request for a black Stetson from a There it was, spread blazingly across the last patriarchal gentleman who immediately page, screaming “Smoke Sale" to all the accused him of having been drinking. world. He was not the only man reading Once during the morning he got near the ad. It was being talked of by the others enough to Ferguson to ask: on the car—and talked of in the right way. “Did a man named Jones ask you to give The sidewalk approaching the store was him a job as extra-salesman?”. blockaded. Two policemen had guarded “Man named Jones? All the Joneses in the store all night; now ten officers were this part of the state have been in here this keeping the crowd in line. The heart of morning, but none of them has applied for a Thomas Ogden beat tumultuously in his job,” sarcastically replied the manager. breast. “But this was an old clothing man. I “Maybe I've done wrong, but I surely hired him— " have brought in the people," he muttered, “You hired him!” as, entering the rear of the store, he shoved There was scorn, there was contumely, his way through crowded aisles, where busy there was everything hot in the voice of the salesmen were pulling out clothing to show manager. to busier customers. He wormed a pathway “I mean I hired him yesterday to help me to the clock and turned in his time. get the stock in shape. He said he would be “You're nearly an hour late, Mr. Og on hand this morning.” den,” came in Ferguson's voice. "No. He hasn't shown up. But if he “Yes. I worked so hard yesterday I comes in I'll make him get to work. I hope overslept myself.” you'll have some one to share the blame “I haven't time to tell you what I think with you tomorrow.” of your hard work,” said the manager in “Blame? Tomorrow?”. icy tones. “The trade has to be handled “Yes. Mr. Blackwell came to town this now, no matter whether I approve of the morning.” The manager mingled reverent way it has been secured or not. Our first awe with his accusing voice. “He tele- duty is to attend to our patrons. I shall phoned me asking what the dickens we are have something to say to you later in the up to, and saying he'll get around tomorrow day." when there isn't such a crowd. He couldn't “Why, I thought I was doing the right get-into-his-own-store-today!” thing." The manager went away again, and left “It might have been all right if you had Ogden mopping his brow. Well, he thought, consulted me. But— " Mr. Blackwell needn't get so all-fired chesty The exasperated Mr. Ferguson hurried if he couldn't get into his own store because to the front of the store to aid the bewildered it held so many customers. This was an Frimmer in untangling the crowd. It event sufficiently exceptional to be its own wasn't a crowd; it was a mob. It wanted excuse. He found his way back toward the hats and shirts and neckties and underwear bookkeeper's desk, and approached Miss and suits—and overcoats. Yes, overcoats Renlow with an air of fine unconcern. on the fifth of July! It picked things up and “Have a nice trip yesterday?”. held them to its nostrils and said: “Oh, Tommy Ogden! Whatever have you “By ginger! It is smoky!” done?” she demanded. THE SMOKE SALE 497 “What have I done?” "0_o oh! Mr. Ferguson is raving, rip- ping, boiling mad clear through. The idea of your taking things in your own hands and putting in that terrible big advertisement and cutting prices this way, and-and- 0-0-oh! Tommy Ogden!” “Oh, rats! I've had enough of that from Ferguson! I did what I thought was right It wasn't my fault if the blamed old store caught fire and gave me a chance to help Ferguson move out some of the stuff that has been 'spiffed' till it looks like red ink had been spilled all over the price-tags.” “Well, goodness me! You needn't get so huffy about it. Everybody but Mr. Fer- guson thinks you did just right. I think it is simply splend-id!” Which soothed and sustained the faltering soul of Ogden to a most considerable extent. There was a lull in the rush at noon and he went out and had his breakfast. He hur- ried back to the store, though, and, finding Ferguson unoccupied, asked him what they should have in the ad. for next day. “You're doing it,” Ferguson answered, savagely. “Understand me. I wash my hands of this. I know what Mr. Blackwell will think of it. You started it, now go on with it. You can do it all-until tomorrow." With which darksome remark he went on about his business. And Ogden, brazened by the foreboding that the portion of the deliberate sinner was to be his, went to his little desk in the rear of the office and pre- pared yet another half-page ad. in which he advised the public that “We may cut, we may shatter the price as we will But the scent of the Smoke Sale will cling to it still !" the afternoon papers entirely in the turmoil of the morning, what with sleeping too late and with the jumbling business at the store. He almost ran to the counting-room of the Evening Globe. “Who ordered this half-page?” he asked, stabbing it with his forefinger. “Telephone order from the store, I think," answered the clerk. At the Evening Star counting-room he learned the same, and then he hastened on to the store, trying to figure it all out. But it wouldn't figure out. Next day he got to the store on time, and there was the same big crowd of customers on hand at the opening of business. More than that, above the head of every employee of the store hung the shadow of the knowl- edge that Mr. Blackwell would be on deck that day. There were pitying glances for Ogden. Even Ferguson's sourness was tinctured with sympathy when he spoke to Ogden. But Ogden had got past the point of caring. He was living a life of half-page ads. and big sales, of crowded aisles and pushing customers. And he felt that the wires which controlled all this had been for two days in his fingers. There were other clothing stores! Let this one punish him for his temerity in arranging the smoke sale. He had in his breast the sud- denly born confidence in himself that made him able to believe that he didn't care two hoots whether he held his job or not, be- cause he could find another and fill it. He took a customer and began finding a suit for him. As he bent over a stack of coats he raised his head and saw coming along the aisle toward him the man whom he had pressed into service on the Fourth. “Why, hello there!” he said, stepping toward the man, not noticing that imme- diately in the rear of the stranger loomed Ferguson, whose face was frozen with horror. The stranger smiled oddly. “How's the game leg this morning ?” Ogden inquired. “You're just in time. You ought to have been here yesterday. We surely did have all the town in to see us." “I heard you did,” the man answered. “You bet! Say, I'll speak to the manager for you, and ” Ferguson by this time had crowded around between Ogden and the stranger, and extended his hand. “Good morning, Mr. Blackwell.” “How-d’y’-do, Ferguson. Shaking things And he further urged the people to buy what they wanted and all they wanted that very day, for at the rate things were going, the life of the sale might be exceeding short. Then he went out with his copy for the newspapers, passing the eagle-eyed Ferguson on the way but stopping not for his suggestion and criticism as on other occasions and with other ads. To the Herald and the Pioneer offices he went again and left his half-page ads. While returning to the store, he purchased the afternoon papers, and there were his half- page ads. of the morning, reproduced, glar- ing and blaring at him! He had forgotten 498 AMERICAN MAGAZINE up a bit, aren't you?” responded the Resi- dent Partner. Ogden leaned against the stack of coats and tried to understand it. Finally he lifted his hands weakly, and laughed a queer, helpless laugh. "I may as well tell you at once, Mr. Blackwell,” said Ferguson, with a frowning glance toward Ogden, who was still dumbly gazing at the Resident Partner, "that I have had nothing to do with this sale. It is— " “But I have,” came the whiplike words of Hiram T. Blackwell, the Man Who Always Made Things Hum. “I have, Fer- guson. And you would better be jumping around here keeping things in shape instead of making excuses for the greatest stroke of business that ever was turned in this store. Mr. Ogden, come back to the office, There's a day's pay coming to me and a raise for you. And there's another smoke ad. to write for tomorrow.” Ferguson stood transfixed, full of chagrin and unuttered swear words, and all the salesmen turned from their customers for the moment and gazed in muddled wonder at Thomas Ogden, who, uplifted by the knowledge of the recognition of a good deed well done, was walking into the private office of the Resident Partner and smiling at some jocose remark of that much-feared individual. And Miss Renlow, beholding Tommy's happy face, dropped her handkerchief into the big inkwell, so great was her aston- ishment. The Mystery By Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL CRAWFORD SYNOPSIS of Previous INSTALLMENTS.— The schooner “Laughing Lass" is encountered under sail, but deserted, by the U. S. S. “Wolverine" in the North Pacific. A crew under Ensign Edwards with bos'ni's mate Timmins is put aboard. When she again appears she is again deserted. Previous to her appearance on each occasion, a shaft of light and brilliant glow are seen. A new crew of volunteers is put aboard, after which the schooner disappears completely. The next morning the cruiser picks up a dory of the “ Laughing Lass" containing the body of bos'n's mate Timmins and Ralph Slade, newspaper correspondent. Slade's story begins with the chartering of the “ Laughing Lass" in San Francisco by Prof. Schermerhorn, experimental scientist, on a secret mission, Slade, who over hears the professor's arrangements with Capt. Selover, a shady character, signs as mate of the schooner. Accompanied by his assistant, Percy Darrow, the professor brings on board a mysterious brass-hound chest. Slade berths in the forecastle and makes the acquaintance of the crew: "Handy Solomon," a sinister individual with a hook for a hand, Thrackles, Pulz, Perdoza, a Mexican, and “Nigger,” a negro cook. The crew become excited by the belief that the professor possesses the secret of the philosopher's stone. The voyage ends at a deserted, volcanic island, where Slade and the men are seni ashore to prepare a habitation for the professor and Darrow in a valley at the base of the volcano. Captain Selover remains on ship-board, relinquishing all authority over the crew, who live ashore, with Slade in command. The men finally refuse to take orders from Slade, who attempts to enforce his com- mands, but is dissuaded by Handy Solomon. PART II-CHAPTER XI THE CORROSIVE BOR S E HAT evening I smoked me by that rascal, Handy Solomon. I was cales in a splendid isolation in two minds as to whether or not I should while the men whisper- attempt to warn Darrow or the Professor. ed apart. I had nothing Yet what could I say? and against whom to do but smoke, and should I warn them? The men had grum- to chew my cud, which bled, as men always do grumble in idleness, was bitter. There could and had perhaps talked a little wildly; but be no doubt, however I may have saved my that was nothing. face, that command had been taken from The only indisputable fact I could adduce San . “I jerked out the short-barrelled Colt and turned it loose in their faces " was that I had allowed my authority to slip through my fingers. And adequately to excuse that, I should have to confess that I was a writer and no handler of men. I abandoned the unpleasant train of thought with a snort of disgust, but it had led me to another. In the joy and uncer- tainty of living I had practically lost sight of the reason for my coming. With me it had always been more the adventure than the story; my writing was a by-product, a util- ization of what life offered me. I had set sail possessed by the sole idea of ferreting out Professor Schermerhorn's investigations, but the gradual development of affairs had ended by absorbing my every faculty. Now, cast into an eddy by my change of fortunes, the original idea regained its force. I was out of the active government of affairs, with leisure on my hands, and my thoughts natu- rally turned with curiosity again to the laboratory in the valley. Darrow's “devil fires" were again paint- ing the sky. I had noticed them from time to time, always with increasing wonder. The men accepted them easily as only one of the unexplained phenomena of a sailor's experience, but I had not as yet hit on a hypothesis that suited me. They were not allied to the aurora; they differed radically from the ordinary volcanic emanations; and scarcely resembled any electrical displays I had ever seen. The night was cool; the stars bright: I resolved to investigate. Without further delay I arose to my feet and set off into the darkness. Immediately 499 THE MYSTERY 501 But the Nigger sprang across the fire like lightning, his face altered by terror, to seize Darrow by the shoulders. "Doan you! Doan you!” he gasped, shaking the assistant violently back and forth. “Dat he King Voodoo song! Dat call him all de voodoo-all!” He stared wildly about in the darkness as though expecting to see the night thronged. There was a moment of confusion. Eager for any chance, I hissed under my breath: “Dan- ger! Look out!” I could not tell whether or not Darrow heard me. He left soon after. The men- tion of the chest had focussed the men's interest. “Well," Pulz began, “we've been here on this spot o' hell for a long time.” “A year and five months,” reckoned Thrackles.: “A man can do a lot in that time." “If he's busy.” “They've been busy." “ Yes.” “Wonder what they've done?' There was no answer to this, and the sea lawyer took a new tack. “I suppose we're all getting double wages." “That's so.” . “And that's, say, four hunder' for us and Mr. Eagen here. I suppose the Old Man don't let the schooner go for nothing." “Two hundred and fifty a month," said I, and then would have had the words back. They cried out in prolonged astonish- ment. “Seventeen months,” pursued the logi- cian after a few moments. He scratched with a stub of lead. “That makes over eleven thousand dollars since we've been out. How much do you suppose his outfit stands him?” he appealed to me. “I'm sure I can't tell you," I replied, shortly. “Well, it's a pile of money, anyway." Nobody said anything for some time. “Wonder what they've done?” Pulz asked again. “Something that pays big.” Thrackles supplied the desired answer. “Dat chis'- " suggested Perdosa. “Voodoo- "muttered the Nigger. . “That's to scare us out,” said Handy Solomon, with vast contempt. “That's what makes me sure it is the chest." P ulz muttered some of the jargon of alchemy. “That's it,” approved Handy Solomon. “If we could get — " “We wouldn't know how to use it,” inter- rupted Pulz. “The book- " said Thrackles. “Well, the book — "asserted Pulz, pug- naciously. “How do you know what it will be? It may be the philosopher's stone and it may be one of these other damn things. And then where'd we be?”. It was astounding to hear this nonsense bandied about so seriously. And yet they more than half believed, for they were deep- sea men of the old school, and this was in print. Thrackles voiced approximately the general attitude. “Philosopher's stone or not, something's up. The old boy took too good care of that box, and he's spending too much money, and he's got hold of too much hell afloat to be doing it for his health.” “You know w'at I t'ink ?” smiled Perdosa. “He mak' di'mon's. He say dat.” The Nigger had entered one of his black, brooding moods from which these men expected oracles. Get him ches',” he muttered. “I see him full,-full of di’mon's!”. They listened to him with vast respect, and were visibly impressed. So deep was the sense of awe that Handy Solomon un- “I don't take any stock in the Nigger's talk ordinarily. He's a hell of a fool nigger. But when his eye looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last year—the Oyama,-he told about her three days ahead. That's why we were so ready for her,” he chuckled. Nothing more developed for a long time except a savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted sheep, fished, wandered about,-always with an escort tired to death before he started. The thought came to me to kill this man and so to escape and make cause with the scientists. My com- mon sense forbade me. I begin to think that common sense is a very foolish faculty indeed. It taught me the obvious,—that all this idle vaporing talk was common enough among men of this class, so common that it would hardly justify a murder, would 502 AMERICAN MAGAZINE hardly explain an unwarranted intrusion on and how quickly they succumbed to a blow those who employed me. How would it properly directed. look for me to go to them with these words Percy Darrow showed us how to clean in my mouth: the whiskers. The process was evil. The “The captain has taken to drinking to masks were, quite simply, to be advanced dull the monotony. The crew think you so far in the way of putrefaction that the are an alchemist and are making diamonds. bristles would part readily from their Their interest in this fact seemed to me sockets. The first batch the men hung out excessive, so I killed one of them, and here on a line. A few moments later we heard a I am.” mighty squawking, and rushed out to find “And who are you?" they could ask. the island ravens making off with the entire “I am a reporter," would be my only catch. Protection of netting had to be truthful reply. rigged. You can see the false difficulties of my We caught seals for a month or so. There position. I do not defend my attitude. was novelty in it, and it satisfied the lust for Undoubtedly a born leader of men, like killing. As time went on, the bulls grew Captain Selover at his best, would have warier. Then we made expeditions to out- known how to act with the proper decision lying rocks. both now and in the inception of the first Later Handy Solomon approached me mutiny. At heart I never doubted the on another diplomatic errand. reality of the crisis. “The seals is getting shy, sir,” said he. Even Percy Darrow saw the surliness of “They are,” said I. the men's attitudes, and with his usual good “The only way to do is to shoot them,” sense divined the cause. said he. “You chaps are getting lazy,” said he; “Quite like," I agreed. “why don't you do something? Where's A pause ensued. the captain ?" “We've got no cartridges,” he insin- They growled something about there uated. being nothing to do, and explained that the “And you've taken charge of my rifle,” I captain preferred to live aboard. pointed out. "Don't blame him," said Darrow, “but “Oh, not a bit, sir,” he cried. “Thrackles, he might give us a little of his squeaky com- he just took it to clean it,—you can have it pany occasionally. Boys, I'll tell you some- whenever you want it, sir." thing about seals. The old bull seals have “I have no cartridges,-as you have long, stiff whiskers—a foot long. Do you observed,” said I. know there's a market for those whiskers ? “There's plenty aboard,” he suggested. Well, there is. The Chinese mount them in “And they're in very good hands there,” gold and use them for cleaners of their long said I. pipes. He ruminated a moment, polishing the “I'll tell you what: I'll give you boys six steel of his hook against the other arm of bits apiece for the whisker hairs, and four his shirt. Suddenly he looked up at me bits for the galls. I expect to sell them at a with a humorous twinkle. profit.” “You're afraid of us!” he accused. Next morning they shook off their leth- I was silent, not knowing just how to argy and went seal-hunting. meet so direct an attack. I was practically commanded to attend. “No need to be,” he continued. This attitude had been growing of late: now I said nothing. it began to take a definite form. He looked at me shrewdly; then stood off "Mr. Eagan, don't you want to go hunt on another tack. ing?" or "Mr. Eagan, I guess I'll just go “Well, sir, I didn't mean just that. I along with you to stretch my legs,” had didn't mean you was really scared of us. given way to “We're going fishing: you'd But we're gettin' to know each other, livin' better come along." here on this old island, brothers-like. We killed seals by sequestrating the There ain't no officers and men ashore,-is bulls, surrounding them, and clubbing there now, sir? When we gets back to the them at a certain point of the forehead. It old Laughing Lass, then we drops back was surprising to see how hard they fought into our dooty again all right and proper. THE MYSTERY 503 You can kiss the Book on that. Old Scrubs, he knows that. He don't want no shore in his. He knows enough to stay aboard, where we'd all rather be.” He stopped abruptly, spat, and looked at me. I wondered whither this devious diplomacy led us. “Still, in one way, an officer's an officer The man's boldness in so fully arming me was astonishing, and his carelessness in allowing me aboard with Captain Selover astonished me still more. Nevertheless, I promised to go for the desired cartridges, fully resolved to make an appeal. A further consideration of the elements of the game convinced me, however, of the 2 21 “ You good fellowsh, ain't you ? " and a seaman's a seaman, thinks you, and discipline must be held up among mates ashore or afloat, thinks you. Quite proper, sir. And I can see you think that the arms is for the afterguard except in case of trouble. Quite proper. You can do the shooting, and you can keep the car. tridges always by you. Just for discipline, sir." fellow's shrewdness. It was no more dan- gerous to allow me a rifle—under direct surveillance-for the purposes of hunt- ing, than to leave me my sawed-off revolver, which I still retained. The argu- ments he had used against my shooting Perdosa were quite as cogent now. As to the second point, I, finding the sun unex- pectedly strong, returned from the Cove for 504 AMERICAN MAGAZINE my hat, and so overheard the following Laughing Lass. Captain Selover I saw between Thrackles and his leader. twice at a distance. Both times he seemed “What's to keep him from staying to be rather uncertain. The men did not aboard?” cried Thrackles, protesting. remark it. The days went by. I relapsed "Well, he might,” acknowledged Handy into that state so well known to you all, Solomon, “and then are we the worse off? when one seems caught in the meshes of a You ain't going to make a boat attack dream existence which has had no begin- against old Scrubs, are you?” ning and which is destined never to have Thrackles hesitated. an end. “You can kiss the Book on it, you ain't," We were to hunt seals, and fish, and pry went on Handy Solomon easily, “nor me, bivalves from the rocks at low tide, and nor Pulz, nor the Greaser, nor the Nigger, build fires, and talk, and alternate between nor none of us all together. We've had our suspicion and security, between the danger dose of that. Well, if he goes aboard and of sedition and the insanity of men without stays, where are we the worse off? I asks defined purpose, world without end forever. you that. But he won't. This is w'at's goin' to happen. Says he to old Scrubs 'Sir, the men needs you to bash in their CHAPTER XII heads.' 'Bash 'em in yourself,' says he, 'that's w'at you're for.' And if he should OLD SCRUBS COMES ASHORE come ashore, w'at could he do? I asks you that. We ain't disobeyed no orders dooly The inevitable happened. One noon delivered. We're ready to pull halliards at Pulz looked up from his labor of pulling the word. No, let him go aboard, and if he the whiskers from the evil-smelling mask. peaches to the Old Man, why all the better, “How many of these damn things we for it just gets the Old Man down on him.” got?” he inquired. In the ensuing days I learned much of the “About three hunder and fifty,” Thrac- habits of seals. We sneaked along the cliff kles replied. tops until over the rookeries; then lay flat on “Well, we've got enough for me. I'm our stomachs and peered cautiously down sick of this job. It stinks.” on our quarry. The seals had become very They looked at each other. I could see wary. A slight jar, the fall of a pebble, the disgust rising in their eyes, the reek of sometimes even sounds unnoticed by our- rotten blubber expanding their nostrils. selves, were enough to send them into the With one accord they cast aside the masks. water. There they lined up just outside the “It ain't such a hell of a fortune," surf, their sleek heads glossy with the wet, growled Pulz, his evil little white face their calm, soft eyes fixed unblinking on us. thrust forward. “There's other things It was useless to shoot them in the water: worth all the seal trimmin's of the islands." they sank at once. “Diamon's,” gloomed the Nigger. When, however, we succeeded in gaining “Yo've hit it, Doctor,” cut in Solomon. an advantageous position, it was necessary There we were again, back to the old to shoot with extreme accuracy. A bullet difficulty, only worse. Idleness descended directly through the back of the head on us again. We grew touchy on little would kill cleanly. A hit anywhere else things, as a misplaced plate, a shortage of was practically useless, for even in death the firewood, too deep a draught at the nearly animals seemed to retain enough blind empty bucket. The noise of bickering instinctive vitality to flop them into the became as constant as the noise of the surf. water. There they were lost. If we valued peace, we kept our mouths The men often discussed among them- shut. The way a man spat or ate or slept or selves the narrow dry cave. There the even breathed became a cause of irritation animals were practically penned in. They to every other member of the company. agreed that a great killing could be made We stood the outrage as long as we could; there, but the impossibility of distinguishing then we objected in a wild and ridiculous between the bulls and the cows deterred explosion which communicated its heat to them. The cave was quite dark. the object of our wrath. Then there was a My whole life now lay on the shores. I fight. It needed only liquor to complete the was not again permitted to board the deplorable state of affairs. THE MYSTERY 505 Gradually the smaller things came to worry us more and more. A certain harm- less singer of the cricket or perhaps of the tree-toad variety used to chirp his innocent note a short distance from our cabin. For all I know he had done so from the moment of our installation, but I had never noticed him before. Now I caught myself listening for his irregular recurrence with every nerve on the quiver. If he delayed by ever so little, it was an agony; yet when he did pipe up, his feeble strain struck to my heart cold and paralyzing like a dagger. And with every advancing minute of the night I became broader awake, more tense, fairly sweating with nervousness. One night, good God, was it only last week? ...it seems ages ago, another existence . . a state cut off from this by the wonder of a transmigration at least. . . . Last week! I did not sleep at all. The moon had risen, had mounted the heavens, and now was sailing overhead. By the fretwork of its radiance through the chinks of our rudely-built cabin I had marked off the hours. A thunderstorm rumbled and flashed, hull down over the horizon. It was many miles distant, and yet I do not doubt that its electrical influence had dried the moisture of our equanimity, leaving us rattling husks for the winds of destiny to play upon. Certainly I can remember no other time, in a rather wide experience, when I have felt myself more on edge, more choked with the restless, purposeless nerv- ous energy that leaves a man's tongue parched and his eyes staring. And still that infernal cricket, or whatever he was, chirped. I had thought myself alone in my vigil, but when finally I could stand it no longer, and kicked aside my covering with an oath of protest, I was surprised to hear it echoed from all about me. “Damn that cricket!” I cried. And the dead shadows stirred from the bunks, and the hollow-eyed victims of insomnia crept out to curse their tormentor. We organized an expedition to hunt him down. It was ridiculous enough, six strong men prowling for the life of one poor little insect. We did not find him, however, though we succeeded in silencing him. But no sooner were we back in our bunks than he began it again, and such was the turmoil of our nerves that day found us sitting wan about a fire, hugging our knees. We were so genuinely emptied, not so much by the cricket as by the two years of fermentation, that not one of us stirred toward breakfast, in fact not one of us moved from the listless attitude in which day found him, until after nine o'clock. Then we pulled ourselves together and cooked coffee and salt horse. As a signifi- cant fact, the Nigger left the dishes un- washed, and no one cared. Handy Solomon finally shook himself and arose. “I'm sick of this,” said he; “I'm goin' seal hunting.” They arose without a word. They were sick of it too, sick to death. We were a silent, gloomy crew indeed as we thrust the surf-boat afloat, clambered in and shipped the oars. No one spoke a word; no one had a comment to make, even when we saw the rookery slide into the water while we were still fifty yards from the beach. We pulled back slowly along the coast. Beyond the rock we made out the entrance to the dry cave. “There's seal in there,” cried Handy Solomon, "lots of 'em!” He thrust the rudder over, and we headed for the cave. No one expressed an opinion. As it was again high tide, we rowed in to the steep shore inside the cave's mouth and beached the boat. The place was full of seals; we could hear them bellowing. “Two of you stand here," shouted Handy Solomon, “and take them as they go out. We'll go in and scare 'em down to you." “They'll run over us,” screamed Pulz. “No, they won't. You can dodge up the sides when they go by.” . We advanced four abreast, for the cave was wide enough for that. As we pene- trated, the bellowing and barking became more deafening. It was impossible to see anything, although we felt an indistinguish- able tumbling mass receding before our footsteps. Thrackles swore violently as he stumbled over a laggard. With uncanny abruptness the black wall of darkness in front of us was alive with fiery eyeballs. The seals had reached the end of the cave and had turned toward us. We too stopped, a little uncertain as to how to proceed. The first plan had been to get behind the band and to drive it slowly toward the en- trance to the cave. This was now seen to be impossible. The cavern was too narrow; 506 AMERICAN MAGAZINE its sides at this point too steep; and the animals too thickly congested. Our eyes, becoming accustomed to the twilight, now began to make out dimly the individual bodies of the seals and the general configu- ration of the rocks. One big boulder lay directly in our path, like an island in the shale of the cave's floor. Perdosa stepped to the top of it for a better look. The men attempted to communicate their ideas of what was to be done, but could not make themselves heard above the uproar. I could see their faces contorting with the fury of being baffled. A big bull made a dash to get by; all the herd flippered after him. If he had won past they would have followed as obstinately as sheep, and nothing could have stopped them, but the big bull went down beneath the clubs. Thrackles hit the animal two vindictive blows after it had succumbed. This settled the revolt, and we stood as before. Pulz and Handy Solomon tried to converse by signs, but evidently failed, for their faces showed angry in the twilight. Perdosa, on his rock, rolled and lita cigarette. Thrackles paced to and fro, and the Nigger leaned on his club farther down the cave. They had been left at the en- trance, but now in lack of results had joined their companions. Now Thrackles approached and screamed himself black trying to impart some plan. He failed; but stooped and picked up a stone and threw it into the mass of seals. The others understood. A shower of stones followed. The animals milled like cattle, bellowed the louder, but would not face their tormentors. Finally an old cow flopped by in a panic. I thought they would have let her go, but she died a little beyond the bull. No more followed, although the men threw stones as fast and hard as they were able. Their faces were livid with anger, like that of an evil- tempered man with an obstinate horse. Suddenly Handy Solomon put his head down, and with a roar distinctly audible even above the din that filled the cave, charged directly into the herd. I saw the beasts cringe before him; I saw his club rising and falling indiscriminately; and then the whole back of the cave seemed to rise and come at us. This was no chance of sport now, but a struggle for very life. We realized that once down there would be no hope, for while the seals were more anxious to escape than to fight, we knew that their jaws were pow- erful. There was no time to pick and choose. We hit out with all the strength and quickness we possessed. It was like a bad dream, like struggling with an elusive hydra-headed monster, knee high, invul- nerable. We hit, but without apparent effect. New heads rose, the press behind increased. We gave ground. We staggered, struggling desperately to keep our feet. How long this lasted I cannot tell. It seemed hours. I know my arms became leaden from swinging my club; my eyes were full of sweat; my breath gasped. A sharp pain in my knee nearly doubled me to theground, and yet I remember clamping to the thought that I must keep my feet, keep my feet at any cost. Then all at once I recalled the fact that I was armed. I jerked out the short-barrelled Colt's 45 and turned it loose in their faces. Whether the flash and detonation fright- ened them; whether Perdosa, still clinging to his rock, managed to turn their attention by his flanking efforts, or whether quite simply the wall of dead finally turned them back, I do not know, but with one accord they gave over the attempt. I looked at once for Handy Solomon, and was surprised to see him still alive, standing on a ledge on the other side of the herd. His clothing was literally torn to shreds, and he was covered with blood. But in this plight he was not alone, for when I turned toward my companions they too were tattered, torn and gory. We were a dread- ful crew, standing there in the half-light, our chests heaving, our rags dripping red. For perhaps ten seconds no one moved. Then with a yell of demoniac rage my com- panions clambered over the rampart of dead seals and attacked the herd. The seals were now cowed and defense- less. It was a slaughter, and the most debauching and brutal I ever knew. I had hit out with the rest when it had been a question of defense, but from this I turned aside in a sick loathing. The men seemed possessed of devils, and of their unnatural energy. Perdosa cast aside the club and took to his natural weapon, the knife. I can see him yet rolling over and over, em- bracing a big cow, his head jammed in an ecstasy of ferocity between the animal's front flippers, his legs clasped to hold her body, only his right arm rising and falling THE MYSTERY 507 as he plunged his knife again and again. After a long interval a little three months' She struggled, turning him over and under, pup waddled down to the water's edge; wept great tears, and fairly whined with caught sight of me, and with a squeal of terror and pain. Finally she was still, and fright dived far. Poor little devil! I would Perdosa staggered to his feet, only to stare not have hurt him for worlds. As far as I about him drunkenly for a moment before know this was the only survivor of all that throwing himself with a screech on another herd. victim. The men soon appeared, one by one, The Nigger alone did not jump into the tired, sleepy-eyed, glutted, walking in a cat- turmoil. He stood just down the cave, his like trance of satiety. They were blood and club ready. Occasionally a disorganized tatters from head to foot, and from drying rush to escape red masks peered would be made. their bloodshot The Nigger's lips eyes. Not a word snarled, and with said they, but a truly mad en- tumbled into the joyment he beat boat, pushed off, the poor animals and in a moment back. we were floating I pressed in the full sun- against the wall, shine again. horrified, fasci- We rowed nated, unable home in an ab- either to inter- straction. For fere or to leave. the moment ber- A close, sticky serker rage had smell took pos- burned itself out. session of the air. Handy Solomon After a little a continually wet- tiny stream, ted his lips, like growing each an animal licking moment, began its chops. Thrac- to flow past my kles stared into feet. It sought space through its channel dain- eyes drugged tily, as streamlets with killing. No do, feeling among one spoke. the stones in ed. “I followed the direction of his gaze and myself We landed in dies, quiet pools, cried out" the cove, and miniature falls were surprised to and rapids. For the moment I did not rea- find it in shadow. The afternoon was far lize what it could be. Then the light caught advanced. Over the hill we dragged our- it down where the Nigger waited, and I selves, and down to the spring. There saw it was red. the men threw themselves flat and drank in At first the racket of the seals was over- great gulps until they could drink no more. powering. Now gradually it was losing We built a fire, but the Nigger refused to volume. I began to hear the blasphemies, cook. ferocious cries, screams of anger hurled “Some one else turn,” he growled; “I against the cave walls by the men. The cook aboard ship.”. thick, sticky smell grew stronger; the light Perdosa, who had hewed the fuel, at once seemed to grow dimmer, as though it could became angry. not burn in that fetid air. A seal came and “I cut heem de wood!” he said; “I do my looked up at me, big tears rolling from her share. Eef I cut heem de wood, you mus' eyes; then she flippered aimlessly away, out cook heem de grub!”. of her poor wits with terror. The sight But the Nigger shook his head, and Per- finished me. I staggered down the length dosa went into an ecstasy of rage. He of the black tunnel to the boat. kicked the fire to pieces; he scattered the 508 AMERICAN MAGAZINE unburned wood up and down the beach; he even threw some of it into the sea. “Eef you no cook heem de grub, you no habe my wood!” he shrieked, with enough oaths to sink his soul. Finally Pulz interfered. “Here, vou damn foreigners,” said he. “Quit it! Let up, I say! We got to eat. You let that wood alone, or you'll pick it up again!” Perdosa sprang at him with a screech. Pulz was small but nimble, and under- stood rough-and-tumble fighting. He met Perdosa's rush with two swift blows-a short-arm jab and an upper-cut. Then they clinched, and in a moment were rolling over and over just beyond the wash of the surf. The row waked the Nigger from his sullen abstraction. He seemed to come to himself with a start; his eye fell surprisedly on the combatants, then lit up with an unholy joy. He drew his knife and crept down on the fighters. It was too good an opportunity to pay off the Mexican. But Thrackles interfered sharply. “Come off!” he commanded. “None o' that!” “Go to hell!” growled the Nigger. A great rage fell on them all, blind and terrible, like that leading to the slaughter of the seals. They fought indiscriminately, hitting at each other with fists and knives. It was difficult to tell who was against whom. The sound of heavy breathing, dull blows, the tear of cloth, and grunts of pun- ishment received; the swirl of the sand, the heave of struggling bodies, all riveted my attention, so that I did not see Captain Ezra Selover until he stood almost at my elbow. “Stop!” he shrieked in his high falsetto voice. And would you believe it, even through the blood haze of their combat the men heard him, and heeded. They drew re- luctantly apart, got to their feet, stood look- ing at him through reeking brows half sub- missive and half defiant. The bull-headed Thrackles even took a half step forward, but froze in his tracks when Old Scrubs looked at him. “I hire you men to fight when I tell you to, and only then," said the captain sternly. "What does this mean?” He menaced them one after another with his eyes, and one after another they quailed All their plottings, their threats, their dan- gerousness dissipated like mist before the command of this one resolute man. These pirates who had seemed so dreadful to me, now were nothing more than cringing school- boys before their master. And then suddenly to my horror I, watching closely, saw the captain's eye turn blank. I am sure the men must have felt the change, though certainly they were too far away to see it, for they shifted by ever so little from their first frozen attitude. The captain's hand sought his pocket, and they froze again, but instead of the expected revolver, he produced a half-full brandy bottle. The change in his eyes had crept into his features. They had turned foolishly ami- able, vacant, confiding. “ 'llo boys,” said he appealingly, "you good fellowsh, ain't you? Have a drink. 's good stuff. Good ol' bottl.” He lurched, caught himself, and advanced toward them, still with the empty smile. They stared at him for ten seconds, quite at a loss. Then: "By God, he's drunk!” Handy Solomon breathed scarcely louder than a whisper. There was no other signal given. They sprang as with a single impulse. One in- stant I saw clear against the waning day- light the bulky foolish-swaying form of Captain Selover; the next it had disappeared, carried down and obliterated by the rush of attacking bodies. Knives gleamed ruddy in the sunset. There was no struggle. I heard a deep groan. Then the murderers rose slowly to their feet. CHAPTER XIII I MAKE MY ESCAPE I had plenty of time to run away. I do not know why I did not do so; but the fact stands that I remained where I was until they had finished Captain Selover. Then I took to my heels, but was soon cor- nered. I drew my revolver, remembered that I had emptied it in the seal cave, and had time for no more coherent mental processes. A smothering weight flung itself on me, against which I struggled as hard as I could, shrinking in anticipation from the thirsty plunge of the knives. However, though the weight increased until further struggle was impossible, I was not harmed, and in a few THE MYSTERY 509 moments found myself, wrists and ankles he sang. “We'll land in Valparaiso and tied, beside a roaring fire. While I collected we'll go every man his way; and we'll sink myself I heard the grate of a boat being the old Laughing Lass so deep the mer- shoved off from the cove, and a few mo maids can't find her." ments later made out lights aboard the Thrackles piled on more wood and the Laughing Lass. fire leaped high. The looting party returned very shortly. “Let's get after 'em,” said he. Their plundering had gone only as far as “To-morrow's jes' 's good," muttered liquor and arms. Thrackles let down from Pulz. “Le's hav' 'nother drink.” the cliff top a keg at the end of a line. “We'll stay here 'n see if our ol' frien' Perdosa and the Nigger each carried an Percy don'show up,” said Handy Solomon. armful of the 30-40 rifles. The keg was He threw back his head and roared forth a rolled to the fire and broached. volume of sound toward the dim stars. The men got drunk, wildly drunk, but not helplessly so. A flame communicated “Broadside to broadside the gallant ships did itself to them through the liquor. Their lay. evil passions were all awake, and the plan, Blow high, blow low! What care we! so long indefinite, developed like a pho- Till the jolly man-o'-war shot the pirate's tographer's plate. mast away, “That's one," said Thrackles. “One Down on the coast of the high Barbaree-e-e." gone to hell." “And now the diamonds,” muttered Pulz. I saw near me a live coal dislodged from the fire when Thrackles had thrown on the “There's a ship upon the windward, armful of wood. An idea came to me. I A wreck upon the lee, hitched myself to the spark and laid across Down on the coast of the high Barbaree-e-e," it the rope with which my wrists were tied. roared Handy Solomon. “Damn it all, This, behind my back, was not easy to boys, it's the best night's work we ever did. accomplish, and twice I burned my wrists The stuff's ours. Then it's me for a big before I succeeded. Fortunately I was at stone house in Frisco!”. the edge of illumination, and behind the “Frisco, hell.” sneered Pulz; “that's all group. I turned over on my side so that you know. You ought to travel. Paris for my back was toward the fire. Then rapidly me and a little gal to learn the language ! cast loose my, ankle I cast loose my ankle lashings. Thus I was from." free, and selecting a moment when universal “I get heem a fine caballo, an' fine saddle attention was turned toward the rum an' fine clo's,” breathed Perdosa sentimen- barrel, I rolled over a sand dune, got to my tally. “I ride, and the silver jingle and the hands and knees, and crept away. señorita look- Through the coarse grass I crept thus to Thrackles was for a ship and the China the very entrance of the arroyo, then rose to trade. my feet. In the middle distance the fire “What you want. Doctor?" they de- leaped red. Its glow fell intermittently on manded of the silent Nigger. the surges rolling in. The men staggered But the Nigger only rolled his eyes and or lay prone, either as gigantic silhouettes shook his head. By and by he arose and or as tatterdemalions painted by the light. disappeared in the dusk and was no more The keg stood solid and substantial, the seen. hub about which reeled the orgy. At the “Dam' fool,” muttered Handy Solomon. edge of the wash I could make out some- “Well, here's to crime!” He drank a deep thing prone, dim, limp, thrown constantly cup of the raw rum, and staggered back to in new positions of weariness as the water his seat on the sands. ebbed and flowed beneath it, now an arm thrown out, now cast back, as though Old “I'm not a man-o'-war nor a privateer,' said Scrubs slept feverishly. The drunkards he. were getting noisy. Handy Solomon still Blow high, blow low! What care we! reeled off the verses of his song. The others ‘But I am a jolly pirate and I'm sailing for joined in, frightfully off the key, or punc- my fee,' tuated the performance by wild staccato Down on the coast of the high Barbaree-e-e,” yells. 