24543	----	None 
23507	----	file was produced from images generously made available by Case Western Reserve University Preservation Department Digital Library) A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 1758-1908 [Illustration: George Washington, the first Pittsburgher] A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 1758-1908 BY SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH AUTHOR OF "OLIVER CROMWELL: A HISTORY," "PENRUDDOCK OF THE WHITE LAMBS," "JOHN MARMADUKE," "BEOWULF: A POEM," ETC. PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS NEW YORK 1908 Copyright, 1908, by SAMUEL HARDEN CHURCH CONTENTS PAGE HISTORICAL 13 INDUSTRIAL 79 INTELLECTUAL 89 INDEX 127 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS George Washington, the first Pittsburgher _Frontispiece_ PAGE William Pitt, Earl of Chatham 26 Plan of Fort Pitt 31 Henry Bouquet 32 Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764 33 Anthony Wayne 41 Conestoga wagon 44 Stage-coach 46 Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over the portage road 47 View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817 50 Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers 80 The Pittsburgh Country Club 88 Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park 93 Entrance to Highland Park 97 The Carnegie Institute 101 Court-house 104 Zoölogical Garden in Highland Park 107 Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted) 111 Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women 115 Design of University of Pittsburgh 119 Allegheny Observatory, University of Pittsburgh 123 Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park 125 PREFACE Some ten years ago I contributed to a book on "Historic Towns," published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, of New York and London, a brief historical sketch of Pittsburgh. The approach of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh, and the elaborate celebrations planned in connection therewith, led to many requests that I would reprint the sketch in its own covers as a souvenir of the occasion. Finding it quite inadequate for permanent preservation in its original form, I have, after much research and painstaking labor, rewritten the entire work, adding many new materials, and making of it what I believe to be a complete, though a short, history of our city. The story has developed itself into three natural divisions: historical, industrial, and intellectual, and the record will show that under either one of these titles Pittsburgh is a notable, and under all of them, an imperial, city. S. H. C. Lake Placid Club, Adirondack Mountains, August 25, 1908. A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH 1758-1908 A SHORT HISTORY OF PITTSBURGH HISTORICAL I George Washington, the Father of his Country, is equally the Father of Pittsburgh, for he came thither in November, 1753, and established the location of the now imperial city by choosing it as the best place for a fort. Washington was then twenty-one years old. He had by that time written his precocious one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior; had declined to be a midshipman in the British navy; had made his only sea-voyage to Barbados; had surveyed the estates of Lord Fairfax, going for months into the forest without fear of savage Indians or wild beasts; and was now a major of Virginia militia. In pursuance of the claim of Virginia that she owned that part of Pennsylvania in which Pittsburgh is situated, Washington came there as the agent of Governor Dinwiddie to treat with the Indians. With an eye alert for the dangers of the wilderness, and with Christopher Gist beside him, the young Virginian pushed his cautious way to "The Point" of land where the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers forms the Ohio. That, he declared, with clear military instinct, was the best site for a fort; and he rejected the promontory two miles below, which the Indians had recommended for that purpose. Washington made six visits to the vicinity of Pittsburgh, all before his presidency, and on three of them (1753, 1758, and 1770), he entered the limits of the present city. At the time of despatching the army to suppress the whisky insurrection, while he was President, in 1794, he came toward Pittsburgh as far as Bedford, and then, after planning the march, returned to Philadelphia. His contact with the place was, therefore, frequent, and his information always very complete. There is a tradition, none the less popular because it cannot be proved, which ascribes to Washington the credit of having suggested the name of Pittsburgh to General Forbes when the place was captured from the French. However this may be, we do know that Washington was certainly present when the English flag was hoisted and the city named Pittsburgh, on Sunday, November 26, 1758. And at that moment Pittsburgh became a chief bulwark of the British Empire in America. II As early as 1728, a daring hunter or trader found the Indians at the head waters of the Ohio,--among them the Delawares, Shawanese, Mohicans, and Iroquois,--whither they tracked the bear from their village of Logstown, seventeen miles down the river. They also employed the country roundabout as a highway for their march to battle against other tribes, and against each other. At that time France and England were disputing for the new continent. France, by right of her discovery of the Mississippi, claimed all lands drained by that river and its tributaries, a contention which would naturally plant her banner upon the summit of the Alleghany Mountains. England, on the other hand, claimed everything from ocean shore to ocean shore. This situation produced war, and Pittsburgh became the strategic key of the great Middle West. The French made early endeavors to win the allegiance of the Indians, and felt encouraged to press their friendly overtures because they usually came among the red men for trading or exploration, while the English invariably seized and occupied their lands. In 1731 some French settlers did attempt to build a group of houses at Pittsburgh, but the Indians compelled them to go away. The next year the governor of Pennsylvania summoned two Indian chiefs from Pittsburgh to say why they had been going to see the French governor at Montreal; and they gave answer that he had sent for them only to express the hope that both English and French traders might meet at Pittsburgh and carry on trade amicably. The governor of Pennsylvania sought to induce the tribes to draw themselves farther east, where they might be made to feel the hand of authority, but Sassoonan, their chief, forbade them to stir. An Iroquois chief who joined his entreaties to those of the governor was soon afterward killed by some Shawanese braves, but they were forced to flee into Virginia to escape the vengeance of his tribe. Louis Celeron, a French officer, made an exploration of the country contiguous to Pittsburgh in 1747, and formally enjoined the governor of Pennsylvania not to occupy the ground, as France claimed its sovereignty. A year later the Ohio Company was formed, with a charter ceding an immense tract of land for sale and development, including Pittsburgh. This corporation built some storehouses at Logstown to facilitate their trade with the Indians, which were captured by the French, together with skins and commodities valued at 20,000 francs; and the purposes of the company were never accomplished. III Washington's first visit to Pittsburgh occurred in November, 1753, while he was on his way to the French fort at Leboeuff. He was carrying a letter from the Ohio Company to Contrecoeur, protesting against the plans of the French commander in undertaking to establish a line of forts to reach from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Ohio River. The winter season was becoming very severe, in despite of which Washington and Gist were forced to swim with their horses across the Allegheny River. On the way they fell in with a friendly Indian, Keyashuta, a Seneca chief, who showed them much kindness, and for whom a suburban town, Guyasuta, is named. Washington, in writing of his first sight of the forks of the river, says: As I got down before the canoe, I spent some time in viewing the rivers and the land at the fork, which I think extremely well situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both rivers. The land at the point is twenty-five feet above the common surface of the water, and a considerable bottom of flat, well-timbered land all around it very convenient for building. The rivers are each a quarter of a mile across and run here very nearly at right angles, the Allegheny being northeast and the Monongahela southeast. The former of these two is a very rapid and swift-running water, the other deep and still without any perceptible fall. About two miles from this on the southeast side of the river at a place where the Ohio Company intended to erect a fort, lives Shingiss, King of the Delawares. We called upon him to invite him to a council at Logstown. As I had taken a good deal of notice yesterday at the fork, my curiosity led me to examine this more particularly and I think it greatly inferior either for defense or advantages, especially the latter. For a fort at the fork would be equally well situated on the Ohio and have the entire command of the Monongahela, which runs up our settlement and is extremely well designed for water carriage, as it is of a deep, still nature. Besides, a fort at the fork might be built at much less expense than at the other place. Leaving Pittsburgh, Washington and Gist proceeded in a northeasterly direction, and after a day's journey they came upon an Indian settlement, and were constrained by the tribe to remain there for three days. A group of these Indians accompanied the two travelers to the French fort, and on the journey a large number of bear and deer were killed. At Leboeuff Washington received from the French commander a very satisfactory reply. On the trip back the two pioneers encountered almost insupportable hardships. Lacking proper food, their horses died, so that they were forced to push forward in canoes, often finding it necessary, when the creeks were frozen, to carry their craft for long stretches overland. When Venango was reached, Washington, whose clothes were now in tatters, procured an Indian costume, and he and Gist continued their way on foot, accompanied by an Indian guide. At this point an illustrious career was put in deadly peril, for on the second day of his escort, the treacherous guide deliberately fired his gun at Washington when standing only a few feet away from him. Bad marksmanship saved the intended victim, and Gist started to kill the Indian on the spot; but Washington, patient then as always, sent the savage away, giving him provisions to last until he could reach his tribe. But an apprehension of further trouble from the friends of the discomfited guide impelled the two men to travel all that night and the next day, although Washington was suffering acute agony from his frosted feet. While recrossing the Allegheny River on a rude raft, Washington fell into the icy waters and was saved by Gist from drowning only after the greatest efforts had been employed to rescue him. Reaching Herr's Island (within the present city limits), they built a fire and camped there for the night, but in the morning Gist's hands were frozen. The bitter cold had now solidified the river and the two wanderers passed over it on foot. By noon they had reached the home of John Frazier, at Turtle Creek, where they were given clothes and fresh supplies. The journey was completed in three more days, and on receiving the reply of Contrecoeur, the English began their preparations for sending troops to Pittsburgh. IV As soon as Washington's advice as to the location of the fort was received, Captain William Trent was despatched to Pittsburgh with a force of soldiers and workmen, packhorses, and materials, and he began in all haste to erect a stronghold. The French had already built forts on the northern lakes, and they now sent Captain Contrecoeur down the Allegheny with one thousand French, Canadians, and Indians, and eighteen pieces of cannon, in a flotilla of sixty bateaux and three hundred canoes. Trent had planted himself in Pittsburgh on February 17, 1754, a date important because it marks the first permanent white settlement there. But his work had been retarded alike by the small number of his men and the severity of the winter; and when Contrecoeur arrived in April, the young subaltern who commanded in Trent's absence surrendered the unfinished works, and was permitted to march away with his thirty-three men. The French completed the fort and named it Duquesne, in honor of the governor of Canada; and they held possession of it for four years. Immediately on the loss of this fort, Virginia sent a force under Washington to retake it. Washington surprised a French detachment near Great Meadows, and killed their commander, Jumonville. When a larger expedition came against him, he put up a stockade near the site of Uniontown, naming it Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to yield on terms permitting him to march away with the honors of war. V The next year (1755) General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness, alienated the respect and confidence of the American contingent, robbed him of an easy victory, and cost him his life. Benjamin Franklin had warned him against the imminent risk of Indian ambuscades, but he had contemptuously replied: "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression." Some of his English staff-officers urged him to send the rangers in advance and to deploy his Indians as scouts, but he rejected their prudent suggestions with a sneer. On July 9 his army, comprising twenty-two hundred soldiers and one hundred and fifty Indians, was marching down the south bank of the Monongahela. The variant color and fashion of the expedition,--the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Americans, the naval detachment, the rangers in deerskin shirts and leggins, the savages half-naked and befeathered, the glint of sword and gun in the hot daylight, the long wagon train, the lumbering cannon, the drove of bullocks, the royal banner and the Colonial gonfalon,--the pomp and puissance of it all composed a spectacle of martial splendor unseen in that country before. On the right was the tranquil river, and on the left the trackless wilderness whence the startled deer sprang into a deeper solitude. At noon the expedition crossed the river and pressed on toward Fort Duquesne, eight miles below, expectant of victory. What need to send out scouts when the king's troops are here? Let young George Washington and the rest urge it all they may; the thing is beneath the dignity of his majesty's general. Meanwhile, all was not tranquil at the French fort. Surrender was talked of, but Captain Beaujeu determined to lead a force out to meet the approaching army. Taking with him a total effective of thirty-six officers and cadets, seventy-two regular soldiers, one hundred and forty-six Canadians, and about six hundred Indian warriors, a command less than half the number of the enemy, he sallied out to meet him. How insignificant were the armed forces with which the two empires were now challenging each other for the splendid prize of a new world! Beaujeu, gaily clad in a fringed hunting dress, intrepidly pressed on until he came in sight of the English invaders. As soon as the alert French commander felt the hot breath of his foe he waved his hat and his faithful followers disappeared behind rocks and trees as if the very earth had swallowed them. The unsuspecting English came on. But here, when they have crossed, is a level plain, elevated but a few feet above the surface of the river, extending nearly half a mile landwards, and then gradually ascending into thickly wooded hills, with Fort Duquesne beyond. The troops in front had crossed the plain and plunged into the road through the forest for a hundred feet when a heavy discharge of musketry and arrows was poured upon them, which wrought in them a consternation all the greater because they could see no foe anywhere. They shot at random, and not without effect, for when Beaujeu fell the Canadians began to flee and the Indians quailed in their covers before the cannon fire of the English. But the French fighters were rallied back to their hidden recesses, and they now kept up an incessant and destructive fire. In this distressing situation the English fell back into the plain. Braddock rode in among them, and he and his officers persistently endeavored to rally them, but without success. The Colonial troops adopted the Indian method, and each man fought for himself behind a tree. This was forbidden by Braddock, who attempted to form his men in platoons and columns, making their slaughter inevitable. The French and Indians, concealed in the ravines and behind trees, kept up a cruel and deadly fire, until the British soldiers lost all presence of mind and began to shoot each other and their own officers, and hundreds were thus slain. The Virginia companies charged gallantly up a hill with a loss of but three men, but when they reached the summit the British soldiery, mistaking them for the enemy, fired upon them, killing fifty out of eighty men. The Colonial troops then resumed the Indian fashion of fighting from behind trees, which provoked Braddock, who had had five horses killed under him in three hours, to storm at them and strike them with his sword. At this moment he was fatally wounded, and many of his men now fled away from the hopeless action, not waiting to hear their general's fainting order to retreat. Washington had had two horses killed and received three bullets through his coat. Being the only mounted officer who was not disabled, he drew up the troops still on the field, directed their retreat, maintaining himself at the rear with great coolness and courage, and brought away his wounded general. Sixty-four British and American officers, and nearly one thousand privates, were killed or wounded in this battle, while the total French and Indian loss was not over sixty. A few prisoners captured by the Indians were brought to Pittsburgh and burnt at the stake. Four days after the fight Braddock died, exclaiming to the last, "Who would have thought it!" VI Despondency seized the English settlers after Braddock's defeat. But two years afterward William Pitt became prime minister, and he thrilled the nation with his appeal to protect the Colonies against France and the savages. [Illustration: William Pitt, Earl of Chatham] William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham, the man for whom our city is named, was one of the most indomitable characters in the statesmanship of modern times. Born in November, 1708, he was educated at Eton and at Oxford, then traveled in France and Italy, and was elected to Parliament when twenty-seven years old. His early addresses were not models either of force or logic, but the fluent speech and many personal attractions of the young orator instantly caught the attention of the people, who always listened to him with favor; and it was not long before his constant participation in public affairs developed the splendid talents which he possessed. Wayward and affected in little things, Pitt attacked the great problems of government with the bold confidence of a master spirit, impressing the clear genius of his leadership upon the yearning heart of England in every emergency of peace or war. Too great to be consistent, he never hesitated to change his tactics or his opinion when the occasion developed the utility of another course. Ordinary men have been more faithful to asserted principles, but no statesman more frequently departed from asserted principles to secure achievements which redounded to the honor of the nation. During the thirty years in which Pitt exercised the magic spell of his eloquence and power over the English Parliament, the stakes for which he contended against the world were no less than the dominion of North America and of India. In the pursuit of these policies he fought Spain and subdued her armies. He subsidized the king of Prussia to his interests. He destroyed the navy of France and wrested from her the larger part of her possessions beyond sea. Having always a clear conception of the remotest aim of national aspiration, he was content to leave the designing of operations in detail to the humbler servants of the government, reserving to himself the mighty concentration of his powers upon the general purpose for which the nation was striving. The king trusted him, the Commons obeyed him, the people adored him and called him the Great Commoner. He was wise, brave, sincere, tolerant, and humane; and no man could more deserve the honor of having named for him a city which was destined to become rich and famous, keeping his memory in more enduring fame than bronze or marble. VII Pitt's letters inspired the Americans with new hope, and he promised to send them British troops and to supply their own militia with arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions at the king's charge. He sent twelve thousand soldiers from England, which were joined to a Colonial force aggregating fifty thousand men, the most formidable army yet seen in the new world. The plan of campaign embraced three expeditions: the first against Louisburg, in the island of Cape Breton, which was successful; the second against Ticonderoga, which succeeded after a defeat; and the third against Fort Duquesne. General Forbes, born at Dunfermline (whence have come others to Pittsburgh), commanded this expedition, comprising about seven thousand men. The militia from Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland was led by Washington, whose independent spirit led the testy Scotchman, made irritable by a malady which was soon to cause his death, to declare that Washington's "behavior about the roads was no ways like a soldier." But we cannot believe that the young Virginian was moved by any motive but the public good. On September 12, 1758, Major Grant, a Highlander, led an advance guard of eight hundred and fifty men to a point one mile from the fort, which is still called Grant's Hill, on which the court-house now stands, where he rashly permitted himself to be surrounded and attacked by the French and Indians, half his force being killed or wounded, and himself slain. Washington followed soon after, and opened a road for the advance of the main body under Forbes. Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, had just been taken by General Amherst, with the result that supplies for Fort Duquesne were cut off. When, therefore, Captain Ligneris, the French commandant, learned of the advance of a superior force, having no hope of reinforcements, he blew up the fort, set fire to the adjacent buildings, and drew his garrison away. On Saturday, November 25, 1758, amidst a fierce snowstorm, the English took possession of the place, and Colonel Armstrong, in the presence of Forbes and Washington, hauled up the puissant banner of Great Britain, while cannons boomed and the exulting victors cheered. On the next day, General Forbes wrote to Governor Denny from "Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh,[A] the 26th of November, 1758," and this was the first use of that name. On this same Sunday the Rev. Mr. Beatty, a Presbyterian chaplain, preached a sermon in thanksgiving for the superiority of British arms,--the first Protestant service in Pittsburgh. The French had had a Roman Catholic chaplain, Father Baron, during their occupancy. On the next day Forbes wrote to Pitt with a vision of prophecy as follows: PITTSBOURGH, 27th Novem'r, 1758. _Sir_, I do myself the Honour of acquainting you that it has pleased God to crown His Majesty's Arms with Success over all His Enemies upon the Ohio, by my having obliged the enemy to burn and abandon Fort Du Quesne, which they effectuated on the 25th:, and of which I took possession next day, the Enemy having made their Escape down the River towards the Missisippi in their Boats, being abandoned by their Indians, whom I had previously engaged to leave them, and who now seem all willing and ready to implore His Majesty's most Gracious Protection. So give me leave to congratulate you upon this great Event, of having totally expelled the French from this prodigious tract of Country, and of having reconciled the various tribes of Indians inhabiting it to His Majesty's Government. * * * * * I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du Quesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that now makes us Masters of the place.... These dreary deserts will soon be the richest and most fertile of any possest by the British in No. America. I have the honour to be with great regard and Esteem Sir, Your most obed't. & most hum'le. serv't. JO: FORBES. [Footnote A: Local controversialists should note that the man who named the city spelt it with the final h.] VIII As a place of urgent shelter the English proceeded to build a new fort about two hundred yards from the site of Fort Duquesne, which is traditionally known as the first Fort Pitt, and was probably so called by the garrison, although the letters written from there during the next few months refer to it as "the camp at Pittsburgh." This stronghold cut off French transportation to the Mississippi by way of the Ohio River, and the only remaining route, by way of the Great Lakes, was soon afterward closed by the fall of Fort Niagara. The fall of Quebec, with the death of the two opposing generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, and the capture of Montreal, ended the claims of France to sovereignty in the new world. [Illustration: Plan of Fort Pitt] The new fort being found too small, General Stanwix built a second Fort Pitt, much larger and stronger, designed for a garrison of one thousand men. The Indians viewed the new-comers with suspicion, but Colonel Henry Bouquet assured them, with diplomatic tergiversation, that, "We have not come here to take possession of your country in a hostile manner, as the French did when they came among you, but to open a large and extensive trade with you and all other nations of Indians to the westward." A redoubt (the "Blockhouse"), built by Colonel Bouquet in 1764, still stands, in a very good state of preservation, being cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The protection of the garrison naturally attracted a few traders, merchants, and pioneers to Pittsburgh, and a permanent population began to grow. [Illustration: Henry Bouquet] [Illustration: Block House of Fort Pitt. Built in 1764] But the indigenous race continued to resent the extension of white encroachment; and they formed a secret confederacy under Pontiac, the renowned Ottawa chief, who planned a simultaneous attack on all the white frontier posts. This uprising was attended by atrocious cruelties at many of the points attacked, but we may take note here of the movement only as it affected Pittsburgh. At the grand council held by the tribes, a bundle of sticks had been given to every tribe, each bundle containing as many sticks as there were days intervening before the deadly assault should begin. One stick was to be drawn from the bundle every day until but one remained, which was to signal the outbreak for that day. This was the best calendar the barbarian mind could devise. At Pittsburgh, a Delaware squaw who was friendly to the whites had stealthily taken out three of the sticks, thus precipitating the attack on Fort Pitt three days in advance of the time appointed. The last stick was reached on June 22, 1763, and the Delawares and Shawanese began the assault in the afternoon, under Simon Ecuyer. The people of Pittsburgh took shelter in the fort, and held out while waiting for reinforcements. Colonel Bouquet hurried forward a force of five hundred men, but they were intercepted at Bushy Run, where a bloody battle was fought. Bouquet had fifty men killed and sixty wounded, but inflicted a much greater loss on his savage foes and gained the fort, relieving the siege. As soon as Bouquet could recruit his command, he moved down the Ohio, attacked the Indians, liberated some of their prisoners, and taught the red men to respect the power that controlled at Pittsburgh. In 1768 the Indians ceded their lands about Pittsburgh to the Colonies, and civilization was then free to spread over them. In 1774 a land office was opened in Pittsburgh by Governor Dunmore, and land warrants were granted on payment of two shillings and six pence purchase money, at the rate of ten pounds per one hundred acres. IX Washington made his last visit to Pittsburgh in October, 1770, when, on his way to the Kanawha River, he stopped here for several days, and lodged with Samuel Semple, the first innkeeper, whose hostelry stood, and still stands, at the corner of Water and Ferry Streets. This house was later known as the Virginian Hotel, and for many years furnished entertainment to those early travelers. The building, erected in 1764 by Colonel George Morgan, is now nearly one hundred and forty years old, and is still devoted to public hospitality, but the character of its patronage has changed from George Washington to the deck roysterers who lodge there between their trips on the river packets. At the time of Washington's visit the lower story of the house was divided into three rooms, two facing on Ferry Street, and the third, a large room, on Water Street, and in this latter room was placed, in the year of Washington's stop there, the first billiard table ever brought to Pittsburgh. The mahogany steps from the first to the second floors, which were once the pride of the place, are still in the house.[B] According to Washington's journal, there were in Pittsburgh in 1770 twenty houses situated on Water Street, facing the Monongahela River. These were occupied by traders and their families. The population at that time is estimated at one hundred and twenty-six men, women, and children, besides a garrison consisting of two companies of British troops. [Footnote B: On going again to look at this house, which I have seen many times, I find that it was recently demolished to make room for railway improvements.] In October, 1772, Fort Pitt was ordered abandoned. The works about Pittsburgh, from first to last, had cost the British Crown some three hundred thousand dollars, but the salvage on the stone, brick, and iron of the existing redoubts amounted to only two hundred and fifty dollars. The Blockhouse was repaired and occupied for a time by Dr. John Connelly; and during the Revolution it was constantly used by our Colonial troops. X With the French out of the country, and with William Pitt out of office and incapacitated by age, the Colonies began to feel the oppression of a British policy which British statesmen and British historians to-day most bitterly condemn. America's opposition to tyranny found its natural expression in the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The fires of patriotism leapt through the continent and the little settlement at Pittsburgh was quickly aflame with the national spirit. On May 16th a convention was held at Pittsburgh, which resolved that This committee have the highest sense of the spirited behavior of their brethren in New England, and do most cordially approve of their opposing the invaders of American rights and privileges to the utmost extreme, and that each member of this committee, respectively, will animate and encourage their neighborhood to follow the brave example. No foreign soldiers were sent over the mountains to Pittsburgh, but a more merciless foe, who would attack and harass with remorseless cruelty, was impressed into the English service, despite the horrified protests of some of her wisest statesmen. American treaties with the Indians had no force against the allurements of foreign gold, and under this unholy alliance men were burnt at the stake, women were carried away, and cabins were destroyed. With the aim of regaining the friendship of the Indians, Congress appointed commissioners who met the tribes at Pittsburgh; and Colonel George Morgan, Indian agent, writes to John Hancock, November 8, 1776: I have the happiness to inform you that the cloud that threatened to break over us is likely to disperse. The Six Nations, with the Muncies, Delawares, Shawanese, and Mohicans, who have been assembled here with their principal chiefs and warriors to the number of 644, have given the strongest assurance of their determination to preserve inviolate the peace and neutrality with the United States. These amicable expectations were not realized, and General Edward Hand came to Pittsburgh the next year and planned an expedition against the Indians. Colonel Broadhead took out Hand's expedition in the summer and burned the Indian towns. The depreciation of paper currency, or Continental money, had by this time brought the serious burden of high prices upon the people. The traders, who demanded apparently exorbitant rates for their goods, were denounced in public meetings at Pittsburgh as being "now commonly known by the disgraceful epithet of speculators, of more malignant natures than the savage Mingoes in the wilderness." This hardship grew in severity until the finances were put upon a more stable basis. In 1781, there was demoralization and mutiny at Fort Pitt, and General William Irvine was put in command. His firm hand soon restored the garrison to obedience. The close of the war with Great Britain in that year was celebrated by General Irvine by the issue of an order at the fort, November 6, 1781, requiring all, as a sailor would say, "to splice the mainbrace." This order read as follows: The commissioners will issue a gill of whisky, extraordinary, to the non-commissioned officers and privates, upon this joyful occasion. The Penn family had purchased the Pittsburgh region from the Indians in 1768, and they would offer none of it for sale until 1783. Up to this time they had held the charter to Pennsylvania; but as they had maintained a steadfast allegiance to the mother country, the general assembly annulled their title, except to allow them to retain the ownership of various manors throughout the State, embracing half a million acres. In order to relieve the people of Pittsburgh from going to Greensburg to the court-house in their sacred right of suing and being sued, the general assembly erected Allegheny County out of parts of Westmoreland and Washington Counties, September 24, 1788. This county originally comprised, in addition to its present limits, what are now Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango, and Warren Counties. The Act required that the court-house and jail should be located in Allegheny (just across the river from Pittsburgh), but as there was no protection against Indians there, an amendment established Pittsburgh as the county seat. The first court was held at Fort Pitt; and the next day a ducking-stool was erected for the district, at "The Point" in the three rivers. In 1785, the dispute between Virginia and Pennsylvania for the possession of Pittsburgh was settled by the award of a joint commission in favor of Pennsylvania. A writer says that in 1786 Pittsburgh contained thirty-six log houses, one stone, and one frame house, and five small stores. Another records that the population "is almost entirely Scots and Irish, who live in log houses." A third says of these log houses: "Now and then one had assumed the appearance of neatness and comfort." The first newspaper, the Pittsburgh "Gazette," was established July 29, 1786. A mail route to Philadelphia, by horseback, was adopted in the same year. On September 29, 1787, the Legislature granted a charter to the Pittsburgh Academy, a school that has grown steadily in usefulness and power as the Western University of Pennsylvania, and which has in this year (July 11, 1908) appropriately altered its name to University of Pittsburgh. [Illustration: Anthony Wayne] In 1791, the Indians became vindictive and dangerous, and General Arthur St. Clair, with a force of twenty-three hundred men, was sent down the river to punish them. Neglecting President Washington's imperative injunction to avoid a surprise, he led his command into an ambush and lost half of it in the most disastrous battle with the redskins since the time of Braddock. In the general alarm that ensued, Fort Pitt being in a state of decay, a new fort was built in Pittsburgh at Ninth and Tenth Streets and Penn Avenue,--a stronghold that included bastions, blockhouses, barracks, etc., and was named Fort Lafayette. General Anthony Wayne was then selected to command another expedition against the savages, and he arrived in Pittsburgh in June, 1792. After drilling his troops and making preparations for two years, in the course of which he erected several forts in the West, including Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, he fought the Indians and crushed their strength and spirit. On his return a lasting peace was made with them, and there were no further raids about Pittsburgh. XI The whisky insurrection demands a brief reference. Whisky seems to be a steady concomitant of civilization. As soon as the white settlers had planted themselves securely at Pittsburgh, they made requisition on Philadelphia for six thousand kegs of flour and three thousand kegs of whisky--a disproportion as startling as Falstaff's intolerable deal of sack to one half-penny-worth of bread. Congress, in 1791, passed an excise law to assist in paying the war debt. The measure was very unpopular, and its operation was forcibly resisted, particularly in Pittsburgh, which was noted then, as now, for the quantity and quality of its whisky. There were distilleries on nearly every stream emptying into the Monongahela. The time and circumstances made the tax odious. The Revolutionary War had just closed, the pioneers were in the midst of great Indian troubles, and money was scarce, of low value, and very hard to obtain. The people of the new country were unused to the exercise of stringent laws. The progress of the French Revolution encouraged the settlers to account themselves oppressed by similar tyrannies, against which some of them persuaded themselves similar resistance should be made. Genêt, the French demagogue, was sowing sedition everywhere. Lafayette's participation in the French Revolution gave it in America, where he was deservedly beloved, a prestige which it could never have gained for itself. Distillers who paid the tax were assaulted; some of them were tarred and feathered; others were taken into the forest and tied to trees; their houses and barns were burned; their property was carried away or destroyed. Several thousand insurgents assembled at Braddock's Field, and marched on Pittsburgh, where the citizens gave them food and submitted to a reign of terror. Then President Washington sent an army of fifteen thousand troops against them, and they melted away, as a mob will ever do when the strong arm of government smites it without fear or respect. [Illustration: Conestoga wagon] XII It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved system of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of transportation through the American wilderness required the eastern merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and thence to Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were exchanged for Pittsburgh products, and these in turn were carried by boat to New Orleans, where they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodities, which were carried through the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and Philadelphia. For passenger travel the stage-coach furnished the most luxurious method then known. [Illustration: Stage-coach] The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland improvements and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany Mountains. In 1825, the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February 25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the commencement of work on the canal at the expense of the State. The western section was completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on November 10, 1829. Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, including the building of the portage railroad over the mountains, and by April 16, 1834, a through line was in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The termini of the road were Hollidaysburg, 1,398 feet below the mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet below the summit. The boats were taken from the water like amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten inclined planes by stationary engines. The total cost of the canal and portage railroad was about ten million dollars, and the entire system was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 25th) for $7,500,000. The importance of canal transportation in the popular mind is shown by the fact that in 1828, when the Pennsylvania Legislature granted a charter to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company (which never constructed its road), the act stated that the purpose of the railroad was to connect Pittsburgh with the canal at Massillon, Ohio. The railroad quickly superseded the canal, however, and when men perceived that the mountains could be conquered by a portage road, it was a natural step to plan the Pennsylvania and Baltimore and Ohio railroads on a system of easy grades, so that all obstacles of height and distance were annihilated. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated April 13, 1846, and completed its roadway from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh February 15, 1854. The canal was for a time operated by the Pennsylvania Canal Company in the interest of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, but its use was gradually abandoned. The division from Pittsburgh to Johnstown ceased to be operated in 1864, and that portion which was in the Juniata Valley was used until 1899, while the portion lying along the Susquehanna River was operated until 1900.[C] [Footnote C: There is an interesting relief map of the portage railroad of the Pennsylvania Canal in the Carnegie Museum.] [Illustration: Over the mountains in 1839; canal boat being hauled over the portage road] Other railroads came as they were needed. The Baltimore and Ohio received a charter from the State of Maryland on February 28, 1827, but did not reach Pittsburgh until December 12, 1860, when its Pittsburgh and Connellsville branch was opened. The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad was built into Pittsburgh July 4, 1851, and became part of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway in 1856, that line reaching Chicago in 1859. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (the "Pan Handle") was opened between Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, October 9, 1865. The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, now a part of the New York Central Lines, was opened into Pittsburgh in February, 1879. The Wabash Railway completed its entrance into the city on June 19, 1904. XIII [Illustration: View of Old Pittsburgh, 1817] In 1784 the town was laid out and settlers, among whom were many Scotch and Irish, came rapidly. The town was made the county seat in 1791, incorporated as a borough in 1794, the charter was revived in 1804, and the borough was chartered as a city in 1816. The first charter granted to Pittsburgh in 1816 vested the more important powers of the city government in a common council of fifteen members and a select council of nine members. In 1887 a new charter was adopted giving to the mayor the power to appoint the heads of departments who were formerly elected by the councils. On March 7, 1901, a new charter, known as "The Ripper," was adopted, under the operations of which the elected mayor (William J. Diehl) was removed from his office, and a new chief executive officer (A. M. Brown) appointed in his place by the governor, under the title of recorder. By an act of April 23, 1903, the title of mayor was restored, and under the changes then made the appointing power rests with the mayor, with the consent of the select council. The following is a list of the mayors of Pittsburgh: 1816-1817, Ebenezer Denny 1817-1825, John Darragh 1825-1828, John M. Snowden 1828-1830, Magnus M. Murray 1830-1831, Matthew B. Lowrie 1831-1832, Magnus M. Murray 1832-1836, Samuel Pettigrew 1836-1839, Jonas R. McClintock 1839-1840, William Little 1840-1841, William W. Irwin 1841-1842, James Thomson 1842-1845, Alexander Hay 1845-1846, William J. Howard 1846-1847, William Kerr 1847-1849, Gabriel Adams 1849-1850, John Herron 1850-1851, Joseph Barker 1851-1853, John B. Guthrie 1853-1854, Robert M. Riddle 1854-1856, Ferdinand E. Volz 1856-1857, William Bingham 1857-1860, Henry A. Weaver 1860-1862, George Wilson 1862-1864, B. C. Sawyer 1864-1866, James Lowry 1866-1868, W. S. McCarthy 1868-1869, James Blackmore 1869-1872, Jared M. Brush 1872-1875, James Blackmore 1875-1878, William C. McCarthy 1878-1881, Robert Liddell 1881-1884, Robert W. Lyon 1884-1887, Andrew Fulton 1887-1890, William McCallin 1890-1893, Henry I. Gourley 1893-1896, Bernard McKenna 1896-1899, Henry P. Ford 1899-1901, William J. Diehl 1901, A. M. Brown (Title changed to Recorder) 1901-1903, J. O. Brown (Recorder) 1903, W. B. Hays (Recorder; served about one week under that title) 1903-1906, W. B. Hays (Mayor again) 1906-1909, George W. Guthrie A movement to consolidate the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny together with some adjacent boroughs, was begun in 1853-54. It failed entirely that year, but in 1867 Lawrenceville, Peebles, Collins, Liberty, Pitt, and Oakland, all lying between the two rivers, were annexed to Pittsburgh, and in 1872 there was a further annexation of a district embracing twenty-seven square miles south of the Monongahela River, while in 1906 Allegheny was also annexed; and, as there was litigation to test the validity of the consolidation, the Supreme Court of the United States on December 6, 1907, declared in favor of the constitutionality of the act. XIV The first national convention of the Republican party was held in Pittsburgh on February 22 and 23, 1856. While this gathering was an informal convention, it was made for the purpose of effecting a national organization of the groups of Republicans which had grown up in the States where slavery was prohibited. Pittsburgh was, therefore, in a broad sense, the place where the birth of the Republican party occurred. A digression on this subject, in order that the record may be made clear, will probably not be unwelcome. In 1620, three months before the landing of the _Mayflower_ at Provincetown, a Dutch vessel carried African slaves up the James River, and on the soil of Virginia there was planted a system of servitude which at last extended throughout the Colonies and flourished with increasing vigor in the South, until, in the War of the Rebellion, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation put an end forever to slavery in America. When the builders of our Government met in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, slavery was a problem which more than once threatened to wreck the scheme for an indissoluble union of the States. But it was compromised under a suggestion implied in the Constitution itself, that slavery should not be checked in the States in which it existed until 1808. In the meantime the entire labor system of the South was built upon African slavery, while at the North the horror of the public conscience grew against the degrading institution from year to year. By 1854 the men in the free States who were opposed to slavery had begun to unite themselves by political bonds, and in the spring and summer of that year, groups of such men met in more or less informal conferences in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, and other northern States. But it was at Jackson, Michigan, where the men who were uniting their political fortunes to accomplish the destruction of slavery first assembled in a formal convention on July 6, 1854, nominated a full State ticket, and adopted a platform containing these declarations: Resolved: That, postponing and suspending all differences with regard to political economy or administrative policy, in view of the imminent danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be grasped by slavery, and a thousand miles of slave soil be thus interposed between the free States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific, we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to avert and repeal this gigantic wrong and shame. Resolved: That in view of the necessity of battling for the first principles of Republican government, and against the schemes of an aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth was ever cursed or man debased, we will coöperate and be known as "Republicans" until the contest be terminated. On January 17, 1856, "the Republican Association of Washington, D. C.," referring to the extension of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska as "the deep dishonor inflicted upon the age in which we live," issued a call, in accordance with what appeared to be the general desire of the Republican party, inviting the Republicans of the Union to meet in informal convention at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, for the purpose of perfecting the national organization, and providing for a national delegate convention of the Republican party, at some subsequent day, to nominate candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency, to be supported at the election in November, 1856. The Republican party met accordingly for the first time in a national convention in Pittsburgh on the date appointed, and was largely attended. Not only were all the free States represented, but there were also delegates from Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri. John A. King was made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair permanent chairman. Speeches were made by Horace Greeley, Giddings and Gibson of Ohio, Codding and Lovejoy of Illinois, and others. Mr. Greeley sent a telegraphic report of the first day's proceedings to the New York "Tribune," stating that the convention had accomplished much to cement former political differences and distinctions, and that the meeting at Pittsburgh had marked the inauguration of a national party, based upon the principle of freedom. He said that the gathering was very large and the enthusiasm unbounded; that men were acting in the most perfect harmony and with a unity of feeling seldom known to political assemblages of such magnitude; that the body was eminently Republican in principle and tendency; and that it combined much of character and talent, with integrity of purpose and devotion to the great principles which underlie our Government. He prophesied that the moral and political effect of this convention upon the country would be felt for the next quarter of a century. In its deliberations, he said that everything had been conducted with marked propriety and dignity. The platform adopted at Pittsburgh demanded the repeal of all laws allowing the introduction of slavery into free territories; promised support by all lawful measures to the Free-State men in Kansas in their resistance to the usurped authority of lawless invaders; and strongly urged the Republican party to resist and overthrow the existing national administration because it was identified with the progress of the slave power to national supremacy. On the evening of the second day, a mass meeting was held in aid of the emigration to Kansas. The president of the meeting was George N. Jackson, and D. D. Eaton was made secretary. Horace Greeley and others made addresses, and with great enthusiasm promises of aid to the bleeding young sister in the West were made. This record seems to show beyond question that the Republican party had its national birth at Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856, and that it came into being dedicated, as Horace Greeley described it at that moment, to the principle of human freedom. A later formal convention, as provided for at Pittsburgh, was held at Philadelphia on June 17, 1856, which nominated John C. Fremont, of California, for President, and William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice-President. This ticket polled a total popular vote of 1,341,264, but was beaten by the Democratic candidates,--James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, for President, and John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, for Vice-President, who polled 1,838,169 votes. This defeat of a good cause was probably a fortunate piece of adversity, for the men who opposed slavery were not yet strong enough to grapple the monster to its death as they did when Lincoln was nominated four years later. It was the high mission of the party in 1856 and 1860 to stand against the extension of slavery, and in 1864 against all slavery as well as against the destruction of this Union; and in 1868, against those who wished to nullify the results of the war. Its later mission has been full of usefulness and honor. XV Among the eminent men who visited Pittsburgh in bygone days we find record of the following: 1817, President Monroe 1825, General Lafayette 1833, Daniel Webster 1842, Charles Dickens 1848, Henry Clay 1849, President Taylor and Governor Johnston 1852, Louis Kossuth 1860, Prince of Wales (now King Edward VII) 1861, President Lincoln 1866, President Johnson, Admiral Farragut, General Grant, and Secretaries Seward and Welles In 1845 (April 10th), a great fire destroyed about one third of the total area of the city, including most of the large business houses and factories, the bridge over the Monongahela River, the large hotel known as the Monongahela House, and several churches, in all about eleven hundred buildings. The Legislature appropriated $50,000 for the relief of the sufferers. In 1889, the great flood at Johnstown, accompanied by a frightful loss of life and destruction of property, touched the common heart of humanity all over the world. The closeness of Johnstown geographically made the sorrow at Pittsburgh most poignant and profound. In a few hours almost the whole population had brought its offerings for the stricken community, and besides clothing, provisions, and every conceivable thing necessary for relief and comfort, the people of Pittsburgh contributed $250,000 to restore so far as possible the material portion of the loss. In the autumn of 1908 a series of imposing celebrations was held to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Pittsburgh. XVI In 1877, the municipal government being, in its personnel, at the moment, incompetent to preserve the fundamental principles on which it was established, permitted a strike of railroad employees to grow without restriction as to the observance of law and order until it became an insurrection. Four million dollars' worth of property was destroyed by riot and incendiarism in a few hours. When at last outraged authority was properly shifted from the supine city chieftains to the indomitable State itself, it became necessary, before order could be restored, for troops to fire, with a sacrifice of human life. For some months preceding the riots at Pittsburgh disturbances among the railroad employees, especially the engineers and brakemen of freight-trains, had been frequent on railroads west and east of this city. These disturbances arose mainly from resistance to reductions in the rates of wages, made or proposed by the executive officers of the various railroads, and also from objections of train crews to regulations governing the transportation system. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, some time after the panic of 1873, reduced the wages of its employees ten per cent., and, on account of the general decline in business, made another reduction of ten per cent. to take effect on June 1, 1877; these reductions to apply to all employees from the president of the company down. The reductions affected the roads known as the Pennsylvania Lines west of Pittsburgh, as well as the Pennsylvania Railroad, and similar alterations were also made on the New York Central and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroads. The changed conditions caused a great deal of dissatisfaction among the trainmen, but a committee was appointed by them, which held a conference with Mr. Thomas A. Scott, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and agreed to the reduction, reporting its conclusions to the trainmen. On July 16th an order was issued by the railroad company that thirty-six freight-cars, instead of eighteen, as before, were to be made up as a train, without increase in the number of the crew, and with a locomotive at the end to act as a pusher, assisting the one at the front, making what is technically called "a double header." The train employees looked upon this order as doubling their work under the decreased pay of June 1st, and in its effect virtually tending to the discharge of many men then employed in the running of freight-trains. The strike which followed does not seem to have been seriously organized, but was rather a sudden conclusion arrived at on the impulse of the moment, and was probably strengthened by a wave of discontent which was sweeping over the roads to the east and west, as well as by an undercurrent of hostility toward the railroads exhibited by some of the newspapers. As far back as July 23, 1876, a Pittsburgh paper, in publishing an article headed "Railroad Vultures," had said: "Railroad officials are commencing to understand that the people of Pittsburgh will be patient no longer; that this community is being aroused into action, and that presently the torrent of indignation will give place to condign retribution"; and in another paragraph the same paper had said: "We desire to impress upon the minds of the community that these vultures are constantly preying upon the wealth and resources of the country; they are a class, as it were, of money jugglers intent only on practising their trickery for self aggrandizement, and that, consequently, their greed leads them into all known ways and byways of fraud, scheming, and speculating, to accomplish the amassing of princely fortunes." These intemperate utterances were the first seeds of popular sedition. It was not until 8.30 o'clock on the morning of the 19th that the real trouble began. Two freight-trains were to start at 8.40, but ten minutes before that the crews sent word that they would not take the trains out. Two yard crews were then asked to take their places, but they refused to do so. The trains were not taken out, and the crews of all the trains that came in, as they arrived, joined the strikers. As the day wore on the men gradually congregated at the roundhouse of the road at Twenty-eighth Street, but did not attempt or threaten any violence. The news of the strike had spread through the two cities, and large numbers of the more turbulent class of the population, together with many workmen from the factories who sympathized with the strikers, hastened to Twenty-eighth Street, and there was soon gathered a formidable mob in which the few striking railroad employees were an insignificant quantity. When the railroad officials found their tracks and roundhouse in the possession of a mob which defied them, they called upon the mayor of the city for protection, to which Mayor McCarthy promptly responded, going in person with a detail of officers to the scene of the trouble. When the police arrived on the ground they found an excited assemblage of people who refused to listen to their orders to disperse, and the mayor made no serious effort to enforce his authority effectually. There was no collision, however, until a man who had refused to join the strikers attempted to couple some cars, when he was assaulted. An officer of the road who undertook to turn a switch, was also assaulted by one of the mob, who was arrested by the police. His comrades began throwing stones, but the police maintained their hold of their prisoner, and conveyed him to the jail. A crowd then gathered in front of the police station and made threats of rescuing their comrade, but no overt act was committed. The mob, which had by this time become greatly enraged, was really not composed of railroad employees, who had contemplated no such result of their strike, and now generally deplored the unfortunate turn which the affair had taken. It was for the most part composed of the worst element of the population, who, without any grievance of their own, real or imagined, had gathered together from the very force of their vicious inclinations and the active hope of plunder. The strikers held a meeting that evening, at which they demanded that the ten per cent. should be restored, and the running of double headers abolished. In the meantime, the railroad authorities, perceiving the inefficiency of the local police powers, and alarmed at the still-increasing mob and the vicious spirit which it displayed, invoked the aid of the sheriff of the county. At midnight Sheriff Fife came to Twenty-eighth Street with a hastily summoned _posse_, a part of which deserted him before he reached the scene of action, and ordered the rioters to disperse, which they, with hoots and jeers, defiantly refused to do. The sheriff then sought aid from the military, and General A. L. Pearson issued an order to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth regiments of the National Guards of Pennsylvania, with headquarters at Pittsburgh, to assemble at half past six the next morning, armed and equipped for duty. Sheriff Fife also telegraphed to the State authorities at Harrisburg, stating that he was unable to quell the riot, and asking that General Pearson be instructed to do this with his force; and Adjutant General Latta issued the orders accordingly. General Pearson marched his forces to the Union Depot and placed them in position in the yard and on the hillside above it. The mob was not, however, deterred by this action, as the troops were supposed to be more or less in sympathy with the strikers, and were expected to be disinclined to fire upon their fellow citizens if they should be ordered to do so. The employment of local troops at this moment constituted a grave mistake in the management of the riot. The governor had, however, been telegraphed to, and had ordered General Brinton's division of troops to leave Philadelphia for Pittsburgh. This became known to the mob, which was still increasing in numbers and turbulence, and the calling of troops from the east drove them to fury. The feeling had spread to the workingmen in the factories on the South Side, where a public meeting was held, and demagogical speeches made, upholding the action of the strikers; and five hundred men came thence in a body and joined the crowd. At this critical moment the mob received an endorsement that not only greatly encouraged it, but incited it to extreme violence. A local newspaper, on Friday, the 20th, in the course of an editorial headed "The Talk of the Desperate," which formulated what was assumed as the expression of a workingman, used this language: This may be the great civil war in this country between labor and capital that is bound to come.... The workingmen everywhere are in fullest sympathy with the strikers, and only waiting to see whether they are in earnest enough to fight for their rights. They would all join and help them the moment an actual conflict took place.... The governor, with his proclamation, may call and call, but the laboring people, who mostly constitute the militia, won't take up arms to put down their brethren. Will capital then rely on the United States Army? Pshaw! Its ten to fifteen thousand available men would be swept from our path like leaves in a whirlwind. The workingmen of this country can capture and hold it, if they will only stick together, and it looks as though they were going to do so this time. Of course, you say that capital will have some supporters. Many of the unemployed will be glad to get work as soldiers, or extra policemen; the farmers, too, might turn out to preserve your law and order; but the working army would have the most men and the best men. The war might be bloody but the right would prevail. Men like Tom Scott, Frank Thomson--yes, and William Thaw--who have got rich swindling the stockholders of railroads, so that they cannot pay honest labor living rates, we would hang to the nearest tree. Although the paper in a later edition suppressed that part of the editorial, and the other papers of the city refrained from any editorials that might increase the excitement, yet the mischief had been done, the unfortunate words had been widely read, and the more intelligently vicious of the rioters proceeded to make the most of them. The eastern troops left Philadelphia on Friday night and arrived at the Union Depot on Saturday afternoon, tired and hungry. After a scant and hasty lunch they were placed out along the tracks to the roundhouse where the great bulk of the mob was assembled. In order to secure and protect the building and tracks it was necessary that the crowd should be forced back. When the troops undertook this movement some stones were thrown and a few soldiers were hit. Then one of the subordinate officers gave an order to fire, and about twenty persons were killed and thirty wounded, three of whom were children. When the rioters beheld their associates attacked, their rage passed all control, and the troops were closed in upon and driven into the roundhouse. Encouraged by this retreat, the mob took steps to burn them out. Many cars loaded with whisky and petroleum were set on fire and sent down the track against the building, and fire was opened on it with a cannon which the crowd had seized from a local armory. General Brinton came personally to one of the windows of the roundhouse and appealed to the mob to desist, warning them that if they did not he must and would fire. The rioters paid no attention to his appeal, but continued their assaults, whereupon General Brinton gave orders to his men to fire at those who were handling the cannon, and several of them were killed and wounded. Incendiarism, having been inaugurated, went on through the night, whole trains being robbed and then burned. The troops held their position until Sunday morning, and then retreated out Penn Avenue to Sharpsburg, where they went into camp. During Saturday night and Sunday morning the mob seemed to have taken possession of the city. They broke open several armories and gun stores, and supplied themselves with arms and ammunition. The banks were threatened, and the city seemed about to be pillaged, the business part of the city being filled with bands of rioters who uttered threats of violence and murder. On Sunday morning the roundhouse and all the locomotives which it contained were destroyed by fire. The Union Depot, the grain elevator, the Adams Express building, and the Pan Handle depot were also set on fire and consumed. The firemen who hastened to the scene and attempted to extinguish the flames were met by armed men and driven back. At half past twelve on Sunday morning a committee appointed by a citizens' meeting tried to open a consultation with the mob, but were promptly driven away. The committee found that they were not dealing with dissatisfied railroad employees but with a mob of the worst of the city's population, there being neither organization nor leader, but each man or party of men doing what the frenzy of the moment suggested. When it seemed as if the whole city was to be destroyed, some of the original strikers were persuaded to attend a meeting of the citizens at four o'clock and arrange to aid in suppressing the incendiarism, and they did this with such a good spirit as showed that the railroad strikers were not a part of the mob and did not countenance its violence. At this meeting the mayor was authorized to enroll five hundred police, but the accounts of the day show that the ranks filled up slowly. The state of terror continued through all of Sunday night, and on Monday morning the mob was still in an unorganized control. Throughout the thirty-six hours from Saturday night until Monday morning a most unusual state of public mind developed here and there which seemed like a moral epidemic. There was almost a wholesale appropriation of goods from the burning cars by men and even women who would at other times have shuddered at the idea of robbery; and after the riot was suppressed goods were for some time voluntarily returned by persons who had taken them unreflectingly, having at length recovered their moral perceptions, which had seemingly been clouded by the vicious influence of the mob. On Monday morning, however, the uprooted law seemed to be recovering a portion of its dissipated majesty. During the night posters had been placed conspicuously throughout the city, on which was printed the law under which the citizens of Allegheny County were liable for all the damage done by the mob or arising from its actions. At eleven o'clock in the morning, a meeting of citizens was called at the Chamber of Commerce, to form a Committee of Public Safety to take charge of the situation, as the city authorities, the sheriff, and the military seemed powerless to control it. This committee presented the following address to the public: The Committee of Public Safety, appointed at the meeting of citizens held at the Chamber of Commerce July 23d, deeming that the allaying of excitement is the first step toward restoring order, would urge upon all citizens disposed to aid therein the necessity of pursuing their usual avocation, and keeping all their employees at work, and would, therefore, request that full compliance be accorded to this demand of the committee. The committee are impressed with the belief that the police force now being organized will be able to arrest and disperse all riotous assemblages, and that much of the danger of destruction to property has passed, and that an entire restoration of order will be established. The committee believe that the mass of industrious workmen of the city are on the side of law and order, and a number of the so-called strikers are already in the ranks of the defenders of the city, and it is quite probable that any further demonstration will proceed from thieves and similar classes of population, with whom our working classes have no affiliation and will not be found among them. It is to this end that the committee request that all classes of business be prosecuted as usual, and our citizens refrain from congregating in the streets in crowds, so that the police of the city may not be confused in their effort to arrest rioters, and the military be not restrained from prompt action, if necessary, from fear of injuring the innocent. While the rioters had by this time been somewhat restrained by the resolute action of the committee, yet they were, although dispersed as a body, holding meetings and still breathing sullen threats of further outrage and murder. The strike had spread to the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway, and its trains were for two or three days virtually stopped; in other sections of the country the railroad troubles were increasing, and the committee thought best to call Major-General Joseph Brown and Colonel P. N. Guthrie, of the Eighteenth National Guards, into consultation. Under their advice a camp of the military was formed at East Liberty, to be held in readiness for any further outbreak. Mayor McCarthy, at last inspirited by the determined men who urged him to his duty, enrolled five hundred extra police, and issued a proclamation in which he said: I have determined that peace, order, and quiet shall be restored to the community, and to this end call upon all good citizens to come forward at once to the old City Hall and unite with the police and military now organizing. I call upon all to continue quietly at their several places of business and refrain from participating in excited assemblages. A proclamation had also been issued by Governor Hartranft, and he had come to Pittsburgh to address the rioters, and subsequently two or three thousand troops were ordered by him to Pittsburgh, and were encamped near East Liberty for several days. Under these vigorous measures quiet was in a few days restored, although the Committee of Public Safety continued to hold sessions and to take steps not only to prevent any further demonstrations, but to arrest and bring to punishment a number of the prominent rioters. Claims for losses in the riot were made on Allegheny County in the sum of $4,100,000, which the commissioners settled for $2,772,349.53. Of this sum $1,600,000 was paid to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose claim for $2,312,000 was settled for that sum. In addition to the buildings already specified as burned, there were 1,383 freight-cars, 104 locomotives, and 66 passenger coaches destroyed by fire. Twenty-five persons in all were killed. The lesson was worth all it cost, and anarchy has never dared to raise its head in the corporation limits since that time. XVII The Homestead strike and riot of 1892 is another incident of false leadership in industrial life which must be chronicled here. For many years the Carnegie Steel Company, whose principal works were situated at Homestead, just outside the present boundaries of the city, had employed a large number of skilled workmen who belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and had contracted for their employment with the officers of that Association. On July 1, 1889, a three years' contract was made which was to terminate at the end of June, 1892. The workmen were paid by the ton, the amount they received depending on the selling price of steel billets of a specified size which they produced. If the price of these billets advanced, the wages they received per ton advanced proportionately. If the price declined, their wages also declined to a certain point, called a minimum, but a decline in the selling price below this minimum caused no reduction in wages. The minimum was fixed in the contract at $25.00 per ton. At the date the contract was made the market price of the billets was $26.50 per ton. As the time drew near for the contract to expire, the Carnegie Company, through its chairman, Mr. Henry C. Frick, submitted to the workmen belonging to the Association a proposition as the basis of a new contract. The three most important features of the proposed contract were, first, a reduction in the minimum of the scale for billets from $25.00 to $22.00; second, a change in the expiration of the date of the scale from June 30th to December 31st; third, a reduction of tonnage rates at those furnaces and mills in which, by reason of the introduction of improved machinery, the earnings of the workmen had been increased far beyond the liberal calculation of their employers. At those places where no such improvements had been made, no reduction in tonnage rates was proposed. The company gave as a reason for reducing the minimum that the market price of steel had gone down below $25.00 per ton, and that it was unfair for the workmen to have the benefits of a rise in the market above $25.00, and share none of the losses of the company when the market price fell below that figure. Indeed, the company contended that there ought to be no minimum as there was no maximum under the sliding scale. The workmen insisted that there ought to be a minimum to protect them against unfair dealing between the company and its buyers, as they had no voice or authority in selling the products of their labor. The reason for changing the time for closing the contract was that the company's business was less active at the end of the calendar year than in midsummer, and that it was easier to complete new arrangements for employment at that time. Another reason was that the company often made sales for an entire year, and consequently contracts for labor could be more safely made if they began and ended at times corresponding with contracts made with their customers. The workmen opposed this change in the duration of the contract on the ground that in midwinter they would be less able to resist any disposition on the part of the company to cut down their wages, and that in the event of a strike, it would be more difficult to maintain their situation than it would be in summer. They claimed, therefore, that the change in time would be a serious disadvantage to them in negotiating with their employers. They proposed to the company, as a counter proposition, that the contract should end the last of June, as had formerly been the case, and that if any change was to be demanded, three months' notice must be given them, and that, if this was not done, the contract, which was to run for three years, should continue for a year longer; in other words, from June 30, 1895, until June 30, 1896. This suggestion was rejected by the company. But the company then proposed to make the minimum $23.00 per ton for steel billets, and the Association, through its committee, named a price of $24.00, refusing to concede any more. While these negotiations were pending, the superintendent of the Homestead Steel Works had concluded contracts with all the employees, except three hundred and twenty-five of the highest skill, who were employed in three of the twelve departments. All the others were to be paid on the former basis of remuneration without any reduction whatever. Of the three hundred and twenty-five high-priced men with whom contracts had not been made, two hundred and eighty would have been affected by the tonnage reductions and about forty-five more by the tonnage reductions and scale minimum. Under the proposed readjustments those who received the low grades of compensation and the common laborers would not have been touched in their earnings. The actual controversy was thus narrowed down to a small number of men, less than ten per cent. of those employed at Homestead. During the remainder of the month of June other steps were taken to effect an agreement, but the relations between the officers of the company and the workmen, instead of improving, grew worse. On the 28th the company began to close the different departments, and on the last day of the month work in all of them ceased. On July 1st the striking workmen congregated about the gates, stopped the foremen and employees who came to work, and persuaded them to go away. The watchmen of the company were turned away from the works; guards were placed at all the entrances, the river, streets and roads entering the town were patrolled by strikers, and a rigid surveillance was exercised over those who entered the town or approached the plant. When the sheriff came on July 4th and attempted to put deputies of his own selection in possession of the works, to guard them for the company, he was opposed by a counter force, the striking workmen proposing to place guards of their own and give indemnity for the safety of the property; but this the sheriff declined because it would enable the strikers to keep any new non-union men from taking their places. On July 5th, when the sheriff sent twelve deputies to take possession of the works, they were driven away. In the meantime Mr. Frick had begun negotiations as early as June 20th with Robert A. Pinkerton, of New York, for the employment of three hundred watchmen to be placed in the works at Homestead. They were brought from Ashtabula to Youngstown by rail, thence to Pittsburgh by river. On the evening of July 5th, Captain Rodgers' two boats, with Deputy Sheriff Gray, Superintendent Potter, of the Homestead works, and some of his assistants, on board, dropped down the river with two barges in tow, until they met the Pinkerton men. When the boat, with the barges in tow, approached Homestead in the early morning of the 6th, they were discovered by a small steamer used by the strikers as a patrol, and the alarm was given. A short war of words was followed by firing on each side, which resulted ultimately in the death of three of the Pinkertons and seven of the workmen, and the wounding of many on each side. After a brief fusillade those on shore fled in various directions, and the Pinkerton men retreated into their barges. About five o'clock in the afternoon the Pinkertons surrendered, being allowed to take out their clothing, but their arms and supplies fell into the possession of the Homestead people. The barges were immediately set on fire and burned, and in their burning the pump-house belonging to the Carnegie Company was also destroyed. The Pinkerton men, now being practically prisoners of war, were marched up-town to the skating-rink for temporary imprisonment. The sheriff was notified, and he came down that night and took the prisoners away. He then informed the governor of Pennsylvania of what had occurred, and called upon him for troops to enforce the law and restore public order. Governor Pattison made a prompt response to this appeal, as his duty under the law required him to do. On the morning of the 12th the soldiers of the State militia entered Homestead. As soon as they arrived the Carnegie Company took possession of its works, and began to make preparations to resume work with non-union men. It was difficult to secure employees, and several months passed away before the company was able to obtain all the men it desired. At first the new employees were fed and housed within the enclosure, and this plan continued for several weeks until their number had increased to such a degree that they felt secure in going outside for their meals with the protection afforded by the sheriff's deputies. The company made an effort to employ their old workmen and fixed a time for receiving applications for employment from them. When the time had expired, however, which was on July 21st, not one participant in the strike had returned. At a later period many of the old employees returned to work. By the close of July, nearly a thousand men were at work at Homestead. On July 23d Mr. Frick was shot in his office by Alexander Berkman, an anarchist, who was not, and never had been, an employee. The chairman recovered from his wounds and his assailant was sent to the penitentiary. The last of the troops were not withdrawn until October 13th. At that time the mill was in full operation with non-union men. Though the strike was ended in October, its formal termination by the Amalgamated Association was not declared until November 20th, when the disposition of the strikers to return to work was very general. Assuming that the strike lasted nearly five months, as the monthly pay-roll of the mill was about $250,000, the loss to the striking employees for that period was not far from $1,250,000. No estimate of the loss sustained by the company has been published. The cost to the State in sending and maintaining the National Guard at Homestead was $440,256.31. INDUSTRIAL I Pittsburgh has thus passed through many battles, trials, afflictions, and adversities, and has grown in the strength of giants until it now embraces in the limits of the county a population rapidly approaching one million. This seems a proper moment, therefore, turning away from the romantic perspective of history, to attempt a brief description of Pittsburgh as we see her to-day. In order to give value to the record it will be necessary to employ certain statistics, but the effort will be to make these figures as little wearisome as possible. The present population after the annexation of Allegheny (December 6, 1907) is estimated at 550,000, and if we were to add McKeesport with its tube mills, Homestead with its Carnegie works, and East Pittsburgh with its Westinghouse plants, all of which lie just outside of the present corporate limits, the population would be 700,000. In 1900 we can give the population definitely (omitting Allegheny) at 321,616, of whom 85,032 were foreign born and 17,040 were negroes. Of these foreign born 21,222 were natives of Germany, 18,620 of Ireland, 8,902 of England, 6,243 of Russian Poland, 5,709 of Italy, 4,107 of Russia, 3,553 of Austria, 3,515 of German Poland, 2,539 of Wales, 2,264 of Scotland, 2,124 of Hungary, 1,072 of Sweden, 1,025 of Austrian Poland, and 154 Chinese. [Illustration: Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers] II It has already been said that the city is a gateway from the East to the West and South, and as such it is the center of a vast railway system. The principal railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System, and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship canal for the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the United States; and have a particularly heavy tonnage of coal, coke, and iron and steel products; while a large proportion of the iron ore that is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought here to supply Pittsburgh manufactures. The total railway and river tonnage is greater than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to 122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest cities in the world (1902): Pittsburgh 86,636,680 tons London 17,564,110 tons New York 17,398,000 " Antwerp 16,721,000 " Hamburg 15,853,490 " Liverpool 13,157,720 " ---------- Total 80,694,320 " ---------- Pittsburgh's excess 5,942,360 " Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000 cars. Its harbor has a total length on the three rivers of twenty-eight miles, with an average width of about one thousand feet, and has been deepened by the Davis Island Dam (1885) and by dredging. Slack water navigation has been secured on the Allegheny River by locks and dams at an expense of more than a million and a quarter dollars. The Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia State line (91.5 miles) was improved by a private company in 1836, which built seven locks and dams. This property was condemned and bought by the United States Government, in 1897 for $3,761,615, and the Government is planning to rebuild and enlarge these works. Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive coal-fields in the country. The region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas, and although the petroleum in the immediate vicinity has been nearly exhausted, it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburgh in 1875. Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year ending December, 1907, the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367. In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 1825 this had become the leading industry. Among the earlier prominent iron industries was the Kensington Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born February 5, 1800; died December 7, 1857), whose family has been resident in Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present day, was the leading partner. In the manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amounting to $92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent. of the total of the whole country. Several towns in the near neighborhood are also extensively engaged in the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per cent. of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent. of the Bessemer steel; 44 per cent. of the open hearth steel; 53 per cent. of the crucible steel; 24 per cent. of the steel rails, and 59 per cent. of the structural shapes that were made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products amounted to $9,631,514; of the product of steam railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of glass, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus, and supplies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value in 1905 of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its main pickle plant in Pittsburgh, the largest establishment of its kind in the world. Pittsburgh's first glass works was built in 1797 by James O'Hara. In 1900, and for a long period preceding, the town ranked first among American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey, and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the limits of Pittsburgh much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh glass district is still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its immediate vicinity the more important plants of the United States Steel Corporation are located, including the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just outside the limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air-brakes which George Westinghouse invented in 1868, and of devices for railway signals which he also invented. Alexander Johnston Cassatt, one of the greatest of the Pennsylvania Railroad presidents, and perhaps the most far-seeing and resourceful of all our captains of industry of the present generation, was born here. James McCrea, the present wise and conservative president of that road, lived here for twenty years. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C. Frick were the strongest personalities who grew up with the Carnegie steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose inventive genius, as shown in his safety appliances, has so greatly reduced the hazards of railway travel and of operation, has long been one of the industrial and social pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, astronomer and educator, the maker of delicate instruments, is a well-beloved citizen. Pittsburgh ranks high as a banking center. She is the second city in the United States in banking capital and surplus, and leads all American cities in proportion of capital and surplus to gross deposits, with 47.1 per cent., while Philadelphia ranks second with 26 per cent. In 1906, there were one hundred and seventy-nine banks and trust companies in the Pittsburgh district with a combined capital of $72,058,402, and a surplus of $87,044,622. The gross deposits were $395,379,783, while the total resources amounted to $593,392,069. Pittsburgh, with clearing-house exchanges amounting to $2,640,847,046, ranks sixth among the cities of the United States, being exceeded by the following cities in the order named: New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, and often on a given day exceeds those of St. Louis. III The tax valuation of Pittsburgh property is $609,632,427. She mines one quarter of the bituminous coal of the United States. With an invested capital of $641,000,000, she has 3,029 mills and factories with an annual product worth $551,000,000, and 250,000 employees on a pay-roll of about $1,000,000 a day, or $350,000,000 a year. Her electric street-railway system multiplies itself through her streets for four hundred and ninety-two miles. Natural-gas fuel is conveyed into her mills and houses through one thousand miles of iron pipe. Her output of coke makes one train ten miles long every day throughout the year. Seven hundred passenger trains and ten thousand loaded freight cars run to and from her terminals every day. Nowhere else in the world is there so large a Bessemer-steel plant, crucible-steel plant, plate-glass plant, chimney-glass plant, table-glass plant, air-brake plant, steel-rail plant, cork works, tube works, or steel freight-car works. Her armor sheaths our battle-ships, as well as those of Russia and Japan. She equips the navies of the world with projectiles and range-finders. Her bridges span the rivers of India, China, Egypt, and the Argentine Republic; and her locomotives, rails, and bridges are used on the Siberian Railroad. She builds electric railways for Great Britain and Brazil, and telescopes for Germany and Denmark. Indeed, she distributes her varied manufactures into the channels of trade all over the earth. [Illustration: The Pittsburgh Country Club] INTELLECTUAL I But while these stupendous industries have given Pittsburgh her wealth, population, supremacy, and power, commercial materialism is not the _ultima thule_ of her people. Travelers who come to Pittsburgh, forgetting the smoke which often dims the blue splendor of its skies, are struck with the picturesque situation of the town, for they find rolling plateaus, wide rivers, and narrow valleys dropping down from high hills or precipitous bluffs throughout the whole district over which the city extends. Yet the surpassing beauty of nature is not more impressive to the thinking stranger than the work of man who has created and dominates a vast industrial system. The manufactories extend for miles along the banks of all three rivers. Red fires rise heavenward from gigantic forges where iron is being fused into wealth. The business section of the city is wedged in by the rivers, its streets are swarming with people, and there is a myriad of retail houses, wholesale houses, banks, tall office buildings, hotels, theaters, and railway terminals; but right where these stop the residence section begins like another city of happy homes--an immense garden of verdant trees and flowering lawns divided off by beautiful avenues, where some houses rise which in Europe would be called castles and palaces, with scarce a fence between to mark the land lines, giving an aspect almost of a park rather than of a city. There are many miles of asphalt streets set off with grass plots. On the rolling hills above the Monongahela River is Schenley Park (about four hundred and forty acres) with beautiful drives, winding bridle paths, and shady walks through narrow valleys and over small streams. Above the Allegheny River is Highland Park (about two hundred and ninety acres), containing a placid lake and commanding fine views from the summits of its great hills. It also contains a very interesting zoölogical garden. Close to Schenley Park are Homewood and Calvary Cemeteries and near Highland Park is Allegheny Cemetery, where the dead sleep amidst drooping willows and shading elms. Connecting the two parks and leading to them from the downtown section is a system of wide boulevards about twenty miles in length. On the North Side (once Allegheny) is Riverview Park (two hundred and seventeen acres), in which the Allegheny Observatory is situated. A large number of handsome bridges span the rivers. The Pittsburgh Country Club provides a broad expanse of rolling acres for pastoral sports. II In Schenley Park is the Carnegie Institute, with its new main building, dedicated in April (11, 12, and 13), 1907, with imposing ceremonies which were attended by several hundred prominent men from America and Europe. This building, which is about six hundred feet long and four hundred feet wide, contains a library, an art gallery, halls of architecture and sculpture, a museum, and a hall of music; while the Carnegie Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings near by. It is built in the later Renaissance style, being very simple and yet beautiful. Its exterior is of Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish is largely in marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought from every famous quarry in the world. In its great entrance hall is a series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander, a distinguished son of Pittsburgh. The library, in which the institution had its beginning in 1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven important branches, and one hundred and seventy-seven stations for the distribution of books. Mr. Edwin H. Anderson inaugurated the library at the time of its creation, and, after several years of successful service, was followed by Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins, and he by Mr. Harrison W. Craver, who is now the efficient librarian. The Fine Arts department contains many casts of notable works of architecture and sculpture, sufficient to carry the visitor in fancy through an almost unbroken development from the earliest times in which man began to produce beautiful structures to the present day. It is now the aim of this department to develop its galleries on three lines: first, to gather early American paintings from the very beginning of art in this country; second, to acquire such portraits of eminent men as will, in the passage of years, make these halls to some extent a national portrait gallery; and, third, to obtain such pieces of contemporary art as will lead to the formation of a thoroughly representative collection of modern painting. The Art Gallery is already rich in this latter purpose, and is renowned for its annual competitive exhibits which are open to the artists of all countries for prizes offered by the Carnegie Institute. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this department his ripest and best work. The Museum embraces sections of paleontology, mineralogy, vertebrate and invertebrate zoölogy, entomology, botany, comparative anatomy, archæology, numismatics, ceramics, textiles, transportation, carvings in wood and ivory, historical collections, the useful arts, and biological sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology is particularly noteworthy as it has extended the boundaries of knowledge through its many explorations in the western fossil fields. The success of the Museum is largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr. W. J. Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a symphony orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ twice every week by a capable performer. When the orchestra began its work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for three years, who was followed by Victor Herbert, for three years, and then came Emil Paur, who is now in charge. The Technical Schools embrace a School of Applied Science, a School for Apprentices and Journeymen, a School of Applied Design, and a School for Women, and already possess a capable faculty of one hundred and fifteen members, and a student body numbering 1,916. Dr. Arthur A. Hamerschlag is an enthusiastic and capable director of this educational scheme. The Institute is governed by a Board of Trustees, of which William N. Frew is President, Robert Pitcairn, Vice President, Samuel Harden Church, Secretary, and James H. Reed, Treasurer. Charles C. Mellor is chairman of the Museum committee, John Caldwell, of the Fine Arts committee, George A. Macbeth, of the Library committee, and William McConway, of the Technical Schools committee. [Illustration: Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park] The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the Carnegie Institute has become one of the most notable platform occasions in America, made so by the illustrious men who participate in the exercises. Some of these distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost among British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor; Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat, and Whitelaw Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication of the new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed all previous efforts, being marked by the assembling of an illustrious group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the festival altogether beyond precedent. On that occasion there came to Pittsburgh, as the guests of the Institute, from France, Dr. Leonce Bénédite, Director Musée du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the Hague Court of Arbitration; Dr. Paul Doumer, late Governor-General of Cochin China, and Dr. Camille Enlart, Director of the Trocadero Museum; from Germany, upon the personal suggestion of his Majesty, Emperor William II, His Excellency Lieutenant-General Alfred von Loewenfeld, Adjutant-General to his Majesty the Emperor; Colonel Gustav Dickhuth, Lecturer on Military Science to the Royal Household; Dr. Ernst von Ihne, Hof-Architekt Sr. Maj. d. Kaisers; Dr. Reinhold Koser, Principal Director of the Prussian State Archives, and Prof. Dr. Fritz Schaper, sculptor; from Great Britain, Mr. William Archer, author and critic; Sir Robert S. Ball, Director of Cambridge Observatory; Dr. C. F. Moberly Bell, manager London "Times"; Sir Robert Cranston, late Lord Provost of Edinburgh; Sir Edward Elgar, composer; Mr. James Currie Macbeth, Provost of Dunfermline; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, Secretary Zoölogical Society of London; Sir William Henry Preece, Consulting Engineer to the G. P. O. and Colonies; Dr. John Rhys, Principal of Jesus College, University of Oxford; Dr. Ernest S. Roberts, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University; Mr. William Robertson, Member Dunfermline Trust; Dr. John Ross, Chairman Dunfermline Trust, and Dr. William T. Stead, editor "Review of Reviews"; and from Holland, Jonkheer R. de Marees van Swinderen, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, and Dr. Joost Marius Willem van der Poorten-Schwartz ("Maarten Maartens"), author. [Illustration: Entrance to Highland Park] Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid Institute, with its school system, at a cost already approximating twenty million dollars, and he must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying ground for the cultured and artistic life of the community. The progress made each year goes by leaps and bounds; so much so that we might well employ the phrase used by Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its starting-point, and to-morrow will be its goal." The Institute has truly a splendid mission. III The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770 and incorporated by the Legislature in 1787 under the name Pittsburgh Academy. In 1819 the name was changed to the Western University of Pennsylvania, but, holding to the narrower scope of a college, it did not really become a university until 1892, when it formed the Department of Medicine by taking over the Western Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1895 the Departments of Law and Pharmacy were added and women were for the first time admitted. In 1896 the Department of Dentistry was established. In 1908 (July 11th) the name was changed to the University of Pittsburgh. The several departments of the University are at present (1908) located in different parts of the city, but a new site of forty-three acres has been acquired near Schenley Park on which it is planned to bring them all together. These new plans have been drawn under the direction of the chancellor, Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, whose faith in the merit of his cause is bound to remove whole mountains of financial difficulties. The University embraces a College and Engineering School, a School of Mines, a Graduate Department, a Summer School, Evening Classes, Saturday Classes, besides Departments of Astronomy, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry. It now has a corps of one hundred and fifty-one instructors and a body of 1,138 students. IV The author ventures to repeat in this little book a suggestion which has been made by him several times, looking to a working coöperation or even a closer bond of union between the Carnegie Institute and the University of Pittsburgh. In an address delivered at the Carnegie Institute on Founder's Day, 1908, the author made the following remarks on this subject: The temptation to go a little further into the future first requires the acknowledgment which St. Paul made when he wrote of marriage: "I speak not by authority, but by sufferance." There will soon begin to rise on these adjacent heights the first new buildings of the Western University (now University of Pittsburgh), conceived in the classic spirit of Greece and crowning that hill like a modern Acropolis. With its charter dating back one hundred and twenty-five years the University is already venerable in this land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the practical benevolence of our people, some working basis of union can be effected between that institution and this? Here we have painting, and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a wonderfully rich scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. We have these fast-growing Technical Schools. And yet the entire scheme seems to be lacking something which marks its unfinished state. The Technical Schools do not and should not teach languages, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the old learned professions, but these must always rest in the University. Should not one school thus supplement the other? And then, the students on each side of this main building would find available here those great collections which, if properly demonstrated, would give them a larger opportunity for systematic culture than could be offered by any other community in the world. For we should no longer permit these great departments of the fine arts and of the sciences to remain in a passive state, but they should all be made the means of active instruction from masterful professors. Music, its theory, composition, and performance on every instrument should be taught where demonstrations could be made with the orchestra and the organ. Successful painters and sculptors, the elected members of the future faculty, should fix their studios near the Institute and teach painting and sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris or Munich. Architecture should thrive by the hand of its trained votaries, while science should continue to reveal the secrets of her most attractive mysteries. Then, as the ambitious youths of the ancient world came to Athens to obtain the purest culture of that age, so would our modern youths, who are already in the Carnegie Technical Schools from twenty-six States, continue to come to Pittsburgh to partake of the most comprehensive scheme of education which the world would obtain. Believing firmly in the achieving power of hopeful thought, I pray you think on this. [Illustration: The Carnegie Institute] V In the East End is the Pennsylvania College for Women (Presbyterian; chartered in 1869), which has one hundred and two students. On the North Side (Allegheny) are the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian; founded in 1825), which has six instructors and sixty-one students; the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian; opened in 1827), with sixty-four students and twelve instructors, and a library of 34,000 volumes; and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (founded in 1856). There are five high schools and a normal academy and also the following private academies: Pittsburgh Academy, for both boys and girls; East Liberty Academy, for boys; Lady of Mercy Academy, for girls and for boys in the lower grades; the Stuart-Mitchell School, for girls; the Gleim School, for girls; the Thurston School, for girls; and the Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy. The Phipps Conservatory (horticulture), the largest in America, and the Hall of Botany are in Schenley Park and were built by Mr. Henry Phipps. There is an interesting zoölogical garden in Highland Park which was founded by Mr. Christopher L. Magee. The Pittsburgh "Gazette," founded July 29, 1786, and consolidated with the Pittsburgh "Times" (1879) in 1906 as the "Gazette Times," is one of the oldest newspapers west of the Alleghany Mountains. Other prominent newspapers of the city are the "Chronicle Telegraph" (1841); "Post" (1842); "Dispatch" (1846); "Leader" (1870; Sunday, 1864); "Press" (1883); and the "Sun" (1906). There are also two German dailies, the "Volksblatt und Freiheits-Freund" and the "Pittsburgher Beobachter," one Slavonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, besides journals devoted to society and the iron, building, and glass trades. The publishing house of the United Presbyterian Church is located here, and there are several periodical journals published by the various religious bodies. The city has some very attractive public buildings and office buildings and an unusual number of beautiful churches. The Allegheny County Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished granite. [Illustration: Court-house] The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of its sick, injured, or insane, ten of which have schools for the training of nurses. There is the Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part maintained by the State, where trades are taught as a part of the educational system. The State also helps to maintain the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind, the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the Home for Colored Children. Among other charitable institutions maintained by the city are the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Destitute Women and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh Association for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Children, and Aged Persons. Under the management of Women's Clubs several playgrounds are open to children during the summer, where competent teachers give instruction to children over ten years of age in music, manual training, sewing, cooking, nature study, and color work. The water supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the Allegheny River and pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which is Herron Hill, five hundred and thirty feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant for the filtration of the entire supply is under construction and a part of it is in operation. In this last year the Legislature has passed an act prohibiting the deposit of sewage material in the rivers of the State, and this tardy action in the interest of decency and health will stop the ravages of death through epidemic fevers caught from poisoned streams. VI Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human precedent. [Illustration: Zoölogical Garden in Highland Park] If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer, they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures, for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being known throughout the world. Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John W. Alexander are the best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only negro painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W. Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole, Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor. Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served Pittsburgh ably in the National Government. VII And how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends--can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?" asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But that may have been his dinner or the cigar. Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department, and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and titles; and while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence only. VIII Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local pen is Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the field of popular science "The Butterfly Book"--an author who knows every butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness, although it really seems a superfluous thesis, for Mr. Carnegie's best exposition of the gospel of wealth unfolds itself in two thousand noble buildings erected all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in those splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education Fund; the Washington Carnegie Institution for Scientific Research; the Pension for College Professors, which has so much advanced the dignity and security of teaching; the Pension for Aged and Disabled Workmen; the Hero Fund, with its provision of aid to the injured and to the worthy poor; the many college endowments; and, greater than all, the Peace Palace at The Hague, through which he will make his appeal to the conscience of civilization during all time to organize and extend among the nations of the earth that system of arbitrated justice which has been already established within the borders of each State. [Illustration: Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted)] But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in this arbitrary fashion, those who come at the end will think I mean the last to be least. Therefore, let me pursue the theme indiscriminately, as I meant to do all along had not that same Pegasus, in spite of my defiance, run away at the very start. IX The first Pittsburgh book that I can find in my hurried review of the field is "Modern Chivalry," by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. The third volume of this book was printed in Pittsburgh in 1796, the first two having been published in Philadelphia. This writer's son, Henry M. Brackenridge, was also an author, having written "History of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain," "History of the Western Insurrection called the Whisky Insurrection, 1794," "Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri, Performed in 1811," "Recollections of Persons and Places in the West," and several other books. Neville B. Craig wrote a "History of Pittsburgh," published in 1851, which is still a work of standard reference. Another "History of Pittsburgh" was brought out some ten years ago under the editorship of Erasmus Wilson, who has also published a volume of "Quiet Observations," selected from his newspaper essays. But the most important, painstaking, and accurate "History of Pittsburgh" which has yet been published is the one by Miss Sarah H. Killikelly, published in 1906. Another book of hers, "Curious Questions," is an entertaining collection of many queer things that have occurred in the world's history. Robert P. Nevin wrote "Black Robes" and "Three Kings." Professor Samuel P. Langley was for many years in charge of the Allegheny Observatory and won fame while here as a writer on scientific subjects. Also the first models of his flying machine were made while he was a resident in Pittsburgh. W. M. Darlington wrote "Fort Pitt" and edited the journals of Christopher Gist, who was Washington's scout when the Father of his Country first came to Pittsburgh. "Two Men in the West" is the title of a little book on travel by W. R. Halpin. Arthur G. Burgoyne, a newspaper writer, has published "All Sorts of Pittsburghers." George Seibel has written three beautiful plays which have not yet been produced because the modern stage managers seem to prefer to produce unbeautiful plays. One of these is "Omar Khayyam," which was accepted and paid for by Richard Mansfield, who died before he could arrange for its production. Another is "Christopher Columbus," and he has just finished an important tragedy entitled "OEdipus," dealing artistically with a horrifying story, which has been accepted for early production by Mr. Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph on "The Mormon Problem." Charles P. Shiras wrote the "Redemption of Labor," and a drama, "The Invisible Prince," which was played in the old Pittsburgh Theater. Bartley Campbell was the most prolific writer of plays that Pittsburgh has yet produced, and his melodramas have been played in nearly every theater in America. H. G. Donnelly, well known as a playwright, was also a Pittsburgher. Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart is a young author who is coming to the front as a writer of successful dramas, stories, and books. Her plays, "The Double Life" and "By Order of the Court" have been produced, and a novel, "The Circular Staircase," has just appeared from the press. My own little play, "The Brayton Episode," was played by Miss Sarah Truax at the Alvin Theater, Pittsburgh, June 24, 1903, and by Miss Eleanor Moretti at the Fifth Avenue Theater, New York, January 15, 1905. [Illustration: Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women] Rev. W. G. Mackay wrote tales of history under the title of "The Skein of Life." Father Morgan M. Sheedy and Rev. Dr. George Hodges, who used to strive together in Pittsburgh to surpass each other in tearing down the walls of religious prejudice that keep people out of the Kingdom of Heaven, have each given us several books on social and religious topics composed on the broad and generous lines of thought which only such sensible teachers know how to employ. Among Dr. Hodges' books are "Christianity between Sundays," the "Heresy of Cain," and "Faith and Social Service"; while Father Sheedy has published "Social Topics." That devoted student of nature, Dr. Benjamin Cutler Jillson, wrote a book called "Home Geology," and another, "River Terraces In and Near Pittsburgh," which carry the fancy into far-off antiquity. Professor Daniel Carhart, of the University of Pittsburgh, has given us "Field Work for Civil Engineers" and "Treatise on Plane Surveying." From J. Heron Foster we have "A Full Account of the Great Fire at Pittsburgh in 1845." Adelaide M. Nevin published "Social Mirror," and Robert P. Nevin "Poems," a book with mood and feeling. Dr. Stephen A. Hunter, a clergyman, is the author of an erudite work entitled "Manual of Therapeutics and Pharmacy in the Chinese Language." Walter Scott, who, after taking a course at the University of Edinburgh, came to Pittsburgh in 1826, was a very distinguished preacher and author. His greatest reputation was gained in his work in association with Alexander Campbell in establishing the principles of the now mighty congregation known as the Christian, or Disciples, Church. His books are: "The Gospel Restored," "The Great Demonstration," and "The Union of Christians." A memoir of Professor John L. Lincoln, by his son, W. L. Lincoln, gives a record of a life so spent that many men were truly made better thereby. Father Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful monographs on the early history of this region, and he is one of the first authorities in that field. He has also composed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products." Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from his heart," and some of them hold a place in literature. His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes the deep spirit of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh. Mr. Lee S. Smith, now (1908) president of the Chamber of Commerce, has published an interesting book entitled "Through Egypt to Palestine," describing his travels in the Orient. Our men who have written most knowingly on industrial topics are James M. Swank and Joseph D. Weeks. A young writer, Francis Hill, has published a very readable boys' story, "Outlaws of Horseshoe Hole," and Arthur Sanwood Pier has published "The Pedagogues," a novel satirizing the Harvard Summer School. Rev. Henry C. McCook's very successful novel, "The Latimers," is an engaging study of the whisky insurrection of early Pittsburgh days. Thomas B. Plimpton is remembered by some as a writer of verse. Judge J. E. Parke and Judge Joseph Mellon have written historical essays. Josiah Copley wrote "Gathering Beulah." Logan Conway is the author of "Money and Banking." He has also written a series of essays on "Evolution." Miss Cara Reese has published a little story entitled "And She Got All That." Miss Willa Sibert Cather has just published her "Poems." Charles McKnight's "Old Fort Duquesne; or Captain Jack the Scout" is a stirring book that has fired the hearts of many boys who love a good tale. William Harvey Brown's story, "On the South African Frontier," was written and published while he was a curator in the Carnegie Museum. Pittsburgh has produced a group of standard schoolbooks--always of the very first importance in the literature of any country. Among these are the books by Andrew Burt and Milton B. Goff, and a series of readers by Lucius Osgood. [Illustration: Design of University of Pittsburgh] Henry J. Ford's "Rise and Growth of American Politics" is a well-studied work. Henry A. Miller's "Money and Bimetallism" is a conscientious statement of his investigations of that question. Judge Marshall Brown has written two books, "Bulls and Blunders" and "Wit and Humor of Famous Sayings." Frank M. Bennett's "Steam Navy of the United States" is a useful technical work. L. C. Van Noppen, after pursuing his studies of Dutch literature in Holland, came to Pittsburgh and wrote a translation of Vondel's great Dutch classical poem "Lucifer." Vondel published the original of this work some ten or fifteen years before Milton's "Paradise Lost" appeared, and critics have tried to show by the deadly parallel column that Milton drew the inspiration for some of his highest poetical flights from Vondel. It is probable, however, that Milton was unconscious of the existence of Vondel's work. S. L. Fleishman has translated the poems of Heine with tenderness and feeling. Ella Boyce Kirk has written several educational pamphlets. Morgan Neville published a poem, "Comparisons." From that Prince Rupert of the astronomers, Professor James E. Keeler, who has made more than one fiery dash across the borderland of known science, we have "Spectroscopic Observations of Nebulæ." That truly gifted woman, Margaretta Wade Deland, was born in Pittsburgh in 1857 and resided here until her marriage in 1880. Among her books are "John Ward, Preacher," "The Story of a Child," "Philip and His Wife," and "Old Chester Tales." Jane Grey Swisshelm wrote the recollections of an eventful experience under the title "Half a Century of Life." Nicholas Biddle composed a studious "Life of Sebastian Cabot," and another book, "Modern Chivalry." Mrs. Annie Wade has written poems and stories. The city has fathered many able writers against slavery and intemperance, among whom was William H. Burleigh, who wrote "Our Country." William B. Conway wrote "Cottage on the Cliff." From Rev. John Black we have "The Everlasting Kingdom," and Rev. John Tassey published a "Life of Christ." William G. Johnston's interesting book, "Experiences of a Forty-niner," was published in 1892. John Reed Scott has published two successful novels, "The Colonel of the Red Hussars" and "Beatrix of Clare." Martha Fry Boggs wrote "A Romance of New Virginia." Then there are "Polly and I," by Cora Thurmston; "Free at Last" and "Emma's Triumph," by Mrs. Jane S. Collins; "Her Brother Donnard," by Emily E. Verder; "Essays," by Anna Pierpont Siviter; "Human Progress," by Thomas S. Blair; "Steel: A Manual for Steel Users," a useful monograph by William Metcalf; and "Memoir of John B. Gibson," by Colonel Thomas P. Roberts. Then there are some poor things from my own pen, if, in order to make the record complete, I may add them at the end--"Oliver Cromwell: A History" (1894); "John Marmaduke: A Romance of the English Invasion of Ireland in 1649" (1897); "Beowulf: A Poem" (1901); "Penruddock of the White Lambs," a novel (1903); "The Brayton Episode," a play (1903); "The Sword of the Parliament," a play (1907); and this, "A Short History of Pittsburgh" (1908). And such is the list. Imperfect though it may be, it is the best that I have been able to compose. But how large and full the measure of it all is! History, biography, philosophy, religion, nature, science, criticism, government, coinage and finance, art, poetry, the drama, travel, adventure, fiction, society, education, all avenues of human activity, all themes of human speculation, have been covered in books written with more or less interest and power by men and women of Pittsburgh. Much of this volume of production is ephemeral, but some of it on the other hand is undoubtedly a permanent addition to the world's literature. X One word more before leaving this subject. Literature has not until recently enjoyed that degree of attention from the public press of Pittsburgh which it deserves. It ought to be the concern of every human unit in the nation to receive honest guidance in the development of literature; for literature, once again, is the written record of thought and action. Mobs will melt away when the units in the mob begin to think, and they will think when they read. Then will the law be paramount, and then will our institutions be safe. Thousands of our serious people annually subscribe for literary reviews of one kind or another in order that they may follow the rapid expansion of the written record of the thought and action of the world, when the whole department might be covered so admirably by our daily newspapers. Should not the newspaper give each household practically all it needs in criticism and information outside of the printed books themselves? How easily we could spare some of the glaring and exaggerated headlines over the daily record of crime, misconduct, and false leadership, which inflame the mind and the passions with evil fire, and how joyfully we would welcome instead an intelligent, conscientious, comprehensive, discriminating, piquant--in short, a masterful discussion from day to day of the written record of the thought and action of the world as unfolded in its statesmanship, its oratory, its education, its heroism, and its literature. [Illustration: Allegheny Observatory, University of Pittsburgh] XI And so my little story of Pittsburgh comes to an end. It is the story of a great achievement in the building of a city, and the development of a community within its boundaries. I have sometimes heard a sneer at Pittsburgh as a place where undigested wealth is paramount. I have never beheld the city in that character. On the contrary, I have, on frequent occasions, seen the assemblage of men native here where a goodly section of the brain and power of the nation was represented. There is much wealth here, but the dominant spirit of those who have it is not a spirit of pride and luxury and arrogance. There is much poverty here, but it is the poverty of hope which effort and opportunity will transform into affluence. And especially is there here a spirit of good fellowship, of help one to another, and of pride in the progress of the intellectual life. And with all of these comes a growth toward the best civic character which in its aggregate expression is probably like unto the old Prophet's idea of that righteousness which exalteth a nation. [Illustration: Phipps Conservatory, Schenley Park] INDEX Adams, Gabriel, Mayor, 51 Alexander, John W., 91, 106 Allegheny, made county-seat, 40; county-seat changed to Pittsburgh, 40; annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Allegheny Cemetery, 90 Allegheny County, erection of, 40; iron and steel products of, 84 Allegheny Observatory, 84, 99 Allegheny River improved, 82 Allegheny Theological Seminary, 102 Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, 71, 78 Amherst, General, captures Fort Frontenac, 29 Anderson, Edwin H., 91 Archer, Frederick, 94 Archer, William, 100 Armstrong, Colonel, raises English flag over Fort Duquesne, 29 Artists, list of, 106 Astronomical Observatory, 91, 106 Authors, list of, 112 Ball, Sir Robert S., 96 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, 49, 60, 81 Barker, Joseph, Mayor, 51 Baron, Father, 29 Beatty, John W., 92, 108 Beatty, Rev. Mr., 29 Beaujeu, Captain, attacks Braddock's army, 22; killed, 23 Bell, C. F. Moberly, 96 Bénédite, Leonce, 95 Bennett, Frank M., 120 Biddle, Nicholas, 121 Bingham, William, Mayor, 51 Black, John, 121 Blackmore, James, Mayor, 52 Blair, Francis P., 55 Blair, Thomas S., 121 "Blockhouse," built by Bouquet, 34; occupied by Dr. John Connelly, 37; used by Colonial troops in Revolution, 37 Boggs, Martha Fry, 121 Bouquet, Colonel Henry, builds "Blockhouse," 34; leads army at Battle of Bushy Run, 35 Brackenridge, Henry M., 112 Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 112 Braddock, General Edward, marches upon Fort Duquesne, 21; wounded in battle, 24; his army defeated, 24; death of, 25 Braddock's defeat, effect of on Colonies, 25 Brashear, John A., 85 Breckinridge, John C., 57 Broadhead, Colonel, 38 Brown, A. M., Recorder, 52 Brown, Joseph, 70 Brown, J. O., Recorder, 52 Brown, Marshall, 120 Brown, William Harvey, 118 Brush, Jared M., Mayor, 52 Bryce, Right Honorable James, 95 Buchanan, James, 57 Burgoyne, Arthur G., 113 Burleigh, William H., 121 Burt, Andrew, 118 Bushy Run, Battle of, 35 Caldwell, John, 94 Calvary Cemetery, 90 Campbell, Alexander, 117 Campbell, Bartley, 114 Carhart, Daniel, 116 Carnegie, Andrew, 85, 96, 106, 110 Carnegie Institute, 91, 99 Carnegie Steel Company, 71, 77 Carnegie Technical Schools, 91, 94 Cassatt, Alexander Johnston, 85 Cassatt, Mary, 106 Cather, Willa Sibert, 118 Celeron, Louis, 16 Charitable institutions, 103 Chatham, Earl of (William Pitt), 25, 29, 37 Church, Samuel, 83 Church, Samuel Harden, 94, 114, 121 Civil War, 53 Clarke, Thomas S., 123 Clay, Henry, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Cleveland, Grover, 95 Coffin, William A., 108 Collins annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Collins, Jane S., 121 Composers, list of, 106 Constant, Baron d'Estournelles de, 95 Constitutional Convention, 53 Contrecoeur, Captain, visited by Washington, 17; his reply received by English, 19; captures fort at Pittsburgh and names it Fort Duquesne, 20 Conway, Logan, 118 Conway, William B., 121 Copley, Josiah, 118 Country Club, 90 Court-house, architect of, 103; cost of, 103 Craig, Neville B., 113 Cranston, Sir Robert, 96 Craver, Harrison W., 92 Dalzell, John, 108 Darlington, W. M., 113 Darragh, John, Mayor, 51 Daughters of American Revolution, 34 Davis Island Dam, 82 Dayton, William L., 57 Defiance, Fort, built by General Wayne, 42 Deland, Margaretta Wade, 120 Denny, Ebenezer, Mayor, 51 Denny, Governor, 29 Dickens, Charles, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Dickhuth, Colonel Gustav, 96 Diehl, William J., Mayor, 52 Dinwiddie, Governor, sends Washington to Pittsburgh, 14 Donnelly, H. G., 114 Doumer, Paul, 95 Duckwell, E. W., 117 Dunfermline, 28 Dunmore, Governor, opens land office in Pittsburgh, 35 Duquesne, Fort, built and named by French, 20; captured by English, 29; blown up and burned by French, 29; taken possession of by English, 29; name changed to Fort Pitt, 29 East Liberty Academy, 102 Ecuyer, Simon, leads attack on Fort Pitt, 35 Elgar, Sir Edward, 96 Emancipation Proclamation, 53 England, war with France, 15 Enlart, Camille, 95 Fang, Wu Ting, 95 Farragut, Admiral, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Fleishman, S. L., 120 Forbes, General, captures Fort Duquesne, 14; names captured fort Pittsburgh, 14, 29; his letter to Pitt announcing capture and renaming of Fort Duquesne, 29 Ford, Henry J., 118 Ford, Henry P., Mayor, 52 Foster, J. Heron, 116 Foster, Stephen C., 106 Founder's Day, 95 France, war with England, 15 Franklin, Benjamin, 21 Fremont, John C., 57 French Revolution, 43 Frew, William N., 94 Frick, Henry C., 72, 76, 77, 85 Frontenac, Fort, captured by General Amherst, 29 Fulton, Andrew, Mayor, 52 Gilder, Richard Watson, 95 Gist, Christopher, accompanies Washington to Pittsburgh, 14; hardships of journey to Fort Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19; saves Washington from drowning, 19 Gleim School, 102 Goff, Milton B., 118 Gourley, Henry I., Mayor, 52 Grant, General U. S., visits Pittsburgh, 58 Grant, Major, defeated at Grant's Hill and killed, 28 Great Meadows, Battle of, 20 Greeley, Horace, 55, 56, 57 Greensburg, 40 Guthrie, George W., Mayor, 52 Guthrie, John B., Mayor, 51 Guthrie, P. N., 70 Guyesuta, 17 Hailman, Johanna Woodwell, 108 Hall of Botany, 102 Halpin, W. R., 113 Hamerschlag, Arthur A., 94 Hancock, John, 38 Hand, General Edward, plans expedition against Indians, 38 Hay, Alexander, Mayor, 51 Hays, W. B., Recorder and Mayor, 52 Heinz Company, 84 Herbert, Victor, 94 Herron Hill Reservoir, 105 Herron, John, Mayor, 51 Herr's Island, 19 Hetzel, George, 108 Highland Park, 90 Hill, Francis, 117 Hodges, George, 116 Holland, W. J., 94, 110 Homestead Steel Works, 68 Homestead strike, 71 Homewood Cemetery, 90 Hopkins, Anderson H., 91 Hospitals, 103 Howard, William J., Mayor, 51 Hunter, Stephen A., 116 Ihne, Ernst von, 96 Indians cede land about Pittsburgh to Colonies, 35 Irvine, General William, placed in command of Fort Pitt, 39 Irwin, William W., Mayor, 51 Jackson, George N., 56 Jefferson, Joseph, 95 Jillson, Benjamin Cutler, 116 Johns, Clarence M., 108 Johnson, President, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Johnston, Governor, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Johnston, William G., 121 Johnstown Flood, 58 Jumonville, death of, 20 Keeler, James E., 120 Kensington Iron Works, 83 Kerr, William, Mayor, 51 Keyashuta, Indian chief, 17 Killikelly, Sarah H., 113 King, John A., 55 Kirk, Ella Boyce, 120 Knox, Philander C., 108 Koser, Reinhold, 96 Kossuth, Louis, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Lady of Mercy Academy, 102 Lafayette, Fort, built, 42 Lafayette, General, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Lambing, A. A., 117 Langley, Samuel P., 113 Lawman, Jaspar, 108 Lawrenceville annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Leboeuff, Fort, 17 Leisser, Martin B., 108 Lexington, Battle of, 37 Liberty annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Liddell, Robert, Mayor, 52 Ligneris, Captain, surrenders Fort Duquesne, 29 Lincoln, Abraham, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Lincoln, John L., 117 Lincoln, W. L., 117 Little, William, Mayor, 51 Loewenfeld, His Excellency Lieutenant General Alfred von, 95 Logstown, storehouses built by Ohio Company, 16; captured by French, 16 Louisburg, capture of, 28 Lowrie, Walter B., Mayor, 51 Lowry, James, Mayor, 51 Lyon, Robert W., Mayor, 52 "Maarten Maartens," 96 Macbeth, George A., 94 Macbeth, James Currie, 96 Mackay, W. G., 116 Magee, C. L., 102 Mail route to Philadelphia established, 40 Mansfield, Robert, 114 Mantel, Robert, 114 Mayflower, landing of, 53 McCallin, William, Mayor, 52 McCarthy, William C., Mayor, 52 McCarthy, W. L., Mayor, 52 McClintock, Jonas R., Mayor, 51 McConway, William, 95 McCook, Henry C., 118 McCormick, Samuel Black, 99 McCrea, James, 78 McKenna, Bernard, Mayor, 52 McKinley, William, 95 McKnight, Charles, 118 Mellon, Joseph, 118 Mellor, Charles C., 94 Metcalf, William, 121 Miller, Henry A., 118 Milton, John, 120 Mitchell, P. Chalmers, 107 Monongahela River improved, 83 Monroe, President, visited Pittsburgh, 58 Montcalm, death of, 31 Moretti, Eleanor, 114 Morgan, Colonel George, 38 Morley, John, 95 Murray, Magnus M., Mayor, 51 Necessity, Fort, built by Washington, 21; captured by French, 21 Neville, Morgan, 120 Nevin, Adelaide M., 116 Nevin, Ethelbert, 106 Nevin, Robert P., 113, 116 Newspapers, list of, 40, 113 New York Central Lines, 60, 81 Niagara, Fort, fall of, 31 Nixon Theater, 103 Oakland annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 O'Hara, James, 84 Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad, 49 Ohio Company formed, 16 Osgood, Lucius, 118 Parke, J. E., 118 Paur, Emil, 94 Pearson, A. L., 63 Peebles annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Penn family, purchased Pittsburgh region from Indians, 39; their title annulled, 39 Pennsylvania, dispute with Virginia settled, 40 Pennsylvania and Ohio R. R. Co. incorporated, 48 Pennsylvania Canal, proposed, 47; construction authorized, 47; canal completed, 48; termini of, 48; portage railroad, 48; cost, 48; sold to Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 48; abandoned, 49 Pennsylvania College for Women, 102 Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 48, 49, 60, 81, 85 Pennsylvania, Western University of. See University of Pittsburgh Pettigrew, Samuel, Mayor, 51 Phipps Conservatory, 102 Phipps, Henry, 85, 102, 106 Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 118 Pinkerton, Robert A., 76 Pitcairn, Robert, 94 Pitt annexed to Pittsburgh, 52 Pitt, Fort, building of first fort, 30; building of second fort, 31; abandoned, 36; mutiny at, 39; General William Irvine put in command, 39; first court held, 40 Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 25, 29, 37 Pittsburgh, site selected for fort, 13, 14; site claimed by Virginia, 14; said to have been named by Washington, 14; French attempt to make settlement, 16; explored by Louis Celeron, 16; Washington's first impressions of, 17; first permanent white settlement, 20; captured by Contrecoeur, 20; named Fort Duquesne, 20; captured from French by English, 29; name changed to Pittsburgh, 29; first Fort Pitt built, 30; second Fort Pitt built, 31; attacked by Indians under Simon Ecuyer, 35; land ceded to Colonies by Indians,35; land office opened, 35; made county seat, 40; first court held, 40; ducking-stool erected, 40; size of in 1786, 40; mail route to Philadelphia established, 40; new fort built and named Fort Lafayette, 42; town laid out, 50; incorporated as a borough, 50; chartered as a city, 50; new charter adopted in 1887, 50; "Ripper" charter adopted, 50; list of mayors, 51; first Republican Convention, 53; distinguished visitors, 58; great fire, 58; railroad riots, 59; consolidation of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, 52; present population, 79, 81; tonnage compared with other cities, 82; surrounded by rich coal and gas fields, 83; imports in 1907, 83; manufacture of iron begun, 83; iron and steel statistics, 83, 84, 86; value of various products, 84; first glass works built, 84; rank as a glass-producing center, 84; as a banking center, 85; tax valuation of property, 86; public buildings, 103; hospitals, 103; charitable institutions, 103; water supply, 105 Pittsburgh Academy, 41, 98, 102 Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad, 49 Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Canal, 81 Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, 49 Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, 49 Pittsburgh Country Club, 90 Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, 49 Pittsburgh Harbor, 82 Pittsburgh Orchestra, 94, 106 Pittsburgh riots, 59 Pittsburgh, University of, 41, 98 Plimpton, Thomas B., 118 Pontiac plans attack on whites, 34 Poole, Eugene A., 108 Poorten-Schwartz, Joost Marius Willem van der ("Maarten Maartens"), 96 Preece, Sir William Henry, 96 Quebec, fall of, 31 Realf, Richard, 117 Rebellion, War of, 53 Reed, James H., 94 Reese, Cara, 118 Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 102 Reid, Whitelaw, 95 Reinhart, Charles Stanley, 106 Republican Association, 54 Republican Party, founding of, 52; first Convention, 55; first candidates, 57 Rhys, John, 96 Richardson, H. H., 103 Riddle, Robert M., Mayor, 51 Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 114 "Ripper" charter, 50 Riverview Park, 90 Roberts, E. S., 96 Roberts, Thomas P., 121 Robertson, William, 96 Ross, John, 96 St. Clair, General Arthur, sent against Indians, 42; defeated, 42 Sassoonan, 16 Sawyer, B. C., Mayor, 51 Schaper, Fritz, 96 Schenley, Mrs. Mary, 106 Schenley Park, 90, 91 Scott, Walter, 116 Seibel, George, 114 Semple, Samuel, 35 Seward, William H., Secretary of State, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Sheedy, Morgan M., 116 Shiras, Charles R., 114 Singer, William H., 108 Siviter, Anna Pierpont, 121 Slavery, introduction into United States, 53; abolished, 53 Sloane, William H., 110 Smith, Lee S., 117 Snowden, John M., Mayor, 51 Stanwix, General, builds new Fort Pitt, 31 Stead, William T., 107 Stuart-Mitchell School, 102 Swank, James M., 117 Swinderen, R. de Marees van, 96 Swisshelm, Jane Grey, 121 Tanner, Henry O., 108 Tassey, John, 121 Taylor, President, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Thaw, William, 106 Thomson, James, Mayor, 51 Thurmston, Cora, 121 Thurston School, 102 Ticonderoga, capture of, 28 Trent, Captain William, established first permanent white settlement in Pittsburgh, 20 Truax, Sarah, 114 Turtle Creek, 19 Uniontown, fort at, 21 United States Steel Corporation, 85 University of Pittsburgh, 41, 98 Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy, 102 Van Noppen, L. C., 120 Venango, 18 Verder, Emily E., 121 Virginia, claims site of Pittsburgh, 14; sends Washington to retake Fort Duquesne, 20; dispute with Pennsylvania settled, 40 Volz, Ferdinand E., Mayor, 51 Vondel, 120 Wabash R. R. Co., 49, 74 Wade, Annie, 121 Wales, Prince of, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Wall, A. Bryan, 108 Wall, Albert S., 108 Washington, George, the first Pittsburgher, 13; first visits Pittsburgh, 13, 17; his visits to Pittsburgh, 13, 14, 17, 35; said to have named Pittsburgh, 14; first impressions of site of Pittsburgh, 17; hardships of journey to Fort Leboeuff, 17, 18, 19; shot at by his Indian guide, 19; saved from drowning by Gist, 19; sent to retake Fort Duquesne, 20; directs the retreat of Braddock's army, 24; commands militia at Fort Duquesne, 28; last visit to Pittsburgh, 35; warns General St. Clair against Indians, 42; sends army to suppress whisky insurrection, 44 Wayne, Fort, built by General Wayne, 42 Wayne, General Anthony, sent against Indians, 42; builds Fort Defiance and Fort Wayne, 42; defeats Indians, 42 Weaver, Henry A., Mayor, 51 Webster, Daniel, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Weeks, Joseph D., 117 Welles, Gideon, Secretary of Navy, visits Pittsburgh, 58 Western Theological Seminary, 102 Western University of Pennsylvania. See University of Pittsburgh Westinghouse Company, 85 Westinghouse, George, 85 Whisky insurrection, 42 William II, Emperor of Germany, 101 Wilson, Erasmus, 113 Wilson, George, Mayor, 51 Wolfe, death of, 31 Woodwell, Joseph R., 108 Zoölogical garden, 102 Transcriber's notes: Page 30 (026.png) - Left spelling of Missisippi as is in quoted letter Index (026.png) - Corrected spelling of Breckinridge, John C. to match correct spelling as in text (based on Internet search) The name Rhys appears once in the text and once in the Index. In the print copy, there is a carat over the y which is not included in this version. The name Contrecoeur appears throughout the text with an oe ligature which is removed for this version. Similarly OEdipus appears once herein without the OE ligature. 
43259	----	[Illustration: Crest] [Illustration: PITTSBURGH IN 1817 From a sketch made by Mrs. E. C. Gibson, wife of James Gibson of the Philadelphia bar, while on their wedding tour.] PITTSBURGH IN 1816 COMPILED BY THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH ON THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GRANTING OF THE CITY CHARTER [Illustration: 181] PITTSBURGH CARNEGIE LIBRARY 1916 Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with underscores: _italics_. Preface This little book will interest the Pittsburgher of 1916 chiefly because the parts and pieces of which it is made were written by men who were living here or who passed this way in 1816. The three newspapers of the day--the Gazette, the Mercury, and the Commonwealth--have furnished, though somewhat sparingly, the items of local news. They have also furnished advertisements--these in greater abundance and variety. The men who were the tourists of the day in America, traveling by stage, wagon, boat, or on horseback, often made Pittsburgh a stopping place in their journey. Many of them wrote books, in which may be found two or three pages, or a chapter, on the city as it appeared at that time. It is from these books that the section "Impressions of early travelers" has been gathered. The date given with these extracts is the date of publication, but the period referred to in every case is between 1815 and 1817. In addition to these gleanings from contemporaries, a number of paragraphs from various histories of the city have been included. The sketches that have thus been bought together do not form a systematic or well proportioned description of the city; yet they may help, through their vivid pictures and first-hand impressions, to give some idea of life in Pittsburgh a century ago. Table of Contents Page THE NEW CITY 7 IMPRESSIONS OF EARLY TRAVELERS 13 UNITED STATES CENSUS 20 BUSINESS AND INDUSTRIES 21 TRAVELING EASTWARD 26 TAVERNS 30 STEAMBOATS AND RIVER TRAFFIC 31 FERRIES AND BRIDGES 40 THE NEWSPAPERS 42 CHURCHES 44 SCHOOLS 48 LIBRARIES 50 THE NEW BOOKS OF 1816 51 THE THEATRE 52 THE MORALS EFFICIENCY SOCIETY OF 1816 55 FOURTH OF JULY, 1816 55 POLICE 55 EAGLE FIRE COMPANY 56 WATER-SUPPLY 56 BANKS 57 POST-OFFICE 59 THE SUBURBS 60 COURTS 61 COUNTY ELECTIONS 61 THE STATE LEGISLATURE 62 SLAVERY 63 ADVERTISEMENTS FROM THE NEWSPAPERS OF 1816 64 1816 75 The New City A MEETING OF THE DEMOCRATICK REPUBLICANS OF THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH, will be held at the house of Captain Jacob Carmack, (sign of the _Turk's Head_, Wood-street,) this _evening_ (Tuesday June 25,) at 7 o'clock for the purpose of forming a _ticket_ for the select and common Councils of the City of Pittsburgh. _Commonwealth, June 25, 1816._ City Election A number of respectable citizens, desirous of preserving that harmony which has for several years past, so happily prevailed in the borough councils, and which is so essential to the prosperity of our infant city, have formed the following Ticket. They recommend it to the cool, dispassionate considerations of their fellow citizens; and they flatter themselves, that it will, on the day of the election, meet with a firm and honorable support. It is formed, as tickets of the kind ought to be, without respect to party. There can exist no possible ground for the absurdity, that party feuds and animosity should be called up on occasions like the present. Every consideration of public interest, and of the peace and good order of the city, forbids it.--Our city is as yet in its infancy.--Its government is to be organized, its ordinances framed, its police established, and its general policy devised. In accomplishing these important objects, great prudence, deliberation, forbearance, and the _undivided support of all classes of the citizens_, are essentially necessary. Hence arises the necessity of checking, in the bud, any and every attempt, coming from whatever quarter it may, which would have a tendency to sow disunion and distrust among the people. Actuated by these reasons, the following ticket is recommended to the free and independent voters. Their aid and co-operation is solicited in checking the evils which may arise out of party feuds. The gentlemen composing the ticket here recommended, have been chosen with due regard to their local situations; they are respectable in private life; they are well qualified for discharging the duties which will devolve upon them as members of the councils, and are all deeply interested in the growth, prosperity, and good order of the infant city. SELECT COUNCIL John Wrenshall, Benj. Bakewell, James Ross, Thomas Cromwell, John Hannen, E. Pentland, Dr. Geo. Stevenson, George Shiras, Robert Patterson. COMMON COUNCIL James Lea, Walter Forward, John Lyttle, Alex: Johnston, jr., Geo. Miltenberger, James Irwin, Richard Bowen, Mark Stackhouse, John W. Johnston, Paul Anderson, John P. Skelton, George Boggs, James R. Butler, John Caldwell, George Evans. _Mercury, June 29, 1816._ "Voters supported or opposed a candidate entirely according to their personal preferences. There were few newspapers and no political oratory to sway public sentiment. The United States was then passing through the 'era of good feeling,' which was renowned mainly for the absence of all political asperities. Had any question arisen which was fraught with political significance to the voters of this section the expression in and around Pittsburg would undoubtedly have been Democratic or in opposition to the Federalist doctrine. It took Pittsburg people a long time to forget that the excise tax, which brought about the Whiskey Insurrection, was a Federalist measure. The first question which arose to divide the people in bitter dispute came with the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1828." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ City Election The first Election under the Act Incorporating the City of Pittsburgh, was held on Tuesday last, when the following gentlemen were elected: SELECT COUNCIL James Ross, Dr. Geo. Stevenson, William Hays, John Roseburgh, Samuel Douglas, James Irwin, Mark Stackhouse, William Leckey, Richard Geary. COMMON COUNCIL William Wilkins, James R. Butler, John P. Shelton, A. Johnston, Jr., James S. Stevenson, James Brown, (B.) Paul Anderson, John W. Johnston, George Evans, John Caldwell, Richard Robinson, Thomas M'Kee, Daniel Hunter, John Carson, John W. Trembly. _Commonwealth, July 9, 1816._ The New Mayor Ebenezer Denny, esq. has been elected mayor of the city of Pittsburgh, _Ohio_.--This gentleman we believe is from Massachusetts and is highly respected for his integrity and patriotism. _Boston Yankee._ We congratulate the editor of the Yankee upon the knowledge of men and places, exhibited in the foregoing article. It has been a custom at the Eastward to censure and burlesque the people of Western Pennsylvania on account of their ignorance. Let the editor of the Yankee now blush at his own. Could it be believed that any man of common geographical knowledge--or who could have referred to Dr. Morse for information, (for on this subject _even Dr. Morse_ is correct) would have located Pittsburgh--a city containing ten thousand inhabitants--possessing a manufacturing capital of many millions--having three banking institutions, and a commerce extending to every part of the union--a place which has long been considered the emporium of the West, and which makes a more conspicuous figure in books of travels than even the Town of Notions itself;--could it, we ask, be believed, that such a place should be so little known or thought of in the town of Boston, as to be located in the state of Ohio? Mayor Denny possesses all the virtues that are attributed to him by the Yankee, and many more, that render him an ornament to the station to which he has been elected;--but he does not boast an ancestry in the land of _steady habits_, the seat of _Hartford Convention politics_. He is a native of Carlisle, in this state. _Commonwealth, Aug. 6, 1816._ From the Ordinances of 1816 Traffic Rules "From and after the publication of this ordinance, all and every driver or drivers of all coaches, chariots, caravans, waggons, phaetons, chaises, chairs, solos, sleighs, carts, drays, and other carriages of burthen and pleasure, driving and passing in and through the streets, lanes and alleys of the City of Pittsburgh, where there is room sufficient for two to pass, shall keep on that side of street, lane or alley, on his or their right hand respectively, in the passing direction." "No person whatsoever shall sit or stand in or upon any such carriage or on any horse or beast harnessed thereto, in order to drive the same, unless he shall have strong lines or reins fastened to the bridles of his beasts, and held in his hands, sufficient to guide them in the manner aforesaid, and restrain them from running, galloping, or going at immoderate rates through the said streets, lanes or alleys; and ... no person whatsoever, driving any such carriage or riding upon any horse, mare or gelding, in or through the said city, shall permit or suffer the beast or beasts he shall so drive or ride, to go in a gallop or other immoderate gait, so as to endanger persons standing or walking in the streets, lanes or alleys thereof; and ... all porters ... having the care of any such carriages ... who shall not hold the reins in their hands ... shall walk by the head of the shaft or wheel horse, holding or within reach of the bridle or halter of said horse." Shade Trees "It shall be lawful to plant on the bank of the Monongahela river, ornamental shade trees, provided the same do not incommode the passage; that they be set on the side of the street next to the water, and so as not to stop or obstruct the passage of water along the gutters; and so that the roots will not injure or raise the pavement:--when any of these injurious effects are produced, such trees then become a nusance, and the street commissioners shall forthwith remove the same." Fire Protection "A premium of ten dollars, to be paid on a warrant to be drawn by the Mayor on the city treasurer, shall be given to the fire company whose engine shall be first on the ground in fair operation, and in good order, in cases of fire; and the Mayor shall have power to determine all questions as to this premium." New Streets An ordinance respecting sundry new streets in the eastern addition to Pittsburgh. "That Third-street extending from Grant-street to Try-street, and Fourth, extended in a direct line from Grant-street to Try-street; and Diamond-street extending from Ross-street to the lane leading eastwardly from the end of Fourth-street, and Ross-street extended from Third-street to Diamond-street, and Try-street extended from Third-street to the lane leading eastwardly from the end of Fourth-street, be and they are hereby accepted and declared to be public streets and highways of the city ... and all those streets shall be kept, repaired and maintained for public use, at public expense forever hereafter." For the Public Good "If the chimney of any person or persons within the ... city shall take fire and blaze out at the top, the same not having been swept within the space of one calendar month, next before the time of taking such fire, every such person or persons, shall forfeit and pay the sum of three dollars." "No stove pipe within the ... city shall project through the front door, front windows, front wall, or past the front corners of any house, shop or building, over or out upon any street, square or alley, or public ground of the ... city; and if any stove pipe shall so project as aforesaid, the same is hereby declared to be a public nusance, and as such shall be removed, and a fine of five dollars also imposed on the person or persons who shall so offend." "If any person or persons, shall wilfully suffer his, her or their horse or horses, mare, gelding, mule, ox, hog or hogs, to run at large in the ... city, he, she or they so offending, shall for each offence, on conviction thereof, forfeit and pay for each of the said animals so running at large, the sum of one dollar." "If any person or persons shall, within the said city, beat a drum, or without lawful authority, ring any public bell, after sunset, or at any time except in lawful defence of person or property, discharge any gun or fire arms, or play at or throw any metal or stone bullet, or make a bon-fire, or raise or create any false alarm of fire, he, she, or they so offending, shall for every such offence, on conviction thereof, forfeit and pay the sum of four dollars." "City appropriation for filling up a part of the pond on Sixth street, between Cherry alley and Grant street--thirty dollars." _Commonwealth, Nov. 19, 1816._ Impressions of Early Travelers "_Fort du Quesne_, built by the French, formerly stood here; its site has almost disappeared in the Ohio. The remains of Fort Pitt (from whence the town has its name) are very faint; we can yet perceive part of the ditch, its salient angles and bastions, &c., but several houses, stores, and a brewhouse, are built on the ground." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817._ "Although Pittsburg, a few years since, was surrounded by Indians, it is now a curiosity to see any there; a few traders sometimes come down the Alleghany, with seneca oil, &c." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States, 1818._ "_Pittsburgh_ was hidden from our view, until we descended through the hills within half a mile of the _Allegany river_. Dark dense smoke was rising from many parts, and a hovering cloud of this vapour, obscuring the prospect, rendered it singularly gloomy. Indeed, it reminded me of the smoking logs of a new field." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "A mixture of all nations, though principally Americans; there are Irish, Scotch, English, French, Dutch, Swiss, etc.... The character of the people is that of enterprising and persevering industry; every man to his business is the prevailing maxim, there is therefore little time devoted to amusements or to the cultivation of refined social pleasures. Strangers are not much pleased with the place in point of hospitality merely, but those who have business to transact, will meet with as many facilities as elsewhere. They are of all denominations of the Christian religion; many of them attentive on the duties of their worship, and but few addicted to gross vices and dissipation. Luxury, pomp and parade are scarcely seen; there are perhaps, not more than one or two carriages in the place. There is a public academy, but not in a flourishing state, where the Latin and Greek classics are taught. There are besides, a number of English schools where children are taught to read, write, arithmetic, grammar, etc. There is a seminary for young ladies, which is said to be well conducted. The amusements of these industrious people are not numerous, a few balls during the winter season; there is also a small theatre where a company from the eastern cities sometimes performs. A society has been formed for the purpose of natural improvement in the different departments of natural history, and is flourishing; it has attached to it a circulating library, a cabinet of curiosities and chemical laboratory." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ "The first buildings of Pittsburg were of logs, some of which were unhewn; then came rude stone structures made from material quarried nearby, and these in turn were followed by brick buildings, for with an abundance of clay and fuel, it was an easy matter to burn brick. In none of them was there any attempt at architectural beauty. Most of them consisted of four square walls, with small windows and doors, thus displaying every evidence of economy. The interior finish of the early houses displayed more taste and beauty than the exterior, for it was easier to carve and fashion in wood than in stone.... Nevertheless there was a beauty in the simplicity of the walls that gradually developed a style which in modern days is called Colonial architecture, and which even yet predominates in Pittsburg." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "In 1815 the buildings of a public character were 'a handsome octagon Episcopal church, a handsome and spacious Presbyterian church, also a Covenanters, German Lutheran and Roman Catholic church, and an Academy, all of brick;' a court house, jail, three incorporated banks, a dramatic theatre, a Masonic hall, three market houses, one in the Diamond and two in Second street. Both the court house and market house in the public square, called the Diamond, were built of brick, and some of the mercantile and financial buildings were of a substantial character." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ "When this city and vicinity was surveyed by the author of this treatise, in October, 1815, there were in Pittsburg 960 dwelling houses, and in the suburbs, villages, and immediate outskirts, about 300 more, making in all 1260, and including inhabitants, workmen in the manufactories, and labourers, upwards of 12,000 inhabitants." _Darby's Emigrant's guide, 1818._ "Grant's-hill, an abrupt eminence which projects into the rear of the city, affords one of the most delightful prospects with which I am acquainted; presenting a singular combination of the bustle of the town, with the solitude and sweetness of the country. How many hours have I spent here, in the enjoyment of those exquisite sensations which are awakened by pleasing associations and picturesque scenes! The city lay beneath me, enveloped in smoke--the clang of hammers resounded from its numerous manufactories--the rattling of carriages and the hum of men were heard from its streets--churches, courts, hotels, and markets, and all the 'pomp and circumstance' of busy life, were presented in one panoramic view. Behind me were all the silent soft attractions of rural sweetness--the ground rising gradually for a considerable distance, and exhibiting country seats, surrounded with cultivated fields, gardens, and orchards." _Hall's Letters from the West, 1828._ "Pittsburg is a considerable town, generally built of brick.... The site is romantic and delightful. It is well known as a manufacturing place, and once almost supplied the lower country with a variety of the most necessary and important manufactures. But the wealth, business, and glory of this place are fast passing away, transferred to Cincinnati, to Louisville, and other places on the Ohio. Various causes have concurred to this result; but especially the multiplication of steam-boats, and the consequent facility of communication with the Atlantic ports by the Mississippi. There is little prospect of the reverse of this order of things. The national road, terminating at Wheeling, contributes to this decay of Pittsburg." _Flint's Recollections of the last ten years, 1826._ "It is laid out in strait streets, forty and fifty feet wide, having foot-walks on each side. Watch-boxes are placed at convenient distances, and the police of the city (except in lighting) is well regulated. From the number of manufactures, and the inhabitants burning coal, the buildings have not that clean appearance so conspicuous in most American towns. The houses are frame and brick, in the principal street three story high. "Outside of the town, some log houses yet remain. The number of inhabitants in 1810, was 4768; they are supposed to be now near 8000. The manufactures, carried on in the neighbourhood, out of the borough, employ many hundred people. The inhabitants, are Americans, Irish, and English. The Americans are most of them of German and Irish descent. The public buildings are a jail, fort Fayette barracks, a court house, market house, bank, and several churches." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States, 1818._ "The adjoining hills contain inexhaustible quarries of sand rock, suitable for grindstones; and several establishments, for the manufacture of these useful articles, are extensively conducted. As no marble is brought hither, except from the neighbourhood of _Philadelphia_, those quarries also supply the citizens with gravestones. Near _Breakneck_, I noted that _mica_ was contained in the sand rock and this singular addition is also found here, in all the strata of that stone which I have seen." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "_6 mo. 14._--Having been detained, day after day longer than we expected, this morning about sunrise, we left Pittsburgh with all the joy of a bird which escapes from its cage. 'From the tumult, and smoke of the city set free,' we were ferried over the Monongahela, with elated spirits; and I repeated that line in Montgomery, with an emphasis, which it never before seemed to require." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "There are a considerable number of free negroes in the city. Whilst here, we saw a funeral attended by these people; sixty or seventy couple, two and two in the manner of the Philadelphians." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States, 1818._ "The inhabitants of Pittsburg are fond of music; in our evening walks, we were sure to hear performers on the violin, clarionet, flute, and occasionally the piano-forte. Concerts are not unusual. The houses of the principal streets have benches in front, on which the family and neighbours sit and enjoy the placidity of their summer evenings." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817._ "If the inhabitants of Pittsburgh are determined to call that place after some English town, I should propose that, instead of the 'American Birmingham,' it be denominated, with relation of the humidity of its climate, 'the American Manchester;' for I remained at this place several days, during which time the rain never ceased. The smoke is also extreme, giving to the town and its inhabitants a very sombre aspect; but an English medical gentleman who has resided here some years, informs me that there is not a more healthy place in the United States." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "The streets of Pittsburgh are lighted, and consequently the useful order of watchmen is established. My ears, however, have not become reconciled to their music. It is true, I have been more conversant in forests than in cities, and may not comprehend the advantages of these deep-mouthed tones; but breaking the slumbers of the invalid, and giving timely notice to the thief, form two items of much weight in my view as a set off against them. Pittsburgh is laid out to front both rivers; but as these do not approach at right angles, the streets intersect each other obliquely. It is not a well built city. The south-west part is the most compact, but many years must elapse before it will resemble Philadelphia. Wooden buildings, interspersed with those of brick, mar the beauty of its best streets; and as few of these are paved, mud, in showery weather, becomes abundant. A short period, however, will probably terminate this inconvenience." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "In October, 1816, a resolution was passed permitting a Mr. Gray to exhibit a panoramic view of the naval engagement on Lake Champlain and the battle of Plattsburg without a license or other tax, owing to 'the patriotic nature and worthy object of the exhibit.' In November, 1816, a committee was appointed to inquire whether it was expedient for the city to possess for public purposes more ground than it then did, and whether it would be expedient at that time to purchase ground upon which to erect buildings. In December a resolution introduced by Mr. Wilkins provided for the appointment of a special committee to make a detailed report upon the condition of the manufactures of Pittsburg, which resolution was adopted; whereupon the following committee was appointed: Benjamin Bakewell, Aquila M. Bolton and James Arthurs.... The city councils at this time also sent agents to Harrisburg and Washington to labor specially in the interests of public roads in the Western country. In 1816 Northern Liberties was laid out by George A. Bayard and James Adams." _Wilson's History of Pittsburg._ "The price of property has increased in the most surprising manner within the last ten years; it is now at least ten times as high as it was at that period. There are but few sales of lots in fee simple, the custom is to let on perpetual lease; the price in Market and Wood streets, varies from ten to twenty dollars per foot, and in the other streets from four to eight, and in particular situations still higher. The rents are equally high. In Market, Wood and Water streets, the principal places of business, it is difficult to procure a common room in an upper story, under one hundred dollars per annum; the rent of stores, vary from three to five hundred dollars; there is one warehouse which rents for twelve hundred; the rent of tavern stands, is from five to twelve hundred dollars. The rent of dwelling houses varies much, according to the locality and kind of the tenement; a genteel private family can scarcely obtain a good dwelling under three or four hundred dollars." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ "Provisions of all kinds bring a high price in this city though the _market_ is fluctuating. Hay, at present is twenty dollars a ton, and oats one dollar per bushel. Butter varies from twenty-five to seventy-five cents per pound. The farmers of this neighbourhood, however, produce neither cheese or pork, that merits a notice. The former of these articles is chiefly obtained from the state of Ohio, and bacon, procured from Kentucky, is now retailed at sixteen or seventeen cents per pound. Before the late war, this market was distinguished for its cheapness; but with an influx of strangers, induced by the movements of that period, '_war prices_' commenced; and though peace has returned--and though many of those new comers have sought their former places of residence,--the encouragements held out to the farmer, suffers no diminution. Indeed, there are great inducements for the _industrious_ to migrate hither. Though the soil is uneven, it is far from being sterile; and exclusive of salubrity of situation, and of durable timber for fences, the coal mines, which pervade almost every hill, constitute treasures of great value. Farms round this city, at the distance of two or three miles have been lately sold from fifty to one hundred dollars an acre, according to situation." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "We remark much difference between the manners of the inhabitants of this country and those of Cayuga. In that place, profane language is rarely heard from any person, who pretends to decency, except in a paroxysm of vexation. Here it is an every day amusement. Crossing the Monongahela, in the ferry-boat, with an intelligent gentleman of polished manners, I was shocked and surprised to hear almost every sentence from his lips interlarded with an oath or an imprecation; yet he was in gay good humour, and, I believe, unconscious of this breach of decorum. It would be unjust not to express my belief, that honourable exceptions to these censures are numerous; but impiety certainly constitutes a strong characteristic of no inconsiderable part of this people.... I have remarked with regret the impiety of some of these citizens; but we think, that generally, they are entitled to much praise for obliging and courteous behaviour. Civility to strangers, in a high degree, even pervades their factories; and in all those which I have visited, the mean practice of permitting children to ask the spectators for money, appears to be unknown." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "Except the gratifying reflection arising from the review of so much plastic industry, Pittsburg is by no means a pleasant city to a stranger. The constant volumes of smoke preserve the atmosphere in a continued cloud of coal dust. In October, 1815, by a reduced calculation, at least 2000 bushels of that fuel was consumed daily, on a space of about two and a quarter square miles. To this is added a scene of activity, that reminds the spectator that he is within a commercial port, though 300 miles from the sea. Several good inns, and many good taverns, are scattered over the city; but often, from the influx of strangers, ready accommodation is found difficult to procure. Provisions of every kind abound; two markets are held weekly." _Darby's Emigrant's guide, 1818._ "The published accounts of this city are so exaggerated and out of all reason, that strangers are usually disappointed on visiting it. This, however, was not my case. I have been in some measure tutored in American gasconade. When I am told that at a particular hotel there is _handsome_ accommodation, I expect that they are one remove from very bad; if '_elegant_ entertainment,' I anticipate tolerable; if a person is 'a _clever_ man,' that he is not absolutely a fool; and if a manufactory is the '_first in the world_,' I expect, and have generally found, about six men and three boys employed." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "As every blessing has its attendant evil, the stone coal is productive of considerable inconvenience from the smoke which overhangs the town, and descends in fine dust which blackens every object; even snow can scarcely be called white in Pittsburgh. The persons and dress of the inhabitants, in the interior of the houses as well as the exterior, experience its effect. The tall steeple of the court house, was once painted white, but alas! how changed. Yet all this might be prevented by some additional expense on the construction of the chimnies. In the English manufacturing towns, a fine is imposed upon those who do not consume their smoke. Incalculable would be the advantage to this place, could such a regulation be adopted." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ "Upon the whole, I consider Pittsburgh, in every point of view, to be a very important town; and have no doubt, although its prosperity is now at a stand, and property if not declining, is not increasing in value, that it will _gradually advance_; and that the time must come when it will be an extensive and very populous city. The present population is 10,000, made up from all nations, and, of course, not free from the vices of each: this indeed is but too apparent upon a very short residence." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ United States Census 1810 1820 United States 7,239,903 9,637,999 Pennsylvania 810,091 1,049,449 Allegheny county 25,317 34,921 Pittsburgh 4,768 7,248 Business and Industries "In 1813 there were five glass factories, three foundries, a new edge tool factory, Cowan's New Rolling Mill, a new lock factory built by Patterson, two steam engine and boiler works, one steel factory and a goodly number of small concerns manufacturing various articles. In 1817 the city councils appointed a committee to collect and publish a list of all the large factories in the city. This was done perhaps to let the world know of the industry and thrift of Pittsburg, and is valuable because it is an official list and is to be relied upon. It must also be remembered that these figures represented the industries of Pittsburg when barely emerging from the panic of 1815-17, a financial depression that has scarcely been equalled in Western Pennsylvania in all its history." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "There are many good stores in Pittsburg, and a great trade is carried on with Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, &c.; exclusive of the carrying trade, and the number of boats that are always proceeding down the Ohio, with vast quantities of foreign merchandize, destined to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, &c. The inhabitants send up the Alleghany, Monongahela, and their forks, whisky, cyder, bacon, apples, iron, and castings, glass and foreign merchandize; in return they receive many thousand bushels of salt from Onondago, and immense rafts from Alleghany and French creeks. The quantity of rafts imported into Pittsburg annually, is computed at 4,000,000 feet; average nine dollars per 1000 feet." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817._ "The state of trade is at present dull; but that there is a great deal of business done must be evident from the quantity of 'dry goods' and 'grocery stores,' many of the proprietors of which have stocks as heavy as the majority of London retail dealers. They are literally stuffed with goods of English manufacture, consisting of articles of the most varied kind, from a man's coat or lady's gown, down to a whip or an oyster knife." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "It is difficult to form a judgment whether there is an opening in any of the present established businesses. One fact strongly in favour of the stability of this town is, _that there has not been a bankruptcy in it for three years!!!_ a singular contrast this with New York, in which the last published list of insolvents contained upwards of 400 names." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "The principal manufacturing establishments are, a steam grist-mill, steam engine factory, slitting-mill, to which is attached a nail factory, the first of the kind in America; a cannon foundery, air furnace, cotton and woollen factories, two potteries, three breweries, &c.--There are four printing-offices, and two bookstores. A complete description of this interesting town would fill a volume." _Brown's Western gazetteer, 1817._ "Two cotton factories, one woollen factory, one paper mill, two saw mills, and one flour mill, are all moved by steam, in this city and in its suburbs across the Monongahela. Four glass factories, two for flint, and two for green, are very extensive; and the productions of the former for elegance of workmanship, are scarcely surpassed by European manufacture. It is sent in many directions from this place; one of the proprietors assured us that Philadelphia receives a part, but the great outlet is down the Ohio." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "Some of the ... manufactories may be denominated first-rate. This remark applies particularly to the nail, steam-engine (high pressure) and glass establishments. I was astonished to witness such perfection on this side of the Atlantic, and especially in that part of America which a New Yorker supposes to be at the farther end of the world. At Messrs. Page and Bakewell's glass warehouse I saw chandeliers and numerous articles in cut glass of a very splendid description; among the latter was a pair of decanters, cut from a London pattern, the price of which will be eight guineas. It is well to bear in mind that the demand for these articles of elegant luxury lies in _the Western States!