510 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “Their coffin was their ship and their grave the cliff opposite. For a single instant the it was the sea. very substance of the rock glowed white Blow high, blow low! What care we! hot; then from the spot a shower of spiteful And the quarter that we gave them was to sink flakes shot as from a pyrotechnic, and the them in the sea, light was blotted out as suddenly as it came. Down on the coast of the high Barbaree-e-e,” At the same moment it appeared at another point, exhibited the same phenomena, died, bellowed Handy Solomon. flashed out at still a third place, and so was I turned and plunged into the cool dark repeated here and there with bewildering ness of the cañon. rapidity until the walls of the valley crackled and spat sparks. Abruptly the darkness fell. As abruptly it was broken again by a CHAPTER XIV similar exhibition; only this time the fire was blue. Blue was followed by purple, AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT purple by red. Then ensued the briefest possible pause, in which a figure moved Ten seconds after entering the arroyo I across the bars of light escaping through was stumbling along in an absolute black- the chinks of the laboratory, and then the ness. whole valley blazed with patches of vari- The way seemed much longer than by colored fire. It was not a reflection: it was daylight. Already in my calculation I had actual physical conflagration of the solid traversed many times the distance, when, rock, in irregular areas. Some of the fire with a jump at the heart, I made out a glow shapes were most fantastic. And with the ahead, and in front of it the upright logs of unexpectedness of a bursting shell the sur- the stockade. face of the ground before our feet crackled To my surprise the gate was open. I into a ghastly blue flame. ascended the gentle slope to the valley's The Nigger uttered a cry in his throat and level —and stumbled over a man lying disappeared. I felt a sharp breath on my prostrate, shivering violently, and moaning neck, an ejaculation of surprise at my very I bent over to discover whom it might be. ear. It was startling enough to scare the As I did so a brilliant light seemed to fill the soul out of a man, but I held fast and was valley, throwing an illumination on the man just about to step forward, when my collar at my feet. I saw it was the Nigger, and was twisted tight from behind. I raised perceived almost at the same instant that he both hands, felt steel, and knew that I was was almost beside himself with terror. His in the grasp of Handy Solomon's claw. eyes rolled, his teeth chattered, his frame The sailor had me foul. I did my best to contracted in a strong convulsion, and the twist around, to unbutton the collar, but in black of his complexion had faded to a vain. I felt my wind leaving me, the washed-out dirty gray, revolting to con- ghastly blue light was shot with red. Dis- template. He felt my touch and sprang to tinctly I heard the man's sharp intaken his feet. breath as some new phenomenon met his “My Gawd!” he shivered. “Look! Dar eye, and his great oath as he swore. it is again!” "By the Mother of God!” he cried, “it's I followed the direction of his gaze, and the devil.” myself cried out. Then I was jerked off my feet, and the The Professor's laboratory stood in plain next I knew I was lying on my back, very sight between the two columns of steam wet, on the beach; the day was breaking, blown straight upward through the stillness and the men, quite sober, were talking of the evening. It seemed bursting with vehemently. light. Every little crack leaked it in gener. It was impossible to make out what they ous streams, while the main illumination said, but as Handy Solomon and the Nigger appeared fairly to bulge the walls outward. were the center of discussion, I could imag- This was in itself nothing extraordinary, ine the subject. I felt very stiff and sore and and indicated only the activity of those hazy in my mind. I remember wondering within, but while I looked an irregular whether Captain Selover were up yet. Then patch of incandescence suddenly splashed with a sharp stab at the heart I remembered. (To be continued) The New Doctor By Flora Charlotte Finley S E XARD No. 3 was very quiet. recover and be able to help herself. So she It was “rest hour,” just be- waited. It was a large hospital and there fore visitors were admitted, were many doctors. They all took turns and no talking was allowed.at her case, each one as he began saying Some of the patients were cheerful though indefinite things about “by Gay sleeping, others reading, a and by,” and “of course it was hard, poor few writing. A nurse sat at a small table at child, but she must be patient a little one end of the ward, within call if she should while. She had been sick a good while and be wanted. She was making crocheted lace of course couldn't expect to get well all at of white thread and her steel needle flashed once. No indeed!” So she waited and was as she worked, and she turned her work at patient-outwardly. At first she believed the end of each row with a firm jerk of her all they told her and smiled radiantly at strong, white hands. Every now and then each new doctor's hopeful prophecies, but she lifted a pair of serious, gray eyes and now, although she smiled and replied swept them over the long row of beds. patiently to the well-known questions, it Ward 3 was her special province and she was not the same kind of a smile. But the was proud of it as other women are proud of doctors were too busy to notice that. They a well-ordered house every bed was made kept right on and each new one asked the with care and between every two stood a same questions, till she knew the list by heart. chair at exactly the same distance from “Rest hour” was over. A bell sounded either. softly somewhere far off in the vast building It was a ward where chronic cases were where she had lived so long, but whose kept. Some had been there a long time. In rooms were unknown to her, save Ward 3 the third bed from the end of the row lay a and one other, all white tiling and glass, woman to whom the place had grown to with a huge skylight and cabinets full of seem almost like home. She had been there shiny knives, where she had been wheeled so long that the occupants of all the other on a bed to be examined by the different beds had changed, not once, but several doctors in turn. She knew this room well, times. But she did not change. She lay with its faint odor of ether and other drugs, there day after day, night after night, till the and the moments (hours, if put together) days and nights made themselves into of anguish she had suffered there, while weeks and the weeks into months and then some new doctor was examining the old hurt years. She was a poor young woman who places and saying the old things in the old, stayed there in that bed in Ward 3 through old way. She turned wearily and watched the kindness of a charitable rich woman the gray-eyed nurse as she finished a row on who helped many who were not able to help her lace and jabbed the needle through the themselves. It had been hard, bitterly hard, spool of thread and wound the finished to accept this charity, but there seemed length of lace about it all before putting it nothing else to be done. She was helpless into the table drawer; for “rest hour” was and poor. There was a chance, if she could over and the doors must be opened for have proper care, that she might sometime visitors. 511 512 AMERICAN MAGAZINE The woman in the third bed watched with languid interest the visitors who came to see the other patients. She herself knew few people outside the hospital and was not expecting any visitors. There was the old, farmer-like looking man who came once a week to see his wife. His Sunday boots squeaked and he turned red and bashful during his walk down the long room. After he reached his wife's bed- side he seemed not to have much to say, but sat beside her, holding her hand and occa- sionally bending forward to whisper stri- dently a brief remark. He always was the first to come and the last to go and neither seemed to feel the lack of conversation. It was enough to be together. This afternoon, after he had made his usual squeaky, red-faced entrance and had subsided into his chair by the bedside, the patient in the third bed beckoned to the gray-eyed nurse—“ Please put the screen about my bed. I'm so tired of seeing them." The nurse, used to sick fancies, quietly un- folded the white screen which stood near and put it about the narrow bed, then with a deft and practised hand she lifted the patient on one arm, straightened the clothes, turned the pillow and put her down again. She lay now alone, as much alone as she ever was, watching the shadows chase each other up and down, over and under the white screen, listening to the low hum of voices through the large room. It was Autumn and the days were fast growing short. So lost in dreams was she that it seemed but a brief moment before she became aware that the light was growing dim and the hum of voices and sound of footsteps ceased. In an interval of quiet she heard, somewhere down the corridor, the wail of a young infant, then a door closed and all was quiet again. The shaded lights were turned on and she lay and watched the shadows on her screen, grotesque images of the nurses as they moved about from one bed to another. At last the gray-eyed nurse came softly and looked around the corner of her screen. “You lay so still I thought you were asleep,” she said. “It's time for your supper now.” She folded the screen as she spoke and then lifted and propped the helpless woman, doing it all kindly, deftly, gently, but in a perfectly business-like and entirely imper- sonal way. Her patient sighed to herself, as she did many times. If only she might be an individual to some one, not a case. Then she blamed herself for ingratitude and tried to make herself think she was hungry and that two prunes in a sauce-dish and two minute slices of bread in another sauce-dish were dainty and appetizing, but it was hard work sometimes to make believe. She thought if they would just make a mistake and put the bread on a plate, it would make a difference. Bread in a sauce- dish some way was a grief. As the gray- eyed nurse carefully balanced the tray on her knees she said, “I'm not to give you your medicine to-night, Miss. There's a new doctor coming in the morning and I'm to wait for his orders." She gave a quick look to see that every- thing was there that was needed and then hurried away with a swish of cambric skirts. Another new doctor! It had been quite a while since there had been a new one and the patient in the third bed whimsically wondered if she had forgotten any of the usual questions he would be sure to ask. The answer, alas! was always the same. No danger of making a mistake there. She ate her two prunes and slices of bread with- out noticing and finally fell asleep in the late hours of the night. The next morning nothing happened ex- cept that she had stewed figs instead of prunes. Did that mean anything ? she won- dered. At last, just before noon, the new doctor arrived. He was a long time in reaching her, because her bed was the third from the far end of the ward. When he came around the screen she lifted indifferent eyes, but the indifference turned to something very like interest. He was young, about her own age she guessed, tall, slender, almost boyish in figure, with soft fair hair, hazel eyes which looked directly into her eyes and held them, a firm, gentle handshake and an air of cheer to which all his patients responded as plants do to sunshine. All this was different from what she had experienced before and any change was welcome. Another sur- prise was that he failed utterly to ask any of the usual questions. Indeed, he did not mention the fact of her being sick, but chatted brightly for a few moments and with another comforting handshake passed on. The rest of the day passed quickly. Someway there seemed to be something to THE NEW DOCTOR 513 think about, though she couldn't have put tor's skill and praised him in unstinted it into words. That night she slept better measure. and woke brighter than for some time. In the little house where the patient from The new doctor came again. This time he bed No. 3 had gone that summer morning it asked a few questions; they were pretty was as if the sun shone always. Every much the same as the others, but there were morning as he rode away she stood in the not so many, and he talked about other window and threw a last kiss and waved her things as soon as possible and again left her hand as he turned the corner. It was now with that strange uplifted feeling, which two years since she left the hospital, and was so new, so strange and sweet it was now when she had waved her hand to him almost pain, but it was precious. she helped a tiny hand to wave also, and so From that day on the patient in the third as he passed on to the sick, it was with that bed gained, surely, slowly, but certainly picture in his heart. Perhaps it was that She took an interest now in the other pa- which helped him to help them so much- tients' visitors, she had an appetite and she God knows. even tried to sit up a little. The winter passed like a dream, the short dark days, I've written this to help myself or to the long dark nights, where, sheltered and cheat myself, I don't know which. It has warm, she heard the sleet beat its ghostly helped but it is a cheat. It isn't real. The fingers against the windows and shuddered doctor is real. God bless him every hour of to think of those who were houseless. every day. And I, alas! am real too. Slowly the days lengthened, and one day I am the patient in the third bed. There the doctor when he came brought in a tiny isn't any little house, there haven't been any bunch of hepaticas, the first she had seen in drives on the hill picking wild flowers, years. Another day and the third bed was there isn't any window where I stand and empty, and its occupant was driving over the wave my hand and kiss it, there isn't any wind-swept hill with the doctor and picking little hand for me to help—and there never wild flowers for herself. The days went on, will be for me. the drives became more frequent, and one God bless the doctor and help me to say day the doctor returned to the hospital alone bless the gray-eyed nurse too, for he loves and announced to the astonished nurses her. Hers are the drives and the flowers, that henceforth the patient from bed three hers will be the little house and perhaps the belonged to him and would be glad to see tiny hand. I know it now. He is gentle as her old friends in the new home—their ever, more than kind, she is even kinder, but new home, whither he had taken her that in her eyes is a new light and on her hand a morning after a brief call on the Rev. Mr. stone that sparkles like a tear, while I am Blank. the patient in bed No.3 and to-morrow I go The new doctor was no longer new to the again to the white-tiled 'room where the occupants of Ward 3, but they all looked for cases full of shiny knives are kept. I'm not his coming and were better after they had afraid of them any more. Nothing can ever seen him. People spoke of the young doc- hurt me again. God bless the doctor. The World's Lost Treasures An Authentic Account of the Millions in Gold and Gems Concealed on Land and in the Sea By Broughton Brandenburg ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS CO LD Donald Claflin rowing the notes in another, I read them. The his dory from islet to islet aggregate was amazing. After eliminating of the North of Scotland those which seemed to have no historical coast, hunting for the authority whatever, I divided them into two wealth in graves of the groups; first, those known to exist but indefi- QIOY pagan kings—what truer nitely located; second, those whose location picture of the fascination within a few hundred feet is positively of hidden gold! They call him Mad Don known. This is the story of treasures of ald, and surely any honest fisherman who which I have found mention, with such will spend the last fifty years of his life facts concerning them as could be gathered. in such a quest with absolutely no results must be mad. But he is only one of many THE TREASURES OF EL DORADO and through this story of great lost treasures runs the thread of the tragedy of the search. Which of the score of little mountain Billions of treasure, hidden or lost, exist lakes beyond Lake Tunaima in Colombia nevertheless where one can almost put one's is Lake Guata vita,* the El Dorado that the hand upon them. Many millions have been Spanish sought and found but could not rob recovered. More millions have been ex of its treasures? Fray Pedro Simon, who pended in fruitless hunting and ever there was one of the discoverers, says it is not appears to be an elusiveness about each over a quarter of a mile in diameter and not great store, confirming the old superstition over forty-five feet deep. This description that “buried gowd will gang awa'.” A is fully corroborated by Amyas Leigh, vein of irony runs through the history of Orviedo and others. Into the center of this nearly every quest. For instance divers sacred pond sacrificial rafts of gold were have been able, for a century, to go down dumped by the ancient Chibchas in such within twenty feet of a wreck in Bantry Bay quantities that modern French and Spanish and look at the treasure, yet any man who writers, recounting the wealth of the aban- attempts to reach it is caught by an inter- doned mines and the capacities of the rafts, vening current and the life-ropes snapped. have been led to estimate the treasure in the And again, to prevent foolhardy search, lake at the incredible sum of fifteen billion great treasures have been officially declared dollars. It seems sheer mockery that this non-existent and laws passed to prevent little lake was discovered and remained further hunt; then evidence of their pres well known for two hundred years but that ence has suddenly appeared. now, when modern diving apparatus could While searching for other matter years speedily recover the enormous wealth on its ago I found a very definite reference in an rocky bottom, its identity has been utterly old volume to a treasure, the King Stanis- lost. The present Lake Guatavita, twenty laus cache at Nancy. It interested me miles south of Bogota, does not answer the greatly and I made a note of it. Always description. thereafter when some such mention caught Amyas Leigh got definite trace of El Do- my eye, a note was filed away in an old brown rado while at Port of Spain and with his little envelope. One day not long since, the en- velope burst from fullness. Before placing * Orviedo, Fray Pedro Simon, Bruyère, Chambers' Journal. 514 THE WORLD'S LOST TREASURES 515 band wandered for three years in search of it. The chronicle* says: “Alive and well were Amyas and Cary, Brimblecombe and Yeo, and the Indian lad -but as far as ever from Manoa, and its fairy lake and gold palaces. New rumors had ever sent them new ways, in vain. Yet, sitting in their camp, they were then almost in reach of the real El Dorado, not a golden city, but a gilded man. "There dwelt the Chibchas on the high upland plateau of Cundina Marca, seven or eight thousand feet above the sea, between the Magdalena and the Mountains of the Highest Peace, and also on the uplands of the Cordilleras. They were under two chiefs, the Zipa and the Zaque, who were often at war with each other." to another or made from planks in the form of a punt, holding three, four or more per- sons, according to their size, such as are used in crossing rivers where there are no bridges. By this means they would reach the center of the lake, and there, using cer- tain words and ceremonies, throw in their offerings, small or large, according to their means. . . . In further reference to this lake, it was the principal and general place of worship for all this part of the country, and there are those still alive who state that they witnessed the burial of many caciques, who left orders for their bodies and all their wealth to be thrown in the waters after their death. When it was rumored that bearded men (Spaniards) had entered the country in search of gold, many of the Indians brought their hoarded treasures and offered them as sacrifices in the lake, so that they should not fall into the hands of the Spaniards... The present cacique of the village of Simi- jaca alone threw into the lake forty loads of gold of one quintal each, carried by forty Indians from the village, as is proven by their own statements and those of the nephew of the cacique who was sent to escort the Indians.” Their civilization, which was instanced by paved highways, suspension bridges, elaborate pottery and masonry, a system of weights and measures, schools and irriga- tion, an elaborate religion and great skill in metal working, was nevertheless declining and one hundred years after the Spanish occupancy of the coasts they had become the same savages they are today. Gold and jewels were very plentiful and the native value was low. The Spaniards heard fab- ulous tales of the Golden Cacique and his golden city, from the Indians they cap- tured, and the rumors led them in all directions in North and South America. These tales were based on fact. The chiefs of the Chibchas were coated with an odorous resin each morning and on this was sprinkled powdered gold. This shin- ing coat was washed off at sunset. Their graves were lined with gold and jewels, and enormous amounts of treasure were taken from them by the Spanish governors. The grave of one minor chief yielded the amount of $18,000, another $20,000 in gold strips, another $65,000 worth of emeralds, gold chains, arrows and implements. Last year two agents of the Magdalena Commercial and Export Company bought from some Indians who came over the mountains three large vessels of gold set with emeralds, chained together with an emerald-set chain of curious workmanship, which the Indians averred they had picked up on the borders of a little lake on the Cundina Marca table land. To any one who understands the ability of the Indians as porters, the quintal per load is quite credible. Reckoning the forty quintals at 8820 lbs. or 3969 kl., they would be worth today $26,460,000. A CASE OF PARTIAL SUCCESS “ But the great treasure was in the lake," says Fray Pedro Simon, who lived there twenty years in an effort to convert the tribesmen. “So there was no stint of gold, jewelry, emeralds, food and other things offered when one was in trouble, and with prescribed ceremonies two ropes were taken, long enough to span the lake in the middle, and by crossing them from side to side the center of the lake would be known, to which two zipas (priests) and the person making the sacrifice would go on rafts composed of bundles of dried sticks or flotsam, tied one In the reign of James II some English adventurers who had been among the buc- caneers in their wonderful West Indian stronghold of the Tortugas, brought home a clue to an exceedingly rich Spanish galleon which sank on the coast of South America.* An expedition commanded by Captain Phipps was fitted out and found the ship, which had been forty-four years under water. They had recovered about half the treasure, $1,500,000, when compelled to abandon the spot by the appearance of enemies on the horizon. A medal was struck commemorating the party's success, • Amyas Leigh. • Archives of the British Admiralty. 516 AMERICAN MAGAZINE but before they could return the revolu- tion of 1688 broke out. In 1853 the packet Madagascar* left Melbourne for England secretly carrying a great treasure in bullion. She was lost and the interested parties seem to have sup- pressed at the time any mention of the amount of the treasure. Twenty years later it came out that there was $11,000,000 in Australian gold on board the ship. But no one seemed to know where she had been lost that an effort might be made to re- cover it. Where are the thousands of people living today who were of reasoning age when the Madagascar was lost, who knew of the catastrophe and who might tell, if they remember, the exact spot where her wreck lies? Do any of them know where she went down? THE TREASURE OF COCOS The most fascinating of all the stories of American treasure is that of Cocos Island, a small bit of land off the coast of Costa Rica.t Not less than twenty expeditions have been absolutely certain that they should recover the millions on this bit of land but one after the other has failed. Only a year ago the last two, one Peruvian, the other English, engaged in a pitched battle with bloody results. As a matter of fact, while I believe that the searchers are right in fixing on Cocos Island as the exact location, there are so many accounts placing the island in the Galapagos group that it seems well to treat the story in the class of treasure uncertainly located. There are really three treasures to be accounted for in this instance. The pirate Bonita is known to have buried $2,000,000 on Cocos at various times, and about $400,000 on the Galapagos Islands, accord- ing to records of confessions of his men on file in the several colonies in which they were tried. His former friend, Villazon, also known by several other names, buried seven great cannon filled with gold on an island situated at the greatest depth of the Gulf of Campeachy. Also $1,000,000 was buried under a certain stone arch on the Island of Cocos by a party of Mexican poli- ticians fleeing from the wrath of Santa Anna, or Juarez; and there are numbers of explorers in New York and London who assert they know just where to look for it. None of these is important, however, compared with the great Peruvian national treasure, buried either on Cocos or in the Galapagos group in 1855 by the mutinous crew of the ship Mary Deer. It is worth $15,000,000 and more than a million has been spent in efforts to find it. Mrs. Ros- well D. Hitchcock, a New York woman of prominence, is at present organizing an expedition to make another attempt and has carefully investigated all of the history of the cache. The facts I give are those vouched for by Mrs. Hitchcock, Admiral Palliser and Earl Fitzwilliam. In the year mentioned a state of war ex- isted in Peru. The Chilenians were driving all before them. The treasures of Lima were gathered up by the feeble government and taken to the forts at Callao. Shortly thereafter the vessel Mary Deer, a tramp, having discharged cargo at Valparaiso, moved up to Callao, seeking more cargo. Her captain died and the mate took com- mand. The commander of the forts at Callao, fearing that he could not hold the treasure against the approaching Chile- nians, arranged for the Mary Deer to take it aboard and give it the protection of a foreign flag. It was transferred at night, being a total of eleven boatloads of gold and silver. The mate went on shore to make final arrangements for handling his trust. The temptation was too great for the eleven members of the crew. They slipped cable and when day broke the Mary Deer was gone. One of the members of the crew was a youth of eighteen, Jackie Thompson by name, and he was present when the treasure was buried. On his return to the ship he made covertly a map of the locality and this is the guide of the present expedition. Shortly afterward, knowing the Peruvians were in pursuit and that they could not go on indefinitely without fresh supplies, the mutineers set out for Panama, but were picked up by a Peruvian war vessel. All were hanged from the yardarm save Thomp- son and two others. They saved themselves by agreeing to locate the treasure. They lied, saying that it was on a certain Galapa- gos island buried just above high-water mark, and Thompson, being merely a boy and also ill, was allowed to go free at the * Archives Secretary of the Colonies. + Archives of Admiralty. Records of Costa Rican Government. Archives of Lloyds, N. Y. Herald, April 8, 1906. 518 AMERICAN MAGAZINE An excellent clue to the treasure in the Roman wall, or in some of the camps built behind it, was obtained not many years ago by two English peasants. They were turn- ing over some loose stones in a field and saw a yellow link protruding from the ground where one of the stones had lain. Digging about it they dragged forth a great brass chain, as they thought, and staggered home with it. It lay for months unheeded in a barn. Then one of them remembered that it might be gold. Such it proved to be An expert examined it and pronounced it of Roman workmanship and worth several thousand pounds. Immediately the men were arrested by the authorities under the English treasure-trove law for not having notified the government of the find. They were convicted and given round sentences in prison, and, filled with bitterness over their treatment, declined to tell the spot where they found the chain. This treasure-trove law is duplicated in nearly all countries, and gives freely to any person what is found lying openly, but any- thing hidden or buried, or which is sought for and found, must be reported to the gov- ernment and divided according to the cir- cumstances. Another great royal treasure, containing jewels worth a score of times their intrinsic value by reason of historical associations, lies at this moment in a Welsh chasm awaiting an intelligent search. It has been estimated at $15,000,000, though worth no such amount when hidden. in Brazil, Guadeloupe or some other part of the colonial domain. It was illicit because he feared the authorities and on being ques- tioned as a spy in Amsterdam, fled after his release to Gand, taking with him a giant West Indian negro servant. By night the two carried a large sack of diamonds and other treasure not accurately described to the ruins of the abbey and hid it, the Jew doing the work by the aid of a lantern while the negro stood guard at a gate at such a distance that he could not tell where the cache was made. The next day Broisel was re-arrested and was later deported. He refused to take the negro with him, aban- doning the hapless fellow in Amsterdam. The slave found a protector in a wealthy merchant who endeavored to trace out Broisel and compel him to return the negro to Guadeloupe, but it was found that some ruffians on the ship on which Broisel sailed had so maltreated him on account of his religion that on landing at Hull he died. The negro then told of the treasure, but when taken by the merchant to the abbey was unable to point out the spot the Jew had chosen. He had been in great fear and as it was dark and he had never visited the place before, daylight made it seem still more unfamiliar on his second visit. SIR HENRY MORGAN'S TREASURE A CURIOUS HISTORY An obscure treasure with a dramatic bit of history attached probably lies in the ruins of the old abbey of St. Bavon, Gand.* No search has ever been permitted by the bishops and any stories of its existence have been strangely suppressed, so that the rumors that were once rife seem to have been entirely forgotten. Save for the asso- ciates of Ducasse, who delved through thousands of old manuscripts searching for trace of treasure, it would have been entirely forgotten. The facts, as they have been accepted by the treasure hunters of Paris, are that a French Jew named Broisel fled from Guadeloupe in 1758 to Amsterdam with a large treasure which he had obtained The rocky island of Tortuga just north of Santo Domingo (not to be confused with the Dry Tortugas) was convenient to Jamaica and so became in the sixteenth century the colony site of combined bands of English, French and Dutch adventurers who secretly killed the wild cattle of Hayti, owned by their common enemy, Spain, and exported the dried beef, called boucan. This was the origin of the name of bucca- neers, and it clung to them when the colony grew powerful enough to make raids on Spanish towns and Spanish ships. Great leaders such as Peter the Great and Bar- tholomew the Exterminator arose among them, culminating in that most spectacular robber, Henry Morgan,* who was knighted by the King of England for his crimes against Spain. Of the treasures hidden on Tortuga nothing further will be said at this point, as they belong to the class that is defi- nitely located, but the narrative will continue * Archives Admiralty. Archives Royal Chamberlain. Archives Vatican. Opera Prescott, Towle, Smith. * Opera Von Brick, Ducasse. THE WORLD'S LOST TREASURES 519 to the hiding away of vast quantities of were either killed or unable to again locate valuables by the citizens of several ex- their caches. Whatever records there be tremely wealthy cities attacked by Sir that would furnish a clue must be in family Henry Morgan. papers stored away and forgotten in Spain. In August, 1667, this redoubtable pirate Soon after this, Morgan repeated his landed with a force of several hundred men performance at the expense of the City of at Nuevitas, the port of the wealthy Cuban Puerto Bello. I here the people bundled up city of Puerto del Principe, and marched their gold, silver and jewels and for mutual inland. The Spanish, hearing of his com- security it was hidden away in concealed ing, barricaded a narrow pass, but he niches in two castles that defended the flanked the position and appearing in the town. Morgan captured these and slew the The Abbey of St. Bavon at Gand Where broisel made his "cache" in 1758. A provocation to treasure hunters, the bishops having refused permission to search rear, captured the city. The residents, defenders before he found that among them however, had had ample warning and from were the only men who had the secret of the the churches treasure amounting to several treasures for which he had come. The millions was hastily put on muleback and castles were dilapidated partially, some started into the foothills of the mountains. treasure was found, residents later recovered A very few men accompanied it and did the more, but the bulk of the precious metal and hiding. When they returned it seems that jewel wealth of that extremely rich Spanish they were among those captured and some port lies today under the buried ruins of the of them were tortured to death in an effort old fortifications, the lines of which have to compel them to reveal the whereabouts been lost under layers of soil. of the wealth. It was not found, and when Thus it appears that there is a certain the raiders were gone, after a several weeks' fateful tendency of treasure to lose itself if it stay, the bishop himself was unable to find has the opportunity and this conception is it. The church records show it was never reinforced by an incident in Morgan's recovered. dramatic capture of Panama. With four- In addition to the ecclesiastical treasure, teen hundred men he marched overland there was about $3,000,000 hidden by from the mouth of the Chagres River and, as people of the town, the owners of which the Spanish had laid waste the country 520 AMERICAN MAGAZINE before him, the journey was nine days of starvation. Panama knew of his coming and systematically hid its enormous wealth Untold millions of it went on board vessels then lying in the harbor. To Morgan's tatterdemalions were opposed four thousand Spanish veterans and a body of colonist cavalry. In advance of these was a great drove of wild bulls held in leash. This herd was stampeded at the proper moment. So deadly was Morgan's fire that the bulls treasure in the hulks at the bottom of Panama harbor has been estimated as high as $30,000,000 and as low as $7,000,000. In 1697, when Admiral De Pontis, with his combined fleet of royal ships and colonists, successfully captured and sacked Carta- gena, obtaining an immense treasure, the second portion of the fleet in retiring en- countered an English squadron, with the result that one ship was blown up by a shot into her magazine, another went ashore near Castle of the Popes, Avignon Here, in 1307, a treasure valued at $20,000,000 was concealed by Innocent l'II and never recovered Cartagena and a third was wrecked on Cisne Cay. Thus, one-third of the treasure in the nine ships lies amid the sands and corals of the Caribbean, and in the case of two of the vessels, certainly at no great depth. MILLIONS IN A NICARAGUAN HARBOR were halted by terror and charged back upon the Spanish, throwing them into con- fusion. Morgan's starving band seized the opportunity and routed the Spanish with frightful loss. The capture was so unex- pected that many of the ships on which treasure was hidden did not have an oppor- tunity to get out of the harbor. These Morgan seized and hastily searched, not dreaming of the millions hidden away be- hind planking, and finding nothing, wan- tonly sank the vessels. Then he began to torture the inhabitants to reveal the hiding places of their wealth. When he discovered his blunder he went to great extremes to keep it from his men, fearing mutiny, and succeeded in satisfying them by what was unearthed from the city and vicinity. The Nuna Silva, the Portuguese pilot captured by Drake and afterwards returned to civil- ization, insisted in papers which he left that more than 720,000 pounds of treasure were aboard the Cacafuego,* captured the first of March, 1578, and that a great chest of gold was accidentally dropped overboard “in a little harbor on the west side of the • Opera Macaulay. Conto de Nuna Silva, etc. THE WORLD'S LOST TREASURES 521 island of Caimo off the coast of Nicara- gua.” It has been handed down through the pages of successive writers as Nica- ragua and I am constrained to believe a misapprehension has arisen. This will account for many searches having failed. The islet of that name off the coast of Nicaragua has no little harbor in which the chest of gold could have been dropped under the circumstances narrated. It must be remembered that at one time the entire are very few harbors in the Azores and none in which the bottoms are not easy of access by modern diving methods, it is strange that no attempt has ever been made to discover any of this lost gold. Somewhere off the coast of Chili lies the wreck of the Marigold, one of Drake's vessels used in his great voyage, and as it carried the treasurer of the feet and all the spoils captured up to that time it may have had several hundred thousand dollars Hermitage Castle Where King John buried part of his many concealed treasures. He died without revealing the spot coast was called Nicaragua and as the description exactly fits the little island of Cano off the coast of Costa Rica it is prob- ably there that the treasure lies. Several years later Admiral Drake figured in another sinking of great treasure within harbor limits. After his timely return to England when the Armada was forming he led a flying expedition against the Azores * and did what no Spaniard or Dutchman would have done, sank a number of laden ships in the harbor (presumably of San Michael) without investigating what was aboard. Striking an average between the various accounts, there was a total of four million dollars in three ships, and as there aboard, certainly not more, but the discov- ery of the wreck will never be made by search; it will be purely the result of ac- cident. Somewhere in the Bay of Islands lies a ship said to be the Primrose, an English vessel captured by the French privateers- men obtaining their authority from a gov- ernor named M. Dupleix of Pondicherry, and sent from Mauritius to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, conveying to a cousin of the diplomatic colonial governor a large quan- tity of treasure.* For obvious reasons the cousin did not wish to receive his money in France. His plan was to return to France from America and say he had ac- *Opera Macaulay, Ridpath, etc. * Colonial Records, Gilchrist's Maritime Province papers. 522 AMERICAN MAGAZINE quired his fortune in that wonderful country in a year's time, which no one would have doubted in those days. Then he could settle down and await the return of the man who really had amassed it. It seems that Quebec fell a month before the Primrose arrived (1759) and on being warned, her captain attempted to find a French fishing station on the west coast of Newfoundland. Long after, bits of flotsam identified as having been part of the ship, Where is the Hungarian cave in which Attila stored his billions of plunder and of which he strove to tell as he died? Where is the mountain in which the great Khans of Tartary were buried, each with much treasure gathered in his lifetime? These are questions to fire the imagina- tion. So the list of quantities of gold and precious store stretches out. I have men- tioned a few incidents out of scores. How WITH Bay of Islands Where the " Primrose" is supposed to have been lost with several millions of treasure he for. Fyrpe plunder were found so high up in the bay that the people of the region were certain the treasure ship had gone down under a great western gale that blew about that time and had met her fate after entry into the bay. Some years ago the coast survey found a wreck in some preliminary soundings but lost the location. The treasure has been estimated at several millions. Where is the tomb of Alaric the Goth, “crammed with the richest spoils of the first sack of Rome”? Where did Genseric, the Vandal, hide the five ship-loads of gold, silver and jewels he gathered in Italy and took to Carthage? appalling, how fascinating is the idea of the total of the world's buried treasure! Be it also remembered that not one word has been said in the foregoing of the riches of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre and Sidon, the spoils of the Moors, the plunder of the Norsemen, the gold of Ophir, the treasures of Solomon, the vanished royal riches of the Eastern emperors. Men produced all this wealth, men possessed it for a while but where is it now? It seems that the gods have made sport of man and his avarice, have allowed him to win vast store at cost of blood and rack of soul only to re- hide it. Lynx and Lion A Veteran Hunter's Account of Their Traits By W. N. Wright ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR HEN I was a boy nothing which are quite round, and there is some- in fiction was so fascinat- what more space between them and the ing to me as the tales pad of the foot proper. Both animals mighty hunters tell of the have only four toes on the foot with one tracking of wild beasts. on the inside of the leg a little above the How a man could bend foot. The bottoms of the feet of both over the trail of a deer animals are covered with hair, by which and learn whether it was a buck or a doe they are enabled to walk noiselessly. The which had passed, seemed to me a pure track appears on ordinary ground just miracle. And so it happened that when as if a ball of hair had been pressed down twenty years. ago I found myself in the and taken up again, but in the moist snow northwestern part of the United States and mud it is as shown in the accompany- and in the center of a wonderful game ing illustration. If the trail of either can country, I began a close study of animal be found in the snow where it can be fol- footprints which I have kept up to the lowed for any considerable distance, one present time. can determine which of these animals Few men-even expert hunters have made the trail. The cougar takes a little a complete understanding of the significance longer stride and does not always place his of tracks. Take for instance the photo hind-foot exactly in the track of the front- graphs given above which show the prints foot, a mistake the lynx rarely makes. of the cougar, or mountain lion, and of the Both of these animals are themselves lynx. You will readily see that there is no hunters, and it is very difficult to hunt material difference in them. It will be them with any show of success without noticed that the foot of the lynx is a little dogs, though I have always found them more round than the foot of the lion, and cowardly and they will not fight unless it is, of course, in the full-grown animals, driven to it. They trust more to their a little smaller. The toes of the cougar ability to conceal themselves and to out- are more elongated than those of the lynx, wit and outmaneuver the hunter or trailer. 523 " At home”-because there is no back door 526 AMERICAN MAGAZINE outside to shoot him. The other hunter, While we were there he had an experience however, demurred to this plan, and finally with a cougar that is worth telling. It we entered the thicket together. We fol- was about the middle of April when we lowed the trail for some distance when it reached his camp and the snow still lay came to an old log that had fallen years deep in the timber and on the higher benches before. The cougar had mounted this and side hills. log and, near the farther end of it, we found These bear trappers start out early in his bed where he had evidently spent March and build pens for the bear traps, several hours in sleep. This log extended set the traps, throw a little bait into each, beyond the outer edge of the thicket and and in this manner go the whole round of we had climbed over it in walking around their line of bear traps. This is something the patch and, although we had passed like a month or more before they expect within less than twenty feet of the animal, the bears to come out from the winter's he had never moved until we followed the hibernation. After doing this work the trail into the thicket, when we found that trappers again make a trip to their traps he had quietly walked out to the end of just before the bears are expected out the log and then, with two or three mighty and do what they call “ pegging" the traps, bounds, had passed over the ridge and into see that the bait is all right, and cut away the cañon. from about the traps any snow and ice In the spring of 1898, with Mr. W.E. Car which may have fallen and melted since lin, I made a snow-shoe trip into the Bitter the traps were set. “Pegging" consists Root mountains for the purpose of getting of driving sticks pointed at either end into photographs of wild game. We crossed the ground around the traps, in such a the main divide of the range at the head manner that the bear must necessarily of Bear creek and followed the creek to its place his foot either on the sharp pointed mouth, where it flows into the main south pegs or on the pan of the trap. fork of the Clearwater river. At this place This old trapper started out to peg his an old trapper was trapping bear and killing traps and cut away the ice. He took noth- all the deer that he could find, for bear bait. ing but an ax, as he did not expect to have At bay—lynx watching the dogs A reconnoiter aloft-safe from the dogs 528 AMERICAN MAGAZINE any use for the gun. In one of the traps, some twelve miles from camp, he found a large cougar that had dragged the trap aad clog for a few feet only and was sitting in a patch of brush behind a large log. The old man did not want to go to camp and get his gun, so he decided to cut a heavy pole and beat out the brains of the brute with that. He cut the pole and pro- ceeded to administer the skull-breaking blows, but the brush was so thick that the blows were ineffectual. For a while the the trapper at last had to go to camp and get his gun and shoot the brute. Hunting the cougar with hounds - is ex- citing. The cry of the hounds and the sound of the chase is grand music as it sweeps over the mountains and through the cañons and valleys where the echoes throw back the sound until it seems as if there were hundreds of dogs engaged in- stead of perhaps a half dozen. Then one can never tell how long the chase will last, or whether the end will come at the first Sue His eye on the gun: a rare chance for a shot animal took the pounding and simply snarled, but by the time he had received ten or a dozen blows over the head and the blood began to run freely from his nose and mouth, he made a move that the old man had not figured on. Crouching low on the ground, the animal made a spring for the old fellow and, although handicapped with a twenty-pound trap and an eighty- pound clog, he cleared brush, log, and all and landed at the old man's feet. The latter made a backward spring just in time to escape. The lion then clawed the ax and pole together and sat on them, and treeing. If hunted with only two or three dogs, the cougar will not always remain in the tree until the hunter comes up. I have known one to jump three times before finally becoming tired enough to stick to the tree until shot. It is not safe to hunt the cougar with only one dog, as the dog often will be killed before the hunter can come up. One dog with which we had killed many cougars, at last got after an old one that took the first leaning tree that he came to, and before we came up he had attacked and killed the dog and buried him in the snow. I have never, personally, .“ It is only a camera" known cougars to try to kill the dogs where there was more than one dog engaged in the attack, but often, after clawing and scratching the dogs badly, they have es- caped and run for an hour or more before taking to another tree. An old fellow that we treed three times in one day we did not get, as he would not remain in the tree until we came up, and as we had only three dogs and these were too small to hold him, he always beat the dogs off and then took another run. This he kept up all day and finally, at dark, we had to call off the worn-out dogs and return to camp. “ It's a gun” Old Noel of the Mellicites By Holman Day WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GORDON MC COUCH IN PRIVADELONI BEAULIEU, wak- experience in such matters. Thereupon No ch ing. heard a queer sound the officers fell into such dispute over in the night. It came out honors and share of spoils that they de- of the woods to the east parted their several ways, leaving Beloni of the Monarda clearing, astride his paint streak and his stock in- Sie passed along the highway tact upon the international truck. under the windows of Watered with such experience, it is no Beloni's “line-house," and went on down wonder that neutrality grew into perfect into the bowl of the valley towards the flower with him. “Balance" Beaulieu woods on the west where the road swung became a name well chosen. up and hid itself in the hillside spruces. When heavy wains rumbled in the night, The purr of innumerable little feet on when hurrying horses clip-clopped past at the hard clay road—that was the sound the canter, when creatures' hoofs pattered There was a strange rustling shuffle as of without, Beloni Beaulieu merely nestled many bodies. Every now and then he his nose deeper into his pillow. Given heard the broken dust-choked quaver of three hundred miles of frontier in a cus- a sheep's complaint or the tremulous wail toms district, given fourteen men to guard of a lamb. it, and one may understand what part Beloni Beaulieu did not rise and look the informer must play if the smuggler is out. They called him “ Balance” Beaulieu to be caught. in that section. By the roadside in front Beloni Beaulieu turned his back to the of his house was an iron post. One could dormer window and dulled his ear to the lean his back against it and set one foot in now distant scuffings of little hoofs. And the Dominion of Canada and the other as for the dust-choked bleatings, he sleepily upon the soil of the United States. Be- murmured to himself: loni's house and his big barn straddled the “I ban he’r de frogs in de Hagas swamp line. The head of Beloni's bed was draped ver' plain to-night.” with the American flag. The footboard It pleased Beloni's caution to lie to him- displayed the Union Jack. self. It served in lieu of rehearsal. In the big main room downstairs a But when hoarse shoutings came swelling streak of yellow paint exactly divided the up on the night breeze, oaths, commands floor space. Loafers could loll in one and at last the poppings of revolvers, country and expectorate upon alien soil, Beloni Beaulieu sat up in bed and lis- according to prejudice. It was not mere tened with frank purpose to get the facts. whim that located Beloni Beaulieu's house “I t'ink Big Ben git caught at last,” he thus impartially in the Monarda clearing. muttered. “Or else " he cautiously In the great room downstairs was a mighty checked himself, burrowed his face into truck with iron wheels. It was piled high his pillow and prepared to sleep again. with a stock of liquors. “Father!” called an agitated voice at his Only once in the history of Beloni's door. “Father, they are shooting. They place had the officers of both nations been are fighting.” able to agree and descend simultaneously. “I he'r nottin's," murmured Beloni Then he centered his truck on the line, sleepily. straddled the paint mark himself, and “It is the officers—the customs men,” stood with arms folded. He reckoned she insisted. safely upon the jealousy of nations, having “I he'r nottin's.” 530 RE TI “ Durgin swore roundly as he turned to follow the girl's gaze" back grave and placid and centered in a mental and spiritual poise that abashed while it angered him in a sullen secret way. The constant uneasy apprehension was with him that she was preparing to rebuke him for the traffic that had made him rich. He could bawl commands at her bravely through a closed door; he could look over her head or at her feet and growl despotically. Now, pushing back her dark hair, she stared full into his face with those big, unwavering eyes and calmly repeated: "And so I opened the door to them, father.” The young officer, watching the work- ings of Beloni's face and the twitchings of his hands, saw menace in the mien. He did not understand that it was angry em- barrassment that had overwhelmed this bearded lion. He slipped from under his burden, laid the wounded man's head gently on the bench and came between them. “Let this matter be between us, Beau- lieu," he said with spirit, “for if the door had not been opened I would have broken in the side of your house." Here was fair prey and proper outlet for the giant's wrath. He began to scream his threats and oaths, but the other shoved forward very close to his blotchy nose a sturdy and monitory digit. “No more talk," he gritted. “A room and a bed for that man. After the hap- penings of this night, the United States Government proposes to find out who are its friends and who are its enemies in this section. Do you understand me?" Beaulieu gathered a strand of beard 532 OLD NOEL OF THE MELLICITES 533 between his teeth and was silent, but his hands trembled when he helped the young man to lift the wounded deputy, and the back of his thick neck burned more redly than his exertions warranted. The girl watched them stumble up the stairs with their burden. She asked no permission, but ran to the big barn and called to a youth who came into the red dawn rubbing his eyes with grimy fists. She stayed, urging haste, until she saw him go rattling down the Monarda turnpike in a dusty road cart. His errand was to fetch a surgeon. As she gazed after him, she saw moving white spots scattered on the distant slope near the woods. She knew them for the great flock of sheep that had passed in the night from Canadian to American territory. That the flock was now without watcher or warder was shown by the manner in which the weary animals roamed or lolled upon the hillside. With anxious fear knotting her white forehead she slowly ran her eyes along the belt of woods, seek- ing for some sign of human life. “It must be the Durgins' drove,” she muttered. “There were many shots. Their sheep are left. I have been afraid it would happen.” “Elise!” The sound was hissed rather than spoken. At the farther corner of the great barn a hand beckoned and she went there fear- lessly. The person who had called stepped out to meet her. She stared without sur prise into his hard gray eyes that shuttled nervously under her gaze. "Is he dead—the old one; I saw Lane bring him here?” he asked huskily. He was fingering with nervous hand the plait of his smart corduroy jacket. “No," she replied simply. As his face lightened his youthfulness appeared. One would have thought him older when the lines were deep in forehead and cheeks. “We weren't to blame, father and I weren't,” he cried, spreading his gloved hands before her. “They tried to take our property away from us. We had to shoot. And father is hit. He's bad. The boys have taken him home across the line." “But you have no right to be breaking the law. You have no right to shoot men who are doing their duty, Duff Durgin.” Her eyes were steady and cold and she stepped back when he came to take her hands. “Oh, you are not the girl you were before you went away to St. Basil,” he whined. “It has always been done on the border. My grandfather, your grandfather, my father, your father, have not been thought less of by our people for showing that we are not afraid of the stingy Yankees.” His eyes shone and he came close to her. “When we are married we shall have fifty thousand dollars of our own in the bank. It's better than a flat wallet and silly no- tions, Elise.” “We shall not be married, Duff.” There was no surprise in the stare he returned. There was only sudden anger. He had been controlling some hidden feel- ing ever since he came to meet her. “Don't you suppose I know-don't you suppose I know?" he shrilled, clutching her savagely by both arms. “I have been waiting for you to say it. A nice excuse you are giving me! A girl that has lived all her life, so far, on the best in the land bought by the kind of money that Beloni Beaulieu makes! But that excuse won't go with me, Elisiane. Not with me! Do you think that I travel this border day and night not to know all the news? I have been waiting for you all these years since our folks struck hands on the match- waiting like an honest man. It is not that I couldn't have had the best there are be- tween St. Agathe and the St. Croix." He released her arms and stepped back as though to let her survey the attractions of the person and attire that had given Duff Durgin a reputation along the border. Then he leaned forward and vibrated his palm at her edgewise. “I have been waiting for you according to promise, I say, but you—but you— " “But I?" she repeated icily. “But you have been sneaking outside the convent at St. Basil to meet another sneak—the Yankee sneak that spies on good people in the name of his govern- ment. He's there in that house of yours. I followed him when he came here. You opened the door to him. Now your father shall know it all, Elisiane Beaulieu-and Big Beloni knows how to run his own house.” The threat seemed to fail of the effect he had hoped. She was staring over his shoulder. OLD NOEL OF THE MELLICITES 535 “Kill,” repeated the Mellicite senten- put her burning brow against the hand laid tiously. “Noel Bear one hundred two. on his breast and then turned and ran Better die. away. “You his gal?” he demanded of the Durgin was left, facing the old man. girl. He bent down his seamed, gnarled His countenance was blazing with shame face and looked at her wistfully. “You and fury and he fumbled under the flap his gal? Too bad!” of his coat. The old man drew himself up, folded “This is ten days you've been following his arms and waited for the attack that me, you old lunatic of a blackmailer," he Durgin seemed about te make on him. gritted. He had his revolver in his hand. "I'll despise you if you lay a finger on “You are going to die. By the infernal, that old man,” cried the girl with fierce you shan't ruin me with your tongue.” precipitancy. At the same time she vigor- “Kill. Yes." grunted the chief. He ously pushed Durgin away. lifted a thin, age-speckled hand and pointed "I follow to tell all gal him bad,” the to the iron post. “Kill this side. Yan- Indian went on stolidly. “I follow him kees don't hang. Coward to spoil our to-day, I follow him to-morrow. I follow lamb. Coward to kill old man." him till he kill me or he come back•to Durgin's face went white. where Noel Bear's great-granddaughter “I'll never marry an Injun. You can't wait and cry for him with dat poo', poo', make me marry an Injun. What do I little baby on her knee." care if she is white? She's Injun. I'll The girl gasped and grew white, then pay. I've said I'd pay. That's all you'll the red surged to her cheeks and brow. get out of me, Bear." "You damned, lying Injun,” shrieked The Mellicite shook his head, his gray Durgin, but though he drove his gloved eyebrows knotting close. fists together again and again he did not “No money. You! She cry many strike the man he threatened. tears. It's for you. It's all she want. "I'm Injun-yes. But chief." The You! I'm old great-grandfather. I come. Mellicite raised his voice. “And my great I follow. I keep follow. I tell all till granddaughter have Acadian father and shame drive you back—till white people grandfather, and she white. Lola Niko- all know and drive you back." lah she white lamb of the Mellicites.” Old The calm, relentless purpose in the Noel's voice trembled, though his eyes were withered old face that gloomed above him stern under their grizzled tufts. maddened Durgin, already distraught by He had spoken the name of her whose his accumulating troubles. beauty was the pride of the little tribe, and He stood on his tiptoes, struck upward whose fame had been long abroad in the and forward with a grunt and the old man region. went down under the blow. Pain and grief, excitement and anger Without a look at the prostrate figure, struggled together on the girl's face and he started for the house, cautiously and in her big eyes. with eyes on its windows. “Lola Nikolah,” she gasped. “Has Beaulieu was in the main room when he-has this man deceived Lola Nikolah?” he entered after carefully reconnoitering. “Him," said the Indian. He folded The big man was still pad-padding and his arms once more. “Where he go I nodded sulky affirmation when Durgin follow to tell him. I tell him alone. I inquiringly pointed a finger upstairs. tell him among his friends. I tell of him “Yo' do nice t'ing, yo' do,” growled to all people till he come back to her he the publican. “Shoot and bang and bring spoil.” trouble onto my house.” He was Nemesis-tall and gaunt and “How long since you have been in favor dusky and solemn; old with the seamings of handing over your good property to of a century; calm in his self-set purpose; customs men?" demanded Durgin with quiet in his stoical anger-but Nemesis! a sneer. “It's the biggest flock we've The girl stared at him a moment and put through in two years,” he went on, then her woman's heart and sympathy with a despondent wave of his hand to- broke through the barriers of race. ward the distant hillside where the white “Poor old grandfather,” she half sobbed, spots showed in the morning light. “Elise 536 AMERICAN MAGAZINE has sent the boy for a doctor. I need help to round up our sheep." “Ba gar," snorted Beaulieu, “she ac' like she t'ink she run this plac' to-day. If dat ke'p on I be 'fraid of her 'stead of her 'fraid of me, like her mother ban. I donno what's git into her. Yo' better gon' and git marry queeck.” “Now is the time to talk about that same thing, and it's what I'm going to talk about, sheep or no sheep,” said Durgin with venom. “Your girl has told me that she will never marry me. And she just the same as told me, too, that you and your orders could go straight to perdition.” “Dat trut', hey?" demanded Beaulieu, his ready anger rising, his hair bristling. " And I know what's got into her, even if you don't,” Durgin went on, relishing the other's rage. “I've known it a long time, Beloni, but I'm no blabber. I've waited till she made the first stab. It's her doings, Beloni, all her doings.” “Ba the thousand devils, why don' you tell me?" shouted Beaulieu in an ecstasy of impatience and apprehension. “This young deputy's name is Norman Lane,” said Durgin, sinking his voice. “Did you notice how soon he was trans- ferred down here when your daughter came home from school? He's been courting her up there, Beloni. She broke convent rules to meet him. They're in love-by the gods, that's what's the mat- ter with her!” His voice trembled with jealous passion. “A nice thing, a Yan- kee custom house sneak getting the daugh- ter of Beloni Beaulieu, eh? That is why she sneers at me and don't care anything for you now-not enough to obey you. Where is she? I'll bet they're hugging and kissing somewhere now—this very minute!” His voice broke huskily. He licked his dry lips. The neck veins swelled under Beau- lieu's purple skin, and he hooked strands of beard into his mouth with his tongue and spat them out again. “Where is she?” persisted Durgin. “She say she go to look to the seeck man,” said Beloni slowly, apparently striving to strain the piece of news through his thick comprehension. “But if—but if- aw, if she ban do dat t'ing what yo'say " He could voice no threat that suited his feelings. He merely shook his big hands above his head. The next moment, obeying a whispered suggestion of Durgin, he started softly upstairs in his bare feet. The young man followed, tiptoeing carefully. The wounded deputy had been carried to the room nearest the head of the stairs. A big, dark closet was opposite its door and here the two men hid themselves, breathing thickly. They could hear the querulous tones of the sufferer. He had revived since he had been placed at ease on a bed. “There they are, Norman, boy—there they are! I can see 'em from the window. They are scattered all over the hillside. They'll be back after the sheep, Norman. It's a wonder they haven't tried it already. We must have 'em, boy. They have dodged us all these years, the Durgins- for they own the border folks. Let's have those sheep, Norman." The two in the closet heard the soothing voices of the girl and the young man trying to calm the speaker, but he grew only the more eager. “Out after them, boy. Out after them. It will be a big plum for you. I am all right, I tell you! You are wasting your time staying here with me. I order you to go. I'll report you if you don't go. Scare those sheep into the Monarda road. They'll go along. The woods fence each side. Get 'em started and shoot the man that follows you. It will kill me if I lie here and see the Durgins get away with those sheep. You're driving me into a fever, Norman. For God's sake, get out and do your duty.” His voice rose into quavering appeal, growing louder as those with him tried to remonstrate. At last the eavesdroppers heard him utter a cry that was half a shout of joy, half a groan of pain. “I knew you'd go, boy. You've got the right stuff in you." When the door opened the two in the closet shrank back into the gloom. The girl came with the young deputy. He closed the door softly behind them and took Elisiane's hands. “I leave Uncle Dan with you until the doctor comes,” he murmured. "But one alone cannot head a flock of sheep into the Monarda road,” she in- sisted, her country-woman's good sense to the fore. “They'll come back unless there is some one in the road at this side when you start them.” OLD NOEL OF THE MELLICITES 537 “But I'll manage, little girl," he said “Didn't you ever make up your mind on stoutly. “It has been bad business, mine any one thing, you old fool?” this morning with your father. But I was The giant whirled on his tormentor. desperate and I had to use hard words to “Yo't'ink I go hang for a girl like dat?” him." he demanded; "a girl dat ban ashamed “When he is breaking the good laws, of her own father? Let her go. Let her and forgets that an Acadian door is never ban a Yankee sneak! I have some plenty closed in the face of one who needs shelter, tr-rouble. I don' let yo' mak' some more he is not my father then,” cried the girl for me. Yo' keep on shootin', if yo'lak excitedly. “I am ashamed-ashamed to. Yo' know how." He shook the re- ashamed of his money, Norman! I have volver at the door where lay the wounded been taunted!” Her voice broke, and she officer and then threw it on the floor. He clung to him, sobbing. seemed about to shift his spleen to the man “Ashamed of Beloni Beaulieu, hey?” who was sneering at his irresolution. roared a voice from the dark closet, and “By the gods, then, I have something at the giant thrust out his face, his hairy hands stake even if you haven't,” blurted Durgin. clutching the door casing on either side. “No government hound is going to steal “It's what yo’ bring from St. Basil, eh, my property and my girl-not from Duff dat shame feelin'? I ban he'r how yo' Durgin, to have it laughed about the whole got dat feelin', and now we'll see 'bout dat." length of this border! I'm into it so far. There was so much of malice and I can keep on.” menace in the tone that Lane swung the Durgin had been trained to lawlessness girl toward the head of the stairway and from boyhood. He had seen officers bat- stepped between her and the angry father. tered into lifelessness and had known that But the daughter flung herself forward the perpetrators had escaped. Now, with again and stood in front of the young man. the strongest motives that can sway un- “This is an Acadian home, father, and bridled temper to prompt him, he did not I am the mistress here. You shall not reflect on future chances. Gripping his harm our guest.” weapon he rushed for the stairs. The Beloni felt something hard prodding door of the big room was open. The him behind. Into the hand he put out fugitives were in the yard. When he to defend himself was shoved the smooth, reached a window they were hurrying cold butt of a revolver. along the highway. “Ashamed of your father, hey?" per- On the heap of stones that surrounded sisted Beaulieu. “Yo' t'ink yo' run my the iron post sat the old Indian. He was house, do yo’? Yo' let a Yankee sneak slowly wiping away blood that smeared court yo'? Now yo go on your room his wrinkled forehead. He stared after where yo’ belong! It's my bus'ness here the couple in the road and then fixed his wit' dis mans. Yo' go on your room or eyes on the house. yo' go off my house, off wit' yo'-yo'— Durgin was hesitating and swearing yo'— " he began to sputter oaths and when Beaulieu came to his side. obscene names, thinly disguised in patois. “Yo' fire no shot from my house-not Instantly the girl whirled and still keep- wit' Noel Bear ready to carry away the ing her body between her lover and the news,” growled Beloni, clutching Durgin's foaming Beaulieu, she began to push Lane arm, and driving down his weapon. down the stairs. “I know a way, Beaulieu. Let me go! “If you love me, if you love me, Nor- I know a way. It has been done to such man!” she kept whispering passionately sneaks before. It can be done again. "You must go! You cannot fight with my Then let them prove it. It has never been father.” proven against any one yet. Let me go!” “Pop him, Beloni,” prompted a hissing A magazine rifle hung from deer's voice behind the father. “It's your time horns at the side of the room. Durgin, now. Pop him! He's stealing your girl released by Beloni, ran to it, lifted it down and laughing at you." and hurried to the back of the house. He Beaulieu stood raising and lowering left through a window, and, stooping, the weapon. ran across the field to gain the shelter of “Balance' Beloni!" sneered Durgin. the woods. A dog barked shrilly after 538 AMERICAN MAGAZINE him from his kennel in the shed. At the Durgin far ahead of him. There was a sound, the Indian lifted his head and bare spot on a little hill and Durgin went seemed to sniff with almost canine eager- up and across it on the run, even though ness. The house shut off his view of the a strip of woods hid him from the main field through which Durgin was running clearing. At the top he stood looking But Noel Bear, with the trained instinct about him for a moment and then dodged of the woods, knew the note in that dog's out of sight. From where he stood the bark. He left his seat on the stones and Indian noted the nature of the covert. crept along the side of the house. He A great tree had been uprooted by a gale. was in time to see the stooping figure just In a hollow at the foot of a towering wall disappearing in the belt of woods. of twisted roots and stones and earth the With caution he waited a moment and man had hidden himself. then, marking with his eye the slanting Noel Bear, running with an agility that birch where Durgin had vanished from belied his hundred years, avoided the sight, he took the trail. cleared spot by a detour and came with "Let 'em all go," muttered Beloni, who the stealth of a cat to the trunk of the up- had witnessed the scene from the windows turned tree. He listened. A little rattling of the big room. His daughter and the of small stones on the other side of the young officer were well along the Monarda massive wall of contorted roots and up- turnpike. The tall figure of the Indian lifted soil told him that Durgin had made was already half way to the timber. “Let his lair there. He was pushing aside the 'em all go. Dey all mak’ tr-rouble for little stones to ensconce himself more me. Let 'em hav' it out so it suits 'em.” snugly. Below him was the Monarda Then he grumblingly began to lug the road, its mouth opening upon the hillside liquors from the truck into a secure hiding clearing a quarter of a mile away. place, feeling that an official storm was The Indian heard faintly the hallooing about to break over his establishment of the young customs deputy, collecting The aged Mellicite had the training of the scattered sheep. the old days when the secrets of the trail The old man at first cast anxious looks were the primer of Indian youth. This in the direction of the clearing and softly forlorn and gnarled old centenarian was started backward as though to circle and the last link between the past and the intercept those who were running on this present-the past of chase and forest craft danger that he now well understood. -the present of mixed blood and shattered But immediately his face hardened, his traditions. yellow teeth shut tight and he returned to Under the leaning birch he bent low to the tree, stepping softly and slowly. the ground, his eyes dimmer than of old, He may have reflected that he was only but his instinct keen. He followed swiftly postponing the vengeance of a desperate and surely. The trail led around the enemy by warning the deputy. He may Monarda clearing, keeping well in the have understood the ambition of the officer shelter of the big trees. Its course was to to capture the smuggled animals. It is gain the opposite hillside where the sheep more probable that the sense of his own still lingered. The old man had seen the wrongs and those of the Mellicite maiden young people go away, agitated and hurry- whom this wretch had flouted and cast off ing. The hot brow of the girl seemed still stirred him most deeply. For again he to burn on his hand. Her woman's word wiped the bleeding scar on his face and of consolation burned still more hotly in stared at the smear on his thin hand. The his heart, for it meant her woman's sym- memory of what Durgin had said to him pathy for the broken flower of the tribe. before he struck was bitter in Noel Bear at The grim purpose of this skulker with the that moment, because he muttered, rifle was not hidden from him. He went “Him no go back! Well!” on more swiftly still-crawling here and His only weapon was a huge knife there on the dry places, trotting noiselessly strapped at his waist. He drew it. where the footmarks showed on the moist On the other side of the earth wall was mould of the forest. a desperate and angry man with a rifle, his When he had compassed nearly the half- back to the roots and commanding all in circuit of the clearing he caught sight of front of him. One who climbed the wall OLD NOEL OF THE MELLICITES 539 would inevitably dislodge stones and give when the last, quick impulse was needed. alarm. It was folly to attempt to storm There was an ash stake from a lumber- him from the front. man's sled near at hand. He seized it, The old Mellicite had a more certain set it between the two halves and sagged plan-a strange, a daring plan that his with all his strength and weight. quick eye and his woods' knowledge had The wall did not merely fall. “Fall” grasped when he first came to the prostrate is too slow a word. It "flipped” like the tree. At ten feet of its length from the jaw of a steel trap. A cat could not have wall of roots and earth the falling trunk jumped to safety from under its rush. had crushed against a boulder. The tree Much less Durgin, who had tucked him- had split raggedly, unevenly, diagonally. self into a hollow under the roots. The Its two parts were united by splintered Mellicite was not sure that there was a cry. fibers—many of them. The sheep were massing in the road below The Indian crouched under the bushes and were bleating loudly, and he was not beside the boulder and began to “scruffle" certain of sounds. his hands slightly in the dry leaves. Then The great“ plat” of earth was back upon he whined and grunted. The sound was its ancient and familiar site, its stump an exact imitation of the familiar porcupine jutting serenely and innocently from its so common in the north woods. Imme- center. Those who would have gone diately he commenced work on the fibers looking for a man beneath what the cen- with his knife. The sound of their sever- turies seemed to have planted in its place ing was like the dull grinding of a porcu- would not have been deemed wise. pine's teeth as he gnaws wood and bark The Mellicite was sitting with his back for his food. against that stump when Norman Lane “Damnation take the quill pig!” he and the girl came past, following the sheep. heard Durgin snarl. Then came a hand- Her face was flushed from her exertions, ful of small stones over the earth wall. her big eyes were bright with excitement But the Indian reckoned rightly when and glowing with a purpose that had not he figured that Duff Durgin, intent on his been in them when she left her father's bitter revenge, would not leave his hiding house. The big hat that she had snatched place and hazard observation for the sake from a hook in the hall hung by its strings of chasing away a porcupine. upon her back. They were walking hand The Mellicite whined and grunted again, in hand. rustled the dry leaves a bit more and then She was the first to see the solitary figure went on vigorously with his knife. above them on the hillside, for the woman's Now there was a chorus of bleatings in the fears had kept her eyes busy. When she road below. The sheep had started along called to him and he would not come down, They came trotting, quavering their cries. she left the young man with a word and Durgin threw no more stones. Noel climbed the slope. Bear heard the click of steel as Durgin When she returned and took the eager jacked in his cartridge. The Indian drove hand her lover held to her, her eyes were his knife with furious haste deep between wet and her voice trembled. the halves of the splintered trunk. The “Poor, lonely old man,” she murmured, rush of the animals in the road below hid looking back over her shoulder as they the sound from the man on the other side walked on," he has had bitter trouble, of the wall. Norman, and I wanted to tell him how It was a trap set by Nature herself, and truly and honestly I pitied him. Because the Indian had but the springing of it. Indians do not talk there are those who It was the mightiest deadfall of the forest, do not think they suffer. You can hardly ready to hand. guess what old Noel Bear was doing. He In time the wood-borers, the frost, or had a little wooden box on his knee and a sleet storms massing weight upon the bit of sugar was in it and he was waiting. twisted roots and the earth in their clutch He said that one bee would come and would have sprung it, for the fibers made get some sugar and fly away to its tree. but a feeble hold of the stump upon the Then it will come back bringing another body of the tree that held this overweighted bee with it, and so he'll follow their wall in poise. The Mellicite knew well line.” 540 AMERICAN MAGAZINE “What a precious bee I am bringing back with me," he smiled. “I pray to God that I may be taking you to the sweetest things of your life, Elise." A road cart met them, forcing its way through the circling sheep. It was the surgeon, brought by the messenger. He received Lane's hasty explanations and directions and promised to remain until the authorities relieved him. “I have a word to send to my father, Elie,” said the girl stoutly, as the farm hand straightened the reins. “Tell him I have gone from home to be married to the man I love and that I will be his daugh- ter again only when he has become what good Acadians ought to be. He will un- derstand what I mean.” The restive horse started on, for the arms of the farm man grew suddenly lax. The surgeon and Elie, looking over their shoulders and gabbling their astonishment to each other, saw the young couple, hand in hand, disappear under the arching trees of the Monarda road. When rattle of wheels and bleating of sheep had died away, the Mellicite rose and threw the little wooden box, the tool of his livelihood for many years, far away into the woods. He drove his great knife into the stump and left it quivering there. “I no bring, no bring, Lola!” he groaned. He put his bloody hand on the wound in his forehead. “He strike chief. I forget you. No can tell you he never come back. Noel Bear ver’ tired now. One hundred two. Noel Bear can't go home and tell Lola. Better die.” from his breast he drew a little square of dry bread and tossed it away. He did this with the calm of a stoic, loosing his last feeble hold on life. Then he went stumbling away into the depths of the forest, with the instinct that is the instinct of the animal wounded unto death. Can We Keep Sober ? By Julian Willard Helburn R EGT DISTINCTION may be Sicce drawn between the spo- radic drinker, the man or woman who occasionally takes too much, and the habitual inebriate. The sporadic drinkers are vastly in the majority. In New York City, fifteen years ago, habitual inebriates num- bered only one-seventh of one per cent. of the arrests for drunkenness. The pro- portion appears to have risen since, but in any community the great preponderance of drunkenness is always sporadic. Spo- radic drinkers are responsible for most of the accidents, brawls and offences due to drunkenness. The habitual inebriates learn to carry their liquor with the ease of long experience, and keep out of trouble, but they have a monopoly of the more serious effects of alcohol-careers and characters ruined, families heart-broken, disgraced or pauperized, weakness, disease, insanity, and the transmission of these weaknesses to future generations. Many sporadic drinkers will not take the trouble to get drunk if liquor is difficult or dangerous to obtain. These, prohibitive measures such as local option and high license restrain. But on the chronic ine- briates, who must have liquor at any cost or risk, prohibition never had and never can have any effect. Its difficulty is not so much that it forbids the temperate man his glass of beer in order to keep the sot sober, as that it cannot keep the sot sober. The demand of the sporadic drinker for alcohol is not a craving but an indul- gence. He will get drunk just so long as the pleasure of intoxication is greater than the resultant discomfort and trouble. When he and those about hisz come to regard it as an offence, he will give it up. This process has been going on rapidly during the last century and a half. It is no longer customary for gentlemen to go to bed drunk, nor is a capacity for three bottles of port at a sitting regarded as a social asset. At the same time, as commerce and industry have grown swifter and more complex, they 542 AMERICAN MAGAZINE A MAN INTOXICATED SIX THOUSAND TIMES less muscular work than the men, and so the sordidness of life. The steady drinker burn up less of the alcohol they absorb. is more often the business man or clubman who gets into the habit of taking two or ALCOHOLISM ESSENTIALLY A DRUG HABIT. three highballs or cocktails a day for their stimulant effect, finds that he cannot do No one, of course, begins as an alcoholic. without them, comes to need a nightcap Every man starts with an occasional and before he can sleep, an eye-opener before he more or less unintentional intoxication, or can breakfast, and a bracer before he can with the steady use of moderate quantities of work, and finally reaches a point where he alcohol. The immense majority, as we have is unable to subsist without a quantity of seen, either sow their wild oats and become alcohol sufficient to keep him half stupefied perfectly sober citizens, or else remain or half tipsy most of the time. He has not throughout life sporadic drinkers, some deliberately cultivated the habit, yet by times intoxicated, but never enslaved. taking himself in hand and undergoing What is it, then, in the make-up of the some discomfort in the early stages, he might small remainder, that fixes alcoholism on have averted it. them as a permanent and ruinous habit? It is neither physical thirst nor fondness for the taste of liquor. The pleasure of the —THE RECORD. connoisseur ends as soon as excess begins, and according to Duclaux's definition, “a The results of this physical drinking are man has drunk to excess when, an hour af almost invariably physical. The steady ter taking alcohol, he is conscious of having drinker, if he is not carried off by delirium taken it.” The true inebriate drinks for tremens, develops organic disease, usually quantity, not for quality: his sole aim is the of the heart, kidneys or liver, though there drug effect of the alcohol. Alcoholism is as is not an organ in the body that cannot be essentially a drug habit as morphinism, affected by alcohol. Sometimes he shows though it has a far wider range of symptoms extraordinary physical resistance. While and results. the average man cannot survive more than a In determining the cause of the habit, it is thousand intoxications, steady drinkers of a possible to yield a point both to those who certain powerful, massive type can get hold that it is always a fault and those who drunk as much as two thousand times before hold that it is always a disease. There are giving way. In an alcoholic career of ten or certainly two classes of chronic inebriates, fifteen years they can put away about two in one of which the habit may fairly be thousand gallons of whiskey, or thirty-two regarded as partly voluntary, in the other as barrels of pure spirits. But this is really the largely if not wholly involuntary. The sots human limit. All records to date are held and steady drinkers may justly be charged by a man of fifty, who admitted, while under with beginning the habit of their volition or treatment at Bellevue, that he had been lack of volition. Of course, once the habit drunk daily for six months in the year since is established, it perpetuates itself; the alco- he was seventeen; a total of over six thou- hol produces a depression, a "loss of tone in sand intoxications. the small arteries and capillaries,” which more alcohol is required to overcome. But CUT HIS OWN HAND OFF TO GET A DRINK. as the habit requires six or seven years to become fully established, the steady drinker The periodic inebriate, on the other hand, has ample opportunity to use his will. is a nervous drinker. He does not enjoy the Doubtless his temptation is stronger, his effects of alcohol; between his sprees he tendency to alcoholism greater than that of usually revolts from it. It is true that until the ordinary drinker, yet it is not in its he has used alcohol a few times the nervous nature irresistible. He is essentially a demand for it cannot arise, but he does not physical drinker; he drinks at first, not have to develop the habit, or even to let it from need but from a strong desire for the develop; a few unwitting indulgences will physical effects of alcohol. With the com- give his innate predisposition the upper mon sot, the type common on the Bowery hand and bring the craving on him. There or the Barbary Coast, this is a desire for the are two kinds of periodic inebriety, one a pleasures of intoxication or an escape from form of neurasthenia, the other a form of CAN WE KEEP SOBER? 