_ the inhabitants of Eastern America being still importers from the 'Old Country.'" _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "The glass establishment of Bakewell, Page & Bakewell was founded in 1808 and the building erected in 1811, on Water Street, above Grant, and, from the start, was devoted exclusively to the manufacture of white or flint glass. So excellent was the article produced that the manufacturers attained a fame, not only in all parts of the United States, but in Mexico and in many parts of Europe. No finer product could be found anywhere. If a stranger of prominence visited Pittsburgh he was taken with certainty to Bakewell's glasshouse." _Wilson's History of Pittsburg._ "Perhaps of all the wonders of Pittsburg, the greatest is the glass factories. About twenty years have elapsed since the first glass-house was erected in that town, and at this moment every kind of glass, from a porter bottle or window pane, to the most elegant cut crystal glass, are now manufactured. There are four large glass-houses, in which are now manufactured, at least, to the amount of 200,000 dollars annually." _Darby's Emigrant's guide, 1818._ "Walter Forward, the great lawyer of Pittsburg in his day, had addressed a large audience in the court house on December 28, 1816. In speaking of the rapidly growing iron business of Pittsburg, he said, that the iron interests were then consuming about 1800 tons of pig iron; that the business employed about 150 hands, and the product was valued at $250,000. Of wrought iron there was annually worked up about 2000 tons, the products from which were, according to the best estimates, worth about $1,300,000." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The first furnace or foundry in the town which had a permanent existence was established in 1803 by Joseph McClurg. This was the celebrated Fort Pitt foundry.... Here were cast cannon that boomed over Lake Erie in the war of 1812 and thundered before Mexico in 1847. A large part of Commodore Perry's equipment came from here." _Magazine of western history, 1885._ "The first rolling mill of Pittsburg was built by a Scotch-Irishman in 1811 and 1812. It was called the Pittsburg Rolling Mill.... This extensive mill stood on the corner of Penn street and Cecil alley, and is referred to by early writers as the Stackpole and Whiting mill. They were two Boston iron workers named respectively William Stackpole and Ruggles Whiting. They introduced nail cutting machines which both cut and headed the nails. They operated the mill during the hard times which followed the War of 1812, and strange to say, failed financially in 1819, when business of all kinds had somewhat revived." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The slitting and rolling mill, together with the nail factory of _Stackpole & Whiting_, is moved by a steam engine of seventy-horse power. These we visited with much satisfaction. On entering the south-west door, the eye catches the majestic swing of the beam; and at the same instant, nine nailing-machines, all in rapid motion, burst on the view. Bewildered by the varying velocity of so many new objects, we stand astonished at this sublime effort of human ingenuity." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "At the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century Pittsburg had surpassed all other parts of the West in the production of nails. A patent nail machine had been introduced extensively, and it had revolutionized the manufacture. Some of the factories were built in connection with the rolling mills." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The first rope-walk erected west of the Allegheny Mountains, was established in Pittsburgh in 1794, and was located on the ground now occupied by the Monongahela House. The business was carried on by Col. John Irwin and wife.... Immediately following the death of Col. Irwin, Mrs. Irwin gave her son an interest in the business; and it was carried on under the name and style of Mary and John Irwin. In the year 1795 the works were removed to the square bounded by Liberty, Third, and Fourth Streets and Redoubt Alley. In view of the increasing demand for their products, and confined limits of this locality, the walk was removed in 1812 to the bank of the Allegheny River between Marbury Street and the point, where the entire rigging for Perry's fleet was manufactured.... Mrs. Irwin, on account of her age, and loss of health, resolved to quit business, in view of which she disposed of her interest to her son, who, in accordance with his preconceived notions on the subject, commenced the erection, in Allegheny, in 1813, of one of the most extensive works in the West, on the ten-acre out-lot bounded by the West Commons, Water Lane (now Western Avenue), out-lots Nos. 275, 29, and 30. It was known and designated as out-lot No. 276 in the 'Reserve Tract opposite Pittsburg.' Mr. Irwin successfully carried on the business until Jan. 1, 1835, when he associated with him his son Henry, under the name of John Irwin & Son." _Parke's Recollections of seventy years._ "Mr. Charles Rosenbaum has established a shop for making Piano Fortes, which are of superior quality. They are equal in elegance of workmanship, and in tone, to any imported. We are happy to hear that his success meets his most flattering expectation." _Cramer's Almanack, 1816._ "Knitting needle making has been commenced by Messrs. Frethy and Pratt. In New-York pin making is going on lively. It is hoped our females will be well supplied with these articles especially with the first." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ "Trunks are made smartly by J. M. Sloan, who wants for this purpose deer skins with the hair on. Stocking weaving, for want of encouragement, perhaps goes on but slowly. We see no reason why a stocking cannot be wove as cheap and as good here as in any other part of the world. Brush-making. Mr. Blair conducts this business to great advantage and manufactures vast quantities of brushes. Much more could be done were the farmers more careful of their hogs' bristles." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ Traveling Eastward QUICK TRANSPORTATION. "In the course of the present week, waggons have arrived at Pittsburgh, in _thirteen days from Philadelphia_, with loads of 3500 lbs. and upwards." _Mercury, May 11, 1816._ "Two good safe and easy Stages Will leave Pittsburgh for Philadelphia on the 27th or 28th inst. and will offer a pleasant conveyance for four persons on very accommodating terms. Apply at the Branch Bank on Second street or at the office of the Pittsburgh Gazette." _Gazette, 1816._ "Near Philadelphia, the single team of eight or nine horses is seen; in the lower parts of Maryland and Virginia, the light three-horse team is common; while in this country, the heavy Lancaster waggon, drawn by five or six horses, which vie in stature with the elephant, is continually before us. The extreme slowness of these overland sloops, often attracted our notice." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "Before the time of railroads between the east and west of the Allegheny mountains, the freight business to the Monongahela was carried on by means of the Conestoga road wagons drawn by six horses. By this way the freight to Pittsburgh was carried exclusively, but after the completion of the Pennsylvania canal, transportation was divided between the canal-boat and the wagon. As early as 1817 12,000 wagons, in twelve months, passed over the Allegheny mountains from Philadelphia and Baltimore, each with from four to six horses, carrying from thirty-five to forty hundred weight. The cost was about $7 per 100 weight, in some cases $10. To transport one ton of freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, therefore, would cost about $140, and in so doing two weeks, at least, of time would be consumed." _Van Voorhis's Old and new Monongahela._ "The standard wagon for heavy work was the 'Conestoga.' The bed was low in the center and high at each end. The lower part of the bed was painted blue. Above this was a red part about a foot wide which could be taken off when necessary, and these with the white canvas covering, made the patriotic tri-color of the American flag, though this was probably unintentional. Bells were often used in all seasons of the year though not strings of bells such as were afterwards used in sleighing. The wagoner's bells were fastened to an iron bow above the hames on the horses and were pear shaped and very sweet toned. Perhaps they relieved the monotony of the long journey over the lonely pike." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "With the Conestoga wagons originated our modern 'stogie' cigars which have become so common in Pittsburg and which have been in recent years, sent from Pittsburg to every section of the Union. They were made in that day of pure home grown tobacco and being used very largely at first by the Conestoga wagoners, took the name 'stogies' which clings to them yet." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "There was almost a continuous stream of four or six horse wagons laden with merchandise, going west and returning with the product of the Ohio Valley to supply the eastern cities. These wagons journeyed mostly between Pittsburg and Philadelphia and Baltimore. The wagoners generally stopped at a wayside inn which was less expensive than at the inns in the villages. Wagoners cared little for style but demanded an abundance while the stage-coach passengers demanded both. The wagoner invariably slept on a bunk which he carried with him and which he laid on the floor of the big bar-room and office of the country hotel. Stage drivers and their passengers stopped at the best hotels and paid higher prices. For the purpose of feeding his horses in the public square, the wagoner carried a long trough which at night he fastened with special irons to the tongue of the wagon.... An old gentleman told the writer that he had once seen 52 wagons in an unbroken line going towards Pittsburg on this pike. They were Conestoga wagons with great bowed beds covered with canvas, and none of them were drawn by less than four, while many of them had six horses. The old fashioned public square which kept them over night must have been a good sized one. The public squares on this turnpike were usually from three to four hundred feet long and from two to three hundred feet wide. Some of the older villages had two squares separated a short distance from each other, but this was generally brought about by a rivalry among two factions when the town was first laid out." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "When a village was laid out along the pike there was usually a public square in its center, and at least two corners of this public square were set apart for taverns. This square generally called a diamond, was not intended as a place of ornament as it usually is now, but was for special purposes. There the wagons laden with freight stood over night, and as a general rule in all kinds of weather, the horses were blanketed, fed and bedded in the public square. Upon these wagons were transported nearly all the goods between Philadelphia and Pittsburg." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "An account has been furnished us by Mr. Alexander Thompson, who resides on the Turnpike road four miles and a half from Pittsburgh, from which it appears, that from the 1st of January, 1815 to the 31st of December 1815, inclusive, 5,800 road waggons, laden with merchandize &c. passed his farm for Pittsburgh. The greater part of these waggons returned loaded with cordage, salt petre, &c. to the east of the mountains. The waggons with iron from the Juniata and other iron works, are not included in the above." _Gazette, Jan. 27, 1816._ "Recurring to my old plan of estimation, I passed on my road from Chambersburgh to Pittsburgh, being 153 miles, one hundred and three stage-waggons, drawn by four and six horses, proceeding from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Pittsburgh,--seventy-nine from Pittsburgh to Baltimore and Philadelphia,--sixty-three waggons, with families, from the several places following:--twenty from Massachusetts,--ten from the district of Maine,--fourteen from Jersey,--thirteen from Connecticut,--two from Maryland,--one from Pennsylvania,--one from England,--one from Holland,--and one from Ireland; about two hundred persons on horseback,--twenty on foot,--one beggar, one family, with their waggon, returning from Cincinnati, entirely disappointed--a circumstance which, though rare, is by no means, as some might suppose, miraculous." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ "Pittsburg is a cheap market for horses ... travellers from the east, often quit their horses here, and take the river for New Orleans, &c.; and on the contrary, those from the west proceed eastward from this place, in stages. Thus, there are constantly a number of useful hackneys on sale. The mode of selling is by auction. The auctioneer rides the animal through the streets, proclaiming with a loud voice, the biddings that are made as he passes along, and when they reach the desired point, or when nobody bids more, he closes the bargain. A complete equipment is, in the first place, a pacing horse, a blanket under the saddle, another upon it, and a pair of saddle-bags, with great-coat and umbrella strapped behind. Women of advanced age, often take long journeys in this manner, without inconvenience. Yesterday I heard a lady mentioned familiarly (with no mark of admiration) who is coming from Tennessee, twelve hundred miles, to Pittsburg with an infant; preferring horseback to boating up the river." _Birkbeck's Notes on a journey in America, 1818._ "The _horses_, in this place, are a much larger breed than those commonly raised in New-York; and as the utmost regularity in feeding and currying prevails, their appearance is well calculated to excite the admiration of strangers, from the eastward." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "A common mode of selling horses is for the owner to gallop through the street, announcing the amount of his last bidding. I have witnessed several crying out, 'twenty-five _dallars_,' 'twenty-five _dallars_,' twenty-five _dallars_;' and after half an hour's exercise, they have been transferred, saddle, bridle, and all, to a new bidder, for twenty-five _dallars_, fifty _sants_." _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ Taverns "A requisite of the old-fashioned wagon or stage town hotel or of the wayside inn was a large room used as an office and bar-room and as a sleeping place for the wagoners. In it was a large open fireplace which was abundantly supplied with wood in the early days, and later with coal. Around this, when the horses were cared for and the evening's diversion was over, the wagoners spread their bunks in a sort of semi-circle with their feet to the fire, for they were said to be much subjected to rheumatism, and this position was taken as a preventative.... Wagoners drove in all kinds of weather and the descent of a mountain or large hill was often attended with great danger, especially when it was covered with ice. The day's journey of a regular wagoner when heavily laden, was rather less than over 20 miles, and 100 miles in a week was a fair average.... The average load hauled was about 6,000 pounds for a six horse team. Sometimes four tons were put on, and even five tons which the wagoner boastfully called 'a hundred hundred,' were hauled, but these were rare exceptions." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Steamboats and River Traffic "Many travellers and emigrants to this region, view the first samples of the mode of travelling in the western world, on the Allegany at Oleanne point, or the Monongahela at Brownsville. These are but the retail specimens. At Pittsburg, where these rivers unite, you have the thing in gross, and by wholesale. The first thing that strikes a stranger from the Atlantic, arrived at the boat-landing, is the singular, whimsical, and amusing spectacle, of the varieties of water-craft, of all shapes and structures. There is the stately barge, of the size of a large Atlantic schooner, with its raised and outlandish looking deck.... Next there is the keel-boat, of a long, slender, and elegant form, and generally carrying from fifteen to thirty tons.... Next in order are the Kentucky flats, or in the vernacular phrase, 'broad-horns,' a species of ark, very nearly resembling a New England pig-stye. They are fifteen feet wide, and from forty to one hundred feet in length, and carry from twenty to seventy tons. Some of them, that are called family-boats, and used by families in descending the river, are very large and roomy, and have comfortable and separate apartments, fitted up with chairs, beds, tables and stoves. It is no uncommon spectacle to see a large family, old and young, servants, cattle, hogs, horses, sheep, fowls, and animals of all kinds, bringing to recollection the cargo of the ancient ark, all embarked, and floating down on the same bottom. Then there are what the people call 'covered sleds,' or ferry-flats, and Allegany-skiffs, carrying from eight to twelve tons. In another place are pirogues of from two to four tons burthen, hollowed sometimes from one prodigious tree, or from the trunks of two trees united, and a plank rim fitted to the upper part. There are common skiffs, and other small craft, named, from the manner of making them, 'dug-outs,' and canoes hollowed from smaller trees.... You can scarcely imagine an abstract form in which a boat can be built, that in some part of the Ohio or Mississippi you will not see, actually in motion.... This variety of boats, so singular in form, and most of them apparently so frail, is destined in many instances to voyages of from twelve hundred to three thousand miles." _Flint's Recollections of the last ten years, 1826._ "I reached Olean, on the source of the Alleghany River, early in 1818, while the snow was yet upon the ground, and had to wait several weeks for the opening of that stream. I was surprised to see the crowd of persons, from various quarters, who had pressed to this point, waiting for the opening of the navigation. It was a period of general migration from the East to the West. Commerce had been checked for several years by the war with Great Britain. Agriculture had been hindered by the raising of armies, and a harassing warfare both on the sea-board and the frontiers; and manufactures had been stimulated to an unnatural growth, only to be crushed by the peace. Speculation had also been rife in some places, and hurried many gentlemen of property into ruin. Banks exploded, and paper money flooded the country. The fiscal crisis was indeed very striking. The very elements seemed leagued against the interests of agriculture in the Atlantic States, where a series of early and late frosts, in 1816 and 1817, had created quite a panic, which helped to settle the West. I mingled in this crowd, and, while listening to the anticipations indulged in, it seemed to me that the war had not, in reality, been fought for 'free trade and sailors' rights' where it commenced, but to gain a knowledge of the world beyond the Alleghanies. Many came with their household stuff, which was to be embarked in arks and flat boats. The children of Israel could scarcely have presented a more motley array of men and women, with their 'kneading troughs' on their backs, and their 'little ones,' than were there assembled, on their way to the new land of promise. To judge by the tone of general conversation, they meant, in their generation, to plough the Mississippi Valley from its head to its foot. There was not an idea short of it. What a world of golden dreams was there! I took passage on the first ark that attempted the descent for the season. This ark was built of stout planks, with the lower seams caulked, forming a perfectly flat basis on the water. It was about thirty feet wide and sixty long, with gunwales of some eighteen inches. Upon this was raised a structure of posts and boards about eight feet high, divided into rooms for cooking and sleeping, leaving a few feet space in front and rear, to row and steer. The whole was covered by a flat roof, which formed a promenade, and near the front part of this deck were two long 'sweeps,' a species of gigantic oars, which were occasionally resorted to in order to keep the unwieldy vessel from running against islands or dangerous shores. We went on swimmingly, passing through the Seneca reservation, where the picturesque costume of the Indians seen on shore served to give additional interest to scenes of the deepest and wildest character. Every night we tied our ark to a tree, and built a fire on shore. Sometimes we narrowly escaped going over falls, and once encountered a world of labor and trouble by getting into a wrong channel. I made myself as useful and agreeable as possible to all. I had learned to row a skiff with dexterity during my residence on Lake Dunmore, and turned this art to account by taking the ladies ashore, as we floated on with our ark, and picked up specimens while they culled shrubs and flowers. In this way, and by lending a ready hand at the 'sweeps' and at the oars whenever there was a pinch, I made myself agreeable. The worst thing we encountered was rain, against which our rude carpentry was but a poor defence. We landed at everything like a town, and bought milk, and eggs, and butter. Sometimes the Seneca Indians were passed, coming up stream in their immensely long pine canoes. There was perpetual novelty and freshness in this mode of wayfaring. The scenery was most enchanting. The river ran high, with a strong spring current, and the hills frequently rose in most picturesque cliffs. 1818. I do not recollect the time consumed in this descent. We had gone about three hundred miles, when we reached Pittsburgh. It was the 28th of March when we landed at this place, which I remember because it was my birthday. And I here bid adieu to the kind and excellent proprietor of the ark, L. Pettiborne, Esq., who refused to receive any compensation for my passage, saying, prettily, that he did not know how they could have got along without me. I stopped at one of the best hotels, kept by a Mrs. McCullough, and, after visiting the manufactories and coal mines, hired a horse, and went up the Monongahela Valley, to explore its geology as high as Williamsport. The rich coal and iron beds of this part of the country interested me greatly; I was impressed with their extent, and value, and the importance which they must eventually give to Pittsburgh. After returning from this trip, I completed my visits to the various work-shops and foundries, and to the large glass-works of Bakewell and of O'Hara. I was now at the head of the Ohio River, which is formed by the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela. My next step was to descend this stream; and, while in search of an ark on the borders of the Monongahela, I fell in with a Mr. Brigham, a worthy person from Massachusetts, who had sallied out with the same view. We took passage together on one of these floating houses, with the arrangements of which I had now become familiar. I was charmed with the Ohio; with its scenery, which was every moment shifting to the eye; and with the incidents of such a novel voyage." _Schoolcraft's Thirty years with the Indian tribes._ "I have seen a pleasant anecdote of one of these (vessels, recorded in the Picture of Cincinnati, published at Cincinnati,) she had entered a port in the Mediterranean, and when the captain presented his papers, the examining officer read in his clearance, Pittsburg, state of Pennsylvania, 'Pittsburg, Pennsylvania,' said he, 'there is no such port; your papers must be forged; here is some deception or piracy; we shall detain your papers and ship till we see farther into this.' The American captain tried for some time, in vain, to convince him; till by the aid of the American consul and a map, he reluctantly admitted the possibility of there being such a place, from which a ship could be navigated, although two thousand miles from the ocean." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States, 1818._ "A company, stiled the 'Ohio steam boat company,' has lately been formed, who intend building steam boats to run between this place and the Falls of Ohio. The dimensions of the boats will be 100 feet keel and 20 feet beam. They contemplate having two running this fall or winter, 1815-6.... This line of Steam Boats, though not attached to those belonging to the Mississippi Steam Boat Company, will form a chain of conveyance from New Orleans to this place, which must result very much to the advantage and prosperity of Pittsburgh and intermediate towns." _Cramer's almanack, 1816._ "Steam-boat, ark, Kentucky, barge, and keel-boat building, is carried on to a considerable extent. Sea vessels have been built here, but the navigation is too far from the sea, and attended with too much hazard for it to answer. The following vessels, besides steam-boats, have been built at Pittsburg and on its rivers: _ships_, Pittsburg, Louisiana, General Butler, and Western Trader; _brigs_, Dean, Black Walnut, Monongahela Farmer, and Ann Jean; _schooners_, Amity, Alleghany, and Conquest, (_navigator_)." _Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817._ "The _steam-boat navigation_, we are assured, is a losing concern. The newspapers have announced the hopes of our western citizens, and the editors now appear to be careful to conceal their disappointments. Two large vessels of this description are lying near the _Point_, which have not justified public expectations. Captain FRENCH, of _Brownsville_, (fifty miles by water up the Monongahela and thirty-five by land) has built two vessels of this kind, which it is said have succeeded best." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "The best mode perhaps in descending the Ohio, in time of low water, is in keel boats.... Merchants are beginning to prefer this method for safety and expedition; and instead of purchasing boats and taking charge of them themselves, they get their goods freighted down from Pittsburgh in keel boats by the persons who make them, and who make it their business to be prepared, with good boats and experienced hands for such engagements." _Cramer's Navigator, 1817._ "The manners of the boatmen are as strange as their language. Their peculiar way of life has given origin not only to an appropriate dialect, but to new modes of enjoyment, riot, and fighting. Almost every boat, while it lies in the harbour has one or more fiddles scraping continually aboard, to which you often see the boatmen dancing. There is no wonder that the way of life which the boatmen lead, in turn extremely indolent, and extremely laborious; for days together requiring little or no effort, and attended with no danger, and then on a sudden, laborious and hazardous, beyond Atlantic navigation; generally plentiful as it respects food, and always so as it regards whiskey, should always have seductions that prove irresistible to the young people that live near the banks of the river.... And yet with all these seductions for the eye and the imagination, no life is so slavish, none so precarious and dangerous. In no employment do the hands so wear out. After the lapse of so very short a period since these waters have been navigated in this way, at every bend, and every high point of the river, you are almost sure to see, as you stop for a moment, indications of the 'narrow house;' the rude monument, the coarse memorial, carved on an adjoining tree by a brother boatman, which marks that an exhausted boatman there yielded his breath, and was buried." _Flint's Recollections of the last ten years, 1826._ "Three steamers were built at Pittsburgh in 1816, the 'Franklin,' one hundred and twenty-five tons, by Messrs. Shiras and Cromwell; the 'Oliver Evans,' seventy-five tons, by George Evans; and the 'Harriet,' forty tons, by a Mr. Armstrong of Williamsport, Pennsylvania.... Up to 1816 grave doubts existed as to the practicability of navigating the Ohio by steamboats. A gentleman who in that year, with others, long watched the futile efforts of a stern wheeler to ascend the Horsetail ripple, five miles below Pittsburgh, afterwards wrote that the unanimous conclusion of the company was that 'such a contrivance might do for the Mississippi ... but that we of Ohio must wait for some more happy century of invention.'" _Magazine of western history, 1885._ THE STEAMBOAT FRANKLIN "The elegant steam-boat Franklin, was launched from the shipyard at the Point, in this city, on Wednesday last." _Mercury, April 20, 1816._ "The Steam Boat Franklin, burden 140 tons, was launched from the Point Ship Yard, on Wednesday morning last. The Franklin is owned by a company of gentlemen in this city, and is intended as a regular trader between here and New Orleans. The engine for this boat is constructed on Bolton and Watt's plan, improved by Mr. Arthurs of this place." _Gazette, April 20, 1816._ Maysville, Dec. 24, 1816. "The undersigned passengers in the Steam Boat Franklin, from Pittsburgh, feel it a just tribute due to the proprietors and captain, to express publicly their approbation of the very handsome manner in which they have been entertained. Her accommodations, speed and safety, as well as the polite attention of Captain Cromwell, are such as will always insure a decided preference. Chas. Savage, _Massachusetts_. J. P. Cambridge, M.D., _Philadelphia_. Tho. Sloo, _Cincinnati_. John Trimble, _Kentucky_. Geo. P. Turrence, _Cincinnati_. Robert J. Baron, _London_. W. R. Ord, _London_. Louis Caenon, _France_. J. W. Simonton, _Philadelphia_. Daniel Lewis, _New York_. The beautiful Steam Boat above named passed by this place on Tuesday last." _Commonwealth, Jan. 6, 1817._ INTERESTING TO THE WESTERN PUBLIC "On the 30th December, the steamboat Oliver Evans, departed from this city for New-Orleans, laden with about forty tons freight and forty passengers, and drew but thirty inches water, which is without doubt less than ever known.... Her length is one hundred and twenty feet and beam fourteen feet nine inches. She ascended the Allegheny when it was high and rapid, at the rate of five miles per hour, and passed over the ripple at Wainright's island, at such a rate as to cause people on the shore to walk, briskly, to keep pace with her, and there remains no doubt but that she is much the fastest vessel ever exhibited here." _Mercury, Jan. 4, 1817._ THE STEAMBOAT HARRIET "We had, on Tuesday last, the pleasure of a sail in the new steam boat Harriett of _Pittsburgh_, owned by Mr. Joshua Armitage. She is designed as a regular trader between this place and New-Orleans. She is supposed to carry forty to sixty tons. Her engine and machinery were built by Mr. J. Arthurs. They are simple in their construction, and proved very complete in their operation. She ascended the Allegheny, which was high and rapid, at about the rate of three miles an hour; and ascended the rapid ripple at Wainright's island, with perfect ease.--We feel happy in being able to announce this effort of individual enterprize. It is the harbinger of the general introduction of steam boat navigation on the western waters--and the day is not far distant when _individuals_ as well as _companies_ will embark in such useful improvements." _Mercury, Dec. 14, 1816._ THE STEAMBOAT DISPATCH Stubenville, May 31, 1816. "The steam boat Dispatch, Capt. Bruce, arrived at this place on Tuesday evening last about 6 o'clock, from Cincinnati, and departed next morning for Pittsburgh.--This is the same boat that the Kentucky papers made so much noise about as having been stopped and ordered off from New-Orleans without a cargo, by the agents of Fulton and Livingston. The Dispatch is a remarkable sailor, having beat the Aetna seven days in the run from Natchez to the Falls. She made her passage in 24 days, while the Aetna was 31 days.--The Dispatch has 24 passengers on board from Cincinnati, and has been 10 days on her passage from Cincinnati to Stubenville. Capt. Bruce reports that in his passage from Natchez to the Falls he counted over 2000 boats floating down the river, and this in the day time only; others might have passed him in the night which he did not observe." _Mercury, May 11, 1816._ THE STEAMBOAT VESUVIUS "We are sorry to state that the beautiful Steam Boat Vesuvius, launched about two years ago at this place, has been burned to the water's edge, at New-Orleans. The Vesuvius was freighted with a valuable cargo of dry goods and other commodities. The fire broke out about 12 o'clock the night previous to her intended departure. As she lay in the middle of the stream, no assistance could be afforded her, and all the property on board fell a prey to the flames." _Commonwealth, Aug. 6, 1816._ THE TRANS-ATLANTIC STEAMER "We are on the eve of one of the greatest experiments, which has been undertaken during the present age. A Steam boat is about to brave the Atlantic, and cross from N.Y. to Russia. The consequences of this enterprize who will predict? It may open a new era in the art of navigation. It may dispense with the lagging and variable agency of winds and waves. It may bring the two worlds nearer together--it may shorten the passage from 25 to 15 days. A first experiment is everything, who does not wish it success?" _Gazette, Aug. 23, 1816._ "We have heard it doubted (says the Virginia Patriot) whether the steam-boat soon to leave New York for Russia, will have sails; or those who go in it will venture to trust themselves to the efficacy of steam alone. If without sails (though Columbus deserves more credit,) those who first cross the Atlantic in a steam-boat will be entitled to a great portion of applause. In a few years we expect such trips will be common.... Bold was the man, the first who dared to brave, In fragile bark, the wild, perfidious wave: and bold will they be who first make a passage to Europe in a steam boat. Jason crept along by the shore: Not so these adventurers: they will have No port to cheer them on the restless wave." _Gazette, Sept. 3, 1816._ Ferries and Bridges "Between 1764 and 1819 the only means of crossing these streams, at Pittsburg, was by way of ferries. The first of these, it is believed, was operated from the foot of Ferry street, Pittsburg to the opposite shore, and this was the origin of the name 'Ferry street'.... Early in the nineteenth century a ferry was established from the mouth of Liberty street, called 'Jones Ferry.' Foot passengers desiring to cross the river employed skiffs, while stock was taken over on flat-boats. Such boats were pushed by means of poles, at low stages of water, and by oars in high water periods." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The Subscriber respectfully informs his friends and the public in general, that he intends opening a new Ferry on the Monongahela River, where he now lives, a few steps East of the mouth of Wood-street, which will co-operate with Mr. Beltzhoover's new house on the opposite side of the river, kept by Mr. Robert Wilson. He has been careful to provide himself with good new crafts, and also good trusty ferrymen. He expects to be able to give general satisfaction to those who may please to favor him with their custom. As he is determined there shall be no detention at the ferry, those wishing to cross the river on the evening before the Market-day can be accommodated with storage for their marketing free of charge. He intends keeping a supply of the best Liquors. He flatters himself that his strict attention to business will insure him a sufficient supply of the public patronage. WM. RALSTON, Pittsburgh, March 20. N.B. Those wishing to take their Ferrage by the year, can have an opportunity of engaging with him at any time. W. R." _Commonwealth, March 20, 1816._ STEAM BOAT FERRY "A meeting will be held at E. Carr's Tavern, in Water Street, on Wednesday evening, 3d April, at 7 o'clock, on organizing a Company to establish a Steam Ferry,--Those persons interested in preserving the present advantages of the western section of the City from being wrested out of their hands, by the injudicious site chosen by the Legislature for the Monongahela Bridge, are particularly requested to attend." _Gazette, March 30, 1816._ "The first steps taken towards the erection of bridges at Pittsburgh were as early as 1810. A charter was granted by the Legislature on the 20th of March of that year for two bridges, one over the Monongahela and the other over the Allegheny; but circumstances interfered to prevent their erection for several years. The bridge charter was allowed to lapse, but a new one was granted by the Legislature February 17, 1816, which was signed by the governor May 31, 1816. A company organized under this charter July 8, 1816. The bridges were constructed and opened to the public for traffic, the Monongahela in 1818 and the Allegheny in 1820." _Warner's History of Allegheny county._ At an election held on the 10th instant for officers for the Monongahela Bridge Company, the following persons were unanimously elected: _President_--Wm. Wilkins. _Managers._ James Ross, Oliver Ormsby, David Pride, Christian Latshaw, George Anshutz, Thomas Baird, Wm. M'Candless, Philip Gilland, James S. Stevenson, Benj. Page, Jacob Beltzhoover, Fred'k Wendt. _Treasurer_--John Thaw _Clerk_--John Thaw _Commonwealth, June 25, 1816._ The Newspapers THE PITTSBURGH GAZETTE Printed by John Scull, corner of Market and Front Streets. The Gazette was published every Saturday morning at three dollars per annum. Later in the year the Gazette was published on Tuesdays and Fridays. "On the 1st of August, 1816, John Scull, the veteran editor, relinquished the publication of the Pittsburg Gazette. He was succeeded by Morgan Neville in the editorship of that journal, and his son, John I. Scull, became associated with Mr. Neville." _Wilson's History of Pittsburg._ "'The Pittsburgh Gazette' under the original proprietor, Mr. John Scull, was the first establishment of the kind, west of the mountains. On its first appearance, it was viewed as a meteor of the moment, whose existence would terminate with the second or third number; and the idea of deriving a subsistence from its publication, was classed among the chimeras of a too sanguine temper. Our country was then a 'howling wilderness,' and the Ohio, whose fair bosom is now covered with the 'white sails of commerce,' was then disturbed only by the yell of the savage, who lay ambushed on its bank, or glided over its surface, in his solitary canoe. But these obstacles, though disheartening, were not sufficient to destroy the enterprize of the Editor. He had turned his back on civilization and comforts of his native place; he had deliberately subjected himself to the inconveniences of emigration, and his was not the ardour to be damped at the outset.... He became a citizen of Pittsburgh, when it was little more than an Indian village; his interests grew with its growth; he saw it rise into a manufacturing town; he has heard it emphatically called the 'Birmingham of America;' and finally, he has the triumphant satisfaction, of beholding in his own days, the village of the desert, changed into the city of the west. He has succeeded even beyond his expectations; he has run his moderate, unostentatious course. The patronage he has received, was sufficient for his desires; his editorial life here ends; with feelings acutely sensible of the favors he has received, he now relinquishes to his son and successor the 'Pittsburgh Gazette,' unstained by corruption, and free from venality, but ever firm, he trusts, in supporting our palladium, the freedom of the Press." _Gazette, Aug. 9, 1816._ THE COMMONWEALTH Printed every Tuesday morning by C. Colerick for S. Douglas & Co. in Diamond Alley, between Market and Wood Streets. THE PITTSBURGH MERCURY "'The Pittsburgh Mercury,' is published every Saturday, at the new brick building, in Liberty-street, at the head of Wood-street, opposite the Octagon Church; where the subscribers, advertising customers, and other friends of the establishment, are respectfully invited to call." _Mercury, Oct. 19, 1816._ "The kind of news material found in the columns of papers of those days is entirely different from the style of material found today. Local news is rarely ever given in the papers of an early day. As a rule the subscriber read but one paper and local news could be handed around by gossip from one neighbor to another, and what the subscriber demanded in his paper was foreign news that he could gain in no other way. The founding of new enterprises, marriages, or deaths of prominent citizens, etc. found no place in the pioneer newspaper. European news necessarily nearly two months old, long articles on the management of public affairs, controversies carried on from week to week between rival exponents on different theories, essays on morality and amateur poetry, fill up the columns of nearly all the early newspapers of Western Pennsylvania.... Their value to those who would learn of early local history is found chiefly in the advertisements and from these ... one may gather some important information concerning Pittsburg's early days." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Churches First Presbyterian Church "In [1785] a bill was introduced into the Legislative Assembly, at Philadelphia, to incorporate a 'Presbyterian Congregation in Pittsburgh, at this time under the care of the Rev. Samuel Barr,' which, after much delay, was finally passed on the twenty-ninth of September, 1787. The Penns gave the site for this church.... In the Spring of 1811 Reverend Francis Herron became the pastor of the First Church, which the year before had had a membership of sixty-five. Dr. Herron's salary was six hundred dollars per annum. For thirty-nine years he labored ceaselessly and wisely for the church and congregation. In 1817 the church was enlarged, and the membership steadily increased." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ Second Presbyterian Church "The Second Presbyterian Church was organized ... in 1804, by those members of the First Church to whom the methods used, regarding the services in the First Church, were unsatisfactory. The next year Dr. Nathaniel Snowden took charge of the congregation which worshiped ... in the Court House and other places, public and private. Dr. John Boggs came, but remained only a short time. He was replaced by the Rev. Mr. Hunt, in 1809. The first edifice, on Diamond alley, near Smithfield street, was built in 1814." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ East Liberty Presbyterian Church "Mr. Jacob Negley, whose wife had been a Miss Winebiddle, and consequently, inherited much real estate, controlled practically what is now known as East Liberty Valley, in the early days, called Negleystown. He was largely instrumental ... in erecting a small frame school building at what subsequently became the corner of Penn and South Highland avenues. This was for the accommodation of the children of the district, as well as his own. It was ... a long distance to the then established churches, and Mr. Negley very often, for the benefit of the neighborhood, invited some minister passing through, or one from one of the other churches, to preach in his own house and later in the school house. In 1819 the little school house was torn down to make way for a church building." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ Reformed Presbyterian Church "The First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Pittsburg, long afterwards known as the 'Oak Alley Church,' was organized in 1799. Rev. John Black, an Irishman of considerable intellectual force, who had been graduated from the University of Glasgow, was its first pastor.... He included, in his ministry, all societies of the same persuasion in Western Pennsylvania. He preached here until his death on October 25, 1849." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Roman Catholic Church "The number of Catholics prior to 1800, in what is now Allegheny county, must have been very small. They were visited occasionally by missionaries traveling westward.... [These] priests, ministering to a few scattered families, celebrating Mass in private houses, fill up the long interval between the chapel of the 'Assumption of the Blessed Virgin of the Beautiful River' in Fort Duquesne, and 'Old St. Patrick's Church,' which was begun in 1808. Rev. Wm. F. X. O'Brien, the first pastor, was ordained in Baltimore, 1808, and came to Pittsburg in November of the same year, and at once devoted himself to the erection of ... 'Old St. Patrick's.' It stood at the corner of Liberty and Washington streets, at the head of Eleventh street, in front of the new Union Station.... The structure was of brick, plain in design and modest in size, about fifty feet in length and thirty in width. Rt. Rev. Michael Egan dedicated the Church in August 1811, and the dedication was the occasion of the first visit of a Bishop to this part of the State." _St. Paul's Cathedral record._ Protestant Episcopal Church "The building of the first Trinity Church was begun about the time it was organized and chartered, 1805. It occupied a triangular lot at the corner of Sixth, Wood and Liberty streets. It was built in an oval form that it might more nearly conform to the shape of the three cornered lot and for this reason was generally known as the 'round church.' Rev. Taylor in his latter years became known as 'Father' Taylor. He remained with the church as its rector until 1817, when he resigned." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ First German United Evangelical Protestant Church "When John Penn, jr., and John Penn presented land to the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches of Pittsburgh they, at the same time, deeded the same amount to the already organized German Evangelical congregation; the land given to them was bounded by Smithfield street, Sixth avenue, Miltenberger and Strawberry alleys. No church was built on this grant, however, until some time between 1791-94, and it was of logs. This was ... replaced in 1833 by a large brick building, which had the distinction of a cupola, in which the first church bell in Pittsburgh was hung." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ Methodist Episcopal Church "In June, 1810, a lot was purchased for the first [Methodist] church built in the city. It was situated on Front street, now First street, nearly opposite ... the present Monongahela House. The erection of a church was commenced at once, for on August 26th of that year Bishop Asbury preached on the foundation of it. His journal says: 'Preached on the foundation of the new chapel to about five hundred souls. I spoke again at 5 o'clock to about twice as many. The society here is lively and increasing in numbers.' The building was a plain brick structure, 30 � 40 feet. We do not know certainly when it was completed, but probably in the autumn of 1810. In this church the society continued to worship in peace and prosperity for eight years. But near the close of this period it had become too small, and a new and larger one became a necessity. Consequently, in May, 1817, three lots were purchased on the corner of Smithfield and Seventh streets, and the erection of a larger church commenced. It was completed the following year." _Warner's History of Allegheny county._ Baptist Church "The first church of this denomination in Pittsburg was organized in April, 1812, when the city had about five thousand people. It was an independent organization and included about six families with perhaps not more than twelve people in all who had come from New England. The chief organizer and pastor was Rev. Edward Jones, also from New England. The society was too poor then to build a church, but worshiped in private houses and in rented halls." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Schools "Robert Steele, who afterward became a Presbyterian preacher, opened a school in Pittsburg in January, 1803, at his house on Second street.... His rates were four dollars per quarter. In 1803, a teacher named Carr opened a school for both boys and girls. The next year he advertised that his school was moved to larger quarters over Dubac's store, where he probably taught till 1808, when he opened a boarding school for boys. In 1818 he removed his school to Third street where Mrs. Carr 'instructed young ladies in a separate room in the usual branches, and in all kinds of needle work.' William Jones began a school in 1804, and charged but two dollars per quarter for tuition. In February, 1808, Samuel Kingston opened a school in a stone house on Second street.... A teacher named Graham opened a school on Second street, using the room formerly occupied by Mr. Kingston, in which he proposed to give his pupils an English and classical education on moderate terms. The advertisement stated that Mrs. Graham would at the same time open a school for 'young ladies' in an adjoining room, and that she would instruct them in all branches of an English education and in needle work. In 1811 Thomas Hunt opened a school 'for the instruction of females exclusively.' The hours he advertised were from 8 to 12 a.m., and from 2 to 5 p.m.... In the same year this advertisement appears: 'Messrs. Chute and Noyes' evening school commences the first of October next. They also propose on Sabbath morning, the 22 instant, to open a Sunday morning school to commence at the hour of eight a.m., and continue until ten. They propose to divide the males and females into separate departments. The design of the school is to instruct those who wish to attend, the Catechism and hear them read the Holy Scriptures. No pecuniary compensation is desired, a consciousness of doing good will be an ample reward.' In 1812 John Brevost opened a French school, and with his wife and daughter opened a boarding school in connection with it in 1814. Their terms were, 'for reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, history and geography, with the use of maps, globes, etc., $8.00 quarterly. Playing on the piano, $10.00 quarterly; vocal music, $5.00 quarterly. Drawing and painting of flowers, $6.00 quarterly. French language, $5.00 quarterly. Boarding $37.00, payable in advance. Dancing, books, materials, drawing, sewing, bed and bedding to be paid for separately or furnished by parents.' Mrs. Gazzam had opened a seminary for young ladies by this time, and advertised its removal to Fifth street. Her pupils were instructed in the elementary studies of an English education, and in needle work at four dollars per quarter. She taught them to cut, make and repair their clothes. The pupils were permitted to visit their homes once each week, but no young men were allowed to visit them unless attended by a servant. She boarded them for $125 per year. The two sisters, Miss Anna and Arabella Watts, instructed young ladies solely in needle work. In almost all schools needle work was a requisite part of the education of young women. In fact it was considered the all important part of a woman's training and not infrequently other branches were taught if required, or if thought necessary." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ CITY ACADEMY "The subscriber, respectfully informs his fellow citizens, and others, that he has happily secured the co-operation of Mr. Edward Jones--hopes their most sanguine expectations, relative to his seminary, will be fully justified. All the most important branches of education, taught as in the best academies, on either side the Atlantick.--Mathematics in general, as in the city of _Edinburgh_.--During four years, the subscriber taught the only Mathematical school in the capital of New-Hampshire. A class of young gentlemen will shortly commence the study of Navigation, Gunnery, Bookkeeping, Geography and English grammar. George Forrester." _Mercury, May 18, 1816._ THE LANCASTER SCHOOL. "Will continue at the room where it is now kept in Market street. In addition to the common branches of reading, orthography, etc., the teacher gives lessons in English grammar, geography and Book-keeping. Penmanship is taught on a most approved system at all hours. To those who are acquainted with this mode of instructing children, its superior excellence need not be pointed out, and such as have never seen a school on this plan in actual operation, and are not intimately conversant with its theory, are invited (if they have the curiosity) to visit the institution in Market street; where, although the number of pupils is small, yet the school will afford a sufficient illustration of the Lancaster system to convince the most incredulous that 500 or even 1000 pupils by the aid of this wonderful invention, may be taught with prodigious facility by a single teacher." _Commonwealth, April 3, 1816._ UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH "The first charter to an institution of learning west of the mountains granted by the legislature of Pennsylvania, February 28, 1787, created the Pittsburg Academy. The school was in existence earlier than this.... The principals of the academy from the very beginning were men of high attainments, some of them attaining great distinction. George Welch, the first principal, took office April 13, 1789. Rev. Robert Steele, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Rev. John Taylor, Mr. Hopkins and James Mountain successively were at the head of the academy. From 1807 to 1810, Rev. Robert Patterson, of excellent fame, successfully carried on the work. He was succeeded in the latter year by Rev. Joseph Stockton, author of the 'Western Calculator' and 'Western Spelling Book,' who continued in office until the re-incorporation of the academy as the Western University of Pennsylvania, in 1819." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Libraries "It was not ... until the fall of 1813, that the question of a community Library took definite shape, when in response to the efforts 'of many leading and progressive citizens,' there was organized 'The Pittsburgh Library Company.' On the evening of November 27, 1813, about 40 representative people assembled in the spacious 'bar room' of the 'Green Tree Inn,' at the northwest corner of Fifth and Wood streets, where the First National Bank now stands, and took the initiative in the formation of Pittsburgh's first real public library.... Its first president was the Rev. Francis Herron, for 40 years pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. The secretary was Aquila M. Bolton, 'land broker and conveyancer.' The treasurer was Col. John Spear.... Quite a sum of money was subscribed by citizens generally for the purchase of books, while many valuable volumes were either contributed or loaned by members. Messrs. Baldwin, O'Hara, Wilkins and Forward being especially mentioned for their generosity in this connection. The first head-quarters of the library were in rooms 'on Second street, opposite Squire Robert Graham's office,' who at that time dispensed even handed justice at the northeast corner of Market and Second streets. Here the library remained until the county commissioners set aside a commodious room in the Court House for its use." _A. L. Hardy, in Gazette-Times, 1913._ "The triennial meeting of the shareholders [of the Pittsburgh Library Company] was convened at their new library room, in Second street, opposite Squire Graham's office, at six o'clock, Monday evening, December thirtieth, 1816. The following gentlemen were then elected by ballot to serve as a Board of Directors for the ensuing three years, viz: George Poe, president; Aquila M. Bolton, secretary; Lewis Bollman, treasurer; James Lea, Benjamin Bakewell, Robert Patterson, Walter Forward, Alexander Johnson, jr., William Eichbaum, jr., Benjamin Page, Alexander McClurg, J. P. Skelton, Ephraim Pentland, Charles Avery, J. R. Lambdin, directors." _Killikelly's History of Pittsburgh._ "It has been published, that the Library of this city contains two thousand volumes. Through the politeness of J. Armstrong, the librarian, I gained admittance, and having examined the catalogue, am enabled to state that the whole collection is only about five hundred volumes. The books, however, are well chosen, and of the best editions. How the error originated is of no consequence except to him who made it." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ The New Books of 1816 Austen. Emma. Byron. Childe Harold (Canto III). The dream. Hebrew melodies. Parisina. Prisoner of Chillon. Siege of Corinth. Coleridge. Christabel. Crabbe. Dictionary of English synonymes. D'Israeli. Character of James I. Goethe. Italianische reise. Hunt. A story of Rimini. Moore. Elegy on Sheridan. Irish melodies. Peacock. Headlong Hall. Scott. Antiquary. Black dwarf. Guy Mannering. Lord of the Isles. Old Mortality. Shelley. Alastor. Southey. Carmen triumphale. Wordsworth. Poems. White doe of Rylstone. The Theatre "There were in 1808 two dramatic societies in Pittsburg that were important enough to receive notice in the newspapers. The one was composed of law students and young lawyers and the other was composed of mechanics. The object of these societies was to study the poets and dramatic literature and to give public performances in the court house. William Wilkins ... was a member and took a leading part in the entertainments given by these societies. There was no way for theatrical companies from the East to reach Pittsburg prior to 1817, save by the state road, which was scarcely passable for a train of pack horses, yet they came even as early as 1808 and performed in a small room, which was secured for them when the court room was occupied. In 1812 a third dramatic society called the Thespian Society was organized among the young men and young women of Pittsburg. The society numbered among its members the brightest and best bred young people of the city, most of whom took part in each performance. They were given in a room on Wood street, in a building known as Masonic Hall." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "The Theatre of this City has been now opened nearly a fortnight, and the managers although they have used every exertion to please, in the selection of their pieces, have not been enabled to pay the contingent expenses of the House. This is a severe satire on the taste of the place. Tomorrow [Wednesday] evening we understand that the 'Stranger' is to be produced--we hope under auspices more favorable to the managers than heretofore. The part of the Stranger is to be performed by a Young Gentleman of the City, who has never before graced the Boards.--If report speaks correctly of his talents, he bids fair to excel any person who has yet appeared upon the stage on this side the Mountains. It is hoped that this novelty, together with the correct and manly acting of Mr. Savage, a stranger here, and the chastened elegance which Mrs. Savage is said to exhibit, will attract to the Theatre, for this one evening at least, the friends to this rational amusement." _Commonwealth, Nov. 12, 1816._ On Friday evening, June 7, will be presented, Shakespear's celebrated comedy, in 3 acts called Catharine & Petruchio after which, a much admired comic opera called The Highland Reel. For particulars, see bills. And, that every person should have the opportunity of seeing the most splendid spectacle ever exhibited in Pittsburgh, on Saturday evening, June 8, will be presented, the grand romantic drama, called Timour the Tartar; or, the Princess of Mingrelia. Which will positively be the last time, of its being performed, as the scenery will be appropriated to other purposes. With other Entertainments. For particulars, see box bills. "A few days after the performance of Hamlet, Mr. Entwistle, the manager, had for his benefit, that irresistibly amusing burlesque, 'Hamlet Travestie.' His line of acting is a broad-farce caricature of that of Liston. He personated the modern Danish prince. The audience were solemn, serious, and dull. The affecting entrance of the deranged Ophelia, who, instead of rosemary, rue, &c. had an ample supply of turnips and carrots, did not move a muscle of their _intelligent faces_--the ladies, indeed, excepted, who evinced by the frequent use of their pocket handkerchiefs, that their sympathies were engaged on the side of the love-sick maiden. Some who had seen the original Hamlet for the first time a few evenings before, gave vent to their criticisms when the curtain fell. They thought Mr. Entwistle did not look sufficiently grave; and that, as it was his benefit, he acted very dishonourably in shaving (cheating) them out of two acts; for that they guessed when Mr. Hutton played _that'ere_ king's mad son, he gave them five acts for their _dallar_. Mr. ---- assured me that on the following morning, a respectable lawyer of Pittsburgh met him, and said, 'I was at the play last night, Sir, and do not think that Mr. Entwistle acted Hamlet quite so well as Mr. Hutton.'" _Fearon's Sketches of America, 1818._ _Thespian Society_ The Public are respectfully informed that on this evening, Jan. 14th, will be presented the much admired Drama, called the Man of Fortitude. The proceeds to be appropriated to the benefit of the Sunday Male Charitable School. Recitation, Alonzo the brave or the fair Imogen. Song, I have loved thee, dearly loved thee.--Mrs. Menier. ----, America, Commerce and Freedom. _After which the much admired Farce, called_, The Review, _Or, the_ Wag of Windsor. Doors to be opened at half past 5 o'clock, and the curtain to rise at half past six. Box, one dollar; Pit, _Fifty cents_. "A citizen of Pittsburgh, and a lover of the useful and rational amusement of the Theatre, begs leave to observe to his fellow citizens, that on Monday evening next Mr. Alexander will stand forward for public recompense, for his exertions in his profession.... It must be readily acknowledged that no young gentleman of more transcendent talent ever graced the dramatic floor of Pittsburgh; it is, therefore, but just that he who has so often made _us_ smile, should from _us_ receive a something to make _him_ smile in turn." _Commonwealth, Nov. 4, 1815._ "The Theatre in this city is now opened by the Thespian Society, for the double purpose of gratifying the public taste by a moral and rational amusement and adding to the funds of the Male Charitable Sunday School. The _Man of Fortitude_ and the Farce of the _Review_ have been selected for representation this evening. Since society has been released from the chains of superstition, the propriety of Theatrick amusements has not been doubted by any man of liberal feelings and enlightened understanding.... The stage conveys a moral in colours more vivid than the awful and elevated station of the preacher permits him to use--it is his coadjutor in good, and goes with him hand in hand exposing vice to ridicule and honouring virtue." _Gazette, Jan. 14, 1817._ The Morals Efficiency Society of 1816 "The Moral Society of Pittsburgh announce to the public their formation. The object of their association is the suppression of vice and immorality, as far as their influence shall extend, and they shall be authorized by the laws of the commonwealth, and the ordinances of this city.... We hereby give this public information of our intention to aid the civil officers in the execution of the laws of this commonwealth, and the ordinances of the city, against all vice and crime cognizable by said laws and ordinances. Such as profane swearing, gambling, horse racing, irregular tippling houses and drunkenness, profanation of the Lord's day by unnecessary work of any kind, such as driving of waggons, carts, carriages of pleasure and amusement, or other conveyances not included under the exception of the laws of the commonwealth in case of necessity and mercy." _Commonwealth, Nov. 26, 1816._ Fourth of July, 1816 "A numerous and respectable concourse of citizens met at Hog Island, nearly opposite the village of Middletown, on the Ohio river, to celebrate the birth day of American independence. Colonel James Martin, was nominated president, and Captain Robert Vance, vice-president.--The utmost harmony and unanimity prevailed; and it was a pleasing sight to see citizens of opposite political sentiments, bury their former animosity, and with great cordiality join in celebrating the American anniversary. After performing the manual exercise, the company partook of an elegant dinner, prepared for the occasion, and the cloth being removed ... patriotic toasts were drank with great hilarity, accompanied by the discharge of musketry, and appropriate music.... The citizens retired at a late hour in the utmost harmony." _Mercury, July 20, 1816._ Police "When the borough was incorporated into a city [March 1816], the act incorporating it authorized the authorities to establish a police force, but there was none established for some years afterwards. The act limited the city taxation to five mills on a dollar, and the corporation could scarcely have paid a police force, even if one had been required. The city authorities did, however, pass an ordinance on August 24, 1816, establishing a night watchman, but soon found they had no money with which to pay him. They accordingly repealed the ordinance and for some years the city slept in darkness without the benefit of police protection." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Eagle Fire Company "In 1811 the second epoch in the company's history may be said to have started, the younger element having gradually crept in and assumed control of affairs, and the older men had to some extent lost interest and perhaps gained rheumatism in the fire service. The company was now re-organized on a more active and vigorous basis. The first engineer to take charge under the new regime was William Eichbaum, who continued to act in that capacity until 1832, when he was elected First Chief Engineer of the Fire Department on its organization.... In the company organization the most important duty devolved upon the Bucket Committee. Every citizen was required to keep two or three heavy leather buckets with his name painted on them, and in case of fire these were all brought on the ground. Two lines of men and women were formed to the water supply, to pass the full buckets to and the empty ones from the engine.... When the fire was extinguished all the buckets were left on the ground till next day. Then, as many of the inscriptions were obliterated, there was some stealing of buckets and consequent fights. Certain folks ... picked out the best buckets, just as in modern times some people get the best hats, or umbrellas, at the conclusion of a party. The Bucket Committee, to put a stop to this, decided to deliver all buckets to their respective owners." _Dawson's Our firemen._ Water-Supply "The water supply was gained, up to 1802, from wells and springs which flowed from out the hillsides, these being sufficient for a small town. An ordinance passed August 9, of that year, called for the making of four wells, not less than forty-seven feet in depth. Three of these were to be located on Market street, and were to be walled with stone.... Wells, with the springs at Grant's Hill, furnished the supply of water for public use until 1826." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ Banks "As early as the year 1815, there were only three banks in Pittsburgh; viz., the Bank of Pennsylvania, located on the north side of Second Avenue, between Chancery Lane and Ferry Street; Bank of Pittsburg, south-west corner of Market and Third Streets; Farmers and Mechanics' Bank, north side of Third, between Wood and Market Streets,--the aggregate capital amounting to less than two million dollars, which was considered abundantly adequate to the business of that period." _Parke's Recollections of seventy years._ The Bank of Pittsburgh is situated on the s.w. corner of Market and Third streets. President, William Wilkins, Directors, George Anchutz, Jun. Nicholas Cunningham William Hays James Morrison Craig Ritchie (Cannonsbr'g) James Brown (baker) Thos. Cromwell John Darragh Wm. McCandless John M. Snowden George Allison T. P. Skelton Cashier Alexander Johnston, Jun. Open daily from 9 o'clock a.m. till 3 p.m., except Sunday, Fourth of July, Christmas and Fast days. Discount day, Wednesday. Capital $600,000. Shares $50 each. Dividends, first Mondays in May and November. _Pittsburgh directory, 1815._ The Office of Discount and Deposit of the Bank of Pennsylvania is situated on the north side of Second between Market and Ferry streets. President, James O'Hara. Directors, Joseph Barker Anthony Beelen Thomas Baird Ebenezer Denny Boyle Irwin George Wallace David Evans _Pittsburgh directory, 1815._ THE FARMERS' AND MECHANICS' BANK OF PITTSBURGH. Cashier George Poe, Jun. Open daily from 9 o'clock a.m. till 3 p.m., except Sunday, Fourth of July, Christmas and Fast days. Discount day, Thursday. Is situated on the north side of Third, between Market and Wood streets. President, John Scull Directors, William Eichbaum, Jun. John Ligget William Leckey Jacob Negley _Pittsburgh directory, 1815._ Post-Office POST-OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT. Arrival and Departure of the MAILS, At the Post-Office--Pittsburgh The Eastern Mail arrives on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and closes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, at 8 o'clock A.M. The Western Mail arrives on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and closes on Sunday at sunset, and Wednesday and Friday at 1 o'clock P.M. The Beaver Mail arrives on Monday evening, and closes the same day at sun-set. The Erie Mail arrives on Monday evening and closes the same day at sun-set. The Steubenville Mail arrives on Sunday and Wednesday evenings, and closes same days at sun-set. The Huntingdon Mail, via Ebensburgh and Indiana, arrives on Tuesday, and closes same day at half past twelve P.M.... As there are several places of the same name in the United States, it is necessary that the directions should be particular, the states should be distinguished, and, where it might otherwise be doubtful, the counties.... Those who send letters may either pay the postage in advance, or leave it to be paid by their correspondents. RATES OF POSTAGE For Single Letters Cents For any distance not exceeding 40 miles 12 Over 40 and not exceeding 90 do 15 Over 90 and not exceeding 150 do 18-3/4 Over 150 and not exceeding 300 do 25-1/2 Over 500 37-1/2 _Pittsburgh directory, 1815._ The Suburbs "_Birmingham_ is a small village across the Monongahela, about one mile south of Pittsburgh. It has works for green glass, furnaces for casting hollow ware, &c. from pigs, and a saw mill, which is moved by a steam engine. The coal for all these, is used fresh from the mine, without mixture, coaking or desulphuration. Many of the balls for Perry's fleet, were cast in this foundery. But instead of forming such ministers of havoc, the metal is now moulded for softer hands, and _flat_ or _smoothing_ irons are produced in abundance. These are ground on a stone which revolves by a band from the steam engine." _Thomas's Travels through the western country in 1816._ "At a respectable meeting of the inhabitants of Birmingham and its vicinity, convened at the school-house, on Friday evening the 28th of March, 1816, in order to take into consideration the expediency of erecting a Market-House, in said town; Nathaniel Bedford, was called to the Chair, and George Patterson, appointed secretary. The chairman having stated the object of the meeting, the following resolutions were proposed and unanimously adopted, viz.-- RESOLVED, That a Market-House be built on the plan exhibited by Mr. Benjamin Yoe. RESOLVED, That the site of the structure be the centre of the square. Thus, another thriving and Manufacturing Town, is added to the many which have been established in the western section of Pennsylvania; and social order, with its concomitants, the arts and sciences, illuminate those wild and dreary shades, where lately none but the prowling wolf, or the restless and cruel savage held their haunts." _Mercury, April 20, 1816._ "At the beginning of the century the site of Allegheny City was a wilderness. In 1812 a few settlers had made inroads upon the forest, and had builded their cabins. Notice is called to the fact in the minutes of the Presbytery of Erie, in April of that year, in the following words: 'An indigent and needy neighborhood, situated on the Allegheny, opposite Pittsburgh, having applied for supplies,' the matter was laid before the Presbytery. Joseph Stockton seems to have been the first stated minister, preaching a part of his time there until 1819." _Centenary memorial of Presbyterianism in western Pennsylvania._ "The facility for getting to and from Pittsburg [from Allegheny] was quite a different matter from what it is to-day. The only highway (if it may be called such) leading west from Federal Street to the Bottoms at that early day, was the erratic Bank Lane, which owing to the natural unevenness of the ground upon which it was located, and total neglect of the authorities of Ross township to put it in a condition for travel, ... was for many years only accessible for foot-passengers." _Parke's Recollections of seventy years._ Lawrenceville was laid out in 1815 by Wm. B. Foster, and had begun with the building of the United States arsenal. Courts "The Supreme Court holds a term in Pittsburgh, on the 1st Monday in September annually, to continue two weeks if necessary, for the Western District, composed of the counties of Somerset, Westmoreland, Fayette, Greene, Washington, Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Crawford, Erie, Warren, Venango, Armstrong, Cambria, Indiana and Jefferson." _Pittsburgh directory, 1815._ "Mr. Lacock submitted an important resolution for instructing the committee on the Judiciary to enquire into the expediency of dividing the state of Pennsylvania into _two Judicial Districts_, and establishing a _district court_ of the U. States at the city of Pittsburgh, which was agreed to." _Commonwealth, Jan. 6, 1817._ County Elections "Henry Baldwin is elected to congress for the district composed of the counties of Allegheny and Butler, by a majority of about 800 votes. John Gilmore, William Woods, Samuel Douglass and Andrew Christy are elected to the assembly. Lazarus Stewart is elected Sheriff of Allegheny county, by a majority of 181 votes. Joseph Davis is elected commissioner by a majority of 249 votes, and Charles Johnson, Auditor by a majority of 28 votes." _Gazette, Oct. 15, 1816._ The State Legislature "The bill for erecting the two Bridges at Pittsburgh has passed both houses. The sites are fixed at St. Clair-street for the Allegheny and Smithfield-street for the Monongahela. The state subscribes $40,000 of stock for each bridge. A bill is about being reported for establishing a horse and cattle market in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. The bill for erecting Pittsburgh into a city has passed the senate and is before the house, where it is expected to pass through without opposition. The bill for erecting a new county out of parts of Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, and Fayette, is reported. This bill will throw off the greater part of Elizabeth township from Allegheny county. There have been no remonstrances against it received from this county; but we understand that some have been received from the other counties concerned. The bill for erecting a Poorhouse for Allegheny county, it is expected will pass." _Mercury, Feb. 24, 1816._ "We regret to say that neither from our correspondent at Harrisburg nor from the papers printed there, have we been enabled to procure an account of the legislative proceedings. We take two papers published at the seat of government, but from some unaccountable reason they do not contain the intelligence our readers require. We are reduced to the necessity of picking up here and there from letters to editors--from information derived from travellers--or from some other like inconclusive sources of information, that intelligence with which Journals published at the seat of government should supply us. They ought to be the fountains of information to the mass of the community: Instead of dabbling in politics and abusing or eulogizing party leaders, they should deal in facts. The National Intelligencer we look upon as the best model with which we are acquainted of a national journal." _Commonwealth, Dec. 24, 1816._ Slavery "Nearly all of the first residents of Pittsburg and vicinity who were wealthy enough to afford the luxury were owners of slaves. The Nevilles, John Gibson, James O'Hara, Alexander Fowler, Adamson Tannehill, the Kirkpatricks and many others owned them, and several continued to do so as late as the war of 1812. The old newspapers contained advertisements for runaway slaves even as late as 1820." _Wilson's History of Pittsburg._ "The year 1780 is memorable in the annals of Pennsylvania for the passage of the act for the gradual abolition of slavery in this State.... It provided for the registration of every negro or mulatto slave or servant for life, or till the age of thirty-one years, before the first of November following, and also provided, 'that no man or woman of any nation or color, except the negroes or mulattoes who shall be registered as aforesaid, shall at any time hereafter be deemed, adjudged, or holden within the territory of this Commonwealth, as slaves or servants for life, but as free men and free women.'" _Egle's History of Pennsylvania._ Advertisements from the Newspapers of 1816 SHOT, POWDER, &c. The Subscriber Has Just Received a quantity of first quality Patent Shot, No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6. Good Rifle Gun Powder By the keg Country Segars, Scotch and Rappe Snuff Domestic Cloth, and Cotton Shawls. -- On Hand -- A General assortment of Merchandize, suited to the present and approaching season. -- Also -- Prime Pickling Vinegar Very strong and fit for immediate use All of which will be sold Wholesale or Retail at the lowest market prices, for Cash or approved Trade. ISAAC HARRIS, Diamond, Pittsburgh. Will be received in Exchange Butter, Beeswax, Deer Skins, Clover and Flaxseed, Flax and Tow Linen, Bags, Flax, Rags, and country produce generally. CANDLE MANUFACTORY The subscriber, respectfully informs his friends and the public, that he has erected a dip and candle manufactory in the Diamond, Pittsburgh; where he will keep constantly on hand and offers, Wholesale and Retail, dipt and mould candles of the best quality and on the most reasonable terms. THOMAS COLMAN. N.B. Economical Lanthern Candles, at 12 cents per bunch. D. & J. CHUTE Have on hand, a handsome assortment of Shoes, adapted to the season; a few pairs Boots, suitable for laborers; also, Currant Wine, by the barrel or smaller quantity. The above are offered for sale low for cash or negotiable paper. N.B. When servants call for shoes, it is necessary that an order be sent. PITTSBURGH PIPE MANUFACTORY, ROUND HOUSE. WILLIAM PRICE Informs the merchants of the Western country that they may be supplied with any quantity of long or short Smoking Pipes as handsome and good as those imported--and hopes the merchants of this place will give the preference to the Manufactures of our own country. OYSTERS Gentlemen can be genteely accommodated at the City Hotel, with Oysters. EDWARD CARR. STOP THE THIEF! Taken from the subscriber on the 19th of November last, a Black Great Coat, with a large Cape, the Cape buttoned on the collar, on the front of the Cape is black glass buttons, and on the front and hips of the coat is cloth buttons, taken by James Dunlap from his boarding house. This Dunlap is a large man with a red face, and on the fingers of his right hand two of the knuckles are out of joint. Said Dunlap is by occupation a sort of a saddler, but if you wish to see him you may go to the grog shop or brandy house, for there is his place of abode in general. Any person that will take up and return said Dunlap and Coat, shall receive the reward of Five Dollars. BENJAMIN CRANDALL. THE BANKS WEST OF THE MOUNTAINS, Are most respectfully informed, that the Bank Bill Engraving and Printing Office at Pittsburgh, shall in the future be kept constantly open in such a style of elegance and punctuality as to merit the honor of their patronage. The Bank Paper manufactured for the office, by Messrs. Drum & Markle of Greensburgh, is allowed by competent judges to be equal to any in the United States. CHARLES P. HARRISON. PRACTISING BALL. Mr. Boudet's first Practising Ball will be on Saturday Evening the 26th instant, at his School Room. N.B. No gentlemen can be admitted without being introduced by a lady with whom Mr. B. is acquainted; nor can any gentleman be permitted to dance in boots. Admission tickets for gentlemen to be had at any time of Mr. B. Price One Dollar, pupils half price. GERMAN REDEMPTIONERS. Just arrived from Amsterdam, Tradesmen and Farmers, single and married, who are willing to bind themselves for the payment of their passage money, amounting to about ninety dollars, for a term of three years, and their children being upwards of four years old until they are of age on paying half passage money. The steady habits of these people and their general character for honesty and industry it is supposed would render them particularly desirable in a country, where the procuring of assistance is difficult and uncertain. For further particulars apply to BOSLER & CO. or to GLAZER & SMITH of Philadelphia. READER ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS. Do I, or do I not, owe the Printer? Shall I pay him his small pittance?--Shall he stop his business for want of what I honestly owe him? All just men will answer No! Then gentlemen, if such is your answer, it certainly is a pleasing one to the Printer, who will, at all times, be happy to attend the calls of those who have it in their power to pay our just demand--for without money we must discontinue our useful business. H. D. & Co. BALL Mr. Boudet, respectfully informs the Ladies and Gentlemen of Pittsburgh and its vicinity, that he will give a Ball this evening, (Friday the 24th inst.) at the court-house, at half past seven o'clock, and will be conducted as they are in our populous cities viz--the ladies to be invited, and gentlemen to pay one dollar on their admission--understood, that such gentlemen as are strangers to the professor, must come introduced by some person with whom he is acquainted, without which they cannot be admitted. N.B. No gentlemen allowed to dance in boots. Tickets to be had at the door--price one dollar. CHARLES S. FIMETON Carpenter--Late of Chambersburgh, Respectfully informs his friends and the public in general, that he has commenced the Carpenter Business, in Front-street, in the same house occupied by William Sands, barber and hair dresser; where all orders in his line will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. LITERARY NOTICES. John Binns of Philadelphia proposes to publish a splendid edition of the Declaration of Independence, which shall be in all respects American: The _paper_, the _types_, the _ink_, the _designs_, the _engravings_,--the publication throughout shall afford evidence of what our citizens have done in politics, and can do in art. TO BUILDERS. The public are respectfully informed that they can be accommodated with any quantity of Iron Cannon Borings. In cities where these Borings can be procured, they are much used as cement for any kind of mason work, exposed to the weather, or the action of water, such as chimney tops, parapat or fire walls, piers of bridges, etc. M'CLURGS & M'KNIGHT. OYSTERS JOHN BYRNE At his Umbrella Manufactory, Fourth, Between Market and Ferry Streets. Just received and for sale at his Oyster House, a few Kegs most excellent Spiced Oysters. He continues to make and repair Umbrellas and Parasols in the newest manner, the smallest favour will be gratefully attended to. GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY SECOND CLASS Authorised by Act of Congress, for opening a Canal in the City of Washington. Begins drawing on the 30th September next. 35,000 Dollars } 25,000 Dollars } Highest prizes 10,000 Dollars } Six Dollars the lowest Prize. Tickets for Sale At the Store of William Hill for cash only, who will receive the drawings regularly. NOTICE My wife Fanny having thought proper to withdraw herself from my protection, without the least cause given on my part for her doing so, I am compelled, though very reluctantly, to forbid all persons from trusting her on my account, as I will pay no debts which she may contract hereafter. J. TIBBETTE. N.B. I also inform those who wish to be shaved in Imperial Style, that I am always to be found at my Shop in Market Street, between Front and Water Streets. MECHANICS RETREAT, At the Green Cottage, facing Mr. Jelly's Factory, Turnpike Road, Is Opened, Where an assortment of Liquors of the very best quality are kept. Turtle and other Soups every Wednesday and Sunday.--Share of public patronage is solicited. WANTED At the United States' Arsenal, now erecting near Pittsburgh. Forty good Stone Masons, and Twenty Labourers, to whom constant employment and good wages will be given for one or two seasons. Apply to the subscriber on the ground. CHRISTOPHER ARMSTRONG. WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TIN MANUFACTURY. THOMAS W. EAGLES, Wood street, between Water and Front Sts., Has just imported an elegant assortment of the best English planished Tin Ware, consisting of Dish covers in setts, Tea pots, Coffee Biggons, Hash dishes of all sizes, &c. &c. &c. Sheet Brass, Do. Copper, Mill saws, Iron and tinned rivetts, Brass kettles of all sizes, &c. &c. The above are the first assortment that has been offered for sale west of the mountains, and will be sold at the importers prices. Also, on hand an elegant assortment of Looking Glasses, on better terms than at any other house in this city. A small invoice of first rate Sadlery. An assortment of Patent Iron Ware tinned inside. BANK OF PITTSBURGH, 2d JANUARY, 1817 The Directors of this institution being desirous to procure an eligible situation on which to erect a Banking House, hereby give notice to persons holding such that they will receive at the Bank sealed proposals for the sale of the same until the first day of February next. By order of the board, ALEX. JOHNSTON, JR. _Cashier_. SIX OUT-LOTS FOR SALE These Lots are situated on Grant's Hill, adjoining Adamson Tannehill, Esq. The intrinsic beauty of these Lots, their contiguity to Pittsburgh, the elegant and commanding view which they afford of the town, the surrounding country, and the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers, sufficiently recommend them. For terms apply to JOHN M'DONALD, Smithfield Street. WANTED 10,000 merchantable deer-skins, for which a generous price will be given--if delivered within a month from this day. CHARLES L. VOLZ & CO. REMOVAL John Cowan, has removed his Bow String Manufactory, from Liberty street, to the house lately occupied by Wm. Davis, in Diamond alley, sign of the Bird in Hand; where he continues to manufacture Bow-strings. He also keeps a convenient yard for Market people, to leave their horses in, Liquors, etc. He returns the public thanks for their liberal encouragement, and hopes to merit its continuance. J. BYRNE, JEWELLER, MARKET STREET, Has just received a fresh supply of those justly esteemed and highly approved "Medicines," prepared by W. T. Conway, No. 1, Hamilton Place, Common Street, Boston. Read! Try! Judge! Then speak as ye Find. TO BE LET _And possession given on or before the first of April next._ A Three story brick dwelling House with Kitchen, Well, Smoke-house, Smith shop, Stable, etc. in the yard. Situate in Virgin alley, between Wood and Smithfield streets. For terms apply at the store of the subscriber, in Market Street, nearly opposite the Black Bear. JOHN WILLS. LOTS FOR SALE IN THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH. The Subscribers being appointed by the President of the United States Joint Commissioners for the purpose of selling certain Lots in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the property of the United States, in pursuance of an Act of Congress, passed 2d August, A.D. 1815: In virtue of the said appointment, they will expose for sale at Public Vendue, Lots No. 55, 56, 57, & 58, Being part of the site of Fort Fayette, bounded by the Allegheny River, Hand and Penn Streets and an alley.... These Lots are as eligible as any vacant Lots in the City. THE SUBSCRIBER OFFERS FOR SALE, A HOUSE AND LOT, Situate on the corner of Smithfield-street and Strawberry alley. The lot is 20 feet front and 60 deep. The house stands on the back end of the lot and rents for eighty-four dollars per year. There is room on front for building 20 feet by 32. The property is subject to a ground rent of seventy dollars per annum. For further particulars, apply to the subscriber, in Virgin alley, between Wood and Liberty-streets. THOMAS COLLINGWOOD. FIVE CENTS REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber, on Sunday the 1st inst. Andrew Jeffery An apprentice to the tin plate business. The above reward will be paid if brought home, but no expences. GEORGE MILTENBERGER. TO LET, and possession given immediately, That well known tavern sign of Capt. Lawrence on the Turnpike road two miles from Pittsburgh.--To a person qualified to keep a public house the terms will be made very reasonable. Apply to WM. B. FOSTER. FOR SALE A Black Woman, who has six years and a half to serve, with two female children, from 4 to 6 years of age, to serve till 28. The woman is healthy, honest, industrious, and an excellent Cook. The owner having no further occasion for their services will dispose of them on moderate terms. Enquire at the Gazette Office. FOR SALE, A Black Girl, who has eleven years and eight months to serve. She is young, active and healthy: a good house maid and equally qualified for farm or tavern work. As the owner has no further use for her, she will be disposed of on moderate terms and at an accommodating credit. Apply at the Auction Store, Market street to D. S. SCULLY. TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD Ran away about the middle of September last, from the subscriber living in Connelsville, Fayette county, Pa. a negro man named Pompey, a slave for life, about fifty years of age, five feet six inches high, very dark, small featured, bald head, active, much addicted to drunkenness and impudent when in that state--has formerly resided in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and affects to speak French. Took with him a black cloth coat, a lindsey coatee, one pair blue cloth pantaloons, one pair dimitty do and sundry other wearing apparel. Whoever apprehends and secures the said negro so that the subscriber may get him again, shall receive the above reward and reasonable charges if returned. JOHN CAMPBELL. TAKE WARNING. FIFTY DOLLARS REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber, on Saturday the 2nd day of March last, a Negro Man named Jim, about 23 years of age, about 5 feet 10 inches high, somewhat slender and not very black, about a chestnut colour, has a small scar on one of his cheeks, I believe the right, the scar appears to have been made with a knife when small, and is about one inch long, just above the cheek bone. Whoever will apprehend said Negro and confine him in any jail in the state of Pennsylvania or Ohio, so that I may get him, shall have the above reward--and this is to forewarn all persons from hiring or harbouring said Negro, under the penalty of their lives, for after this notice, I am determined to kill any man that I find him in the possession of, without he first ascertains that he is legally free, and I hope all persons will be cautious how they hire slaves. HEZEKIAH CONN. N.B. If the above described Negro is apprehended and put in jail, a letter to me at Frontroyal, Fredrick county, Virginia, will be immediately attended to. SIX CENTS REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber on the 4th inst. a servant girl named Nancy M'Carthy about 14 years of age had on when she went away a cotton frock, green silk bunnot, fair complexion, light hair cut off short. She is supposed to be gone to the new garrison, as she was taken up there once before. I forewarn all persons from harbouring her. The reward will be given, but no charges. WM. GRAHAM. A FLAT-BOTTOMED BOAT Was taken up the subscriber, living at the mouth of the Four Mile Run, on the Ohio river, on the 21st inst. She is 50 feet long, 12 feet wide--the gunnels and gunnel plank are oak, and the rest of her poplar. She had on board two oars lying on deck, and no stearing oar. The owner is desired to come and prove property, pay charges, and take her away. WILLIAM BURGER. $30 REWARD Ranaway from the Subscriber on the 1st inst. an Apprentice to the carpenter business, named Joseph Reever, about 20 years of age, dark complexion about 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, long sandy hair, had on when he went away a black roram hat, black velvet round about and pantaloons of the same, he took with him sundry articles of his own clothing and stole one pair of gray casimere and a pair of blue striped gingham pantaloons, also a green striped waistcoat with silver buttons and rings, also one fine cambric muslin shirt and an old linen one marked G. F. He has a cross on his left arm and a representation of a buffalo on the calf of his right leg below his knee and a figure 4 on his thigh made with Indian ink, whoever takes up said apprentice and returns him to the subscriber shall have the above reward all reasonable charges. GEO. FOULK. THREE CENTS AND A POUND OF OLD HORSE-SHOE NAILS REWARD! Strayed away from the subscriber on the 11th instant. John Donaldson, an apprentice to the blacksmith business--aged 18 years--five feet 7 or 8 inches high--stout built--very slow in the motion--very fond of playing ball and being idle--more proud of dress than of his work;--He took with him no more clothes than what was on his back, which consisted of one common shirt, a dark marsailles waistcoat, a dark gray coattee and pantaloons, one pair stockings, one pair shoes half worn, a neck-handkerchief, and one new black fur hat, made by Wm. Church. No other marks are recollected. The above reward, no charges and no thanks, will be given to any person who will return said stray. JAMES YOURD. VALUABLE PROPERTY ON PERPETUAL LEASE The subscriber will Let on a Perpetual Lease the Houses, Stabling, and Lot of ground, situate on the corner of Wood and Fifth Streets, in the City of Pittsburg, Containing 120 feet front on Wood Street and fifty seven on Fifth Street. The Houses, Stabling and Lot is well known: the sign of the Turk's Head. Any Person wishing to view the property, will apply to the subscriber next door to the sign of the Turk's Head, Fifth Street. G. STEWART. WILLIAM MASSON SAILMAKER--PITTSBURGH Begs leave to inform the public, that he has received from Philadelphia, a quantity of Russia Sail Duck--also, a quantity of Blocks, of various sizes; and that he is ready to receive orders from any place to make sails for boats or vessels of any size--likewise sacking bottoms, either of country cloth or Russia duck. From an experience of twenty years following the sea, he flatters himself he will be enabled to give satisfaction to those who may want any thing in his line. BOAT LOST. _Lost at the time of the last Fresh of the River_, A handsome Boat, Twenty feet keel, painted green outside, and red inside, a heart painted on the stern, the moulding and stern painted yellow and a keel from stem to stern. Whoever has taken up said boat, or will give information where she may be found, shall be handsomely rewarded, on application to CHARLES IMSEN, O'Hara's Glassworks. TAKEN UP A DRIFT In the time of the flood, in February last, a Broken Raft of Scantling and Boards, & landed them near the foot of Sandy Creek Island, in the Allegheny river. The subscriber supposing the owner would soon come, and take care of his property, which he did not, and they lying in a bad way, and a spoiling, he has drawn the raft, and secured it, and requests the owner to come, and prove his property, pay charges, and take it away. MICHAEL BRIGHT. 1816 "There is always a peculiar solemnity which impresses every thoughtful mind on the birthday of another Year. The year one thousand eight hundred and sixteen, with all its cares, with all its bustle, its pleasures and its pains, has gone, and now mingles with the departed dreams of our midnight slumbers. How many of us imagined while engaged in the din and bustle and uproar of the world, that this era would form an important epoch in the history of man? and yet all these thoughts have now vanished, and scarce left a record on the pages of memory behind!" _Gazette, Jan. 14, 1817._ 