543 insanity. The neurasthenic form culmi- may appear drunken and delirious or simply nates in attacks of violent depression and drunken, but he can remember nothing almost intolerable desire for stimulant. when he comes to. He may begin drinking This may be and sometimes is resisted by in one city and wake up in another halfway great resolution, and when it is yielded to is across the continent. His spree may last as likely to result in any other drug habit as from a day to ten weeks or three months. in alcoholism. In fact, one inebriate of this During that time he takes little or no food, type who was brought to Bellevue with yet when he winds up in a hospital with delirium tremens and given a hypodermic delirium tremens he is usually in a fairly injection of morphine, promptly exclaimed, well-nourished condition. “By George, this is the very thing I've been His recovery is followed by a violent looking for,” and forthwith became a mor- reaction and a sober interval usually much phinist for the rest of his days. In dipso longer than his spree. Gradually, however, mania, the insane form of periodic inebriety, the premonitory uneasiness and moodiness the craving is a blind and perfectly irre return, and soon the whole performance is to sistible demand for alcohol and nothing do again. With repetition the period be- else, in a mind otherwise normal. This is a tween sprees grows steadily shorter. At the true “explosive psychosis," like epilepsy, same time, however, the victim's resistance and just as involuntary. Its strength is is broken down, and the length of time that almost incredible. Prof. James cites the he can keep up his spree shortens. The case of a dipsomaniac who was confined in process continues until the victim, if he sur- an Ohio almshouse. “Within a few days vive his delirium tremens, comes down with he had devised various expedients to pro- nervous disease (just as the physical cure rum, but had failed. At length he hit drinker comes down with organic disease), on one which was successful. He went into usually paresis, locomotor ataxia or insanity. the woodshed of the establishment, placed one hand on the block, and with an axe in HOPE FOR THE CHRONIC DRINKER IF HE the other struck it off at a single blow. HELPS HIMSELF. With the stump raised and streaming he ran into the house and cried, 'Get some rum. Chronic inebriety can be cured, if it has Get some rum. My hand is off. In the not already produced serious mental or confusion and bustle of the occasion a bowl physical degeneration. But it is only of rum was brought, into which he plunged curable when the victim aids in the cure. the bleeding member of his body, then We can destroy the craving; we can make raising the bowl to his mouth, drank freely, it as easy for the victim to abstain as if he and exultingly exclaimed, ‘Now I am satis- had never touched liquor. But if he will not abstain of his own free will, if he is too much of a fool to realize that he is better off THE WAY TO DISEASE FOR THE PERIODIC sober than drunk, nothing will save him but DRINKER. confinement for life. After recovery, his first drink must be as deliberate as a boy's Both forms of periodic inebriety are the first cigarette. But with the first drink, or expression of an inherently unstable nervous the first few drinks, back comes the craving system, which might express itself equally with its old fury. in epilepsy, morphinism or criminal tenden- The first requisite of a cure is abso- cies, and both develop alike. The craving lute restraint. There is no home cure, no begins as a vague restlessness, sleeplessness magic powder to drop in the drunkard's and irritability. On its first approach the coffee (provided he condescends to coffee). victim may not know what it is he wants, but The cure is a matter of hygiene, not of medi- later he comes to recognize his seizure at its cine. It depends on wholesome out-door first symptoms. Sometimes he fights it life and mental stimulus, on time, more to the last gasp; sometimes, when he feels it time and again time. And while these are coming, he prepares for it, puts on his old working the inebriate must be secluded in clothes and locks up his valuables. From a well-guarded sanitarium or colony, for the moment he goes under the influence of nothing but physical restraint will with- alcohol till the moment he comes out of it, stand the craving during the first months of he practically loses consciousness. He abstinence. fied!'' 544 AMERICAN MAGAZINE First there must be restoration for the the epilept is not considered convalescent weakened body with its need of stimulant: until after a year has passed without an air, exercise, sleep, plenty of good food at attack, not cured until after two years, and frequent intervals, precaution against fa- not out of danger until after three. So with tigue or hunger, for every discomfort or the alcoholic. While the steady drinker depression tends at first to reawaken the may often be cured in a few months, the craving. These will restore physical trim, periodic is never safe under a year, and any but in most cases they will not suffice if the limit of treatment shorter than three years mind is left in the irritable, depressed state will not insure a maximum of cures. that demanded stimulants, and the will in But at present we have neither the sani- the rusty lassitude of long indulgence. The tariums nor the laws for the cure of ine- mental life of the victim must be made as briety. The so-called “cures" do little vigorous as his physical life. He must be good, and probably much harm. They interested, given a change of surroundings, cure a few patients, mainly physical drink- kept active and alert. His initiative and ers who earnestly desire to break the habit, ambition must be awakened. He must be because they employ some of the help- encouraged to think for himself, to decide ful influences we have listed: restraint, for himself: educated into responsibility and wholesome life, change of scene. But the self-control. Change of scene, occupation treatment is entirely too short to cure the and amusement will do much of this. The nervous or the more stubborn physical rest depends on the personal equation, the drinkers. In the great majority of patients ability and insight of the director of the the craving is not extinguished, and after a sanitarium, the skill and care with which he short period of sobriety they fall back help- diagnoses and prescribes for the mental lessly into the habit. In addition, most of condition of each patient, and the interest, these “cures” use drugs, which either do sympathy and activity that he can evoke. no good or cure the patient of alcoholism He is in the position of a teacher, or rather by substituting another and more insidious of a head-master, as much as in that of a drug habit. In many sanitariums, more- physician. over, especially in nearly all state inebriate asylums, corrupt employés furnish the STRANGE CASE OF SOTS WHO FEAR BEING patients with liquor, thus putting full stop CURED. to the usefulness of those institutions. Even had we proper sanitariums, we The cure of the physical drinker is a fairly could not hope to cure inebriety without short and simple matter. The typical Bow- better laws. In most states we can do ery sot is incurable, because he is drunken nothing without the consent of the inebriate, deliberately and from choice. When de- which usually cannot be obtained. In New lirium tremens is being treated in Bellevue York, for example, a drunkard can be com- by hypodermic injections, and the report mitted to an inebriate asylum for sixty days, spreads that “they're using the needle," the just long enough to develop a magnificent attendance of alcoholics falls off, because of and unquenchable thirst. If he is violent a superstition that “the needle" kills the enough to be considered temporarily insane, taste for liquor. But the physical drinker he can be confined in an insane asylum, who really wants to be cured, can be cured where he remains until he returns to a sober by a few months of proper treatment, his frame of mind. Then he demands his nervous and mental condition being com- release and gets it. paratively little deranged. The nervous drinker is a much more refractory case. CONNECTICUT'S LAWS ARE THE BEST. The man who drinks from depression or neurasthenia must go through a long and Connecticut has taken the lead in legisla- persistent campaign of steadying and tion for alcoholism. There a proved stimulation, must “get his nerve back”; habitual drunkard may be committed to an while the cure of true dipsomania, as of any asylum for not less than one nor more than other true insanity, requires infinite patience three years. The first step towards the and perseverance. Epilepsy, a parallel dis- general cure of alcoholism in any state is the ease, is now treated successfully by the passage of a similar law. There is nothing methods here suggested for alcoholism, but difficult about it, nothing that requires a MOONSHINE AND MAHOMET 547 life-habits are formed. It is essentially the Experience, on the whole, tends to disprove “silly season” of life, when impressions are it. Many inebriates begin in youth a easily taken and supervision is most needed. habit from which, if they were accustomed His twenty-fifth year safely passed, a man to sobriety till they reached maturity, there has as good control of himself as he ever will is every reason to believe that they would be have, and his chance of becoming an ine able and eager to refrain. A law forbidding briate is minimized. the use of liquors by persons under twenty- To these arguments those who regard five, fairly well enforced and backed by inebriety always as an irresistible disease, public opinion, would not obviate chronic reply with case after case of persons who, inebriety, but would probably reduce it to a after lives of complete temperance or absti minimum. Nor would it, like prohibition, nence, have become violent inebriates at attempt to cut off supply in the face of forty, fifty and sixty years of age. It is demand; for as the desire for alcohol does indisputable that such cases are numerous; not exist until liquor has been used several it is equally indisputable that they are in the times, this law would keep alcohol only extremely small minority. But, retort the from those who have never had the chance extremists, the only reason the majority of to crave it. inebriates begin drinking so early is that the If we are not willing to pass such laws as opportunity presents itself early. They this, we may as well give up the liquor begin when the first chance offers; should it problem for the present. So long as the not offer till they were twenty-five, or fifty, evolution of the race continues it will de- or seventy-five, they would begin as cer- velop a by-product of potential inebriates, tainly as at eighteen. who, unless we take this means, or find a This is a hard argument to disprove; at better one, to restrain them, will continue to the same time it is impossible to prove. become actual inebriates. Moonshine and Mahomet By Leo Crane WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK VER BECK B IS name was Mahomet, though that has very little to do with the story. As a matter of fact, he came from the upper hill coun- try, where the people bow w down to little pot-bellied gods and do not care a bamboo's whistle about the Dean of the Mussulmans. He was not a very large creation, but in that deceiving, for the strength of him was great. Where a taller, more beautiful specimen of the family might have gained in grace, Mahomet proved the virtues of the squat, his casklike head firmly braced by massive muscle-woven shoulders and further rein- forced by a pair of hind-legs which had the propelling power of a locomotive. Sims Foraker, who brought him down from the upper hill country, could not understand the beast. The fact that Mahomet chose to be sulky at times and spat at certain folk, proved nothing to Sims Foraker of the brute intelligence. Lachkma, who was a Bur- mese, used to try to explain these things, but Sims Foraker, who had been educated in smaller masses, could not see it. “What is an elephant?” he remarked one day, exhibiting disgust. There Sims Foraker betrayed his ignorance. The question was almost as foolish as that asked by seemingly wise young men, to wit: “What is a woman?” An elephant is an elephant. That is as far as the Burmese, and particularly Lachkma, had gone into the matter, and the serious contemplation of Mahomet revealed nothing more. They were content. Happy is the man who can rest without examining the bed for thorns. They swung Mahomet, despite his squealing, up onto the deck of the good ship Stamboul, and finding that he would not fit the hatchway, crated him securely on the 548 AMERICAN MAGAZINE open deck, about amidships. They did this by erecting around him a stout barricade, the rough places of which they covered with padded canvas. Mahomet watched all these things out of his little piggish eyes, suspiciously alert, winking now and then at Lachkma, who stood near, as if to ask whether the idea was good. Had not Lachkma stood close by, attentive, the others would not have erected that barri- cade, for the mind of Mahomet was filled with a desire to bestir himself. But Ma- homet respected the wisdom of Lachkma, and they were brothers. It was just by chance that the two had not made the previous trip in the Lady Harriet, when Sims Foraker sent home a great col- lection of jungle stuff, apes and parrots and queer antelope, snakes, cats and small leopards; but these two, the Burmese and his squat pig-eyed brother of the long nose, had been secured late in the season, and they were to make the voyage with Sims Foraker himself. This was an honor neither appreciated. Lachkma did not because the boss frequently worried him with useless orders, and Mahomet, knowing all Lachk- ma's dislikes, manifolded them into hatreds and filed them away in the large cavity of his skull. Mahomet was a sublime beast, but not wholly admirable. This story comes to me through Benson, and therefore I grant you it may be preju- diced, though Benson, when not in his cups (which, I grant you again, is seldom), can speak the truth and has been known to do it. He admits, without shame, that on the night of the Stamboul's departure from her dock, he was drunk. In fact, to use Benson's exact expression, it should be noted that he was “as soused as a stevedore on Saturday night.” Therefore Benson did not think normally, nor consider things in their proper proportion, until the ship was two days out. Then he staggered up on deck and refereed a row. The discussion was between Sims Foraker, the captain, and four members of the Lascar crew. It was a three-cornered affair, and Benson has given me his word it was a fine product, equal to British sailormen with color on the side. Sims Foraker had insisted that water be drawn each day for Mahomet's scrub down, and that at least one man be detailed one day in three to massage the hide of the beast with a brick. The ship was not long- handed and the Lascars protested against this extra labor. The captain's part in the jovial row was to berate the Lascars for lazy devils and chide Sims Foraker for insisting on such a display of charity from a Lascar anyway. The captain's part was not an enviable one. Without feeling in the matter, he nevertheless had to make enemies in one quarter. He summed the problem up by knocking a Lascar down. The captain always sought the line of least resistance. This enraged the crew. They went away muttering. These things were viewed by Lachkma with genuine alarm. He foresaw for him- self a great deal of trouble. The Lascars would hate the elephant, and hating Mahomet would naturally hate his sole devotee. It was quite improbable that they would attempt to visit vengeance on the beast-quite improbable. Therefore Lachk- ma watched about him for impending trouble. He had to go down into the fore- castle and live among those Lascars. It will be seen that his life was not bliss. He said prayers against Sims Foraker for trying to reconstruct the Oriental mind. The rest of this story had better be told by Benson, who knows more about it than any other man (save Lachkma, who won't tell), or at least thinks he does, which amounts to the same thing in the elaboration of a tale. “Lachkma, the little bow-legged nigger, he comes to me,” says Benson. "He comes two days immejiately following in the pronounced wake of the disturbance, and with a sad wag of his nut, says he to me, ‘Sahib! I think there will be doings.' He may not have used them words,” explained Benson with a virtuous veracity, “but he did indicate that a large bale of fine cut sorrow was about to be delivered col. lect.” “Wherefore and why?' I asked him," says Benson. “The jewel is very much hurted in his feelings,' responded Lachkma, meaning, in his simple aboriginal manner, that ungainly warehouse, Mahomet. “What's eating him?' I asked. “He does not like the smell of Lascars,' explained Lachkma. 'He has only been accustomed to gentlemen of dignity. He feels that Sahib Sims Forakeer makes of him a pig. Likewise, also, he does not like the roll of the ship, which affects the interior of his worthy stomach with a trembling.' “Oh! ho!' remarks I to myself (con- MOONSHINE AND MAHOMET 549 tinues Benson), 'what does this gentle should up-raise such a free-born ruction all minded revolution intend doing?'. alone because of his tenderness and sorrow. “That is unforeseen to me, sahib!' said A man might do it, but the populace would Lachkma, regretful-like. “But should you always believe that he was drunk when he in your dreams hear a commotion, like unto did it. But an elephant, an up-hill, log- the terror of a jungle fire, then betake your rolling, undersized runt of an elephant, too highness to the masthead, or swing over the little for advertising and too big for comfort, side on the end of a rope, for the events will can hardly be entertained as a thing of be indeed worthy of much trouble to avoid.' misery and woe. A real snorter, with four- I am not insisting that Lachkma used them feet tusks, might have risen to it out of Frage performing “ He did indicate that a large bale of fine cut sorrow was about to be delivered collect". words,” argued Benson with a gentle smile, “but the sentiment was there all right, and he meant it. Says I to Samuel Benson, which is myself, ‘Now, will I sleep with one hand on a life-preserver, for the Burmese know them creatures like the Arabs know camels, only better. “I have believed that the moon had a deal to do with upsetting and the mood of Mahomet's nature. It is not sensible to consider that a plain chunk of beast-flesh pride, but this cheap edition was worth only four thousand f. o. b., and so I consider it dementia with moonshine on the side. You know, of course, that tropic moonlight is not a healthy bedfellow. A man sleeps on deck, and the stuff filters in through his eyes, after which he is chained below in the Lizzie-house. When a Lascar gets that way, it is contrived that he will trip over- board, for his company is unpleasant and entirely too various. Mahomet spent four 550 AMERICAN MAGAZINE nights in the full glare of a gorgeous tropic other, as a man who meets himself coming moon. I could see him casting a weather back and is worried. eye at it betimes, as if questioning the deal “But this noise don't disturb the business he was getting, but being too polite to let on. of Mahomet. In his line of stuff there was no Them words of Lachkma's came to me interruption. He catches sight of another sudden-like and often I'd wake up with a Lascar. The man knows something is cold sweat if a bug dropped off the ceiling calling him forward, and Mahomet tags of my cabin. along to see what it is. The man don't "It was on the fifth night that all hands hesitate nor try fancy steps. He dodges received the summons. I was walking up behind a bale, beats Mahomet at ring-a- and down the forward deck on the port side, rosie around it, and comes flying back, humming sad-like and thinking of a good yelling as much as a dervish when religious whiskey punch like they make in Baltimore with curves, the long skinny nose of Ma- near the docks, when a shadow came be- homet trying for a sure hold on the tail of tween me thoughts and the dim blue canopy his shirt. Mahomet comes down the deck, of heaven. I wheeled about, hearing almost surging as a traction-engine let loose on a immediate soft thudding footsteps and a skidway, and he fetches up with a stumble snuffling like a suction-pump. Then I over the rim of the hatch, and rolls with a makes a dash down the port side with this crash into the port bulwark. thing skidding along behind me. He foots “I saw him when he got up, his little eyes it all right, squealing, until he slips and hits red with mad, and him fairly watering at an upright of the awning, bringing it down the mouth to get hunk with something. like the fall of Troy, and the crash heard all Getting to the bridge, I met the captain. over the ship, and beyond, too, maybe, for He was for trying the old-fashioned belaying- all I could conjecture at the time. pin treatment, thinking some freshy was “The captain bolts it out of his cabin and teasing the animal, but Sims Foraker and up onto the bridge, thinking we had rammed me plead with the man for his family's sake. a berg, the eyes of him sticking out like He protested that a captain ought not think derby hats, and the fellow at the wheel of family at a time like this; he said he threw it over, so that in a jiffy we were would go down with his ship, all standing, coming back to investigate ourselves. Sims · and the crew of dirty Singapore-bred niggers Foraker was up in his pajamas, looking like singing 'Gawd Save the Queen!' When the ghost of a mandarin, and the mate came we held him back from the brink of destruc- squttering along the deck, choking between tion, he sobbed and blubbered that this was his wrath and his tobacco, for he couldn't mutiny, and he called for the crew, but the raise a blooming Lascar, and he was calling crew knew the high places. And then he like the Trump O'Sin. Then the mate saw the thing comin' up deck again, and he took a look at my vision, noticed the gait I thanked us publicly. was hitting and beat it to the galley. Along “Mahomet surveyed the bridge with an came one of the crew at last, naked to the air that promised excitement. He slipped waist, his white duck pantaloons gleaming his trunk around one of the supports, tight- out. He was a fair target, and Mahomet, ened it with a tow-boat captain's hitch, and untangling the wreck of the awning from his backing away shook the structure. Then ears, twisted it aside and rushed the man. he threw his weight against it, and the The nigger ducked and sidestepped, but bridge keeled to an angle of fifty-five Mahomet caught him with a savage half- degrees, with we three men climbing in nelson as he went past, and flung him like a through the wheelhouse hurried and anx- bunch of yarn over the side. It fair made me sick when I hear the chap splash. And “This is a blimmed revolution,' splut- there came that fat devil, spudging along, tered the captain. 'Bob!' he roared out for his feet padding the deck, and his little eyes the cabin-boy. 'Get me my gun—the gleaming like the two beads in the head of a heavy one, and a handful of slugs.' rag dog, only they were sewed in tight. “Sims Foraker sprang up, protesting. “Man overboard!' yelled Sims Foraker, "What ye goin' t' do?' he demanded. wild. “I'm going to kill that blink-blanketed “What's the row!' shrieked the captain, engine of war,' massively answered the romping from one side of the bridge to the captain, wheeling about. 'And d’ye con- MOONSHINE AND MAHOMET 551 sider saying something to me?' “Sims Foraker de- clared that the beast was his, that it was part of the cargo, that the freight was prepaid, and that the bally cap- tain had no right to ruin cargo unless it en- gaged the ship. Be- side, he claimed that Mahomet could be se- cured without blood- shed. “ 'Bloodshed!' ex- citedly repeated the captain, aghast. “What d'ye call this night's rampage? — a sanger- fest! Ruination of the ship? — this ain't a ship, it's been made Belong into a raft with a free circus balancin' it!' The captain threw his chubby hands around his head and groaned with impressive wrath. ""He can be quieted easily,' assured Sims Foraker, knowing the gentle methods of cap- tains and fearing for his favorite beast, like- wise the four thousand f. o. b. which repre- “He dodges behind a bale, beats Mahomet at ring-a-rosie sented his purse. around it" “Down with ye, then, and show me how to quiet him!' or- willing to sponge the whole generosity of the dered the skipper, calling the bluff. job. “Now Sims Foraker was a man of nerve. “He was the boss, and with a certain You don't find gentlemen with heart dis sense of cautious bravery I followed him. ease or white livers in the animal exporting We went slowly down the starboard side, business, because strictly as a business, looking for the tornado, me with my two plumbing has it beaten to the grave. This eyes peeled right down to the quick and Sims Foraker knew his business from a ready for a daring double loop to the awning jungle standpoint. He had trapped wild top and down the funnel if need be. As we men in Borneo, and he wasn't taking no came out amidships, we hadn't seen him, sneers from a Dutch skipper of a tin-can and I was for crying out joyful that Ma- tramp begging freighter. But-Sims For homet had got lonesome and was trying to aker hadn't studied the snaring of wild swim back home. However, this was pre- beasties on a blooming ship in the moon mature. There he was aft, dodging three of light, where ye have to play tag with 'em, the half-naked crew in a mighty close sec- and occasionally beat the record to the tion of the deck. They were yowling like masthead. He did have nerve, and me. good fellows. He caught the men behind a Says he, ‘Come along, Benson,' not being bale, which he had ripped out of the barri- 552 AMERICAN MAGAZINE cade when becoming fined with liberty, and became reasonable with all of a Scotchman's he was playing a game like 'Hunt the roach, reasonableness. he ain't got any friends,' trying to squash “Odds Todds! Man, we must capture them against the bulwark. Then they the laddie,' says Mac, as if the thing was a climbed for their lives to the top of the bale, child's game with wheels. and he reached out for them merrily with “Sure,' says I, resting myself, and know- his trunk, grunting as if it was the sport of ing that Mahomet couldn't rip open the his later years. One of the men made a deck. dash down the rail-top, running it for about “I'll arrange the little matter,' says ten steps like a rope-walker; then he shrieked Mac, thoughtfully. 'Leave it just all to out, slipped, and came down on the deck me. If ye'd have consulted me before with a thud, still preservin' the similarity of bringin' him aboard, there'd have been no the roach business. Mahomet gave him a . trouble.' . sideways blink as he rolled over and over; “How?' asked I, benign-like. then he reached for the other two, knowin' “I'd have had him stuffed,' says Mac- with jungle sense that two birds is better Gregor, terrible earnest. than one. We two made a demonstration in “I could hear Sims Foraker forward their favor, allowing one of the Lascars to go howling directions, with the captain beating hand over hand up a stay, and the third man time and coming in on the chorus like the leaped out for his life, beating the beastie to thin lady in a spinsters' choir; but they the end of the ship. weren't accomplishing anything 'cept noise, “There was now much evil in the little and noise never hurt a boiler-shop. Mac eyes of Mahomet. He had been tricked and slipped the canvas cover from an auxiliary worried away from three Lascars, and he donkey-engine. He patted the mechanism felt like a man who has been deceived. with a loving hand. Sims Foraker heard him coming back and "A beauteous thing is the creation of bolted into a cabin with the rope-walking Nature,' he says to me,calm and considerate, sailor behind him, equality being lost in the 'such as a volkaner, or a mastodon, but much shuffle. I distanced the behemoth to the handier and more filled with comfort is the engine-room companion and fell exhausted creations of mankind. Hence the donkey- into the extravagant arms of MacGregor engine, which has an elephant skinned to a MacGregor was Scotch. He was an engi- finish.' At least Mac used words to the neer. He had seen two wars, and had been same effect. a filibuster; likewise the gravity of him was “By a careful survey of the deck we painful. He was filled with a deliberative- learned that the consternation was again ness which seemed at first foolish and after forward, engaging the attention of the soul- ward sublime. He was the sort of man who stirred captain, who was begging permission is never sent to ditch a cyclone, but who for a shot. He dared not fire into Mahomet arrives in time to do it, when everyone else without Sims Foraker waving his right as is in hiding. Mac was coming on deck to shipper, for the things Mahomet had done investigate the row, and I saved him by him thus far wasn't apparent to the naked eye at saving me. It was a mutual act of heroism moonlight. There was a dull-gray finish with him not appreciative, for I nearly over the wreckage, and the captain feared crammed his pipe down into his stomach, to make a tour of complete inspection. and when Mac recovered he cursed long and “There's the stuff!' yelled Sims Foraker, plaintively. Between the captain's cursing 'an' it's your job to deliver it at the docks. forward in a hybrid Dutch, Sims Foraker It ain't endangerin' the ship.' cursing American in the midway locker, “I'll want thorough repairs!' screamed and MacGregor cursing down there in the captain, who was of Dutch extraction the Bloody Mary tongue, the combination and not up on the law of the question. 'It's was elaborate and beyond virtuous descrip- my ship. tion. “It's my elephant, and I'll pay,' says “We retreated down the ladder, for a Sims. thing like the business end of a python “If he hurts a single white man I'll have came wiggling in at the door, and it felt ye indited for murder!' threatened the carefully along the sides of the companion- captain. way for us both, which MacGregor saw and " " He ain't hurted anything but japanned Kate Strong, Emotional Pauper By William R. Lighton The other me sent me to te thought it will ALTHOUGH the January “Dear, what a night!” she said with the midnight was choked same unruffled composure. “Look at thick with whirling snow- your coat. There's three inches of snow masses, yet it wore the on your shoulders. It must be some- look of a vast void of thing— What is it?” impenetrable blackness- He did not heed her solicitude for him- w blackness that made grim self, but plunged at once into his errand. mock of the driving white clouds over- “Kate, our baby was born three days whelming them. As Paul Warde faced ago–Sunday, and to-day Ethel was the storm, urging his foundering horse stricken with that dreadful fever. She's through the heavy drifts, feeling the sting been so weak and frail through it all. of the flying crystals upon his cheek, and Sprague says she's going to have a hard bracing himself against the benumbing fight. Nothing but right nursing will cold, it was the mighty darkness more than give her any chance. I thought of you, the white rage of the tempest that op- and Sprague sent me to fetch you to-night. pressed and awed him. Perhaps he was The other nurse we have—we don't know vaguely aware that the wild night bore her or trust her as we do you. You'll semblance to his own tormented mind, come, won't you?” wherein flitting white shapes of Fear S ave by a murmur of ready sympathy, moved stormily through a great enveloping she did not reply at once, but stood con- black Dread. fronting him, scanning his face intently. He drew up presently before a darkened A curious contrast they made—he slight, house by the roadside and alighted from nervous, overwrought, his eager eyes burn- the carriage. The cold had reached his ing in his pale, delicately modelled face; very marrow, so that despite his fury of she large, serene, admirably contained, impatience his fingers bungled with the her healthy poise of body and mind wholly hitching rein, bungled with the gate latch, untroubled. They seemed almost the ex- bungled with the push-button of the elec- tremes of emotional life. tric door-bell. The tinkle of the bell “Kate!” he repeated. “We need you. within doors sounded to his excited sense Won't you come ?" hopelessly faint and ineffectual, but in a She recovered herself at once. “Of moment a shutter opened above and a course I'll go," she returned quietly. “I woman's voice called down: must dress and get a few things together; “Yes? Who is it?" but it won't take me ten minutes. I'll be It was a calm, firm, sure voice. The ready by the time you've got yourself waiting man caught his breath with a thawed out.” gasping cry of passionate relief. The man's insistent appeal echoed in “Kate! Thank God you're here! Come her thoughts: “Kate, we need you; down, quick! It's Paul Warde. I need won't you come?” It was no new cry. From the time of her first capable, self- “Wait a minute,” the voice answered reliant, dependable girlhood, throughout quietly; "I'll be down right away.” her thirty years of life, the appeal had The incandescent lights flashed on in come to her with ceaseless repetition, the hallway and she opened the door to greeting her at every turn of the way. him, closing it again quickly against the The only variation of the plain, homely driving storm, turning then to regard theme had lain in the changing nature of his chilled and breathless plight. the needs. Now it had been a demand you." 556 KATE STRONG, EMOTIONAL PAUPER 557 of rose-hued, new-budded life; then a de- he ran up the broad stone steps; but once mand of gray, withering death-these, he had thrown aside his coat in the luxu- and all the crowding multitude of lesser riously warmed hallway, this temper suf- needs lying in wait between the far ex- fered a curious abatement, giving place tremes. Never once had she failed in to an air of awkward reluctance. There instant response. Sometimes there had was something he wanted to say, but it been ties of blood kinship; sometimes seemed hard to frame it in words to his friendship or acquaintance; often it was liking. He stood idly by while the woman but the world-old bond of one human worked with stiffened fingers over the creature helpless and another able to help. fastenings of her wraps; and when they It had been all one to Kate; from first to were laid by and she was ready for her last, never had she stopped to question or duty, still he waited. debate another's right to call upon her “Kate!” he cried suddenly. “I trust strength-it was enough to satisfy her un- you absolutely. Do what you can. Save derstanding that she had strength to give her for me, if you can.” Shaken beyond What her own life might otherwise have his control, he took her firm hand in his been, what fair paths of delight her feet nervous clasp, drawing nearer to her. might have followed, she had almost “We've been so utterly, absurdly happy, ceased to think; self-repression had be- she and I. It's been an unearthly sort of come habit, then second nature. happiness; I've been fairly sick with the And now the call came from Paul Warde fear that it isn't going to last. Save her, -from him! She drew in her breath Kate, if you can!” sharply over the realization, and her “Of course I shall!” she said in her hands were pressed upon her eyes. rich, even tones. “But I can't do it, you know, unless you take me to her. I'm They drove before the storm now; but ready.” the intense cold seized upon them none the In this mood she came to the bedside, less and the mad wind bore the snow in to begin her ministration, exchanging a swirling eddies into the carriage and quiet greeting with the old doctor, then against their faces, making speech all but letting her glance fall upon the invalid. impossible. Warde was in no mood for Warde was already upon his knees, hold- talking; his every energy was bent upon ing his wife's hand in his, stooping to making all speed toward home, and words touch her forehead with his lips. came only now and then, in response to a “Beloved,” he said with tremulous question from his companion. tenderness, “here's Kate Strong, come “You haven't told me about the baby,” to take care of you. Now you'll get well!” she said once, very gently, in an interval She was of a type that is not rare, though of the wind's abatement; “Is it a boy?” it has the trick of seeming so—due, no “No; a little girl,” he returned with a doubt, to the fact that men are rarely dull inertia of feeling. over-satisfied with feminine prettiness. “And how is she? Does she seem She was undeniably pretty, even at this strong?” time; blond, soft, languid; one of those He stirred uneasily in his seat, hesi- who somehow seem to be conferring price- tating over his answer. less benefits upon men by their own de- “I hardly know, Kate. I seem hardly mands for constant and absolute service; to have grasped the fact of her coming; one of those who, while requiring of man- she hasn't become real to me yet. I've hood the uttermost of woman's due, keep had to think of Ethel. Poor girl! It has the best of womanhood in abeyance-and been horrible, these three days. I've had found their chiefest charm upon that lack. no time to think of the child." Kate joined the old doctor, who stood A silence fell between them then, en- comforting himself before the open fire. during until they had reached their jour- He had known her from her childhood and ney's end after a hard half hour. Warde understanding had been long established. gave the horse into the care of a fur- “What will you have me do?" she asked coated man in waiting and led the way simply. into the big, sombre, hushed house. "Come here,” he said with blunt direct- very frenzy of eagerness was upon him as ness, and led the way into the room ad- 558 AMERICAN MAGAZINE ber joining, closing the door between. What out the shape of his man's career; indeed, he had to say came out with gruff un- the definite form of his future had been of reserve. her building far more than his, though "It's a case of fever, complicated with he had hardly suspected it. She had given cowardly fright. She's more abjectly him of her sane courage, keeping him scared than sick. I'll take care of the steadfast through his early mistrials and sickness, if you'll try to quiet her fear and discouragements and giving the added keep her mind off herself. You'll have sweetness of her generous sympathy to the harder job of the two; but I sent for his first success. It was his future, not you because I knew you could do it. The hers, that they planned together; yet, by mother doesn't worry me half so much and by, when achievement was easier as the child. Look here.” and his way made straight, it was natural, A cradle stood in a warm corner. With almost inevitable, that he should invite exquisite gentleness the old man turned her to share in what had been and would back the dainty coverlets, revealing the be won. But with the calm reserve he babe asleep. It was a tiny creature that knew so well she had put his offer aside. seemed almost to lack the stamp of mor- She would not tell him that she loved him- tality, so wan and frail it was, its little that could effect nothing while she saw destiny so plainly foretold. With a smoth- so clearly that he was moved, not by self- ered syllable of profound pity Kate bent forgetful love of her, but by his own half- above the cradle, and the fragile image conscious but wholly selfish dependence was blurred by her tears. Sprague took upon her. She had given him no hint of her hand between his own, stroking it this insight, but had pleaded other reasons, kindly. not less truthful, for her refusal: her "It's the same old story," he whispered. mother was old and much enfeebled, and “Whatever happens to the woman, the there was a sister just budding into woman- baby has no mother. You'll have to hood. She must care for these while they mother her, while she's here. It won't needed her, and there must be no divided be long." service lest somehow she might fail in full “Does the father know ?" Kate breathed. obligation to one or the other. What arts “Warde? No, poor fool! Tell him, of persuasion and enticement he could if you want to; but what's the use? Better command he had used, offering her the not, I reckon.” benefits which his comfortable fortune could bestow after her patient years of The old doctor had not counted amiss careful, necessitous economy and denial, in relying upon Kate to inspire courage in and the place he could give her through his the ailing woman. Her very presence was growing distinction as artist and scholar- tonic against faint-heartedness, her every speaking now as if these things were word or touch magic. A day or two, and wholly of his own winning and his alone Warde was radiant with relief from his to give. Her answer had been quietly first terror, coming often into the room to unvarying—not an absolute negation, but sit beside the bed, fondling his wife's a tranquil insistence that he must wait pretty, soft hand, meeting her glance with before he urged her further; how long she a smile of returning hope of happiness. would not even hint. Then the personal At such times Kate would relinquish this vanity that is healthily alive in every man charge and would slip quietly away to be of his stamp had been stung into ungenerous with the babe and to brood upon the pre- expression. Vividly she recalled his words: sentments of memory. “Kate, I'm dreadfully disappointed in Once, six years gone, Paul Warde had you. You don't seem to care for what I'm asked her to be his wife. They had been offering you. You're like an emotional playmates as children and warm friends pauper. Doesn't your soul know any through the growing, forming years of larger emotion than a humdrum, common- youth and early maturity. He had relied place sense of duty ?" upon her always, finding in her unalterable For all the cruel hurt she had smiled poise a counterbalance for his unstable, upon him calmly. “Not now." erratic moods. She had been his sole in- A few months later he had married timate counsellor while he was dreaming Ethel Fremont-pretty, vain, colorless of (ARGINALIA My Dad By Truman Roberts Andrews LUH! Mebbe I don't know all 'at is, MT An' mebbe I ain't so tall, An' mebbe I ain't but eight years old- Er goin' ter be nex' fall — But what's th' differ'nce, I don't see, Ef I'm jes' but a lad, A-while I'm growin' I hev got My Dad. Ef suthin' comes 'at I can't do, Why that don't hafter mean That it ain't goin' ter be did Ef it had oughter been. Er ef I'm scared, er ef I'm hurt, Er ef I'm feelin' sad, I reck'n it's all right; fer thar's My Dad. Why ma's a womern, I'm er boy, An' ef we was alone We might feel sorter scared ter live Though I ain't squeechin' none. But now, why me an' ma jes' sings An' smiles 'cause we're so glad ’At God knowed what we'd need, an' sent My Dad. The Family Album Reproduced by Angie Breakspear with “Remarks” by Ellis Parker Butler YES'M, that's my marriage certificate, and them pictures pasted on it is me and pa the day we was married. No, he wasn't sick, but he was so scared it made him look peaked. Do you like to look at photo- graphs? Most everybody does, I guess. Wait till I get the album. Yes, it is kind of a pretty cover. Real plush. I got it off a book peddler lady, dollar down and fifty cents a month. 560 . 6 24 1 II EL 1 The 1 1 U II IL II II I 11 ISASI Il IS 151 I L DAN BREAKS PEARL 111 See TO THEM's twins; there was two of them. They looked just like you see them there. One of them is my husband but nobody can tell which he is, now. Sort of creepy, ain't it, not to know whether your own husband is one twin or the other? One of them died when he was sixteen, and that broke the set. I think it is the sweetest picture in the album, they look so simple and harmless, just like two little calves. Gran'ma Jones used to make their clothes herself—you'd never guess it, would you? She used to lay the cloth in two thicknesses and cut out two suits at once. If one of them had been a girl she couldn't have done it. Turn over the page. 561 BREAKS PEAR PHOTOGRAPHER BLULLAH_MASS. -- That's the gentleman Aunt Jane nearly married. He looks like a college professor, don't he? He was so refined and meek and so eloquent at prayer meeting. But he wasn't a professor, he peddled Grigg's In- falliable Cure for Hog Cholera and lectured on Temperance. He was awful poor in his health, and the minute Aunt Jane set eyes on him she made up her mind to marry him. She was forty and she usually got what she wanted, and everybody said it was a thou- sand chances to one that she would get him. But just when Aunt Jane was sure she had him he got wind of it. He went back to Massachusetts the next day and died peace- ful. Turn over the page. 562 29 . ABER B One 5 . Ne S . . NJ RE CV 19 NE . 3 22. .. 1080P OS D oce PERTY $8. 50 es SOCCER ... C FELDER . C SER fit DO es ... S Bestele EN ONVERSEAS . . மதுரைப்பாதா21 . . . . OOS . . . RSS AUD SA OROSCO tallers R . SRS SAN PAG ES TE : HTTP SOS SOLO OLD 5 . PHI H an . THAT's my sister Gertie and a bass singer we used to have in the choir. His name was Spung-Launcelot Spung—and he was a barber by profession. Him and Emily was engaged for six weeks, but she found out he had a wife and six children at Boston so she didn't marry him. He was the sweetest singer! You'd never imagine he had a wife and six children if you could have heard him sing. Ain't it awful how sinful people can be and yet look so in- nocent? Gertie took on awful when she heard the facts about him and she wouldn't get engaged to anybody else for a long time; and you know what that means for a choir-singer. Turn over the page. 563 lista to 12 IS selalui Mont M ANGIE BREAKSPEAR SUE HARTWICK, one of my old girl chums. She ran off with a cattle buyer and got married, but that wasn't until five years after this picture was took. She had a lovely character-so light and playful, and that fond of handsome clothes! I remem- ber' the day she had that picture took. She'd been to a picnic with a traveling gentleman from Cincinnati and got engaged to him. I helped her trim the very hat she has on. It was a green straw with roses, one red and one blue and one yellow. It matched her complexion lovely. She was a dark blonde with red hair. Oh, yes, she always smiled that way on account of one front tooth being out. Turn over the page. 564 Life By Judd Mortimer Lewis | IFE'S a game of go and hustle, life's a thing of rush and bustle, L Life's a play of brain and muscle, life's all jump and buzz and whirr ; Life's a game at whose beginning all the world is set a-spinning, That the very thought of winning is itself a splendid spur. Life's a thing of rough-and-tumble, life's a thing of laugh and grumble, Life's a thing of grab and fumble, life's a thing of jolt and jar; Life's a stretch of daisied meadows, life's a place of glints and shadows, Life's a thing of maids and widows, smiles and tears, and there you are. Life's a thing of self-styled winners, millionaires and saints and sinners, Men who have and haven't dinners, thing of riff-raff steal and toil; Men who go their ways a-laughing, men who go their ways a-chaffing, Men who go their ways a-quaffing, men whose only thought is spoil. Maidens wise and maidens witty, maidens beautiful and pretty, Painted women-oh, the pity !-always changing yet the same; Thing of low and high endeavor, thing of push and pull forever, Game for dolts and players clever, thing of love and glee and shame. ne neve But who plays the game a-loving, lifting, helping, never shoving, Laughing, singing, turtle-doving through its jars and outs and ins, With a wife, and little laddie or wee lass to call him daddie, Doesn't do so very badly, he's the chap who truly wins. 566 My Conversion to Life Insurance BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS G E VHERE once lived a Scotch- man-born in 1812—who went to and fro in the world as Samuel Smiles. For all the inferential hilar- da ity of his name, Mr. Smiles took, if not a sad, then a serious view of life and its responsibilities. He began his career by studying medicine and sur- gery in Edinburgh. Graduating in drugs and lancets, he found the speedy road to England, after the manner of those Scotch- men of whom the jealous Johnson so often complained to Boswell. Mr. Smiles settled in Leeds—a fifth among the principal towns of Great Britain. Here he was in the swirling midst of manufacture--woolen, iron and countless other branches—and those neigh- bors who surrounded him were, for the most part, mechanical, wage-earning folk. If not poor, they were not rich, and young Smiles, as he tied up their arteries and set their bones, grew to a tacit philosophizing over their work-a-day conditions. In the end he tired of pills and plasters; thereupon he took down his doctor's sign, cut the wire of his night-bell to protect his pillow, and gave himself to writing books. Being young, with blood hot, and per- haps a liking and a lust for trouble, he wrote the “History of Ireland.” Later he became cooler; and as he did so, what he'd seen and heard and thought in those days when he went drug-dispensing among the work-folk of Leeds began to come uppermost. He wrote “Character” and “Duty,” and “Self-Help”; and as, one after the other, these went from under his pen, fame began to settle like a mantle about the shoulders of Mr. Smiles. He found celebration and acceptance for his honesty, his wisdom and the solvent worth of his counsel. In the end he wrote “Thrift,” which some think the capstone of his works. The other evening, being in that mood of mental weariness when one is inclined to relegate one's thinking to one's neigh- bor, and wants to be told things without being driven to the trouble of hunting them out for oneself, I picked up “Thrift.” The book did very well as a rest-cure, and I drifted about among its mild and temperate passages with a deal of passive satisfaction. For the greater part it was telling of people who, in a worldly sense, were worse off than I myself was, and that alone is ever calculated to invite repose. This pleasant condition continued until I went aground on certain observations touching Life Insurance. The particular chapter was headlined “The Economy of Life Assurance”; and it turned out to be replete with a long array of fact and argument, all urging the investment- propriety of rich and poor, high and low alike, going with Life Insurance, each to the fair limit of his means. What I read made an impression upon me; for my author Smiles was not a Life Insurance agent, owned no personal inter- est in any Life Insurance attitude that either I or any other individual might take, and as a last but not least weighty feature wrote this his argument in favor of the idea, towards the end of his own long life, when it would be reasonable to assume that he was not to be deluded by the fallacious in theory or imposed upon by the fraudulent in fact. Particularly I was caught by these words: “But life is most uncertain, and he knows that at any moment he may be taken away, leaving those he holds most dear compara- tively destitute. He insures for five hundred pounds, payable to his survivors at his death, and pays from twelve to thirteen pounds yearly. From the moment on which he pays that amount the five hundred pounds are se- cured for his family, although he died the very next day. Now if he had deposited that twelve or thirteen pounds in a bank it would have taken about twenty-six years before his savings would have amounted to five hundred pounds. But by the simple expedient of AMERICAN MAGAZINE. Life Assurance, these twenty-six years of the best part of his life are on this account at least secured against anxiety and care. The anticipation of future evil no longer robs him of present enjoyment. By means of his an- nual fixed payment, he is secure of having a fixed sum at his death for the benefit of his family. In this way Life Assurance may be regarded in the light of a contract by which the inequalities of life are to a certain extent averaged and compensated, so that they who die soon-or rather their families—become sharers in the good fortune of those who live beyond the average term of life.” Having come thus far with Mr. Smiles, I closed the book—with my finger holding the place—and gave myself up to cogita- tion. In one sense I had met defeat. I had embarked upon those rippleless tides of “Thrift” with a thought of rest, and to avoid the heave and billow-toss of even a least mental exertion. Now I was of a sudden caught up in a very storm- center of conjecture. I could understand Mr. Smiles. Those who take alpen-stock and go forth to climb the Matterhorn are made, by the prudent wisdom of the guides, to tie themselves together, each man to his neighbor, front and rear, to the end that should he miss foothold and slip, the rest shall save him. That, thinks I, so far as one's wife and children are involved, is Life Insurance. The policy is that saving rope. One misses one's foothold on the steeps of existence, but one does not thereby—because of that saving rope-hurl wife and children into an abyss of want. Living, one labors and supports them; dying, that good binding rope, the policy of Life Insurance, reaching from neighbor to neighbor and holding all for each, takes up the strain and saves them from destruction. Most men, particularly those who make a trade of ink, are more apt to think on living than on dying, and seldom make plans for the last day. The greater part of us are not forethoughtful. We live as carelessly as Highlanders, in the rocks and the cliffs and the caves of opportunity, going down onto the plains of each occasion, carrying off what we can, and setting fire to what we cannot carry off. And yet, speaking for myself, I have lived long enough to be afraid of error, and to take defensive measures against mistake. One cannot afford error: it provokes peril, pro- vides risk. Peculiarly should one shrink from going wrong concerning Life Insurance, which gravely and seriously proposes to take up the burden of fending for one's family when one is no more. Thus ran argument when, on the heels of Mr. Smiles and his “Thrift," I fell to thinking. “Surely," I said, in conclusion, “it is either a great fraud or a great philanthro- py. And yet it cannot be a fraud; for if not the honest Smiles, then those years upon years of its successful existence offer an incontestable evidence against that assumption. It could not thus have lasted for that century and more, during which it has had first rank as a soundest economy. If Life Insurance were mere malignant hocus-pocus, the world would have discovered it; if it were a fool's fallacy, the world would have pierced it; in both cases the world would have rejected it, and it would not now occur either as a pet proposal on the pages of the sage Smiles, or a question of sound investment in the sane minds of men.” Having decided, both by the word of my good Scotch author and what deductions I have laid bare, that the theory of Life Insurance embodied within itself a best principle of safety-like the anchors of a ship-and fearing as I've said to be wrong or ignorant in so important a matter, I resolved upon investigation. I was as un- taught of Life Insurance, in either its theory or what I shall call its practice, as of oat-culture in Nova Zembla; and with that I cast about me for a best practical example, to become the basis of my studies. The Prudential, that Gibraltar of Life Insurance, attracted me. I had heard it best spoken of. Besides, its controlling spirit was Senator Dryden—whose intelli- gence had been its architect, just as his integrity was and is its corner-stone. It is not difficult to get possession of Life Insurance literature, and I presently had an armful. And I went carefully through it, booklet after booklet, with occasional side-flights into Mr. Smiles and his “Thrift.” For a first confident matter, I discovered that Life Insurance has been brought to a science. Every chance has been measured and accounted for; every last possibility eliminated of the company breaking down. The process of Life Insurance, as practised by The Prudential for example, is mathe- matically exact, and as certain in its results as two and two are of making four. Given MY CONVERSION TO LIFE INSURANCE. a policy plus death, the death-loss is paid, that, in his flights from swing to swing, he and that promptly. must take wife and children with him. True, my doubtful friend, all things of His risk is bound to be their risk. And this world are liable to fail or to fade. so, being a prudent Hanlon, owning enough Crowns rust, thrones decay, and the of loving forethought to bear the welfare sponge of time wipes nations from the map of his family on his daily slope of thought, And yet, as men use the word, such com- he takes out Life Insurance, and spreads panies as The Prudential are sure; since that net of safety between those he loves they found themselves on investments that and a poverty that might destroy them. are as the Being by blood and this time thor- sinew of the oughly con- country. The verted to Life government Insurance as a must fall be- theory of good, fore they fall; I began to read and the poli- over what cies they issue, proffers were and the prom- made by The ises they make, Prudential to have all the the would be vital enduring policy getter. qualities of a There were, I government found, the bond. “Whole Life In a broad Policy," the way, the “ Limited thought be- Payment Pol- hind Life In- icy,” the “En- surance-I dowment Pol- found this out icy,” the “In- as I read my termediate literature — is Policy,” the readily com- “Guaranteed prehended. I five per cent. had seen the twenty-year Hanlons in Insurance En- their daring dow me nt flights, over Bond," and the heads of a the “Five per theatre audi- cent. Gold ence, from one Insurance swing to an- Bond Policy.” other. In its U. S. Senator John F. Dryden, President The Pru- These policies, raw stage, the dential Insurance Co. of America being one and "act”lay wide all of the sort open to peril. The flying Hanlon might termed straight Life Insurance, were aside fail to connect; he might miss his clutch at from that Industrial Insurance which the the swing, and come tumbling, to break his company offered, and of which it conducted back on the orchestra seats. As closing this a larger business. This Industrial Insur- door of death, the Hanlons always did their ance, by the way, is most important, as open- “act” over a net; then, should a Hanlon ing a path of safety to the wage earner. fall, his safety was made sure. Running these proffers over in my mind, Life Insurance was the Hanlon idea over from the “Whole Life Policy”—which is again, with the policy acting as the net. the old-fashioned, heel-and-toe method of The natural risks of existence make every insurance, whereby one pays his premium man a Hanlon, with the added drawback of so much per year while he lives, and his AMERICAN MAGAZINE, family receives the face of the policy when he dies—to the “Five per cent. Gold Bond” plan—which latter struck me as an admira- ble savings-bank arrangement-it was made clear that The Prudential had invented, for the good of its policy holders, divers improvements that were unknown when Life Insurance was young. Under the old system, a failure to pay your premium on the nail when due, meant the death of the policy. You might have paid your pre- miums for years; let your foot but slip, miss but one payment, and all was swept away. The policy died; the premiums already paid were lost, and you were where you started. No, you were worse off than vihen you started; for there was now that handicap of added years. Your increased age, should you seek to take out fresh insurance, would tell against you in in- creased premiums. You would now pay more, while the face of your policy would be no bigger than before. This catastrophe, the result of a failure to meet one's premium, was obviated in those offers of insurance which the Pru- dential held forth. If one who had met his premiums during a certain brief space of time-always written in the policy- should fail in any particular payment, the policy did not die. As a primary step there was a month of grace given the policy holder. If his premium was due on the first of July, he had until the first of August wherein to pay. Even then a default did not put him out of court. Failing to bring in his premium by August first, the whole amount he had already paid in premiums would be counted up. Then he was granted a paid-up policy for a sum the size of which grew in pro- portion to the whole sum of his former premiums. The scheme was perfect; it was like those safety arrangements one sees on the modern elevator. The rope breaks; but the car does not go crashing to the far bottom of the shaft. The mere parting of the rope gives instant action to the automatic brakes: the car is caught and held. And so with these safety contrivances of The Prudential Insurance Co. The rope might break, the premium might fail: those auto- matic safety brakes will catch the policy, midair, and the policy holder is saved his honest proportion of Insurance. This feature of excellence is incident to all policies written by The Prudential. Another element—and one calculated to make easy the sleep of the policy holder--is that the company waives all right to contest a policy, and squabble in court against the payment of a loss, once the policy be one year old. In a day long gone in Life Insurance, when the old and only the old method prevailed, a blunt personage, approached on the subject of taking out a policy, put the suggestion aside on the grounds, as he phrased them, of “not caring to go into a game where he had to die to win.” Something of this gentleman's egotism and selfishness I confess abides in a partial sense with me. If I don't wholly refuse a game wherein you have to die to win, I at least prefer those games in which you may both live and win. Being thus constituted, I am frank to say that of those Insurance proffers made by the Prudential, that one to most win upon me was the “Guaranteed Five per cent. twenty-year Endowment Bond.” As illustrating what might be done with this scheme of Insurance, I imagined a man whose years were thirty: What would he give, and what would he get, under that scheme of Prudential Insurance? Assuming then that under it he takes out a policy for five thousand dollars, the whole amount of the premiums to be paid up in twenty years: His premium yearly, by this arrangement, will be $405.30. But this further fact is to be considered: While year after year he pays $405.30, and no more, the face of the policy increases annually by five per cent. During the first year, the policy calls for $5,250; during the second for $5,500, and so it grows until at the end of twenty years when the policy is paid up and no more premiums are to be called for, the policy is worth $10,000. There then is the situation: My friend of thirty has paid into The Prudential, during those years, $8,106. On his side, and as against this, he holds the company's paid-up promise for $10,000. What can he do with that promise ?- being now in his fiftieth year. He can cash it at the company's office for $10,000. Or he may have part cash, and part in a paid-up policy, and there are other methods. Best of all, he may buy an annuity for himself; and if he be what President Roosevelt would call “a square man," he'll do the latter. By this annuity plan, Mr CONVERSION TO LIFE INSURANCE. the company would receive his $10,000; and for it would pay him $750 every year for life—being seven and one-half per cent. -even though he lived to be as old as Old Parr. The great point, never to be forgotten- for it was the first reason of insurance—is that should he die at any moment during those twenty years, were it the next day after the policy was written, his wife and family would be paid the face of the policy. It would be at the smallest amount, $5,250. It would increase five per cent. of $5,000 for every year the policy ran. Suppose my provident friend had put those annual $405.30 into a bank at four per cent. interest. It would take ten years before the deposit climbed to $5,000. And yet, at the end of ten years, that Prudential policy in the event of death would call for $7,500. No saving could equal it; no investment approach it. Samuel Smiles was right. “But,” says one, turning the 'ifs' and 'ands’ in his thoughts, “if he had put those $405.30 in a bank, he could have drawn them out at any time, and used them." Read your policy, friend! Given a certain age, three years I think, you, on your policy, can borrow from the company a big proportion of all you've paid in as premiums. Or you can surrender the policy for cash. The whole story of what you can borrow, or what you can “cash” for, is plainly told in the policy; for I might say in passing that the Prudential sells no pigs in pokes. The longer I looked at the above insur- ance, the more perfect the scheme seemed to me. It was safer than a bank; for there can' be no "runs” on the Prudential, to lock its doors and put its shutters up. It was better than other investment; for it paid five per cent.—more than the usual "safe" investment pays. Also—and this was the unique advantage—it anticipated the years, and gave one an investment capital of $5,250 at the very threshold of the trans- action. How can the Prudential pay so much for so little ?-how can it take your $405.30 a year for twenty years, and when you are fifty give you an alternative of $10,000, in hand, or an annuity of $750 while you live? Because, in addition to it being Life Insur- ance, the company buying, as it does, millions of securities at a time, it can get a bigger interest for its money than you- a small investor-can get for yours. Be- yond that—and here is another great reason -it will issue policies only to hale people. Every one who asks for a policy doesn't get it. The would-be policy holder must show himself sound in wind and limb, or the company will refuse him. It requires no argument to show the effect of this in favor of the company-an effect which finally expresses itself in those vast advan- tages whereof I've told you to healthy folk who are granted policies. When Senator Dryden laid the bed- plates of the Prudential as its founder, he had Industrial or mass insurance in his thoughts. Until then, in America, only the well-to-do in this world's goods might talk Life Insurance. The wage-earners, that great body of people who were “poor," couldn't think of a policy because they couldn't manage the premium. Insurance, in those days, went in one-thousand-dollar parcels, and was out of a wage-earner's reach. Senator Dryden is a practical and thinking man, he saw that, to best help a man, one had but to help him help himself. Then it was he resolved upon inaugurating an Industrial Insurance; and with that the foundation of The Prudential began. America has taken many a good thing out of England besides its Independence; and, among the rest, Industrial Insurance. Senator Dryden, who begins a study at its source, went to England to make himself master of the details of Industrial Insur- ance. This was in the early 70's; when he had equipped himself he returned and formed The Prudential in 1875. Industrial Insurance is primarily a burial insurance, which gives even the poorest an opportunity to relieve the public of a burden that does not belong to it, and at the same time take his own self-respect down with him to his grave, and there- fore it should have the widest public en- dorsement. Whatever may be the life beyond, certainly one's entrance into it can in no wise be injured by making a reputable exit from this one. Also, on grounds of sentiment, and for the mere sake of a name, it is worth the while of any man to be laid away under conditions of solvency and level manhood. He shall be none the AMERICAN MAGAZINE. worse, here or hereafter, who gives no his books with that equipment of one occasion for those he leaves behind to thousand dollars. either lie or blush when his funeral is In England, when a rich man's son is mentioned. Being first of all a burial In- born, the rich man begins “laying down," surance, Industrial Insurance must needs in the baby's bibulous behalf, cellars of provide for every member of a family—the claret or port. These are sacred as the man and the woman, the child at school, the wine-bins of the son; and young hopeful grandsire by the hearth. may pull the corks at twenty-one. There are those six or seven black The Prudential “Child's Endowment" weeks—weeks empty of plan, void of offers a more reasonable field for the direction—which inevitably descend upon exercise of paternal love. Instead of a house with the death of the bread- "laying down” a bin of claret, let the winner. With crape on the door!—that father lay down the premium asked, and is no time for a family to be without a thereby secure that money needed later to dollar. Industrial Insurance steps in and give the son a finished education. pays the face of the policy—that policy “Plant the tree of learning in your which five or ten or fifteen weekly cents youth," said Lord Chesterfield, “and it will provided. shade your old age.” And what should it mean to pay those The old cantaloupe expert of Blackheath five or ten or fifteen cents ? The foregoing was wise in his way, and the American of a glass of beer! A walk of a mile on father could do no better than just to help Saturday afternoon, when one would have his son with the planting of that tree. else taken a car! The sum is easily There you have the story of my conver- mastered; and with the peril that lies all sion to Life Insurance. It protects a man across them like a shadow—the black —or the man's family—from those natural peril of dying a pauper, with the blacker dangers that surround us all. It protects a peril superadded of leaving wife and man from himself—often his own worst children without a least splinter of pro enemy—and teaches him sobriety and vision—it is no wonder that nearly everythrift. It lengthens life by lessening wage-worker, however small his fortune, anxiety. buckles himself, his wife and little ones The more I consider, the more I believe. with this insurance. If a liner, now, were to clear for Europe, There is another admirable plan, which wanting its lifeboats, vast would be your the Prudential makes, that should have horrified amazement. By the same token, widest advertisement. The father may also it is as wild a venture and one as recklessly provide for the child's education. Under improvident, when a man goes sailing the the “Child's Endowment” plan, by the an dangerous reef-sown oceans of existence, nual payment of a small sum, the father se- with wife and babies aboard, and never cures the child, say at the age of eighteen, a life-boat policy of insurance swinging the flat fortune of one thousand dollars. An from the davits, to see them safe ashore ambitious boy can go a long journey into should he strike and go down. THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE VOL. LXII OCTOBER, 1906 No. 6 EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ILLUSTRATED WITH NEW PORTRAITS CASSAVAITH the present number in this undertaking as contributors and as K a new editorial manage- editorial associates. ment begins its work. The reading public has Ida M. Tarbell long been familiar with THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE Miss Tarbell is first of all a historian; (for thirty years Leslie's that is, whether she is writing of Rocke- Monthly). It has known it as an inter feller or Napoleon, she must go to the esting and spirited periodical, ably con- original sources, to the fundamental docu- ducted. We hope to preserve its qualities, ments and records. That is the reason to broaden and expand its characteristics, that her work convinces. She knows what and to carry to fuller growth some of the was really said and done. Her pictures lines of its editorial policy. live with the vigor and truth of her own It is inevitable and natural that the new clear cut vision of character and incident; work of THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE will be her interpretation glows with moral con- carried on according to the experience, viction. Her life of Lincoln is known and the interests and the individualities of the loved in tens of thousands of homes, for new editor and his associates. no other biography so nearly depicts that Our associates are known to the public great human being or so fully gives the primarily as writers. They are journalists; illuminating facts of his personal life, that is, they are writers whose work is to selected and presented with a rare sense find out the significant facts of contempo- of illustrative value. It takes you close rary life and to present them interestingly, to Lincoln. honestly and fearlessly. All of them have It is a far cry from Lincoln to Rocke- won for themselves large circles of readers, feller and the Standard Oil Company. If but everyone of them has served an ap- Miss Tarbell had done no other work prenticeship in actual editorial work. In- in her career as a journalist than her in- deed, some of them have in their time swept vestigation of this typical case of illegal the editorial office, washed the type, kicked and dangerous relations between railways press, as all of them have held copy, read and industrial corporations, she would proof, made up forms, gathered news deserve the very high place she occupies and turned down or accepted manuscripts. among the historians of these stirring That is, they are people of general editorial times. It was not because the Standard experience, who though writers, have never Oil Company was rich and powerful that quite abandoned their original trade. It it was investigated; it was because, being seems proper to name to the reader some the richest and the most powerful, it was of those who will be most closely concerned the most representative of evil conditions COPYRIGHT, 1908, IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED From a portrait made in August, 1900 F. P. Dunne American war of which we could honestly be wholly proud, was “Mr. Dooley.” He came to us with the blowing up of the “Maine.” He has stayed ever since and he has never slipped a cog. Mr. Dunne is a humorist, but his humor, like all humor that lasts longer than the hour, is based on a sound philosophy of life. Some of this board of editors are obviously serious. Mr. Dunne is not obviously so, but in our judgment there is not one of us more truly in earnest than he. His work is not merely the ebullition of a joyous heart and a prankish mind, it is the result of constant observation, of sane thinking, of careful writing and of genuine feeling. We can depend on him to put gayety into the magazine—and wisdom. In an early number we shall begin an editorial department with contributions by members of the staff and others. Here Mr. Dunne's buoyant, kind philosophy is cer- tain to be particularly felt. Lincoln Steffens An important contributor to the work 571 From a portrait made in August, 1906 William Allen White thoroughly, so the reader gets a living im- pression of what he has seen and known: the characters, the episodes, the dramatic scenes, and then the meaning of it all. William Allen White Of another of this group, Norman Hap- good wrote as follows in a recent issue of Collier's: “Among American writers of our day we know none characterized more surely by rightness and health of spirit than William Allen White of Em- poria, Kansas. None sees the world more justly in its true proportions, as it is. None, therefore, is more kind, more charitable, with gentler humor, or in more every-day fashion entirely wise. He can, with this wisdom, amiability and amusement that are his, do things that stiffer spirits find impossible. He can criticise with no sug- gestion of hostility. He can praise with no hint of partiality. In his freshness, in the openness of his manner and the breeziness of his words, there is much that we are proud to call American. News- 573 EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT 575 his suggestions will form a notable con- suggest often, and we shall be sorry if tribution to our work. where there is need we cannot shame and make afraid. We shall not be deterred Ray Stannard Baker · by adjectives or phrases. We are jour- nalists, and the ideal of the craft has been The one man of our group who sees a thus expressed by one of the greatest edi- story in everything is Ray Stannard Baker. tors of the last half of the century: “To He has been called “the best reporter in find out the true state of facts, to report America.” That means that he has an them with fidelity, to apply to them sincere eye which sees what there is in things. But and fixed principles of justice, humanity he has more—he has imagination to re- and law, to inform as far as possible the construct vividly what he has seen and he very conscience of nations, and to call has unusually lucid and picturesque story down the judgment of the world on what telling power. Mr. Baker is one of the is false, base or tyrannical, appear to me most fertile and versatile writers to-day the first duties of those who write." in this country, for all human things in- It is necessary to add that to the maga- terest him. He looks out upon the world zine editor the esthetic interests are no less with the sense that it is a community of essential and commanding than the public fellow human beings and he wants to know and moral. It is his function to see and what they are doing. He has a passion herald new ability in literature and art and for studying the ways of man. to get the best from those whose talents And when Mr. Baker has seen, examined are known and developed. We know that and judged, then you feel confident that you we shall have the help of many sincere are getting a true account; he has a genius writers and artists. We have already sub- for clearness; he seems to get the very color stantial evidence of this, and there have of the original facts and events. Besides, come to us from many sources offers of he is so tolerant and sympathetic that his hearty co-operation. fairness becomes a pervasive and charm After all we live by visions. Though ing quality. Mr. Baker's unquenchable we have hardly attempted to express it, curiosity, and his perception of what is we have a vision of a magazine; it may interesting and significant, are certain to never be realized, or it may be realized help in giving distinction to this maga in part. But we conceive that in it no zine. great thing of human interest would go unrecorded; that in it would be something The Magazine as a Whole of the best of all: literature, that in story and poetry refreshed the emotions and the With such a group of associates the love of life; art that stirred anew the editor believes the new AMERICAN MAGA- faculty of seeing beauty and truth in the ZINE may reasonably aim to become a world about; counsel and judgment and lively and important journal, which keeps light upon men and public events that its temper, gets things somewhere near as concern us all; new knowledge of man's they are, loves mankind, never attempts achievements in the wide ranges of his to puncture anything which it is not con- devices and discoveries; and all set forth vinced is a sham, and then does it with with such zest, such knowledge, such art good nature and precision. of expression, that there would be no dull Whatever will best interpret the human line and no indifferent picture—that some panorama we shall use. There is no glow of truth or humor or sentiment would literary form and no real human material play on every page, and that you would rise that does not belong in a great magazine. from reading with the mind enlivened and We set no bounds on our medium as we the heart refreshed and a confirmed be- set none on our raw material. Our ob- lief that it was worth while living in this ject is to use every means to give matter world, and worth while living to make it that seizes and holds and enlivens the better. mind. So to the adventure!"If thers be no We shall endeavor to interest always, to vision the people perish.” THE PARTNERSHIP OF SOCIETY BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE AUTHOR OF "THE REAL issue," "STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS," " IN OUR TOWN," ETC. The old classification would place William Allen White as a humorist, before the term lost its complimentary meaning and had to be qualified to be pleasing to the person to whom it is a pplied. He is a humorist as Fielding was a humorist. And this article on “ The Part- nership of Society” is in itself proof of the truth of the theory that the foundation of all abid- ing humor is right thinking and clear thinking. It reveals suddenly the sources in Mr. White's own mind of the many whimsical and affectionate pictures of life that he has pre- sented to the world. To call it an article or an essay is to undervalue its importance. It is in reality a sermon of great sincerity and power, a modern lay sermon in which a scientific knowledge of the building up of modern society is informed by a tender concern for the sorrows and troubles of all mankind. We need such discourses from sane minds always and we need them at this period, more than ever before, when Conservatism is a wallow of selfishness and radicalism a riot of hate.-EDITOR'S NOTE. S E VER since man began his sentient Will that guides the universe; V pilgrimage “through the still there remains the immanence of God. wilderness of this world,” And when the social scientistresolves he has marveled much at the state into the county, the county into himself and his fellows, the township, the township into the family, and at the things outside the family into its several parts, he comes himself that have diverted to the human soul that is the basis of hu- and directed the course of his journey. man society—the human soul that is as Those men who have considered these unthinkable, alone, and unorganized in things more deeply than their brethren we human society, as is the motion of the ion have called philosophers. Much of their without the thing moved. And so with lore was gathered from their fellow men, all our laboratories, and with all our and many philosophers doubtless were schools, and with all our appliances of compilers, rather than originators of their learning, here at the last second of recorded creeds. But such doctrines and faiths and time, science has deduced what men's philosophies as have withstood the rack of intuitions told them at the beginning of time, we have come to know as the wisdom recorded time—that there is a dominant) of the ages. Curiously enough we find the God, and that there is a partnership of wisdom of the ages concerned with the same men. Physicists to-day, who seem to be unsolved problem which puzzles us to-day; on the eve of discovering the elemental the meaning of the riddle of life still flutters force of the universe, will only verify the on the horizon of our consciousnesses, tan psalmist who cried: “This is the Lord's talizing us with its proximity to our men- doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This tal vision, ever luring us on. Science has is the Day the Lord hath made: we will taken the stone by the roadside, pounded rejoice and be glad in it." Likewise those it up, ground it into atoms, and the atoms who wisely study the ways of men, who into molecules and the molecules into ions spin out sensible theories of government, and corpuscles, and those into forms of who erect workable ideals of society, all motion escaping definition and analysis. rest their theories and found their ideals But still there remains the movement and upon the partnership of men in the works the thing moved; still there remains the of this world; and the doctors of social 576 THE BIRTH OF THE SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD 577 science only repeat and prove again the truth as it was spoken to the Galatians: “There is neither Greek nor Jew; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ.” And to consider this partner- ship of men in society, to review its evolu- tion and to point hopefully to its ultimate goal, shall be the object of this article. Life, whether it be in the stone or in the state, on this planet or “beyond the path of the outmost sun,” ever seems to be the conflict between centripetal and centrif- ugal motion. In animal life we may call the conflict the struggle between the instincts of propagation, and self-preserva- tion. Teachers of evolution have made it plain that the instinct of self-preserva- tion has enacted a great part in the moving drama of life that is playing on this earth; but evolutionists do not seem to have taken sufficient account of the work done by that other instinct—the centripetal force of society, the instinct of race preservation. In the lowest form of animal life there is the instinct that takes and the instinct that gives, the will to eat and the will to repro- duce; and it is a long cry from the dividing moneron to the hiving bee, yet the divine inspiration that moves the single-celled creature to propagate and increase its kind, moves the bee to shelter and protect and thereby increase its kind. The bee and the ant, which stand in point of struct- ure and intelligence at the top of inverte- brate life, are the creatures that have de- veloped their social instincts the most elaborately. This is significant; it prophe- sies the coming of man. · For nature may have run against a dead wall, in the chitonized structure with its low- character of nerves, and may have needed more sensitive nerves than the invertebrates have, on the outer crust of her creat ures, that they might know more of their environment and knowing might be kinder, more docile, and more capable of social organization, more amenable to the centrip- etal force of creation. So nature seems to have gone back to the sea where the backbone creatures lived and to have spent her care on them. And as the back. boned animals grew and spread over the land they helped one another, each after his kind, more and more. The birds migrated to their winter homes in flocks, as they had learned society from their finny fathers. And when forelegs ap- peared and the creatures walked upon the land, they hunted in packs, and fed in droves and roamed the fields in herds. As their nerves grew quicker and as they assembled the stories their senses told with more and more order, their wisdom gave them rudimentary sympathy for their young, and the weaklings of infancy were protected by the strong. In the storm or when the wolves came, the calf was put in the center of the herd. The lone fox hunted and his family fed on the catch. The individual was developed, by his loy- alty to the social unit. When the cen- trifugal forces of a species became too strong, when the animal hunted and fed and slept alone, he fell a prey to the or- ganized society of the jungle, and his species disappeared-or his nerves grew keener and his bones and muscles bigger, and he wandered over the earth, its first lonely, useless, greedy, malevolent overlord. Man seems to have been born upon this planet a gregarious brute. What the mon- key's father's father told him, mankind's father's father seems to have told us, for we have always lived in families and clans and tribes, and as the ages have gone by the sun and the winds have welded us into races. We find savages caring for their young about as horses care for their young, and we find the old and the crippled cast out of the hut to die, as the old bull is horned out of the herd. But the savage will die for his clan quicker than the wolf will die for his pack; man is as brave for his family or his tribe as any animal is for food. The social instinct made a great gain over the instinct of self-preservation when men came into the world. And dur- ing the thousands of years in which man has been on this planet his history has been the struggle between these two instincts, the instinct of propagation, the centripetal force of life, and the instinct of self-preser- vation, the centrifugal force of life. The social compact curbing the individual, and the individual struggling against the social compact-that has been the story of the evolution of man in this vain world. How many thousands of years men must have camped in the woods and in the fields before they became wise enough and kind enough to one another to build the first walled city. Probably one man di- rected the building of that first city wall, 578 MAN'S INCREASING LOVE FOR MAN but the masses did the work. And what an priests and in wars against cities and accumulation of social wisdom must they states. Generation after generation wore have had to have that they might get food itself out striving for the ideal that was in more surely and more securely by working its heart. The altruistic spirit rose strong on that city wall than by seeking it in the and fine in the federations of workmen in forests or on the mountains. There must the cities of the middle ages. Arts and have been poor and weak and deficient crafts flourished. From the twelfth to persons in those ancient days when the first the fifteenth centuries men learned much city wall was built, and they must have of the meaning of brotherhood. The had that same fraternity of mutual help balance between the social forces for a time and mutual kindness that the poor have began to establish itself, but then the kings to-day. Of course the master was there came and there were wars. Men gath- maybe he was called king, perhaps he was ered in government hoping to realize their a hero, or he may have been a priest of ideal of eternal justice, and fell apart in some sort. But he ruled. He represented revolution when they were deceived. Al- the individual—the selfish instinct; the ways something was wrong. If good men workers stood for organization—the altruis ruled, they ruled by bad laws; if the people tic instinct; and together there they fought got good laws they had bad rulers. the never-ended battle for justice between But among the poor, who had small hope men. On one side are the rights of the from potentates and powers, there worked man; on the other the rights of the mass. always the spirit of mutual help. The Social organization rose to its height in poor could not look to the strong and the antiquity in the clans of the Greek cities. selfish, whose strength and selfishness had And men's souls were liberated for a space made them rich and great, so they looked by more justice in the relations of men than to God, and found him in that kindness the ancient world had known; art flourished and sympathy and fellowship that makes and there was a golden age. But it was the social compact, and that has grown only a sham justice, for slaves did the steadily in all living creatures on the earth work, and wars came; and so that civiliza- from the moment God planted it in the tion passed. And for thousands of years moneron, until it glowed through the world in the broad daylight of history, races and in the heart of Christ. Christ came to the nations have been rising, waxing strong and poor, and Confucius and Buddha and all falling to decay. When one studies the life the great prophets preaching kindness and of the people of any of those fallen nations, patience and wisdom came to the poor, ancient or modern, he finds that it is merely because the rich had no ears for such doc- an experiment in establishing justice be- trines. The strong men of the earth could tween men-finding the balance between not understand the doctrine of peace and the great conflicting forces of life---mine brotherhood, because they had formed and thine. their lives with other ideals. But the poor Men seem always to have recognized an could understand because from the be- ideal of eternal justice, but the temporal ginning of man's habitation of this globe judgments of men have not found it. It the poor have been poor because they did availed a nation nothing to develop any not or could not or would not depart from other side of man; Greece had a glimmer- the simple ways that kept them poor. ing sense of justice, but as a nation she But slowly, as time has gone on and as developed the sense of beauty in men and men have “sought out many inventions," let the sense of justice die; so Greece fell the poor have shared in the benefits of those as low as Rome that developed organiza- inventions. It does not mean so much tion in human affairs. The Phænicians discomfort and misery and want to be poor were rich, and the Persians were strong, to-day as it did when Christ came out of but their judgments were not just, and the Nazareth-chiefly because He came, and memories of Greece and Rome and Car- all the world has learned a little of what He thage and Nineveh and Tyre blow across preached. And even if the world has not the world together in the ashes of antiquity. really lived much of the gospel Christ The old world went its way and the preached, from that Gospel the world struggle for the eternal justice went on got its ideal fairly stated. It is the ideal in wars against kings and in wars against of eternal justice, set forth in the Golden LUST FOR MONEY ENDANGERS HUMAN PARTNERSHIP 579 Rule, the scientific analysis of the balance family, their clan or their tribe, comes to between the centripetal and the centrifugal the highly civilized man stronger than the forces of society, the law of the social part love of self. And when one is found in nership. the imperiled group, not bound by the And so to-day in the vital issues of our common mind-an old law rises to punish most modern politics we are fighting the him and the looter is shot by the law of the world-old fight, for the establishment of jungle. ideal justice between men. We know This intuitive sense of partnership in that there is such justice; we know that men has lost nothing by the civilized it can come and that it must come before varnish that covers it, and it has gained the contest ends. And we know that each much as the ages have sharpened men's century has brought ideal justice a little moral sense. For to-day when a common nearer to reality. We know that some-, danger or a common interest draws men thing in our souls is seeking for the great together, they are governed and directed harmony of life, and we know that though by a broader moral sense than the wild we cannot hear it, the harmony is there. men knew. The society that organized The battle line of the race has moved among the ruins of San Francisco those far forward; we are nearer the eternal jus- first few days to fight the fire and care for tice in this modern civilization, with all its the weak organized more wisely, and more selfishness and cruelty and ruthlessness, kindly, than the savage organized his fel- than we were when men came out of the lows after a calamity had stricken the forest, even though they lived there in a tribe; but the same natural desire to stand community of interest, and even though together, to cherish and thereby to preserve, they were moved consciously by the in- is found among both peoples. In some terests of the common good in their simple mysterious way, as the centuries have relations of life, more strongly than we are rolled by, the Golden Rule has grown in the in some of our more advanced stages of under-consciousnesses of men. But it is civilization. For the men of the forests only a growth of divine spirit that is had only the simpler relations of life. As breathed into the lowest of God's creatures life has broadened it has become more on this earth. complex, and that is good also; but our A nd curiously enough the growth of that problem to-day is to establish that com- spirit is best demonstrated not by the plexity upon the basis of eternal justice. progress of the strong members of hu- Our problem is to let the primitive sense manity, but rather by the gradual rise of of partnership in men, which made the the weak. When one remembers how long savage die for his clan, rise, and dominate the common people remained ignorant, modern men so that they will be conscious poorly housed and poorly fed in the na- of their debt to humanity, and will devote to tions of antiquity, the rise of the common its partnership the same passionate service people of the English speaking section of that the primitive man gave to his fel- the white race during the five hundred lows. years just passed seems marvelous. Little For to-day much of “man's inhumanity by little the people have gained political to man,” in so far as that inhumanity con- rights, and economic rights, and social cerns his family, his clan or his tribe, has rights. And the net gain for the poor has become common and legal only since man been that at the end of each succeeding has become comfortable and has forgotten century a day's work would bring the his primitive obligation. But the social toiler and his family a few more comforts instinct is there big and compelling, even than a day's work brought his grand- though dormant, and when the veneer of father. To-day a day's work at the aver- civilization is scraped off, by a common age American scale of wages will house a hardship or a common peril, often the man and his family comfortably, clothe latent instinct of human community of in- them decently, feed them wholesomely and terests rises, and men forget the law of self- well, give their child the opportunity to get preservation, and work together for the as good an education as the richest man in common good. In times of peril or catas- the land can buy, furnish them with clean trophe, this racial instinct which makes amusements, supply them with books and savages lay down their lives for their newspapers and give them a little leisure to REALM WHERE THERE IS NO COIN BUT SERVICE 581 if he does not give them that service which comes from the altruistic instinct of growth within him, he has failed in life, and no matter how much money he has accumu- lated, no matter how much apparent power he may command, still that man has failed. For success in this life is service to one's fellows. The greatest failures in our modern life are our millionaires. As a rule they have accumulated money without giving society a just and equitable return for that money, they have acquired what seems to them a vast amount of power, without intelligence to use it, and they are going through life *looking for joy and happiness, but finding only pleasure that burns out their souls and does not satisfy their hearts. To get their money they have developed their cunning and stunted their candor; they have deceived and bullied and sometimes killed the man in their own hearts, and have let a demon lustful for gain reign in their souls. Often the man who was killed lingers in an empty heart-a pious ghost, full of wise saws and good inten- tions, and the crackling laughter of the fool, but the good man is only a ghost; he has no real part in the rich man's life. Supposing the pious ghost that haunts the richest man in the world, desired to set aside half of his millions to promote the cause of the Christian religion. His money would accomplish but little. The worst blow the organized Christian re- ligion might have would be that money. For the man's life is so well known, his character is so thoroughly despised, that all the preaching of the paid preachers would be futile against the influence of that one life. “How can I hear what you say," says Emerson, “when what you are keeps thundering in my ears?” The ex- ample of one poor man laying down his life in a fire or in a flood for humanity is worth more to the cause of righteousness than all the millions for which the rich man has strangled his manhood or bar tered away his soul. Money does not pass current in the real world of service. It is false coin there. Churchmen need not worry about tainted money. If it is tainted, God will not accept it. For what God needs in this world is not money—but service-service that comes from the God-implanted in- stinct to help one's fellows. The failures of this life may heap the golden evidences of their failures mountain-high, and donate them to the cause of righteousness, and they will avail less than the testimony and the honest service of one poor man who has succeeded by living manfully. Men cannot cheat and steal and kill and op- press their fellows, and then buy their way into the happiness that comes from real usefulness to mankind; the peace that passeth understanding is not to be pur- chased with stolen money, even though the robber shall present it as a sacrifice, and even though he shall lay it upon the altar in seven figures. The millionaire of to-day may not buy indulgences ‘any more than the rich man of Martin Luther's time. Christ said to the Magdalen, “Go sin no more,” and to the rich young man, “Sell that thou hast, give to the poor," and then “come and follow me.” Christ had no more thought of spreading his cause by the money of one sinner than by the money of another. And the chiefest proof of Christ's divinity is not in the miracles, nor in the signs and wonders, but in the fact that He knew that the gearing of the world is not turned toward the millennium by money or by the power that comes through worldly success, but by service of man to man, without money, and without the power that money can buy. Money has its place in our social organization. It can feed the bodies of men; but a dollar nor a million dollars never fed a soul. For souls grow, only as life has grown on this planet, by service to one's fellow creatures. But answer will be made that this is a practical world, and not a world of dreams and theories. Men will say, take away the love of money, even though it be the root of all evil, and you take away the fire that generates the steam in the engines of our civilization. And to those sitting in the seats of the scornful we may answer that this is indeed a practical world, but that the scrap heap of antiquity is littered with the ruins of practical worlds. Also if the love of money produces the steam of our civilization, then, sooner or later the fires must go out, and if we would hold the steam we must change the fuel. And we must ask those who question us, and we must ask ourselves, if indeed, and in truth, the love of money does hold the fire that runs the engines of our civilization. 