40037	----	[Illustration] [Illustration: BLOCK HOUSE OF FORT PITT. BUILT 1764.] FORT DUQUESNE AND FORT PITT EARLY NAMES OF PITTSBURGH STREETS SIXTH EDITION PUBLISHED BY FORT PITT SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA REED & WITTING CO., PRESS 1921 _This little sketch of Fort Duquesne and Fort Pitt is compiled from extracts taken mainly from Parkman's Histories; The Olden Time, by Neville B. Craig; Fort Pitt, by Mrs. Wm. Darlington; Pioneer History, by S. P. Hildreth, etc._ _Pittsburgh_ _September, 1898._ CHRONOLOGY =1753=--The French begin to build a chain of forts to enforce their boundaries. =December 11, 1753.=--Washington visits Fort Le Boeuf. =January, 1754.=--Washington lands on Wainwright's Island in the Allegheny river.--Recommends that a Fort be built at the "Forks of the Ohio." =February 17, 1754.=--A fort begun at the "Forks of the Ohio" by Capt. William Trent. =April 16, 1754.=--Ensign Ward, with thirty-three men, surprised here by the French, and surrenders. =June, 1754.=--Fort Duquesne completed. =May 28, 1754.=--Washington attacks Coulon de Jumonville at Great Meadows. =July 9, 1755.=--Braddock's defeat. =April, 1758.=--Brig. Gen. John Forbes takes command. =August, 1758.=--Fort Bedford built. =October, 1758.=--Fort Ligonier built. =November 24, 1758.=--Fort Duquesne destroyed by the retreating French. =November 25, 1758.=--Gen. Forbes takes possession. =August, 1759.=--Fort Pitt begun by Gen. John Stanwix. =May, 1763.=--Conspiracy of Pontiac. =July, 1763.=--Fort Pitt besieged by Indians. =1764.=--Col. Henry Bouquet builds the Redoubt. =October 10, 1772.=--Fort Pitt abandoned by the British. =January, 1774.=--Dr. James Connelly occupies Fort Pitt with Virginia militia, and changes name to Fort Dunmore. =July, 1776.=--Indian conference at Fort Pitt.--Pontiac and Guyasuta. =June 1, 1777.=--Brig. Gen. Hand takes command of the fort. =1778.=--Gen. McIntosh succeeds Hand. =November, 1781.=--Gen. William Irvine takes command. =May 19, 1791.=--Maj. Isaac Craig reports Fort Pitt in a ruinous condition.--Builds Fort Lafayette. =September 4, 1805.=--The historic site purchased by Gen. James O'Hara. =April 1, 1894.=--Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, granddaughter of Gen. James O'Hara, presents Col. Bouquet's Redoubt to the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. [Illustration] FORT DUQUESNE Conflicting Claims of France and England in North America. On maps of British America in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, one sees the eastern coast, from Maine to Georgia, gashed with ten or twelve colored patches, very different in size and shape, and defined more or less distinctly by dividing lines, which in some cases are prolonged westward until they reach the Mississippi, or even across it and stretch indefinitely towards the Pacific. These patches are the British Provinces, and the western prolongation of their boundary represents their several claims to vast interior tracts founded on ancient grants, but not made good by occupation or vindicated by an exertion of power * * * Each Province remained in jealous isolation, busied with its own work, growing in strength, in the capacity of self-rule, in the spirit of independence, and stubbornly resisting all exercise of authority from without. If the English-speaking population flowed westward, it was in obedience to natural laws, for the King did not aid the movement, and the royal Governor had no authority to do so. The power of the colonies was that of a rising flood, slowly invading and conquering by the unconscious force of its own growing volume, unless means be found to hold it back by dams and embankments within appointed limits. In the French colonies it was different. Here the representatives of the crown were men bred in the atmosphere of broad ambition and masterful, far-reaching enterprise. They studied the strong and weak points of their rivals, and with a cautious forecast and a daring energy set themselves to the task of defeating them. If the English colonies were comparatively strong in numbers these numbers could not be brought into action, while if French forces were small they were vigorously commanded and always ready at a word. It was union confronting division, energy confronting apathy, and military centralization opposed to industrial democracy, and for a time the advantage was all on one side. Yet in view of what France had achieved, of the patient gallantry of her explorers, the zeal of her missionaries, the adventurous hardihood of her bush-rangers, revealing to mankind the existence of this wilderness world, while her rivals plodded at their workshops, their farms, their fisheries; in view of all this, her pretensions were moderate and reasonable compared to those of England. Forks of the Ohio.--Washington's First Visit. The Treaty of Utrecht had decided that the Iroquois or Five Nations were British subjects; therefore it was insisted that all countries conquered by them belonged to the British crown. The range of the Iroquois war parties was prodigious, and the English laid claim to every mountain, forest and prairie where an Iroquois had taken a scalp. This would give them not only all between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, but all between Ottawa and Huron, leaving nothing to France but the part now occupied by the Province of Quebec. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and that of Aix la Chapelle in 1748, were supposed to settle the disputed boundaries of the French and English possessions in America; France, however, repented of her enforced concessions, and claimed the whole American continent as hers, except a narrow strip of sea-coast. To establish this boundary, it was resolved to build a line of forts from Canada to the Mississippi, following the Ohio, for they perceived that the "Forks of the Ohio," so strangely neglected by the English, formed together with Niagara the key of the great West. This chain of forts began at Niagara; then another was built of squared logs at Presque Isle (now Erie), and a third called Fort Le Boeuf, on what is now called French Creek. Here the work stopped for a time, and Lagardeur de St. Pierre went into winter quarters with a small garrison at Fort Le Boeuf. On the 11th of December, 1753, Major George Washington, with Christopher Gist as guide, Abraham Van Braam as interpreter, and several woodsmen,[A] presented himself as a bearer of a letter from Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia to the commander of Fort Le Boeuf. He was kindly received. In fact, no form of courtesy was omitted during the three days occupied by St. Pierre in framing his reply to Governor Dinwiddie's letter. This letter expressed astonishment that his (St. Pierre's) troops should build forts upon lands so notoriously known to be the property of Great Britain, and demanded their immediate and peaceable departure. In his answer, St. Pierre said he acted in accordance with the commands of his general, that he would forward Governor Dinwiddie's letter to the Marquis Duquesne and await his orders. It was on his return journey that Washington twice escaped death. First from the gun of a French Indian; then in attempting to cross the Allegheny, which was filled with ice, on a raft that he and his companions had hastily constructed with the help of one hatchet between them. He was thrown into the river and narrowly escaped drowning; but Gist succeeded in dragging him out of the water, and the party landed on Wainwright's Island, about opposite the foot of Thirty-third Street. On making his report Washington recommended that a fort be built at the "Forks of the Ohio." Men and money were necessary to make good Governor Dinwiddie's demand that the French evacuate the territory they had appropriated; these he found it difficult to get. He dispatched letters, orders, couriers from New Jersey to South Carolina, asking aid. Massachusetts and New York were urged to make a feint against Canada, but as the land belonged either to Pennsylvania or Virginia, the other colonies did not care to vote money to defend them. In Pennsylvania the placid obstinacy of the Quakers was matched by the stolid obstinacy of the German farmers; notwithstanding, Pennsylvania voted sixty thousand pounds, and raised twelve hundred men at eighteen pence per day. All Dinwiddie could muster elsewhere was the promise of three or four hundred men from North Carolina, two companies from New York and one from South Carolina, with what recruits he could gather in Virginia. In accordance with Washington's recommendation, Capt. William Trent, once an Indian trader of the better class, now a commissioned officer, had been sent with a company of backwoodsmen to build a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, and it was hoped he would fortify himself sufficiently to hold the position. Trent began the fort, but left it with forty men under Ensign Ward and went back to join Washington. The recruits gathered in Virginia were to be commanded by Joshua Fry, with Washington as second in command. Fort Duquesne.--Washington at Fort Necessity. On the 17th of April, 1754, Ward was surprised by the appearance of a swarm of canoes and bateaux descending the Allegheny, carrying, according to Ward, about one thousand Frenchmen, who landed, planted their cannon and summoned the Ensign to surrender. He promptly complied and was allowed to depart with all his men. The French soon demolished the unfinished fort and built in its place a much larger and better one, calling it Fort Duquesne, in honor of the Marquis Duquesne, then Governor of Canada. Washington, with his detachment of ragged recruits, without tents and scarcely armed, was at Will's Creek, about one hundred and forty miles from the "Forks of the Ohio," and he was deeply chagrined when Ward joined him and reported the loss of the fort. Dinwiddie then ordered Washington to advance. In order to do so, a road must be cut for wagons and cannon, through a dense forest; two mountain ranges must be crossed, and innumerable hills and streams. Towards the end of May he reached Great Meadows with one hundred and fifty men. While encamped here, Washington learned that a detachment of French had marched from the fort in order to attack him. They met in a rocky hollow and a short fight ensued. Coulon de Jumonville, the commander, was killed; all the French were taken prisoners or killed except one Canadian. This skirmish was the beginning of the war. Washington then advanced as far as Christopher Gist's settlement, twelve or fourteen miles on the other side of the Laurel Ridge. He soon heard that strong reinforcements had been sent to Fort Duquesne, and that another detachment was even then on the march under Coulon de Villiers, so on June 28th he began to retreat. Not having enough horses, the men had to carry the baggage on their backs, and drag nine swivels over miserable roads. Two days brought them to Great Meadows, and they had but one full day to strengthen the slight fortification they had made there, and which Washington named Fort Necessity. The fighting began at about 11, and lasted for nine hours; the English, notwithstanding their half starved condition, and their want of ammunition, keeping their ground against double their number. When darkness came a parley was sounded, to which Washington at first paid no attention, but when the French repeated the proposal, and requested that an officer might be sent, he could refuse no longer. There were but two in Washington's command who could understand French, and one of them was wounded. Capt. Van Braam, a Dutchman, acted as interpreter. The articles were signed about midnight. The English troops were to march out with drums beating, carrying with them all their property. The prisoners taken in the Jumonville affair were to be released, Capt. Van Braam and Major Stobo to be detained as hostages for their safe return to Fort Duquesne. This defeat was disastrous to the English. There was now not an English flag waving west of the Alleghanies. Villiers went back exultant to Fort Duquesne, and Washington began his wretched march to Will's Creek. No horses, no cattle, most of the baggage must be left behind, while the sick and wounded must be carried over the Alleghanies on the backs of their weary, half starved comrades. And this was the Fourth of July, 1754. The conditions of the surrender were never carried out. The prisoners taken in the skirmish with Jumonville were not returned. Van Braam and Stobo were detained for some time at Fort Duquesne, then sent to Quebec, where they were kept prisoners for several years. While a prisoner on parole Major Stobo made good use of his opportunities by acquainting himself with the neighborhood; afterwards he was kept in close confinement and endured great hardships; but in the spring of 1759 he succeeded in making his escape in the most miraculous manner. While Wolfe was besieging Quebec he returned from Halifax, and, it is said, it was he who guided the troops up the narrow wooded path to the Heights of Abraham. Strange, that one taken prisoner in a far distant province, in a skirmish which began the war, should guide the gallant Wolfe to the victory at Quebec, which virtually closed the war in America. Braddock. Nothing of importance was done in Virginia and Pennsylvania until the arrival of Braddock in February, 1755, bringing with him two regiments. Governor Dinwiddie hailed his arrival with joy, hoping that his troubles would now come to an end. Of Braddock, Governor Dinwiddie's Secretary, Shirley wrote to Governor Morris: "We have a general most judiciously chosen for being disqualified for the service he is in, in almost every respect." Braddock issued a call to the provincial governors to meet him in council, which was answered by Dinwiddie of Virginia, Dobbs of North Carolina, Sharpe of Maryland, Morris of Pennsylvania, Delancy of New York, and Shirley of Massachusetts. The result was a plan to attack the French at four points at once. Braddock was to advance on Fort Duquesne, Fort Niagara was to be reduced, Crown Point seized, and a body of men from New England to capture Beausejour and Arcadia. We will follow Braddock. In his case prompt action was of the utmost importance, but this was impossible, as the people refused to furnish the necessary supplies. Franklin, who was Postmaster General in Pennsylvania, was visiting Braddock's camp with his son when the report of the agents sent to collect wagons was brought in. The number was so wholly inadequate that Braddock stormed, saying the expedition was at an end. Franklin said it was a pity he had not landed in Pennsylvania, where he might have found horses and wagons more plentiful. Braddock begged him to use his influence to obtain the necessary supply, and Franklin on his return to Pennsylvania issued an address to the farmers. In about two weeks a sufficient number was furnished, and at last the march began. He reached Will's Creek on May 10, 1755, where fortifications had been erected by the colonial troops, and called Fort Cumberland. Here Braddock assembled a force numbering about twenty-two hundred. Although Braddock despised the provincial troops and the Indians, he honored Col. George Washington, who commanded the troops from Virginia, by placing him on his staff. A month elapsed before this army was ready to leave Fort Cumberland. Three hundred axemen led the way, the long, long, train of pack-horses, wagons, and cannon following, as best they could, along the narrow track, over stumps and rocks and roots. The road cut was but twelve feet wide, so that the line of march was sometimes four miles long, and the difficulties in the way were so great that it was impossible to move more than three miles a day. On the 18th of June they reached Little Meadows, not thirty miles from Fort Cumberland, where a report reached them that five hundred regulars were on their way to reinforce Fort Duquesne. Washington advised Braddock to leave the heavy baggage and press forward, and following this advice, the next day, June 19th, the advance corps of about twelve hundred soldiers with what artillery was thought indispensable, thirty wagons, and a number of pack-horses, began its march; but the delays were such that it did not reach the mouth of Turtle Creek until July 7th. The distance to Fort Duquesne by a direct route was about eight miles, but the way was difficult and perilous, so Braddock crossed the Monongahela and re-crossed farther down, at one o'clock. Washington describes the scene at the ford with admiration. The music, the banners, the mounted officers, the troops of light cavalry, the naval detachment, the red-coated regulars, the blue-coated Virginians, the wagons and tumbrils, the cannon, howitzers and coehorns, the train of pack-horses and the droves of cattle passed in long procession through the rippling shallows and slowly entered the forest. Fort Duquesne was a strong little fort, compactly built of logs, close to point of where the waters of the Allegheny and Monongahela unite. Two sides were protected by these waters, and the other two by ravelins, a ditch and glacis and a covered way, enclosed by a massive stockade. The garrison consisted of a few companies of regulars and Canadians and eight hundred Indian warriors, under the command of Contrecoeur. The captains under him were Beaujeu, Dumas, and Ligneris. When the scouts brought the intelligence that the English were within six leagues of the fort, the French, in great excitement and alarm, decided to march at once and ambuscade them at the ford. The Indians at first refused to move, but Beaujeu, dressed as one of them, finally persuaded them to march, and they filed off along the forest trail that led to the ford of the Monongahela--six hundred Indians and about three hundred regulars and Canadians. They did not reach the ford in time to make the attack there. Braddock's Defeat. Braddock advanced carefully through the dense and silent forest, when suddenly this silence was broken by the war-whoop of the savages, of whom not one was visible. Gage's column wheeled deliberately into line and fired; and at first the English seemed to carry everything before them, for the Canadians were seized by a panic and fled; but the scarlet coats of the English furnished good targets for their invisible enemies. The Indians, yelling their war-cries, swarmed in the forest, but were so completely hidden in gullies and ravines, behind trees and bushes and fallen trunks, that only the trees were struck by the volley after volley fired by the English, who at last broke ranks and huddled together in a bewildered mass. Both men and officers were ignorant of this mode of warfare. The Virginians alone were equal to the emergency and might have held the enemy in check, but when Braddock found them hiding behind trees and bushes, as the Indians, he became so furious at this seeming want of courage and discipline, that he ordered them with oaths, to join the line, even beating them with his sword, they replying to his threats and commands that they would fight if they could see any one to fight with. The ground was strewn with the dead and dying, maddened horses were plunging about, the roar of musketry and cannon, and above all the yells that came from the throats of six hundred invisible savages, formed a chaos of anguish and terror indescribable. Braddock saw that all was lost and ordered a retreat, but had scarcely done so when a bullet pierced his lungs. It is alleged that the shot was fired by one of his own men, but this statement is without proof. The retreat soon turned into a rout, and all who remained dashed pell-mell through the river to the opposite shore, abandoning the wounded, the cannon, and all the baggage and papers to the mercy of the Indians. Beaujeu had fallen early in the conflict. Dumas and Ligneris did not pursue the flying enemy, but retired to the Fort, abandoning the field to the savages, which soon became a pandemonium of pillage and murder. Of the eighty-six English officers all but twenty-three were killed or disabled, and but a remnant of the soldiers escaped. When the Indians returned to the Fort, they brought with them twelve or fourteen prisoners, their bodies blackened and their hands tied behind their backs. These were all burned to death on the bank of the Allegheny, opposite the Fort. The loss of the French was slight; of the regulars there were but four killed or wounded, and all the Canadians returned to the Fort unhurt except five. The miserable remnant of Braddock's army continued their wild flight all that night and all the next day, when before nightfall those who had not fainted by the way reached Christopher Gist's farm, but six miles from Dunbar's camp. The wounded general had shown an incredible amount of courage and endurance. After trying in vain to stop the flight, he was lifted on a horse, when, fainting from the effects of his mortal wound, some of the men were induced by large bribes to carry him in a litter. Braddock ordered a detachment from the camp to go to the relief of the stragglers, but as the fugitives kept coming in with their tales of horror, the panic seized the camp, and soldiers and teamsters fled. The next day, whether from orders given by Braddock or Dunbar is not known, more than one hundred wagons were burned, cannon, coehorns, and shells were destroyed, barrels of gunpowder were saved and the contents thrown into a brook, and provisions scattered about through the woods and swamps, while the enemy, with no thought of pursuit, had returned to Fort Duquesne. Braddock died on the 13th of July, 1755, and was buried on the road; men, horses and wagons passing over the grave of their dead commander as they retreated to Fort Cumberland, thus effacing every trace of it, lest it should be discovered by the Indians and the body mutilated. Thus ended the attempt to capture Fort Duquesne, and for about three years, while the storm of blood and havoc raged elsewhere, that point was undisturbed. [Illustration: HENRY BOUQUET.] Brigadier General Forbes. In the meantime Dinwiddie had gone, a new governor was in his place, while in the plans of Pitt the capture of Fort Duquesne held an important place. Brigadier General John Forbes was charged with it. He was Scotch by birth, a well bred man of the world, and unlike Braddock, by his conduct toward the provincial troops, commanded both the respect and affection of the colonists. He only resembled Braddock in his determined resolution, but he did not hesitate to embrace modes of warfare that Braddock would have scorned. He wrote to Bouquet: "I have been long of your opinion of equipping numbers of our men like the savages, and I fancy Col. Burd of Virginia has most of his men equipped in that manner. In this country we must learn our art of war from the Indians, or any one else who has carried it on here." He arrived in Philadelphia in April 1758, but it was the end of June before his troops were ready to march. His force consisted of Montgomery's Highlanders, twelve hundred strong; Provincials from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and a detachment of Royal Americans: amounting to about six or seven thousand men. The Royal Americans were Germans from Pennsylvania, the Colonel-in-Chief being Lord Amhurst, Colonel Commandant Frederick Haldimand, and conspicuous among them was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bouquet, a brave and accomplished Swiss, who commanded one of the four battalions of which the regiment was composed. General Forbes was detained in Philadelphia by a painful and dangerous malady. Bouquet advanced and encamped at Raystown, now Bedford. Then arose the question of opening a new road through Pennsylvania to Fort Duquesne, or following the old road made by Braddock. Washington, who commanded the Virginians, foretold the ruin of the expedition unless Braddock's road was chosen, but Forbes and Bouquet were firm and it was decided to adopt the new route through Pennsylvania. Forbes was able to reach Carlisle early in July, but his disorder was so increased by the journey that he was not able to leave that place until the 11th of August, and then in a kind of litter swung between two horses. In this way he reached Shippensburg, where he lay helpless until far in September. His plan was to advance slowly, establishing fortified magazines as he went, and at last when within easy distance of the Fort, to advance upon it with all force, as little impeded as possible with wagons and pack-horses. Having secured his magazines at Raystown, and built a fort which he called Fort Bedford in honor of his friend and patron, the Duke of Bedford,[B] Bouquet was sent with his command to forward the heavy work of road making over the main range of the Alleghanies and the Laurel Hills; "hewing, digging, blasting, laying facines and gabions, to support the track along the sides of the steep declivities, or worming their way like moles through the jungle of swamp and forest." As far as the eye or mind could reach a prodigious forest vegetation spread its impervious canopy over hill, valley and plain. His next post was on the Loyalhanna Creek, scarcely fifty miles distant from Fort Duquesne, and here he built a fortification, naming it Fort Ligonier, in honor of Lord Ligonier, commander-in-chief of His Majesty's armies. Forbes had served under Ligonier, and his influence, together with that of the Duke of Bedford, secured to Forbes his appointment. Now came the difficult and important task of securing Indian allies. Sir William Johnston for the English, and Joncaire for the French, were trying in every way to frighten or cajole them into choosing sides; but that which neither of them could accomplish was done by a devoted Moravian missionary, Christian Frederick Post. Post spoke the Delaware language, had married a converted squaw, and by his simplicity, directness and perfect honesty, had gained their full confidence. He was a plain German, upheld by a sense of duty and single-hearted trust in God. The Moravians were apostles of peace, and they succeeded in a surprising way in weaning their converts from their ferocious instincts and savage practices, while the mission Indians of Canada retained all their native ferocity, and their wigwams were strung with scalps, male and female, adult and infant. These so-called missions were but nests of baptized savages, who wore the crucifix instead of the medicine-bag. Post accepted the dangerous mission as envoy to the camp of the hostile Indians, and making his way to a Delaware town on Beaver Creek, he was kindly received by the three kings; but when they conducted him to another town he was surrounded by a crowd of warriors, who threatened to kill him. He managed to pacify them, but they insisted that he should go with them to Fort Duquesne. In his Journal he gives thrilling accounts of his escape from dangers threatened by both French and Indians. But he at last succeeded in securing a promise from both Delaware and Shawnees, and other hostile tribes, to meet with the Five Nations, the Governor of Pennsylvania and commissioners from other provinces, in the town of Easton, before the middle of September. The result of this council was that the Indians accepted the White wampum belt of peace, and agreed on a joint message of peace to the tribes of Ohio. A few weeks before this Col. Bouquet, from his post at Fort Ligonier, forgot his usual prudence, and at his urgent request, allowed Major Grant, commander of the Highlanders, to advance. On the 14th of September, at about 2 A. M., he reached an eminence about half a mile from the Fort. He divided his forces, placing detachments in different positions, being convinced that the enemy was too weak to attack him. Infatuated with this idea, when the fog had cleared away, he ordered the reveille to be sounded. It was as if he put his foot into a hornet's nest. The roll of drums was answered by a burst of war-whoops, while the French came swarming out, many of them in their night shirts, just as they had jumped from their beds. There was a hot fight for about three-quarters of an hour, when the Highlanders broke away in a wild flight. Captain Bullit and his Virginians tried to cover the retreat, and fought until two-thirds of them were killed and Grant taken prisoner. The name of "Grant's Hill" still clings to the much-ambushed "hump" where the Court House now stands. The French pushed their advantages with spirit, and there were many skirmishes in the forest between Fort Ligonier and Fort Duquesne, but their case was desperate. Their Indian allies had deserted them, and their supplies had been cut off; so Ligneris, who succeeded Contrecoeur, was forced to dismiss the greater part of his force. The English, too, were enduring great hardships. Rain had continued almost without cessation all through September; the newly made road was liquid mud, into which the wagons sunk up to the hubs. In October the rain changed to snow, while all this time Forbes was chained to a sick-bed at Raystown, now Fort Bedford. In the beginning of November he was carried from Fort Bedford to Fort Ligonier in a litter, and a council of officers, then held, decided to attempt nothing more that season, but a few days later a report of the condition of the French was brought in, which led Forbes to give orders for an immediate advance. On November 18, 1758, two thousand five hundred picked men, without tents or baggage, without wagons or artillery except a few light pieces, began their march. [Illustration: LORD VISCOUNT LIGONIER.] FOOTNOTES: [A] The names of these woodsmen were Barnaby Currin and James MacGuire, Indian Traders; Henry Stewart and William Jenkins; Half King, Monokatoocha, Jeskakake, White Thunder and the Hunter. [B] In recognition of this honor, the Duke of Bedford presented to the fort a large flag of crimson brocade silk. In 1895 this flag was in the possession of Mrs. Moore, of Bedford, who kindly lent it to the Pittsburgh Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, for exhibition at a reception given by them at Mrs. Park Painter's residence, February 15th, 1895. FORT PITT French Abandon Fort Duquesne.--Fort Pitt is Built. On the evening of the 24th they encamped on the hills around Turtle Creek, and at midnight the sentinels heard a heavy boom as if a magazine had exploded. In the morning the march was resumed. After the advance guard came Forbes, carried in a litter, the troops following in three columns, the Highlanders in the center headed by Montgomery, the Royal Americans and Provincials on the right and left under Bouquet and Washington. Slowly they made their way beneath an endless entanglement of bare branches. The Highlanders were goaded to madness by seeing as they approached the Fort the heads of their countrymen, who had fallen when Grant made his rash attack, stuck on poles, around which their plaids had been wrapped in imitation of petticoats. Foaming with rage they rushed forward, abandoning their muskets and drawing their broadswords; but their fury was in vain, for when they reached a point where the Fort should have been in sight, there was nothing between them and the hills on the opposite banks of the Monongahela and Allegheny but a mass of blackened and smouldering ruins. The enemy, after burning the barracks and storehouses, had blown up the fortifications and retreated, some down the Ohio, others overland to Presque Isle, and others up the Allegheny to Venango. There were two forts, and some idea may be formed of their size, with barracks and storehouses, from the fact that John Haslet writes to the Rev. Dr. Allison, two days after the English took possession, that there were thirty chimney stacks standing. The troops had no shelter until the first fort was built. Col. Bouquet wrote to Miss Ann Willing from Fort Duquesne, November 25th, 1758, "they have burned and destroyed to the ground their fortifications, houses and magazines, and left us no other cover than the heavens--a very cold one for an army without tents or equipages." Col. Bouquet in a letter written to Chief Justice Allen of Pennsylvania on November 26th, enumerated the needs of the garrison, which he hopes the Provinces of Pennsylvania and Virginia will immediately supply. He adds: "After God, the success of this expedition is entirely due to the general. He has shown the greatest prudence, firmness and ability. No one is better informed than I am, who had an opportunity to see every step that has been taken from the beginning and every obstacle that was thrown in his way." Forbes' first care was to provide defense and shelter for his troops, and a strong stockade was built around the traders' cabins and soldiers' huts, which he named Pittsburgh, in honor of England's great Minister, William Pitt. Two hundred Virginians under Col. Mercer were left to defend the new fortification, a force wholly inadequate to hold the place if the French chose to return and attempt to take it again. Those who remained must for a time depend largely on stream and forest to supply their needs, while the army, which was to return began their homeward march early in December, with starvation staring them in the face. No sooner was this work done than Forbes utterly succumbed. He left with the soldiers, and was carried all the way to Philadelphia in a litter, arriving there January 18, 1759. He lingered through the winter, died in March, and was buried in Christ Church, March 14, 1759. Parkman says: "If his achievement was not brilliant, its solid value was above price; it opened the Great West to English enterprise, took from France half her savage allies, and relieved the western borders from the scourge of Indian war. From Southern New York to North Carolina the frontier population had cause to bless the memory of this steadfast and all-enduring soldier." Just sixty days after the taking of Fort Duquesne, William Pitt wrote a letter, dated Whitehall, January 23, 1759, of which the following extract will show how important this place was considered in Great Britain. "Sir:--I am now to acquaint you that the King has been pleased immediately upon receiving the news of the success of his armies on the river Ohio, to direct the commander-in-chief of His Majesty's forces in North America, and General Forbes, to lose no time in concerting the properest and speediest means for completely restoring, if possible, the ruined Fort Duquesne to a defensible and respectable state, or for erecting another in the room of it of sufficient strength, and every way adequate to the great importance of the several objects of maintaining His Majesty's subject in the undisputed possession of the Ohio," etc., etc. In a letter dated Pittsburgh, August 1759, Col. Mercer writes to Gov. Denny: "Capt. Gordon, chief engineer, has arrived with most of the artificers, but does not fix the spot for constructing the Fort till the general comes up. We are preparing the materials for building with what expedition so few men are capable of." There was no attempt made to restore the old fortifications, but about a year afterwards work was begun on a new fort. Gen. John Stanwix, who succeeded Gen. Forbes, is said to have been a man of high military standing, with a liberal and generous spirit. In 1760, he appeared on the Ohio at the head of an army, and with full power to build a large fort where Fort Duquesne had stood. The exact date of his arrival and the day when work was commenced is not known, but the work must have been begun the last of August or the first of September, 1759. A letter dated September 24, 1759, gives the following account: "It is now near a month since the army has been employed in erecting a most formidable fortification, such a one as will to latest posterity secure the British Empire on the Ohio. There is no need to enumerate the abilities of the chief engineer nor the spirit shown by the troops in executing the important task; the fort will soon be a lasting monument of both." The fort was built near the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela unite their waters, but a little farther inland than the site of Fort Duquesne. It stood on the present site of the Duquesne Freight Station, while all the ground from the Point to Third Street and from Liberty Street to the Allegheny River was enclosed in a stockade and surrounded by a moat. It was a solid and substantial building, constructed at an enormous expense to the English Government.[C] It was five-sided, two sides facing the land of brick, the others stockade. The earth around was thrown up so all was enclosed by a rampart of earth, supported on the land side by a perpendicular wall of brick; on the other sides a line of pickets was fixed on the outside of the slope, and a moat encompassed the entire work. Casemates, barracks and store houses were completed for a garrison of one thousand men and officers, and eighteen pieces of artillery mounted on the bastions. This strong fortification was thought to establish the British dominion of the Ohio. The exact date of its completion is not known, but on March 21, 1760, Maj. Gen. Stanwix, having finished his work, set out on his return journey to Philadelphia. Conspiracy of Pontiac and Col. Bouquet. The effect of this stronghold was soon apparent in the return of about four thousand settlers to their lands on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, from which they had been driven by their savage enemies, and the brisk trade which at once began to be carried on with the now, to all appearance, friendly Indians. However, this security was not of long duration. The definite treaty of peace between England, Spain and France was signed February 10, 1763, but before that time, Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, was planning his great conspiracy, which carried death and desolation throughout the frontier. The French had always tried to ingratiate themselves with the Indians. When their warriors came to French forts they were hospitably welcomed and liberally supplied with guns, ammunition and clothing, until the weapons and garments of their forefathers were forgotten. The English, on the contrary, either gave reluctantly or did not give at all. Many of the English traders were of the coarsest stamp, who vied with each other in rapacity and violence. When an Indian warrior came to an English fort, instead of the kindly welcome he had been accustomed to receive from the French, he got nothing but oaths, and menaces, and blows, sometimes being assisted to leave the premises by the butt of a sentinel's musket. But above and beyond all, they watched with wrath and fear the progress of the white man into their best hunting grounds, for as the English colonist advanced their beloved forests disappeared under the strokes of the axe. The French did all in their power to augment this discontent. In this spirit of revenge and hatred a powerful confederacy was formed, including all the western tribes, under the command of Pontiac, alike renowned for his war like spirit, his wisdom and his bravery, and whose name was a terror to the entire region of the lakes. The blow was to be struck in the month of May, 1763. The tribes were to rise simultaneously and attack the English garrisons. Thus a sudden attack was made on all the western posts. Detroit was saved after a long and close siege. Forts Pitt and Niagara narrowly escaped, while Le Boeuf, Venango, Presqu' Isle, Miamis, St. Joseph, Quachtanon, Sandusky and Michillimackinac all fell into the hands of the Indians. Their garrisons were either butchered on the spot, or carried off to be tortured for the amusement of their cruel captors. The savages swept over the surrounding country, carrying death and destruction wherever they went. Hundreds of traders were slaughtered without mercy, while their wives and children, if not murdered, were carried off captives. The property destroyed or stolen amounted, it is said to five hundred thousand pounds. Attacks were made on Forts Bedford and Ligonier, but without success. Fort Ligonier was under siege for two months. The preservation of this post was of the utmost importance, and Lieut. Blaine, by his courage and good conduct, managed to hold it until August 2, 1763, when Col. Bouquet arrived with his little army. In the meantime, every preparation was made at Fort Pitt for an attack. The garrison at that post numbered three hundred and thirty, commanded by Capt. Simeon Ecuyer, a brave Swiss. The fortifications having been badly damaged by floods, were with great labor repaired. The barracks were made shot-proof to protect the women and children, and as the buildings inside were all of wood, a rude fire-engine was constructed to extinguish any flames kindled by the fire-arrows of the Indians. All the houses and cabins outside the walls were leveled to the ground. The fort was so crowded by the families of the settlers who had taken refuge there, that Ecuyer wrote to Col. Bouquet, "We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease, for in spite of every care I cannot keep the place as clean as I should like. Besides, the smallpox is among us, and I have therefore caused a hospital to be built under the drawbridge." Several weeks, however, elapsed before there was any determined attack from the enemy. On July 26th some chiefs asked for a parley with Capt. Ecuyer, which was granted. They demanded that he and all in the fort should leave immediately or it and they would all be destroyed. He replied that they would not go, closing his speech with these words: "Therefore, my brother, I will advise you to go home, * * * Moreover, I tell you if any of you appear again about this fort, I will throw bomb-shells which will burst and blow you to atoms, and fire cannon upon you loaded with a whole bag full of bullets. Take care, therefore, for I don't want to hurt you." On the night succeeding this parley the Indians approached in great numbers, crawling under the banks of the two rivers digging holes with their knives, in which they were completely sheltered from the fire of the fort. On one side the entire bank was lined with these burrows, from which they shot volleys or bullets, arrows and fire-arrows into the fort. The yelling was terrific, and the women and children in the crowded barracks clung to each other in abject terror. This attack lasted five days. On August 1st the Indians heard the rumor of Col. Bouquet's approach, which caused them to move on, and so the tired garrison was relieved. When the news of this Indian uprising reached Gen. Amhurst, he ordered Col. Bouquet to march with a detachment of five hundred men to the relief of the besieged forts. The force was composed of companies from the Forty-second Highlanders and Seventy-seventh Regulars, to which were added six companies of Rangers. Bouquet established his camp in Carlisle at the end of June. Here he found every building, every house, every barn, every hovel, crowded with refugees. He writes to Gen. Amherst on July 13th, as follows: "The list of people known to be killed increases every day. The desolation of so many families, reduced to the last extreme of want and misery; the despair of those who have lost their parents; relations and friends, with the cries of distracted women and children who fill the streets, form a scene painful to humanity and impossible to describe." [Illustration: LORD CHATHAM WILLIAM PITT.] Strange as it may seem, the Province of Pennsylvania would do nothing to aid the troops who gathered for its defense. The Quakers, who had a majority in the Assembly, were non-combatants from principle and practice; and the Swiss and German Mennonites, who were numerous in Lancaster County, professed, like the Quakers, the principle of non-resistance, and refused to bear arms. Wagons and horses had been promised, but promises were broken. Bouquet writes again to Amherst: "I hope we shall be able to save that infatuated people from destruction, notwithstanding all their endeavors to defeat your vigorous measures." While Bouquet harassed and exasperated, labored on at his difficult task, the terror of the country people increased, until at last finding that they could hope for but little aid from the Government, they bestirred themselves with admirable spirit in their own defense. They raised small bodies of riflemen, who scoured the woods in front of the settlements, and succeeded in driving the enemy back. In some instances these men dressed themselves as Indian warriors, painted their faces red and black, and adopted the savage mode of warfare. On the 3rd of July a courier from Fort Bedford rode into Carlisle, and as he stopped to water his horse he was immediately surrounded by an anxious crowd, to whom he told his tale of woe, adding, as he mounted his horse to ride on to Bouquet's tent, "The Indians will soon be here." Terror and excitement spread everywhere, messengers were dispatched in every direction to give the alarm, and the reports, harrowing as they had been, were fully confirmed by the fugitives who were met on every road and by-path hurrying to Carlisle for refuge. A party armed themselves and went out to warn the living and bury the dead. They found death and desolation everywhere, and sickened with horror at seeing groups of hogs tearing and devouring the bodies of the dead. After a delay of eighteen days, having secured enough wagons, horses and oxen, Bouquet began his perilous march, with a force much smaller than Braddock's, to encounter a foe far more formidable. But Bouquet, the man of iron will and iron hand, had served seven years in America, and understood his work. On July 25th he reached Fort Bedford, when he was fortunate in securing thirty backwoodsmen to go with him. This little army toiled on through the blazing heat of July over the Alleghanies, and reached Fort Ligonier, August 2nd, the Indians, who had besieged the fort for two months, disappearing at the approach of the troops. Here Bouquet left his oxen and wagons and resumed his march on the 4th. On the 5th, about noon, he encountered the enemy at Bushy Run. The battle raged for two days, and ended in a total route of the savages. The loss of the British was one hundred and fifteen and eight officers. The distance to Fort Pitt was twenty-five miles, which place was reached on the 10th. The enemy had abandoned the siege and marched to unite their forces with those which attacked Col. Bouquet at Bushy Run. The savages continued their hasty retreat, but Col. Bouquet's force was not sufficient to enable him to pursue the enemy beyond the Ohio, and he was obliged to content himself with supplying Fort Pitt and other forts with provisions, ammunition and stores. It was at this time that Col. Bouquet built the little Redoubt which is now not only all that remains of Fort Pitt, but the only existing monument of British occupancy in this region. The Indians abandoned all their former settlements, and retreated to the Muskingum; here they formed new settlements, and in the spring of 1764 again began to ravage the frontier. To put an end to these depredations, Gen. Gage planned a campaign into this western wilderness from two points--Gen. Bradstreet was to advance by way of the lakes, and Col. Bouquet from Fort Pitt. After the usual delays and disappointments in securing troops from Pennsylvania and Virginia to aid in this expedition, the march from Carlisle was begun, and Col. Bouquet arrived at Fort Pitt September 17th, and was detained there until October 3rd. He followed the north bank of the Ohio until he reached the Beaver, when he turned towards Central Ohio. Holding on his course, he refused to listen to either threats or promises from the Indians, declining to treat with them at all until they should deliver up the prisoners. Although not a blow was struck, the Indians were vanquished. Bouquet continued his march down the valley of the Muskingum until he reached a spot where some broad meadows offered a suitable place for encampment. Here he received a deputation of chiefs, listened to their offers of peace, and demanded the delivery of the prisoners. Soon band after band of captives arrived, until the number exceeded three hundred. The scenes which followed the restoring of the prisoners to their friends beggar all description; wives recovering their husbands, parents seeking for children whom they could scarcely recognize, brothers and sisters meeting after a long separation, and sometimes scarcely able to speak the same language. The story is told of a woman whose daughter had been carried off nine years before. The mother recognized her child, but the girl, who had almost forgotten her mother tongue, showed no sign of recognition. The mother complained to Col. Bouquet that the daughter she had so often sung to sleep on her knee had forgotten her. "Sing the song to her that you used to sing when she was a child," said Col. Bouquet. She did so, and with a passionate flood of tears the long-lost daughter flung herself into her mother's arms. Everything being settled, the army broke camp November 18th, and arrived at Fort Pitt on the 28th. Early in January Col. Bouquet returned to Philadelphia, receiving wherever he went every possible mark of gratitude and esteem from the people. The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the House of Burgesses of Virginia each unanimously voted him addresses of thanks, and on the arrival of the first account of this expedition the King promoted him to the rank of Brigadier General to command the Southern District of North America. Conflict Between Pennsylvania and Virginia. We have seen two of the most powerful nations of Europe contending for the possession of the "Forks of the Ohio." We have seen the efforts of the Indians to destroy the Fort and regain possession of their hunting grounds. In October, 1770, Washington again visited the "Forks of the Ohio," this time on a peaceful errand. He reached Fort Pitt October 17, 1770, and he says in his Journal: "Lodged in what is called the town; distant about three hundred yards from the fort, at one Semple's, who keeps a very good house of entertainment." He describes both the town and the fort, where the garrison at this time consisted of two companies of Royal Irish, commanded by Capt. Edmonstone. In this journal we find the following entry on October 18th: "Dined in the fort with Col. Croghan and the officers of the garrison; supped there also, meeting with great civility from the gentlemen, and engaged to dine with Col. Croghan next day, at his seat about four miles up the Allegheny." Washington and his party, numbering nine or ten persons, with three Indians, continued their journey down the Ohio in a large canoe. On November 2nd, we find that the party "encamped and went a-hunting, killed five buffalos and wounded some others, three deer, etc. This country abounds in Buffaloes and wild game of all kinds, as also in all kinds of wild fowl, there being in the bottoms a great many small, grassy ponds or lakes, which are full of swan, geese and ducks of different kinds." The party returned to Pittsburgh November 21st, were again hospitably entertained, and on the 23rd mounted their horses on their return journey to Virginia. This was Washington's last visit to Fort Pitt. Now, after the season of rest and quiet, there comes another contest, this time between the Provinces of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The British Government, as the trouble with the colonies increased, deemed it advisable to abandon Fort Pitt and withdraw the troops. Maj. Edmonstone, then in command, sold the buildings and material October 10, 1772, to Alexander Ross and William Thompson, for fifty pounds New York currency. The fort was evacuated by the British forces in October, 1772, and in January, 1774, troops from Virginia sent by the Governor, Lord Dunmore, under command of Dr. James Connelly, took possession and changed the name to Fort Dunmore. Dr. Connelly was arrested by Arthur St. Clair, then a magistrate of Westmoreland County, of which Allegheny County was at that time a part, and put in jail, but was soon released on bail. He went back to Virginia, but shortly returned with civil and military authority to enforce the laws of Virginia. This contest continued for several years, until a prominent citizen wrote to Governor Penn: "The deplorable state of affairs in this part of your government is truly distressing. We are robbed, insulted and dragooned by Connelly and his militia in this place and its environs." Maryland, too, had contended, sometimes with the shedding of blood, for the possession of this important point. It was not until 1785 that commissioners were appointed, the boundary of the western part of the State finally run, and Pennsylvania established in the possession of her territory. Revolutionary Period. During the struggle for independence the settlements west of the Alleghanies had little to fear from the invading armies of Great Britain; but, influenced by the English, the Indians again began their ravages. Fort Pitt at that time was under the command of Capt. John Neville, and was the center of government authority. Just two days after the Declaration of Independence, but long before the news of it could have crossed the mountains, we read of a conference at Fort Pitt between Maj. Trent, Maj. Ward, Capt. Neville and other officers of the garrison, with the famous Pontiac, Guyasuta, Capt. Pipe and other representatives of the Six Nations. Guyasuta was the chief speaker. He produced a belt of wampum, which was to be sent from the Six Nations to other western tribes, informing them that the Six Nations would take no part in the war between England and America and asking them to do the same. In his address Guyasuta said: "Brothers:--We will not suffer either the English or the Americans to pass through our country. Should either attempt it, we shall forewarn them three times, and should they persist they must take the consequences. I am appointed by the Six Nations to take care of this country; that is, of the Indians on the other side of the Ohio" (which included the Allegheny) "and I desire you will not think of an expedition against Detroit, for, I repeat, we will not suffer an army to pass through our country." The Six Nations was the most powerful confederacy of Indians in America, and whichever side secured their allegiance might count on the other tribes following them. [Illustration: MAJ. GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.] Instigated by the agents of Great Britain, it was not long before a deadly struggle began. Scalping parties of Indians ravaged the frontier, sparing neither age nor sex, and burning and destroying all that came in their path. Companies were formed to protect the settlements, whose headquarters were at Fort Pitt, and expeditions were made into the enemy's country, but with no very great success. On June 1, 1777, Brig. Gen. Edward Hand took command of the post and issued a call for two thousand men. He did not receive a very satisfactory response to this call. After considerable delay, he made several expeditions against the Indians, but was singularly unfortunate in his attempts. These fruitless efforts only emboldened the savages to continue their ravages. In 1778, Gen. Hand, at his own request, was recalled, and Brig. Gen. McIntosh succeeded him. Gen. McIntosh planned a formidable expedition into the enemy's country. He marched to the mouth of the Beaver, where he built a fort and called it Fort McIntosh; then he advanced seventy-five miles farther, built another fort, and called it Fort Laurens; but on hearing alarming reports of the Indians and for want of supplies, he left Col. John Gibson with one hundred and fifty men there and returned to Fort Pitt. The depredations of the Indians continued, and Gen. McIntosh, utterly disheartened from the want of men and supplies, asked to be relieved of his command. He was succeeded by Col. Daniel Brodhead, who, like his predecessor, planned great things, but never had the means of carrying out his plans. By this time Fort Pitt was badly in need of repairs, and the garrison, half-fed and badly equipped, was almost mutinous. In November, 1781, Gen. William Irvine took command of the post. He describes the condition of the fort and of the soldiers as deplorable. He writes: "The few troops that are here are the most licentious men and worst behaved I ever saw, owing, I presume, in a great measure to their not hitherto being kept under any subordination or tolerable degree of discipline." The firmness of the commander soon restored order, but not without the free application of the lash and the execution of two soldiers. The winter of 1782 and 1783 was comparatively quiet, and October 1st, 1783, Gen. Irvine took his final leave of the western department. The State of Pennsylvania acknowledged her gratitude for this service by donating him a valuable tract of land. In 1790 there was another Indian outbreak. Maj. Isaac Craig was then acting as Quartermaster in Pittsburgh. On May 19th, 1791, he wrote to Gen. Knox, representing the terror occasioned by the near approach of the Indians, and asking permission to erect another fortification, as Fort Pitt was in a ruinous condition. This request was granted, and Maj. Craig erected a fortification occupying the ground from Garrison Alley to Hand (now Ninth) Street, and from Liberty to the Allegheny River. This he named Fort Lafayette. The expeditions of Gen. Harmar and of Gen. St. Clair against the Indians had been ineffectual and disastrous. In 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne was more successful, and defeated and scattered the Indians so effectually that they never again gave trouble in this region. FOOTNOTES: [C] There is a wide discrepancy in the authorities as to the cost of Fort Pitt; some state the cost as six hundred pounds, others give it as sixty thousand pounds. THE OLD BLOCK HOUSE Mrs. Mary E. Schenley's Gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County. The close of the century found Port Pitt in ruins, and this spot over which had waved the flags of three nations, and the banners of two States, was left to the peaceable possession of the mechanic and artisan, the trader and farmer. The little Redoubt built by Col. Bouquet in 1764, and the names of the streets in Pittsburgh, are all that is left as reminders of the struggle for the "Forks of the Ohio,"--the only relics of the contest of the courtly Frenchman with the intrepid British, of the daring of the indomitable colonist and the craft and cruelty of the Indian. This Redoubt was not built by Gen. Stanwix when the Fort was erected in 1759 and 60, but by Col. Bouquet in 1764. At the time of Pontiac's War, when Col. Bouquet came to Pittsburgh, he found that the moat which surrounded the fortifications were perfectly dry when the river was low, so that the Indians could crawl up the ditch and shoot any guard or soldier who might show his head above the parapet. To prevent this, Col. Bouquet ordered the erection of the Redoubt, or Block House, which completely commanded the moat on the Allegheny side of the fort. The little building is of brick, five-sided, with two floors, having a squared oak log with loop holes on each floor. There were two underground passages, one connecting it with the Fort, and the other leading to the Monongahela River. The ground from Fort Pitt to the Allegheny River was sold in 1784 to Isaac Craig and Stephen Bayard, and, after passing through various hands, was purchased by Gen. James O'Hara, September 4, 1805. When Gen. O'Hara died in 1819, the property passed to his daughter Mary, who in 1821 married William Croghan. Mrs. Croghan died in 1827, and her daughter, Mary Elizabeth, an infant barely a year old, became her sole heir. She married Capt. E. W. H. Schenley, of the English army, and to Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, who might be called Pittsburgh's "Fairy Godmother," the Daughters of the American Revolution of Allegheny County are indebted for the gift of the old Block House and surrounding property. While the property was in possession of Craig and Bayard, a large dwelling house was built and connected with the Block House. This was occupied one year by Mr. Turnbull, and for two years subsequently by Maj. Craig. From that time, 1785, until it came into the possession of the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 1, 1894, it continued to be used as a dwelling house. Time and decay had done their work in one hundred and thirty years, and the "Daughters" found the old Block House fast crumbling away. If it had been left much longer without repairs it would soon have been nothing but a heap of broken brick. Mrs. Schenley's gift to the Daughters of the American Revolution was the Block House, with a plot of ground measuring one hundred by ninety feet, and a passageway leading to Penn Avenue of ninety feet by twenty. [Illustration: THE BLOCK HOUSE USED AS A DWELLING.] As soon as the Daughters of the American Revolution received the deed for the property, the work of clearing away the tumble-down tenements which covered the ground was commenced. It was not without great difficulty, and no little expense, that the occupants of these houses were induced to give them up. While the Block House was used as a dwelling the stone tablet placed over the door with the inscription, COLL. BOUQUET 1764 was removed and inserted in the wall of the staircase of the City Hall. The Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned Councils for permission to restore it to its original position. The petition was granted, and the tablet now fills the space which it occupied one hundred and thirty-eight years ago. "I do love these ancient ruins. We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some rev'rend history." Pittsburgh September 1898. MATILDA WILKINS DENNY. NAMES OF PITTSBURGH STREETS. Their Historical Significance. By Julia Morgan Harding. (From the Pittsburgh Bulletin, February 15, 1893.) We are told in his Autobiography that Benjamin Franklin "ever took pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of his ancestors," and in these days of reawakened interest in things of the past, many people may be found who, like the great prototype of American character, Pennsylvania's apostle of common sense, take pleasure in looking into the old records of their family history. A still richer inheritance is the story of the lives of the men who conquered the wilderness and subdued the Indians, French and British; and this inheritance is held in common by all good citizens of Pittsburgh, whether or not their ancestors fought with Braddock or Bouquet, or marched with Forbes. In the stir and bustle of the busy city, above the noise of the trolley and the iron wagon, one faintly hears the names of streets whose unfamiliar sound recalls to our minds these illustrious dead. With but little effort the inward eye quickly sees an impenetrable forest clothing hills and river banks--dark, mysterious, forbidding, crossed by occasional narrow and obstructed paths; war parties of painted savages; a few scattered settlers' and traders' cabins; here and there a canoe on the swift and silent rivers; a silence too often broken by the war whoop of the Indian and the scream of his tortured victim. From the eastern slopes of the Endless Hills to the unknown and unbounded "Indian Country" that lay beyond the Forks of the Ohio, such was the region into which Washington, Braddock, Forbes and Bouquet led their "forlorn hopes," In days when a less utilitarian spirit prevailed, and association was still powerful, the City of Pittsburgh acknowledged its debt of gratitude to the soldiers, statesmen and early settlers who made its unexampled prosperity possible, by naming for them many of its streets and suburbs. Its early history can be traced thereby, much as the historian and archaeologist discovers the successive Roman, Saxon, Danish and Norman occupations of London and other English towns. Aliquippa, Mingo, Shannopin, Shinghiss, Guyasuta and Killbuck recall the Indian tribes and chiefs who once possessed the country; Gist, Montour, Girty, McKee, Chartiers, and Van Braam the guides and traders who first penetrated the wilderness. Dinwiddie brings to mind the crusty but far-seeing Scotch Governor of Virginia, who first comprehended the value of the disputed land. Forbes, Bouquet, Ligonier, Halket, Grant, Stanwix, Neville, Crawford, Hay, Marbury, Ormsby, Tannehill, O'Hara, Butler, Wayne, Bayard, Stobo, Steuben, St. Clair, Craig, Smallman and Irwin recall, or did recall, the soldiers and commandants who won the West. Duquesne, St. Pierre, and Jumonville speak of the French governor of Canada, the officer who received Washington at Fort Le Boeuf, and the Captain who fell at Great Meadows. Smithfield owes its name to Devereaux Smith, prominent in colonial and revolutionary days; and Wood Street was called for George Woods, surveyor. In Penn avenue, or street, as it used to be and still ought to be called, the name of the founder of the Commonwealth, the Quaker feudal proprietor, is preserved; and the great city itself, as well as two shabby, sooty little streets, forever immortalizes William Pitt, the friend of America, and makes him a splendid and enduring monument. But let us dig into the lowest historical stratum, and discover the real local relationships of names and places with the first occupants of the land. Aliquippa tells of the great queen of the Delawares, who lived at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, where McKeesport now is, and whom it must be remembered Washington visited on his first memorable journey to the Ohio. From what he relates to us she could not have been a very temperate sovereign lady, but she was a celebrity and a power in her day, with a prestige that long survived her; and when, in full savage regalia, surrounded by her warriors, she granted an audience to the young Virginian, she was doubtless most impressing and condescending. Shinghiss, who bore a name that suggests a subject of Queen Wilhelmina rather than a North American Indian was a mighty warrior in his day, and a king of the Delawares. Some of the chroniclers give him a very bad name and tell us that his exploits in war would "form an interesting though shocking document"; others, among them Christian Post, give him a much better character. Nevertheless, it is true that the colony of Pennsylvania offered a thousand dollars for his scalp. Washington met him on his first visit to Ohio, and speaks of him in his Journal. This brave and much-feared chief was small in stature for an Indian and lived near the Ohio on Chartiers Creek. [Illustration: BRONZE TABLET AT ENTRANCE TO BLOCK HOUSE GROUNDS THE BLOCK HOUSE OF FORT PITT A REDOUBT BUILT BY COLONEL HENRY BOUQUET OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1764, PURCHASED WITH THE SITE OF FORT PITT BY GENERAL JAMES O'HARA SEPTEMBER 4th 1805. INHERITED THROUGH HER MOTHER MARY O'HARA CROGHAN BY HIS GRANDDAUGHTER MARY ELIZABETH SCHENLEY AND BY HER PRESENTED TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA JUNE 10th 1892] A chieftain as renowned as Shinghiss, and more frequently mentioned in the histories of the olden time, was Guyasuta, or Kiashuta, a Seneca, who first appears on the scene as one of the three Indians who accompanied Washington to Fort Le Boeuf. He was a conspicuous figure in all the Indian wars and treaties which followed that event, and was present at the treaty Col. Bouquet held with the Shawnees, Delawares and Senecas on the Muskingum. We hear of him again in Lord Dunmore's war. He was frequently at or in the neighborhood of Fort Pitt, and had unbounded influence with his people, an influence he generally exerted for good and in the interest of the colonies, though finally won over to the British during the Revolution. His speeches at the various councils he attended were eloquent, and his language that of an autocrat who had unquestioning confidence in the power of his people and in his own might. He was deeply concerned in the conspiracy of Pontiac, and is believed to have inspired the attack on Hannahstown. Guyasuta found his last resting place near the banks of the Allegheny on Gen. O'Hara's farm, which is still called by his name. The stray visitor who from time to time threads his devious way through the alleys and courts which surround the Block House may find himself perhaps in Fort Street, on historic ground once trodden by Washington, Forbes, Bouquet and the Indian kings of whom we have just been speaking. The echoes of the English drums, Scottish bagpipes and clash of arms have long since died away from the scarred sides of Mt. Washington and Duquesne Heights, and in their stead we hear the steam whistle and hollow reverberations from neighboring boiler shops. Hibernians and Italians inhabit the fields and the river banks where Killbuck, White Eyes, Shinghiss and Cornstalk once lit their camp-fires and held eloquent councils with Jumonville, De Ligneris and Bouquet. Squalid tenements crowd the narrow promontory where Robert de la Salle stood at the headwaters of the Ohio, in all probability the discoverer of the three rivers. The fort that Pontiac besieged has disappeared. The painted post to which the Indian tied his victim, the wigwam, the wampum belts, have vanished; the tomahawk is buried forever, though the readiness once observed among the residents of the "Point" to draw knives on each other on occasions of superhilarity may be but the survival of the good old customs which prevailed in that neighborhood more than one hundred years ago. Inspired by the suggestion of hereditary, the imaginative mind turns to the past for other instances. On any pleasant Monday morning during the spring or summer months the thrifty housekeepers in Fort Street or Point Alley, and in the shadow of the Block House itself, may be seen doing their week's washing in front of their houses. But little are they thinking of those Monday mornings in the middle of the eighteenth century when the women of the fort were escorted by bands of soldiers to the banks of the Allegheny, where laundry work was carried on under rather embarrassing circumstances. For Indians were dodging about behind trees and bushes, and dancing in full view on the opposite shore, with threatening cries, and only kept at a distance by the presence of a guard. The custom seems still to prevail on this classic ground, but do the conveniences of soap and hydrant water make up for the spice and variety that characterized the lives of colonial laundresses? Pittsburgh has always been preeminently a hospitable city, and it is possible that in no other town of its size is there as much entertaining. At weddings, too, the display of presents is an object of surprise to the out-of-town guests, unused to such lavishness. Tracing our Provincial characteristics back to their remote origins, we discover that Pittsburgh at the end of the nineteenth century, in the grip of hereditary, imitates the traders and early settlers in this region, who were in the habit of entertaining whole tribes of Indians, and of making them frequent gifts. Gay blankets, red paint, strings of wampum and barrels of whiskey are not now exchanged at Christmas and on New Year's Day, or shown at wedding feasts, as we have improved somewhat upon the primitive customs of our forefathers, but the instinct is unchanged. Noted for the beauty and brilliancy of our balls, and the excellence of our dinners, it may be interesting to know something of our first attempts in the art of social entertaining. In a letter from Capt. Ecuyer, commandant at Fort Pitt, dated January 8th, 1763, written to Col. Bouquet, he informs the latter that they have a ball every Saturday evening, graced by the presence of the most beautiful ladies of the garrison. No mention is made of any solid refreshment, but we are informed that "the punch was abundant," and it is also intimated that if the fair sex did not find it strong enough for their taste, they knew where the whiskey was kept and how to remedy the fault. Gay indeed must have been the dancing and the merriment inspired by the frontier punch and the shrieks of the Indians outside the stockade, for at that very time hostile savages surrounded and threatened the lonely fort. No wonder the revellers needed strong drinks to keep up their spirits! It is indeed very doubtful if the very strongest ever brewed would give nerve enough to Pittsburgh belles of today to enable them to dance a cotillon to the tune of Indian whoops and yells. As to more intellectual pursuits, it would at first seem impossible to discover what our frontier ancestors did in the way of reading. News from the outside world was not to be depended upon, and books a rare article, one would presume; but information often comes from unexpected sources, and in an edition of Robertson's "Charles Fifth," "printed for the subscribers in America in 1770," is "a list of subscribers whose names posterity may respect, because of their seasonable encouragement the American edition hath been accomplished at a price so moderate that the man of the woods, as well as the man of the court, may solace himself with sentimental delight." In this list we find the name of "Ensign Francis Howard, of the Royal Irish at Fort Pitt," the only subscriber west of the mountains. We can imagine the young soldier, far from home and friends, reading of those far-off times of war and peril, the winter wind howling up and down the river and beating against the Block House, carrying with it the echo, perhaps, of an Indian death halloo! Doubtless he wondered what the stern Spanish campaigner would have done if brought to the western wilderness to fight the red man, and, if he lived to return to his English home with his scalp intact, it is more than probable that Ensign Francis Howard's tales of America warfare and adventure were the delight of many a hunting dinner or evening fireside. Few indeed are the tangible relics of the most romantic period of our local history. The writer owns a copy of the edition of "Charles Fifth," and in all probability it is the one that the English ensign read at Fort Pitt. A few old letters, maps and account books, some cannon balls, rusty swords and bayonets, the handsome carved stone sun dial which the Chapter has placed for safe keeping in Carnegie Museum until its own home is built, are about all we can show of the works and possessions of the men who made our early history. Here was the scene of a mighty struggle for empire, a struggle of which the only vestiges left are the Block House and the names of our streets, too many of which have been changed in recent years to suit the vulgar needs of convenience and at the cost of our historical identity. JULIA MORGAN HARDING. [Illustration: PITTSBURGH IN 1795 COPYRIGHT 1892 BY JOS. EICHBAUM & CO.] Postscript. 1914. Much water has run under the bridges of the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, since the sketch, "The Names of Pittsburgh Streets" was written, and changes as radical as those that took place between the first years of the Nineteenth Century and the early days of the twentieth, have revolutionized the historic "Point" in the last decade. Just as the French and Indians stole down the river before the advance of Gen. Forbes and his British and Colonial troops in 1758, so did the denizens of the aforesaid "Point" melt away in every direction before the steam shovels, creaking derricks and snorting engines of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1904-05. With the consolidation of Pittsburgh and Allegheny into one city came other changes. Some of the old streets whose names commemorated dead patriots associated with Colonial and Revolutionary Pittsburgh, are buried under embankments, concrete walls and brick warehouses. Other names have been dropped and certain etymological curiosities have been put in their places. Still others have been transferred to distant and irrelevant localities, and an old resident, returning from the world of shades would be sadly confused if looking for old landmarks, Fort Pitt and all pertaining to it, excepting only the Block House, vanished long ago. There is nothing left of the later age which saw "Rice's Castle" in its glory. The new industrialism is steadily and rapidly blotting out the picturesque and historic all around us. Let all good Pittsburghers unite to preserve the little that is left, the Redoubt built by Col. Bouquet in 1764. JULIA MORGAN HARDING. 1914. +-----------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | = sign denotes bold type | | | | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | Page 10 recommmendation changed to recommendation | | Page 11 beginnning changed to beginning | | Page 15 howitzigers changed to howitzers | | Page 15 contreoeur changed to contrecoeur | | Page 23 reveilee changed to reveille | | Page 24 succedeed changed to succeeded | | Page 24 contreoeur changed to contrecoeur | | Page 30 surrouoned changed to surrounded | | Page 32 garisons changed to garrisons | | Page 33 construted changed to constructed | | Page 48 posession changed to possession | | Page 48 hunded changed to hundred | | Page 53 Alliquippa changed to Aliquippa | | Page 54 Alliquippa changed to Aliquippa | | Page 55 conspicious changed to conspicuous | | Page 58 in changed to an | | Page 61 she changed to he | +-----------------------------------------------------+ 