582 CHRIST'S SPIRIT IN THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE Let us take a look at the thing we call done by fathers for their families, by civilization, and see how it is going. mothers for their children, by neighbors We know America fairly well; it is prob- for one another—all instinctively follow- ably as highly civilized as any other parting the divine inspiration of social help- of the globe. In New York City there that has made our civilization grow and are said to be five thousand millionaires. spread all over America. The great in- Probably there are ten thousand or even ventors are not rich; the great moral and let us say twenty thousand men who are spiritual leaders of men are not rich, and nearly millionaires, and fifty thousand the greatest of our political leaders die more who are living in the blessed hope of poor. This is indeed a practical world; becoming millionaires reasonably soon. that much we must grant to those who Their hopes of course are based largely on sit in high places and scoff; but it is made being able to tear down the real million a practical world by those who, without aires and to share in the fallen fortunes. money, do practical work for the practical Let us say that there are one hundred benefit of their fellows, and who perhaps thousand people who certainly are in- without professing religion are living the spired by the love of money. These hun spirit of Christianity in their simple re- dred thousand people have killed the so- lations with their real neighbors, more cial instinct in their own hearts. They surely than those who have killed their serve their fellows only for the money there souls for money, and let the ghosts of them- is in it. They live parasitic existences. selves haunt their lives, canting, ineffective But what of the three million other men specters hectoring the corpse! and women in New York? Is the civili- It is not the love of money that moves zation of New York dependent upon the this world, and makes our civilization what hundred thousand parasites, or is it de- it is—the best civilization the world has pendent upon the three million people? known, because, upon the whole, it is the Three million people are working day by most just. But it is the love of money-1 day for money with which to buy the neces- legalized, and set hard by custom and saries and comforts and luxuries of life. tradition, in our ideals and in our institu- The three million people devote eight tions, that results in the injustices and im- hours every day to money-getting; but moral inequalities sanctioned by our gov- what of the other sixteen hours during the ernment to-day. It is the love of money? day? In the eight waking hours that are that makes the trust magnate debauch left what a vast amount of work is done his competitor's employes by paying them for the love of it; and as we descend to to spy; it is the love of money that deadens those levels which are falsely called the the consciences of preachers and allows lower levels of society—to the poor—what them to take thousands from big thieves a vast amount of social work is done with who are impenitent, and require the pick- out the thought of pay. The nursing of pocket to purge his stealings by repentance. the sick, the care of motherless children, It is the love of money that makes men the feeding of those below the line of sub- take railroad rebates in secret which they sistence, the helping and shielding and confess in low voiced shame in public on soothing that is done by the poor to the the stand. It is the love of money that poor every day, if paid for in dollars would makes some of our college presidents plead make the hundred thousand millionaires for a business system founded on deceit, poor at sunset. chicanery, and competitive malice. The | The spirit of social service is in the whole of high finance has been shaken in masses of all our people. One finds it the five years last passed by exposures throughout the land, among workmen who which showed how men in frock coats join unions, among farmers who put in would steal and cheat and swear falsely- their sick neighbor's crops, and country- not for bread and butter, not for the com- bred people who come to one another's forts of life, not even for the luxuries that help in a thousand neighborly ways in money will bring—they might have had time of trouble. The work that is done these things honestly—but for the lust for money to buy comforts for the worker of money! Society has moved far enough himself is but a small per cent. of the away from the jungle so that he who work done in this world; it is the work cripples and kills in the struggle for a mate THE PROBLEM FOR GENERATIONS TO COME 583 . is outlawed; but it is the problem of this generation and the next and the next to civilize the conscienceless devil of malicious greed out of the hearts of men. As the ages have passed we have done some things to check this love of money in the hearts of men. In so much as the race has pulled up those roots, in just so much it has ad- vanced. In so much as we have given free play to the social instinct in man—the primordial instinct of growth-and have rewarded that neighborly instinct ma- terially in our institutions, in so much are we civilized. For our social instincts are our moral instincts, and as they grow In us, with the centuries, these instincts should be rewarded rather than repressed þy the society we organize while we grow. And human life can grow only through human partnership; but this partnership does not mean a leveling process. Men will differ in worth, “as one star differeth from another in glory”; there must of necessity be rewards and punishments; there must of course be men who have and men who have not; nothing would be so deadly to human life as the monotonous equality dreamed of by the socialist. But in our evolution of government, we should work toward a system by which the partner- ship of society should be fairly conducted; we should insist that he who puts in evil- who puts in greed and avarice and ruth- less cunning-even in carload lots by the wholesale, shall not take out the rewards of the partnership, and that he who puts in generosity and kindness and fair dealing with his fellows, shall not have to take out the punishments of the partnership. Our civilization must adjust itself so that its judgments will be fair between men, or it too will perish from the earth. Our partnership is a vast industrial or- ganization; where the clan or the tribe of Isaac and of Jacob had ten men, we have ten thousand, yet essentially the basis of partnership is the same. It is the cen- tripetal force of life. We live together now because we cannot live separately, just as the patriarchs gathered their tribes- men about them in the dawn of time. And we must serve our fellows in this vast industrial system, or we are outlaws as they were who were cast upon the desert to perish. And a pressing duty upon every man who sees the wrongs of this partnership is to right them, in so far as he is able. If our social organization is re- warding men who have developed their unsocial instincts, it is rewarding them at some one's expense, and our duty to those who are wronged may not be honestly neglected. It is of course true that the man who does not serve his fellows, but who robs them, suffers for his lack of service even in his stolen luxury; it is true that the unhappiest men in the world are those who have smothered their natural desire to help their fellows. No man is happy who has killed his conscience. But while he is suffering, his wickedness is making others suffer; his stolen luxury takes com- fort from hundreds. Every idler in our system, rich or poor, is a social cancer that burns in the vitals of civilization. And it is our duty to our suffering fellows to so change the social system that the idler will have to serve. The cancer of king and caste was cut out of the American social system by revolution; and the cancerous aggrandizement of capital oppressing the people will be cut out by evolution. For the press and the school and the church are making men of a broad moral sense, who ultimately must see the wickedness of feeding men who do no social service. Soon all the world must come to realize that civilization is built for a purpose, and that purpose is the development of human souls. Certainly that is a practical end for a practical world. For the develop- ment of humanity should be humanity's chief end. But surely it is not that a few may enjoy the luxuries, and many may possess the comforts, and all the basic needs of ma- terial life, that we have piled iron and stone high up in our cities, and have bound humanity together in an economic brother- hood by the electric wire; surely for some greater reason learning has become uni- versal among men, than merely to trade food and shelter and leisure, to those who happen to work in the press rooms. This world has grown from the savage's village to our modern life with a determined di- rection, which should prove the presence of a divine purpose behind that growth, greater than is found in the life we have made. And unless we find that purpose, this blossom of civilization which we cherish shall fade without coming to fruit. We have seen that our civilization is 584 THE WAY THAT LEADS TO HAPPINESS founded upon the primal instinct of life in laws, the lost souls of the poor brothers this planet—the instinct of social co-opera- are upon our souls, and their blood shall tion. We have seen that our civilization rise against us in the judgment. The grows as that instinct finds freedom, and partnership of society in the manufacture that our civilization is hampered when the of human souls puts a sense of duty and instinct of social co-operation is hampered of obligation upon the honest man that by selfishness. Therefore we may know that should crush him in misery if he neglects the instinct of mutual help is the divine it, and exalt him in happiness if he accepts desire within us, and that in accordance it. with this divine purpose and plan this Therefore the first sense one should have desire is leading men through the ages in this human partnership should be a laway from material things. For when we sense of debt-debt that may be paid only see that only he who serves his fellows is by service. Unhappiness and the things happy, we must reason that service is not theologians are pleased to call sin, are only merely success in this life but that it is the for him who repudiates his debt, and by only means of happiness. For service so doing goes deeper and deeper into debt, brings to men happiness that rises above and further and further into unhappiness. comfort or discomfort, happiness that Sin is economic, just as much as it is moral; triumphs over physical pain, happiness indeed there is but one law-all our that is the food of the soul. economics, all our statutes, all our regula- So it is brought to us, that our great tions of trade and commerce, and all our manufacturing plant for souls has failed definitions of human rights are but feeble in so far as it turns out so many defective aspirations toward the law of the partner- ones, and so few that are perfect. And ship, which we call the Golden Rule. He by its success or failure as a soul-maker who violates it suffers and he who obeys must our civilization stand in divine judg. it is happy, even though he is in most dire ment-and we, the full partners in this distress. The sharp teeth of this great civilization, must stand for it. Each of machine of human life that God has made us must answer in the judgment for the to turn out souls, are inexorable, even whole concern in which we share, and the though they are invisible, and whoever more we get out of the partnership the tampers with the invisible power is ground more we are responsible for the justice by it in a way we cannot know. of the partnership. It is not well there- 1 For ages the wise men of the world fore to boast of the wealth of our country, have known that a moral law governs until we have devised some law which this world. The Hebrews set the law will distribute that wealth equitably among down more explicitly, perhaps, than others the people under whose laws and institu- in the ancient world, but other nations tions the wealth was accumulated. We knew something of the law. We in our must not boast of our great fortunes, unless nation know the law. Even outside of the as bondsmen for the makers of those for- great Book of the Law, the proverbs of tunes we citizens can say that the rich the people teach it. Men know that men did not rob those who were weak, nor punishment follows wrong doing as shadows take away a portion from all their fellows. fall away from that which hides the sun. Every fortune unfairly yet legally made And yet as men and as citizens we are in this country makes us partners in the forever standing in our own light; our stealing who permitted the law to stand knowledge of the law is academic. It has which allowed the theft or the officers to not appealed to our wills, and in too many serve that condoned it. We have no right cases both as men and as nations we prove as citizens to sneer at those who under our by our deeds that we consider the moral laws, and under the officers we elect to side of an issue, the impractical side. We enforce our laws, grow rich by chicanery. seem to think that God is an idle dreamer For before the eternal justice we stand in whose laws will not work in this hard world judgment abettors of the crime. Every of facts. Science has proved the domi- man is his brother's keeper. Therefore nance of God in this universe of matter; if the souls even of the unworthy poor are science has proved the immutability of the ground small by envy and by malice, seeing laws we call physical laws that operate the wicked prosper unpunished by our through all the realms of space; and all the THE GREATEST NEED IN THE WORLD 585 laws of this universe resolve themselves go to physical destruction; the mother into one law—the law of cause and effect. dies for her child; the soldier dies for his And this law of cause and effect is the basis country; the engineer dies for his passen- of all the moral law which philosophers gers; the life-boat man dies for his duty; have found since the beginning of time. the miner dies for his friend. But the The theologians call it sin and punish- immutable law of this universe, the law ment; we might rather call it the relation of cause and effect, which governs the of kindness and happiness, for it is but an movements of the farthest star in its course, expression of the merciless law of cause and will surely not be barred by the mere por- effect. Why then should we question the tals of physical death, and that which immutability of this moral law? Why made the soul happy in leaving this world should we hope to evade it? Why in the will keep it happy afterwards. Often the practical conduct of our lives should we law of the partnership of men seems to patronize God? We do not sniff at the lead its followers into suffering and want, law of gravitation, yet the law of kindness and they shrink back ignobly and call upon and happiness upon which we base this the law of self-preservation_which never partnership of humanity we give to the yet has given a soul a breath of happiness. women and the children, and go on build- But inevitably he who follows the higher ing our civilizations to fall of their own law of the preservation of his race, has weight because they are built with hands found that in some unexpected way there that know not the great law of spiritual came to him the joy that follows service- gravitation. Our lips know it—they say the happiness that follows kindness. The that we should love our neighbors—but forces of life are strange. They seem in- our hearts have heard it only from afar. explicable. They seem to be gone mad What the world needs is faith to accept with indirection, and yet at the end of a its own wisdom as truth. We have eyes, century one can see that these forces have yet we see not; we have ears, yet we hear moved forward; and one must know that pot; day by day we go to our work, toiling some great current is moving their depth; It our block houses that topple because that some great destiny is ahead. Struggle they are built in our moral blindness. We as we may, even living within the law of kill and maim our bodies in this work of service to one's fellows, there come hours civilization, and we choke and sear our of discouragement, there come times of souls battling like beasts in a pit; and yet doubt, when it seems futile to try again. there is no pit but our ignorance of the Yet we must know that underneath the simple law of the partnership of men, which surface of things the current is moving our mouths chatter a thousand times a resistlessly onward; we must know that day. There is no practical world, except though we have toiled all night and have that which we make when we live within taken nothing, still must we launch out into this law. Often following this law men the deep and let down our nets. THE WANDERERS BY ARTHUR STRINGER lone Drifting from Deep to dark-horizoned Deep, We gaze where pathless waters pale and Sea-worn we fare through unknown islands gloom And tumble restlessly all touched with gold To unimagined mainlands lonelier still. Deep through the darkening West, - and Out past gray headlands, with o'er-wistful talk of Home. Then like the rustling of soft leaves to us, eyes 586 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE Then like the whispering of evening waves. The music mocking dies, the glory fades, Across the twilight silences there come, The fragile tone dissolves, -and leaves us Borne in upon the sea-wind's languid wings, there Soft hidden voices and strange harmonies, Amid the gathering silence and the gloom Far sounds from hills and shores unknown With some new anguish eating at our hearts, to us, And some dark mem'ry washing restlessly Low strains that creep and fail like solemn Upon the granite bastions of Regret. bells What it would whisper now we cannot tell, Across a windy plainland, cries that lure And so, with sullen oar yet watching eyes, Us onward and still onward toward the End, We still fare on past thresholds still unknown, Through foam and spindrift to the uttermost And question whence we come and whither Dark undiscovered Country of the Dream, go; Strange intuitions telling us there lies And ere the dawn is gray again we quench Some wider world about us than we dream, Doubt's sinking fires and drive the splin- And wayward memories of how we fared tered keel From coasts too far away for feeble thought! Deep through the black waves and go plung- They come as broken voices blown to us i ng out, Out from a land of twilight too remote Out past the headlands of the open sea, And muffled in deep mists to be discerned. With straining sails and wills more obdu- One wind-blown echo comes, one teasing rate, strain, On through the dark horizons of unrest, And while we listen with bewildered ears, Still onward, ever onward, to the End! ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT EDITORIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF A SERIAL BY DAVID GRAYSON TO BEGIN IN THE NOVEMBER NUMBER ON times like these, of ar- dent unrest, it is worth while to know that there are those who still culti- vate the art of content | ment and enjoy the quiet life. Business and poli- tics, vast as they sometimes loom upon our outer horizon, furnish in reality only a part of the occupation of our lives. They are the evident and clamorous interests, but deep underneath in the life of every man and woman lies a world quite apart: a real world of more or less hidden sentiment and emotion. “Adventures in Contentment,” by David Grayson, to begin in THE AMERICAN MAG- AZINE for November, deals with none of the vaster problems: it is the simple narra- tive of one who, escaping success, achieved contentment. It appeals to that other man who is in every man; it deals with the thoughts and feelings which animate his deeper consciousness. All of us have felt the impulse to escape from the killing pace of modern life: this is the story of one who really escaped, of one who, being lim- ited, broke through his limits, and won freedom. I t is a country story, relating both the outward and the inner adventures of a countryman. In the small community where the writer lives may be found the Scotch Preacher, and the Hunchback, and Charles Baxter, the distinguished carpen- ter, and John and Mary Starkweather, and Harriet and Horace. The Book Agent passes that way to sell his wares, and the Tramp rests on the door step; and they are all concerned humorously, grotesquely or tragically in the adventures of David Grayson's life. THE GATE OF UNDERSTANDING BY EDITH BARNARD WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY B. J. ROSENMEYER Cab ZHEN the operation was suc- po cessfully over, the last bandage adjusted, and the last words of direction spoken to the attendants, les the white-gowned surgeon passed through the white tiled doorway into the doctors' room, glad to escape the heavily etherized atmosphere, glad to pass by the admiring, respectful, awe-filled faces of the younger men, glad to throw aside the red-spotted garment and to feel the soft lather of soap and water on his hands and face. The operation had been of the most dan- gerous, but it was neither fear for the man's life nor doubt of his own success in saving it that, during the hours just past, set the doctor's lips in a firmer line than usual, made his voice harsh and grating in the few sentences he spoke to the men and the nurses, and sent him from the operating room nervously fatigued and restless. He had seen the man only twice before he was wheeled, etherized, into the glass-lined room, and both times as a patient, as one of the many in the great hospital. He had been a case, a problem, scarcely a man; his life was a matter of breathing and heart beats rather than of work, play, love; but this morning his standing as a patient, a case, had been changed suddenly into that of a human entity. The morning had been cold, very cold, and the doctor's man drove the horses up and down the street. The doctor himself, overcoated at last, opened the door of his house; a coupé which he thought his own was stopping before it. He had turned back for his small black bag, and when he reached the door again a woman was mounting the steps, close to him. The doctor frowned impatiently, but the woman had said at once, imperiously: “I know you have no time, Doctor Brooke, but I am his wife.” Surprised, involuntarily the doctor stepped aside, and she went past him into the house, her furs brushing against him. Then, in the hall—it had been terrible, ghastly! There was nothing hysterical about her; it would have been easier for him if there had been. He knew how to deal with hysterics, but before this blaze of emotion he was helpless, amazed. She was not of the class which readily bares its feelings, nor, indeed, of that smaller class which feels intensely. The doctor knew by every evidence of her dress and manner, even of her face, that life had been easy for her; yet here she was in his dim hallway, baring her soul, tearing its motives and passions apart with an inten- sity which he had never seen equalled. The doctor had seen the human heart, unfleshed, palpitating with its own marvellous life- force; the sight was not as awe-inspiring as that of this woman's dissecting her own heart's motives and depths. The face of the lady of quietly ordered life changed before his eyes into a mask of tragedy. The man on whom he was to operate that day was her husband; they had been good enough friends, but had amused themselves in different ways. Now that he might die, she knew that she must have him back. There was so much for life to give them! She must show him! The doctor must save him. She must, must have him back! That was the substance of her wild appeal, and it was in itself commonplace enough; it was her fierce intensity of suffering and demand that made its wonder. Her eyes were the color of Helen's, and the patient, the case, the senseless human thing which he had just cut, was the man whose danger had made them glow, broken the surface of the wife's reserve of coldn selfishness, indifference, stirred the under- 587 THE GATE OF UNDERSTANDING 589 doctor was always soothed and rested by merely watching her, and this afternoon her handling of the tea things, her deftness and sureness, quite took his mind from the troublesome day. She did not speak until she had given him his cup, and was seated, with another, at the opposite side of the fireplace. Then she began to talk to him of a thousand things her day, her friends, the Symphony the night before, the last new play; she quoted the latest saying of their wittiest friend, reported the progress of another's love- affair, repeated a remark of Bobby's, told about a visit to his school. The doctor drank his tea and poured himself a second and a third cup, without answering her in words; he nodded once or twice, smiled grimly at her quotation, laughed at Bobby's speech, and was rested by it all. When he finished his third cup he sat with his elbows on the arm of the big chair, his hands before his face, their fingers lightly touching, and with his head bent slightly forward. Helen watched him in silence for a few moments, and then asked: “Tired?" The doctor roused himself and smiled at her. “I was tired, yes,” he answered, “but you've rested me.” Then he added, to her surprise: “I've had a hard day.” It was the first time in all their acquaint- ance that he had spoken, however indi- rectly, of his work. Even his greatest achievements, the marvels of surgery that had made his fame world-wide, she had learned only with the rest of the world. “Can you tell me about it?" she asked. “I want to,” he said. “It's got hold of me, somehow. I want to tell you." She listened to his story of the morning; he did not speak of the subsequent opera- tion on the man, except to explain that the encounter with the woman had made it difficult, and, he added, had made his own nerves uncertain. He need not have said the last, however, for the effect was still evident in his restlessly moving around the room while telling the story; when he finished he stood looking down into the fire. Helen's first question was the inevitable one. “Will he live?” she asked. “Oh, yes,” the doctor answered, “he will live. But- “But,” she laughed, “when he is well again the woman will probably find herself just where she was before he was ill! A variation on the old theme that when “The devil was sick—the devil a monk would be.'” The doctor said quickly, sharply, “Don't talk like that!” She flushed a little. “No," she said, “I will not. That was foolishly spoken-and, besides, not true. I see the meaning of it as plainly as you do, Roger. Tell me, was she of-our sort?" “Oh, perfectly,” the doctor said. Then, after a pause, he added, “The way she let herself go, the revelation of herself!" “She probably didn't half realize it all until she told you!” “But to come to me, a stranger-Jove! I thought of it every second while I was cut- ting that unconscious man, thought of the poor devil's missing the moment of her that would have been supreme for him.” She followed her own line of thought, rather than his. “It was fine, dramatic! That revelation doesn't always come, even when there is something to be revealed, you know!" He turned to her quickly. “That's it," he said, “that is what upset me. Suppose the chap had never been taken ill; suppose she had never found out all that! Think what they have both been missing, what they might never have known.” She was as keenly interested in it as he. “It was worth the price!” she said. The doctor looked at her, and spoke the key-note of his thought. “Helen,” he said, “her eyes were like yours!” She did not move or speak, but there was a tenseness about her that showed she understood. The doctor looked at her for a moment, moved restlessly, then laid his arm along the mantel shelf and closed his fingers over its corner, as if steadying him- self. “Helen, I've been wondering all day " She could not help him, could not move or speak, although she would have given much to prevent his speaking. “Her eyes—I've been wondering whether you may not be denying yourself and me, whether you just haven't been made to find out!” The appeal of his hesitating sen- tences was tremendous, but still she would not look at him, and only shook her head from side to side. “No, Roger, no! That doesn't come to THE GATE OF UNDERSTANDING 593 table. The servants, through some feeling of reverence, had let them lie there during all the days, and she herself had not been in the room before. Suddenly she had a vision of the doctor's knife, of Bobby's soft, white throat. against herself for having spoken, with resentment toward him for seeming to hold it up in reproof before her. Later, the thought gripped her heart—was it only her pride which made her long to enter and rule in the sick room? She held up her head: the doctor's refusal had only proved, after all, what she herself would have said at another time; of course, the child was better off in the nurse's care than he would be in her own. After that, however, she saw the doctor only once every day, although she knew that he came many times. Then she met him coldly, resentfully, and when he an- swered her questions perfunctorily she felt as far removed from him as if they had been talking by telephone. But as the days passed she began to forget herself and the doctor in remembering her sick child. She heard the slightest movement in the room where he lay, and the house and her heart seemed full of him. She moved restlessly about from room to room; she could not force her interest toward anything but the boy; she had of necessity to stay indoors, and the sign in the vestibule kept people away. She found herself more and more often outside the child's door. The wet white sheet hung before it made the door seem to her like that of a sepulchre. When she caught glimpses of the nurses, their faces seemed daily more grave. One afternoon she was sitting on the steps in the hall, watching the sheeted door, when the youngest nurse came out. As she looked at Helen her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Mrs. Carroll,” she said impulsively, “ he's such a darling little boy!” Helen rose unsteadily to her feet and gripped the banister for support. “ Is he worse?” she gasped. The nurse nodded, and wiped her eyes. “The doctor is going to perform tracheot- omy this afternoon,” she explained. After a thousand dead ages that might have been one hour or three the doctor came downstairs and into the room. Some part of herself that was still alive looked into his face and wondered where she had seen that look before. It was not a thing of feature, but of spirit. She remembered: Robert's face had worn it, when he turned back at the door to look at her, before Bobby came. It was the expression of the mental anguish of a man for the physical agony of some loved one. She cried out jealously, “You do not love him as much as I do! He is mine, my baby!" T he doctor's face relaxed, grew almost tender. He stood in front of her, and for the first time since Bobby's illness looked at her. “He is breathing comfortably through the tube," he told her. They sat there through the night, neither thinking of eating, and speaking seldom. At intervals the doctor went upstairs. His stcp on the stair reminded Helen of a noise she had heard the night before from her room. “Did you stay here last night?" she asked him. He nodded. “And the night before?” “Things come so suddenly to children,” he said. After that night he asked for her each time he came, and gave her full reports. When the child was decidedly better she asked again to be allowed to go into his room. “Be patient a few days longer," the doctor said. “You will have enough to do when he is really convalescent." Many things were being made clear to her; humbly she accepted his decision. The next day he did not come, but sent a doctor friend instead. "I am afraid Doctor Brooke will not be able to come for a few days,” he explained. “He asked me to tell you that Bobby is really out of danger, and to beg you not to be anxious." “Doctor Brooke is ill?” she asked. “He is not very well,” the other doctor admitted. The doctor found Helen crouched on the stairs, her head bowed to her knees. He roused her with a gentleness not unlike his old manner toward her, though any of his patients would have recognized it as the doctor's way; he hade her wait for him in the library below, and promised to come to her there as soon as possible. The only things she saw as she went into the library were a book of fairy tales lying opened on a chair, and an engine of Bobby's under the “ It is worth the price," he said LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE 595 Some swift message mounted from her heart to Helen's brain. She was sure before she asked, but she must hear it. Her voice was low; speech was difficult. “Diphtheria ? " she asked. It was the young doctor's turn to have a vision, to behold a revelation. “He is very strong,” he said. A half-hour later, in Doctor Brooke's room, his nurse and the younger doctor were standing by the window, speaking together in low tones. No one was on guard, and before they were aware of it Helen stood beside the sick man's bed and was bending over him. The nurse ex- claimed, and the young doctor moved quickly forward. “My dear Mrs. Carroll!” he exclaimed. “This is no place for you!” He touched her arm, and Helen looked at him. “I must, must stay!" she cried. “I shall know what to do!” The young doctor saw, was dumb, and moved away. Helen bent over the sick man again, and laid her hand on his forehead, smoothing back the hair. He remembered a darkened room, flickering lights and shadows on the ceiling, a gay counterpane that danced before a boy's fevered eyes, his mother's soft touch. Then he saw Helen's eyes, reached for her hand and kissed it. “Yes, stay,” he said. His eyes closed, but a moment later opened again. He looked searchingly into her face, then smiled, satisfied. “It is worth the price,” he said. LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE BY CASPAR DAY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAY HAMBIDGE VOUNDS like Grandma Zuius,” said young Antan to his brother. He laughed and shrugged his shoul- ders; the lamp on his cap described a flaming aro as he wagged his head at the darkness. “Her voice, certainly.” Mikolas the broad-shouldered scowled as he smote the lump of coal to wedge it on the little car. Mikol's cars gratified even the docking-boss in the matter of topping. “Making a match, as usual. Whom is she after this time?" Three lights shone in the gangway at the mouth of the chamber. A man's voice answered the old woman's cackle, speak- ing in the Lithuanian tongue and rather loudly. “Our boss, Mikol.” The younger laborer tittered. “And the girl ?” Mikolas growled, but looked sidewise at the three figures coming up the middle of the chamber. Grandma Zuius, a withered little witch in black calico wrapper, bore a candle and clung to the girl's arm. The lamp upon the girl's cap showed their faces plainly. “It is the girl from Matcavage's, the greenhorn,-the one I told you was pretty, Mikol. Now see what Jonas says; he will not pay you for cutting his coal; he knows if you said much the mine-boss would chase you away for doing it without a paper." “Curse the paper! I have worked for him seven months now, and so have you. Just wait till we have a little more English, boy, and we will buy us papers and go miner our- selves. We know as much as Jonas Malukas already. He is no good.” The two laborers ceased their work as the guests approached, stood upright, and nodded greeting. It was Ladies' Day in Carbury shaft, and the one occasion of the year when the usages of society follow a man underground. Grandma Zuius gave a cracked “Geras rytas” in answer to their mute salutation. The girl smiled. She was a small plump LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE 597 a blow; but he was also too familiar with the "Who is coming ?” rough and ready justice of the mines to fight Mikol's surly question was addressed to his boss. He took the can, therefore, threw Malukas; his sidewise glance met and held out the water which it contained, and the girl's. tramped out through the chamber to the “Listen! Lord, how they run, though! gangway. Mikol, left alone, went on load. And hear the women squeal! There is a trip Maryte ing the second car as though no accident had marred the peace. “You see how I manage them!” boasted the miner to his guests. “A greenhorn, you see, thinks everything of his job. Slow witted fellows they, a pair of cowards too. Hey, Mikol?” “You are a heavy fellow, a big fellow, Jonas,” pattered the old woman. “I always liked a big fellow, when I was a girl. Now for Maryte I should say- of cars behind them, I guess, and they fear the mules. Such a noise as this mine does not hear the year round except on this one day. Come and we will watch them scram- ble for it.” The miner and his guests went to the mouth of the chamber. A mule team, led and driven by women and followed by a screaming company, swept by them down the grade. “Is it dangerous ?” the girl asked. “I 600 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE two women with something like dismay. They stood some ten yards inward, lamp and candle flaring yellowly over their cotton gowns. The girl had a roll of gleaming tawny hair under her cap; her throat rose white and unprotected from the neckband of her dress. With the instinct that serves some men for prophecy, Mikol felt the nearness of danger. Still, orders were orders. He opened the door a crack, yielding more and more as the wind gained; but after the first six inches he checked the motion long enough to snatch his cap with his left hand and blow out the light. Sudden as a storm wind, damp and cool with the moisture of the mine, the air swept down. The women's lights guttered and smoked unevenly in the sudden draught. Malukas came running down the track toward them; they heard his laughter; as he came nearer they saw the ruddy smudge of his lamp streaming before him tassel-wise, now bright, now dull. “How pleasant! Leave it this way all the time, Jonas,” called the old woman. “Be- fore it was hot like a cow-stable. This, now, is very much better.” “There, coward harelip, do you hear that? I know what women like. Oh, where are you? What have you done with your lamp? Oh, the fool has run away, Maryte! What do you think of that?” Big Mikol stood in the doorway, dogged but ashamed. “Just the same," he mut- tered, “just the same, I wish I had Antan here; he is one of those that can smell the gas. Jonas cannot, nor I.” The miner came on down the road, sing. ing an old song in pure self-satisfaction. He was some fifteen yards away from the women when the improbable happened. The roof was low at that point, irregular and somewhat pitted with bowl-shaped hollows. In one of these a jet of gas ignited from his lamp. In an instant the rocky way was lit with the pure flame. Malukas dodged, ducked past, then recovered him- self and laughed. “There is a queer thing, now! Some- times they will burn and burn before they go out, and perhaps they set a prop on fire. I must blow this out before we go and leave it." The jet flared, waned, flared, grew, and drooped again, a magical frond of fire, feeding itself upon thin air. “If it had been leaking long we should all have been roasted as you would singe a chicken,” Malukas told his guests. “As it is, there is no danger." “Look!” cried Grandma Zuius, all at once. Malukas and Maryte turned, but Szir- delis had seen before they did. A fringe of flame was dancing eastward, riding up the wind, advancing, leaping, retreating. I lapped the roof-rock; it was not fed from the single jet, but bounded free. The danger of the few is as nothing when weighed against the safety of two hundred. That is the unwritten law of the inines, well and loyally held by every soul who is worth his salt, from bosses to door-boys. Mikol threw his whole strength against the ex- pected concussion: the heavy door banged shut and latched. That he had shut him- self in upon the fiery side was a mere detail; he knew well enough what was coming. In the fraction of a second which remained he hurled himself toward the two women. “Down! Down! On the ground!” The check of the wind operated to spread the floating gas, diluting it with the utmost maximum of air. The dancing flame-cloud became a sheet, a wall, a living world of fire. The explosion stunned and deafened one. Great timbers flew from their places like autumn leaves in a gale. Lumps, slabs, nuggets of coal and sandstone rained from walls and ceiling. As the shock threw him from his feet, Szirdelis had caught at a cotton gown. Scarcely conscious of his own purpose, he had thrown his body across as much of the light inflammable stuff as he could gather in. His hands found the coiled hair and soft, round neck, and met to shield them as he could. The girl, like himself, lay face downwards. The coat upon his back was thick and of woollen stuff: protection good enough, had he but time to wrap his head in it. Yet, hands extended, motionless, Mikol lay and bore the fire. The gas burned high, as usual; but twice the flame swept him, hands and ears and head. Half of his hair was burned away; his neck had an ugly scorch upon one side. Lumps of rock rained down, bruising him. Then the falling stones ceased. The girl groaned and stirred. Mikolas, lifting his face cautiously, looked about. Stories, the advice of the experienced men at his board- LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE 601 ing-house, came back to the greenhorn in a rush, and his brain cleared. He knew what was to come. “My arm, my arm!” cried the girl. The Lithuanian words fell into a soft moan. With infinite difficulty, Szirdelis raised himself on an elbow. “Crawl over to the right-into the ditch!” he ordered. “The timbers are on fire down there, and the gas comes back. There will be another one yet!” The girl shifted herself into the runnel beside the track. The water was cold, but she cried out only once and lay down with out flinching. The man shielded her as before. He drew his coat up over his head and hers. They waited. An unnatural hush lay through the cham- bers and passages. Once in the silence they heard a man groan. A moment later, an iron bar clattered upon a staple. A wooden door banged open. “Malukas,” Mikol explained. “He must have got out. But he ought not to open the door. He will draw the fire into the rest of the mine. Hurry, hurry, and shut it! God, God, the loop is full of gas! Does he not know that?” “He is a coward,” spoke the girl in the ditch. “He will not shut it.” “The gas will suck out from ” Again the roar, the shock, the unbearable furnace. The second explosion was many times more violent than the first. Yet as they were prepared for it, Mikol and his charge suffered less than before. Twice her dress caught fire, only to be beaten out in the wet rubbish of the road-bed. The woollen felt of Mikol's boot-legs smoked before the heat abated, but the pair took no harm. At an interval after the flash a second concussion followed, but this time without light. A splintering crash and roar beat back from walls to roof. “The rock. It fell there by the door. Perhaps Jonas got away, though.” “What do we do?” “Lie still and wait; there may be more rock to come down, and here is as safe as anywhere." “You are not hurt? Did the fire touch you?” "Well, my hair can grow again,” averred Mikol briefly. “I will not have to get it cut this pay-day.” "Skalsa.” (economy.) “No doubt. Listen! Ah, it sounds so far away! That was the gas again; he has let it get up almost to the shaft, by the sound. The draught sucks it out of the chambers all the way along, wherever there is a little. Lord, but I hope they had warning, those others !" “How dark it is! All the sticks are blown out now, those that were burning." “The better for us. Gas can come again in half a minute. Now it will not kindle for want of a spark.” “Let me sit up. This water is cold, cold, so I shiver in it and swallow my breath." Mikolas crept up upon the track. The light iron rails were slipped somewhat out of place, as he felt for them with his stiffening fingers. The girl's wet skirts brushed the rubbish of the road. His ears caught the slightest sound of her movements in the darkness. She seated herself beside him. Another crash of falling rock followed. Mikol sat still, knowing a horrible helpless- ness; the girl caught at his shoulder, clinging to him. “Shall we be killed? Will the rock fall on us too? Is there nowhere to go, man? And where is the old woman?