46025	----	VOL. XXI FEBRUARY 6, 1909 NO. 19 CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY II. THE PLACE AND ITS SOCIAL FORCES [Illustration] A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY PUBLISHED BY THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ROBERT W. DEFOREST, President; OTTO T. BANNARD, Vice-President; J. P. MORGAN, Treasurer; EDWARD T. DEVINE, General Secretary 105 EAST TWENTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK 174 ADAMS STREET, CHICAGO THIS ISSUE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS TWO DOLLARS A YEAR ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE, NEW YORK, AS SECOND CLASS MATTER * * * * * { 1646 } Telephones { } Stuyvesant { 1647 } Millard & Company _Stationers and Printers_ 12 East 16th Street (Bet. Fifth Ave. & Union Square) New York ENGRAVING LITHOGRAPHING BLANK BOOK MAKING CATALOG AND PAMPHLET WORK AT REASONABLE PRICES * * * * * The.... Sheltering Arms * * * * * William R. Peters President 92 William Street Herman C. Von Post Secretary 32 West 57th Street Charles W. Maury Treasurer 504 West 129th Street OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION "THE SHELTERING ARMS" was opened October 6th, 1864, and receives children between six and ten years of age, for whom no other institution provides. Children placed at "THE SHELTERING ARMS" are not surrendered to the Institution, but are held subject to the order of parents or guardians. The children attend the neighboring public school. The older boys and girls are trained to household and other work. * * * * * Application for admission should be addressed to MISS RICHMOND, at "THE SHELTERING ARMS," 129th Street, corner Amsterdam Avenue. * * * * * WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS 1220 SANSOM STREET PHILADELPHIA * * * * * Book and Mercantile Printing Specialists in Medical, Technical and Educational Work Illustrated Catalogues, Reports and Booklets Machine Composition, Electrotyping and Binding * * * * * * * * * * [Illustration: _The_ KALKHOFF COMPANY 251 William St. NEW YORK] [Illustration] TRADE MARKS have been used from time immemorial by manufacturers, emblems by societies, seals by kings, artists and printers. Their works are known to be excellent or poor. Their mark impresses the quality on the mind. The Kalkhoff Company 251 William Street, New York Printers of the Inserts Herein * * * * * Please mention CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS when writing to advertisers. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ AS MEN SEE AMERICA. II. THE SECOND OF THREE FRONTISPIECES.] CHARITIES _AND_ The Commons THE COMMON WELFARE THE BILL FOR A CHILDREN'S BUREAU An unusually well managed and effective hearing before the House of Representatives committee on expenditures in the Interior Department was held in Washington on January 27, following the White House Conference on Dependent Children. No happier practical expression of the unanimous conclusions of the conference could have been conceived than this gathering of nearly all the conference leaders, representing every section of the country and all shades of opinion in dealing with childhood's problems. Many persons listened to the unanimous plea that the federal government should heed the cry of the child and espouse its cause at least to the extent of providing a children's bureau manned by experts in such questions as the causes and treatment of orphanage, illegitimacy, juvenile delinquency, infant mortality, child labor, physical degeneracy, accidents, and diseases of children, to whom those engaged in dealing with these problems could direct inquiries for information based on adequate and authoritative research. The gathering of such information and its dissemination in bulletins easily understood by the common people, the making available for all parts of the country the results of the experience and suggestions of the most favored parts and of any foreign experience in dealing with problems similar to our own,--in short just such service as the government now renders so cheerfully to the farmer though the scientific work of the bureaus of its well equipped Department of Agriculture is all that the bill for the children's bureau asks. Upon the question of the propriety, constitutionality and expediency of the federal government doing this work there was not and cannot well be a single objection made. For the first year an appropriation of $51,820 is asked. As was carefully pointed out by several speakers, much of the work to be done is partially undertaken and could be done more adequately by existing governmental agencies such as the Census Bureau whose work would not be duplicated if we make it the sole business of some one bureau to bring together in one place and focus on the problems of childhood the information desired by child helping agencies and to find out what is needed to stimulate greater efficiency in work for children. No administrative powers or duties of inspection with respect to children's institutions or work are proposed or intended to be given to the federal children's bureau. Therefore only those whose deeds will not stand the light of publicity need fear the operations of the bureau or expect anything but help and stimulus in the better performance of their service to the public. All these points were made with singular unanimity and earnestness by many speakers who were heard by the committee and were seconded by the still larger number who recorded their names and the societies they represented as favoring the bureau. The judges of the leading juvenile courts were present in person, including Judge Lindsey of Denver, Judge Mack of Chicago, Judge DeLacy of Washington and Judge Feagin of Montgomery, Ala. Herbert Parsons, who introduced the bill in the House, and Secretary Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee, which stands sponsor for the bill, conducted the hearing jointly. Miss Lillian D. Wald, who originally suggested to the National Child Labor Committee the advisability of such a bureau, made the opening address, giving in substance the very clear and able argument for its creation which she had presented the previous evening at the banquet of the children's conference. She pointed out the universal demand for it in the following language: And not only have the twenty-five thousand clergymen and their congregations shown their desire to participate in furthering this bill, but organizations of many diverse kinds have assumed a degree of sponsorship that indicates indisputably how universal has been its call to enlightened mind and heart. The national organizations of women's clubs, the consumers' leagues throughout the country, college and school alumnæ associations, societies for the promotion of special interests of children, the various state child labor committees, representing in their membership and executive committee education, labor, law, medicine and business, have officially given endorsement. The press, in literally every section of the country, has given the measure serious editorial discussion and approval. Not one dissenting voice has it been possible to discover. THE NEED AND THE OPPORTUNITY In speaking of the work which the bureau would do, we quote again from Miss Wald: The children's bureau would not merely collect and classify information but it would be prepared to furnish to every community in the land information that was needed, diffuse knowledge that had come through expert study of facts valuable to the child and to the community. Many extraordinarily valuable methods have originated in America and have been seized by communities other than our own as valuable social discoveries. Other communities have had more or less haphazard legislation and there is abundant evidence of the desire to have judicial construction to harmonize and comprehend them. As matters now are within the United States, many communities are retarded or hampered by the lack of just such information and knowledge, which, if the bureau existed, could be readily available. Some communities within the United States have been placed in most advantageous positions as regards their children, because of the accident of the presence of public spirited individuals in their midst who have grasped the meaning of the nation's true relation to the children, and have been responsible for the creation of a public sentiment which makes high demands. But nowhere in the country does the government as such, provide information concerning vitally necessary measures for the children. Evils that are unknown or that are underestimated have the best chance for undisturbed existence and extension, and where light is most needed there is still darkness. Ours is, for instance, the only great nation which does not know how many children are born and how many die in each year within its borders; still less do we know how many die in infancy of preventable diseases; how many blind children might have seen the light, for one-fourth of the totally blind need not have been so had the science that has proved this been made known in even the remotest sections of the country. At least fifteen states and the District of Columbia were represented at the hearing. Among the speakers were Edward T. Devine, editor of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS, who pointed out the scope and importance of the inquiries the bureau would undertake; Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, who drew the bill for the national committee and explained its fiscal features and the plan for the organization of the work of the bureau; Jane Addams, who showed the real service the bureau would render the practical worker; Florence Kelley, who pointed out the extent of our present ignorance on the questions with which the bureau would deal; Homer Folks, who emphasized the unanimous demand for the bureau by the widely representative Conference on Dependent Children; Congressman Bennett of New York, who showed the service it would render in dealing with the peculiar problems of the children of immigrants; Bernard Flexner of Louisville, Hugh F. Fox of the State Charities Aid Association of New Jersey, Judge Mack, Judge Lindsey, and Judge Feagin, who all pointed out the service it would render the courts in dealing with children; Mrs. Ellen Spencer Mussey, who represented the General Federation of Women's Clubs; Thomas F. Walsh of Denver, Dr. L. B. Bernstein of New York, William H. Baldwin of Washington, D. C.; Secretary A. J. McKelway, and General Secretary Owen R. Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee. The House committee was deeply impressed and it is believed will report the bill favorably. LOCAL PLAN FOR A CHILDREN'S BUREAU Realizing that its 20,000 children between the ages of four and fourteen are its chief asset,--that children are, in fact, as important as its playgrounds or its streets or any of its other community problems,--the city of Hartford, Conn., has taken steps towards the appointment of a juvenile commission which shall relate the work of schools and playgrounds and manual training and homes and give them a balance and unity which come only from the consideration of such a question as a whole. Each of these agencies has an influence on the child for a part of its life, but each falls short of its possibilities for lack of such a comprehensive oversight and continuity of purpose as is promised by the commission. The measure presented to the Legislature for the creation of a juvenile commission is based upon the following arguments: 1. Industrial cities are producing a class of children whose parents cannot, from the very nature of things, do much more than supply them with food, clothing and a home. 2. The environment of these children, is such, both in the home and in the neighborhood, that one-sixth die before they are a year old and one-fourth before they are seven. 3. The parents cannot as individuals provide playgrounds or adequate discipline. 4. Every child has a right to a reasonable opportunity for life, health and advantages needed for development. 5. To protect the child's right to a reasonable chance for healthy development is a special work which should be done by a commission created for the purpose to supplement the work of parent and school. The suggestion for the commission came from George A. Parker, commissioner of parks, Hartford, and grew out of a meeting of the Consumers' League, followed by a talk by Dr. Hastings H. Hart. Mr. Parker's idea met with immediate endorsement from many sources and as a result the bill now before the Connecticut Legislature has influential and widespread support. It is proposed that the Court of Common Council shall refer to the commission all questions relating to minors and await its report before taking final action. The commission is to have power to investigate all questions relating to the welfare of children, to collect and compile statistics and to recommend legislation. None of its actions is to be taken in a way to lessen the parents' responsibility and no child is to be taken from its parent except in extreme cases of danger to life or limb. The commission as proposed will consist in part of city officials and in part of citizens who do not hold public office, the members to serve three years each without salary, but the expenses to be borne by the city. EDUCATION AND THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE The past few years have witnessed an advance in the evolution of medicine which has been radical and comprehensive. It was only a decade ago that the efforts of centuries devoted to empirical treatment of the individual found room for research into the causes of disease; and it has only been within recent years that such knowledge has been sufficiently comprehensive to justify its extensive application in the practical field of disease suppression. The attempt which Columbia University is making to establish a School of Sanitary Science and Public Health is prompted by the realization of the fact that most diseases are preventable with our present knowledge of their causes; that the knowledge which we now possess in regard to their causes is not properly and extensively enough applied for their prevention; and that this knowledge is best transmitted to the people by means of educational methods. Probably the most recent advance in the doctrine of preventive medicine is due to the fact that many diseases are recognized to have not only medical, but social and moral causes as well; and that their prevention is best accomplished by the enlistment of judicious co-operation of effort in these various fields. For example, a large part of the disease of the human race is directly traceable to the damaging effects of alcohol and syphilis, yet these diseases cannot be eradicated until the underlying social and moral factors are recognized and remedied. It is not difficult to appreciate the wonderful results which are capable of accomplishment, with our present scientific knowledge, by the conjoined application of scientific and social with educational methods, when we realize that smallpox could be wiped out by education of the masses on the efficacy of vaccination. The fields of preventable accidents, dangerous trades, child labor and improvement of working conditions offer opportunities for the reduction of suffering which are great almost beyond conception. Blindness could be diminished one-half by the spread of a simple, well known doctrine; typhoid, cholera, malaria and yellow fever depart as enlightenment on principles of sanitary administration creep in, and tuberculosis has resolved itself largely into a "social" disease. The problem resolves itself distinctly and emphatically into one of education; and it is to instruct the teachers of the people in methods of health preservation,--be they officers of health, with the care of thousands, or mothers with the care of one, in their keeping,--that Columbia University is striving to put its school into operation. Pending such a beginning, a series of university lectures on Sanitary Science and Public Health by the most eminent authorities of the country is being given to prepare the way for the next much desired move,--a permanent, fully-endowed institution of instruction in the principles of public health preservation and the prevention of disease. Courses of a similar nature have been organized at Cornell, Wisconsin and Illinois universities. The subjects, to be discussed by experts, include water supply and sewage disposal, health and death rates in cities, public health problems of municipalities, state and nation, milk supply and infant mortality, school hygiene, street cleaning, tenement house sanitation, personal and industrial hygiene and diseases of animals transmissible to man. The course, which was started on February 1 with a lecture by Professor Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on The Rise and Significance of the Public Health Movement, will be continued until April 28. The lectures will be open to the public up to the capacity of the hall. CLEANING UP THE KANSAS PENITENTIARY The newspapers of January 31 contained a dispatch describing an unusual special train that left Lansing, Kansas, bound for McAlester, Vinita and Atoka, Oklahoma. The 344 passengers, sixteen of them women, were handcuffed together in pairs and groups and as the train pulled out of the station, the dispatch states that "a great cheer arose from the convicts as they saw the last of the state penitentiary." This special train was carrying away the "boarded out" convicts whom Oklahoma has been shipping to Kansas since the establishment of its territorial government. Criminals were aplenty in the old frontier days and the contract with Kansas was highly agreeable to the settlers who were glad to free Oklahoma of its "bad men." The territory paid the state forty cents a day for the maintenance of each convict kept in the Lansing penitentiary and adding to this the amount that the prisoners earned, Kansas received about forty-eight cents a day for each Oklahoma prisoner. The cost of food was about ten cents a day each. From time to time stories drifted across the border about the treatment of prisoners, but not until last year when the territory became a state and when Kate Barnard became its first commissioner of charities, was anything done toward cleaning things up in Kansas. In August the new commissioner went to Lansing as a private citizen of Guthrie, Oklahoma, and inspected the prison with other visitors. Then she presented her official card and after considerable protest was allowed to inspect the jail as commissioner of charities of Oklahoma and the newest state in the Union proceeded to show her forty-eight-year-old sister what was going on in the Kansas penitentiary. Miss Barnard found 562 men and thirteen women prisoners from Oklahoma. She spent a day crawling through the coal mines where the "props and supports of the roof were bent low under the weight of the dirt ceiling." She found that every prisoner who is put to work in the mines must dig three cars of coal a day or be punished for idleness. Three cars of coal a day is a good day's work for a strong man. Miss Barnard found seventeen-year-old boys who were unable to do their "stunt," as they called it, chained to the walls of their dark cells. She found "one Oklahoma boy shackled up to the iron wall of the dungeon. The lad was pale-faced, slender, boyish, and frail in appearance. I said: 'What are you doing here? Why don't you mind the authorities?' He answered: 'I don't know much about digging coal. I work as hard as I can; but sometimes the coal is so hard, or there is a cave-in, and it takes time to build up the walls, and then I just can't get the three cars of coal. I got over two cars the day they threw me in here.'" The coal that is taken from the prison mines is used to supply the Kansas institutions, it is said. About 1,500 tons are mined a day. As there are some dozen institutions to be supplied, this makes over 100 tons a day for each of the state institutions. In the prison twine factories the contractors are allowed to say just how much shall constitute a day's work, and as all men are not equally skillful, the inferior prisoner is pushed to the limit by fear of punishment, while the more capable ones fare much better. Miss Barnard found that the "water cure" is in regular use; that the "water hole," "where they throw us in and pump water on us" is in operation; that the "crib" where refractory prisoners are kept with hands and feet shackled and drawn together at the back, was doing active service. She found unprintable immoralities existing in some parts of the mines and she found that since August, 1905, sixty boys from Oklahoma have been imprisoned with the men in the Lansing prison. Miss Barnard's report seemed incredible to Governor Haskell. He sent another investigator who came back to Guthrie with new stories of the Lansing prison to add to Miss Barnard's. And then the governor appointed a commission to make a thorough investigation of the institution and ex-Governor Hoch named a Kansas commission to co-operate. The latter body made its investigation before the Oklahoma delegation arrived. It made eighteen recommendations changing the whole prison management, but declared Miss Barnard's report true "only in minor details." The Oklahoma commission found that her report was true to fact and that the Lansing prison was not fit for a murderer, much less for a sixteen-year-old boy. There is no state penitentiary in Oklahoma and the prisoners must be kept in the county jails for the present. This is another strong argument for the passage of the bill now before the Oklahoma Legislature for the establishment of a reformatory. It may be possible to arrange with the Department of Justice to transfer the prisoners to the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth. KOWALIGA SCHOOL DESTROYED BY FIRE On the afternoon of January 30, the Kowaliga School for Negroes, located in the high pine lands of Elmore county, Alabama, was destroyed by fire. Only two buildings remain of that unique industrial settlement which has been successfully working among the Negroes of the surrounding community for thirteen years. The school was started by William E. Benson, a son of a former slave who had returned to the Alabama plantation after the war and become one of the South's most successful Negro farmers. Young Benson was graduated from Howard University and returning to his father's plantation saw the real need for a good school for the Negro children of the community. From Patron's Hall, built by the combined efforts of "the neighbors," Kowaliga School was started. When the five buildings were burned there were 280 pupils and twelve teachers in attendance. The loss will be about $20,000 with practically no insurance owing to the extreme difficulty that Negroes always experience in the South in getting their property covered against loss. The Kowaliga School is distinct in the service it is rendering to the community. Its aim is not to train skilled workmen or highly educated leaders, but rather to properly fit the Negro boys and girls of the community to live better in that community. The "book work" is carried as far as the eighth grade. The boys are taught agriculture and manual training and the girls are trained in the home life which they will probably take up on leaving school. As the school grew, Mr. Benson felt that it was not enough to train these boys and girls without giving them some opportunity to put their training to practical use. Consequently in 1900 the Dixie Industrial Company was founded "to improve the economic condition and social environment of the farm tenants of the South by establishing seasonal industries and furnishing them with steady employment the year round; to build better homes and help them to avoid the oppressions of the old system of mortgaging crops." The company now owns about 10,000 acres of farm and timber lands, operates a saw-mill, a turpentine still, cotton ginnery, cotton-seed and fertilizer mill, a store and forty farms, affording homes and employment for 300 people. It has a paid-up capital of $66,000, a surplus of $12,000, is earning eight per cent annually, and paying four per cent annual dividends. The industrial company provides work the year round for the rural population and thus fills in the time of the seasonal workers who before were busy only about half the year. The fire will not directly affect the Dixie Industrial Company. It will temporarily cripple the school and until funds are forthcoming that work must be discontinued. "It means beginning all over again after thirteen years' work," said Mr. Benson, who was in New York at the time of the fire; "but I am going back this week and make another start." REVISING CHICAGO'S CIVIL SERVICE SYSTEM A complete revision of the civil service system for Chicago is promised by Elton Lower, president of the City Civil Service Commission. After eight years' connection with the city departments the commissioner devoted himself for over a year mainly to studying the working of the civil service in Boston, New York, Washington and Chicago and to the examination of the promotional methods used by railway, manufacturing and other corporations. Securing requisite support from the city administration, he now announces a complete reversal of the form and revision of the rules under which the merit system has been operated in the city. The distinctive features of the new plan are grading by duties, descriptive titles, defining the duties of the grades, uniformity of compensation within each grade, advancement from grade to grade only by competitive examination, and a greater degree of unity and independence in the departmental administration of efficiency tests and promotional procedure within its own bounds. Examinations in all departments and grades are to subordinate scholastic to practical tests, and to give greater importance to physical conditions and the investigation of character in order to meet the requirements of service, rather than require knowledge of facts. It is hoped to raise the standard of efficiency and promotion by taking the tests in each department from its own system of keeping records and accounts. As the departments will be held individually responsible for the way they keep these, the inevitable comparison and contrasts between them will tend to level their standards up to the highest. Salaries may be raised only for an entire rank and not for individuals within the rank. Provision for grouping employes within the grades is made on the basis of efficiency, seniority or time required by service. The passing mark will be the only test of physical fitness. A similar flat-grading is proposed for work requiring skill and experience. Testing the applicant's qualifications in these respects, as is done for New York and Boston by the trade schools, is preferred for Chicago. A free transfer permits employes to pass from one department to another for promotional examinations, the original entrance examination thus giving a city employe a slight advantage over outsiders in competing for grades. Identification tests include finger prints. The civil service commission began to institute these features among the employes of its own office some time ago. It first secured proper quarters and modern sanitary facilities, and then began training employes for its own work for which experienced applicants were lacking. Mr. Lower maintains that if such a system is firmly established and built up it will be likely to withstand lax administration because "it will take as much study and thought to tear it down as to construct it." Whatever wrong things may be introduced into it, he thinks, "will make conditions no worse than they have been under the system that has hitherto prevailed." The Chicago Public Library will profit as much by the re-classification of its force and by this scheme of promotion as any other city administration, since its work has suffered more for the lack of finer tests of efficiency within more specialized grades, and also from being under the same regulations as other departments with whose requirements its service has little or nothing in common. To have a civil, self-regulating service system virtually its own, will free its directors, the librarian and his staff for that initiative which will give to this fourth largest library in the United States the leadership which may be rightly demanded for it. ANOTHER ATTEMPT FOR A NEW CHICAGO CHARTER The Chicago Charter Convention reassembled last week at its own initiative to renew its attempt to prepare a city charter that the Legislature will adopt and the people will accept at the polls. Its first laborious effort was so ruthlessly made over by the contending party factions in the Legislature two years ago that the measure suited no one. Many members of the convention repudiated it and the people overwhelmingly rejected it at the polls. To conserve their hard and fundamental work, the convention ventured to reassemble last autumn and appointed a committee to revise its own bill in the light of its fate at the capitol and the polls. In so doing the amendments made by the Legislature have been carefully considered and most of them eliminated. The measure thus nearly restored to its original form has been changed to conform to suggestions prompted by the criticisms and discussions through which the bill and act passed. This revision is now to come before the convention which faces many interesting and strenuously contested issues. Among them are the limiting of the city's bonded indebtedness to four per cent, the assumption by the city of ten per cent more of the cost of public improvements, municipal suffrage for women, stringent provisions against corrupt practices, the retention of the party circle on the ballot, the local regulation of the liquor traffic and the Sunday closing of saloons, the centralizing of school management, and the consolidation of four park boards. Preliminary to all these issues the question is to be decided whether the convention will supersede itself by proposing to the Legislature either to authorize the election of a new charter commission by the people, or to call a constitutional convention. These proposals are not likely to interfere with the procedure of the present convention to complete its own charter bill. Notwithstanding the fierce factional fight that now absorbs the energies of the Legislature so that it has not yet attempted to attend to public business, one of the prominent members of the House of Representatives assured the convention that if it agreed upon a measure and rallied to its support the public sentiment of Chicago, it would be enacted and referred to the referendum vote of the people. THE SCIENCE OF BETTER BIRTH The scientific foundations for the slowly rising science of "eugenics" grow apace in the research laboratories of our universities. Some of their most authoritative representatives demonstrated this fact at the recent joint meeting of the Physicians' Club of Chicago and the Chicago Medical Society. In strictly scientific spirit and phrase, with interesting stereopticon illustrations of their biological experiments, four professors brought their facts to bear upon the doctors for their inferences as to the analogy between the heredity in animal and plant life, and the development of human kind. Two professors of zoology, Dr. Castle of Harvard and Dr. Tower of the University of Chicago gave respectively "an experimental study of heredity," and "experiments and observations on the modification and the control of inheritance." A beautiful parallel was presented by Dr. Gates, professor of botany at the University of Chicago, in studies of inheritance in the evening primrose. Dean Davenport of the College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois ventured the most direct application of the suggestions from scientific experimentations to the propagation of the human race. Drawing the lessons to be learned from the breeding of animals, he said that the question preliminary to any consideration of the subject is "whether the end of our breeding is to be the production of a few superior individuals, or the general elevation of the race. If it is the first, we must proceed as in the breeding of thoroughbred race horses; if it is the second, as in the production of good fat stock for the farm." Preferential mating, he thinks, produces in the long run, persons of exceptional talent. "Like mates with like, and people with exceptional ability in any line are naturally thrown together by their common tastes and thus uniting bring forth phenomenal individuals in all lines." The solution of the problem of the deterioration of the stock lies, he thinks, not so much in stricter marriage laws, as in the absolute prevention of reproduction among "the culls, human as well as animal." To colonize other classes of the unfit as strictly as we do the insane is the only way he sees of doing this. "Let a man be taken into court and his ancestor record investigated. If we find his parents were dominantly bad, it means that he is fifty per cent bad. If his grand parents were also bad, he is twenty-five per cent more bad. When he gets to ninety per cent bad, it is certain that he must be colonized. There is a strict mathematical law that runs through it all." Whatever may be thought of such definite suggestions, it is too true as the secretary of the Physicians' Club affirms, that "man is at a distinct disadvantage when compared with domestic animals in being denied 'good' breeding. He is the child of chance and so to speak is born, not bred." Surely, however slowly, the science of improving the propagation of the human race will receive its recognition as having place among the hierarchy of the sciences and will be practically applied by those who respect themselves and have any regard for their posterity. CONFERENCE ON DENTAL HYGIENE The Conference on Oral and Dental Hygiene held in Boston recently brought out, perhaps more than anything else, the relation between, the physical condition of the teeth and the general health of the body, and the great necessity for lay intelligence in the matter. Prof. Irving Fisher of Yale, the opening speaker, dwelt on these points, and declared that civilized man tries to avoid mastication by the use of pulverized, liquified and pappified foods; that civilization has brought about a pressure of time with the result that we eat by the quick lunch counter and the clock, whereas the animal eats his meal in peace; that we eat too fast, to the injury of our teeth, as shown by the fact that those who do masticate food thoroughly have better teeth; and that experience shows thorough mastication results in better health and greater efficiency. Prof. Timothy Leary of Tufts College said that proper mastication does away with an important source of supply of putrefactive bacteria, and eliminates conditions favoring gastric cancer. Dr. Samuel A. Hopkins believes that the solution of many of the difficulties lies in seeking out the educators and in working through them and through the various settlements and the workers in public and charitable institutions. Of particular importance are all those who work with children. William H. Allen of New York lays to the ignorance and the indifference and the carelessness of the public a great many of the difficulties. He believes that if hospitals ever refuse to give bed treatment for twelve weeks to a man suffering from jaw trouble when the dentist could give "ambulant" treatment while the man supports himself and his family; if physicians ever stop spending time, money, medicine and hospital space on tubercular patients who reinfect themselves whenever food, medicine or saliva pass over their diseased teeth and gums; if dentists are ever generally added to the attending, visiting and consulting staffs of hospitals; if education of dentists for profit ever gives way to education for health and training; if the dental profession is ever given the rank with other specialties and society given the corresponding protection, it will be because laymen intervene. Dr. Horace Fletcher declared that it is definitely known that the flow of gastric juices is started in the stomach by psychic stimuli. If the food is taken without enjoyment the juices are not secreted and the food remains undigested. "Any dispute at the table, an angry word, a discussion over a bill, or a sharp retort, are sufficient to stop this digestive process," he said. Dr. David D. Scannell of the Boston School Committee made the startling statement that fully seventy-five per cent of Boston school children have dental disease, which means that there are about 75,000 school children in Boston needing attention. Dr. Scannell bases his statement upon investigations made in Brookline, New York, and through the district nursing associations. Dr. Scannell said that the present dental work in schools is done with good intention but it is sporadic. Money should be set aside for examination and treatment of all school children, conducted through an out-patient dental department on the same basis as the eye and ear departments of free treatment. Dr. Walter B. Cannon of the Harvard Medical School showed the dangers lurking in school drinking cups. His statements were supplemented in the exhibit provided by the Dental Hygiene Council of Massachusetts by pictures showing a filthy vagrant using a public drinking cup, immediately followed by a mother who gave her little girl a drink from the same cup. The exhibit is the only one in existence in this country. It was taken in part from the tuberculosis exhibit, but has been greatly increased and supplemented by an exhibit from Strasbourg. In the closing session, President Eliot of Harvard pointed out the relation between defective physical conditions and defective government. "The bad physical condition of our people is due largely to the unhealthy conditions under which the men do their ordinary work and the women pursue their domestic employments. To improve the public health we must have better regulations and laws. We cannot create and improve the public playgrounds which are open air parlors without honest and efficient city and town government," he said. Dr. Eliot thinks that the medical profession is the most altruistic of all occupations, with the possible exception of the ministry. INSURANCE AND BUILDING LOANS One of the defects of the building and loan societies, long recognized in some quarters, has been the probable loss of the home to the family of the member who dies before payment has been completed. At the time when the widow most needs the home for her children, the payments cannot be met and the association is reluctantly obliged to foreclose the mortgage. A plan to meet this situation, frequent in the aggregate, has been devised and practised in New England, by requiring the borrower to take out an insurance policy on the least expensive straight-life plan, to an amount equal to the mortgage. The insurance premium is payable monthly with the payment on the loan, the association turning it over to the insurance company, and undertaking to adjust the payments if the latter's premium periods do not coincide. The face of the policy is made payable to the loan association which, in case of death, takes from the insurance money the amount remaining unpaid on the mortgage, and gives the widow the balance with a deed for an unencumbered home. In the great majority of cases where the borrower lives to complete his payments, the policy is surrendered to him when his mortgage is cancelled, to be continued or dropped as he pleases. The plan was described at the annual banquet of the Metropolitan League of Co-operative Savings and Loan Associations, New York, by J. Q. A. Brackett, former governor of Massachusetts, who is urging it on a national scale as a necessary adjunct to what, in his native state, is termed the co-operative bank. More than two hundred men attended the banquet, representing ninety-five constituent companies with 35,129 depositors, and controlling assets of sixteen million dollars. One who attended could not fail to be impressed with the evident feeling of these men that their paramount duty is not to make money for their particular organizations, but to help the average member buy a home. Ninety per cent of them are unsalaried. One association, it was reported, has reduced its interest rate without request of its borrowers. In the words of the president, the main desire of building loan associations should be "the encouragement of the habit of saving without irritating penalties and restrictions and with equitable provision for the mishaps possible to those undertaking a contract for specific saving extending over a long period of years." THE SIGHTLESS AND THEIR WORK The wonderful gains made by the blind in overcoming their heavy handicap was brought strikingly to public attention at the second annual sale and exhibition of the New York Association for the Blind. Women were at work on small hand looms, on linen looms, and on carpet-weaving looms. A blind girl operated a power machine. Stenographers sat at their work, fingering ordinary typewriters, and transcribing notes from phonographic dictation. There were all the usual, simpler displays of chair caning, basket weaving and broom making and there was music, both vocal and instrumental. The guests were told interesting stories of many of the workers. One was of a man who applied to the association for help when first stricken blind and most despondent, thinking that all avenues of usefulness had been closed to him. As a result of the instruction given to him, he is now able to earn a good salary and to support his family. The work of the association has so increased during the past year, that besides the building on Fifty-ninth street and the workshop on Forty-second street, the special committee for the prevention of blindness has an office in the Kennedy Building at 289 Fourth avenue. In co-operation with the State Department of Health the committee is working particularly toward the prevention of ophthalmia neonatorum. Following are the members of the committee: P. Tecumseh Sherman, chairman, Dr. Eugene H. Porter, Dr. Thomas Darlington, Dr. F. Park Lewis, Dr. J. Clifton Edgar, Thomas M. Mulry, Dr. John I. Middleton, Miss Louisa L. Schuyler, Mrs. William B. Rice, Mrs. Edward R. Hewitt, Miss Winifred Holt, Miss Lillian D. Wald and George A. Hubbell, executive secretary. BERLIN'S SCHOOL OF PHILANTHROPY Europe, and especially Germany, follow very closely every new experiment along social lines, undertaken by American cities or individuals. One imitation of American methods was the establishment of separate courts for children, though neither detention homes nor the splendidly equipped schools for delinquent boys and girls, which the most progressive states of the Union have, are found in Germany. The state governments in most cases do not take the initiative; private citizens study the question and urge the necessity for a change, until public opinion, thoroughly aroused comes out so strongly in favor of a new measure, that the authorities are forced to yield. In October, 1908, a social school for women opened its doors in Berlin with the help of different societies and in co-operation with private citizens, of whom Dr. Munsterberg is the best known to the readers of this magazine. A close study of the methods of the New York and Chicago Schools of Philanthropy had been made and some of their features successfully copied. The aim of the school is to give German women new chances for service whether they wish to devote some of their time as volunteers or desire to become paid officers of philanthropic agencies. Field practice will show how the same problems, which confront social workers, repeat themselves only in a smaller way in the families and individual. To the training in both theory and practice two years are devoted. The theoretical work in pedagogy, social questions, economics and domestic science, is supplemented in the first year by kindergarten and day nursery work, and in the second year by a special training gained through working at different social agencies, like the Bureau of Charity, juvenile court committees, relief and aid societies. All these agencies hope to get a staff of experienced helpers and workers through their co-operation with the school. The state's schools, through which the girls have to pass prior to their admission, have very little of the modern spirit. In contrast too with the great variety of courses in the state _lyzeums_, the courses are restricted in number and carefully selected. They are however most appropriate for women, since they present not only a picture of the development of modern society, but emphasize particularly woman's position. The director, Dr. Alice Salomon, is one of the most able and conservative leaders of German women. There is a good attendance at the new school. THE RUDOWITZ CASE GRAHAM TAYLOR The decision of Secretary Root to deny the demand of the Russian government for the extradition of Christian Rudowitz is a great relief to all true Americans, and thousands of their foreign born fellow citizens all over the land. The right of asylum for political refugees was at stake in the case of this Lutheran Protestant peasant. The extradition was demanded on the ground that he had been identified as one of a band of twelve or fifteen marauders who were guilty of three homicides, arson and robbery in the village of Beren, Courland, in January, 1906. The defendant denied the charges of personal participation in the alleged crimes and submitted proof that Courland was then in a state of temporarily successful insurrection, and that the killing was ordered by the revolutionary party then in control, as an execution of spies who had betrayed many of their own people into the hands of the military authorities by whom they were summarily shot. The evidence upon which the whole case hinged was in the form of depositions taken in Russia and submitted by the government to the United States commissioner at Chicago. So well grounded were the suspicions with which it was regarded, that the whole record of the testimony was submitted to John H. Wigmore, dean of the Northwestern University Law School, one of the highest legal authorities in America, and author of one of the principal American text books on evidence. His careful analysis of the voluminous record in the case led him to conclude that while Rudowitz was a member of the revolutionary committee and voted for the execution of the spies, the evidence identifying him as one of the party charged with the killing "is too slight to be of any value"; that "there is no evidence of marauding or neighborhood feuds or common depredation on the part of this or any other band in any part of the evidence for the prosecution"; that there is conclusive evidence of a temporarily successful revolution "giving the military forces of the national government under their system certain rights of summary execution, and correspondingly giving such rights to the revolutionists, so as to fix upon their acts of summary force, if duly authorized by their officers, as revolutionary acts of force." These facts justified Dean Wigmore in concluding that "the killing was a purely political act, the arson was also ordered politically, being a customary incident similar to the existing government's own punitive practice in such cases." The suspicions based upon such facts in this and other cases, aroused the American spirit against the apparent attempt of the Russian government to secure the extradition of many political refugees on poorly substantiated charges of being common criminals. Hundreds of men and women faced the possibility of being forced to change their names and hide themselves. Great mass meetings were held in the principal cities to protest not only against the extradition of Rudowitz, but against the continuation of the present treaty with Russia under which it was asked. Conservative citizens, to the American manor born, such as President Cyrus Northrup of the University of Minnesota, W. H. Huestis of Minneapolis, Charles Cheney Hyde, professor of International Law at Northwestern University, Councillor W. J. Calhoun of Chicago, joined their protests with those of recently arrived refugees and such friends of theirs as Jane Addams, Jenkin Lloyd Jones and Dr. Emil G. Hirsch. But beneath the value set upon this popular agitation for the defense of the right of asylum in America, was the confidence that there was good law under the case for Rudowitz, which would surely determine the decision of so good a lawyer as the secretary of state. Now that this confidence has been confirmed, the question is being validly raised by the press whether the qualifications exacted of those appointed to United States commissionerships are as high as was originally demanded for the delicate and difficult duties of that office. It is pointed out that when in 1793 Congress first authorized such appointments by the circuit courts, it defined the qualifications of those eligible as "discreet persons, learned in the law." Later acts, however, dropped the requirement that they should be "learned in the law" and continued the reference to "discreet persons." In substituting "United States commissioners" appointed by the district courts for the commissioners of the circuit courts in 1896, Congress provided only that no United States marshal, bailiff or janitor of a building, or certain other federal employes should hold the office. Some of the most eminent lawyers, who publicly joined in protesting against the extradition of Rudowitz, took occasion to criticise the appointment to this office of men not trained in the law, and inexperienced in the sifting of evidence, whose decisions, involving the liberty and life of men, must be based entirely upon the knowledge of the laws of evidence. Certainly this case should lead either to stricter definition of the qualifications for United States commissionerships or to far greater care in the appointments to that important office. Moreover, the injustice of putting upon a political refugee the burden of proof that he is such has been made manifest in this case. For to do so Rudowitz would have been compelled not only to bring his evidence from Russia, but also to expose to certain death those whom he would have been compelled to name as his compatriots in the struggle for liberty. SAVINGS BANK LEGISLATION: WHAT IS NEEDED? JAMES H. HAMILTON[1] Headworker of the University Settlement "Everything speaks for and nothing against the post office savings bank," writes Professor J. Conrad of the University of Halle. This is strong testimony from a German economist who is a careful student in the field of social economics, and who lives in a country which has a splendid system of municipal savings banks. But if one looks beyond Prussia and Saxony into the province of Posen he sees great stretches of neglected territory. And in this country if one looks beyond Massachusetts, with its much praised trustee savings system, into New York and Pennsylvania he sees much to be desired,--and if he looks still further west he finds a sadder neglect than the neglect of free popular education in darkest Russia. [1] Author of Savings and Savings Institutions; Macmillan, 1902. Pp. 436. Price $2.25. This book can be obtained at publisher's price through the offices of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS. If we fully comprehend the fact that the savings bank is an educational, and not a commercial institution we will see at once that the law of supply and demand cannot properly regulate its growth. We will see on the contrary that if left to local initiative by either municipalities or trustees, the banks will likely appear where they are least needed and fail to appear where they are most needed, and the need of a general federal system, or a postal system, which will leave no neglected spots becomes perfectly clear. "Everything speaks for the post office savings bank." Postmaster General Meyer, in his article in the August number of the _North American Review_, presents this country's need of a postal savings system in a very attractive and convincing way. I think, however, that the educational aspects merit more emphasis and more extended treatment. The public, I think, needs to recognize this institution not alone as the often successful rival of the saloon, the enemy of dissipating and destructive spending, but it needs also to recognize its relationship to the strong type of citizen, with resisting power against the petty immediate wants in the interest of greater economic security, the type that can save against the rainy day, the week of sickness, and the declining powers of the later years of life. In my own judgment the highest function of the savings bank is to lead the workman back to the ownership of his tools, or since that is not literally possible, to a share in the ownership of the productive forces of society. The workman may not recognize in the share of stock, the bond, the equity in a title to real estate, the successor to the tools his forefather kept stored in his cottage. When he has been brought to see it and to make such ownership the goal of his ambition, his tribute of devotion to his wife and children, he will be a stronger and a better man in every respect, and the multiplication of this kind of citizen is as worthy an object of education as the spread of a rudimentary knowledge of letters. Universal proprietorship is no less desirable, from the social point of view, than universal education. The purpose of the savings bank is therefore not so much to instill the idea of hoarding for future spending, but of investing to increase the permanent income. Having this in mind the provision of the English postal savings system for investing in government stocks for the depositor on his request is fully warranted, and even more so the French provision for investment of the excess of deposits over the legal maximum in government stocks without request. The deposit account itself represents investment,--by trustees on behalf of the depositors. But the depositor should eventually become a conscious owner on his own account. It would seem most proper that he be supplied with information which would enable him to form an independent judgment as to different securities, and the savings bank might very well act for him in making his first investment. The one departure from precedent in Mr. Meyer's bill is in the investment of funds. It contemplates a system of loans to the local banks with a view to "keeping the money at home." The departure from the practice of investing in government securities may be good for the object intended, which relates to the incidents rather than the primary object of savings bank administration. It seems to me most unfortunate that Mr. Meyer should have selected a form of investment that would tend to defeat the primary object of savings banks in the necessarily low rate of interest. I think he must fail to fully realize that the savings bank is to educate the propertyless to become proprietors, to appreciate the need of supplementing the earnings of labor by income from accumulated capital, and not to serve as a mere place for hoarding. It is the interest rate that tickles this dormant sense into life. It seems to me a pity that he did not see in the example of the municipal savings banks in Germany and of our own trustee banks, which invest chiefly in real estate mortgages, a way of reaching the one object without injury to the other. This would be a departure from the general practice of postal savings systems which would at once "keep the money at home," and insure a higher rate of interest than the yield of government securities. Money thus invested would get back into the channels of trade as readily as if it were loaned to the local banks, and with much less objection, and the rate of interest would probably be about double. The yield should be four per cent against the two per cent proposed by the postmaster general's measure. It is certainly most refreshing and encouraging to listen to the promise of legislation that extends its benefits immediately to the common people, which contains the hope of more social solidarity. A comparison of our policies with those of old world countries in this respect is not comforting to our patriotic pride. It seems time that we were less laggard and that we should have more courage to experiment. The promise made by all political parties of a postal savings bank is probably the most encouraging sign we have had. It would be much more encouraging if the measure that is promised contained more of the results of bold experiment in other countries and contained more of an original and experimental nature that promises a more pronounced application of the true principle of savings banks, and that fosters a clearer popular understanding of that principle. It is equally important that the principle be brought out in clear relief from the point of view of the administration and of the patrons. The administration needs clearly to understand that it is not conducting a banking business but giving education in thrift, and the youthful and other patrons need to understand that they are being led in the direction of economic independence. SOCIAL EDUCATION[2] Reviewed by HELEN F. GREENE It is a long look forward and a wide one that Dr. Colin A. Scott takes in Social Education and one that social workers other than the teachers for whom the book was primarily written, will find themselves enriched by sharing. [2] Social Education by Colin A. Scott, Boston, 1908. Pp. 300. Price $1.50. This book may be obtained at publisher's price through the offices of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS. The school as a special organ of a constantly changing social order, must itself be easily capable of change. Instead of the uniformity on which the clan and early religions insisted must come the great variety of characters and capacities which the modern highly differentiated state demands. How shall the school, called into existence by society for its own service and protection, most effectively educate the formers of the "New Society"? Turning to real life for an answer we find that "society at its best organizes itself in groups in which each individual in the various groups to which he may belong finds himself in contact with others whose weakness he supplements or whose greater powers he depends upon." "If the school is to prepare for society as it is, it would be natural to expect that some such form of social activity, however embryonic, should be found as a necessary feature of its life." "The group must be capable of going to pieces, a thing it cannot do if it is to depend on the authoritative backing or constraint of the teacher. Indeed it is only when it can go to pieces that there is any reality in the effort to hold it together." "True responsibility and even obedience of the highest type is felt only when the group is free." The positive view of liberty and independence is urged, not the negative one which teachers,--and he might have added club leaders,--are too prone to take. "If children are to be trained socially, they must feel the full effects of social causes,--not merely of society at large, but especially those of the embryonic society of child life to which they belong. They must study these effects practically, and must see to what extent, as social beings, they are real causes themselves. It is on a basis of experience of this kind that they can best interpret the larger and more complex life of adult society and the state." Declaring social serviceableness and the highest development of personality "to be the aims of the school, he urges that there shall be some test of its success in securing these." "This test can be found only in the extent to which pupils, when freed from the oversight and benevolent coercion of the teacher, can use the knowledge and carry out the habits and ideals which it is the aim of the school to foster and protect." In the three succeeding chapters, three types of school in which the social spirit has been specially manifest are criticized according to this test. The schools are: (1) Abbotsholme, the "monarchy," under the principalship of Dr. Cecil Reddie; (2) The George Junior Republic; (3) The Dewey School. In each he finds "elements of a high degree of social value, and an approximate solution of the problem of educative social organization." But it is in the two following chapters on Organized Group Work, fragments of which appeared in the _Social Education Quarterly_ of March, 1907, that Dr. Scott makes his own most valuable contribution to the problem. It is an attempt to show how it is possible, "even with crowded classes and without special equipment, to obtain in the people's schools, those co-operative and self-sustaining motives which are worthy of democracy and best able to measure the teachers' work." The experiences which he describes he calls "experiments simply in the sense that all life is experimental, and they were devised with the view that the development of intention and resourcefulness on the part of the pupil is the greatest and most undeniable duty of any form of education." The method was as follows: Each teacher said to her class: "If you had time given to you for something that you enjoy doing, and that you think worth while, what should you choose to do? "When you have decided how you would spend the time, come and tell me about your plan. You may come all together, or in groups, or each by himself; but whatever you say you want to do, you must tell the length of time you will need to finish it, and how you expect to do it." A most varied and interesting set of plans resulted. A printing group; cooking groups; groups for bookbinding; many for the writing and giving of plays, suggestive of the festival work of the Ethical Culture School, which has already been so helpful to club leaders. The history of these groups, their human and humorous experiences:--of the child who was "bossy" and the way in which the group handled her,--are given in delightful detail and carry conviction with them as to the worth of the method. To one judging socially and not pedagogically the closing chapter on The Education of the Conscience is disappointing. It seems to keep too much to the idea of personal morality as an end rather than as a means to the more vital and individually inspiring and healthful social morality; and to admit of the implication that the moral side of school life is a thing at least a little apart, rather than finding, when given a teacher with the right spirit, that, to quote Dr. Dewey, "every incident of school life is pregnant with ethical life." PITTSBURGH SURVEY INTRODUCTORY TO THIS ISSUE This second Pittsburgh issue deals with certain physical necessities of a wage earning population. It shows a city struggling for the things which primitive men have ready to hand,--clear air, clean water, pure foods, shelter and a foothold of earth. Thus we have in Pittsburgh a smoke campaign, a typhoid movement and the administrative problems of the Bureau of Health in milk and meat inspection; thus we have the necessity for sanitary regulation of dwellings wherever people live dense or deep, whether squatters' shanties such as those of Skunk Hollow or company houses such as those of Painter's Row, whether city tenements or mill-town lodgings; and the necessity further for increased numbers of low-cost dwellings. Similarly, flood prevention, traction development, bridge building and the like are so many efforts to expand, or conquer the difficulties of, the town's corrugated floor. The first issue of this series, that of January 2, pointed out that with the moving into Pittsburgh of new and immigrant peoples, the spirit of the frontier and of the mining camp possessed the wage-earning population. This spirit has characterized civic development. Wherever there has been profit in public service, private enterprises have staked their claims to perform it. While the biggest men of the community have made steel, other men have built water companies, thrown bridges across the rivers, erected inclines and laid sectional car lines. To bring system and larger public utility out of these heterogeneous units, has become the present governmental problem of the city. In a sense, this situation is repeated with respect to the institutions transplanted into Pittsburgh, or initiated there, to meet the cultural and social needs of the community. Thus we have local alderman's courts, unco-ordinated charitable enterprises, and a ward system of schools. The trend of the decade here, too, is obviously toward system,--toward a municipalization of lower courts, an expansion of the health service, an association of charities, a city system as against a vestry system of schools, a civic improvement commission that will focalize public sentiment in all movements for municipal improvement. * * * * * In the third and final issue of the series, that of March 2, the emphasis will be transferred from the civic to the industrial well-being of the wage-earning population,--the vital and irrepressible issues of hours, wages, factory inspection, accidents and the cost of living. A supplementary group of studies,--of the libraries, schools, playgrounds and children's institutions of Pittsburgh,--will also be published in the issue of March 2. PITTSBURGH THE PLACE AND ITS SOCIAL FORCES. [Illustration: FORT PITT IN 1759. The first town plan of the Point of Pittsburgh.] * * * * * The second of three special issues of Charities and The Commons, presenting the gist of the findings of the Pittsburgh Survey, as to conditions of life and labor among the wage-earning population of the Pennsylvania Steel District. I. JANUARY 2-THE PEOPLE. II. FEBRUARY 6-THE PLACE. III. MARCH 2-THE WORK. * * * * * [Illustration: PITTSBURGH _SOCIAL FORCES_ 1908 For profiles, lines A.-B.; C.-D.; and E.-F.--see pages 834 and 835.] A CITY COMING TO ITSELF ROBERT A. WOODS HEAD OF SOUTH END HOUSE, BOSTON The capacity for being seen with the eye in the large, which New York in her sky scrapers has purchased at so great a price, is the birthright of Pittsburgh. Where from so many different points one sees the involved panorama of the rivers, the various long ascents and steep bluffs, the visible signs everywhere of movement, of immense forces at work,--the pillars of smoke by day, and at night the pillars of fire against the background of hillsides strewn with jets of light,--one comes to have the convincing sense of a city which in its _ensemble_ is quite as real a thing as are the separate forces which go to make it up. The Allegheny River, providing a broad, open space up and down and across which much of this drama of modern world industry may be viewed, has at last come to mean not separation but identity of the population on either side of it. If the banks of the river were improved, it might easily be sentimentally as well as economically one of the most important common possessions of the old and the new sections of Greater Pittsburgh. This tendency of cities to reach out and include their present suburbs, and even the territory where their future suburbs are to be,--a tendency which a few years ago was mocked at,--is in these days seen to be normal and wise. The proper planning of the city's layout, the proper adjustment of civic stress upon the different types of people in a great urban community, demand the inclusion of the suburbs. Greater Pittsburgh is less satisfactory than Greater New York and Greater Chicago, only because it is less inclusive than they. Some important suburbs of old Pittsburgh are not included, and the suburbs of Allegheny are nearly all outside. The latter omission is particularly unfortunate as it is doubtful whether Allegheny by itself will raise the average civic and moral standard of the greater city. It is regrettable too that Allegheny continues to show reluctance in making common cause with her larger neighbor. The toll bridges and the many obstacles against making them free, seem to typify the difficulty of intercommunication. The two towns, however, so clearly belong together that this feeling of clan cannot long survive. From nearly every commercial point of view that is worth considering Allegheny is dependent upon Pittsburgh. In the few exceptional instances, as in the case of two or three large stores, Pittsburgh recognizes a measure of dependence upon Allegheny. It is interesting that those of the old families connected with Pittsburgh industries who still insist on having town houses, reside on the Allegheny parks or commons. A strong sense of corporate individuality comes to any community that is arrested by the challenge of great tasks. One of the influences leading to the creation of the greater city was the widening of the territory administered industrially from Pittsburgh. The best oil wells are now south rather than north of Pittsburgh, and the center of the coal regions is fast passing from the southeast to southwest and on into West Virginia. The necessity of easy transfer of iron ore from the Superior region is bringing up insistently the proposal of a canal to Lake Erie, so as to match some of Cleveland's special advantages. The nine-foot channel for the whole length of the Ohio will enable Pittsburgh's long arm to reach out and touch that of Cincinnati. That the expansion of Pittsburgh was preceded and to some extent directed by a reform administration, has tended greatly to re-enforce the belief that Pittsburgh is moving organically toward the better day in her public affairs. This is the first successful movement for municipal reform in a generation. As I pointed out in my first article, it got its immediate stimulus out of the impudent interference of the state machine in unseating a mayor who had been elected by an opposing local faction, and setting up a "recorder" in his place. Carried out under the forms of legislation, this act stung Pittsburgh people into a new feeling of municipal self-respect and led to their electing on a Democratic ticket George W. Guthrie, who had been for many years actively interested in the cause of municipal reform. Mr. Guthrie's family, like the Quincys of Boston, has been represented for three generations in the office of mayor. Mayor Guthrie has made thorough application of the principles of civil service reform. He has introduced business methods in the awarding of all contracts, including the banking of the city's funds. In a city where only a few years ago perpetual franchises were given to a street railway covering every section, Mayor Guthrie has, so far as the situation allowed, put in force the strictest new conception of the public interest in relation to public service corporations. He compelled the Pennsylvania Railroad to cease moving its trains through the middle of what is potentially the best downtown street in the city. The street railway company was required for the first time to clean and repair the streets, to meet the cost of changes required by the work of city departments, and to pay bridge tolls. Loose and costly business methods in the city departments were radically checked, and accounts with long arrearages involving heavy interest losses to the city, were brought up to date. The cost of electric lighting to the city has been reduced from ninety-six to seventy-two dollars a lamp. Economies have been effected through having the city do some of its own asphalt paving and water-pipe laying. Along with economical departmental service have gone the intelligent and effective efforts, which will be explained in other survey reports, for improving the water supply, abating the smoke nuisance, combating typhoid fever and tuberculosis by wholesale inroads upon almost unbelievable sanitary evils, and for restraining and punishing the exploiters of prostitution. Not all American reform administrations can report a decline of two mills in the rate of taxation. Had Pittsburgh not been compelled to shoulder a special burden in including Allegheny's large municipal costs accompanied with low property valuation, Mayor Guthrie would have held the rate at this low point. Under the new charter the mayor cannot succeed himself; so that the question whether Mayor Guthrie could be successful with the enlarged electorate is a theoretical one. Even if the machine should be successful, a standard has been set which the citizens will remember and return to. Under the determined leadership of A. Leo Weihl, a Voters' League has employed such methods for keeping proper standards before the voters as have been successful in Chicago, Boston and other cities. Within a few weeks, after a year or more of clever and determined pursuit, seven members of councils and two bank officials have been arrested on a charge of bribery. The officers of the league state that this step is but the beginning. It is not claimed that this means anything more than the highly public-spirited activity of a few citizens, and it may be, as is currently reported, that such activity became possible in that certain great financial interests decided to change their policy as to dealing with city officials. However it became possible it meant exposure and disgrace to a system which was rooted in traditions in Pittsburgh. Just as this tradition was broken once in the election of Mayor Guthrie as a result of a bitter sting to the self-respect of the city; so now there is a cheering prospect that this poisoned goad will rouse and mobilize an instinct for carrying moral reforms to the limit which is very powerful in Pittsburgh when a situation forces the issue. The present phase of political chicanery touches the banks, and the reaction against it will be re-enforced by the growing concern of the community in the face of bank defalcations amounting altogether to not less than five million dollars within the past four years, some if not all of which involved mysterious political complications. [Illustration: GEORGE W. GUTHRIE. Mayor of Pittsburgh.] Such an extreme outbreak of crime is related to the transition stage through which the city is passing. Along with the intoxicating accumulation and expenditure of wealth, the old type of dominating, watchful, industrial and financial leader has disappeared,--that which is typified by Mr. Carnegie, B. F. Jones,--whose firm continues the largest independent steel concern in Pittsburgh,--the Parks, the Moorheads, the Olivers, the Laughlins. The large industrial interests are in the main turned into bureaucracies whose plans in detail are decided in New York, and whose officials must guide their public actions so as to serve the corporations' interests. The merchants and professional men of the city who have always deferred to the manufacturers, have only recently begun to assert themselves. It is perhaps natural that civic co-operation should make a more effective appeal to the merchants than the manufacturers, the merchants' constituency and scene of action being very largely local. Mayor Guthrie's election was a result of this new organized element in the life of the city. His work has in the nature of the case been largely the lopping off of old evils and the piecing together of a system of administration which shall embody standards of honesty and business efficiency. Will the people of Pittsburgh be ready for the further stage of sound reconstruction, for the unified, organic development of the city as a thing in itself; for the application to the common welfare of those coherent, adventurous principles which have made possible the magnificent prosperity of the few? The proper answer to this inquiry must regard the time perspective. A strong momentum of public spirit and social service from out of the past, Pittsburgh, in becoming a great population center, did not possess. But in the last ten years the progress of this community, to one who can test it in varied and intimate ways, has proved in such matters highly significant and promising. There are significant results, for instance, of the collective action of business men for the enhancement of the general interests of the city. Such effort leads first indirectly and then directly to the improvement of the city as a place in which to live. Two considerable changes in the layout of the downtown part of the city have been brought about by special branches of trade. The wholesale grocers and the wholesale provision men have been for generations located on Liberty and Penn avenues west of the Union Station. Recently the latter have taken possession of a territory beginning a few blocks farther east and reaching for a quarter of a mile along Penn avenue, and through to the Allegheny River. A large number of the meanest tenement houses have been swept away by this process, and facilities provided for receiving and distributing fruits and vegetables, a distinct gain toward a hygienic urban commissariat. The wholesale grocers have cleaned up an equally large and equally unsanitary tenement area on the South Side, and have built vast subdivided warehouses under a single general management. Perhaps the most important aspect of these great co-operative improvement plans is the suggestion they give of the capacity of Pittsburgh citizens for making other broad modifications in the structure of the city, such as the improvement of its river fronts, the proper planning of its thoroughfares and public centers, and above all the sanitary and adequate housing of its industrial population. It is indeed by its bold pioneering in such directions as these that the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, chiefly under the leadership of H. D. W. English, has come to have an ever-growing authority in Pittsburgh, and a rather unique reputation and influence in other parts of the country. Greater Pittsburgh, as it is, with the provision for further expansion from time to time, is largely the result of the chamber's persistent effort. The improvement of the Ohio River which is to be undertaken at once by the national government, and the organization of a company to build the canal to Lake Erie, are also results of its initiative. The reduction of the smoke nuisance, the provision of a proper system of sewage disposal, the study of plans for protection against floods, and, most noteworthy of all, the inclusion of the hygienic housing of the people in the list of the city's chief economic problems, are among the statesmanlike undertakings which the chamber has been effectively promoting. The Chamber of Commerce is reinforced by local boards of trade covering the chief outlying sections of the city and including in their membership not only representatives of business carried on locally, but downtown business men who reside in the district. The boards of trade have been infected by the broad spirit of the Chamber of Commerce, and are in essence district improvement societies whose activities are focussed and forwarded by their business-like motive and methods. It can hardly be that any city has ever had so great re-enforcement of its finer life from the beneficence of a private citizen as has Pittsburgh. Under the general title of Carnegie Institute are included a public library, a museum, an art gallery, and a music hall. These, under one roof, cover an area of five acres. At a little distance are the Carnegie Technical Schools with grounds covering thirty-six acres. The total sum which Mr. Carnegie has given these different objects is upwards of $11,000,000. [Illustration: H. D. W. ENGLISH. Chairman, Civic Improvement Commission, Pittsburgh.] The library contains 300,000 volumes. The annual circulation is nearly three times this number. The service rendered by the library is greatly increased by aggressive and ingenious missionary work. There are six well-equipped branch libraries with 170 distributing stations throughout the city. Half of these are in the shape of little reading clubs and home libraries for children, conducted by the library management itself. This branch of the library's work has grown so much as to justify the establishment of a school for children's librarians. The fact that the library exists to discover and elicit new demands is made clear in the establishment of a "telephone reference," through which any person may have a subject looked up for him and a report quickly made. There are indeed more than sentimental reasons for the cherished feeling in Pittsburgh that this is the bright particular exemplar of all the Carnegie libraries. [Illustration: LEE S. SMITH. President, Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The art gallery, some parts of which are of exceeding beauty, includes permanent exhibits of painting, sculpture and architecture. Its chief service to art thus far has consisted in a regular annual international exhibition of paintings. A very suggestive plan is followed for interesting school children in the galleries and in pictures generally. A set of photographs of the entire permanent collection is placed in one school after another for periods of two weeks each. It is expected that a continuous circuit will be kept up in this way requiring two years on each round. The museum stands among the four chief institutions of its kind in this country. It is under expert and enterprising management. A considerable part of its collections have been gathered by its own expeditions. Like the art gallery, it appeals directly to the public schools by sending out circulating collections, conducting prize essay contests, and by carrying on a young naturalists' club. [Illustration: O. H. ALLERTON, JR. President, Pittsburgh Board of Trade, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The music hall represents among this noble group of cultural agencies the one which simply continues the results of a significant phase of the city's inherent growth; for since 1879 Pittsburgh has had some sort of worthy musical festival every year. The weekly free organ recitals are a commendable transfer to America of a well recognized form of municipal service in English cities. It is unfortunate for this purpose that the hall should not be more accessible to great numbers of people. The symphony concerts of the Pittsburgh Orchestra, whose seasons have continued during the past twelve years, are given partly in this hall and partly (in certain years) in the Exposition Building near the Point. [Illustration: T. E. BILLQUIST. Architect, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The Carnegie Technical Schools represent the farthest steps yet taken in this country in providing vocational training for those entering non-professional callings. Considering that the greatest weakness of the whole American scheme of education is precisely at this point, the progress of the Carnegie Schools is being watched with keen attention, on both the educational and the economic side, from all parts of the country. Thus far schools of applied design and of applied science, a special vocational school for women, and a school for apprentices and journeymen, have made a strikingly successful beginning. All the schools are open day and evening. The present enrollment includes 2,000 students representing every state in the Union and many foreign countries. It can be said of the administration of the schools that it is worthy of its opportunity. The staff of instructors shows a rare spirit of fresh initiative, of quick and varied flexibility of mind, and of thoroughgoing achievement. [Illustration: JOHN W. BEATTY. Director of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The University of Pittsburgh, is new in name but has in reality existed for more than a century. The institution has, however, not found Pittsburgh conditions conducive to academical development. Its engineering department has, somewhat to the regret of the university authorities, been by far its most important feature. A strong effort is now being made to build it up into a university worthy of a great city. A new site has been purchased and an exceptionally interesting plan for the various buildings has been accepted. When completed these structures will describe a circle up and down a hillside looking out over Schenley Park, with an administration building modelled after the Parthenon as a crowning effect. The presence of all these educational institutions at the entrance of Schenley Park, with its 420 acres, situated within twenty minutes' ride by electric cars from the heart of the city and on the way to the chief residential sections of Greater Pittsburgh, creates a civic center with a condensed attractiveness and resourcefulness that is already definitely re-enforcing the public imagination. All this cluster of enlightened agencies, however, to the discerning eye points by contrast to the ultimate, close analysis of economic as well as moral conditions among the people in all the less-favored sections of the city and in all the satellite industrial towns. The conception of a direct community of interest between employer and workman, particularly if the workman is a leader in his craft, begins to be visible as in a few streaks of dawn. But the mass of the unintelligible Hungarians and Slavs must be reached by the more generous and democratic sense of responsibility on the part of employers and the more prosperous classes generally. The work of the next decade is to bring them on a really large scale into the circle of American citizenship and up to the essential standards of American home life. The touchstone of progress and success in this great enterprise lies first of all with the public schools. The public school system of Pittsburgh is in very many respects behind accepted standards. Its chief defects come out of the faulty system of administration. Every ward has its local school board with the power of levying taxes, erecting buildings, and appointing teachers. This means that in some wards there is a good quality of instruction and properly developed curriculum, while other wards fall far short. It happens from this condition of things that in the working-class wards there is little or no provision for manual training; and in general the points of greatest need are the most poorly supplied. Objectionable political methods on the part of the local boards are pretty clearly in evidence; and such tendencies are by no means absent from the central board. Signs of progress are, however, becoming apparent here and there throughout the school system. The Carnegie Technical Schools are having a powerful influence in this direction. In the South Side, under direct encouragement from this source, and with the co-operation of local manufacturers, an evening trade school has been opened. There have been experiments in the direction of medical inspection and school nursing. There is an active agitation among the teachers for a parental school. In general the whole problem of public school administration has been thrown open for debate by the appointment of a capable state commission to report upon the subject. It is thought that for one thing it will recommend the practical abolition of the power of the local boards, so that they become simply visiting committees. The high school in Pittsburgh is and always has been an important educational influence. In popular sentiment, it occupies a place somewhat analogous to that of the College of the City of New York. In order to make its service as general as possible the present director sends to the parents of all children graduating from the grammar school an interesting printed statement of the concrete objects and value of the high school. The pressure of the demands of industry as against the attraction of general studies is of course keenly felt. An evening high school with a definitely vocational trend has recently made an encouraging beginning. The Pennsylvania method of combining public subsidy with private initiative is followed in connection with the kindergartens. A private association has supervision of all the kindergartens in the public schools as well as of some carried on in private institutions. There are altogether eighty-one kindergartens in this system. It is felt that, at least in the early stages, this method of control brings better standards of teaching and assures such collateral work as visiting in the children's homes and conducting mothers' meetings. It is needless to say, however, that in the long run such a division of responsibility will be injurious in point of effective service and of a proper sense of responsibility in the public administrative officers. This sort of apprehension is all that qualifies in the least one's impression of the admirable work of the Pittsburgh Playground Association. Its activity began twelve years ago, and now,--with an off-shoot in Allegheny,--includes the administration of six well-equipped recreation parks, twenty-four vacation schools held in school buildings, and a number of small playgrounds. The center of the system is the site of an old arsenal, thirty acres in extent, in the midst of a great working class district. At every point in all this work, discriminating effort is made to achieve positive educational results as well as to bring healthful enjoyment to the largest possible number of persons. In this respect, as well as in the definite prospect of appropriations sufficient to provide every now neglected section of the city with an ample playground, Pittsburgh stands at the forefront in this most vital phase of educational and civic advance. [Illustration: JOSEPH BUFFINGTON. Judge United States Circuit Court and one of the first citizens of Pittsburgh.] Like Chicago and other typical American cities where men are deeply absorbed in business, women have contributed a particularly important share to public betterment work. The Civic Club of Allegheny County, in which women have for the most part been the active spirits, and various women's organizations, particularly the Twentieth Century Club and the Council of Jewish Women, have accomplished many telling results in this direction. The Civic Club has the direct management of two people's bath houses; but its main service consists not in work of administration but rather in initiating enterprises to meet new problems as they arise, and then setting them loose to develop permanent organizations on their own account. In this way the club started the playground association, a municipal hospital for contagious diseases, manual training in the public schools, a legal aid society, an open-air tuberculosis camp, and a child labor association, beside having an active share in the creation of the juvenile court and the securing of progressive tenement-house legislation. [Illustration: WILLIAM M. KENNEDY. President, Civic Club of Allegheny County.] In the field of charity and philanthropy Pittsburgh shows a very substantial degree of activity and earnest motive. Very much is needed, however, both in the way of more enlightened specific and local execution and of broader co-operation for economy and completeness in each type of social service. The staff of the Pittsburgh Survey has had the privilege of submitting to many institutions and agencies the accredited results of recent experience in other cities and countries. Such suggestions have been cordially received and in some instances at once acted upon. The Pittsburgh Associated Charities, which has been organized within the year, has secured the support of nearly every phase of charitable endeavor in the city. It represents the immediate advantage which Pittsburgh, under the spur of organizations like the Civic Club, has taken of the Survey's presentation of the practical conclusions of scientific charity. The Associated Charities is so new that nothing can be said about results in the ordinary sense; but in contrast to the confusion which existed until a year ago, its clear cogent platform covering both remedies and reforms, its straight appeal to the practical men, its strong representative board, and its fit and well convinced executive officer, are achievements of the first order. [Illustration: D. P. BLACK. President Real Estate Trust Company, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] [Illustration: HENRY L. KREUSLER. (Building Construction), Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The