-Dead, you think?”. “The roof is soft, on this road. It rots in the air. Where the props are knocked out it may fall. The props are not fallen here where we are: put out your hand and you can touch them, those logs against the coal. Do you feel them? So this place is as safe as any." “But we must get out!” cried the girl in terror. “Yes; you wait here. I will walk up and down and feel with my hands for a hole. Perhaps we can run out easily, just like Malukas, now the fire is past." Szirdelis spoke with a courage he did not feel. The air was dead, thick, motionless, 120 draught stirring in it anywhere; and a rock- fall which could block the air would scarcely leave passage for a man. Still, one must try. - Stumbling at times upon the rock-strewn floor, he found the opposite wall of the gangway and followed it with his fingers, going slowly toward the shaft. No cham- bers opened upon this side until one had passed the air-door, and the wedge of coal separating the “loop" from the main road had been left uncut to serve as a pillar. If the opening of the loop could be reached, he might lead the girl through that passage to 602 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE the first chamber, up to the blasting face, and following chat friendly wall by cross-cut after cross-cut travel quite around the caving area to fresh air and the shaft. It would be difficult, of course, to find the way without a light, a matter all of feeling and slow patience; but not impossible. Not six steps from his starting point Mikol's fingers, all stiff and tender from the fire, encountered broken, jagged edges of rock, standing up and down at disorderly angles. He stooped and felt along the floor: the splintered points were here too, and inch by inch across to the broken prop on the ditch side. Rising, he felt for the roof, and cut an ugly scratch along his forehead. Six short paces toward the shaft, then; no opening on the loop side, no chamber giving through the ditchward wall. Szir- delis turned without speaking, sought the other side of the passage, and traveled thir- teen steps. He counted them as he went, because there seemed nothing better for his thoughts to do. With the fourteenth, a bristling obstacle checked him as before. The fall at this end was more open, but afforded no real hope; a plump family cat might have crept a yard or two into its mass. Mikol returned and seated himself in his old place. "It is strange, but I cannot find her," he remarked. “Find what?” “Of course, Grandma Zuius. Still, she was little and light; I hope the wind blew her to safety. Let us think so. Strange things happen in the mines.” "Can we get out? Why do you sit down like this? Speak it!” “Well, no. Not at once; indeed, it will go slowly. They will have to do some pick and shovel work first, those boys, so that we can crawl over. We shall give them lots of trouble.” The girl smote her hands together. “Sesu! But will they come for us?" “Come? Come for us? Who ever heard of such a thing! Of course they will come. There would be a hundred ready from this mine alone, our boys and English and Welsh and Polish and all sorts. And if there were not a one, men would come swarming from other mines like ants out of a hill, all crazy to dig us out. Did you never see a mine when there was a trouble going on inside? I did, twice. I am in this country seven months now.” long silence followed. Mikol in the hot darkness drew his blue handkerchief from his pocket, cut it softly with his knife, and tied one strip upon the bleeding cut above his eyes. The second piece he bound upon his left hand, which was more painful than the right. The cloth was coarse and hurt at first; but presently the smart grew less as the scorched flesh was protected from the air. “What are you doing? Saying your prayers ?”. The girl's voice had a quiver of terror that roused him from the thought of his own pain. He laughed heartily. “Thinking how to get you out, that's all. And I was wishing that I had a cloth or a rag; I scratched my eyebrow on a nail over there, and the blood runs. It makes my eye smart." The girl said nothing; but from the pitchy darkness beside him Mikol felt a cold hand in a wet sleeve, groping, groping. The hand laid a handkerchief upon his knee. The linen was soft and dry; he mopped the blood from his face with it, then twisted it about his right hand. “You are frightened?' “It is just the dark. Some women are brave, but I never was. The darkness always frightens me. Even in the streets- or under a tree on moonlight nights. I do not know what it is. A terrible feeling." “A girl said that to me. At a pic-nic, it was. She would not tell me her name." Maryte was silent. The ma Maryte was silent. The man listened for her breath, but heard not even that. His voice took a new tone, half dreamy, yet eager. “Six weeks ago. She talked like that. And you know I have searched for that girl everywhere!” “What did she look like?” “If I could know that! But she slipped away, I could not tell where. Nobody saw her go. I went to every ball and wedding after that, and watched and listened, but I could not find her.” “Why," said Maryte coolly, “did you want to?” Szirdelis was silent. A tension, a subtle excitement began to possess him; that embodied voice from the dark had a power of stirring dreams. “Maybe she was fooling you. What did she say that you thought so much of?” “Maybe she was fooling: yes, that is pos- LADIES' DAY IN CARBURY MINE 603 sible. But just the same, she is the one that Big Mikol laughed. makes me want to follow her. The one I “There is a ball a week from to-night. cannot forget. She-she said nothing so Come with me and maybe you will see it much. I would have said plenty, if I had working. By that time I shall be out of the had more time.” hospital.” “Do you think she was willing to listen?” “Out of the hospital?” the girl echoed. “Listen? I would make her listen. “You mean—you are hurt?”. Once in a great while I make up my mind to “Oh, a burn on my neck; nothing much. a thing, and something tightens in my arms And the hospital is not a bad place. Antan, and in my shoulders, -snap!-and then I my brother, was hurt once, and he went get my own way. Always.” there; those doctors are good fellows. They “What sort of things would you say?” will mend me again nicely. Also I learn “If you were that girl I would tell you. English fast over there, because they cannot You see, it was a gray night, clouds and talk my language to me." moon behind them, so that there was no “I am sorry, I am sorry.” real light. It was warm, too. The pic-nic A hand rested lightly on his shoulder. It was in a field. The kegs stood everywhere; trembled. Soft comfort was in the touch, so some people were very drunk. Beside the that big Mikol, pressing it closer, trembled field were two great trees, an oak and a too. willow, and the shade was always black “But your hand-All wrapped in cloth! between. She was afraid to pass where the What is the matter?” two trees met.” "Just nothing. But you have not an- “An oak and two willows. Everybody swered about the ball.” knows that place.” "Was that when you kept the fire from my “Possibly two willows. There was a hair? You burned your hand that time?" great white stone, round on top- " “Possibly. I was astonished so that I “Flat, it was!” could hardly notice what happened. Are “So. You are the one!—Is Jonas your you going to the ball with Malukas?” jaunikis?” “Not Malukas. I go with- ". “I have no jaunikis." “Who? Not unless he can lick me, “Ah, if I believed it! Well, tell me: what you don't!” do I call you for a beginning?” Maryte laughed. "Maryte.” “With you, Mikol. I was joking. Why "Maryte. You do not know me, though.” are you men so fond of fighting?” .“Big Mikol, they call you. And you live “Who said they were? As for me, I am up on the hill, the men say. Your second all peace. I am glad you will go with me. name is Szirdelis.” I kiss you all the time, Maryte.” “Did the men say I was looking for you?” “You should not do it, though,” remon- “Not at all. No one noticed it, I am strated the girl. “That is a word of polite- sure." ness and it is only to be said, not done." “As for the things I was to say to you. “Doing is much better than saying. No, Here is one: I--" don't fight me; put your head down and be “If they come for us, Mikol, how can quiet. Take care; you will scratch my sore they see? They cannot have lamps, can hand!” they, because of the gas ?” “Good for you! I hate kisses," averred "Some different lamps, of wire and Maryte. locked with a key; safe lamps, they call “You can learn. You would have to them. I do not drink much. I could make learn, anyway, before you are married with you a good husband, Maryte.” me, for it is my way to kiss everybody a “That may be. Only I am not looking great deal.” for a man." “I don't believe it. Else why—that night "I was not looking for a wife, either by the willow trees- " Then all at once you came by. Something “I am sure I do not know. Probably I seemed to fasten behind my eyes, and I forgot; I am never bashful.” wanted nothing but to follow you. I was “I should not say so, indeed!” like a fish on a hook.” “Very good. It was a bad beginning I “How upsetting! Were you vexed ?” made, but to-day is left, and to-morrow.” 604 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE The words touched a strain of melancholy, “The water is run out of the ditch at that the underlying fatalism bred in peasant end. It is on the road. Did you know that?” generations. The girl sighed. “Yes, I knew. The rock blocks it at that “God decrees, Mikol. This is a danger- side, and it keeps running in at the upper ous place; perhaps to-morrow will not be."- end." “Do not worry. I know those men. “Will it-does it drown us, Mikol? Even Antan, my own brother, is outside, and so if you can swim, there is nowhere to go.” are many others, and they will get us.” “Nonsense! The spring thaw on the “When will they come?” farms at home is one thing; the mines are “Soon, I expect. They have counted by another. The water would not fill this now and found who is gone, even if Malukas place in a week. And long before that we could not tell them about you. They will shall be out of here." be here in an hour, maybe in ten minutes.” Another alternative was on Maryte's “I am tired, tired. Waiting is harder for tongue, but she did not speak it. Stumbling me because I am not used to the mines.” among the stones had wearied her; she sat "Lean upon me, then. I am tough like a down again. thick tree; you need not be afraid.” The heavy time dragged on. No wel- After a silence, the girl caught her breath come sound of pick and sledge reached the in a quick sob. imprisoned pair; and Mikol's secret hope “Talk. I am lonely." grew less although his words were brave. “Yes. Tell me, where did you live when His hurts, too, pained him so that the mere you were a child ? " endurance was a drain upon his strength. “A little place. Two days from Vilna. Fortunately, the violent concussion of the And you?” rock falls had driven the deadly “damp" “In Kovno province, very far from any outward before the chamber was sealed up. where. When I was a little chap my father Only enough of the carbon monoxide re- had a dog, a very fine fellow. But he sold mained to cause a racking pain in the head, him. He sold him with the sheep. I could a drowsy faintness. Mikol fought the not sleep for nights afterward, wanting that lethargy with all his might. dog back again. I was just a boy, and I “I saw a house that I would like to rent. loved him, and he thought I was God.” Wake up and listen, or I shall think you will Peasant to peasant spoke with the sure make a bad wife, a careless housekeeper." appeal of a barren childhood. Maryte clung “Well? Oh, I am sleepy, sleepy. You to him, yearning to give comfort. are very kind, Mikol; now let me rest.” "I know. It was like my lamb. My “In the middle of the morning? It is not winter lamb. Ah, poor Mikol! When we twelve o'clock yet. Laziness!” have a house you shall get a dog,-you shall “It must be evening, I think. Look at get it the first thing of all, and I will take your watch and see.” care of it for you, and it will grow and be “I have matches, but it would be dan- yours like that first one.” gerous to strike one. There may be more of Story followed upon story: one village is the gas than at first; you cannot tell. Still, much like another, but every life has its I am sure it is early. You may think it is a little tricks of fortune. long time, but I know it cannot be an hour. “How your heart pounds when you tell They would have found us in an hour." me those things,” Maryte said at last. “Where was this house you saw ?" “I never talked of those thoughts before.” Her gentle readiness to humor him “Nor I. A child has a better time in touched Mikol to the soul. His laugh America, where our people are not so poor. drew unaccountable tears after it, to sting I like to listen, too; we must have talked a his eyelids, and he could not speak. Lethal long time, but it seems short." weariness fastened anew upon them; they “You become tired, Maryte. Stand up were silent. Later, Szirdelis aroused him- and move a little. The air is better at the self by a determined effort. top. The stiffness will go out of your knees “Wake! Wake, Maryte!” with walking.” She lifted her hand and brushed the hair Slowly and with pains they paced the tiny from her forehead. A little sob, curiously chamber, learning the obstructions only by like the grief of a child, spoke her despair. touch. “Will they take us out before we are dead, 606 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE Szirdelis put his mouth to the crack and Mikol shrugged his shoulders. “Jes' roared lustily again. “All right. Sure, little bit. I guess go now. Girl got sickness, No good air.” so bad pain by top the head. Thanks, “How many in there, John? Hey? You misters." verstand?-One o' you boys try him in With that, he took Maryte by the sleeve, Polish, will you?” and made as if to lead her through the pas- “Me no Polander!" came the triumphant sages and toward the shaft. shout. “Speak English. In this place, one “You have no light, Mikol. We cannot man, one girl. No got Malukas. Oľ go. Wait, wait for those others.” woman no got.” Szirdelis wavered; he would have fallen "All right. Stand back, now." but that a stocky fellow ran forward and "How well you talk it, Mikol! What did held him up. they tell you ?" “Go easy, boy! You ain't quite as good “They said stand back, because the rock as new, just yet. You're pretty near wore might roll in and hit us. They are almost out; but you're all right, too, if you'll go here now. God, but we should have head- slow. Game as a rooster, any day, if aches, if they were much longer!” you do walk drunk. There, now; take it Maryte laughed and cried, clinging to his easy." arm. They waited while the first stone Maryte, half led, half carried in advance crashed inwards, and the second. An of him, turned and called back some earnest opening appeared near the roof, luminous sentences. The Lithuanian explained to in the blackness from the dull glow of safety the rest. lamps outside. Mikol seized her elbow. “She says this here is a bad mine, an' she “All right. Wait minute. You take girl," wants him not never to come down here he called again to work. She says it's no good of a The picks stopped. Maryte struggled mine, an’ he'll get killt." . through. He followed. Willing hands “She don'know. This very good mine. pulled him by the shoulders, drew him to the Malukas he no good miner. Good mine, ground, and steadied him as he stood up- all right. Good boss, you, Jim Owens. I right. Szirdelis took a great breath of the thank you lots. Now I guess I go hospital fresher air, craving it although the pain in quick. Good by.” his head increased tenfold. But at the shaft, Mikol remembered “No can find ol' woman. You got her?” another matter that must be spoken of. “Dead,” answered a workman in the Maryte was at a little distance, leaning Lithuanian tongue. against a timber; the flare of an open lamp "Malukas run out all right? Yes?” showed that her eyes were closed. The “Burnt pretty bad,” spoke Jim Owens, cage was coming down. He steered his the boss. “But he'll get over it.” escort toward her. “Maybe some more people get burn? I . “Maryte!” he called. “Maryte! Re- hear big fire up by shaft.” member about the ball. You promised. “Two men, not very bad. 'Twas a Do not forget it, will you? Remember I wonder there was no more, though.” come for you a week from to-night!” Mikolas turned to the rescuer who was “Well, I am blamed!” ejaculated Jim his countryman, and gave a rapid account Owens, when the remark was repeated for of the accident and the behavior of Malukas. his benefit. “Why, he must be an awful The workman translated to the others. Society man-though you wouldn't think it, They heard in silence. would you, to see the feller? There's times, “He hadn't ought to done it,” said Jim an' there is times, to invite a girl. But I Owens, finally. It was the sole comment of ain't never heard o'choosin' a cave-in. the jury of experts upon folly, cowardice, Like a theatre piece, ain't it? Well, I sup- and heroism. “But I guess he got paid out pose it's the very latest. Manners does for it, too. You're hurt yourself, ain't you?” change so.” “ Th Pollytickal Intelligence Office set up be me frind Lincoln Steffens ” CA MR. DOOLEY ON THE POWER OF THE PRESS BY F. P. DUNNE WITH CARTOONS BY HORACE TAYLOR seein' that th' laws were badly punctuated an’ in th'coorts seein' that they were thurly punctured. They were in Congress makin' th' laws an' th flaws in th' laws. They r-run th' counthry. McKinley was a lawyer, Cleveland was a lawyer an? Bryan was a lawyer till he knew tetther. FEW years ago," said Mr. Dooley, “I thought that if I had a son I'd make a lawyer iv him. It was th' fine profission. Th' lawyers took all th' money an' held down all th' jobs. A lawyer got ye into throuble be makin' th' laws an' got ye out iv throuble be bustin' thim. Some lawyers only knew th’ law, poor fellows, but others knew th' holes in th' law that made it as aisy f'r a millionaire to keep out iv th' pinitinchry as f'r a needle to enther th' camel's eye, as Hogan says. These lawyers niver had to worry about payin' their gas bills. A law, Hinnissy, that might look like a wall to you or me wud look like a thriumphal arch to th' expeeryenced eye iv a lawyer. Lawyers were ivrywhere, even on th' bench, be hivens. They were in th’ ligislachure Advice to the Young • “But 'tis far diff'rent now, Hinnissy. If I had a son 'tis little time I'd spind larnin' him what some dead Englishman thought Thomas Jefferson was goin' to mean whin he wrote th' Constitution. No, sir, whin me son an' heir was eight years old an' had r-read all th' best iv th' classical authors fr'm Deadwood Dick to Ol' Sleuth 607 MR. DOOLEY ON THE POWER OF THE PRESS 609 “What Hinnissy who Got Away With th' crime f'r ye'er binifit an' has what's called Ham Thinks iv Hinnery James.' IV a sinposyum iv Christyan ministers at coorse ye'er career is short lived. Th thirty dollars a sin demandin' th' enfoorce- fav'rites iv th’ Foorth Estate, as Hogan ment iv th' unwritten law that allows anny says, don't last long. Afther awhile ye’er man who rayspicts th' invioliability iv th’ place on th’ staff is taken be some wan more grocery store to commit murdher at sight. desarvin’. Ye give way to th’ Riv'rend As th' thrile approaches citizens ar-re Jefferson Petherson or Nan Pattherson. Th' discovered thryin' to bribe th’ coort clerk column that ye wanst adorned is taken f'r to put thim on th' jury. Th’ journal iv th' cookin' receipts iv a lady just acquitted th' fam’ly takes a pop'lar vote, none bein' iv poisoning her husband. But ye've had illegible who ar-re not on th' jury list, an' ye'er good day an' if ye'd relied on a lawyer ye're voted guilty be a majority iv two ye'd be settin' on th’side iv a road with hundherd an eight thousand to wan. Th’ thirty pounds iv hardware on ye’er ankles onscrupulous minority has to lave town foolishly beatin' a lump iv rock with a on th' midnight thrain. Whin ye're taken hammer over to th' coort th' polis has to dhraw guns to keep ye fr’m bein' torn to pieces be th' mob. Th' panel waitin' to be called Newspaper Trial of a Man with a Ham to well an' thruly thry ye, hisses as ye pass an' a lady stabs ye with a hat pin. Siv'ral “That's what th’ Press can do f'r thim jurymen refuse to sarve because they it loves. But I like it betther f'r what it have conscientious scruples against not can hand to thim it don't love. Maybe hangin' ye. Ye thry to hide ye'er head th’iditor is onto ye. An' ye’re arrested f'r behind a post but th' judge, who comes lookin' longingly at a ham on Easter Sun- up f'r re-iliction in th' spring, sternly calls dah. Ye might as well go an' have ye'er on ye to stand up while th' flash-light hair cut an' save throuble f'r th' prison pitcher is bein' took. Two or three iv barber. Whin ye wake up in th' mornin' th' jurymen is on'y restrained be foorce th' fam’ly newspaper comes in an' this is fr’m attackin' ye while th’indictment is what ye see: bein' read an’ in about two minyits ye're joggin' over to th’ thrain f'r Joliet an' ye'er frinds read in th' pa-aper: MURDERS HIS F'R SURELY TH' SHOCK WILL KILL MRS. HINNISSY WHIN SHE HEARS HER HORRIBLE HUSBAND IS LOCKED UP F'R HOPIN' TO STEAL A HAM.' “TH' NOTORYOUS MISCREENT HINNISSY HAS GOT HIS JUST DUES THANKS TO AN INCORRUPTIBLE JURY IV CONSTANT READERS IV THIS GUARJEEN IV POP'LAR RIGHTS. THERE WILL BE A DIS- THRIBUTION IV TH’ PRIZES TO TH' JURY OFFERED BE US AT FINUCANE'S HALL NEXT SUN- DAH, WHIN TH'LARNED JUDGE DOUGHBODY WILL MAKE TH' PRESINTATION SPEECH.' “Th’ thrile is set f'r Novimber but ye're thried, convicted an' doin' th’lock step last August if ye only knew it. Ivry night whin father comes home fr’m his wurruk he brings a copy iv th’ Kazoo an' reads about this fiend in human form divine, which means you, Hinnissy. Ye'er horrid past leaps out in ivry saloon. People that niver heerd iv ye raymimber an' tell how ye robbed th' poor box, bate down a child with hip disease, starved ye’er fam’ly an'eloped with th' hired girl. Th’ childher huddle together thremblin' at th' story iv ye'er life an' th' good woman sinds up a prayer that her boys may be saved fr’m timptation. Th’ paper f'r th' home insists that larceny ought to be made a capital “Wanst in a while a mistake is made. Maybe ye ain't guilty at all. Maybe 'tis found at th' thrile that ye were in Waukegan th' day th' crime was dis- covered an' it was another man iv th' same name that coveted th' ham. Th’ Palajeem iv our Liberties does th' right thing be ye. Th’ case demands a full, free, frank an' manly apology an' ye get it: "We stated yisterdah that wan Hinnissy was convicted iv stealin' a ham. We regret to say that this was not so. Ady,' a ham." We regret to say that this was not so. Adv." 610 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE Paper-made Boats and Great Men was made in a newspaper office be some bright young fellow in his shirt sleeves an' “Sure 'tis th’ fine business an' I'd be smokin' a corn cob pipe. He happened th' gr-reat hand at it f'r there's nawthin' to be feelin' good so he made an atthractive I like betther than gettin' people out iv charackter. But th’rale Tiddy Rosenfelt throuble onless it is gettin' thim into it. instead iv bein' a short, thickset man, It's th’ on’y power in th' wurruld that's with rows iv flashin' teeth, a cheerful worth talkin' about. No head is so high demeanor an' a pugynacious disposition, that it can't hit it an' none so low that it may be a long, lean man with red side can't raise it up. If a sudden current whiskers, no teeth at all an' scared to death iv Sicrety Shaw. Some day th' young fellow that made him may make him over an' thin I'll have another busted idol. It's th' same with William Jennings Bryan, th’ Czar, King Edward or anny- body else. They're all made out in news- papers th’ way ye'er little boy makes a cocked hat an' thin turns it into a boat. Desthroy th’ newspapers an' they'd dis- appear like th’ figures off a kinetyscope screen. They're alive while th' ink lasts; they're dead th' minyit th' iditor says: "We pass on to th’ next cage.' Be hivens, Hinnissy, if I can't believe what I read about people I don't know, I'm a lost man. On Seeing One's Name in Type The maker of great men shud tear me out iv this here backwather where I'm anchored an' make me th' public charackter I wanst was whin I was captain iv me precinct, 'tis not what I was but what th' pa-apers wud say I was that'd make th' goose flesh stand out on me an' disturb me dreams. What I've done I've done an' it rests between me an' Father Kelly. But it's what all th' wurruld says I've done an' believes I've done that's goin' to make th' diff'rence with me. I take all th' pa-apers an' read thim fr'm end to end. I don't believe a bad thing, they print about anny iv me frinds but I believe ivrything about anny- body else. Manny a man I don't know'd be surprised to hear I wudden't speak to him on account iv what I think I know iv him. I'm personally acquainted with ivry prominent man in th' wurruld through th' pa-apers but I cudden't swear there was anny such a person as Tiddy Rosen- felt. I niver see him. So far as I'm con- sarned, Hinnissy, th' man that's prisidint iv ye an' me an sivinty millyon others “People tell ye they don't care what is said about thim in print. They don't if it's pleasant. If ye said a man was a greater pote thin Shakespere, a greater gin'ral thin Napolyon, a gr-reater states- man thin Thomas Jefferson, he'd have a feelin' that ye done him scant justice on'y because if ye didn't ye’er readers wud indignantly stop th' pa-aper. Ye niver read iv annybody writin' in that his attin- tion has been called to a paragraph praisin' him an' regrettin' that stuff has been pub- lished about him that shud be kept f'r his tombstone. But if ye print a squib down in th' right hand corner iv th' twelfth page following pure advertisin' matther to th' gin'ral effect that his past life in Missoury is known to th' iditor he'll be around that mornin' with a gun an' a lawyer. Fr'm me expeeryence with news- papers I'd advise him to lave both on th' sidewalk an' go up th' ilivator on his knees. Thon'y people that don't mind what's printed about thim are those whose pitchers are already in th' Rogues' Gallery. But let a man be on'y half or three-quarthers square, as most iv us are, an' he fears less a rijimint iv sogers with a gatling gun MR. DOOLEY ON THE POWER OF THE PRESS 611 afraid iv Rockyfellir now? Th' prisidint hits him a kick, a counthry grand jury indicts him, a goluf caddy overcharges him an' whin he comes back fr’m Europe he has as many polismen to meet him on th' pier as Doc Owens. A year ago, anny- body wud take his money. Now if he wanted to give it even to Chancellor Day he'd have to meet him in a barn at mid- night. poundin' at th’dure thin th’ touch iv a rayporther's hand on th' dure bell. There he sets, th' patriarch, carvin' th' turkey an' scowlin' down on th' assimbled fam'ly. He is th' boss iv that establishment, a man iv ruthless power with wife an' childher, a model husband an’ father to thim. His conscience is clear because he thinks nobody knows. He's about to tell thim how ondesarvin' they are iv such a spouse an' papa whin th' hired girl whispers there's a rayporther in th' parlor. Why, childher, does father's knife an' fork an' jaw dhrop at wanst? Why does a pale green flush of indignation mantle his bold brow? Why does his legs wobble a little as he laves th' room? Ah, little wans, I can't tell ye. Finish ye'er supper an' sleep wan more night in peace. Ye'll know all about it in th’ mornin' whin ye an’ye'er playmates gather around th' first spechal exthry. Novel-made Villains, and Writers in Office “Down they come, these here joynts that have set on our necks f'r years, not crushed be th’ hand iv th' law which hap- pens to be busy in their pockets at th' time, or shot out be th' bombs iv a rivolution or even ligislated out be Congress but smashed be wan tap iv a lead pencil be TIE DAILY John D. all Spattered and Torn MONTTI “Th’ printed wurrud! What can I do against it? I can buy a gun to protect me against me inimy. I can change me name to save me fr'm th’ gran' jury. But there's no escape f'r good man or bad fr'm th' printed wurrud. It follows me wheriver I go an' sthrikes me down in church, in me office, in me very home. There was me frind Jawn D. Three years ago he seemed insured against punishment ayether here or hereafther. A happy man, a relligous man. He had squared th’ ligislachures, th' coorts, th' pollyticians an' th’ Baptist clargy. He saw th' dollars hoppin' out iv ivry lamp chimbley in th’ wurruld an' hurryin' to'rd him. His heart was pure seein' that he had niver done wrong save in th’ way iv business. His head was hairless but unbowed. Ivry Mondah mornin' I read iv him leadin' a chorus iv ‘Onward Christyan sogers marchin' f'r th' stuff. He was at peace with th' wurruld, th' Alesh, an' th’ divvle. A good man! What cud harm him? An’ so it seemèd he might pro-ceed to th' grave whin, lo an' behold, up in his path leaps a lady with a pen in hand an' off goes Jawn D. f'r th'tall timbers. A lady, mind ye, dips a pen into an ink- well! there's an explosion an’ what's left iv Jawn D. an' his power wudden't frighten crows away fr'm a corn field. Who's What Tiddy Rosenfelt may look like a man or a woman that has about as much money as wud buy cuttle fishbone f'r their canary bur-rds an' doesn't want anny more. A cry goes up: ‘Here comes Ray- porther Baker,' an' th' haughty insurance magnates break th' mahogany furniture an' th' quarther mile record in a dash f'r th' steamer. A novel smashes th' beef thrust an' a blow fr'm th' relentless Faber Number Two knocks th' props out fr'm undher th' throne iv Rooshya. A young fellow comes along an’ writes a novel an' th' villain iv it is th’ Boston an' Maine railroad. Th’ vil- 612 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE lain iv all modhern novels is a corporation 'Thaydore Rosenfelt; excellent man iv. iv some kind, a packin' house, a karosene all wurruk, honest, sober, but a little ile facthry or a railroad. Th’ Boston an' quarrelsome. Sometimes thries too hard Maine railroad is a handsome wretch that to please all his employers at wanst; wants enthers a peaceful New Hampshire village to do too much f'r thim at other times with its cursed city ways, deceives th' heero- an' has been known to compel thim to ine with a false bill iv lading, forges th' will take a bath whin they didn't need it. an' acquires a morgedge on th' old home Wud make an excellent watchman f'r stead, but is foiled at last by th' author. th' front dure but doesn't pay much atten- Th’ state iv New Hampshire arises as wan tion to th' back iv th’ house. Very well man, so it seems, an' calls upon th' young satisfied with his present position but fellow to run f'r governor. None but may have to make a change.' 'Willum writing men need now apply. F'r th' Jennings Bryan; has been a second man first time in thirty years we have a prisidint f'r ten years, a position to which he is well who isn't a lawyer, th' well-known an' suited. Wud like to improve his condition. pop'lar author iv Alone in Cubia,' 'Pri- Cheerful, economical, but not to be thrusted vate Corryspondence (ninety - siven vol- with silver.' umes),' 'Wild Beasts I Have Met in Wyo- ming an' Washington,' 'Th' Winning iv th’ West an' How I Did It,' an' so forth. Th' The Power of the Printed Word hopes iv th' dimmycratic party is divided between th’iditor iv a Nebraska weekly . “No, sir, as Hogan says, I care not who an' th’iditor iv a New York siventy times makes th’ laws or th' money iv a counthry daily an' a few at night. so long as I run th' presses. Father Kelly was talkin' about it th' other day. “There ain't annything like it an' there niver was,' Lincoln Steffens's Employment Bureau says he. “All th’ priests in this diocese to- gether preach to about a hundherd thou- “Whin a state wants to ilict a governor sand people wanst a week an',' he says, or a city a mayor they don't go as wanst all th' papers preach to three millyon they did to th' wanst a day, aye, most graceful tax twinty times a dodger in th' day,' he says. “We community f'r ad- give ye hell on vice but apply to Sundahs an' they th' Pollytickal In- give ye hell all th' telligence Office time,' he says. set up be me frind 'Tis a wondherful Lincoln Steffens. thing,' he says. 'I No wan can get a see a bar'l iv print- job without a er's ink goin' into charackter fr’m a newspaper office him: 'Grover an' it looks com- Cleveland, honest mon enough. A but grumpy; don't bar'l iv printer's get along with ink, a bar'l iv lin- other servants an' seed ile an' lamp- is disposed to lec- HAYOP: black, with a smell ture his masters; to it that's half industhrees but stink an' half per- not very bright; fume. But I tell wud make a good ye if all th' dinny- judge in a probate mite, lyddite, cor- coort; since lav- dite an' gun cotton in' his last place in th' wurruld was has been keepin' hid behind thim bad comp’ny.' “ Off goes Jawn D. f'r th' tall timbers" hoops there wud- app* THE PRESIDENT'S CABINET FROM PHOTOGRAPHS MADE ESPECIALLY FOR THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE BY FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON om ELIHU ROOT CHARLES J. BONAPARTE LESLIE M. SHAW GEORGE B. CORTELYOU WILLIAM H. TAFT (FRONTISPIECE) ETHAN A. HITCHCOCK WILLIAM H. MOODY JAMES WILSON VICTOR H. METCALF Copyright, 1906, by F. B. Johnston Elihu Root of New York, Secretary of State Mr. Root, born in Clinton, N. Y., in 1845, was graduated from Hamilton College in 1864, where, for years, his father was professor of mathematics. Since 1807, barring years spent in public sertice, he has been a lawyer in New York City. In 1883 President Arthur appointed him United States Attorney for the southern district of New York, a place he filled for two years. He was Secretary of War from 180g until 1904. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1905 Copyright, 1906, iy F. B Johnst 12 Leslie M. Shaw of Iowa, Secretary of the Treasury Mr. Shaw, born in Morristown, Vt., in 1848, went to lowa at the age of 21, and was graduated from Cornell College (Iowa) in 1874. Through the practise of law in Denison, la , he got into general banking business at Denison, and Maxilla and Charter Oak, towns in the same county. He was Governor of Iowa from 1897 until 1901. He became Secretary of the Treasury in 1902 Copyright, 7,06, by F. B. Johnsion William 11. Moody of Massachusetts, Attorney-General Mr. Moody, born in Newbury, Mass., in 1853, was graduated from Harvard in 1876. He was District Attorney for 05. After several years' ser rice in Congress he was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1902. He filled that office until his appointment as Attorney-General in 1904 Copyright, 14,00), by F. B. Johnston Charles J. Bonaparte of Maryland, Secretary of the Navy Mr. Bonaparte, born in Baltimore in 1851, is a grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, who was a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mr. Bona parte was graduated from Harvard College in 1871, and from Harvard Law School in 1874. Until his appointment as Secretary of the Navy in 1905 Mr. Bonaparte was a Baltimore lawyer Copyright, 1906, by F. B. Johnston George B. Cortel'ou of New York, Postmaster-General Mr. Cortelyou, the stenographer who became Cabinet Minister, was born in New York City in 1862. After long ser- cice as a teacher and general law and verbatim reporter, and as private secretary to various public officials, he became Secretary to the President under Mr. Mckinley and Mr. Roosevelt. He was the first Secretary of Commerce and Labor ; he was Chairman of the Republican National Committee and conducted Mr. Roosevelt's campaign in 1904. He was appointed Postmaster-General in 1905 Copyright, 1906, by F B. Johnston Victor H. Metcalf of California, Secretary of Commerce and Labor Mr. Metcalf, born in Utica, N. Y., in 1853, was graduated from Yale Law School in 1876. After two years of prac. tise in Utica he moved to Oakland, Cal., where he finally formed a law partnership with George D. Metcalf. He was a member of the fifty-sixth, fifty-seventh, and fifty-eighth Congresses. He was appointed to his present place in 1904 WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT 625 held up for public sympathy, their loss harrowingly described and divine aid and comfort besought in their behalf. Then the sister's bleeding heart was brought forth to general view. A shiver of pity and gratified expectation passed through the congregation as the overwrought young woman shrieked shrilly and sunk, half unconscious, on the shoulder of a rela- tive. But it was to the mother the preacher addressed his most heart-rending apos- trophe; to the stricken, widowed parent who would call “Willie! Willie!” when there would be no fond voice to answer “Mother!”—to the one who in her an- guish at the loss of her youngest, the darling of her old age, the prop of her declining years, would cry out like David of old, "Oh, my son, my son! Would to God I had died for thee!” The poor old woman in rusty black, huddled in one corner of the seat at the head of the coffin, moaned unceasingly in a feeble, broken way under her veil. There was scarcely a dry eye in the house. Cer- tainly every female in the congregation was weeping except the girl who sat im- mediately behind the rows of mourners and who stared with wide, dry eyes at the preacher. Throughout the service the preacher was conscious of that strained, strange gaze that seemed to see, not him, but something beyond, and it made him nervous. The girl was not of his flock. “Somebody ought to look after her. Either she is mentally unbalanced or she is in trouble,” he thought, mopping his forehead as he sat down behind the pulpit after requesting the undertaker to take charge of the re- mains. One by one in a long file, the crowd marched up the aisle and around the open coffin. There were no sounds but the shuffling of feet, the creaking of Sunday boots, the stifled sobs of the mourners. Every one wanted a chance for a last look at the body—the slim, well formed young body, unmarred by disease or decay—the still white face, clear cut and beautiful like the ancient statue of a youthful god. Fathers lifted up the children one by one at the edge of the coffin, and mothers turned the babies' faces toward the corpse. Old women paused to shake lugubrious heads and to touch with practised fore- fingers the clammy forehead and the mar- ble hands. Some who had known the lad and loved him well, passed quickly with one pained look and swift, indrawn breath. And the family of the dead one waited on the rack and watched it all every look a touch on an aching nerve, every whisper a twist of a knife in the heart. The undertaker stood at the end of the seat and waved her out, and in her turn the girl who had shed no tears passed up the aisle to the coffin. Unmoved she looked at the quiet face until her straining eyes rested on the half concealed wound that darkened the temple. In an instant she had swept away the carefully arranged flowers. She touched and fingered, oh, so tenderly, the ghastly blue mark. As the awful chill of the dead clay sped from her fingertips to her heart a piercing cry rang through the church. The mother sat rigid at the edge of the seat, her clutched hands dragging the heavy veil from her shrunken, white face, her eyes blazing like live coals in white ashes. Her jaws moved stiffly. “You lie, Letha Jones! He was a good boy!” she wanted to shriek; but no sound came from her frozen throat. Those behind pushed the girl forward. Mechanically she passed on down the aisle and out of the door into the glaring sun- light. She climbed into the buggy and waited for her brother to drive her home. “I've got to hurry back to get the milking done. I don't want to go to the graveyard," she said dully in answer to the questions of some girls she knew. But late that night when the mournful whip-poor-wills were calling on the hills, and fireflies were thick over the tangled grass and briers of the neglected graveyard be- hind the church, the mother and the girl met beside the new-made grave. They drew apart with something more than the start of the unexpected meeting. Yet later when they stumbled down the road in the darkness, the elder woman led the sobbing Jones girl kindly and protectingly by the hand. DYNAMITE : THE POWER UNTAMEABLE BY SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS D O ME Mother Shipton of “In this business a man never makes serve the present may project more than one mistake.” her imagination forward to If you ask for further explanation you the time when man shall will be told with a smile: harness to the shafts.of his “He doesn't last long enough after the m y daily toil the mightiest first to make a second.” sem giant which he has called Nevertheless, the dynamite trade em- into being, that genius of untrammelled ploys each year a largely increasing number power and resistless violence, the high ex- of men. Scattered here and there, broad- plosive. Science cannot yet foretell the day. cast, over this country, always outside the Working in his peaceful laboratory, the limits of any settlement, are little huddles chemist mixes together a few inert acids- of frame huts surrounded by a high board nitric, sulphuric, picric — and, when the fence. The fence sports the non-committal combination is completed, he holds in his sign, “Positively no Admittance.” If curi- hands an agent to disrupt mountains and osity leads you to disregard this and enter, scatter the cities of men. It is at his call you will find each separate structure sur- for the uses of destruction, but, once loosed, rounded by an earthwork rising to a height it is its own master. Not only may he not of five or six feet above the level of the floor- recall it, but, except for the purposes of de- ing. The earthwork is there both to hem struction, he may not control or even direct the force of an explosion within its own it. Its course is the path of ravage; for particular embrasure and to repel the force within those quiet chemicals lurks the wrath of an explosion in any other building. The of sword and fire and red ruin. huts are of frame because, when blown up, Controlled within the lines of mechanical they represent less loss than if they were effort, the high explosive might well do the brick or stone; also in some part because world's work. In one blast alone there has wood is less potent as a missile than the been liberated, for the brief second of ter- more solid materials. The fence is around rific activity, sixteen and one-half million it all because chance visitors who may smoke horse-power. Consider that force applied pipes or cigars are not desired. Screened to motive effort. Imagine the uses of a by the fence, protected by the embankments, manageable and dirigible power represented and sheltered by the hut, the dynamiter by a pressure of more than three hundred does his work. He is the only thing with- tons to the square inch. But, thus far, in the enclosure that is insured, and the science has no definite hope of directing the premiums that he pays are not designed to high explosive as it directs such other mighty encourage a rush of business in his line. giants as steam and electricity; of making it A Secret and Perilous Business a constructive as well as a destructive force. And until some method be found, this Except in the simplest forms of dynamite agency will continue to be one of the great -nitroglycerine soaked into sawdust, clay mysteries, and, for those who deal with it, or fuller's earth—the workman in a high one of the most uncertain, dangerous, and explosives plant knows practically nothing fascinating fields of human endeavor. of the processes which compound harmless chemicals into the “coiled spring of terrific Job where a Blunderbuss Blunders powers." All the safety powders are made but Once by secret methods, known only to the There runs a proverb among those who officials of the company and its chemists. handle high explosives: Going through a plant the visitor sees in one 626 SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS 627 building a workman mixing up moistened luck to survive long enough to graduate powders with a paddle and passing them to from the plant and become an agent. In a second workman, who puts them through a his best embodiment the explosives agent drying machine. If he follows up the proc- is something of a chemist, something of a ess he will see that same powder carried to quarryman, something of an electrician, a another building where it is mixed in with good deal of a mineralogist, and, above all, a another substance. Away it goes again to a man of resource and coolness. It is he who third hut where it is turned and kneaded in does the exploding. The factory gets notice a huge mechanical mortar-and-pestle con from a railroad that a contract is open for trivance, thence to be shifted again, dried the destruction of a ledge of rock which and screened, and put up for shipment. blocks their line of advance. Away goes the All this would seem very easy to imitate, agent, with his gripsack full of ready-made particularly when the chemical constituents destruction, to look the thing over. First he may be determined by analysis. But the draws upon his mineralogic lore to deter- various processes are carried out under cer mine the nature of the rock. If it is very tain conditions of atmosphere and tempera hard he uses a high grade of his explosive ture almost impossible to ascertain. With- which delivers a quick, shattering blow. In out knowledge of these conditions, attempts case of soft rock the lower grade supplies a to reproduce the process would be futile; blast which will produce a wider effect, they might be perilous. although it will not break the dislodged rock into such small pieces. Next, as a quarry. Men Blown Sky-high Leave Places man, he considers the nature of the ledge Others Eagerly Fill and the indicated fissures or veins, and plans Each workman knows only his own par his drilling accordingly. Then he must ticular branch. The labor is not skilled. attend to the drilling of the holes, the tamp- Despite the hazards of the career, workmen ing of the charge, and-here his electrical are not difficult to obtain. I visited a high knowledge is called for—the arrangement explosives plant last year just after one of of the batteries. After a few blasts he gives the buildings had been blown up, killing the the railroad company his estimate, and if it three men who were inside. On the morn is accepted, he may oversee the job himself. ing following the tragedy more than twenty Often he meets his rivals on the ground. applicants were eager for the vacant places, Then comes the tug of war. Tricks of the It might be supposed from this that the pay trade are many, and not all of them scrupu- is high. It is not better than in other lous. Where many agents are gathered branches of unskilled labor. Among the together, it seems to be a point of honor with laborers in this line that I have talked with every man to handle his particular article there seems to be no sense of particular peril. with the utmost apparent carelessness, The old hands, like ancient sailors, will fill while he manifests a shrinking timidity the attentive ear with most lugubrious tales toward the products of his competitors. of disaster culled from the memories of their This is to impress the outsider. So the occupation; but they evince no particular agents will toss about a 25-pound package desire to quit it. One complaint is com- of dynamite like so much meal: kick it, mon, however, in the “safety-powder" drop it over fences or down ledges, and gen- factories, where picric acid is used, and that erally maltreat it. If the dynamite is fresh, has to do with its curious effect upon the this is all right; but occasionally something skin. By day the working force of an ex- goes wrong, and theory, together with the plosives plant look like deep-tinted China, theorist, is blown to atoms in practice. men; under any artificial light they become Theoretically, a high explosive should det- white again. The picric acid produces on onate only when set off by means of a ful- the human outside a golden yellow tinge minate of mercury cap, and some of the which is imperceptible by gas or electric safety explosives apparently live up to this. light, but quite startling by day. But anything with nitroglycerine in it is best treated with consideration, for “nitro” is a Out on the Road with a Grip Full of very uncertain quantity. • Power The finished type of the dynamiter is the Whittled a Stick of Dynamite man who has had the ability to rise, and the I know a veteran dynamiter-for the 628 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE sake of concealment I'll call him Robinson, charge of high explosive and the explosive his real name being Schwarz-who is plen- detonated, the coin will totally disappear. tifully bedizened with scars all over his face So great is the heat that the copper will not and breast, acquired in his former business be fused, but instantly resolved into its of watchman in a wine cellar. “That was chemial elements and passed off in gases. a dangerous line,” he is fond of declaring. The theorist in explosives will argue that “The bursting of bottles cut me up till I flesh and bone is more susceptible to heat had to quit and look for a safe job.” So he than copper, and that a human body near went into dynamite. the center of a great explosion will be in- “There's nothing really dangerous about stantaneously consumed. high explosives,” Robinson insists; and The other theory has to do with what then he will proceed with hair-raising anec experts mysteriously term the "feathered dotes, told in the most matter-of-fact man- radius.” The mystery is not in the term ner. For instance: alone, it is generally diffused through the “Now there was Alvin Parr. Alvin was space about the center of an explosion. a fool. Fools haven't got any business with Immediately following the discharge, a dynamite. Alvin and me was bidding against vacuum is created, which is approximately each other in a job. One of his sticks hadn't circular. Place a human body in a vacuum one off. He picked it up and began to cuss and, the pressure from within having no it and pulled out a big knife. Now, cussing surrounding atmosphere to counterbalance never set off any dynamite so far as I know, it, the body will be disrupted. Therefore, but digging into its inside with a knife's says the dynamiter, a man, caught near the another matter. ‘Alvin,' says I, “that stick center of an explosion, would be blown to don't look very new to me.' 