development of the great filtration project has naturally stimulated other movements for the improvement of the public health. In this direction the municipal health department is a broadly and consistently helpful influence. The fight against tuberculosis is carried on effectively by both public and private agencies. The special commission of experts appointed by the mayor and aided financially by the Sage Foundation for tracing causes of typhoid fever aside from the water supply, will render a most important service to Pittsburgh as well as to the whole country. The successful record of the filtration plant in greatly reducing the amount of typhoid in the city, gives added point to this scientific effort to rid out the last lurking places of infection. In general, however, it must be said that the self-forgetful abandon with which many medical men in other American cities are bringing their priceless knowledge to bear upon public unsanitary conditions and unhygienic ways of life,--a type of effort which both in motive and result may almost be taken as the test of a city's progressive civilization,--has hardly as yet reached Pittsburgh. The exceptions,--notable ones,--are of the sort that prove the rule. [Illustration: CHARLES F. WELLER. Secretary of the new Associated Charities, Pittsburgh; member Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Commission; former secretary Washington Associated Charities and President's Homes Commission.] The co-ordination of charitable effort, both in its different kinds and in its different localities, is a step which needs now to be followed by the federation of agencies for social upbuilding. The playgrounds which are fast becoming the headquarters of a kind of neighborhood guild, will furnish a substantial part of the material for this comprehensive social formation. In such enterprise, organized local citizenship, especially as seen in the boards of trade, will undoubtedly afford valuable re-enforcement to the distinctively philanthropic motive. The settlement houses of which there are several, might naturally take the lead. Such a federation would ensure to each local agency information about the results of experience at every other; it would bring the momentum of concrete local knowledge to bear upon the public school system and other parts of the public administration; it would draw into the work of constructive local betterment many resourceful new individuals and new agencies, thus spreading throughout the city the new point of view in citizenship; it would bring forward from the congested sections of the city those rear detachments of citizenship without which municipal reform must continue to be shallow and casual. In the development and extension of local social organization lies much of the promise of widespread growth of public spirit in Pittsburgh. The people have a distinct capacity for the invaluable village type of loyalty. This can in due time with expanding experience be made into the most enduring type of city loyalty,--that based on neighborly co-operation gradually extended and writ large but carrying with it always that sense of reality, that nearness to the soil, in which it began. [Illustration: FRANCIS J. TORRANCE. President Pennsylvania Board of Public Charities.] Kingsley House was founded in 1894 by Rev. George Hodges, now dean of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass., but for twelve years a strong influence for realistic Christianity in Pittsburgh. It has grown to be an important center for progressive social service, and from its commanding position on a hill looking over the business section of the city it exercises an influence for social morality far beyond its immediate constituency. Its regularly organized work is gathered up into two large composite clubs, one having a membership of 600 boys and young men, the other about as many girls and young women. An average of half the total membership appears at the house daily for gymnastic training, games, industrial classes, discussions, music, etc. The tenement problem and the whole hygienic aspect of life among working people receive penetrating and persistent attention, and the importance of the service of the house in this direction is recognized throughout the city. Closely involved with such a campaign is the large country holiday work of this settlement, whereby some 4,000 persons are each summer provided for at a specially built and finely equipped vacation house. [Illustration: REV. GEORGE HODGES. Dean of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.; founder of Kingsley House, Pittsburgh.] The Columbian School and Settlement which is farther up in the "Hill District," is supported by public-spirited Jewish citizens. The usual variety of clubs and classes is provided, and their opportunities are received with even more than the usual eagerness by the children of recent Russian immigrants. Much attention is given to education in hygiene by means of a gymnasium, baths, and instructive district nursing, as well as through securing the enforcement of sanitary laws. This settlement has given special attention to the very useful function of serving as pacemaker to the public schools, in the matter of evening industrial schools, recreative centers and vacation schools. [Illustration: WILLIAM H. MATTHEWS. Head worker, Kingsley House, Pittsburgh; a forceful leader in the housing campaign, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] The Soho Baths Settlement adjoins a new bath house just erected by the Civic Club, and designs to supplement its service through personal influence in the homes of the neighborhood. The Woods Run House in Allegheny has taken a new start since separating its relief work from its work of neighborhood organization. Covode House, also in Allegheny, is substantially the "industrial betterment" phase of the Heinz pickle factory. The churches of Pittsburgh, which, now with a few exceptions seem to regard as a secular intrusion the introduction of broad civic interests into their counsels, and thereby often appear shamefully indifferent in matters of public morality, could be led to take part in a campaign for a better home and neighborhood life, and would soon learn practically the close bearing of all human facts upon character and spirit. Those ministers who preside over the costly and surprisingly numerous stone edifices throughout the East End, would thus be able to meet their most serious problem, that of bringing up young people with some practical sense of their responsibilities to the less favored. The downtown ministers, who are deep in gloom as to the future of their own parishes if not of the church in general, would begin to see how to touch and to serve the indifferent newcomers, and would make an effective claim on the suburban churches for assistance. The churches of Pittsburgh constitute an exceptionally important possibility in the direction of social reconstruction. Our canvass of the Protestant churches showed that a large proportion of them at least recognize the need of new forms of helpfulness and are making some effort to meet it. A large number of pastors are already organizing their congregations for a somewhat broader social service. The Catholic churches are under the care of a noble-minded bishop who is doing his utmost to make the existing system of the church provide for its vast inarticulate constituency. Many of the immigrant priests are sincere and sagacious men. The more progressive Jewish congregations do their full share in sustaining and advancing the public moral standards of the city and in promoting sound philanthropy. Yet among all the costly ecclesiastical structures,--the city is said to have $17,000,000 invested in church buildings,--there are only three or four which have any adequate equipment for the promotion of human service or friendly association. The responsibility of the rich congregations for re-enforcing the poorer ones in their struggle against adverse conditions is scarcely recognized. The problem is as in other cities. In the most crowded sections, the normal constituency of the Protestant churches has been swept away by the immigrant tide. In somewhat better conditioned neighborhoods, families have moved away and the homeless, neighborless lodger has taken their place. That is, the fundamental conditions which have created and directed the churches have disappeared; and only a broadly organized, well financed campaign can provide the fresh force, equipment, intelligence, which are indispensable to the revolutionized situation. [Illustration: ADDIE S. WEIHL. Head worker, Columbian Settlement, Pittsburgh.] The suburban churches side-step the present crisis. They are sincere but other-worldly. One minister who is genuinely interested in foreign missions feels it much on his conscience to make his people care less about the Orient and more about the East End. A few preachers deal with a present-day, near-home kingdom of God. Some presented the results of the Survey to their people; more entered into solemn account of stock at the time of the bribery arrests. The following of the churches is large, devout, loyal; but, on the whole, the church is a hospitable garrison to defend the faith, not a conquering army of righteousness. [Illustration: JULIAN KENNEDY. Consulting engineer, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] Religion as being one-half the ingenuity and adventure of diversified personal service in every kind of neighborly and civic fellowship; the truth which Dr. Parkhurst long ago voiced, that the congregation is not the minister's field but his force,--this is what has produced Pittsburgh's small but heroic group of present civic leaders. A widespread contagion of it is what Pittsburgh needs more than anything else. In this the city must find its chief resource for bringing about and continuing a better order. The response of the churches to the sickening series of breaches of trust, to bribe giving and bribe-taking, to the overwork that means debauchery, to the mill-owners' Sabbath-breaking that breaks the mill-worker's body and soul,--must be a bold relaxing from tradition and letting their dynamic go free. The outcome would be a new synthesis which would overcome the weakness and shame of sectarianism, and give a broad, strong front to the city's renascent moral life. [Illustration: JOSEPH W. MARSH. Vice-president and general manager, Standard Underground Cable Company, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] Along with the detailed, patient, comprehensive work that is needed to build up a moralized democracy, the industrial and commercial leaders of the community, including those who are the responsible representatives of absentee capitalists and landlords, must rise to a far more generous, not to say discerning, conception of their opportunity. Big men of a generation ago said, "After us the deluge,"--they cut the forests off the Alleghenies, and Pittsburgh literally suffers the curse in destructive floods once or twice every year. The way of life in the local communities about many of the great steel plants is infallibly preparing for the near future a worse form of deluge in a mass of unfit, under-vitalized, unproductive citizenship. It is but fair to say that the really big men of to-day in Pittsburgh are passing beyond the attitude of indifference to the human problem that confronts the captain of the industrial army. Indeed, the past few years have brought about a distinctly receptive point of view. The lesson to be learned and aggressively applied during the coming decade is that a great city's industrial supremacy, no less than its moral well-being, depends largely upon the proper provisioning and sheltering of the industrial rank and file, along with training in capacity for citizenship and for associated self-help. [Illustration: H. J. HEINZ. President H. J. Heinz Company, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] There have been stirring instances in the development of city life in this and other countries where a city deeply engaged in laying its material foundations, and suddenly finding itself not up to its own standard in other vital respects, has, by throwing a due share of its accumulated energy and resource into the new channels, been able to overleap intermediate stages which had been toilsomely worked out elsewhere. Such a magical achievement for the refinements of life has been made once in Pittsburgh through the surpassing initiative of a single citizen. It now needs to be repeated and outdone by the main action of the body of responsible citizens, carrying with them representatives of every grade and type of the people, in the united, elated march of a great civic and human welfare movement. Strange as it may sound, this is the sort of social phenomenon that American city life is next going to present; and it may be that Pittsburgh will lead the way. [Illustration: J. W. KINNEAR. Attorney-at-Law, Member Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Commission.] There are elemental changes coming in the life of Pittsburgh. The new immigrants will within a short generation be rising into social and political power, and their standards will in large part fix the moral and even the economic prospects of the city. The special resources of western Pennsylvania in raw material will necessarily grow less, and its need of a more developed labor force become insistent. In any case immigration cannot indefinitely recruit the labor ranks; Pittsburgh must learn to pay as it goes in terms of men as of money. The ninety per cent pure iron which Mr. Carnegie found in the waste of his competitor and secured by a long contract, is the analogue of what Pittsburgh must begin to discover in the native capacity of the children of its crude toilers. The protective tariff which for the past two decades has been like an evil divinity to intensify the haste to be rich, and to confuse and baffle all local public issues, is on an uncertain footing as never before. Already there are new American steel centers which will dispute for the market supremacy. Every one of these things will compel a moral reckoning, will constrain the city to the saving and enhancing of individual and collective human power. The historic sense newly awakened by the recent sesquicentennial celebration of the origin of the town; the downright, ingenuous pride of the people in its unexampled achievements; the inquiring attitude of an ever increasing number of citizens; their inner assurance that the city will match its prosperity with civic well-being; a beginning on the part of the moral reserve force of the city, on the one hand, and its practical organizing power, on the other, to seek a new common outlet; these provide momentum, amid many counter-currents, for an ample hope. It is of special significance that, for the first time in this country, Pittsburgh secures the advantage of several carefully devised and closely related undertakings in the new science and art of social upbuilding. The welcome extended to the staff of the Survey by leading citizens at the beginning, and their willingness from first to last to listen to its hard sayings, have given the Survey much of its essential driving power. The joint meeting in Pittsburgh of the National Municipal League and the American Civic Association, resulting in a happy co-ordination of higher methods and higher aims of city administration, especially in the session devoted to the Survey,--distinctly helped strengthen and confirm the beginnings of that new public consciousness which includes the greatness both of the city's needs and of its opportunity. The civic exhibit which went with this national gathering, displayed under perfect conditions in the Carnegie Gallery, and setting forth as its chief feature the results of the Survey in the graphic, instantaneous, inescapable language of the workshop, established its lessons in the minds and imaginations of many thousands of those who in every rank go to make up Pittsburgh's industrial forces. And now the appointment by Mayor Guthrie of a strong, representative civic commission, with Mr. English as chairman, and such exceptionably capable and responsible men as are summoned in a great public emergency, to lead committees on public hygiene, housing problems, rapid transit, municipal efficiency, industrial casualties and overstrain, education, police courts, charitable institutions, neighborhood and district improvement agencies, and city planning,--can hardly be construed otherwise than as the final precipitant of a new epoch of masterful humanism in the evolution of America's distinctive industrial metropolis. [Illustration: A. J. KELLEY, JR. President Commonwealth Real Estate Trust Company, Member Civic Improvement Commission.] [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. ITALIAN LEADER.] [Illustration: THE ALLEGHENY RIVER VALLEY.] CIVIC IMPROVEMENT POSSIBILITIES OF PITTSBURGH CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON AUTHOR OF MODERN CIVIC ART, ETC. In studying the civic improvement possibilities of Pittsburgh, one is impressed by a curious mingling of antagonistic conditions. A wonderful natural picturesqueness is contrasted with the utmost industrial defilement, smoke and grime and refuse pervading one of the finest city sites in the world. Similarly great wealth and great squalor are side by side. Nation-wide business is done on very narrow streets. A royal munificence in public benefaction goes with a niggardliness that as yet denies to many children a decent playspace. Immense private houses, with the amplest grounds to be found perhaps in any great city, abut on meanly proportioned streets. One is impressed first by the hugeness of the city and then by its lack of coherence. It has been built up as an aggregation of integers, mighty, resourceful, pushing; but lacking as yet in unity. That power, which is the keynote of the city, is not civic. It is not communal power but a dynamic individualism. But still steep hillsides close with magnificent self-assertion the vistas of business streets, still the mighty rivers, polluted with refuse though they be, flow in great streams to meet at the "Point"; still from heights there are views of surpassing interest; and in the rolling country that encompasses the city with ravine and wooded slope, there still remain gentle loveliness and restfulness in impressive contrast with the throbbing industry of the town. Thus, in spite of itself, picturesqueness such as even Edinburgh, the "queen city of Europe," might envy is thrust upon Pittsburgh, and there is a surrounding beauty that Florence might covet. [Illustration: NATURAL BEAUTY vs. INDUSTRIAL ODDS.] In the midst of this strange mingling of opposites, of great opportunities and fearful handicaps, of vast needs and vast resources there appears the gradual stirring of a new ideal. A civic consciousness is awaking and that social conscience which has heretofore operated in individuals merely is becoming popularly active. At this wonderfully interesting juncture, the serious study of civic improvement in Pittsburgh is to be made. What Pittsburgh wants, what she has done and dreamed, what she must do, as a community, for her improvement,--these are the questions for the citizens of Greater Pittsburgh if "greater" is to have all its true significance. In discussing them let us follow these most obvious divisions of the subject: First, the congested business district of Pittsburgh proper, that is, the peninsula: its needs and its possibilities. Second, the slum district,--a band of varying width that, regardless of intervening rivers, surrounds the business section. Third, the manufacturing area, very widely extended and therefore affecting the whole city. Fourth, the homes of wealth, typified by the East End, and the educational and cultural center that is building there. Fifth, the suburban district. Sixth, the park requirements of the Greater City. Seventh, the community as a whole. [Illustration: WHERE THE CARS LOOP.] I. The business district of Pittsburgh is as restricted as that of an old world city bound in by compressing fortifications. But its boundaries are not to be readily moved like the works of men. They are the broad rivers and the obstructing hill. The district extending from the "Point," where the rivers join, to the "Hump," is approximately an equilateral triangle, of which the sides are less than half a mile in length. Into this small area is crowded the business of an enormous manufacturing center. Here the railroads and boats bring their passengers; here the trolley roads of the whole district converge; here reach the bridges with their continual traffic. The condition is similar to that of Manhattan, except that in Pittsburgh the space in proportion to the business is even smaller. [Illustration: SMITHFIELD STREET FROM FOURTH AVENUE.] The pressure in such a restricted area is of a double character. There is a pressure for traffic room, and an equally insistent pressure for building sites. One demand is as legitimate as the other. Therefore, although the streets are too narrow, relief must be sought rather by increasing their carrying efficiency than by changing their dimensions or adding to their number. To accomplish this three plans have been under consideration. One, and an obvious one, is to increase the area of the business district by leveling the low hill (the "Hump") that bounds it on the east. This plan seems now to have been abandoned. It would involve great cost, and it would not certainly better conditions in the most crowded area. Furthermore, business has about climbed to the top of the hill already. [Illustration: SESQUI-CENTENNIAL PARADE.] The other plans have to do with the trolley cars that come here from all sections of the city. As most of the cars do not pass through the district, but go out as they came in, there are numberless "loops", each of the various lines making a turn around two or three blocks, with the result that loop overlaps loop, and the cars interfere with one another as well as with general traffic. One plan would put many of the cars underground, in a subway, in the business district; the other, while permitting them to traverse the district, would carry them on into Allegheny to make their loops. It were better, however, that there should be no loops at all; that the cars should not "go out as they came in." By the substitution of long through lines for the loops which are only a survival of other times and conditions, all the advantages would be gained with none of the drawbacks of transferring the loops across the river. In the plans for a downtown subway loop, it is proposed that all the stations be located on private property, so putting no additional burden on the streets, and furthermore that the loop be open to the cars of all companies. This would give much relief; and as subways have proved too successful in other cities to be regarded any longer as experimental, it seems that one here, properly constructed and authorized with equal regard for financial and municipal interests, is a civic improvement necessary for Pittsburgh's business district. [Illustration: ONE OF THE INCLINES WHICH SCALE THE PITTSBURGH HILLS.] As it would take some years to construct the subway; and as the relief to the streets afforded by straightening out the surface car routes might be overbalanced by a rapid increase in the number of cars, it is necessary to consider other immediate measures for traffic relief. A rounding of curb corners even at alleys, and the substitution of a well laid grooved rail for the present T-rail may be here suggested. With the grooved rail there is less temptation for teamsters to use the car tracks, the tracks can be turned out more readily and the whole width of roadway is made available, instead of being divided as now into longitudinal sections. Costly as is the widening of streets, or the opening of new ones, such heroic measures are already being adopted for short distances in the peninsular district. For instance, the city is completing the widening of Sixth street, from Grant to Forbes, an improvement tending to facilitate a further eastward march of business. Of even more importance is the discussed and much needed provision of a better outlet for Grant boulevard. This comparatively new boulevard was designed to afford pleasant access to the East End on a thoroughfare free of car tracks, for those who drive or who ride in motor cars. But the boulevard itself can now be approached from the business district only by Seventh street, which is crowded with freight traffic, or by an ill paved narrow alley. The plan is to widen and repave the alley and thus carry the boulevard to Sixth street, which is slightly less crowded. Another interesting proposal is to give the boulevard, by means of a curving bridge over the Pennsylvania tracks, direct access to the Union Station, which can now be reached only by a detour. These may be called local improvements, but they have a relation to the whole district, and are likely to be worth their considerable cost. [Illustration: _The Industry Printing Company_ NIGHT SCENE IN DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH.] [Illustration: THE "POINT" OF PITTSBURGH AS IT STANDS TO-DAY.] A new retail shopping district is building up in the East End, and by the erection of great warehouses to the north along Penn avenue, and across the river on the South Side, a great part of the heavy wholesale trade has been removed from the "Point." Nevertheless it is clear that the little triangle, which is the business heart of Pittsburgh, will remain crowded; and that with all these measures taken, the normal growth of a few busy years will produce a congestion demanding some radical measure of relief. Ultimately this might take the form of an elevated structure, or a second street-story for the tapering western end of the plat. The area thus to be raised, and so given double capacity, is not very large, and the merest glance at the topography shows that the bridge near the "Point", which strikes Pittsburgh proper well above the street grade, is about on a level with the top of the "Hump". To build a second story over the intervening streets, reserving the lower story for heavy, slow moving traffic, giving to the abutting buildings two street floors--and thereby increasing their rent productiveness, would present no insurmountable difficulties either from the engineering or the financial point of view. It is a long look ahead, and perhaps not entirely desirable; but it would be a typically Pittsburghian thing to do. [Illustration: A TRIANGLE WHICH COULD BE MADE AN APPROACH TO THE "POINT".] [Illustration: THE HAMBURG WATER FRONT. A suggestion for Pittsburgh.] In the limited space available, there can be no consideration of the commercial and industrial aspects of the waterfront; nor can there be a discussion of the project for a deep waterway from Pittsburgh to New Orleans on the one hand, and from Pittsburgh to the Great Lakes and, via the barge canal, to New York on the other. These projects are mentioned only to emphasize the city's need for safeguarding and developing in some useful way every foot of river frontage that it possesses. They would justify a careful and elaborate study of this problem, even were the present river traffic less important than it is, and were the need of breathing spots less urgent. [Illustration: THE BANK OF THE ELBE, DRESDEN, SHOWING PROMENADE, STREET AND SHIPPING.] As regards the traffic, slips might with advantage be substituted for the present sloping bank and floating docks. One commission is studying this subject, and another the problem of floods. The reports of these commissions may be awaited with confidence that their recommendations will mean improvement. Sociologically and aesthetically, the gains will be indirect. As to breathing spaces, however, these gains would be direct, and the step to be taken is yet more obvious. A great deal of river frontage,--as along the Allegheny, under the elevated tracks,--is not now utilized. If would be nothing derogatory to the commercial greatness of Pittsburgh to turn this space into a park. Nobody thought London commercially decadent when the Thames embankment was built. Unused, waste space, in fact, reflects more seriously upon a city's business enterprise than does the humanitarian or aesthetic use of it; and there is no better place for a park designed as a breathing space for shut-in workers, than a river bank with its inevitable current of air. The crowding of Pittsburgh's business district has resulted in exceedingly high land values. In the whole downtown section no open space, save the plaza before the Union Station, has been preserved for the use of the people. Public buildings have been constructed flush with the walk, and the streets are cramped and narrow. No sumptuous effect is offered anywhere. One of the buildings, however, the county court house, is the best work of H. H. Richardson. It stands on the "Hump," at the eastern edge of the business district, overlooking to the north a tract that is not yet improved. Two other buildings, the city hall and post office, are so out of date that new structures must soon take their places. Thus the opportunity has offered for a civic center group, and there are citizens who have dared to dream and plan. Unfortunately, however, the post office site has now been chosen at a place where it cannot be brought into a civic center scheme. When the choice was pending, the architects, in whose hands the matter mainly rested, were not ready with a sufficiently definite plan. This failure has spurred them on, and they will not be caught napping again. A committee of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Architects has now worked out a civic center plan that is not merely spectacular, but which aims in practical ways to provide sufficiently wide, through avenues for the transportation lines to the business district. The plan will be best understood from the accompanying diagram. [Illustration: THE SITE OF THE PROPOSED CIVIC CENTER. The tower of the court house is to the left of the Frick Building.] [Illustration: SKETCH OF CIVIC CENTER AS PROPOSED BY PITTSBURGH ARCHITECTS.] [Illustration: PLAN OF PROPOSED CIVIC CENTER.] It would substitute for a mean and shabby portion of the city an ensemble beautiful and effective, and it would bring a large open space to the very edge of a poor tenement section. Owing to the local topography, the proximity of the improvement would not change the character of a large portion of that section; but it would bring civic art almost to the doors of the residents of the neighborhood. My judgment is that the plan does not go far enough. I shall reserve my supplementary suggestion, however, for more appropriate consideration at another point in this paper. One more comment might be made upon the aesthetic possibilities of the business section before we pass to the tenement district. It is the universal experience of towns that the first streets parallel the water courses. As the business portion of Pittsburgh is located on that tapering point of land where the rivers draw together at an acute angle, it follows that streets must meet at similar angles, and the cross streets multiply them. Very often at these intersections, small triangles are formed, which might have been preserved as open spaces at slight expense before the demand for building room became so great. Although that opportunity has passed, the sharp building lot corners, with the conspicuousness given by a directly approaching street, still offer to architects an opportunity that is rare in American cities. Little advantage is taken of this opportunity. The Wabash Station is one illustration of how much more interesting from an architectural standpoint business Pittsburgh may some day be made. [Illustration: ONE OF THE MANY PITTSBURGH TRIANGLES WHICH WOULD LEND THEMSELVES TO ARCHITECTURAL TREATMENT.] [Illustration: PITTSBURGH FROM THE SOUTH SIDE--A CITY OF CONTRASTS.] [Illustration: SECOND AVENUE.] II. Completely surrounding the business district of Pittsburgh, in a belt of varying width that disregards the intercepting river, is a section of mean streets, of crowded housing conditions, and if not of genuine poverty, at least of the discomforts which poverty elsewhere brings. This juxtaposition is a familiar phenomenon in urban development, for it is based on the social necessity that the least paid wage earners live within walking distance of their work; on the willingness, and even desire, of the well-to-do to live at a distance from the noise and smoke of business sections; and on the attraction which the constant stimulus of "city" life exerts on those who have few other sources of entertainment. That the river sides do not relieve and break up this belt, is due in part to the local topography. Across the Allegheny, the land is low and subject to flood; across the Monongahela, there is only a narrow strip between the river and the highlands that, rising steeply, offer sites with purer air and wider outlook but that must be reached by riding. Neither river is itself attractive as an outlook for residences. The civic improvement needs of this poorer and crowded district may be grouped under five general heads. These are: (a) municipal,--as the matter of street improvement; (b) housing,--with which this discussion does not attempt to deal; (c) playspace and opportunity for children; (d) park provision,--which may best be considered in connection with the similar needs of the whole community; and (e) bathing facilities,--which here can be no more than mentioned. (a) Municipal. The primary municipal need, in so far at least as the region adjacent to the Allegheny is concerned, is flood prevention. That is a city matter plus a good deal else, which will be considered elsewhere in this issue. The street needs are many and pressing. Conditions in this matter are absolutely disgraceful. Narrow streets are the rule in old Pittsburgh, and smooth pavements cannot be expected upon steep streets. But with all possible allowance for these facts, there is much that might be undone. The streets are not all steep. Steep streets can be kept clean,--more easily, indeed, than others. Cobblestone pavements can be banished. [Illustration: AN ITALIAN COURT IN THE HILL DISTRICT.] Well laid brick pavements, or asphalt, or smooth wood blocks where practicable,--and all frequently flushed, are a necessity for this region. Cleanliness, too, should be the rule in the streets and alleys of the poorer sections; and it is here especially that the standard of municipal administration in Pittsburgh needs raising. Only within the past year has the public removal of rubbish been adopted as a municipal function. It may be profitably reflected that in no other area of the Pittsburgh District would an equal amount of improvement affect so many residents. With original paving costs a general tax, with sanitation in this section a matter of prime importance outside the locality itself, and with the borrowing capacity of the city very large, there ought to be a pretty general reconstruction of the street surface of this district on modern lines. Such improvement ought not to be difficult and, incidentally, should appeal to the pride of Pittsburgh. The stranger, arriving at any of the railroad stations, finds little to admire in the business district. And when he leaves that, in whatsoever direction he goes,--whether to the fashionable East End, to the Carnegie Institute, to any of the parks, to the pleasant old-fashioned homes in Allegheny, or to the heights beyond the Monongahela, he must pass through this dreary belt of municipal neglect. It is here that unfavorable first impressions become fixed. These regions give a bad character to the whole city. The necessity for playgrounds is pressing, so pressing that an earnest, self-sacrificing effort has been made to meet it. The work of the modern playground gives benefit in three directions: physical, social and educational. This is recognized by the Pittsburgh Playground Association, an incorporated body which receives appropriations from the municipality, supplements these with private donations, and with the volunteer work of individuals and clubs. In recognition of the threefold aspect of what is sweepingly called the "playground" movement, the association conducts "recreation parks" and vacation schools, as well as mere playgrounds. It holds the theory that "there should be three kinds of recreation centers: first, the school-yard for small children who cannot go more than a few squares from home; then the larger playground with apparatus and facilities for healthy play for all the boys and girls of a neighborhood; third, the athletic field, where teams may meet and where the interest of the community may center." It is clear from this that the lack of play facilities arises from insufficient material provision rather than from inadequate ideals. These provisions are gradually increasing but they have far to go before they will be complete. Thirty square feet of playground space for each child is the minimum provision recommended in Washington and London, and in a bill lately introduced in the Massachusetts Legislature. If the allowance seems too liberal, translate the "thirty square feet" into six feet by five,--the size of a desk! Rich Pittsburgh falls woefully short of this figure. Her need is for more, and more adequately fitted, playgrounds. The poorer districts need them most and the first provision should be made there. This is said with due regard to the limitation of a playground's scope. The sore need for parks located more conveniently to the immense working population, than the present parks of Pittsburgh are, and developed more appropriately to their needs, has not been confused with the community's need for children's play-spaces and recreation grounds. The latter is a separate, urgent and co-existent want, concerned, as is park provision, with the very structure of the city, involving similarly its social welfare, and making a strong appeal in the name of the children. Such a survey of available sites (without buildings or with buildings of little value) as that undertaken by the playground association the past summer should be made the basis for the reservation of sites in congested neighborhoods and outlying districts. III. The manufacturing area will not detain us long. It is no one region. Industry is evident everywhere. Pittsburgh is held inescapably beneath its thraldom. Two matters in particular present themselves in noting the relation of the manufacturing plants to the improvement of the city. One deals with their own surroundings and grounds; the other is the smoke. With a few encouraging exceptions, there has been little attempt to beautify factory surroundings. The exceptions prove what can be done, but it should be recollected that in the Pittsburgh District the handicaps to such ameliorations are particularly great. The ground is mostly clay and shale; smoke and ore dust are very trying to vegetation under the most favorable conditions, work is done at tremendous pressure, the products are heavy, and as a rule the manufacturing plots are no larger than necessary, for actual manufacture, storage, and shipping. Yet it would seem that the Chamber of Commerce might properly add to its committees one that would foster this kind of improvement. As to the smoke, Pittsburgh's most famous because most obvious drawback, the subject has in the last two years been tackled bravely by the Chamber of Commerce. Its campaign resulted in the appointment of a chief smoke inspector and three deputies, attached, significantly, to the Bureau of Health. Large powers are given to these inspectors. The undue emission of smoke is declared a "public nuisance" for which "the owner, agent, lessee or occupant" of the building, and the "general manager and superintendent, or firemen" are held accountable. In support of the ordinance, two hundred business men went in a body to the council's chamber, vigorously resisting the attacks made upon it. [Illustration: RODELPH SHALOM: JEWISH SYNAGOG.] [Illustration: SIXTH UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.] IV. The East End I can best discuss under three heads: a. The residential section. b. The educational and cultural center, which is building at its portal. c. The approach from the business section. [Illustration: CALVARY CHURCH. Designed by Cram.] As a section of beautiful homes, the East End is at once disappointing and satisfying. If there is the usual conglomeration of architectural styles and if occasional atrocities in domestic construction and landscape design for private grounds are to be found here as in other cities,--and they certainly are,--yet the general average of the domestic architecture and of the garden, or lawn planting, is unusually high. This can be asserted without regard to the money expended,--since good taste is happily not dependent on high cost. The expenditure for both houses and grounds is certainly well above the average, but this only increases the danger. It is to the credit of Pittsburgh's architects and gardeners, and to that of the well-to-do citizens who are so likely to demand their own way in the creation of their homes, that the results are so excellent. Significant in this respect is the fact that several of the churches are of great merit; and if it be said that the irregularity of topography readily lends itself to unusual and charming effects in house location and lawn development, there should be recollection of the balancing handicaps of poor soil and grimy air. [Illustration: EMORY METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.] But if private work is, as a whole, of a high order, the municipal work with the exception of some fine schools is mean, unimaginative and weak. Here surely in street work was the place for boldness, splendor, and large conception. Here liberal outlay was justifiable and would probably have been popular; here, in this comparatively new territory, obviously to be the home of the well-to-do of Pittsburgh, there was a chance to plan for the city beautiful, to design in accordance with modern artistic principles. Think of what ought to be here,--the broad avenues, with wide strips of parking at side or center; the well-built roads; the interesting vistas; the occasional bridle paths; the rapid transit facilities, in a reserved right of way partially planted out, where cars could make quick time without peril to other traffic; the round points at important intersections of avenues; and all the other beauties and conveniences known to the modern art of city building. But see what we actually find! The narrow streets persist. The heavy cars go rattling and roaring along the middle of the road on protruding and dangerous T-rails, the tracks taking a good half of the total space. The strip of parking between walk and curb, if there be any, is hopelessly narrow. Gaunt telegraph poles, burdened with a mesh of wires, stand where the trees should be. Here and there billboards and lettered fences flaunt commercialism and burlesque art in the face of beautiful homes and of the Carnegie Institute itself. Of course, there are exceptions. There are some short streets and semi-private ways that are good. But the general impression of Pittsburgh's East End has been described. If it be not too late, if the rich of Pittsburgh are willing to contemplate a generous expenditure for the better setting of their homes, they should secure a plan for the recasting on noble and comprehensive lines of the whole section. [Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. (Roman Catholic).] [Illustration: CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION.] Because a few such men, who command the means to make their ideas effective, have had public spirit, generous impulses and broad ideals, a very interesting educational and cultural center is developing at the portal of the East End. It is one of the few examples in this country of consciously directed growth, though it should be added that it has its limitations in the fact that as yet that growth has not had professional direction, and seems still vague and uncertain as to the general scheme. Take, for descriptive purposes, the Carnegie Institute as the center of the scheme. We find directly west of it the entrance,--yet to be formally developed,--of Schenley Park. On the edge of the park and still back of the institute, the great group of Technical schools is building. On the other, or north side of the institute, is a valuable tract as yet vacant. A bit to the east of this, and a couple of blocks north of the institute, is the new cathedral, with no adequate setting and at an unfortunate angle with the institute, but inevitably a unit of the general scheme. In the same neighborhood the new high school is to rise. On the other, or west side, of the vacant property is the Schenley Hotel in spacious grounds; further north is the War Memorial Building and across from it are the sites of the University and Athletic clubs. Then comes the new property of the University of Pittsburgh, which is built with ampleness of design. Back of all, reaching over a hill that will frame the picture in this direction, lies the Schenley Farms property,--a large tract, held at high prices for expensive development, and capable of a picturesque and beautiful treatment,--if only that costly, commonplace checkerboard development can be foregone, which consists of cutting straight streets into the hills, at vast expense, to the destruction of what is picturesque, and at the sacrifice of building area. This tract, owing to its elevation, is so conspicuous a feature that its proper treatment is essential to the artistic success of the whole scheme. The architects, who, at the exhibit of 1907, displayed a plan for a civic center, put forward also a plan for a rearrangement of the streets in this region, for a widening of public spaces, and a tying together of the various separated units. [Illustration: CHRIST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.] There is need only to add that the site of this center is strategic from the civic improvement standpoint. It not only lies at the portal of the East End, but on the west and north the highways to the business portion, including Grant boulevard, make it a focal point. There may be criticism of its choice as an educational center, especially for the Technical Schools, on the ground that it is far from the population to whom the proffered facilities would be most helpful. But it is approximately at the Pittsburgh District's geographical center, and there is convergence of street car lines to within a quarter-mile's park walk. The city itself gave the site. [Illustration: CARNEGIE INSTITUTE. Library to Right.] [Illustration: CARNEGIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL.] [Illustration: PHIPPS CONSERVATORIES IN SCHENLEY PARK.] In speaking of the civic center scheme for the business district, earlier in this article, I held that it should be supplemented by a larger one. This larger plan would provide a fitting approach to the East End, and could be made to join the two great improvement projects. Owing to the interruption offered by Herron Hill, the usual approaches now to the East End are by Forbes street or Fifth avenue,--two mean and crowded thoroughfares, a block apart, that parallel the Monongahela and carry street car traffic by the shortest route to the Carnegie Institute region and the section beyond; by Wylie and Centre avenues (half over the hills), or in a roundabout way, by Liberty street or Penn avenue,--again relatively narrow and crowded thoroughfares, and for the most part meanly built up; or, finally, by Grant boulevard. The latter, beginning near the Union Station and cut out of a hill at much expense, was an attempt to provide a pleasant approach. Like the drives and viaducts serving the outer park reservations, it shows imagination and engineering skill. It is indirect, however, is too narrow to carry the bulk of the vehicle traffic, and with its cuttings, vacant property, sunny stretches and aggressive billboards, it is not yet inviting but it could be made attractive by terracing and parking. The need, however, aesthetically and practically is for an approach that shall be better than any of these. Forbes street and Fifth avenue run east from the jail and court house in perfectly straight lines. They are at approximately even grades for a mile, separated from each other by only a short block. At Seneca street the grade changes, and from there on any joint improvement would involve a viaduct or other device, until the streets grow parallel, and close together again for the final half mile to Schenley Park. Suppose the two streets thrown together in one broad and splendid way, from the jail straight eastward for the first mile. None of the property here is expensively built up; most of it is exceedingly poor and shabby. There are, for the whole distance, the two streets and an alley, a total width for the whole distance of probably at least 140 feet that is now public property. At short intervals there are cross streets, to the number of about a dozen; these also are public property. And there is a school in the area to be used. Thus, altogether, the municipality already owns, one may confidently say, more than half of the land that would be required. The only question is concerning its wisest utilization. It may be admitted that to buy the intervening private plats, unifying the public property and making it available for a single scheme, would involve large cost. But there would be much on the other side of the ledger. Think of the noble thoroughfare, with its special lanes for high speeding surface cars, its quadruple roadways, one for fast moving and one for slow moving vehicles in each direction, its lines of trees and shaded walks; think of its convenience, its directness, its capacity, its spectacular sufficiency; think of the increase in the value of the abutting property. Under the Pennsylvania Law of Excess Condemnation part at least of this value would accrue to the city, as in the case of the great London improvements. Even in the matter of absolute (initial) outlay, the expenditure would probably not be greater than for the subway now proposed, while it would grant practically equivalent facilities for transit, as far as rapidity is concerned, with many other advantages. Instead of expending a vast sum to give setting to a group of public buildings, in the proposed civic center, this parkway could be made to give the adequate setting incidentally. Certain ones would be placed along its margin at the western end. Further, the improvement, instead of redeeming one small space, would redeem two streets for a mile at least. It could even be extended farther by means of a viaduct or some other device, and ultimately carried clear out to Schenley Park. [Illustration: PATH IN HIGHLAND PARK.] There is no opportunity in this discussion to go into the project with detail. Even the Eastern terminus of the improvement must be left for later consideration. But it is plain that should the avenue stop at the mile, that much would be worth doing and would immensely increase the comfort and decrease the delay of getting to the East End. Further, the splendid avenue would be democratic in its benefit, since the trolleys would have their place in it. The wage earner would go bowling home or to business as well encompassed as the motorist. The social benefit of that, and of the ceaseless entertainment which the traffic of the gay avenue would offer, is to be esteemed. There is no park so popular as a great street. V. Pittsburgh's built-up suburban district is varied and far scattered. It lies along the rivers, as at Sharpsburg, in industrial towns; it lies among the hills, as at Sewickley, in purely residential areas. It is reached in some places by steam cars, and everywhere by trolley. It is the home of the millionaire and of the moderate wage earner. At times it is beautiful, and at other times it shows hardly the beginnings of aesthetic aspiration or social consciousness. No brief discussion of it is possible, for each separate suburban community would have to be taken by itself. But in a general way this can be said: As nature has given to Pittsburgh one of the most picturesque city sites in the world, so she has done what she could to circle the city with lovely suburbs. With sane and artistic planning, popular co-operation, and a degree of patience, the beautiful suburb with winding roads, entrancing views, individual privacy and communal neighborliness, might have been secured much oftener than it has been and it might have been brought within the financial reach of much greater numbers. For suburbs rapid transit is essential; and that as yet has had nothing like the development one would expect near Pittsburgh. The subway plan involves the radiation from the loop of long, straight roads furnishing to certain outlying sections a transportation much more rapid than at present offered. With low fares, this should mean much to crowded Pittsburgh. But the time to improve suburbs is before, not after, the rush thither begins. The suburbs must act as quickly as must the East End, the playground supporters, the designers of an educational center, and the builders of an adequate East End approach. In all that Pittsburgh is to do for civic improvement she must act at once, generously and with comprehensive grasp. VI. With the exception of occasional ornamental spaces, and a few parks so small that they have only neighborhood importance, the parks of the Pittsburgh district may be said to consist of four public reservations. These are Schenley and Highland, in the East End; Riverview in Allegheny; and, in the older portion of Allegheny, the reservation,--once a great hollow square,--like a New England common; now in part relinquished to the railroads. Neither in total acreage, nor in distribution, nor in manner of development, are these parks what Pittsburgh ought to have. Perhaps, of its kind, the old park in Allegheny is the most satisfying. Located close to the homes of a very large population from whom the country is far removed, it offers long, level stretches of greensward where good trees cast grateful shadows, with walks that one may use even when on business, with numberless benches that are never empty on summer days and evenings, a little lake at one place and now and again a fountain where the splash of cool water gives ceaseless entertainment. It is a pity that this park was deprived of nearly half its former area, that the railroad might have a convenient path. Highland and Schenley, over in Pittsburgh's East End, are elaborately and expensively "improved." You get into Highland through a monumental entrance; costly beds of annuals confront you; from the reservoir heights there is a superb view; in a lower corner there is a Zoo, which is remarkably well set; and there are some charming retreats. It is a pretty good park of its kind,--a very costly, luxurious kind; and though it is located in an expensive residential neighborhood five miles from the city hall, a good many people get to it on holidays. It does some social work although far from the amount desired. Schenley does very little. The Phipps Conservatories, happily located near the entrance, are much visited when "a show" is on; somewhere in the inner recesses of the park there is a driving circuit, of which the crude old grand stand looms on the landscape like a combination of lumber yard and weatherbeaten country barn, and somewhere else there are golf links, maintained by a private club, where you may play if properly introduced! On the Fourth of July, fire works bring a crowd to the park. But it is significant that while there are costly bridges and many drives, there are no paths or walks. The cars touch only one projecting corner, and there are no park carriages. He who has not his own horses, or his own motor car, need not enter the East End's Schenley Park. For it is, typically, the East End's park, adapted fairly well to its neighborhood, but not at all serving the democratic needs of Greater Pittsburgh. Here is a great industrial city. The scores of thousands of people whom the parks should serve are many of them foreigners, and the mass of them are workers over a single piece. Practically all of them work amid smoke and grime. The beauty of nature may be a new thought to these people. They should be helped to appreciate it, but they must be given first what they do understand and enjoy,--entertainment, vivacity, and brilliancy. If Schenley Park is little visited; a trolley park far away, where swings and boats, slides and ponies, keep something going all the time, is crowded day by day; and when, in the moonlight, shadows lie on the hills of Schenley, and the stars look down on deserted though free acres, other parks that are garish with a blaze of electric lights are thronged with people who have gladly paid a fee for admittance. There they find something to see and to do. Industrial Pittsburgh ought to take pride in developing the special kind of park facilities that its population needs, and in setting an example to other cities. A comprehensive system of children's playgrounds would do something toward this; the proposed mall or parkway approach to the East End, where some thousands of the relatively poor would find, almost at their doors, a mile long open space with its ceaseless urban entertainment, would do something more; a system of small open spaces or outdoor social centers, where a man could smoke his pipe and chat with his neighbors, his wife at his side and his children at hand, would make further contribution; and the riverside park proposed for the business district, still further. But there should be two or three well-distributed and readily accessible large parks that would be real municipal pleasure grounds. Here should be ample athletic fields, a swimming pool, and a large field house; a band playing at frequent intervals; swings and boats; cheap conveyances that would make the whole space available; illuminations and song festivals; and refectory accommodations, with tables placed attractively out of doors, and wholesome food and drink at low prices. Tired workers, going to this free public park, should find entertainment. Little by little, and incidentally, they might learn there the more tranquil pleasure of contemplating nature. There are various places in Pittsburgh where such parks could be established. One, that seems to be singularly adaptable is Brunot's Island. There is Maple Park on the South Side. For a neighborhood park, which by mere convenience of location and inherent interest should invite the Pittsburgh workman out of doors, the steep bank that rises across the Monongahela offers a site very distinctive and appropriate. Day and night the interest of its outlook would not cease. It would require little development. Inclined roads already scale the cliff, and midway stations would make any terrace available. And whatever landscape improvements were made would be visible and enjoyable from the business streets themselves. In Allegheny such a park site is already owned on Monument Hill. [Illustration: PANTHER HOLLOW. Schenley Park.] The site of the penitentiary may some day become another available park site, for a penitentiary in the heart of a city is undesirable. Another wonderful park site, so wonderful that it is difficult to perceive why it has been so long neglected since track elevation has made it available, is the tip of the "Point." To-day it is a dumping ground. Aside from the historical and natural charm of this location, should be noted the breadth of outlook it offers, its free currents of air, its proximity to a large working population and the possibility of its attractive connection with a yet larger area by means of the suggested embankments which would practically form a riverside promenade and parkway to it. With the acquisition of more parks it would be possible to arrange an interesting connecting system of boulevards and parkways. It is not enough simply to designate an existing street a boulevard. Calling it so does not make it so. And when Pittsburgh awakes to her greatness, and appreciates the surpassing beauty that might be hers, there is no reason to doubt that among other things she will commission the planning of an excellent system of drives. There are naturally beautiful runs, now despoiled with mean dwellings and made little better than open sewers, that might be transformed into parkways; and there are hills and stretches of fair country that could be had now for a song for an outlying park system. It is true that all this will demand money, but there are no improvements that by long term bonds can be so justly made a mortgage on the distant future as those for parks. School houses, fire houses, public buildings, deteriorate with the lapse of time, but parks and boulevards become yearly of greater value. VII. The final word, which has to do with the needs of the whole community, hardly requires saying. It is a plea for comprehensive planning. Surely, if ever a city needed the definite plan that an outside commission could make for it, it is Pittsburgh. In most cities the "improvement" problem is largely aesthetic. In Pittsburgh, it is also economic and social. Its correct solution is something more than a desideratum; it is a need. [Illustration: SESQUI-CENTENNIAL ARCH.] EFFECT OF FORESTS ON ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT [Illustration] W. W. ASHE U. S. FOREST SERVICE Three rivers determined the location of Pittsburgh. They have been important factors in creating its industrial position; they are now important agents affecting the health and earnings of thousands of its citizens. The two score of iron and coal towns which are known as the Pittsburgh District, fringe the banks of these rivers. Mine, factory and furnace alternate with the residence settlements of the laborers, and they and the railroads compete with the streams themselves for ownership of the narrow strip of land between low water and flood crest. With every recession of the floods, man crowds the streams, only to be driven back when they reassert their suzerainty. Whatever can be done therefore, to tame their caprices, to equalize their flow, either by lowering the flood crests or increasing the low water stages, adds to the well-being and prosperity of men who work at forge and furnace, or go with the barges,--men whose living is from day to day, and to whom the idle day brings want. The flood is the open expression of the rivers' authority. But they have another and more subtle influence. It is less direct, but it has a wider relation to the well being of the city, not only affecting the laborer who lives on the lowlands, but affecting all citizens alike. The rivers and their tributaries near which Pittsburgh and the surrounding towns are situated, furnish these in most instances with their water supply. The character of this water affects the health of the users, and their working efficiency. All the drinking water used in the Pittsburgh District, except that from artesian wells or similar primarily pure sources, has been contaminated by the sewage of towns and villages higher up the rivers. Through such contaminated water typhoid fever and other zymotic intestinal diseases are widely disseminated. Scarcely a town in the steel and coal district has not been devastated by an outbreak of this dread scourge. The condition of Wilkinsburg is typical, its water supply being contaminated by the sewage of more than twenty towns. The new filtration plant for Greater Pittsburgh delivers to most of the city a drink much superior in quality to the highly polluted waters generally used. But filtration is only a first step toward purity, and toward decreasing typhoid fever and the other water-borne diseases. Filtration removes a high percentage of the pathogenic bacteria by which these diseases are transmitted; but a highly contaminated water, such as that of the Allegheny River, purified even by the best methods of sand filtration, is not pure water. Intelligent users must at length realize this and demand for their own health not a purified water merely, but a primarily pure supply, safeguarded by sedimentation and filtration against occasional contamination. Within easy reach of Pittsburgh and nearly every one of its satellite towns, lie abundant sources of primarily pure supply, in the forest-protected mountain streams. Hitherto the cost of purchasing a forested watershed and holding it as unproductive property has deterred cities from seeking such sources. That difficulty no longer exists. Forest lands have now a recognized and constantly increasing earning power. If a watershed is purchased at a reasonable price and is well managed, it will become, as stumpage further appreciates in worth, a valuable municipal asset. Or if a town is small and unwilling to assume the responsibility of such management; it can well co-operate with the state in developing a system which will secure to it pure water, and at the same time preserve to the state the earning power of its forests which are among its most valuable natural resources. Domestic water supply, however, is largely a matter local to each town or each group of towns. But the wage earners of the whole Pittsburgh section are yearly vitally affected by the rivers in a different way. The earnings and even the lives of thousands, especially of those living in the low districts of the larger cities, are threatened by the winter and spring floods. These floods frequently result in losses to wage earners aggregating several million dollars a year. In the flood of March, 1907, it is estimated that more than 2,000 families in the river districts of Pittsburgh, and an equal number in the low lying sections of nearby cities, were forced from their homes or their stores by high water. Quantities of personal effects were injured or destroyed; lives were lost; and much suffering followed the winter exposure. The effect of the flood in increasing certain kinds of disease is shown by a comparison of the pneumonia and typhoid records in the flooded wards of Pittsburgh. Dr. Beaty of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health gives us the number of cases of these two diseases in certain wards on the North Side, which are largely tenanted by laborers, and were partly inundated. In March and April, 1906, when there was no flood, there were fourteen cases of pneumonia and forty-eight of typhoid fever. In March and April, 1907, when the flood had a height of thirty-six feet, there were forty cases of pneumonia and 118 cases of typhoid fever, more than twice the number of the preceding year. During the flood the water and dwellings in these districts became badly contaminated by human waste, since the flooding of toilets and sewers prevented their use. At the same time many families usually dependent upon street hydrants for domestic water had to make use of this extremely impure river water. This affected large numbers of people, many of them recently arrived foreigners unacquainted with methods of securing ready relief. But a more general suffering was occasioned by the loss in wages through the closing of large establishments whose plants were flooded. It was estimated at the time by one of the local newspapers that more than 100,000 people in the Pittsburgh District were idle for an average period of a week on account of the March flood of 1907. A typical example is the National Tube Works, where different departments were closed from ten to fourteen days, throwing about 10,000 men out of regular work. About 4,000 of these were employed for three days as laborers, cleaning up after the water subsided. The same thing is yearly repeated in many other large factories as well as on the railroads. It is no exceptional occurrence. A similar, though less severe flood occurred two months earlier the same year and another in March, 1908. It is indeed an exceptional spring when there is not a flood. The losses to laborers by curtailment of wages from this cause are seldom so excessive as they were in the flood of March, 1907, but they amount annually to more than $100,000. Moreover, this loss takes place in the winter, when the wage earner can least afford it. [Illustration: DENUDED LAND DEVOID OF HUMUS, ON THE MOUNTAINS; LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR FLOODS ON THE MONONGAHELA RIVER.] [Illustration: RAILROAD BRIDGE DESTROYED BY FRESHET. THREE MEN WERE KILLED IN THE WRECK WHICH FOLLOWED.] [Illustration: FARMING LAND DESTROYED BY FLOODS. MONONGAHELA RIVER.] [Illustration: WAGE-EARNERS' HOMES ABANDONED ON ACCOUNT OF FRESHET.] The river floods cannot be prevented by local effort. Their damage is by no means confined to Pittsburgh; it extends the entire course of the Ohio River and its most important tributaries; its causes originate in other states besides Pennsylvania. Although the state and even the cities might well co-operate in certain ways, the prevention of these floods is a problem for the Federal government to consider. The cause of a flood lies partly in natural conditions. The run-off of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers is naturally concentrated and the highest floods occur when a deep snow on a frozen soil is suddenly melted by heavy warm rain. But their height has been accentuated by human agency; and this points to the two necessary phases of river flood control work. One is the re-establishment of normal forest conditions. This means not so much a great extension of the forest area, although there are many steep slopes now cleared which should be re-wooded; but it means the restocking as densely as possible of lands which have been cut or badly burned and are thinly or partially wooded. This is a means to an end. The forest produces a deep mat of leaves and mould, the humus which not only has a high water storage capacity itself but determines largely the porousness and absorptive power of the underlying soil. This function of the forest is not incompatible with the use of its timber. The most rapid growth of timber is secured by maintaining the deepest humus; but the cutting of it must be adjusted under skilled direction in order not to jeopardize the water storage function of the soil. Furthermore, there is need of more evergreen forests. The pine and hemlock have been largely removed from the mountain sources of the Ohio. But these trees prolong the melting of deep snows, even under warm rains, for several days longer than deciduous trees. The re-establishment of forests of conifers will therefore contribute to lowering the crests of floods by distributing the flow over five or six days instead of two or three. This is one phase of the work of river control. [Illustration: FEDERAL STREET DURING FLOOD OF MARCH 14, 1907.] On account, however, of the large areas of open farm-land that lie on the watershed of the Ohio and that cannot be reforested, additional means are necessary for storing the surplus storm water. There should be storage reservoirs such as are now being used at the head of the Mississippi River for regulating the flow of the river above St. Paul. These reservoirs must be on wooded watersheds; otherwise they will silt up and they will hold back some of the storm water and lower the height of floods, they will have an additional value for they can be used as reservoirs for domestic water supply. They can also be made to increase the dry season flow of the streams, thus furnishing a stable water power for industrial use and permitting steady navigation during summer and autumn when the water stage is frequently too low even for coal barges. Thus, by means of the forests will be secured not only a reduction in floods but also a greater earning capacity to the region through the development of the latent power of its streams. The rivers, then, are at once the making and the menace of Pittsburgh. It is through the forests and by reservoirs that the menace can be removed and the highest utility of the streams established. The purity of the water for drinking purposes can thus be assured. This involves a betterment in the health of the community and an increase in the efficiency of the laborer. The equalization of the river flow can also be thus attained. And this involves, first, the lessening of flood losses, and, second, the increasing of the power of the streams to meet the exacting requirements of water power development. The lowering of the floods secures also a further betterment in health by improving the sanitary condition of the districts subject to inundations, and a betterment of economic conditions, both by giving the laborer more steady work during flood and low flow periods, and by opening to him, through the creation of new industries, a wider field of employment. [Illustration: A MILE OF WATER ON PENN AVENUE DURING PITTSBURGH'S RECORD FLOOD, MARCH, 1907.] THE TRANSIT SITUATION IN PITTSBURGH JOHN P. FOX SECRETARY TRANSIT COMMITTEE, CITY CLUB OF NEW YORK; MEMBER TRAMWAYS AND LIGHT RAILWAYS' ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN Transit has a place in the study of living conditions in an industrial city like Pittsburgh. Many of the workers are dependent on street cars to take them to and from home, about their occupations, and to places of recreation. Cheap and efficient transit can enable families living under crowded and unhealthy conditions to move to larger, healthier, and less expensive quarters, and still to reach their work. Low fares and good service bring the operators in a suburban mill town in touch with the full resources of the labor supply in the central city, and also effect a large and direct pay roll economy for carpenters, plumbers, painters, and other city trades whose employes move from point to point during working hours. Again, in no place are people packed together more closely than in the cars, under more conditions favorable to the spread of disease and especially of tuberculosis. And among accidents, few are more numerous, more costly to corporation and community, and more unnecessary, than those caused by street cars. The street railway system of Pittsburgh is a surface electric system, under the management of the Pittsburgh Railways Company. This company is the consolidation of many other companies, different groups of which had previously combined. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, again, is under the management of the Philadelphia Company, which largely dominates the gas and electricity supply. The Philadelphia Company is said to be controlled by nonresident investors. The present owners and local managers may well be without personal responsibility for the acts or omissions of their predecessors, and yet be crippled by exorbitant obligations to them. Their legal responsibility as to the performance of public service is, however, clear cut. All the available through thoroughfares leading to the heart of the city from the South Side, North Side, and East End are occupied by the Pittsburgh Railways Company under franchises granted to its subsidiary companies, and as a practical proposition it is impossible to construct additional surface lines or extend surface transit facilities to new areas providing for the growth of the city, except in subordination to these strategic lines. This restriction of course does not apply to rapid transit lines,--subway or elevated. The principal franchises to these streets held by the original companies appear to be indeterminate in duration, as in Massachusetts, the city having reserved the right to revoke a franchise at any time that a company failed to comply with all the conditions of the agreement. The terms of the original franchises (the Second avenue line being the exception to many of these points) provide for an annual compensation to the city, either a car tax and a percentage of the net profits or a fixed rental in place of one or both of the former. The streets must always be kept in good repair, and in certain cases, at least, clean (either from curb to curb, or along the car tracks). The city sometimes retained the power to alter the conditions, and notably reserved the right to purchase any road after twenty years, at a price to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers. Important provisions of these original franchises are not being observed by the existing company. These facts must be borne in mind in discussing both the equipment of the present system to meet the social needs of Pittsburgh, and ways open to the public to effect improvement. Though the steam roads have played an important part in the past, the growth of Pittsburgh is now chiefly along electric car lines. The radiation of surface lines from the business center out over the district seems quite complete, especially considering the topography of the city and the suburbs. Large areas of vacant land available for single houses, can be reached for five cents from the business district. While the radiation of surface lines may be satisfactory, the equipment and operation are exceedingly unsatisfactory, as every practical man in the railway company will admit. The present system has its base located on the point between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Most of the lines begin as loops through these business streets, operating without transfers between the different lines and without through cars. [Illustration: FOR PROFILE LINES AND CAR ROUTES, SEE MAP FACING PAGE 784.] A five-cent fare carries one varying distances from this business center, before a second fare is charged. The longest ride for one fare is about eight miles; while a continuous ride of fourteen miles on another route, costs fifteen cents. Passengers cannot change cars in the business center without paying two fares, and a ride across the city and suburbs may cost as much as twenty-five cents. Free transfers, are given between many lines before they enter the downtown district; but no transfers are issued after 11:30 P. M., and none on holidays such as the Fourth of July, when travel is heaviest. The cars till recently have had no cross seats, longitudinal seats having been used, according to the company, "to allow an extra large capacity," viz., standing capacity. Trailers are run at the rush hours. A line of express cars runs east from the business center to East Liberty, through Liberty avenue, making few stops, though the speed on sample runs was found to be sometimes slower than that of cars on the parallel Penn avenue. The speed of the cars is fast enough for surface operation, except when the power is poor, on steep grades or in the congested district. The service is very unsatisfactory both as to the few cars run and as to the amount of standing, which is inexcusably large. The rails are of the girder type, one obsolete in first-class systems; and are in very bad shape everywhere. The property is very much run down, except for a few new pay-as-you enter cars. The only real rapid transit in Pittsburgh is furnished by the Pennsylvania and other steam railroads, the common time scheduled from the Union Station to East Liberty being ten minutes by train, against thirty minutes by surface express cars. [Illustration: PROFILES OF PITTSBURGH THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY Maps under the direction of SHELBY M. HARRISON 1908] Before taking up in detail the discussion of improvements on existing lines, it may be well to touch on the financial condition of the Pittsburgh Railways Company, and to consider whether the property can afford to make such improvements; for one hears the excuse for bad conditions that the company is not earning a dividend and was forced even to reduce the service. The Boston Elevated Railway Company, which operates all the surface, elevated and subway lines about Boston, is regarded as a very prosperous concern, paying dividends of from six to eight per cent. the net earnings per car mile after paying taxes being 6.54 cents. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, according to its last public report, had net earnings, after paying taxes, of 12.55 cents per car mile, about double the amount of the Boston company. This is a most remarkable financial showing, and at once raises the question, where does the money all go to and why cannot more of the excessive profits be diverted to better service and equipment? The Boston company is operating to-day three subways and one elevated line, besides having contracted to build two more subways and another elevated. It is obvious that the Pittsburgh Railways Company could not only give a first class service on existing lines, but could also assume the fixed charges of a real rapid transit system, if profits were not diverted to pay excessive rentals and other fixed charges on the many companies consolidated at different times. Some way must be found to cut down these exorbitant charges, for the present management can hardly expect the public to endure existing conditions much longer, when the earnings are so vast. People in other cities, when really aroused, have found ways to bring the most intrenched monopolies to terms. The congestion of cars in the business district of Pittsburgh is a very curious phenomenon. Most people, seeing the frequent blockades at street junctions in the rush hours, would say that there were already too many cars on the streets, and that the overcrowding is a necessity, only to be remedied by building a rapid transit line. Others, however, see that the terminal loops cause much of the congestion, and that by rearranging or abolishing these, even more cars could easily be handled in and out of the crowded center. As a matter of fact, at no place in Pittsburgh does the number of cars passing hourly reach even half the maximum number found possible in other cities; 43 cars in thirty minutes was the largest number counted by the writer, against 128 cars in Berlin. The maximum Pittsburgh hourly rate on a single track would be 86 cars; Boston has scheduled 220 an hour; Berlin runs as many as 256; while Brooklyn handles over 300. At the busiest junction in Pittsburgh, the writer found a rate of 276 cars an hour in all directions, against 557 in Berlin, where there were many more vehicles besides. The overcrowding of the Pittsburgh cars is either intentional or due to bad operating methods. The seating capacity of the present surface lines has been far from reached. Take Fifth avenue at Smithfield street, for example. In one half-hour in the evening from 5 to 5:30 P. M. about 2,290 passengers were carried east one night in forty-three cars, thirty-two being motor cars and eleven trailers. If every motor car had hauled a trailer, and four additional pairs of cars been run, every passenger could have been seated, whereas 785 were obliged to stand, or more than fifty per cent of those seated. The total number of cars in one hour would only be 144 against 256 in Berlin. If the company had cross seats in all the cars, merely seventeen more trailers on Fifth avenue, added to the present number of motor cars, would have seated all the passengers, with a total of only 120 cars an hour. In Berlin the street railway company provides as many as 3,116 seats in half an hour, and the London County Council as many as 3,538 seats, against the 1,504 in Pittsburgh. It may be wondered how it is possible to get so many cars past as in Berlin. It is done by fine traffic regulation by the police, who use careful judgment, and do not hold up traffic too long in any one direction, as is common in other cities, even in London, the home of street regulation. Again, the Berlin tracks are so good and the motormen so careful, that the latter operate cars over switches and junctions at speeds which are never seen in Pittsburgh, car following car with amazing rapidity. And the Berlin manager proposes to run even more cars. [Illustration: MOTOR CAR AND DOUBLE-DECK TRAILER CROSSING POTSDAMER PLATZ, BERLIN. 