'I'm going to fragments by the forces within him, even cut its heart out before it's one minute without reckoning on the rending force of older,' says he. “In that case,'I says, you'll the explosion itself. excuse me if I go lie down in yonder ditch.' They gave me a great laugh when I came Strange I ricks Performed by Explosites back, for nothing had happened. “You The phenomena of this supposed vacuum can't teach me anything, Carl,' says Alvin.. are little understood. High explosives in 'I've been cutting out dynamite longer'n action are not suited to intimate investiga- you've been in the business, and nothing's tion, and those who have been in a position ever gone wrong yet.' 'No,' I says, you to observe closely have contributed to the wouldn't be here if it had.' Not more than subject nothing more informing than a few a month later Alvin got out his knife and scattered bits of evidence, such as the second began whittling a stick of dynamite, and I joint of a finger or the fragment of a shoe. suppose he must have struck a little streak of Enough has been determined, however, to the concentrated nitro. They never found show that this enormous energy acts ac- hide nor hair of the knife. As for Alvin,” cording to strange laws of its own; that the concluded Robinson after a pause, “ I've merest wisps of things—a gentle current of always had my doubts about that piece of air, an area of atmosphere cooler than its cloth with one button on it that they found surroundings, the light weight of a stretch up among the telegraph wires really being of cloth-may exert almost incredible him." counter-influences to this giant; that the force may leave near-by objects of the most “Blown to Atoms” often Literally True rue perishable nature unharmed, to rend in Often not even so much as a piece of pieces the eternal rocks beyond. It is as cloth is found to represent the victim of a freakish in action as a tornado. The line high-grade explosion. In the destruction of of greatest energy, however, seems to be some dynamite cars near Binghamton, New spiral. York, two men entirely disappeared, and Immediately following the creation of the there are other cases of apparent total anni- vacuum comes the rush of the air to fill it. hilation. To account for this two theories It is this inrush that does the widespread are advanced: One is that bodies near the damage to property. Windows, for in- center of an explosion are consumed by the stance, are not burst in by the concussion. terrific heat. Experiments have shown that They are sucked out by the surge of the air if a copper cent be placed under a small to supply the vacuum. Similarly the four BILLINGS OF '49 BY EDWIN BALMER WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. E. TOWNSEND GAZETE VAT was Commencement after noon in Harvard Yard. From Grays to Holworthy and from Hollis to Thayer, graduates —"old grads," Udala young grads, middle-aged grads, graduates rich, graduates poor, graduates famous, graduates obscure, grad- uates diverse and differing in every charac- teristic save that one which, alike after five and after fifty years, still brought them back and bound them together–Harvard's grad- uates held the old Yard. To Triennials, Sexennials and Decennials, to Vigesimals and Quadrigesimals, to all sorts and manners of reunions and to no especial reunions at all, the busy and idle, the far and near, all had come back to that spot for their holi- day. Even the German bandmaster felt the thrill and exuberance of their spirit. “Hail, hail! Harvard's here—Harvard's here!” he struck up without prompting. And as the full acquiescence of the chorus died away, from the ancient buildings all about shone out brighter the numeral standards of the classes: “'99 Reunion” and “'92 This Way!” “The Class of '85," "'73 Here" and “Here '67" and so on down to the last but dearest of all, plain “'51" showing in large figures on dark cardboard. So the seniors and all the rest, but especially the seniors, whose own fresh numerals would stand so soon upon one of those same build- ings, cheered the old classes again and again. Then the old classes cheered back, cheering the seniors first and then each other, again and again, because they were old grads back at the college and their privilege and impulse were one. Up in Hollis 16, which looked down over the best of the old Yard, young Stafford and Burton had kept one of the graduates—the oldest. With a score of others who had lived between its walls in the later years, his old room had mustered him back to it; and the juniors, then in possession, had kept him there in his old place. : It was not just that there were no class- mates to claim him away or because to him alone no numerals beckoned from across the yard. It was not the pride and distinc- tion that to their room and manifestly, therefore, to them-belonged the very old- est "grad,” the only one whose class low- ered the half-century mark, who was gradu- ated and gone even before Prexy was a freshman. It was something quite apart from his age—and beyond that they did not try to analyze it something quite separate which made the young juniors claim him and hold him with them through the after- noon in joint possession of the old room to 634 636 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE The young fellow bossing them kept walk- ing up and down behind his line and, some how, no matter how hot we gave it to them, none of his men seemed to care to back across that path. Then another Louisiana company came up; one of their sharp- shooters got him—the officer; his Yankees broke and we moved away at once to sup- port our center. I mean my men did. I had a minie ball in my hip and a little piece of shell had taken part of the calf of my other leg. The wounds hurt, of course, and the loss of blood made me pretty weak; but as it was night then, I knew they'd be out searching for us before long. "I'd been halfway between the lines on the charge just after the Yankees broke and, as there weren't many lying near me, the first hospital patrols missed me. I'd about given them up till morning-it must have been midnight then—when I heard a move- ment in front of me. It was right quiet there, so, though the voice was weak, it was distinct. 'Hello,' it said. "If you're alive and care to spare something to drink, throw your can this way, will you? I've got about as far as I can.' “Now at night, when the wounded are on the field, it matters about as much which side you're on as whether you're Presby- terian or Baptist; so, without asking, I called back, ‘Catch,' and heard the other fellow scramble after my canteen. “Say,' he wound up his thanks, 'who- ever you are you're all right. Reb, or Union?' “Confederate,'I called back. “Call it your own way,' he laughed. *I'm Union. I'll see if I can come a little closer if you won't talk politics. It's mainly one arm and one leg out of commission for me; but, fortunately, as they're both on the same side, maybe I can make it by sticking to the good half.'. “There was just a little hazy light over the field and I could make out that the blue- coat was good looking—at least in outline. He managed to crawl on his 'good side' till he got about twenty feet away and then he had to give it up. We could talk pretty fortably at that distance, however; so, as neither of us seemed mortally hurt, we managed to cheer each other up a bit. “Confed.,' he said before long, 'every now and then there's a familiar sort of adulteration in that Southern tone of yours. Most of the time you 'reckon, but you've guessed at least twice in the hour. So I guess,' he laughed, 'that you've been north of Louisiana more than once.' “Guessed or reckoned right,' I said. 'I went to college North.' "Where?' he asked. “Harvard,'I told him. “I could see him making some sort of an effort with his body; but it was no use. 'Shake,' he called presently. "That is, just imagine you're shaking hands with me. I can't get any nearer; but I'm from Harvard, too. Willoughby's my name. Would be through next year. '63 was my class. I knew something was bringing me here in the right direction.' “I remember I moved my hand toward him the way he was doing to me. It seems funny now, but it was serious enough and somehow helped a lot just then. 'I'm Billings of '49,' I said. “We both got talking fast then-steadier and faster than was good for us; but, as Willoughby said, it was worth losing a little more blood for. Think of it! After twelve years, a Harvard man and in that position. It opened us both right out, somehow; and somehow, to me at least, it seemed we got closer together in those hours out there on that dark battlefield than we could have gotten in as many years any- where else. I learned among other things that he had enlisted as a private and was then second lieutenant. He said it was be- cause he stood in well with one of his com- manders; but as he had been in two or three other fights before Shiloh, I knew well enough how he had earned his promotion. He was the fellow that had been holding me back, with his forty against my sixty men, all day. “As we lay talking there, in spite of our hurts, it seemed a very short time till three o'clock-Willoughby had a watch. But then I heard a man walking our way. Hoping it might be a hospital patrol I called out to him and in a moment the fel- low- he was dressed in blue-bent over me. “Shut up,' he said, sort of half frightened. Who are you?' “A little more light came from between the clouds then, and before I could answer he went on. 'Oh, it's you, Billings,' he said. “Why can't you keep quiet? John- ston's been shot and Beauregard has sent me to find out just what is left of the Yanks and what they're going to do. Sorry. I can't -&•CO AY KILVERT - “ That's one on me”. “This,” said Mickey, sliding down off the rail, to accept the challenge. “I happened to witness that horse rescue, by accident, as I said, and after I heard what came of it, I saw I had a scandal to beat th' band.” “So ye rubbered," the Chief sneered. “So I rubbered," said Mickey, steadily. “I went down to see if I couldn't get McKeever to give me an interview that would expose th’ whole business.” "And he give up.” There was a threat in the way Sullivan said this. Mickey paid no heed. “I had a deuce of a time findin' him. I looked all over for him. It was his tour, but he wasn't on post. Oh, I found him. Where d'ye think I found him?" “In a liquor store,” suggested the Chief. “That's right,” said Mickey. “That's where I found him.” The Chief looked surprised; he hadn't expected that, and he was curious. But he waited, and Mickey waited. It was the Chief who surrendered. “Well, go on,” he said at last;“what was your reform cop doin' off post in there?” “He was lickin' th’ stuffin' out o' Snake Snooks." 643 644 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE “What!” The Chief looked as if he were wanted her to swear that Keegan did the watching a prize fight, and, moreover, he trick. She wouldn't; so they had to report looked as if he had bet on the winning man. it to you with only th' affidavits of friends But doubt crossed his mind. “Ah, git out. and neighbors and other police.” What ye givin' me?” he said, backing off. Mickey rested, watching his man. The “That's right,” said Mickey. “You Chief frowned, a sure sign of thought in him. remember that fire, night before last, down By and by his face straightened out. that way? Detective Officer Keegan hap- “Say, Mickey,” he said, “did McKeever pened to be over there an' rescued a sick give it to Snake good, hard—for fair?" woman from th' top floor of th’tenement?” “No," the boy said, intently eyeing the “Yes, and a fine act it was, too,” the Chief. “Snake hollered and I came up." Chief asserted, challenging denial. “You're always buttin' into things ye've “Mighty fine," said Mickey. “Do you got no right to, see?” The Chief was angry. remember the woman's name?”. “Why can't ye mind yer own business? “Less see,” the Chief said, trying to recall Now I got ter go an' keep Keegan waiting it. “Nope.” while I promote that blame country jay.” “It was McKeever,” said Mickey. Mickey grinned. He pulled a sheet of "His wife?” And the Chief was ready to "copy" paper out of his pocket and, tearing roar out another of his big laughs. But it to bits, dropped the pieces on the sidewalk. Mickey spoiled it. “What ye litterin' up th' street with?” “No,” he said, “it was his mother.” the Chief demanded, still in his rage. The Chief was as anxious as Mickey now. “The notes for a good story." “Well?” he said. “I'd like-say, I'd like to have you pulled “The man that saved her was McKeever. for that,” the Chief said, but Mickey went Keegan wasn't within a mile of th' place, off grinning across the street, so the “big but Snooks was, an' he hadn't tried to go fellow” turned to go to his office. into the house. McKeever rushed right past “But you bet I'll send him to Goatville," him and saved his own mother. And— ” he called back; and he did. He made "And?” the Chief repeated, standing McKeever a roundsman, and assigned him straight. to a precinct where, as he put it to Mickey, “Snooks tried to steal the credit o' that “There ain't no water to make rescues for Keegan, but--" out of an' no tenements to burn." But “Of course,” the Chief exclaimed. Mickey was satisfied, and so was McKeever. "No, you're wrong. McKeever didn't McKeever wasn't even surprised. He took object to even that. What he licked his promotion as a matter of course. The Snooks for was for proposing that his “Roosevelt Cop” doesn't understand it mother make an affidavit to a lie; they to this day. The “ Roosevelt Cop” doesn't understand it to this day imed avour in THE LITTLE FATHER OF ST. ANGELO'S 651 “And begor! she's got a pretty tongue in clasped, “mio padre would never beata me her head, too,” he thought, with the love of more.” the true Celt for words which is greater “If iver he touches you agin,” said Kate, than his love for meat or drink. “I'll put a head and a half on him.” The next time MacMahon called he W hen, a day or two later, Bianca, with included Bianca in the conversation, and it flashing gestures, told MacMahon of occurred to Kate that matters were pro- Kate's victory, he shook his head. gressing so well that Bianca needed no “Well, Kate's the grand woman,” he assistance. said; "but I don't like ut to have anny man “Annyway,” she thought, “I am sure I worsted be a woman. Kate's grand, but can have Michael if I want him, but I she's got a bit uv timper uv her own. I dinnaw do I want him. I do if Father dinnaw that I iver noticed ut befure," he Kinsellagh don't want me to have him. added; “sure, I'm not superstitious, but you And ain't Bianca the schemin' little minx!” got to look out fur women wid red hair. And yet when from a side window she saw And there's many a man ties a knot wid his Pasquale coming to visit his daughter, she tongue he can't untie wid his teeth.” hastily ordered MacMahon into the father's Bianca persisted in renewed praises of study. Kate. "Sure, he wants to see you," she said, “Well, well, me gurrul,” he agreed, “all hustling him into the hall just before thrue enough, and I'm glad you see ut.” Pasquale's knock sounded. She could not “If the bambino of my sister were girla, bear to see Bianca's soft, lovely face grow I calla her Kate," said Bianca. piteous and shrinking. “Say, Bianca, phwy did you call ut Bianca understood that Kate was saving Michael ?” asked MacMahon. her. “For archangela, and Padre Kinsellagh, “Grazie, Mees MacAvoya,” she said, and you,” said Bianca, shyly, working to a gently; "mio padre saya he put knifa in climax. “I lika him have big roar in his Michael.” voice, lika Padre, and I lika him smarta wit “Pho! Michael 'd break his face." steela, like archangela, and I wanta him “I hopa so,” acquiesced Bianca; “but have plenty friend in warda, lika you. Some mio padre is ver' quick with stiletto." day he be bossa, lika you will be bossa.” Little Pasquale opened the door and ad- "Hear that, now," said MacMahon. He vanced furiously on his daughter, with a rocked back and forth in his solid chair, and torrent of Italian. At its close, he pinched gazed at her appreciatively. her arms cruelly. “When I was bambina," said Bianca, “Musha! I wish I had a bit uv his hay- animatedly, "I think, 'Ah, if I were man, I thenish lingo,” cried Kate, shaking her fist. wanta make sainta of stone like Michael Again Pasquale poured forth voluble Angelo, or paint sainta.' But now I think I Italian, pointing to Kate, and ending by lika be bossa." . slapping Bianca's cheeks. MacMahon stared at her in pleased “What's the matter at all?” asked Kate. amazement. It had never occurred to him “Oh, he saya you should not be in that Bianca could have practical sense-as kitchen,” wept Bianca; “and why not I good as any Irish girl's! He was as proud of giva him eat, and is it true you marry Signor her intelligence as if he had created it, and he MacMahona- ". spent the rest of the evening finding further “Well, I can't stand ut," said Kate; “I instances of her brilliancy. got to let the Irish out uv me, annyway." Meantime, the parish was quieting. She turned on the little Pasquale, and The little father no longer heard murmured overwhelmed him with vivid abuse. She words of jealousy or suspicion; he was able began by reflecting on his ancestors, and, to spend his energy in roaring reproaches warming to her work, she gave the history against the normal Italian sins of dirt, of all the delinquent di Pietros of the ward, inertia, double-dealing and backsliding. pushing him closer and closer to the door by Pasquale had no time to practise dying, for force of will and of muscle both. Finally he was busy assuring his friends that the she opened it, and thrust him out. little father loved the Italians far, far more "Ah, if I hada your talk, Mees Mac- than the Irish; that he had refused to take Avoya,” murmured Bianca, her little hands back his Irish servant despite her weeping; 662 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE Thrackles leaped upon me and struck me which manæuver they would have had heavily upon the mouth, then sprang for a time in plenty, but distributed themselves rifle. I managed to struggle back to the leisurely for a shooting match. dune, whence I could see. “First shot," claimed Handy Solomon, and without delay fired off-hand. A puff of dust showed to the right. “Nerve no good," CHAPTER XV he commented,“ jerked her just as I pulled.” Pulz fired from the knee. The dust this FIVE HUNDRED YARDS RANGE time puffed below. “Thought she'd carry up at that dis- Percy Darrow, with the keenness that tance,” he muttered. always characterized his mental apprehen- The Nigger, too, missed, and Thrackles sion, had understood enough of my stran- grinned triumphantly. gled cry. He had not hesitated nor de “I get a show," said he. layed for an explanation, but had turned He spread his massive legs apart, drew a track and was now running as fast as his deep breath and raised his weapon. It lay long legs would carry him back toward the in his grasp steady as a log, and I saw that opening of the ravine. My companions Percy Darrow's fate was in the hands of stood watching him, but making no attempt that dangerous class of natural marksman either to shoot or to follow. For a moment that possesses no nerves. But for the second I could not understand this, then remem- time my teeth saved his life. The trigger bered the disappearance of Perdosa. My guard slipped against Thrackles' lacerated heart jumped wildly, for the Mexican had hand almost at the instant of discharge. been gone quite long enough to have cut off He missed, and the bullet went wide. the Assistant's escape. I could not doubt Darrow had climbed a matter of twenty that he would pick off his man at close feet. range as soon as the fugitive should have N ow the seamen distributed themselves reached the entrance to the arroyo. for more leisurely and accurate marksman- There can be no question that he would ship. Handy Solomon lay flat on his have done so had not his Mexican impa- stomach, resting the rifle muzzle across the tience betrayed him. He shot too soon top of a sand dune. Pulz sat down, an Percy Darrow stopped in his tracks. Al elbow on either knee for the greater steadi- though we heard the bullet sing by us, for an ness. The Nigger knelt; but Thrackles instant we thought he was hit. Then Per- remained on his feet. No rest could be dosa fired a second time, again without re- steadier than the stone-like rigidity of his sult. Darrow turned sharp to the left and thick arms. began desperately to scale the steep cliffs. The firing now became miscellaneous. I once took part in a wild boar hunt off No one paid any attention to anyone else. the coast of California. Our dogs had Each discovered what I could have told Denned a small band at the head of a narrow them, that even the human figure at five barranca from which a single steep trail led hundred yards is a small mark for a strange over the hill. We, perched on another hill rifle. The constant correction of elevation, some three or four hundred yards away, however, brought the puffs of dust always shot at the animals as they toiled up the closer, and I could not but realize that the trail. The range was long, but we had doctrine of chances must bring home some time, for the severity of the climb forced the of the bullets. I soon discovered by way of boars to a foot pace. comfort that only Thrackles and Handy It was exactly like that. Percy Darrow Solomon really understood fire-arms; and had two hundred feet of ascent to make. of those two Thrackles alone had had much He could go just so fast; must consume just experience at long range. He told me after- so much time in his snail-like progress up ward he had hunted otter. the face of the hill. During that time he About half way up the cliff Thrackles furnished an excellent target, and the loose fired his fifth shot. No dust followed the sand-stone behind him showed where each discharge; and I saw Percy Darrow stagger shot struck. and almost lose his hold. The men yelled A significant indication was that the men savagely, but the Assistant pulled himself did not take the trouble to get nearer, for together and continued his crawling. THE MYSTERY 663 The sun had been shining in our faces. I could imagine its blurring effect on the sights. Now abruptly it was blotted out and a semi-twilight fell. We all looked up, in spite of ourselves. An opaque veil had been drawn quite across the heavens, through which we could not make out even the shape of the sun. It was like a thunder- cloud except that its under surface instead of being the usual gray-black was a deep earth-brown. As we looked up, a deep bellow stirred the air, which had fallen quite still, long forks of lightning shot hori- zontally from the direction of the island's interior, and flashes of dull red reflected from the canopy of cloud. The men stared with their mouths open. Undoubtedly the change had been some time in preparation, but all had been so absorbed in the affair of the Professor's assistant that no one had noticed. It came to our consciousness with the suddenness of a theatrical change. A dull roaring com- menced, grew in volume, and then a great explosion shook the very ground under our feet. W e stared at each other, our faces whiten- ing. "What kind of hell has broke loose ?” muttered Pulz. The Nigger fell flat on his face, uttering deep lamentations. The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any attention to any one else THE MYSTERY 665 gica would haf been spoilt; but now- " he island. Great rocks and boulders bounded laughed, “let the island sink, we do not care. down the hills. The flashes of lightning We must embark hastily." had become more frequent. We moved, “It'll take a main long time to carry exaggerated to each other's vision by the down all your things, Perfessor.” strange light, uncouth and gigantic. “Oh, led them go! The eruption has “Let's get out of this!” cried Thrackles. alretty swallowed them oop. The la va iss W e turned at the word and ran, Thrack-. by now a foot deep in the valley. Before les staggering under the weight of the chest. long it flows here, so we must embark.” All our belongings we abandoned, and set “But you've lost all them vallyable out for the Laughing Lass with only the things, Perfessor," said Handy Solomon. tatters in which we stood. Luckily for us a “Now I call that hard luck.” great part of the ship's stores had been re- Prof. Schermerhorn snapped his fingers. turned to her hold after the last thorough “They do not amoundt to that!” he scrubbing, so we were in subsistence, but all cried. “Here, here, in this leetle box iss all our clothes, all our personal belongings, the treasure! Here iss the labor of ten years! were left behind us on the beach. For, after Here iss the Laughing Lass, and the crew, once we had topped the cliff that led over to and all the equipmendt comprised. Here the cove, I doubt if any consideration on iss the world!" earth would have induced us to return to “I'm a plain seaman, Perfessor, and I that accursed place. suppose I got to believe you; but she's a The row out to the ship was wet and main small box for all that.” dangerous. Seismic disturbances were “With that small box you can haf all your undoubtedly responsible for high pyra- wishes," asserted the Professor, still in the midic waves that lifted and fell without German lyric strain over his triumph. “It onward movement. We fairly tumbled up iss the box of Enchantments. You haf but out of the dory, which we did not hoist on to will the change you would haf taig place deck, but left at the end of the painter to -it iss done. The substance of the rocks, beat her sides against the ship. the molecule,-all!”. “Could a man make diamonds ?” asked Pulz abruptly. I could hear the sharp in- CHAPTER XVII take of the men's breathing as they hung on the reply. THE OPEN SEA “Much more wonderful changes than that it can accomplish,” replied the Pro Our haste, however, availed us little, for fessor, with an indulged laugh. “That there was no wind at all. We lay for over change iss simple. Carbon iss coal; carbon two hours under the weird light, over- iss diamond. You see? One has but to canopied by the red-brown cloud, while the change the form, not the substance.” explosions shook the foundations of the “Then it'll change coal to diamonds ?”). world. Nobody ventured below. The sails asked Handy Solomon. flapped idly from the masts; the blocks and “Yes, you gather my meanings--" spars creaked: the three-cornered waves I heard a sharp squeak like a terrified rose straight up and fell again as though mouse. Then a long dreadful silence; then reaching from the deep. . two dull heavy blows spaced with delibera- When the men first began to sweat the tion. A moment later I caught a glimpse of sails up, evidently in preparation for an Handy Solomon bent forward to the labor immediate departure, I objected vehe- of dragging a body toward the sea, his steel mently. claw hooked under the angle of the jaw as a “You aren't going to leave him on the man handles a fish. Pulz came and threw island?” I cried. “He'll die of starvation." off my bonds and gag. They did not answer me; but after a “Come along!” said he. little more, when my expostulations had All kept looking fearfully toward the become more positive, Handy Solomon arroyo. A dense, white steam marked its dropped the halliard and drew me to one course. The air was now heavy with por- side. tent. Successive explosions, some light, “Look here, you," he snarled, “you'd some severe, shook the foundations of the better just stow your gab. You're lucky to THE MYSTERY 669 From the remains of the Golden Horn we stiffened, and lay rigid, his eyes rolled could construct some kind of a craft in back. which to run free to the summer trades. “Fits,” remarked Thrackles impatiently. Thus we might in time reach some one or The excitement died. Rum was forced another of the Sandwich Islands, whence a between the victim's lips. After a little he passing trader could take us back to civili- recovered, but could tell us nothing of his zation. There were many elements of un- seizure. certainty in the scheme; but it seemed to me After the dishes had been swept aside less desperate than trusting the caprices of from supper, Handy Solomon announced a these men, especially since they now had second attempt to open the chest. free access to the "Pancho, here, liquor stores. says he's been a While I leaned mechanic," said he. over the rail, en- “I right well know's grossed in these he's been a house- thoughts, one of the breaker. So he's black thunder got the sabe for the clouds that had job, and you can been gathering and kiss the Book on dissipating over the that.” island during the en- Perdosa, with a tire afternoon sud- grin, leaned over the denly glowed over- cover from behind head with a strange and began to pick white incandescence away at the lock startlingly akin to with a long, crooked Darrow's so-called wire. The others “devil fires." drew close about. Strangely enough, I slipped nearer the this illumination, door, imagining that unlike the volcanic in their riveted in- glows, appeared to terest I saw my op- be cast on the clouds portunity. To my from without rather surprise I caught a than shot through glimpse of legs dis- them from within, as appearing up the were the other vol- companion. I took canic emanations. stock. Pulz had At the same instant gone on deck. I experienced a This surprised sharp interior re- me, for I should vulsion of some have thought every sort, most briefly A dizziness overtook me man interested momentary, but of enough in the sup- a character that shook me from head to toe. posed treasure to wish to be present at I had no time to analyze these various its uncovering; and it annoyed me still impressions, however, for my attention was more,—the success of my plan demanded a almost instantly distracted. From the clear deck. However, there was nothing cabin came the sound of a sharp fall, then a for it now but to trust that Pulz had wished man cried out, and on the heels of it Pulz to visit the forecastle, and that I might find darted from the cabin, screaming horribly. the afterworks empty. We were all on deck, and as the little man I paused at the foot of the companion and rushed toward the stern Handy Solomon looked back. A breathlessness of excite- twisted him deftly from his feet. ment held the pirates in a vise. From “My God, mate, what is it?" he cried, as above, the hanging lamp threw strong he pinned the sufferer to the deck. shadows across their faces, bringing out the But Pulz could not answer. He shivered, deep lines, accentuating the dominant 670 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE passions. With their rags and blood, their roof through which the light made its pas- unshaven faces, their firearms, their filth, sage began to splay out, like lighted oil, they showed in violent antithesis to the although the column retained still the in- immaculate white of Old Scrub's cabin, its tegrity of its outline. The fire, if such it glittering brass, and its shining leather. I could be called, ran with incredible rapidity darted up the steps. along the seams between the planks, for- The contrast of the starry night with the ward and aft, until the entire deck was glare of the cabin lamp dulled my eyes. I sketched like a pyrotechnic display in thin stood stock still for a moment, during vivid lines of incandescence. From each of which the only sounds audible were the these lines then the fire began again to singing of the winds through the rigging, spread, as though soaking through the the wash of the sea, and the small, sharp planks. click of Perdosa's instrument as he worked All took place practically in an instant of at the chest. time. I had no opportunity to move nor to Presently I could see better. I looked cry out; indeed, my perceptions were inade- forward and aft for Pulz, but could see quate to the task of mere observation. Up nothing of him, and had just about con- to now there had been no sound. The wind cluded that he had gone forward when I had fallen; the waters passed unnoticed. happened to glance aloft. There to my A stillness of death seemed to have de- astonishment I made him out, huddled in scended on the ship. It was broken by a silhouette against the stars, close to the main sharp double report, one as of the fall of a truck. What he was doing there I could metallic substance, the other caused by the not imagine. However, I did not have time body of Pulz, which, shaken loose from the to bother my head about him, further than truck by a heavy roll, smashed against the to rejoice that he could not obstruct me. rail of the ship and splashed overboard. I should very much have liked to get hold Some one cried out sharply. An instant of a rifle and ammunition, or at least to lay later the entire crew struggled out from the in biscuit and water, but for this there was companion way, rushed in grim silence to no time. It was not absolutely essential the side of the vessel, and threw themselves The dull glow of the island was still visible. into the sea. I had my pillar of fire and smoke to guide My own ideas are somewhat confused. me. Without further delay I jerked loose The fire had practically enveloped the ship. the painter and drew the extra dory along. I thought to feel it; and yet my skin was cool side. to the touch. The ship's outlines became I had proceeded just so far in my move- blurred. A dizziness overtook me; and ments, when the most extraordinary thing then all at once a great desire seized and happened. I shall try to tell you of it as shook my very soul. I cannot tell you the accurately as possible, and in the exact vehemence of this desire. It was a mad- order of its occurrence. First a long, ness; nothing could stand in the way of its straight shaft of white light shot straight up gratification. Whatever happened, I must through the cabin roof to a great height. It have water. It was not thirst, nor yet a shone through the wooden planks as an purpose to allay the very real physical ordinary light shines through glass. By burning of which I was now dimly con- contrast the surrounding blackness was scious; but a craving for the liquid itself as thrown into a deeper shade, and yet the something apart from and unconnected shaft itself was so brilliant as almost to with anything else. Without hesitation, scotch the sight. Curiously enough it was and as though it were the most natural defined accurately, being exactly in shape thing in the world, I vaulted the rail to cast like one of the rectangular tin air-shafts you myself into the ocean. I dimly remember a see so often in city hotels. At the instant of last flying impression of a furnace of light, its appearance, the wind fell quite calm. then a great shock thudded through me, Almost immediately the rectangle on the and I lost consciousness. (End of Part II. To be continued) 674 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE broader viewpoint,” was Mrs. Fanshawe's way of looking at it. Mrs. Harrow and her daughter were perfectly agreed that it pro- moted serenity and led to higher thought. Mrs. Dexter always sighed as she said that it made all knowledge seem as vanity. Others just thought it was nice, without going into details. The matrons of Gardendale were seen less upon the streets, even during the sunny afternoons. There were hours for medita- tion and introspection that had to be kept. Mrs. Thompson usually tried to have hers in the forenoon, but household duties fre- quently interrupted her, which made it often necessary to sacrifice the afternoon. There was an ethereal atmosphere in Gardendale. It radiated from pretty cot- tages and quiet homes. The husbands began to breathe it as soon as they stepped off the train. The tradesmen were dis- tinctly aware of it. The railroad felt it, because the fifty trip books almost went out of commission-so few people went to matinees, now. The circulating library suffered frightfully, because it dealt mostly in novels, and novels did not promote study, much less meditation. Caddying down at the Greenlawn links was no longer what it used to be, except on Sundays, when the men played. And the arrival and departure of Brother Ramakanda every Tuesday was viewed with a sort of awe by such natives as had sufficient time on their hands to be present. Mr. Thompson, Mr. Gates and Mr. Dexter were having it out at 14-inch balk- line, and the Greenlawn Golf Club house was very quiet. Save for the players, it was almost deserted. Mr. Thompson tried a massé, missed it as usual, and grunted un- amiably. “You never hold your cue right," com- mented Mr. Gates, picking up the chalk. “No, I suppose not,” growled Mr. Thompson. “I haven't yet succeeded in applying the cosmological philosophy of the massé to the ultimate substance of the cue ball." Mr. Dexter dropped the end of his cue on the floor with a bang. " Are you getting that, too?” he asked. “I sure am,” said Mr. Thompson. “So are you, too." “Well, I know it,” said Mr. Dexter, “but I wasn't going to make the first crack.” “Say,” said Mr. Gates, "you fellows haven't got anything on me. Do you know what my wife wanted to know last night? She wanted to know if I ever gave any thought to the finite and the infinite. I told her I was too busy. Then she read me a lot of stuff out of a book about ultra meditative intuition and the loss of personal con- sciousness. I told her if I ever lost con- sciousness in my business we'd be broke, and she got mad.” "I had a course in metempsychosis last night,” declared Mr. Dexter. "I was blue in the face before Alice got through, and then she trotted out her book to prove that I hadn't any serenity. And I hadn't, either.” “Well,” said Mr. Thompson wearily, “we're at the transcendental point over at our house. I wanted to go to a show last night and asked Susie to cut out Hindoo for awhile, but the little woman was so busy getting the uplift that she hardly heard me." “Every time I come home now," re- marked Mr. Dexter, “I close the door softly and walk on my toes, for fear I'll dis- turb a meditation.” “But if the women want it I suppose it's all right,” sighed Mr. Dexter, "although every time I speak to my wife now I feel as if I was making her scramble down from the peak of a mountain, where she's con- templating the cosmos. I don't like to kick, but when you get transmigration of the soul with your soup, after a hard day in town, and nirvana with your coffee, when you want to talk about a show, or ask if anything hap- pened to any of the kids that day--why, then it's just a little too much on the Hindoo for me.” The billiard game was lagging. “I don't think we want to play any more," said Mr. Thompson, putting his cue in the rack. "I think we want to have a talk, and if we go downstairs and have a little pantheistic high- ball I think we can talk better." “Mine'll be a polytheistic fizz," said Mr. Gates, slipping on his coat. “For me, a small and carefully built esoteric rickey," chimed in Mr. Dexter, “without too much monism.” The talk lasted until nearly midnight. As Mr. Dexter, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Gates rose from the table, the latter said: "We are not only justified, but if we didn't, we'd be doing less than our duty. I'm in favor of uplift for the masses as well as the classes. We owe something to the The Nerve Club “Where in the world did you ever hear anything about a cosmos ?" demanded Mrs. Gates. " At the club,” said Mary simply. “What club?" “At the Nerve Club," answered Mary. “Y'see, mum," she went on,“the coachmen and the gardeners and some of the girls has organized a club and it's called the Nerve Club, or something like that, anyhow.” “Yes; go on,” said Mrs. Gates faintly. “And we had the first meeting last night,” continued Mary, “and some outlandish man with a long dress—Mrs. Fanshawe's man Michael thinks he was a colored man, mum-made a speech about a cosmos, but none of us could make out what it was. And then it was given out that he was coming to make more speeches, and I guess if that's so, I'll not go again, for 'tis my opinion that he's rot entirely right in his mind, mum.” Mrs. Gates was gripping the table to steady herself. “Mary,” she said, “what was his name?” “I can't rightly say, mum," said Mary. “But he's a brother to somebody and his name begins with a Ram-Ram-some- thing, I can't remember what.” Mrs. Gates washed her hands and took off her apron. “You can finish up the jellies, Mary,” she said. "I'm not feeling very well this morning.” Then she went upstairs, put on her hat and ten minutes later she was in Mrs. Thompson's parlor, fidgeting nervously. Mrs. Gates, who had recovered her tongue, talked rapidly and very much to the point, and Mrs. Thompson said “Oh” and “Oh, dear" a number of times. Then they called Annie, who showed symptoms at first of being a recalcitrant witness, but who, when her apprehension had worn some- what away, became exceedingly voluble. “And what is the name of this club, Annie?” pursued Mrs. Thompson. “The Nervine Club, ma'am," said Annie. Mrs. Gates and Mrs. Thompson looked at each other and wrinkled their foreheads. “Mary called it the Nerve Club," said Mrs. Gates. “Oh, I have it,” broke in Mrs. Thomp- son suddenly. “You mean the Nirvana Club, don't you, Annie?” “Yes, ma'am; that's it,” said Annie brightly. “I knew I had it mixed.” Then followed a detail concerning Annie's spat with Mr. Dexter's coachman William concerning the geographical location of the cosmos, Annie having maintained that it 676 678 THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE feeling his way cautiously and glancing nar- “Certainly; to be sure," said Mr. Thomp- rowly at his wife, who was rocking to and son. fro comfortably and swinging her feet like a “And you know that pretty little pearl schoolgirl. brooch you wanted to get me for my birth- "And opera, too,” said Mrs. Thompson. day, John, and I wouldn't let you? Well, “The Wagner cycle is just beginning next it's been fairly haunting me ever since, and week. I think we'll go to them all, John.” I really think I would like to have it now.” “Sure,” said Mr. Thompson. “Yes'm,” said John meekly. “And then we'll see all the new plays, Mrs. Thompson continued to swing her too,” continued Mrs. Thompson. feet for a minute. “I think that's all just “We'll see 'em all,” repeated John. now,” she said finally. Then she burst into “And, by the way, dear,” said his wife, a merry laugh, jumped up, grabbed John “ do you know, I think I need a change for a by his ears, pulled his head down and few days, and I know you do. You're kissed him soundly. working so hard, poor boy. I think we'll “Now,” she said, “don't you think I've run down to Lakewood for a week.” been very nice about it?”. “Hum,” said Mr. Thompson. His back “You're always nice,” said John. was turned and he was fussing with a shade. “And there aren't going to be any ques- "And if we go to Lakewood—which we tions asked, either,” added Mrs. Thompson. really must, Johnsy dear-I'll need two or “Now you're a real philosopher,” said three gowns,” added Mrs. Thompson. John, grinning. (Gardendale, relieved of philosophy, now faced a more serious situation. Burglars began to multiply! The Gardendale Burglar Cure will be ex- plained and recommended in tzaearly number of The American Magazine.) CONSERVED 16/2006 AMO TU A DVADD MOLLCCC