557 CARS AN HOUR AGAINST 276 IN PITTSBURGH.] In no city does the writer recall so much standing required of passengers as in Pittsburgh. It would appear to be the company's object to run few enough cars to make people stand on every trip throughout the day, and as nearly the whole length of each line as possible. There is little relief during the slack hours, as every car, sooner or later, seems to have its standing load. In other cities of the country, a marked change of policy towards the public has shown itself in the largely increased number of seats furnished. It is a question whether it is a good policy for any public service corporation, no matter how securely intrenched, to continue the policies of the past. [Illustration: SECOND CLASS BERLIN ELEVATED AND SUBWAY CAR. FARE 3-1/2 CENTS. SOFT LIGHTING; NO STRAPS; DESIGNED BY ONE OF THE FIRST ARCHITECTS OF BERLIN.] It is one thing to allow a few persons who like it to stand on the car platform; it is another to require it of mothers, overworked girls, the tired, the ill, the infirm. No one knows how much disease is spread through such crowding. In no place are conditions more ripe for infection,--with the extreme of personal contact, the mixture of every class, the constant rubbing against one another and the holding of dirty strap. Under such conditions, when a consumptive coughs, who is safe? The seating capacity of a city car line seems hardly to have a final limit, for some new way is constantly found to squeeze in more or larger cars. To get some figures by which to judge Pittsburgh, let us take the 256 cars run hourly on a single track in Berlin, or call it 250. If double-deck cars were run in Pittsburgh, of the same length and width as the largest cars now in use, each could easily seat as many as 120 passengers. This would allow a perfectly feasible capacity of 30,000 seats an hour, against a rate of 3,008 actually found on Fifth avenue. Why double-deck cars are not run in this country is a mystery to every English manager and to not a few Americans. They nearly treble the seating capacity, and yet weigh no more than our wastefully heavy rolling stock. They give passengers decent room and air space. They are far more economical even than trailers. Roofs on these cars are now enclosed, and smoking is made possible all the year round. They can climb and descend hills more quickly and safely than single-deck cars of equal capacity, because more weight can be concentrated on the wheels. Two types have been designed for Pittsburgh of the same length and width as existing cars, both having an enclosed roof adapted for winter. The higher one would have 120 seats. The other type, low enough to go under existing railroad bridges, would furnish ninety-eight seats on one car, with four entrances each side. If such cars had been used on Fifth avenue the night when 2,290 passengers were counted in half an hour, they could have furnished seats for every person, with seven per cent excess. Only twenty-five cars instead of forty-three would have been needed, which would have required fifty men against the seventy-five actually employed for the 1,508 seats. To furnish more seats with trailers would cost more than the present system; but double-deck cars would cut thirty-three per cent off the operating expense, and the company would gain more than the immense monetary saving. They would lose less fares, have the good will of the public, and fewer accidents. The new pay-as-you-enter cars are the most expensive thing with which to furnish seats, and they take twice as long to load as a double-deck car, the introduction of which would appear to be the wisest move the company could make, as well as the best thing for the public. One of the most objectionable features of the Pittsburgh railway system is the looping back of all cars in the business district, without either through cars or free transfers between the north, south, east, and west sides of the city. In the expensive days of horse cars, there was more excuse for short hauls and double fares; but for the wealthy Pittsburgh electric system, there is no excuse for not serving the entire district, at least within the city limits, for a five cent fare. Boston has had through cars across the city for about twenty years, and for ten years the company has had no higher fare than five cents for the entire Metropolitan district of a dozen cities and towns. The longest ride is at least sixteen miles, with free transfers given at about forty points. Berlin has the most complete system of through cars, connecting every part of the city for a single fare, allowing a ride of thirteen miles or two hours for two and one-half cents. It seems very doubtful if the present restricted plan of operation pays nearly as well as would through cars and single fares for the entire city. The loops tie up many cars and men in the business district, because of the long stops at a few points and the slowness of switching. But one thing is certain, and that is the gross injustice of a ten cent fare across the city. Its tendency to isolate such public institutions as the Carnegie Institute, the Technical Schools, the University of Pittsburgh, is a very serious matter. An apprentice who attends the evening courses at the Technical Schools three nights a week, pays $5 a year for his tuition. If he has to ride each way, it costs him about $7.80 a year from only the nearest part of the city, $15.60 from the rest. Is this good public policy toward the ambitious workman who is unfortunate enough not to live within the favored zone? Is it good sense that the railway company shall charge twenty cents a round trip to so many who appreciate the free advantages of the Carnegie Institute, and thus bar many of the poorest from ever reaching its doors? The company may reply that all such public institutions should be located in the business district, where all lines center. But the city must grow beyond that congested triangle, and why should not the company's policy grow as well? The same question might be asked in connection with the company's refusal to give transfers after 11:30 P. M., and on the holidays when travel is heaviest. Altogether, it is not a matter for wonder that the public is a unit against the railway. The whole fare system of Pittsburgh needs careful scrutiny. Should workmen's fares be introduced, to give every family a chance to live where it can find the best house, the most congenial neighbors, and the desirable surroundings, and yet get to work without exorbitant car fares? The London County Council, from its workmen's homes, seven miles out in the suburbs, gives a ride to the city, with a seat for every passenger, for two cents at the rush hour. One London steam road gives workmen an eleven mile ride for two cents each way. English managers say that American companies throw away large profits by maintaining too high fares. The question of public policy to consider about workmen's fares is not whether more people could be carried or whether they would pay, for foreign experience has settled these points, but whether more riding is necessary and desirable, that is, whether satisfactory living conditions can be provided within walking distance of where people work. A feature of transit requiring more attention is the matter of car ventilation. The Pittsburgh company is said to be trying a method of artificial ventilation for its cars. For such densely packed spaces, a constant supply of fresh air is an urgent necessity. A downward movement of warm air, if found practicable, would be the most hygienic and economical. The car transoms should have handles attached to make proper opening and shutting easy. At the present time, there is often too much cold air blowing into the cars, because there is no easy way for the conductor to close the ventilators. The coal stoves should be banished from the interiors. While there are spitting signs in the cars for the instruction of passengers, some of the employes appear to be the subjects who need most attention. The constant expectoration of motormen through vestibule doors, and the fouling of front steps, are practices that are not conducive to health or happiness. To reduce the wear and tear on the nerves of the community the noise from car operation ought to be much less. Excessive gong ringing is far too common in Pittsburgh. Ninety-four blows in a minute is a ridiculous frequency. One sound from a good gong is enough to inform a vehicle that it is in the way. Too much pounding simply exasperates a teamster. There should be very little need of gong ringing anyway. A properly trained motorman slows down for pedestrians and obstructions, and does not rely on the gong to get them off the track before he is too near for safety. For the car gearing, the London mixture of sawdust and oil should be tried in the gear cases. The London cars almost startle one with their quietness. They are kept in perfect order, with no loose parts to rattle, no bad rails to pound over. While the Pittsburgh rail joints are often quiet, the tracks at junctions are in a condition most injurious to the cars, and a cause of excessive noise, there being actual gaps in the rail heads over which the cars must jump. Bad track maintenance has allowed much corrugation to creep in, viz., little waves along the heads of the rails, which are both noisy and expensive. The unfortunate supplanting of magnetic brakes by air brakes will increase the flat wheel nuisance. Worn trolley wheels cause unnecessary noise overhead. Rails on curves should be greased. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, in its latest reports, gives no figures for the cost and number of street car accidents. Such omission invites close scrutiny, and there are many dangerous features about the cars and the operation. One excellent thing in use by the company is the magnetic brake[3], which, however jerky and sudden may be the type in use in Pittsburgh, is in its latest form far safer than air brakes in every respect. Unfortunately, the company is not using this latest type, but is adopting air brakes on new cars. Air brakes are one thing on steam roads, where rails are seldom slippery and where there is usually plenty of time to stop; but for city streets and Pittsburgh grades, they are an added source of danger. The magnetic brake can now stop a car in one-third of the distance that air can, and cannot skid the wheels up to speeds of thirty-two miles an hour. It is little affected by a greasy rail, and its tremendous reserve power makes it almost impossible for a motorman to have an accident,--the hand attachment providing safety in case of an electrical breakdown. The best test of brakes yet made, which has just been completed in England, has settled these points beyond all question. [3] A brake with which powerful magnets drag on the track and stop the wheels as well. [Illustration: LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL CAR WITH SEVENTY-TWO SEATS. THE SAFEST TYPE IN THE WORLD, WITH THE LATEST MAGNETIC BRAKES AND AUTOMATIC WHEEL GUARDS.] [Illustration: LIVERPOOL DOUBLE-DECK CAR, WHICH CANNOT RUN OVER ANYONE. SIXTY-FOUR SEATS WHERE PITTSBURGH WOULD HAVE TWENTY-EIGHT.] With the best magnetic brakes, projecting fenders ought to be unnecessary. Such fenders are prohibited in Europe, as doing more harm than good. A perfect wheel guard seems really the only thing needed, and such has been found by the city of Liverpool, which has had in use for seven years the noted plow guard, which has pushed 415 persons off the track and absolutely saved people from being run over. It should be applied in some form at once on all the Pittsburgh cars. Many Pittsburgh cars have no wheel guard at all. To take up a few more danger points: Dim headlights, due to insufficient power, are another source of risk. Gong ringing by hand, the practice in Pittsburgh, is an antiquated method especially objectionable with the magnetic brake, where the motorman must both brake and ring with the same hand. There are no power brakes on the trail cars,--a serious omission. Single truck cars are not safe on many of the sharp curves, as between Forbes street and Homestead. When rails are dirty, they should be cleaned, not sanded. The car sanders are of a type that is useless on curves. The carrying of jacks on every car is an excellent thing, which the Pittsburgh company was the first in the country to adopt. But there should also be an emergency lantern, an emergency lamp inside the cars, blocks to hold a car up, a saw, etc., as in Berlin. The storing of cars out-of-doors, as at Highland Park, results in icy steps on winter mornings, and is a shiftless practice. The Pittsburgh rule to descend dangerous grades with wheel brakes on, instead of magnetic brakes, is exactly the most dangerous thing, as has been shown again and again in England. The type of rail in use and the method of laying are very unsatisfactory, and Philadelphia standards are greatly needed. The Pittsburgh rails and their condition are certainly an anomaly in the steel center of the world. [Illustration: SIGN AT FREE TRANSFER STATION, NUREMBERG, SHOWING WHERE EACH CAR-LINE GOES.] [Illustration: DECORATED STOPPING POST IN NUREMBERG.] [Illustration: NUREMBERG MUNICIPAL CAR, SHOWING ILLUMINATED ROUTE NUMBER USED FOR EACH LINE.] There are other matters about the system besides those affecting health and safety which need improvement. It is very hard for strangers to find their way around. There are seldom signs on the street to show just where cars stop, whereas in Europe every stopping place has a printed sign. The signs on the cars are often too dim to read, and half the time show only where the car came from, not where it is going to. The routes of the cars are seldom given as they should be. The Berlin sign system with its route numbers instead of confusing colors, and such completeness that no stranger need ask a question to find his way about is urgently needed. Every stopping place in Pittsburgh needs to be called out, as in Boston. The car lights should be placed over the seats, and the glare of bare filaments avoided. If the company cannot furnish a decent voltage on all the routes, then electricity should be abandoned for lighting cars, in favor of the brighter incandescent gas or acetylene used on steam roads. Windows do not open wide enough for coolness in summer, especially on the newest cars, and they are not always well washed. English cars are cleaned every night from top to bottom, and go out as bright as new every morning. Even the trucks are daily cleaned with oil. Dirty city air or passengers are regarded in England as no excuse for dirty cars. The immediate transit needs of Pittsburgh, then, are evidently: First, the running of enough cars throughout the day to furnish sufficient seats at all times and stop the dangerous overcrowding. Second, the substitution of through routes for loops with universal free transfers and a five cent fare at least within the city limits. Third, the improvement of equipment and operation, so that there shall be more healthful conditions, more safety, less noise and more convenience. Fourth, besides these, there should be a thorough study of present conditions, the city's growth and needs, to determine a transit policy for the future. [Illustration: BERLIN CAR TRACKS, LAID IN GRASSY LAWNS, WITH FLOWER BEDS EACH SIDE. THE COMPANY'S PREFERENCE.] Before taking up the rapid transit question, however, let us consider how the improvements necessary to the existing surface system may be obtained. Throughout his administration the present mayor of Pittsburgh has tried to get things done. Vain attempts have been made to get sufficient cars run and to abolish the downtown loops, with their inconvenience to passengers, unjust fares and street congestion. Where new lines have been needed in unserved districts, the company has refused to make extensions except on the unreasonable and impossible condition of perpetual franchises without compensation to the city. Under the different franchises, large sums are due the city for car taxes, rentals and the cost of neglected paving and street cleaning, the total claimed by the city amounting to about a million dollars. The present company, while meeting some obligations the past year, has refused to pay any of these old debts, though admitting its liability for at least a part of them, and the city has brought lawsuits to recover the money. It would have been easy for Mayor Guthrie to have resorted to grandstand plays. But more important than that, he has held the company in _statu quo_ until legal complications have been developed and are now in shape for the city to enforce its rights. An examination of the original franchises opens up some surprising possibilities for the city. These grants were for different routes and conferred no running powers over other lines. In fact, the franchise of the Pittsburgh, Allegheny and Manchester Passenger Railway Company contains the express provision that the ordinance should not be construed to grant or confer upon any other company the right to traverse the streets. As the different companies consolidated, they neglected to obtain from the city the right to run cars over one another's lines, and to-day the Pittsburgh Railways Company is operating its whole system in a way which has been declared illegal in a recent court decision. In the Erie decision, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that, under the state constitution, no street railway company had a right to run over the tracks of another company without express municipal consent, a city having the power to impose reasonable regulations for the operation of lines under an ordinance. If the Pittsburgh Railways Company intends to obey the laws of the state, it must either break up its system into the original car lines and operate them separately, or else it must apply to the city for a permit to legalize its present methods of operation. In giving its permission, the city could dictate its own terms, as long as they were reasonable and constitutional; and it would certainly seem reasonable to require sufficient cars and seats, the abolition of the loops, and the universal five-cent fare as in other cities. If the company would not accept a reasonable ordinance, it might threaten to break up the system, and charge the public a separate fare for each line. It would seem doubtful, however, if the courts would permit any such burden on the public, and the company would hardly attempt to abandon the unity of its system pending litigation. If it tried to do so, after any decision favorable to the city, on the ground that it could not afford to meet the city's requirements, then the courts, on injunction proceedings brought by the city, would be in position to probe the street railway finances, determine the real value of the properties and what would be a fair return on the money actually invested. This would bring out the immense net earnings of the system, absorbed in the charges on an inflated capital, and might lead to a complete reorganization of the companies, on a proper capitalization. The city appears to have just the opportunity needed to bring about the improvement of the whole transit situation, and the people of Pittsburgh should see that the desired results are gained and that no false move is made. The rights of company and investor would be looked after by the courts, while the public might not only get the long needed improvements, but also see a surplus income from their fares available for a real rapid transit system. Such an outcome would put the Pittsburgh surface system on a sound basis, and the company might be the gainer in the end. The city has a further hold on the situation, in the fact that some of the most important franchises can be revoked for non-fulfillment of conditions. Five, at least, of the ordinances provide that any failure to comply with any of the terms may, at the option of the city councils, be held to work a revocation of the privileges granted. The failure to pay the agreed car taxes, percentage of receipts, or rentals, and to pave and clean the streets properly makes it possible for the city to declare forfeited these franchises so vital to the company. The latter would then have to apply for new privileges and the city could dictate the terms. Further, apart, from this possible right of forfeiture, the city is secure in its right to purchase some of these railways which have been in existence twenty years or more. By exercising this option, the city would not be committed to municipal operation any more than Boston or New York, where upwards of fifty million dollars have been invested by those cities in rapid transit lines. Pittsburgh would simply own the tracks and could lease them to the present company or another company, too, if competition were desirable, and make terms which would forever prevent neglect of the public interests. The cost of purchase should not be great, as it would be fixed by appraisers appointed by the courts. The physical property would not be very valuable after the franchises had been revoked, for the tracks are all in bad condition. After purchase, the city could maintain the tracks itself, laying modern rails, and keeping the pavement repaired and clean, the rentals paying the expense. It seems to be the consensus of opinion of eminent legal authorities that all grants of franchises for public utilities are made upon the implied condition that the corporation receiving them will properly perform its obligations by furnishing reasonable accommodations to the public; and that when a corporation has committed its property to a public use, the public has a right to require proper performance of such duties under penalty of forfeiture of the franchise. What has been said as to the city's expressly reserved powers on certain grants may be illustrated by a summary of two franchises. The consent of the city for the construction, maintenance and operation of the lines of the Citizens' Passenger Railway Company was given upon the following conditions, among other things: First, to pay into the city treasury "for each car run over its road," twenty dollars per annum, for the first five years; thirty dollars per annum for the second five years and forty dollars per annum for each year thereafter. Second, to pay into the city treasury annually three per cent of the net profits of said company for the first five years, and five per cent of the net profits of said company for each year thereafter. Third, to keep the streets over which the road passed in good repair from curb to curb. The ordinance further provided: First, that "any failure to comply with" these conditions should be held to work a revocation of the franchise. Second, that the city should have the right at the end of twenty years, by giving the company one year's notice of its intention, to acquire the road and stock by paying for the same at a rate to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers. This term has elapsed. The franchise of the Pittsburgh, Oakland and East Liberty Railway Company was conferred upon the following conditions, among others: First, the payment of an annual sum upon each car run on the road. Second, the payment of an annual sum of $200 for each year during the first five years, and $400 annually thereafter, in lieu of a percentage of profits. Third, that the company shall keep clean and in good repair from curb to curb that portion of the streets on which the road was constructed. The ordinance further provided: First, any failure to comply with any of its terms might, at the option of the city councils, be held to work the revocation of the privileges herein granted; and Second, that at any time after the end of twenty years, the city shall have the right by giving one year's notice, to purchase the road at a price to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers, to be appointed by the president judge of the Quarter Sessions Court of Allegheny county. This term has elapsed. In considering the transit needs of the future, the first question to ask is, perhaps, does Pittsburgh really need more rapid transit? For the immediate present, if the railway company were to bring the surface system up to modern standards as suggested, it would seem as though the existing lines might be satisfactory for some time to come. A number of other large American cities are getting along without fast service, such as St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Buffalo, San Francisco, etc. A radial city, with all its disadvantages, does allow a short journey home, compared with a badly developed longitudinal city, like New York. And a considerable length of time can be spent daily in travelling without harm, if conditions are agreeable, as on many suburban lines. At the same time, the growth of Pittsburgh needs to be directed according to the best public requirements, and not left to the traction company and real estate owners to work out as they see fit. Some of the broad questions that need to be considered will be discussed later,--such as the relative location of houses to business and manufacturing; the extent to which walking should be provided for; the directions in which Pittsburgh should grow. Of the more specifically transit questions, the chief ones to settle are the routes of rapid transit lines; the type of construction; and the best way to get lines built and operated. The suggestion has been made in two quarters that a highly desirable change in the business district would be effected if the streets could be built up to a higher level, leaving the present streets either for pipes and wires, or for heavy and slow moving traffic. Such an improvement would be of great benefit in case of the highest floods; but from a rapid transit standpoint, it would give little, if any, relief, because cars and vehicles would still be on the same level. If two traffic levels were maintained, there might have to be numerous inclines, which would be awkward with such narrow streets. Still, Pittsburgh may some time have to consider the problem of cross traffic at street junctions, and how best to abolish grade crossings of vehicles. Chicago is trying freight tunnels; New York is considering them; London has planned bridges at congested points, the cost of a single one of which has been figured as high as $3,500,000. Pittsburgh is fortunate in having so many railroad lines along the water fronts, which must reduce the trucking through the streets. The writer has previously advocated the running of more surface cars in the business district. Not that more cars are desirable on the streets; they are simply a necessity, until at least a rapid transit line can be built, or double-deck cars be brought into use, with their great reduction in number. The ultimately desirable thing is to remove all cars from city streets which have become too congested for safety or speed. The best example of such removal is of course in Boston, with Tremont and Boylston streets. London not long since opened a subway for surface cars under Kingsway, the new avenue across the city from north to south, with no tracks on the street above. While as yet Pittsburgh hardly needs for rapid transit purposes the removal of all surface cars downtown, still it would obviously be a great advantage in reducing accidents and giving vehicles more room. To thus relieve the streets has been one of the stated aims of the Pittsburgh Subway Company. The plans of this company appear to provide for a subway system for surface cars, consisting of a downtown terminal loop a mile in circumference, under Oliver avenue, Liberty street, Ferry street, Third avenue, and Grant street; a main tunnel to the east, passing in a straight line under Herron Hill to Junction Hollow; and two branch tunnels extending south from the main line to Brady street and Boquet street. The company has charters for several surface lines in the East End, to feed the subway and its branches. The main subway, sooner or later, would be continued east under Center avenue and Frankstown avenue to a portal at Fifth avenue. A branch tunnel is also provided from the downtown loop, north under the Allegheny River to the Allegheny Station of the Pennsylvania lines. The subway would be built by private capital; it would pay the city a percentage of its gross receipts, and be open to the cars of other companies on reasonable terms. There would be four stations in the business district, but none beyond, except one at East Liberty. The westbound cars would thus make no stops after leaving the surface, till they arrived downtown; and the longest run of five miles would be covered in ten minutes, at an average speed of thirty miles an hour. The object of the Pittsburgh Subway Company is obviously to force the Pittsburgh Railways Company to use the tunnels, under the fear of seeing a rival surface system grow up, with faster service, and superior downtown facilities. Another aim is to divert traffic from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which does a large suburban business along its main line. The whole scheme as outlined is very attractive in many ways, and deserves careful consideration. Perhaps the best way to test the value of the subway scheme is to take up every possible objection to it. One prominent feature of the project is the treatment of the business district as a thing which cannot be extended because of the hills to the east. So the cars would run from the downtown loop to East Liberty without a stop. There has been much discussion in Pittsburgh of spreading out the congested business district; and the fact that business has reached the court house, would suggest that the "Hump" is not the insurmountable bar to growth that it has been supposed. It has been suggested that heavy property owners and large stores are likely to oppose strongly any improvement which would lessen their growing returns. On the other hand, it is conceivable that equally powerful interests may throw their influence in an opposite direction and a rapid transit line would afford exceptional opportunities for real estate investment and branch stores. Fifth avenue or Penn avenue, or both, would seem to be the proper places for such lines to the east. While a business zone along these streets would be narrow because of the hills, the speed of cars would make up for greater distances; and many people might live on the hills between these streets and walk to their work in this zone. A subway along a street might cost somewhat more than a tunnel; but Pittsburgh can afford to have the thing well done. [Illustration: PROPOSED SUBWAY.] Another feature of the subway system which seems to need consideration is the proposal to run surface cars in it. Obviously, if all the Pittsburgh Railway cars could be put underground in the business district, it would be a great advantage, as far as the street surface is concerned. But of course this would not make it any easier to get on the cars, because the loading would be restricted to four stations, instead of being at every street corner. Again, there would be about sixty car routes to be provided for, and 490 cars an hour, without allowing for any increase of cars to furnish more seats. The routes and cars would have to be divided between two tracks, so that half the cars and routes would be on each track, viz., thirty routes and 245 cars an hour. This traffic would obviously fill the subway at the outset, without any room for growth, unless double-deck cars were used. Again, it is against the new lesson of rapid transit, learned at great cost in New York and Berlin, that a rapid transit line should have no junctions and but one destination each way. The speed proposed for the cars from the East End is very high; for the running time of ten minutes from Kelley street to downtown would require an average speed of thirty miles an hour, including the stop at East Liberty and slowdowns for two junctions. To run at such a speed would require block signals and automatic safety stops, and would limit the number of cars to about sixty an hour. To use the subway to its full capacity, either trains must be run, or else the surface cars must be limited to the low speeds found in the Mt. Washington tunnel and the Boston subway. In a paper before the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, the engineer of the subway company spoke of running trains and not surface cars in the subway, suggesting that in time all the steam railroad passengers from the east should be transferred to the subway at East Liberty; all the passengers from the west alighting in Allegheny and at McKees Rocks, taking a subway built from the business district through Allegheny and under the Ohio River at McKees Rocks. The loop in the business district would have two tracks, with all trains running in the same direction around the circle. This development of the subway, however, evidently belongs to the future, and the running of surface cars would appear more within the bounds of possibility. One of the most serious questions about the subway proposition is whether it would pay. The promoters answer that they are willing to take all the risk. But if Pittsburgh really needs rapid transit, can the city afford to have it depend on any $10,000,000 or $15,000,000 experiment, and wait several years to know the results? A subway, to clear expenses, has been found to require from fifteen to twenty per cent annual income on the cost. The cost of subways in this country has ranged from $1,500,000 to $3,500,000 a mile. The New York subway cost about $3,000,000 a mile equipped. To make a subway pay as far as East Liberty, would require a minimum traffic in the heaviest rush hour one way of ten thousand passengers. It might take twice or three times this number, according to the cost and the volume of slack hour traffic. It seems a very grave question if a radiating city like Pittsburgh can support such a subway as proposed, to say nothing of a system serving adequately all parts of the city. Subways have usually turned out to be very poor investments, as many companies have learned to their cost, in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Berlin. The New York subway pays only for about half its length, a considerable part of the dividends coming out of the surplus obtained from the elevated roads. Boston can afford subways, because they are mere short links in an extensive system. Subways have other disadvantages which must be carefully considered. They might have been flooded downtown in March, 1907. On account of the cost they can only serve a very limited territory. They are extremely noisy. In New York, they are almost unendurably hot in summer, and the air is filled with iron dust. They take long to build. They are dangerous in case of fire, eighty-seven lives being lost in the Paris disaster. If deep, as in London, many people do not like to use them, even with elevators. The London underground roads are facing a very serious proposition, several already being in a receiver's hands. If shallow, they occupy or cramp the space needed for pipes, wires, and sewers, greatly disturbing the proper arrangement of underground necessities. They put passengers below ground in a place where the sun never shines, leaving to heavy traffic the light and air of the streets. Their signal advantage, on the other hand, is that they remove the traffic altogether from the street, and do not shut out light and air from the street surface.[4] [4] Since this report was drafted, two subway ordinances have been put before Pittsburgh councils:-- a. One for the Pittsburgh Subway Company for a franchise over the route already indicated, asking for a fifty year franchise without compensation to the city for the first ten years, and with payments of one, two, three and four per cent per year, respectively, on gross receipts during the decades following. The same parties who hold this charter, are now applying for a charter for the Pittsburgh Underground Railway Company. The two routes are identical. This charter is pending before the Rapid Transit Board of the commonwealth. b. The other ordinance before councils provides for the construction of a municipal four-track subway for surface cars from Seventh avenue and Grant boulevard east to Center avenue and Craig street, to be built by the City Subway Company, a corporation of three trustees chosen by the city of Pittsburgh. The city will pay the interest on bonds issued by the company, and the latter will turn over to the city such rentals as it can collect from the use of the subway, endeavoring to reimburse the city in the end for all money expended. It is stated in the proposed ordinance that this subway would be the beginning of a transit system, but who would operate the system is not specified. Ordinary elevated roads are certainly not desirable in the business part of Pittsburgh, because the streets are narrow, the buildings high; and there is still at times much smoke. There is already quite an amount of elevated freight structure, black and without ornament. It is perfectly true that an elevated road can be made practically noiseless, as notably in Paris and Berlin; and there has been no damage to property in these cities. The Berlin structure is painted white and is an ornament to the city; but the streets are much wider there than in Pittsburgh. The prospects for satisfactory rapid transit in Pittsburgh do not appear very good, unless perhaps some form of suspended railway should meet with approval. A German type which has had eight years of practical operation at Barmen and Elberfeld, is now under consideration for Berlin. Whether it would suit Pittsburgh is a question; but it has some very interesting advantages. It would cost only about a fifth of a subway's price; so that the same expenditure of money could serve five times the area,--a vital point with a radiating city. The cars could cross existing bridges, probably, without interfering with surface traffic. Studies of routes, structure, and costs make the suspended appear a type of railway which could thoroughly compete with the Pittsburgh Railways Company; and if competition is necessary, it must be of no uncertain kind. Its cars could reach the heights about the city, without excessive grades, and open up new territory as a subway system could never afford to. If operated in co-operation with the existing company, it would allow a large reduction of surface cars in the business district as soon as opened, and the removal of all tracks when desired. On the eight mile line in Germany, not a single passenger has been injured in eight years of operation. The suspended line, moreover, does not shut in the streets, as does the ordinary two track elevated structure. With double-deck cars as feeders, it seems to offer the cheapest, most convenient, and safest means of rapid transit. It would seem wise, if any rapid transit line is to be built in Pittsburgh, for the city to construct and control it, as in New York, Boston, and Paris. The city would merely have to borrow the money, and could retain control of the road in a way to get adequate service. It might be desirable to put the operation into the hands of trustees, who would run the road at a minimum cost and with only a safe margin of profit, giving the public either the largest extension of rapid transit lines possible at a five cent fare, or else serving a smaller territory with a lower fare. The Brooklyn Bridge railway was operated by public trustees most successfully for a number of years, with a two and one-half cent fare. What part the steam railroads will play in the future development of Pittsburgh depends on their own efforts. Their suburban passengers would probably find a rapid transit system more convenient, because they could reach any part of the city quickly for five cents. A terminal for such passengers, more central than the Union Station, is one of the probabilities and would afford an artery of no mean significance, but still without the other advantages of a rapid transit line. The interurban business and that along the rivers could probably be best done by the steam roads, especially if they would run a frequent and cheap service of electric cars, as is done elsewhere. The electrification of all the steam lines about the city would be a great blessing, and the city should urge and encourage the matter in every way. Till this is accomplished, much nuisance could be avoided by a shortening of the maximum length of freight trains, which could greatly reduce the noise and smoke, and, judging from the latest experience, might be more economical to the roads in the end. The whole steam railroad situation in Pittsburgh, both freight and passenger, and the disposition of freight yards need further study, and especially in comparison with Berlin where the main line has a five minute service at the slack hours, suburban branches a twenty minute service, and where the whole system is to be soon electrified at a cost of perhaps thirty-five million dollars. Any plans for the future transit of Pittsburgh should take into consideration, not only the present conditions and arrangement of the city, but also where the growth ought to be, where the healthiest sites for houses are, and other broad questions. Transit, city planning, and housing, are all closely related; and it may be well in concluding to try to get a wider view of things. Transit systems have grown up in modern cities because of the needs and desires of people for moving about more than they did a century ago. In the old days, when towns were small and the uses to which districts were put were not specialized as now, people could walk to their work, or else had space to keep a horse or two. As cities increased in size and compactness, the keeping of horses had to diminish, and distances grew, as well as the desires of people to go about more. Public conveyances consequently came more and more into use; while the constantly improving facilities, notably electricity, increased the tendency to ride. It would appear that the rate of a city's growth in people depends on the amount of intercommunication, just as the intensity of some chemical processes depends on the extent to which the different elements come together. So transit is now regarded as a necessity, and one which cities are beginning to feel, whatever the basis of ownership and operation, is too vital to be exploited solely for the gain there is in it. Passenger transportation obviously has to meet the following needs:--First, carrying people to and from work; second, carrying people about their business during working hours, including shopping; third, carrying people about on social, educational, and recreative objects. The best transit system for meeting these needs is obviously that which conquers space and time most equally for all inhabitants at the lowest cost in money, convenience, safety and health. Of course people should not do unnecessary traveling,--walking, writing, and telephoning being desirable substitutes. In American cities the economy of walking has been too much lost sight of, chiefly in the matter of getting to and from work. The largest demand on transit systems to-day is to carry people to work and back; and yet, curiously, this ought perhaps to be the least important kind of travel. For centuries, until a very recent time, everybody walked to business, and the poorest classes as well as some of the wealthy do still. The reason why so many have to live at a distance from their work is not the mere growth of cities, but our universal disregard of scientific town planning as practiced notably in Germany. We usually crowd most of our business into one center, and then have to ride a long way to get enough room for a single house. But congestion on transit lines is just awakening us to the fact that the common radial plan for a city is neither wholly necessary nor desirable. It would look now as though the ideal city is a longitudinal one, with factories on the leeward side, after the European plan as found in Vienna and the new city of Letchworth, England; houses on the windward side away from the smoke; and stores and offices between. The whole city is narrow enough to enable people to walk across town to and from work, their homes being opposite their place of work or business. One or more high speed longitudinal transit lines would make the length of the city no greater bar to travel than getting about our congested business districts which are so often without even adequate surface transit. The ideal of universal walking to work, were it possible, would obviously abolish the rush hour travel, the cause of so many of the worst features of American city transit. With existing, radial growing cities, it would seem best to try to replan on the longitudinal system as far as possible, modifying the ideal to fit topography and other present conditions. A rapid transit line is the best thing with which to begin the stretching out process in a city where no such facility already exists. By rigidly limiting the heights of buildings to the standards so successful in Europe, and then in some way preserving belts of houses alongside the business district as it begins to stretch, congestion may at least be checked. Of course it is impossible at this late day to provide many single houses within walking distance of a business district, though Boston has notably done so for both rich and poor with its Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the West and North Ends. But the conditions of Pittsburgh allow no simple alteration to fit the ideal plan. No single transit line can serve both sides of the Ohio, or the four shores of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Again, the question should be considered very carefully whether people ought to live too near the manufactories, on account of the smoke and the noise; and therefore whether the walking principle ought not to be waived in such a manufacturing region, and all the workers be transported up on the bluffs or beyond, where the air is purer, where more land is available for single houses, and where they can have quiet, healthy homes, making more efficient workers. If the smoke were not still so abundant, the fast transit lines should best lie along the rivers, with a belt of houses on the heights above. But as conditions are, the most desirable locations for houses are away to the east, north, and south of the business district, and so perhaps these are the regions which should first be made more accessible to the heart of the city. The location of rapid transit lines in Pittsburgh obviously needs most careful study. It does not seem enough to connect East Liberty with the business district by a straight line, without serving the intervening territory. The situation needs the broadest study and outlook and the united judgment of the best minds in the city. A transit solution cannot be left to any interested company, but needs to be reached by considering the welfare of all the inhabitants, future as well as present. [Illustration] THE ALDERMEN AND THEIR COURTS H. V. BLAXTER ALLEN H. KERR, Collaborator MEMBERS OF THE ALLEGHENY COUNTY BAR To fifty-nine aldermen is taken practically all the minor litigation of the four to five hundred thousand persons in Pittsburgh. To them the law entrusts all the preliminary matters connected with criminal prosecutions. To the educated public these courts are little known, perhaps because the amounts involved in litigation are small,--never over $300,--or because the proceedings are criminal in nature. But to the majority of Pittsburgh's vast army of foreign born, the squire's office is the only contact with law or justice. It is here that the wage earner, the alien, the Slav or the Lithuanian, comes first in criminal matters; it is here that the ignorant and illiterate enter their civil suits. This is the court of the people, such as it is. Viewed thus, the aldermanic system is lifted from insignificance to rank as a vital question of municipal government. An ancient English system supplied the model, which aimed to decide small cases quickly and with substantial justice. But, as the system works out in Pittsburgh to-day, it for the most part achieves no such end and is a reproach to the community. For Pittsburgh has been a city too busy for introspection. A crowded center echoing with the thunder of steel mills, vast industries giving employment to alien laborers, the insistent cry of "tonnage" and the absorbing demands of business, have offered little opportunity for social study or civic experiment. It is not that Pittsburgh is derelict; her charities are many and generously supported, but Pittsburgh is busy, very busy, and the public have not taken time to think. Nowhere is this ignorance of home conditions more apparent than in the matter of the courts, and especially of the aldermanic courts which are to be considered here. Before aldermen, informations or the formal charges of crime are made. Warrants for arrest issue from their offices. Hearings are held, the defendant is committed to jail, or bail is allowed. Summary convictions may be had before them, so that not only property but personal liberty is subject to their decisions. What this means can readily be understood when it is known that in 1908, 15,879 persons were incarcerated in Allegheny county. To begin with, the whole aldermanic system is an anomaly in the growth of institutions. It is taken from the middle ages, only partly altered, cut, and fitted to modern conditions and a freer people. The origin of the office is obscured in antiquity. In Gothic times they had conservators of the peace, whose duty was, as the name implies, that of keeping the public peace; and during the troublous times when Queen Isabel deposed her husband and put Edward the Third on the throne, the King, fearing a general uprising, sent out writs of peace to all the sheriffs, and Parliament ordained that good men and true be assigned to keep the peace. At the foundation of the Colony of Pennsylvania, the office of justice of the peace was brought over from England, and became an integral part of our governmental institutions. Under successive state constitutions the power of the aldermen and justices of the peace has been gradually enlarged, and their jurisdiction greatly widened. Aldermen are elected for a term of five years. Formerly their jurisdiction was limited to amounts under forty shillings, but gradually it has been increased to $300. In cases where the amount involved is less than $5.33, the equivalent of the old forty shillings, there is no appeal from an alderman's decision. Litigants for so small an amount are in most instances very poor, and a hardship is wrought when such cases are wrongly decided. Another very radical disadvantage of this provision is that it permits the use of such tribunals for purposes of spite and oppression. A landlord recently refused to relet a tenement. An altercation followed which ended in the tenant's saying that he would get even at the squire's office. Thereupon he entered suit for five dollars for an imaginary debt. At the hearing this debt was denied by the landlord. No proof was offered that it existed; nevertheless the justice promptly awarded a judgment for five dollars, and, the amount being less than the old forty shillings, the landlord had no choice but to pay. The very topography of Pittsburgh has influenced the growth of aldermanic litigation. The business district is crowded into a small triangle, hemmed in by two rivers. In consequence the aldermen in the four wards comprising the business section get a tremendous clientele. Furthermore the city has been redistricted and in the future there will be but twenty-seven aldermen, one for each of the new wards, instead of fifty-nine as heretofore. When it is known that some of the downtown aldermen make $12,000 a year from fees, under the present ward arrangement, an idea can be gathered of what will be the income of the aldermanship under the new districting which throws the heart of the business area, approximately the first four former wards, into one new ward. Of course ward lines are important only in the election of aldermen, for once elected their jurisdiction properly exercised extends over the whole county. A case may be put in the hands of any alderman whom the plaintiff may desire. In appearance the average alderman's office is not prepossessing. A counter flanked by a railing, a few chairs, a safe and a number of dockets, compose the usual furniture. The floor is nearly always bare, generally dirty, while outside the appearance of the office is much that of any shop desiring customers. Often an electric sign or gaudy lettering on the building, or other similar device is employed to make the location of the office conspicuous. With few exceptions, the offices are on the lower floors, usually opening like a store directly on the sidewalk. Where the ward boundaries permit, they are put on the main thoroughfares, sometimes so close together as to be within sight of one another, which naturally results in the sharpest kind of competition. The more progressive aldermen indulge in advertising and it is a common sight to see blotters emblazoned with the name or the alderman, his address and telephone numbers, distributed among the downtown offices. Yet these are state judicial offices presiding over subordinate courts! Each alderman has a constable who is elected at the same time and in such ways as makes the office largely political in complexion. In many offices the alderman and the constable do all the work. But in the downtown offices there are usually in addition to the alderman, a docket clerk, a writ clerk, and perhaps two deputies. The constable is not only the major domo, but usually the business getter of the outfit. It is he who mingles with the people of the ward and steers litigation in the direction of his employer. All this is to his benefit, because, like the alderman, his income is derived from fees. Such constables have often made as much as twenty dollars a day in the sections of the city settled by foreigners, but this is not the rule now, partly because the aliens are less ignorant and partly because of the influence of many national, fraternal and charitable organizations. However a conservative estimate of the income of the downtown constables at the present day would be $3,000. The business of an alderman is to get customers, try cases, prepare informations, execute commitments and various other legal documents. In civil cases, it follows from the very organization and jurisdiction of aldermanic courts, and the fact that the litigant may choose his tribunal, that the aldermen are often called upon for legal advice and opinions even in advance of the actual litigation. Each alderman knows that if he advises the complainant that he has no case another alderman will be consulted. If the latter advises suit the costs will go to him. As an alderman depends for his living on fees from litigation instituted in his court, it is not hard to find one who will tell you that you have a good case. Not long ago a landlady and two boarders,--a man and his wife,--became involved in a teapot tempest, during the course of which the landlady pointed a revolver at her boarders. A squire was consulted, who advised an information for surety of the peace. The proceeding under an act of assembly for pointing firearms would perhaps have been proper, but there was clearly no case of surety of the peace. The case came up for hearing and after a long dissertation couched in legal verbiage the squire pronounced his judgment that the case be discharged and the costs divided. The plaintiff, who was represented by an attorney, immediately refused to pay and asked the squire what he was going to do about it (by act of assembly execution cannot issue for costs alone). The squire was nonplussed, and called in his constable. After a whispered consultation, he announced that he had reconsidered and that his final judgment was that the case be discharged and the costs put on the defendant. By this time the defendant had got her cue. She refused to pay, and asked the squire what he was going to do about it. Another whispered consultation followed while the squire scratched his head in perplexity. Another reconsidered judgment was given, this time that the case be discharged and the costs put on the county. Not only do the aldermen give advice concerning prospective cases, but they solicit business and it is very common for them to hold themselves out as collecting agencies. Some aldermen who make a specialty of such work have a printed form reading: Claim against you for $________ has been put in my hands for collection. Pay at once and save yourself costs. If the claim is paid without suit a percentage charge is made for the service; if the defendant ignores the notice the alderman will enter suit. In short, we have here the anomaly of a state judicial officer whose living depends on the business he can drum up, and who can be both counsel, judge and prosecutor. From this it results that when a case is brought in an alderman's court, the alderman, the judge, considers himself in the employ of the plaintiff. At a recent hearing before an alderman, who is without exception one of the most upright and efficient in the city, the evidence of the plaintiff was very uncertain while that of the defendant was clear and convincing. The squire "reserved judgment," which means that he did not wish to give his decision in the presence of both parties. The case had been conducted by an attorney who controlled considerable aldermanic business, and this attorney not long after reaching his office was called to the telephone by the alderman who said in substance: "Now look here Mr.----, if you think you ought to get that money in that case of yours I will pay it myself, but I really cannot find for the plaintiff because I honestly think the defendant has a good defense." Only an incident, but what a flood of light it throws on the attitude of the alderman toward the plaintiff. Few cases are decided otherwise than in favor of the plaintiff. Exactly what proportion can never be known, because our courts have decided that the dockets of aldermen are private records and not open to inspection by the public. One judge on the Common Pleas Bench, a man who has wide experience in such matters, when asked if he thought that as much as one per cent of the cases are decided other than in favor of the plaintiff, replied, "No, not nearly." As a matter of fact judgment is so universally given for the plaintiff that a defendant who has had any previous experience, does not take the trouble to appear at the hearing, but if he desires to contest the matter, takes an appeal from the alderman's decision. It is a wise requirement of law that a plaintiff must make out his case affirmatively, proving all the matters essential to constitute liability on the part of the defendant. It is a matter of common knowledge, however, that aldermen give judgment on evidence of the most meager kind. A copy of a bill, its correctness unsworn to, left with the alderman is a common way of obtaining judgment for goods sold and delivered. Suits may be entered before more than one alderman, and in such cases although but one execution may issue, a defendant can be harried by threats and a multiplicity of summonses. In such cases, aldermen and their constables although legally without power, may when in league with unscrupulous creditors, be the cause of the greatest injustice. Cases have been known where constables, although knowing that a levy could not be made, would, nevertheless, frequently visit the house of the defendant, post notices of sale, demand admittance in the middle of the night, and in many other petty ways harass the defendant in the hope of forcing the payment of their costs. It is well known that much hardship is done in Pittsburgh through the instrumentality of what are known as "loan sharks," who lend small amounts at usurious rates of interest, taking as security assignments of future wages, bills of sale of household furniture, and other personal belongings. The defendants in such cases, although they are protected by law, are usually poor and ignorant, have little knowledge of legal procedure and fall an easy prey to the threats of such unscrupulous creditors. It can readily be understood how much such usurers are assisted by unscrupulous aldermen and constables. Primary in importance to the alderman is the problem of getting his costs. Not long ago a well-to-do man residing in the residential section bought some cider from a huckster and ordered some apples. The cider was left in the barrel and the apples were to be brought the following day. When they came they were refused because of their poor quality. The huckster in a rage demanded the barrel in which he had left the cider, although both the apples and the cider had been paid for. He was told he could have it in a day or two, as soon as it could be emptied. He left to seek the advice of a squire who advised him to make an information for larceny by bailee (the technical term meaning larceny of goods temporarily in one's possession). He did so and a warrant was issued for the defendant's arrest. He was arrested and appeared at the alderman's office with bondsmen. Bail was refused by the alderman on one pretext and another and the defendant was told that if he would pay the costs the alderman would see to it that the whole matter was dropped. Before the hearing the squire had gone to the defendant's business office and told him that if he would pay the costs the matter could be fixed. Needless to say, rather than spend a night in jail while new bail was being secured, the victim paid the costs, preferring to be mulcted a few dollars than to incur the notoriety and annoyance of carrying the matter to a higher court. Under such manipulation it is not difficult to see how large a volume of litigation may be instituted in the aldermanic courts. Of course this case is exceptional and there are many aldermen who never seek business or advise frivolous litigation, but even without it the volume of business is incredibly large. Some of the downtown aldermen have had as many as 500 civil cases brought in their courts in a month. Of course if there is any real controversy involved the case is appealed, but in practically all the cases the costs are paid either on appeal or by execution, the law making costs a first lien on the fund realized. A compilation of the costs paid in three hundred cases shows the average costs in each case to be $3.74. Formerly these costs had to be paid before the appeal could be taken, but by a late act an appeal can be taken without payment of the costs, if satisfactory bail be given for debt, interest and costs. However, the act works little benefit, because the alderman is the judge of the sufficiency of the bail and has it in his power to reject bondsmen until it is quicker and easier to pay the costs than bother over the allowance of bail. So that, as a matter of fact, the costs are always paid on appeal. Taking the downtown aldermen's offices where the cases sometimes number 500 in a month, the income from fees would be about $1,800 a month, which after allowance for fixed charges would leave a monthly profit to these downtown aldermen of about $1,000 in civil suits alone.[5] [5] The costs reckoned above are without execution, which when issued would swell the costs by a couple of dollars, making an average of probably six dollars. To these fees, to form some estimate of the income derived from some alderman-ships, should be added the costs paid in criminal cases which an average of one hundred cases taken at random from the criminal docket of a prominent downtown alderman show to be $4.15 in each case. In criminal cases, if the defendant is discharged the alderman's costs are paid by the county. This procedure further adds to the revenue of the office. In 1907 the county paid to the various aldermen and justices of the peace the sum of $17,884.40 for costs in such discharged criminal cases, and to sundry officers in such cases $8,840.05, or a total of $26,724.45. To one alderman alone, having an office in a downtown section largely settled by Negroes and the poorer classes, $1,711.55 was paid in 1907 by the county as costs in such discharged criminal cases brought in his office. For miscellaneous work, criminal and otherwise, fees are paid in accordance with a schedule set by a recent act of assembly, that of 1893. Some of the main items are given below. ALDERMEN'S FEES. For information or complaint on behalf of the commonwealth $.50 Docket entry on behalf of the commonwealth .25 Warrant .50 Hearing in criminal cases .50 Taking bail in criminal cases .50 Entering judgment .50 Discharge of jailer .35 Hearing parties .50 Holding inquisition under landlord and tenant act 2.00 Entering action in civil case .25 Summons .25 Entering satisfaction .15 Written notice in any case .25 Execution .30 Transcript of judgment .05 Return of proceedings on certiorari 1.00 Receiving the amount of judgment: If not over $10 .25 $10 to $40 .50 $40 to $60 .75 $60 to $100 1.00 Assignment and making record indenture .50 Marrying each couple and certificates 5.00 CONSTABLES FEES. Executing warrant $1.00 Conveying defendants to jail 1.00 For executing bail piece 1.00 Executing search warrants 1.00 For serving subpoena .50 For arresting on a capias 1.00 For notifying plaintiff where defendant has been arrested .25 For advertising sale of goods 1.00 For holding appraisement where exemption is claimed 4.00 For attending election 3.00 For travelling expenses in the performance of any duty required by law, for each mile travelled .06 It is evident that the office is lucrative, and lucrative just in proportion to the ability of the alderman to get customers. The anomaly extends to every branch of the office,--a state judicial officer with an income depending on the volume of the litigation instituted in his office. It was a wise provision of the Legislature that permitted appeals by right, rather than by allowance, providing the amount involved is over $5.33. Practically all cases therefore involving any real controversy are appealed. A defendant is given twenty days in which to take his appeal. The procedure is simple, a transcript or copy of the alderman's record is obtained, the costs paid or bail given for debt, interest and costs, and the transcript then filed in the higher court where the case is begun over again just as if it had not been already tried. As the discretion of the alderman in allowance of bail is a factor, the costs are generally paid at the time the appeal is taken. In any case, they must be paid then or when the appeal is disposed of. If they are not paid at the time the appeal is taken, when the case is disposed of in the higher court, the alderman's costs are kept out of the amount realized and may be demanded by the alderman, his transcript being the evidence from which the higher court determines what disposition has been made of the costs. Cases have come to the writer's attention where although the costs were paid at the time of taking the appeal yet the alderman's transcript has been endorsed, "Costs not paid by defendant." If such a transcript were filed without the detection of the error, upon final disposition of the case the alderman would be in a position to demand his costs a second time from the prothonotary of the higher court and receive double pay. Remembering that every case appealed from an alderman is retried, with costs to be paid over again, it is interesting to consider how much time is occupied by the Common Pleas Courts in such review work. In Allegheny there are four Common Pleas Courts. As the courts are separate and independent, litigation may be commenced in any one of them. So great has been the litigation in recent years that all these courts are far behind in their work, two being at least four years behind, the others at least two. Taking at random a term,--three months' business,--in one of the courts which is four years behind, we find 1,342 docket entries. It would be safe to say that about 1,000 entries would represent new suits, which should in due course result in jury trials. Of these 322 were cases appealed from aldermen, _i. e._ work already done and paid for, to be done over again. In these cases counting the costs actually paid we have a total of $1,322.08, and this in one term of one court. There are four terms to each court and four courts. The time occupied in retrying appeals from aldermen can be appreciated. In 1897 it was estimated that one-fourth of the work of the Common Pleas Courts consisted of the re-trial of such appeals with an aggregate of about $12,000 paid for costs in such cases prior to their determination in the Common Pleas Courts. From the figures previously given it appears that the proportion is about the same now although the increase in the volume of litigation has swelled the costs to about $15,000. Taking four consecutive terms, one at each court, we find 667 alderman's appeals in the two courts which are four years behind, and 105 alderman's appeals in the two courts which are two years behind. By law an affidavit is required with each appeal that it is not taken for delay, but the above figures indicate that this oath is disregarded. So much for civil matters, where only money and time are involved. It is the criminal side of the alderman's court where liberty is involved, that arouses greatest sympathy. Summary convictions, or proceedings under special statutes where the aldermen can impose a fine and commit to jail on default, and proceedings for the determination of the existence of the essentials of a crime, comprise the criminal jurisdiction of an alderman just as it stood in the reign of Edward III in the fourteenth century. Criminal proceedings generally are instituted by a warrant of arrest issuing upon a complaint under oath,--an information. From this information made before the alderman a warrant issues on which the accused is taken into custody. A hearing must then promptly be held; and the alderman decides whether there is sufficient evidence to hold the defendant for court; if so the prisoner is held for bail if the offense is bailable, or committed to jail in default. The alderman must then within five days return a transcript of this proceeding to a clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions, this court being the criminal court of the county. Considerable hardship may be done by the failure of the alderman to return his record within the five days required by law; cases have been known where through neglect prisoners have been kept in jail a month before the matter has been brought to the attention of the district attorney's office and the alderman made to produce his papers. It will thus be seen that although the alderman acts in this respect only as a committing magistrate, yet on his decision rests whether the prisoner be committed to jail; for although the offense may be bailable the question of bail in the case of poor people is very material. The writer has known cases where bail has been set at $1,000 on an information for assault and battery. The power to arrest is a very important one which under any circumstances should be exercised only with sound discretion. One constable in Pittsburgh arrested a foreigner at night. Having no warrant he took him to an alderman's office, where he found the alderman out, and pretentiously used the telephone to locate him, with no results. Then substantially the following conversation took place: "Now ---- you, I will be the squire myself," taking his place behind the railing. "How much money have you?" The prisoner was found to have a few dollars on his person. "Well you are fined $---- (the exact amount the prisoner had with him) and discharged. Now get out." The fine was pocketed and the prisoner permitted to go. It is probable that the constable was drunk, but the abuse is only the more apparent. In another case an educated German was studying manufacturing methods and spent much time in the neighborhood of the steel mills. One evening he saw an alderman's constable, whom he knew by sight, on a street car handcuffed to a prisoner. With Teutonic curiosity he asked the details of the case. The constable, who was under the influence of liquor, beckoned the German over to him and deftly handcuffed him also. The German, of course, thought the affair a little joke. He was, however, taken to jail, but refused by the warden, because there was no warrant for his confinement. The constable then took the prisoner outside, and when they reached Diamond street asked him how much money he had. The German really had $600 or $700 on his person, but replied that he had only a few dollars, producing some bills and small change. The constable told him he would release him for $3.50. This the German paid and got his liberty. The latter was leaving the city the next day and, as he was a steel expert representing a foreign government, could not possibly remain to prosecute the constable. It is not likely that such abuses are common, but their existence indicates the possibilities of abuse of a system which provides for no form of supervision. There are costs connected with all these criminal matters. These costs the defendant if guilty is supposed to pay. But the fact that an alderman entertains a frivolous information does not prevent his being paid for his work. If the case is discharged the county pays. If the prisoner is committed and the case ignored by the grand jury the county pays. The percentage of bills ignored by the grand jury is sometimes as high as seventy-two per cent. This means that seventy-two per cent of persons brought before the alderman have either been put in jail or held for bail on evidence not sufficient for the basing of an indictment. In all such cases the aldermen are secured in their costs, and as we have seen in 1907 the costs returned in such discharged criminal cases to the various aldermen and justices of the peace and sundry officers amounted to $26,724.45. Taking the year 1907, we find that for the support of the criminal court the county was put to a net expense of about $150,000. By law aldermen must pay over to the county all or sometimes a proportion of fines collected depending on the special act of assembly. These fines are supposed to be voluntarily accounted for, and up to very recently very little attempt was made to test the accuracy of such returns. In 1896, however, the county controller inaugurated a system of auditing the criminal dockets of aldermen for the better ascertainment of the county's share of such fines. The returns that year increased seventy-five per cent and have been increasing steadily ever since, although in 1907 the total amount returned to the controller in such cases was but $3,714.20. In brief the whole aldermanic system is defective. At the threshold we find an office the income of which is derived from fees, depending upon the volume of business. Plaintiffs are customers, the more the merrier. Impartiality is impossible, and decision on merits almost unheard of. The fee system, which causes the injustice and corruption, has come down to us from colonial times, a relic of the days when the public purse was too lean to permit paying salaries to minor judicial officers. From a wise public economy this fee system has become, with the growth of the country, a source both of injustice and of extreme expense to the public at large. It should have been abandoned long ago, but through the indifference of the public and the political influence of the aldermen it remains and flourishes. The second radical defect of the aldermanic system is that the office is mixed with politics. An effort was made a few years ago to abolish the aldermanic courts, and it is a matter of history how sudden a death the movement met at the state capital. One of the judges of the county bench in discussing the matter recently expressed the opinion that no act of assembly could be passed to remedy the situation, because of the political influence of the aldermen. It has been the boast of this country that the judiciary is not swayed by politics, but here in the subordinate courts we have a branch of the judiciary so steeped in politics that the squire's office as a campaign center and a place of political organizing rivals the saloon. Third, we have the almost ludicrous case of judicial officers who with noteworthy exceptions are not learned in the law, are sometimes uncouth, generally ignorant, and have made their mistakes, not only in law, but in grammar, a source of constant lampooning. These are proverbial. The grave decisions of the higher courts that aldermen are state judicial officers presiding over judicial courts has a flavor of irony. Fourth, the geographical distribution of these courts, and their concurrent jurisdiction, permit plaintiffs by taking their cases to the outlying wards to use aldermanic courts for purposes of annoyance and spite, permit competition among the aldermen, and result in a general demoralization. We are driven to three conclusions: that the aldermanic system as found in Pittsburgh is always extravagant, that it is generally inefficient, that it is often corrupt. Were the minor litigation handled by an efficient tribunal, not only would respect for law among the masses be restored, but the county courts would be relieved of a considerable portion of their work, and thus be enabled to clear their crowded calendars. This would remedy at one stroke an abuse, and solve a problem which occupies the attention of the whole bench and bar. Pittsburgh is not alone in this problem. Conditions in Chicago a few years ago were similar. Their justice of the peace system had outgrown its justification, had become corrupt and woefully inefficient. Nothing had been done because of the political power of the justices and the necessity of an amendment of the state constitution. But the people took up the problem in a way that brought something about. The state constitution was amended, a municipal court organized, and as a result Chicago, in an incredibly short time, got rid of most of the evils of the old system. The Chicago solution was a municipal court of a distinctive type. A chief justice and twenty-seven associate judges with salaries, preside over a court having branches in the chief centers of the city. The court in its first six months disposed of 40,610 cases, of which but ninety-two were carried to the State Appellant Court. The Pittsburgh problem is that of creating a system along lines which would serve Pittsburgh as well or better, and which would link efficiency with expedition, impartiality and economy,--a system which would obtain immediate justice for the poor and the uninformed, and would remedy the overworked condition of the county courts. Such a system would save the public thousands of dollars a year. THE CHARITIES OF PITTSBURGH FRANCIS H. McLEAN SECRETARY FIELD DEPARTMENT FOR ORGANIZED CHARITY, CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE The city of Pittsburgh at the time of this survey possessed six private relief societies which dealt with more than 1,000 families a year each; three which dealt with between 500 and 1,000 families, and a Department of Charities whose cases numbered over 1,000. In addition, relief was given to a number of individuals by some of the settlements, by the probation officers, and by private groups. The number relieved or the amount of material relief were not ascertained and could not be in less than from one to three years. It has developed also that other associations, whose original purposes were of a different character, some purely educational, have had smaller or larger funds to use for relief. In the summer of 1908 requests for information were sent to 422 churches. Of these sixty-one replied and of this number sixty reported that they gave relief. The more one went into this investigation, the more one appreciated the impossibility of concretely recording the number of organizations dealing in material relief. Without in the least attempting to theorize, but drawing the obvious conclusion, it may be said that Pittsburgh's primary charitable impulses to give to the poor were being disintegrated because there was no sufficient relation between the groups and no feeling of joint responsibility. In presenting a rough picture of the whole charitable field in Pittsburgh it is doubtless necessary to remind those who read this that, if the survey had been undertaken in another city, conditions similar in many respects would have been found. Though in certain directions better co-ordination would be found, and in certain other directions developments which are not here present, the fact remains that in all our cities charitable societies simply "grew." Taken in the large there are gaping rents and holes, discordant colors and bad cloth in the fabric of each city's garment. Without the repression of a single individual impulse of the right sort, the writer seriously questions whether eventually we shall not have to apply the rigorous precepts of town planning to the work of proper co-ordination and systematization of charities. Coming to medical care and nursing, the city on October 1, 1908, had fourteen general and seven special hospitals, including two supported by the city for contagious diseases. Fourteen of these reported a total property valuation of $6,848,339; nineteen a bed capacity of 2,268. Thirteen reported their number of free patients for the previous fiscal year as 10,135, the cost of maintenance of these free patients as $339,518. The capacity will soon be increased. Twelve of the above hospitals maintained dispensaries. In addition there were three dispensaries independent of hospital management. One of the three reported patients to the number of 1,955 for one year, another 5,647, the third, a state dispensary for tubercular patients, at the time of the Survey, had not completed a year's work. A valuation of the property could not be obtained. Not included above is the tuberculosis camp maintained by the Department of Charities at the county institutions at Marshalsea. Nine agencies provided nurses to visit the homes of the poor. Of these three were distinct organizations, one only being chartered; two were carried by settlement house associations, two as departments of church work, one by a religious order, and one by a school alumnæ association. So far as observations go the specialized work itself was well done. Yet the nursing associations may be specifically accused of such failure of co-ordination that the nurses were constantly crossing one another's tracks, visiting the same families, instead of having worked out, jointly, a district plan. The welfare of children is of course involved in the agencies named above. In addition there are no less than forty and possibly more institutions for their care. For the especial oversight of children within family circle influences, there is the Juvenile Court Association, two playground associations, and the Children's Aid Society of Allegheny County. These, and other agencies are described in the special article on children. For the joint care of mothers and children there are six fresh air homes and six day nurseries. There are ten institutions to provide temporary shelter, principally, for both men and women. The general intention of these agencies is to set upon their feet people who are without immediate home ties and so return them to normal conditions. Coming to the aged where the fair chance may consist simply in providing suitable institutional care, we find for them no less than eight homes, exclusive of the care provided in the city institutions of Pittsburgh located at Marshalsea and Claremont (formerly a part of the municipality of Allegheny). Six rescue homes for unfortunate women next come into the field of observation. Outside of the necessary care provided by public moneys, there would seem to be very little private provision for the care of defectives, there being for this class only one institution, a home for epileptics. A public wash and bath association, as well as a widows' home association, provide other forms of self-help to women particularly. The former furnishes women with tubs and driers to use for the washes which produce income. The latter lets nineteen houses with a total of 110 rooms at a small rental to the families of widows with limited means, thus providing pleasant sanitary quarters in a good neighborhood. It is significant of the confusion prevailing that even this last association has developed special relief funds of its own. A legal aid society has lately been organized. To this point we have been enumerating associations which, while possessing social purposes, have embodied in their fundamental aims some form of direct relief, material or otherwise, to the individual. There are other agencies purely for social reform which should be cataloged. These associations are primarily concerned with certain forms of so-called preventive philanthropy. The Civic Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the six settlements, the tuberculosis league, the child labor association, have all dealt with specific social problems, to say nothing of the endeavors of the Health Bureau in fighting improper drainage, bad housing and preventable disease and of the city administration in struggling for a better water supply and the diminution of typhoid fever. While both the child agencies and the social reform agencies last cataloged find their proper positions in other lines of the Survey, it is necessary that they be included in this bird's eye view of the whole charity organism. Drawing closer now to the organism from our bird's eye view, we observe four plainly marked divisions. The classification here made is not one which appears in any directory of charities but it is one which is peculiarly adapted to a survey of a field. A different analysis would be required for other kinds of study. We find then four lines of activity: (1) Treatment of Families in their Homes, (2) Neighborhood Aid, (3) Indoor Relief, (4) Social Aid. By (1) we refer not only to material relief but also to all other forms of aid, medical, legal, advisory, in fact to any dealing with individual families in their homes, whether the treatment be mental, moral, physical or environmental. It is with this group that this study deals. By (2) we refer to the satisfaction of the needs of neighborhoods rather than of individuals: to the general activities of settlements, of bath houses, etc., so far as those activities are not manifested in direct civic and social reforms. Of course (3) refers to all forms of institutional care, temporary or permanent,--for children or adults. Number (4) refers to all agencies or activities for civic or social reform. The last three groups are considered in detail by other contributors to the work of the general survey. In Pittsburgh as in other cities the philosophy of individualized charity still holds strongly its position. Individualized charity as against social charity involves the idea that what one does concerns only the doer and the "done to." That necessarily associated with charity is the function of umpire and director has occurred only to the larger societies. In the three last fields of our classification everything tends towards organization of a public character. The very end to be obtained, whether it be to provide hospital care, baths or child labor legislation, requires the co-operation of many people and with co-operation and the more or less resultant publicity the organizers must inevitably sense some sort of public responsibility. In the treatment of families in their homes, however, no such fundamental need of publicity exists. Therefore it is that many people, having perceived human suffering, without thought of the importance of co-relation, of adequate knowledge, or of umpiring, took the easy means of giving money and food and clothing without recognition of anything beyond. Thus, possibly hundreds of individuals and groups are serving simply as distributors of material things. It is true that one of the relief associations maintained a registration system by which people might learn what others were doing for a family, but the information was concerned mostly with the giving or withholding of material relief. More than that, it can scarcely be said that this registration system was sufficiently advertised or advertised with sufficient continuity. Even in communities where a charity organization society continuously advertises its registration system, there is still revealed a wide crudeness of thought which is crippling to any sort of decent social progress. In the city where the confidential exchange of information between societies has been best developed it is a fact that scarcely more than a score of churches register regularly. By not doing so the churches everywhere have put themselves in the wrong, they have not recognized the very sacred and high social function which is involved and which so vitally concerns the social welfare. For it will be observed that there is nothing in the recognition of the high social function which favors the centralization of relief work of any sort. It means only that there shall be a working out together of the family problems and an estimation of the remedies to be applied. Both with the smaller groups and with the larger societies the lack of co-operation has resulted in rather confused umpiring and in the application of wrong remedies. For instance it has been revealed that able-bodied men, with families, have been aided through the public charities department. What they needed and should have had was the careful attention of some private society which would bend every energy to provide work for them. Whatever conditions were responsible for the unemployment of these men (at a time when there was no particular industrial depression) there was only one way of treating them so that their own sense of initiative would not be lost. That was through one of the several private agencies to provide absolutely necessary amounts of relief to each man while pushing him into work. But with certain striking exceptions each one of the agencies was working along irrespective of the activities of others. Few societies felt that to be brought in touch with a family should mean the acceptance of the responsibility for furnishing or securing the total necessary amount of relief, material or otherwise, which might be required. As a field investigator has written: Previous to the organization of the Associated Charities in February, 1908, no center of information existed, and there was practically no attempt at co-operation among the different relief agencies. Indeed, it was tacitly understood, if not openly expressed, that families applying for aid to any agency would go to others. One city official expressed the feeling when he said, "Of course, they go to other societies; we don't give them enough to live on." The shape of the city made communication between the different districts often very difficult in the days before the telephone, and habits formed then are not wholly outlived. The main thoroughfares follow the general direction of the two rivers. These become widely separated by high hills as they extend back from the business district on the "Point," and often one must either go a long way round or climb over to get from one section to another. It was very easy for a family to have its rent paid by a church, to get groceries from the city charities, to secure a nurse if needed, besides miscellaneous aid from one or more societies and charitably inclined individuals without any one of these organizations or persons knowing that another was helping. From May 1, 1908, to September 20, 1908, the Associated Charities investigated 216 families. Of these thirty were "out-of-town" cases and twelve were false addresses, leaving 174 cases tabulated for comparison. The following shows the number of these cases duplicated by different societies and is probably a fair sample of the overlapping constantly going on: No. of cases helped by 11 societies 2 No. of cases helped by 7 societies 2 No. of cases helped by 6 societies 3 No. of cases helped by 5 societies 17 No. of cases helped by 4 societies 12 No. of cases helped by 3 societies 20 No. of cases helped by 2 societies 23 -- Total 79 A more thorough investigation than was possible with the limited number of workers would have shown that many of these cases were also receiving aid from one or more churches or individuals. It should be remembered that this comparatively small list of duplication, only covers the cases where actual investigations were made by the society itself and not the many duplications revealed in the registering of from 7,000 to 9,000 cases. The reason why no tabulations were made of these was that, owing to the incomplete registration, the returns could represent but a very incomplete set of facts much less than in the case of the families actually seen. Duplication of relief without thorough investigations, it need hardly be said, may mean one of two things. It may mean in one instance the dowering of a family which needs something else than financial aid, or it may mean, in another, the inadequate dowering which compels an otherwise decent family to beg from different quarters, thus inculcating the begging habit. It is not an unjustifiable theory to advance that it probably meant the one just as often as it meant the other in the Pittsburgh field because there had not been, previous to the coming of the Associated Charities, those frank and informal conferences between workers in the different societies, which alone can bring about that joint planning for the same families which is not only economic but just and not only just, but humane. Every charity organization society in the country can match these stories of the evils resulting from the lack of a feeling of complete responsibility, which means inevitably unfair umpiring and often no direction at all. For how can there be direction when not all that is being done is known, and when the manner and the character of the remedies are held secret. The Associated Charities workers do not claim that with their presence the uncooperative effects disappear as at the touch of a wand, but that means to bring about complete and, if need be, joint responsibility for doing the right and complete thing for each family is furnished through their offices as meeting places and neutral ground. The great weakness in the treatment of families in their homes, other than in medical and nursing care, is in the lack of thorough knowledge regarding the individual causes of conditions, the individual characteristics and connections and resources (other than material) of families, and a planning upon this knowledge. There is no need to draw illustrations from the Pittsburgh field because they can be drawn from every city, even where a greater degree of co-operation has been developed. There is the instance of the aged mother, once a successful boarding house keeper, assisted by a society to re-establish herself in this business though her increasing infirmities doomed the project to failure. This failure brought not only the mother but her widowed daughter (herself in poor health) and two children into the direst of situations. Then it was found that the money had actually been thrown away because a certain well-to-do-relative in another city had not been followed up. The clue which led in his direction had been covered up during a hurried investigation. When he was informed through correspondence of the situation he immediately made provision for the mother in his own home and for the temporary care of the others until the daughter recovered her health. There is the instance of a man and wife, the man apparently recovering from tuberculosis. No careful physical examination was made either of the husband or wife. Various attempts at finding employment for the husband were made but he began to fail. Then suddenly the wife's condition became alarming and it was discovered that she was in a more advanced stage of the disease than her husband. Meantime the couple had not been assisted in tracing the whereabouts of the husband's parents, supposed to be well-to-do. In the end, fortunately, the couple themselves received word from the parents who were in California prepared to receive the family (which included three young children) and to provide care for the sufferers and if the worst came to give a home to the children. There are the many instances, where material relief has been given to sickly families and the improper sanitation of the neighborhood or the imperfect disinfection of the houses, the causes of the conditions, have not been investigated and rectified. There are the instances where a family, left as the result of an industrial accident without its male bread winner, has not had the kind of assistance which would enable it to secure the proper settlement with the particular industrial plant in which the death occurred. There are the instances where the wayward boy has not been given the specialized training which might have turned him into an interested workman with a constantly increasing salary. There are the instances where widows have been allowed to carry too heavy burdens and where, unknowingly, children have been put illegally to work, through holes in the laws which should be blocked up. There are instances where with the failure to see the male bread winners the whole moral and physical condition of the families has rotted because shiftlessness and intemperance have been allowed to run riot. There are the instances where endless evil has developed when the most hardened of beggars, because of their very vociferousness, have been permitted to set an example of easy living to the honest and toiling people in a whole community. There are the instances where material relief has not been followed by agencies for the development of a better family life: better cooking, better home keeping, a larger fund of recreation, more harmony, better individual development, more thrift. In other words, such a development that there need not again be descent below normal living. In Pittsburgh as elsewhere there has been too much reliance upon visits to the families and upon a superficial sizing up of conditions. As a result there has been too little development of treatment beyond the mere giving or withholding of material relief and of medical and nursing relief. Notable exceptions there are, but on the whole it can but be said that material relief alone, and that in many instances by no means adequate, has bulked too large. The same must be said of outdoor relief everywhere. To-day it requires as much attention for its right development as any other field of social effort. It cannot be said that the outdoor relief agencies of Pittsburgh have been as effective as educators of the community and directors of its charitable impulses as they would have been with proper co-operation. On their own initiative they are now putting an amount of effort, and brains, and heart into the work of co-operation which assures far more definite results when the new order has established itself. For instance, it would have been possible, with proper co-ordination, for the relief agencies to gather a vast mass of data regarding dependency wrought or deepened by two social evils to which Pittsburgh is prone, the prevalence of typhoid fever and the number of uncompensated industrial accidents. It was not possible for those engaged in this survey to obtain any satisfactory data as to the approximate number of applications for aid, due, superficially at least, to these two causes. They have also been unable to obtain reliably complete data regarding the prevalence of tuberculosis in the families to which a helping hand has been extended. Nor could data regarding centers of infection and probable inciting causes of this disease be obtained. It was not possible to ascertain in how many instances physically weakened young men and women could trace as one of the causes of their condition, too early labor for wages. It was not possible to learn in how many families the mental backwardness of the children could be traced to physical condition. Nor, it must again be re-emphasized, do the relief agencies of other cities live up to their responsibilities in this direction. There have been many cities visited by the writer where long established charities, with fairly complete records and with a covering of practically the whole field, have not held in compact shape the illustrations to furnish the background which might cause people to hearken more quickly than anything else. A society, which among other activities, maintained a tuberculosis committee, was unable even to state the number of families, with whom it had come in contact, in which cases of tuberculosis had been discovered. Another city, where there was tolerably good co-operation, and where there had been considerable interest manifested in the housing problem, could not tell from its records, just where in certain specified neighborhoods the most unsanitary houses were located. The writer in this case felt personally responsible so that his position as critic must not be misunderstood. To put it plainly the Survey has only revealed again that in the whole field of outdoor relief there must be a deeper realization of the fact that as umpires in the discrimination of causes, as workers in the right forms of treatment, and as educators in revealing true conditions, there is a very heavy responsibility which all who in any way deal with the dependent or neglected in their homes, must feel. It is because their work brings them into the homes that the responsibility is the greater. Credit is due to the devoted services of many of the workers in Pittsburgh for their own self-sacrifices in order to do satisfactory work. They themselves felt the limitations which the environment of isolation had brought about and they had determined effectively to break the isolation. They alone know the amount of thoroughly good work which has been done in the past. Nor must it be forgotten that during those days of isolation the Association for the Improvement of the Poor steadily maintained a registration system which was used by not a few societies. Illustrations of thoroughly adequate treatment along the lines of material and other relief may be found in this association as well as of others. The idea of co-operation and adequate treatment was there but it required development through united action. Still considering particularly those agencies brought into the families of the poor because of material needs, we can get a much clearer picture of the actual policies involved in their work by an examination of their methods. A description of the modes of procedure of the more important societies will therefore find its place here: City Department of Charities: Relief in the homes is given in groceries, coal and shoes. The method of distribution varies slightly in the two offices: In Pittsburgh baskets containing flour, ham, potatoes, coffee, sugar and soap, valued at two dollars retail price, but costing the department less are given once in two weeks, while on the North Side orders are given on local dealers for the same amount, two dollars. Applicants come to the offices for baskets and stand in line to secure them; among them children were noticed daily. All the cases are supposed to be investigated by a visitor, and the findings reported to the examiner, who decides whether relief shall be given or not. No systematic re-investigation is made and a case continues to receive aid indefinitely although as many cases as possible are dropped at the end of the year. Society 1: Material relief is given in practically the same way as by the city charities, though the amounts are not so uniformly fixed. With exceptions the work however deals largely with the basic needs of families. Special attention is given to some tuberculosis cases. There is investigation by field workers. Society 2: Only general information possible. Average of expenditure to each applicant was a little less than two dollars. Instances were cited of payment of tuition, pensions, etc., and in one case of the purchasing of a tent and necessary equipment to enable a young man with tuberculosis to live in the fresh air. Volunteer investigators. Society 3: This organization's work included the distribution of bushels of coal, meals, free lodging, baskets of provisions, bowls of soup, garments and shoes, blankets, hospital and medical care, transportation secured, families moved, rent secured and paid, gas bills paid, Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets. Society 4: Another important society confines its work largely though not entirely to the giving of baskets of groceries and clothing. Its reports also show expenditures for tuition and board of orphans, burial expenses, etc. The report for the year 1907 showed the number of families aided to be 355, and the amount of money spent $6,562. Volunteer investigators. Society 5: Baskets of groceries, value fifty cents each, are given each week and one load (twenty-five bushels) of coal each month. Rent is also paid in many cases "often for months." Employment is secured whenever possible. Passing from the general agencies to the church societies (which do not ordinarily keep records in any city and which therefore are not included in the consideration of that subject though logically they should be), we find no complete records of work done on the part of the sixty-one churches reporting last summer except that twenty-nine were helping 491 families and that the amount of relief expended by thirty-four was $7,595.29. Under the head of remarks there were indications of some diversification from the stereotyped forms of relief. One church was educating a "bright young girl." One was loaning money. But encouraging as these instances might appear they are offset, by the story of a church worker who had been helping a family for fifteen years without seeing the husband. The thoroughness with which treatment is carried out is partially indicated by the character of the records kept, though good forms may oftentimes cover poor work. On the following page are given typical samples of forms used by three of the more prominent agencies. Below is presented the more exhaustive standard case record card used by some societies in other cities: [Illustration] [Illustration: I.--Meager blank used by Pittsburgh Department of Public Charities.] [Illustration: II.--Blank formerly used by Allegheny City Department of Public Charities,--a much more complete record, abandoned since the merging of the cities.] [Illustration: III.--Blank used by private agency.] The systems pursued by other prominent Pittsburgh agencies are as follows: Society A. Names, addresses, number in family, and religion are noted on blank cards, or written in books. Society B. Record system not in existence. No paid worker. Only record of names and amounts. Society C. Record of cases very meager, consisting only of names and addresses, with a few items of information, such as the number of children, whether married, single, widow or deserted, on cards. Society D. No systematic records. Society E. Clear general statements as to money received and expended but no case records. In addition to such a record card these societies have so called continuation sheets on which chronologically are entered all information or advice obtained and all action taken. It is apparent that there can be no systematic knowledge of families unless there is such systematic keeping of records. The separation of families into the worthy and unworthy can nowhere be found in such records, which reveal instead the innermost causes, the remedies for the removal of the causes and the resources, material or otherwise, at hand to effect the removal. In other words the three fold function; umpire of the fight itself, determiner of immediate remedies, educator of the community to give a fairer show in the future, can only be carried out with such systematic recording. After three months' effort it was found impossible to furnish any approximation of the amount spent annually for material and other outdoor relief in the city of Pittsburgh. These partial returns were obtained: (_Spent in_ _their last fiscal year_ _Agency._ _before the depression._) 9 (of 10) General Relief Societies $78,257.00 City Department of Charities 52,037.11(8 Mos.) 54 (of 422) Churches 22,161.00 4 (of 9) Nursing Societies 7,223.00[6] [6] Exclusive of private relief fund. It is unfortunate, that owing to lack of co-ordination there has been a confusion of function between outdoor relief and neighborhood agencies. Many of the latter have possessed distinctly relief funds and have been relief agencies. It is doubtful if this has been anything but a disadvantage to them. It has divided their attention between two totally different sorts of problems, two sorts which require above all else, concentration. The general isolation of the field has driven them, in many instances, thus to protect their own neighborhoods against neglect. But they have been unable in many instances to deal with these tasks adequately, and their larger feeling of social responsibility has not enabled them to build up much better plans for individual care than agencies, directly charged with this burden. They have been hampered by their own relief efforts and their legitimate work has suffered thereby. They have felt much more clearly their responsibilities as umpires of the social struggle and educators of the social conscience, than the great bulk of the strictly relief agencies. The confusion of their function, before mentioned, has been, it would appear, a rather unfortunate departure which still further muddied a not clear stream. With reference to the organization of the Associated Charities, it may be stated that the demand for it came both from the reputable societies themselves and the business community, the heavy contributors to charity. Greater harmony of action, greater efficiency in action, these were the common aims of the coalition. Several attempts had been made during the past ten years to place the charitable work of Pittsburgh on an organized basis, but without tangible results until February 21, 1908, when the Associated Charities received its charter. Its office was opened April 22 and the work of securing the co-operation of individuals, churches, relief societies and other charitable agencies, began. The society has grown rapidly along lines of work successfully followed by similar organizations in 172 American cities. It is already serving as a center of intercommunication between churches, social and charitable organizations, institutions and individuals who are interested in charitable and social service. It has already done much towards systematizing the charitable work of the city, with a view of checking the evils of unorganized charity and of making every charitable dollar do one hundred cents' worth of charitable work. While the force and equipment of the new association are necessarily small, they are growing, and the association hopes to increase its facilities, so as to keep pace with the rapidly increasing, heavy demand upon it. The constitution of this organization provides for a central council, in addition to the usual board of trustees. The council consists of one delegate elected by each of the charitable, religious and social agencies which have joined the Associated Charities. Besides these delegates, the central council includes, as ex-officio members, the mayor, director of the Department of Charities, director of public safety, director of public works, superintendent of the Bureau of Health, and superintendent of the Bureau of Police. The province of the council is to promote the development of co-operation between individual societies, to pass upon questions affecting the general welfare of the poor and the charitable activities of the city. By October 31, 1908, thirty-one societies were affiliated in the central council and the registration bureau contained 7,039 records. The bylaws of the society provide that anything which involves the welfare of the city or its social conditions may become its concern. Thus as the servant of the charitable agencies of the city it will often serve as the rallying point for social advance though it would be the last to affirm that it will be the only rallying point for the general spirit of good feeling which is slowly manifesting itself among the social organizations of the city. By the presence of this co-operating center, the co-ordination of the work of the charities of Pittsburgh should bring about: 1. Adequate material relief, when actually required. For not only will the total amounts necessary for individual families be carefully considered and worked out by joint committees but the relief may be gathered from a number of sources, from relatives, friends, employers, societies and charitably disposed individuals. The society has no relief fund of its own but its function is to organize relief. 2. The repression of mendicancy and the repression of illegitimate charitable schemes by the bureaus of registration and information and in cases of necessity, the prosecution of imposters. 3. The securing of employment, rather than the giving of material relief, wherever this is possible. 4. The inculcation of habits of thrift and providence, the development of industrial education. 5. The co-operative treatment of families to bring all members of such families up to the highest possible mental, moral and physical plane, not only to conserve the well-being of the individuals themselves but to prevent the weakening of society by adding in successive generations to those who are sub-normal (such as weak minded children). 6. Such special or institutional care of the deficient as shall work towards the same end. 7. The crystallization of the sentiment of the charitable forces of Pittsburgh, with reference to necessary social reforms. 8. Greater efficiency in the business affairs and records of the individual societies, thus imparting greater "doing" power to the same amount of charitable resources, and creating a body of social facts which can be made the basis for sound public opinion with respect to the living conditions of the community. Here then has been the evolution. Individualized impulses developing specialized organizations in an un-plotted field. The conception of individual well-doing with no conception of the general social responsibility. Added to this the growth of more or less unnecessary, weak, and in some cases fraudulent, charitable enterprises (to which we have not alluded before) because of the ease with which support could be obtained in a community generous to a fault. This support gained too without necessarily bringing with it any sense of responsibility on the part of the contributors. There is a well corroborated story, vouched for by a leading professional man of the city, that for years a woman had collected about $7,500 annually for a fresh air home which cared for only a few children. The collections continued until he and others had a private investigation made and discovered the truth. It is comparatively easy to secure the assent of many men to allow their names to be used on boards of directors if no service is required. This is not a bad practice when such men know the responsible directors and can safely vouch for their actions. But care was not always taken to ascertain this. * * * * * THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT AND THE HOUSING SITUATION The direct work of investigation in the field of housing reform, carried on by the Pittsburgh Survey, has been intentionally limited to the question of sanitary regulation. That was the first prime need to be met. The work has been carried on under the supervision of Lawrence Veiller, the foremost authority on housing reform in this country. Mr. Veiller was the secretary of the New York State Tenement House Commission in 1900, first deputy commissioner of the New York City Tenement House Department, and is director of the Department for the Improvement of Social Conditions of the New York Charity Organization Society. In illustrations and text, no attempt is made to present a review of the development of model towns in the Pittsburgh District, or the construction of single and two-family houses. These are matters which will properly come before committees on building construction and town planning of the new Pittsburgh Civic Improvement Commission. Real estate dealers and builders have not been inactive in Pittsburgh; but the situation is so serious as to demand the development of a constructive public policy. It demands such town planning and traction development as will open up wider suburban areas and relieve congestion. It demands such radical modification of the tax system, as will put a premium, as in metropolitan Boston, on home building; rather than a premium, as in Pittsburgh, on the speculative holding of unimproved land. Pittsburgh might well be the first city to try out in America the co-operative building scheme which has gained so much momentum in England, and by which the shifting industrial worker owns not a house, but stock in a housing company, which builds wholesale. Such a plan would admirably supplement the operations of the realty companies and building and loan associations in housing the growing industrial force of the steel district, and would offer an opportunity for investment at five per cent and the public good such as opens in no other direction to the man of large means and large imagination who would leave his impress on the Pittsburgh District. --DIRECTOR PITTSBURGH SURVEY. * * * * * Such a condition could not go on indefinitely. The leaders in the societies themselves insisted upon a better sensing of social responsibility, which meant simply the better realization of one principle, co-operation, the signpost to the second stage of growth. This led not only to the manifold kinds of co-operation made possible by the formation of an Associated Charities, but to a joining of forces in other directions. So the march of social reform goes on, with the charitable agencies of the city more and more fulfilling their function of rightly estimating causes and tendencies, of providing the fair chance to the dependent and defenceless by intelligent, co-ordinated, family treatment, and of educating the public towards the need of social legislation and regeneration. [Illustration: OLD PLANING MILL KNOWN AS TAMMANY HALL, TORN DOWN THROUGH THE ACTIVITY OF THE BOARD OF HEALTH. Twenty-five families were formerly housed here in 26 rooms. Building to left continues to be occupied as tenement--10 families and 2 stores occupying 13 rooms. To the rear can be seen remnant of the planing mill. Three families occupy three rooms reached through the doors opening off the gallery.] [Illustration] THE HOUSING SITUATION IN PITTSBURGH F. ELISABETH CROWELL DEPARTMENT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS, NEW YORK CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY Last winter, the Pittsburgh Survey, co-operating with the Bureau of Health, conducted a special investigation of the housing situation in Pittsburgh. Its purpose was a general stock-taking from the point of view of sanitary regulation. Evil conditions were found to exist in every section of the city. Over the omnipresent vaults, graceless privy sheds flouted one's sense of decency. Eyrie rookeries perched on the hillsides were swarming with men, women and children,--entire families living in one room and accommodating "boarders" in a corner thereof. Cellar rooms were the abiding places of other families. In many houses water was a luxury, to be obtained only through much effort of toiling steps and straining muscles. Courts and alleys fouled by bad drainage and piles of rubbish were playgrounds for rickety, pale-faced, grimy children. An enveloping cloud of smoke and dust through which light and air must filter made housekeeping a travesty in many neighborhoods; and every phase of the situation was intensified by the evil of overcrowding,--of houses upon lots, of families into houses, of people into rooms. Old one-family houses were found converted into multiple dwellings, showing that Pittsburgh's housing problem threatened to become a tenement-house problem as well. To cope with these conditions was a Bureau of Health, hampered by an insufficient appropriation, an inadequate force of employes, and in the large an uneducated, indifferent, public opinion. A report of the investigation was published, and was used by the housing committee of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce in its campaign of education in support of ordinances then before councils. These ordinances were in line with recommendations of Superintendent James F. Edwards of the Bureau of Health and the city administration. Councils voted an increase of $20,000 to the bureau for its work in this field. The force of employes in the tenement house division was increased from one chief inspector, three inspectors and a part-time stenographer, to one chief inspector of experience, ten inspectors, one clerk and one stenographer on full time. A new system of records was inaugurated and comprehensive measures were undertaken to obtain the complete census of all tenements in Greater Pittsburgh. Subsequently, an ordinance was passed providing for the compulsory registration of tenement houses.[7] Here, then, has been a long stride ahead in the course of housing reform in Pittsburgh, which had been inaugurated several years before by Williams H. Matthews, headworker of Kingsley House, and the leaders of the Civic Club,--pioneer work which had secured the provisions of the existing state tenement house law and the creation of a tenement division under the Bureau of Health. [7] Other ordinances affecting the housing situation have been put before councils through the instigation of Dr. Edwards. One provided for a special bond issue, [carried by the people in November], for the erection of furnaces to consume rubbish and ashes: and it is to be hoped provision will be made for its collection. Hitherto the city has been content to collect and dispose of garbage only. Rubbish and ashes in unsightly piles accumulate in back-yards until a sanitary inspector serves notice on the householder to remove them at his own expense. Another ordinance drawn for the purpose of giving the health authorities power to vacate cellar rooms in dwellings other than tenements, failed to pass. [Illustration: SAW MILL RUN. Rear view showing dry closets which emptied at edge of stream.] [Illustration: TENEMENT OF OLD DWELLING TYPE.] This leads us to the present housing situation in Pittsburgh,--a situation which should be seen in its right proportions. First, should be remembered the decades of neglect. The process of cleaning up and rehabilitation is a ten years' job. The very fact that ordinances have been passed, a tenement house census taken and fifty thousand people supplied with sanitary accommodations points the way to the long, exacting work ahead in devising legislation and enforcing it in order to bring existing structures up to what may be called the new Pittsburgh standard. In the second place, the tenement house dwellings for three or more families are, when all is said and done, but a small part of the homes of the wage-earning population. The great housing problem in Pittsburgh is that of the one-or two-family dwelling. Here is a field where even more exacting sanitary work and regulation must be done in the ensuing years. In the third place, the mill towns, as well as the city, present every phase of the evils of bad housing. It is a district problem, then, for the leaders in Pittsburgh. Finally, behind all these existing unsanitary conditions demanding regulation, is the shortage of houses throughout the Pittsburgh District which will reassert itself with returning prosperity. As a result of the campaign of last winter, the Bureau of Health is now for the first time adequately equipped to get at the existing tenement abuses and to point out the need for more housing accommodations,--new low-rental houses,--if the work of reducing overcrowding and eradicating disease breeding quarters is to be carried out on a comprehensive scale. [Illustration: CLOSET UNDER PORCH SHOWN ON SECOND PAGE FOLLOWING.] [Illustration: PITTSBURGH. A tool for producing pig iron in tonnage that beats the world.] The tenement house census shows a total of 3,364 tenement houses in the Greater City, and puts in the possession of the department a body of facts bearing upon the localization of bad housing conditions throughout Pittsburgh. This was the first logical step to be taken toward dealing intelligently and efficiently with the situation. To the accomplishment of this task the main energies of the tenement house division have been devoted up to the present time. From every source in every quarter the cry of "hard times" has been insistent and the authorities up to the present time have deemed it inexpedient to force drastic plans for improvement. They have endeavored to keep things clean, and have insisted upon necessary repairs, but orders relating to structural changes have been held in abeyance pending a revival of more prosperous financial conditions. The process of eliminating privy vaults, however, the most threatening sanitary ill, has been vigorously continued. Thus far 5,723 vaults have been filled up and abandoned and 9,323 sanitary water closets for the use of 10,471 families installed in their places. A census of the first twenty wards shows a total of 5,793 vaults still in use in these wards alone. No figures are as yet available for the remaining twenty-four wards of the Old City,--or the fifteen wards on the North Side. [Illustration: PITTSBURGH: EQUIPMENT FOR HOME LIFE. Four houses, one behind another, climbing up hillside between streets. Under the porch to the left were two filthy closets without flushing apparatus. They were the only provision for five families in the first two houses.] [Illustration: CLEARING THE VAULTS OUT OF PITTSBURGH. Each dot stands for five vaults. Illustrated by the first twenty wards. 8,567 vaults as found by present health administration. The situation to-day: 2,774 removed, 5,793 to go.] Some of the worst plague spots in Pittsburgh have been eradicated despite the fact that, by veto of the governor of Pennsylvania, power to condemn insanitary structures was not given to the health authorities. That much remains to be done is, however, as true as it was a year ago, as I found on a recent reinspection. "Tammany Hall," Pittsburgh's classic example of bad housing is no more. Unable to vacate by process of law the old planing mill which had been converted into a tenement, the authorities piled violation notice upon notice at such a rate that the owner found the old shack a losing investment, and at last agreed to tear it down. He told me sorrowfully that if "they" had let him alone until September, he could have made $1,800 on the place,--an amount sufficient to pay his taxes to the city that was ruining him. It seemed a pity some method could not be found by which he might be forced to clean out another choice bit of property which he was renting,--a long, narrow, two-story brick tenement, where ten families and two stores are occupying thirteen rooms. The water supply was a sink in one apartment, and another on the second story floor and a hydrant in the yard. Here also were the closets which are shared by seven families, living in the houses adjoining. [Illustration: STEWART'S ROW. Showing proximity of privy vaults to kitchen. Houses dilapidated.] Another familiar eye-sore on Bedford avenue was still standing,--worse still, it was rented out, at least in spots,--three families in the front, and three in the rear buildings,--Negroes and whites. It looked more dilapidated and dirtier than when I visited it last winter. The owner was notified over a year ago that the houses must be repaired and certain alterations made if they were to be occupied as tenements. She pleaded a heavy mortgage and a dying sister. The mortgage still holds, the sister is still dying, she is unable to find a purchaser for the property, and in the meantime two-room "apartments" are still to be secured for twelve dollars a month, with all ancient inconveniences:--water to be obtained from a hydrant in the yard, and shared possibly with eleven families; foul privy compartments also to be shared with neighboring families, and perchance an occasional passerby. None but the lowest class of tenants will live in these to-be-abandoned dwellings, and their continued existence constitutes a grave danger from a sanitary viewpoint, not only to the immediate neighborhood, but to the entire city. So long as the law permits such breeding places for disease, so long will the fight against filth diseases be a losing one. Stewart's Row, on West Carson street, as I found it late this fall, was evidently destined to maintain the standard of the neighborhood in the matter of bad housing as originally set by its neighbor, Painter's Row; two wooden rows of two-family houses, rickety, leaking, sheltering thirteen families; two vaults at the rear, one with contents exposed; two hydrants the sole water supply; an obstructed drain; the hillside decorated with a disgusting combination of waste water, garbage, and rubbish. Allegheny has added her quota to the problem of housing in Greater Pittsburgh. The tenement house inspectors in the course of their census-taking have unearthed more than one example of rank conditions on the North Side. In one tenement the ground floor was occupied as a stable; a cellar revealed the piled up accumulations of years; privy vaults flourish and household water supply is noticeable chiefly because of its inadequacy. Over one-fourth of the entire number of tenements found in Pittsburgh are located on the North Side. According to the chief inspector at least fifty per cent of these are in a bad condition. The Tenement House Department has thus found plenty of work ready at hand for its inspectors. Of the 3,364 tenement houses enumerated by the census, nearly fifty per cent are old dwellings originally planned and constructed to accommodate one family. Frequently, no provision is made to meet the demands of the additional number of families. Privacy is destroyed, closet facilities and water supply are inadequate, cellar and basement rooms are made to do duty as living and sleeping rooms and there is no protection from fire danger. Of the remaining number of tenements less than one-half are new-law tenements. _TENEMENT CENSUS._ _Nationality._ _No. of Fam._ _Nationality._ _% of Total._ American 5,831 American 47.41 Polish 2,054 Slavs 24.64 Hebrew 1,077 Hebrew 8.76 German 963 German 7.83 Negro 597 Negro 4.85 Italian 443 Italian 3.60 Slovak 360 British 1.44 Bohemian 176 Misc. 1.47 Croatian 165 ------ Hungarian 113 100.00 Irish 104 Syrian 98 Lithuanian 67 Russian 57 English 50 Greek 37 Austrian 31 French 21 Welsh 12 Scotch 11 Swedish 10 Servian 8 Finnish 4 Chinese 7 Norwegian 1 Spanish 1 Turkish 1 Danish 1 ------ Tot'l No. of fam. 12,300--No. of people 42,699 No. of fam. --Boarders 3,200 taking boarders 1,532 ------ Total population in tenements 45,899 The accompanying tables show the various nationalities which recruit tenement dwellers and the share contributed by each. Nearly one-half are American born; one-fourth are Slavs. Next in numerical importance are the Hebrews, then the Germans, Negroes, Italians and British. The remaining scattered groups are included under the heading "Miscellaneous." Pittsburgh's tenements shelter 12,300 families, containing 42,699 people; 1,532 families take in boarders and of these boarders there are 3,200. The total number of people living under tenement conditions (three or more families to the house), is 45,899. The welfare of over forty thousand people is dependent then on tenement house standards and their enforcement in Pittsburgh. This is perhaps eight per cent of the total population, a small proportion when compared with New York for instance. The primary housing problem of the wage-earning population in Pittsburgh, remains then not a tenement problem in the strict legal sense, but a one- and two-family dwelling problem. This is the aspect of the situation which Pittsburgh must face in its entirety if the city is to profit by the experience of older communities. "If you think Pittsburgh is bad, you ought to see Glasgow," said one man. "Look at the tenements in New York," said another. Yet, if the city's phenomenal growth continues to be equalled by her phenomenal indifference to the necessity of raising the housing standard for her least paid laborers, the day may come, and soon, when Pittsburgh will make a close third to these cities. Because of hard times, vast numbers of immigrants have left Pittsburgh, and temporarily the rental agencies have plenty of idle houses upon their lists. These houses throw light on the situation. Two, three, four, and five-room apartments are available at an average monthly rental of from two and a half to five dollars a room in many sections of the city. There are also some single houses to be obtained for the same price. Over half of these dwellings are without any modern sanitary accommodations, and many are in a wretched state of repair. The majority of the houses are in the most sordid quarters of the city where living is high, at any price. Certain dwellings are offered especially for foreigners or Negroes, dilapidation, lack of conveniences, and an undesirable locality being distinguishing features of these houses. [Illustration: COMBINATION REAR TENEMENT AND ALLEY DWELLING, WEBSTER AVENUE. NEGROES AND WHITES LIVE HERE.] We label the foreigner as an undesirable neighbor; we offer him the meanest housing accommodations at our disposal; we lump him with the least desirable classes of our citizens; then we marvel at his low standards of living. Give him better, cheaper, houses where he may have a decent and comfortable home, instead of a mere shelter from the elements, unwholesome, overcrowded and expensive, and then see what his standard of living would be. The natural conformation of the land with its steep declivities, and its winding, tortuous valleys, has added much to the difficulty of the housing situation. Adequate transportation facilities would open up territory on the South and West sides where countless people could be housed. The trend of the mills away from the city to nearby river sites, attracted by lower tax rates and unlimited space will offer further relief and improvement, especially where great employers of labor, in laying out their plants as at Mariana, and Vandergrift and Gary take heed of the proper housing and sanitation of the towns that will grow up about them. As the situation stands to-day, however, bad housing conditions are multiplying in the surrounding industrial towns; and they must face the same problem. Its seriousness demands the formulation of public policies that shall encourage every form of building operation that will produce sanitary houses at low rentals, whether they are private homes or company houses of creditable standard, or dwellings put up by building and loan companies, commercial builders, or co-operative housing companies, along English lines. A Chamber of Commerce report states: "The city of Pittsburgh, along with its vast industrial development, has grown so phenomenally in population during the past ten years that it has been clearly impossible for the growth in housing accommodation to keep pace. Careful and comprehensive investigations show conclusively that the housing facilities of the Greater City have completely broken down, not only in point of reasonably proper conditions but in amount of available real estate." [Illustration: VIEW OF YARD SHOWN OPPOSITE. Corner of rear buildings. Pump in foreground of picture opposite is the sole water supply for both rows of houses. Here rubbish is added to dilapidation.] "We have not the time, nor is it our function to investigate the housing situation of the city. Let the charitable or philanthropic agencies make a systematic study of the evils that exist, and we will gladly lend the support of our influence to any recommendations which they may offer," said a leading spirit in one of Pittsburgh's great commercial organizations. To this man the proper housing of the workingman had a charitable aspect. "We don't want to go into the housing business. We are manufacturers, not real estate dealers. We may be forced to build houses in certain new districts in order to attract and hold labor, but in an old, settled community let the laboring man take care of himself. We don't believe in paternalism." I quote the president of a great steel company. Said a prominent real estate man: "There certainly are other more attractive investments for private capital than the building of small houses,--taxes are high, the demand for such dwellings has fallen off considerably and the returns are uncertain, owing to the difficulty of collecting rents in times such as these." And the laboring man says: "I want a decent home at a moderate rental, within reasonable distance of my work." Can he get it? Rigorous sanitary work by the health authorities will help. But more than that is needed. [Illustration: PHIPPS MODEL TENEMENT. Rebecca Street, Allegheny, October 21, 1908. Four room apartments rent from $4.25 to $5 a week; three room apartments from $3.25 to $4 per week. Steam heat, gas slot meter, sinks and water closets in each apartment.] [Illustration: YARD SHOWING BATTERIES OF PRIVY VAULTS AND DILAPIDATED CONDITION OF STEPS LEADING TO THIRD STORY. TWO ROOM APARTMENTS RENT FOR $12 PER MONTH.] PITTSBURGH'S HOUSING LAWS EMILY WAYLAND DINWIDDIE SECRETARY NEW YORK TENEMENT HOUSE COMMITTEE; FORMER SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR OCTAVIA HILL ASSOCIATION, PHILADELPHIA One would expect to see bad housing in Pittsburgh as a natural result of the congested condition of the city, partially hemmed in by waterways, and of the presence of an increasing population of factory workers ready to accept whatever living accommodations are available near their places of employment. Unhealthful homes, however, are especially dangerous in Pittsburgh, where their influence has been combined with that of city crowding, and of smoky, gas-laden air and polluted water. Badly constructed houses and defective drainage are an evil in the case of the country laborer, but far worse for a Pittsburgh factory employe. The tenement, with its usual accompaniments, has been a growing menace, although it has not yet obtained so great a hold as in many large cities. In 1900, one-ninth of the total population of the city was living in buildings now legally defined as "tenements,"--that is, occupied by three or more families each. Since that time it is said that the proportion of tenements and tenement dwellers has become considerably larger. The city has recognized its dangers and a beginning has been made in the framing of state legislation and city ordinances to meet them. The housing and health laws applying to Pittsburgh in many respects are like those for Philadelphia. There is no department of health, but there is a bureau of health in the Department of Public Safety, and similarly a bureau of building inspection. The powers of the Bureau of Health in relation to housing conditions are more limited than those of corresponding departments in many other cities in the lack of authority to vacate buildings unfit for habitation. The writer had occasion to visit in Pittsburgh a large ramshackle frame tenement house, insufficiently lighted and ventilated, dirty and miserably overcrowded. The building, which had originally been a mill, was obviously unfit for occupation. For some time "Tammany Hall" had been almost as notorious in Pittsburgh as the infamous "Gotham Court" was in New York. The whole frame work was so poorly constructed that it seemed hopeless that the owner would consider improvements worth while for a building of this character, yet the Bureau of Health could not have the house vacated, and the tenants continued to live in their wretched quarters.[8] [8] After long delays this house has now been torn down. The Bureau of Health took a determined stand in requiring compliance with the law if the building was to continue to be occupied as a tenement, and the owner finally became wearied and had the house destroyed. Since 1867, one year after its creation, the Board of Health in New York has had authority to vacate buildings unfit for occupation, and in 1887 it was expressly included in the law that this power applied to any building "unfit for human habitation because of defects in drainage, plumbing, ventilation, or the construction of the same, or because of the existence of a nuisance on the premises, and which is likely to cause sickness among its occupants." This provision is still in force at the present day and has been extended to the Tenement House Department as well. In the course of a year the latter department alone vacated between one and two hundred houses. Similar powers are held in other cities. In Boston and Chicago they are exercised. In Washington many buildings have been not only vacated, but demolished. Nor is this authority confined to the largest cities; Jersey City, with a population 100,000 less than Pittsburgh's, and Rochester, with 40,000 less than Jersey City, both have health boards with full powers in this regard. [Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF PERSONS PER ACRE IN EACH WARD IN 1900 (U.S. CENSUS FIGURES--)] [Illustration: ONE OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS.] Apart from this lack, the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health in relation to existing houses other than tenements, has under state law much the same general authority and obligations as in other cities. Its duty is to have nuisances abated and conditions dangerous to health removed. Specific provisions, however, affecting the proper maintenance of one-and two-family dwellings are almost entirely lacking, although these are found in Pittsburgh in much greater numbers than the tenement houses, and as shown in recent investigations, are greatly in need of regulation. The state laws contain practically no requirements for them except in regard to the cleaning of privy-vaults and to plumbing. There is no city sanitary code. A general state health law of 1895 gives the director of the Department of Public Safety in conjunction with the Bureau of Health, power to prescribe rules and regulations for enforcing the provisions of the act, but the power has never been exercised to frame sanitary requirements for dwelling houses. Dark, damp cellar rooms, wholly under ground, one "town pump" serving as the sole water supply for thirteen houses; water-closets in dark unventilated holes under sidewalks, are examples of conditions found in Pittsburgh, and not definitely prohibited except in tenement houses. An ordinance to prevent cellar occupancy and to provide for the cleaning up of unsanitary conditions in houses other than tenements was introduced in councils the past year by the Chamber of Commerce, but it failed to pass. Such absence of requirements tends seriously to block the sanitary improvement of the smaller houses. Specific mandatory provisions make for uniform, fair treatment, requiring as much of one house owner as of another. They give efficient health authorities a stronger case in dealing with offenders and make it more difficult for inefficient ones to evade their responsibilities. A code is needed. * * * * * ... PROSPECTUS ... =THE TENEMENT IMPROVEMENT COMPANY,= Modeled after the Octavia Hill Association of Philadelphia, was formed for the betterment of the housing of the poor of Pittsburgh, for the following reasons: First. There is no tenement house commissioner in Pittsburgh. Second. Laws relating to the water supply, sewerage, garbage collecting, overcrowding and use of houses for immoral purposes, are either not in existence or not enforced: Third. There are within a radius of twenty-five miles of Pittsburgh 35,000 Slavs, 4,000 Bohemians, 30,000 Poles, 10,000 Croatians, 8,000 Ruthenians, 1,000 Russians, 2,000 Servians, 35,000 Italians: these low-class foreigners must of necessity overcrowd the already congested districts. Fourth. Conditions such as these make for moral and physical contagion, intemperance, pauperism, crime, anarchy and the destruction of the home. Fifth. This city is already aroused to the necessity of caring for the children before they become criminals, but these efforts are of little value unless strengthened by the influence of decent and respectable homes. Sixth. Pittsburgh, in proportion to its wealth and prosperity, has done nothing to improve the housing conditions of the very poor. =The Purpose of the Company= is to buy, build or remodel tenements in the worst localities, put them in sanitary condition, install tenants of moral character at the same rents paid before and have weekly visits of inspection made by women rent collectors. The Company will agree to manage, on these same lines, tenement houses for property holders on commission. * * * * * FOLDER OF 1893. The beginning of housing reform in Pittsburgh. * * * * * An important ordinance, dealing with one unsanitary feature of the city, was passed by councils in 1901. This makes it unlawful to continue the existence of cesspools and privy-vaults on any lot contiguous to a public sewer. A state law of 1901 prohibited the construction of a new cesspool or privy-vault on premises where a sewer was adjacent, and the same prohibition was previously contained in the plumbing regulations of the Bureau of Health, issued in 1895; but existing privy-vaults are made unlawful only by the ordinance of 1901. This provision is of great value. The privy-vault may be tolerated in country districts, but in small city yards, close to kitchens and bedrooms, groceries and butcher shops, its dangers are increased a thousand fold. The risk is especially great where typhoid is prevalent, as is the case in Pittsburgh, where as far back as the health records go the disease has been practically epidemic and where up to 1908 the typhoid rate was higher than in any other city. That the contagion of typhoid fever is contained in the discharges of the patient, and that the specific organism may live in these for a long period is well known, but only in the past decade has the part played by house flies in the dissemination of the disease been emphasized: "Flies are attracted to all kinds of filth. A fly after lighting on the discharges from a typhoid patient thrown into one of the vaults may have on its legs the specific bacteria and can then carry the infection from place to place; it may be to the food of the nearest neighbor, or to that in a nearby street stand or shop, or it is possible it may carry it to a greater distance." For house drainage, Pittsburgh has a good plumbing code in its detailed provisions similar to those in New York and Philadelphia. It is in the form of a state act, passed in 1901, and responsibility for its enforcement rests in the Bureau of Health. Besides containing strict requirements for new work, it gives the bureau certain important powers with reference to plumbing in existing buildings. [Illustration: THE FRANKLIN FLATS OF THE TENEMENT IMPROVEMENT OF PITTSBURGH. THE ONLY MODEL TENEMENT IN THE OLD CITY.] Tenement houses,--that is, buildings occupied by three or more families,--are the subject of special legislation. Two tenement laws were enacted in 1903. One applying principally to the maintenance of tenement buildings is enforced by the Bureau of Health. It forbids the use of tenement cellars for living purposes; a cellar being defined as a "story more than one-half below the street or ground level." It permits living in basement rooms only when they are eight and one-half feet high and are properly lighted and ventilated according to the specific terms of the law, and are not damp or otherwise unfit for habitation. It requires for every room in existing tenements either a window equal in size to one-tenth of the floor area of the room, and opening upon the street or alley, or upon a yard or court, with a sectional area of not less than twenty-five square feet; or else a fifteen square foot window opening to an adjoining outside room in the same apartment. No rooms may be occupied unless they contain seven hundred cubic feet of air space, nor unless they are eight feet high from floor to ceiling in every part, except that attic rooms need be eight feet high in only one-half their area. Overcrowding is prohibited by the requirement that in any room there must be four hundred cubic feet of air space for each adult, and two hundred for each child occupying the room. In new tenement houses an independent water supply is required for every suite of rooms; in existing tenement buildings, or buildings hereafter converted to tenement use, there must be a water supply on every floor, accessible to all tenants on the floor without the necessity for their passing through any apartment but their own. The space under all sinks is required to be left open, without enclosing woodwork. A water-closet is required for every apartment in a new tenement building, except that where apartments consist of but one or two rooms, one closet for three rooms is sufficient. In existing tenement houses one closet for two apartments is required, and for existing buildings converted to tenement use after the passage of the law, one closet for six rooms, but not less than one to a floor. Water-closets located in the yard are permitted where the Bureau of Health considers this arrangement necessary. [Illustration: MRS. FRANKLIN P. IAMS. Mrs. Iams, Miss Kate C. McKnight, E. Z. Smith, and other leaders of the Civic Club of Allegheny County, have been among the pioneer workers in housing reform in Pittsburgh.] Cleanliness and good repair of all parts of the house are required. The keeping of horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats or poultry in tenement houses is prohibited, also the use of any part of a tenement house for a stable or for the storage of anything dangerous to life or health. The keeping of inflammable or combustible material under any stairway in a tenement house is prohibited. The act prescribes fines for violation and makes it mandatory upon the Bureau of Health to employ one or more special tenement house inspectors to inspect tenements and see that the requirements of the law are enforced. The main points of the law are excellent, but it contains an undesirable feature in placing a premium upon the conversion of existing buildings to tenement uses. There seems scarcely room for question that if the working population of the city must be crowded into multiple dwellings, it is better for it to be into houses constructed and properly fitted for the purpose. But the law encourages the squeezing of three or more families into old, ill-adapted houses, erected for other purposes. A new house may not be built for tenement uses unless it has a separate sink for every suite of rooms, and a water-closet for every suite, or where suites consist of but one or two rooms each, a water-closet for every three rooms; but an old building, not constructed for the purpose, may at any time be made to serve as a tenement house if it has a sink and a water-closet on every floor, regardless of how many families may be occupying the floor, providing only that there is at least one water-closet for six rooms. A landlord may lawfully turn an old dilapidated mill into a tenement as in the case previously cited and provide only two sinks (one in a restaurant) and a yard hydrant for twenty-five families, but if he wishes to build a new tenement for this number of families the law requires him to put in twenty-five sinks. To aid in the enforcement of the above law there was enacted in 1908 an ordinance requiring all tenement houses in the city to be registered in the offices of the Bureau of Health, and providing penalties for failure to comply. An act of 1895 established a Bureau of Building Inspection in the city Department of Public Safety. Officials of this bureau are required to examine buildings in the course of construction or alteration, and houses reported in an insecure or dangerous condition. The superintendent and inspectors, as in other cities, are required to be men of practical experience in work connected with building construction, but must not be engaged in such work while holding office. Plans and specifications for all new construction or extensive alteration work must be filed with the bureau, and work of this character may not be carried on without a permit from the bureau, to be granted within ten days, when the plans and specifications conform to law. Where a permit is refused, the party aggrieved may appeal to a commission, to be appointed by the director of the Department of Public Safety, and to consist of three persons, either master builders, civil engineers, or architects; but authority is in no case granted to this commission to set aside or alter any provisions of the act, or to require the issuance of a permit for a building to be constructed otherwise than as required by the act. Such a fixed law without discretionary powers granted to the building inspecting officials, or to the Bureau of Appeals, is an important safeguard to the community. The experience of New York affords conclusive evidence of the danger of an opposite policy. For example, previous to 1901, the laws applying to New York fixed a limit to the percentage of the lot which might be covered over by a new tenement building, requiring the remainder to be left vacant, in order to provide proper yard and court space for light and ventilation. But the superintendent of buildings was granted power to modify this requirement, and the result was that it was practically nullified. The New York Tenement House Commission of 1900 examined several hundred new buildings erected under the law, in the Borough of Manhattan, and found that only one per cent had the prescribed reasonable air-space. In theory, discretionary powers have advantages in giving a law sufficient flexibility to meet varying conditions, but in practice, where granted to modify reasonable legislation, they place worthy officials in the difficult position of being obliged to refuse,--in opposition to any influence that may be brought to bear,--to exercise discretion plainly permitted to them, and they open to unworthy officials of all grades innumerable opportunities for corruption and unjust discrimination. In Pittsburgh the specific provisions in relation to details of building construction are incorporated in the main in state laws, but there are also certain city ordinances regulating building construction. Building requirements affecting sanitation and safety in dwellings for one or two families, apart from those enforced by the Bureau of Health and previously referred to, are few in number, although in Pittsburgh the great majority of the population is housed in buildings of this character, making the situation a vastly different one from that in New York, where seventy-one per cent of the families live in multiple dwellings and the proper control of these is the important matter. [Illustration: ROBERT GARLAND. Chairman of the Housing Committee, Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce.] A few provisions affecting all dwellings, which may be mentioned, are a requirement that beneath new houses cellars shall extend under the whole building and be ventilated from both ends, and that in low, damp, or made ground, the bottom of all cellars shall be covered with bricks, concrete or asphalt, at least three inches deep. Also every new dwelling house must have an open space attached to it at the rear or side, equal to at least 144 square feet clear, unobstructed by any overhanging structure. Proper rain leaders must be provided to conduct water from the roof to the ground or sewer, in such a way as to protect walls and foundations. There are also restrictions in regard to frame extensions and frame sheds, provisions for roof exits, giving means of escape in case of fire, and requirements for strength of construction. Comparing Pittsburgh's housing laws with the new building code of Cleveland, Ohio,--a city with somewhat similar conditions, brings out striking defects in the former. For example, Cleveland, for new one-and two-family dwellings, has excellent detailed requirements as to the percentage of the lot which may be covered by dwellings; as to the sizes of courts and air-shafts, the provision of intakes to give a current of air through enclosed courts, the sizes of yards, the minimum sizes permitted for rooms, and the lighting and ventilation of rooms and of water-closet compartments and bathroom. Corresponding to these light and air provisions for dwellings, in Pittsburgh, there is only the requirement of 144 square feet of yard-space at the rear or side. There is no law, ordinance or regulation for houses other than tenements, prohibiting the construction of dark, unventilated rooms and halls, and of the "culture tube" air-shafts,--which have been the curse of other cities. For tenement houses the building requirements are much stricter than for other dwellings. New houses of this class on interior lots must have at the rear or side at least twenty per cent of the lot left open,--on corner lots ten per cent,--as a yard to provide light and air. This open space must be at least eight feet wide throughout its entire length. Courts between tenement houses or wings of tenements may not be less than ten feet wide. All courts and air-shafts, except vent shafts for water-closets or bathrooms, are required to be open on one side to the street or yard. Every room in a new tenement must have a window opening on the street or on the open space described above. The distance of such a window from the wall or party line opposite must be at least eight feet. The halls on each floor are required to have windows to the street or open space, unless light and ventilation is otherwise provided to the satisfaction of superintendent of the Bureau of Building Inspection. The requirements for the size of rooms and of windows, for basement and cellar apartments and for sinks and water-closets, are the same as in the tenement house health law. New tenement houses, four stories or more in height, are required to be fireproof throughout. The same penalties are fixed for violating the tenement building law as for violation of the tenement health law. Right of appeal from decisions of the superintendent of building inspection is granted, as in the case of the general building law. The act does not require that an official certificate that a completed new tenement house complies with the law must be issued before the building is occupied. This important safeguard is entirely lacking. A visitor not long since was in a new tenement house in Pittsburgh, occupied by a number of families, with the usual quota of children. The house had been let and the families had moved in, although the building was by no means completed, and there were even no balusters on the stairs, which were entirely open on the side, creating an extremely dangerous condition, especially on the third floor. In this house, too, no fire-escapes of any kind had been supplied. The writer has also seen a number of other new tenement houses fully occupied, but without any proper means of escape in case of fire,--contrary to law. The discretion allowed in the tenement building law, in regard to hall lighting, is another dangerous feature, although less important than the absence of the certificate requirements. In addition to the tenement house building law, there are several acts relating to fire-escapes on tenement houses. A law of 1885 requires a tenement building three or more stories in height to have outside iron fire-escapes, with balconies and slanting stairways, except where the authorities permit some other kind of escape. The number and location of fire-escapes is not definitely provided. They are "to be arranged in such a way as to make them readily accessible, safe and adequate." A law of 1889 requires, in addition, that at least one window in each tenement house room above the second floor be provided with a chain-rope long enough to reach the ground or with any other appliances approved by the Board of Fire Commissioners. The same act requires the lighting of tenement house halls and stairways at night and the burning of red lights at the head and foot of each flight of stairs and at the intersection of all hallways with main corridors; and an alarm or gong ready for use and capable of being heard throughout the building is also required. It will be seen at once that the wholesale discretionary powers granted in regard to the enforcement of the above fire-escape provisions make it easily possible for them to be nullified. Finally, the removal of garbage, which has an important relation to the sanitary condition of the houses, is insufficiently regulated in Pittsburgh. A state act, and subsequent city ordinance, authorize the Bureau of Health and Department of Public Safety to provide for the removal of garbage. How frequently it shall be removed is not specified by law. Specifications of contract are that it be removed daily from markets, hotels, etc., and three times a week in the closely built up wards, and twice a week in the outlying wards. Nearly two-thirds of the annual appropriation for all the work of the Bureau of Health is expended in paying for this service. The carrying away of ashes and rubbish has up to the present time in no way been regulated by law. A step looking in this direction has been taken during the past year, however. On recommendation of the superintendent of health an ordinance authorizing a bond issue for the creation of furnaces for the final disposal of rubbish has been passed by councils and voted for by the people and specifications relating to these are now being drawn up. The beginning which has thus been made in the line of recognizing housing dangers and of framing state legislation and city ordinances to meet them affords a basis for the development of a consistent public policy in this field. [Illustration: ONE PITTSBURGH TYPE OF ONE-FAMILY HOUSE. Row of five new one-family brick houses, opposite Fort Pitt Malleable Iron Works. Five rooms in each house; bathtub and closet; sink in kitchen. McKees Rocks.] [Illustration: PLAY IN SKUNK HOLLOW. THE BALL TEAM.] SKUNK HOLLOW A POCKET OF CIVIC NEGLECT IN PITTSBURGH FLORENCE LARRABEE LATTIMORE MEMBER INVESTIGATING STAFF, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION The main thoroughfare is respectable and non-committal. It offers but one clue to the melodrama, the violence and misfortune, which its brick fronts so innocently conceal. This clue is a narrow, dusty alley-way, which cuts through the brick fronts, runs back about eighty feet, and then turns sharply to the left and takes unto itself the name of Ewing street. Ewing street runs along the edge of a valley called Skunk Hollow. It pursues a serpentine course between two irregular rows of shacks,--the one back to back with the preoccupied brick houses, the other balancing itself uncertainly on the edge of the valley,--and finally ends in a number of branching foot-paths. This street and Skunk Hollow below it, both effectively shut off and concealed from casual inspection by the row of brick houses, are bound up into a pocket edition of civic neglect. One cannot tell, without inquiry, whether the shacks on Ewing street are for horses, cows, or human beings; it is said that the owners do not care, so long as the rent is paid. But whether it is the desirability of being in a "dead-head row" commanding a view of the valley, or the advantage of having a house which while showing but one or two stories above the street, takes a private drop of one story in the rear and accommodates itself to the abrupt decline of the cliff, there is no doubt that the cliff-edge structures are far more popular than their stunted neighbors across the way. In them one finds the most desirable clinical material for a study of Pittsburgh's ills, all in one well packed group of abnormalities. Do you wish to see the housing problem? You need only follow Ewing street its short length of a city block and observe. The level of one side of Ewing street and the characteristic drop of the other, have brought out two typical forms of Pittsburgh architecture described by a resident small boy as "squatters" and "clingers." Together they form the nondescript shelters of a parasitical class of persons, white and colored, unassorted. In such fantastic and general dilapidation are these rows of unpainted shelters that some of them are falling to the ground without the formality of condemnation proceedings. Most of them have running water in the kitchens; a very few have sanitary toilets and shout the fact on black and white rental signs. Cellar rooms abound and are often used as sleeping rooms; in those houses built together into a block they are windowless. The toilets back of them are in the old boxed battery style, unflushed, and send their contamination down the grooves of the slope to Skunk Hollow at the bottom. [Illustration: LOOKING DOWN ON SKUNK HOLLOW. Luna Park is seen on the skyline at the right.] [Illustration: A FIRMLY ENTRENCHED SHANTY, FRONTING ON NO ROAD BUT GUARDED BELLIGERENTLY BY ITS COLORED OWNER.] The hollow, reached by sewage through winding crevices in rubbish, and by goats and dogs over hills of tin cans and refuse, is reached by the people themselves down flights of decaying steps. In the street at the bottom, a wooden surface drain goes companionably along side by side with the foot-path. Occasionally a trickling stream from the hill joins forces with it and the whole falls at last through a basket-drop into an open sewer. The disheveled exterior which gives Ewing street the personality of a gang-leader with his hat on one side, is not so marked in the hollow. The hollow has a kind of sullen reticence. Here sanitary conditions are, if possible, of graver aspect. It is literally a cesspool. In this cesspool is a strong and dangerous community life. Till now you have been absorbed in the setting of the neighborhood, but now, as you begin to observe the people who slouch past you, you note that they correspond to their environments. The rakish aspect of Ewing street, and the morbid silence of the hollow are reflected in the manners of their respective inhabitants. On Ewing street, one of the first houses you visit is reached by a drop of five or six broken steps, and looks like a bowling alley shack. It is long, narrow, and has two small windows and a door in the street end. On the porch is a notorious colored woman, raided out of the worst houses in Pittsburgh, ready to toss out her fine and pass on, when temporarily hindered by arrest. Tacked to her piazza is a sign informing the passerby that religious services are held within, and pasted around the dilapidated smokestack is the sign "To let." "Nobody came as long as it was a mission," said the patrolman, "they do come now. Always booze on Sundays there; nothing but crime." The old colored aunty, who owns a little cabin next door in the rear, tells you later with bulging eyes and darkey gesticulation, that the real trouble is that the ghost of Charlie Barber who died there two years ago, comes back nights and by flinging up the windows and banging the door, breaks up both services and carousels. She says he has driven most of the colored ladies "plumb spiritualistic" and that "Mrs. K----, a white, Irish lady in the next house but one, goes to meetings in the city three times a week and spends so much for collections that her children have no shoes to wear to school." Sure enough you find the children shut up in the house; the father, a laborer, out of work; the mother doing a washing. "Truant officers? What are they?" she asks. In the back yard of this home lives a red-turbaned colored scold, owner of a much coveted hydrant upon which four families are dependent for water. Her house is a fenced-in triangle on a trackless waste of rubbish. It is to be approached only by original methods. The neighbors, however, say that it is on "Christian street." They say that the owner sells out little plots here and there on the hillside for a hundred or so dollars apiece. Most of the houses are owned by the tenants, the lots having been sold to them unimproved by old Pittsburgh estates. Building permits for frame dwellings have been refused, and, as the owners cannot afford to build with brick they stay on in shanties too far gone to improve. No sword wielded in defense of a feudal castle was ever more keen than the tongue of the turbaned owner of this estate on Christian street as she raises her black fist over the fence and dares you to swing her gate! [Illustration: A SKUNK HOLLOW DAIRY. The cows live in the boarded up shed. The surface drains running beside the walk, empty into the well from which the people draw water.] Next to her is a burnt-out shell of a four-family house; no attempt is being made to prop it up or tear it down, and it hangs there towards the street with uncertain intentions. The owner will tell you that it "was fired on a dark night,--not by a friend," and then he will shrug his shoulders and mutter something about the neighborhood. He sits on his little stoop all day, this owner does, in his Sunday suit and best hat, replete with darkey respectability. Crutches are beside him and his feet are bandaged. Sitting near him, like a jack-knife on the point of snapping shut, is an old black mammy, her eyes glazed with coming blindness. She wears Prunella gaiters, a calico gown, and a sunbonnet with a wide limp frill, and is as much a personification of the old South as the man is of the new. She points fondly over her shoulder to her two stuffy rooms, crammed with knick-knacks, and tells you they must go under the hammer next week unless she can get help. This young man here would pay her a rent of eight dollars a month for three rooms, but he is just out of the hospital and unable to work. His leg was crushed in the steel mill six weeks ago and not one penny has been sent him yet by his bosses. Both of them are living on credit and hope. The neighborhood isn't very bad, they say, "although there are some very disbelieving people in it." But they don't know a better, where folks would let out to niggers. So far then we have found instances of bad streets, unsanitary housing, trade accidents and the race problem. Then one comes to a house, one story high at the street two at the rear, which has two rooms opening in front and two toward the hollow. In these rooms live an Irish widower and his two children of ten and twelve years, together with a miscellaneous lot of colored people. They quarrel, and have to be watched by the police. A step farther we meet a Scottish mill laborer out of work. He proudly points to the playhouse he has built for his two little girls "to keep 'em off the street." It is set up against the toilet, but that can't be helped. The mixed family next door pick rags "and carry on" in the shed hard by. The woman there has "chronic tonsilitis" which is dangerous for the children. The mother wishes there was some better place for the children to play. Up to this point one feels that this is a settlement of mill-ends; mill-ends of people, living in mill-ends of houses, on mill-end jobs, if they work at all. It does not seem possible that anyone could come to live on Ewing street from deliberate choice. With something of a start one finds, in this row of demoralization, a home just vacated by a charitable agency for the help of colored children. It was a temporary home for boys and girls and babies, occupying the ground floor and basement of a house unsanitary and dark, having no gas, no running water, and no yard, only a rickety back stoop, offering an unparalleled view of Skunk Hollow. In a middle room, dark except for one outer window and one cut through into the back room, slept eight or ten children two in a bed, feet to feet, boys and girls from infancy to twelve years. The institution has gone now to a better neighborhood. This particular house hasn't a bad name; it was the one further down that was raided last month. Two under-age girls were found there, but the madam got off with a fine and the girls disappeared. Some other people of doubtful credentials are moving in; maybe they are good and maybe not. They are carrying in their household goods now. They do not look unlike the others of the neighborhood. A thin colored woman stands off and watches, rocking her baby in her arms. She is seized with a fit of coughing, and turns into the dark doorway of her shack. One does not need to follow her to know that she represents one more city problem. The vantage point for a view of Skunk Hollow seems to be the back stoops of the clingers on the edge of the basin. Here one becomes aware that the hollow is a public dumping ground of ashes and tin cans. As wagons drive up and drop their contents the air itself becomes full of refuse. An occasional thin stream of water trickling down from where you stand. This is the Ewing street sewage making its way to the bottom of the valley. [Illustration: INSTITUTIONAL CHARITY IN SKUNK HOLLOW.] The hollow seems to follow the bed of an old river; it winds away around a huge hill of gravel where two railroads lie. On a delta between the railroad tracks, the boys have improvised a playground. Farther along there is a straggling bunch of houses. You notice a little girl washing clothes on one of the back piazzas. A little boy runs out and cuffs her until she runs into the house crying, and a man comes out and chases the boy. The boy climbs a neighbor's fence and vanishes. A colored woman and a white woman are seen on the path that winds through this settlement; they go into one of the houses and shut the door. An Italian comes out of the same door a minute later, and walks off down the railway track. The rears of these houses present another solid line of reeking, broken-down toilets with box vaults, unflushed, on platforms built level with the rear floor of the houses. Tucked in between disreputable families of the lowest type are, here and there, bright faced thrifty Italians. Two families have been brought to Skunk Hollow from respectable neighborhoods because of the hard times. In one of their houses renting for nine dollars a month, the rear room is a ten by six, cubicle, with a two by two window in it directly opposite and two feet away from the doorway of the toilet. The air? Well, the window has a solid shutter and when that is closed the air isn't so bad and keeps out disease. As the mother talks, two little chained dogs bark at the babies loaded on her arms, and on the edge of the railing, which prevents the unwary from stepping off the platform into a landslide of rubbish below, fruit and clothes are drying, macaroni is soaking, and busybody flies are hurrying from one thing to another. Any typhoid? Oh yes, the grandmother died with it, and one of the children had it, but was taken to a hospital and got well. Towards the end of Neville street, in the heart of the hollow, we come to a back yard. The house, for its own reasons, prefers to front on the railroad. In the yard is a large shed patched with odds and ends of all sorts of boards, layer upon layer. The people in the house,--most of whom are "women boarders",--say it is used just to put things in. As a venture you suggest cows? Yes, there are cows there, three, the milk is sold for the babies in the neighborhood. The man says the cows "graze upon the hills around the hollow." He glances at the hills and laughs. It is true the cows haven't grazed there this summer, and in the winter it is best for them to be in a warm dark shed. As we climb back up the stairs in the late afternoon, we meet the lamp lighter going down with his ladder. Early? Yes, but it is not well to go into the Hollow as late as dusk. There are only sixteen lamps there,--soon lighted, but people have their own reasons for turning them off and few of them burn till morning. The hollow doesn't wish the light. At the end of Ewing street, by the alley of entrance, stand two patrolmen. They are side by side looking meditatively down into the valley. They are watching for the little boy who climbed the fence. "He's a Juvenile Court boy named Matthew S----," they say. "He's home on probation. It's a queer thing about the Juvenile Court, it takes children away and locks 'em up because the neighborhood's bad, and then it sends 'em home on probation." These men, without knowing it, were asking for a single judge for the Juvenile Court. "He promises to do right," one of them continued, "but they ain't enough probation women to see that he does keep straight and he's the worst one we've got on the beat." This one was asking for an adequate number of probation officers. "Now, do you see that tight, brick house down there beyond?" they asked. "That's a colored disorderly house,--run for booze. That little white girl who's washing on them steps goes there all the time. She stays out nights,--away from home. The father works hard and brings home all his money; but the woman,--she don't care. Ain't the Juvenile Court no way of catching the mother? She ought to go to the workhouse." He was asking for an enforcement of the adult delinquency law. The conversation ran on and the patrolman told more of the affairs of Skunk Hollow. He told of speak-easies, and hang-outs of all kinds, masked under the appearance of small grocery shops. At the foot of the stairs, he said, an Italian interpreter was found dead within the year, struck from behind by an Irish-American. The man smoking there and talking to the little girl over the fence had done it, but there was no evidence. Two little children belonging to the colored woman who keeps the disorderly house were playing in the dust. The patrolmen were letting them stay home until they could get them in a raid. "Where do you suppose they'll bring up?" one of them said. "The mother won't get more than a fine and she can pay it." "Now watch the boys!" said the other. "Here comes a freight." The train wound slowly into a nest of little boys playing ball. After it had passed there was not a boy to be seen. "Catching rides" said the patrolman with an appreciative chuckle. "They'll go round the hill and come back by way of the main street. Then I'll chase 'em in for playing where they ain't no right, and back they'll come to Skunk Hollow. I wish I had some other place to send them." The playground problem again! On the skyline around the hollow the church spires stood out blacker than the smoke in which the valley was shrouded. An American flag waved from the school house on the main thoroughfare, and the fanciful towers of Luna Park peered jeeringly into this pest hole of neglect. "Shame, ain't it?" said one of the patrolmen. [Illustration] FOUR TYPES OF HOUSING ILLS IN MILL TOWNS [Illustration: SCHOEN: Box-like rows of company houses with out-buildings between.] [Illustration: DUQUESNE: Filthy wooden-drain and yard hydrant.] [Illustration: McKEESPORT. Strawberry Alley, Interior Court of Jerusalem or "Bowery." The hydrant at the right was in close proximity to octagonal privy structure and was only water supply for the entire court. On the date the photograph was taken, the hydrant had been out of business for two days and tenants had carried their water from another court across the street.] [Illustration: BRADDOCK. Rubbish in rear yard of Willow Alley; where the children play. Two hydrants and two vaults are expected to equip thirty apartments.] PAINTER'S ROW THE STUDY OF A GROUP OF COMPANY HOUSES AND THEIR TENANTS [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._] [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PAINTER'S ROW AS IT STOOD IN THE SPRING OF 1908.] PAINTER'S ROW THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION AS A PITTSBURGH LANDLORD F. ELISABETH CROWELL FORMER SUPERINTENDENT, ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL, PENSACOLA, FLORIDA. The United States Steel Corporation owns property on the South Side of Pittsburgh just beyond the Point Bridge. Here is located the old Painter's Mill, which is one of the plants of the Carnegie Steel Company, which in turn is one of the constituent companies of the United States Steel Corporation; and here, also, stands what remains of Painter's Row, where the company has housed certain of its employes, mostly immigrants. When the Carnegie Steel Company took over Painter's Mill, it renovated the plant so as to turn out the sort and quantity of output which the Carnegie name stands for. When it took over Painter's Row, it did nothing. When, a little over a year ago, and several years after the purchase of the property, I made a detailed investigation of the place, I found half a thousand people living there under conditions that were unbelievable,--back-to-back houses with no through ventilation; cellar kitchens; dark, unsanitary, ill-ventilated, overcrowded sleeping rooms, no drinking water supply on the premises; and a dearth of sanitary accommodations that was shameful. Painter's Row was originally a succession of six rows, some brick, some frame, built on the side of a hill that slopes from the foot of a lofty palisade down to the Ohio. Houses and mills immediately adjoin and tenants are even housed in an old brick building, in another part of which some of the mill offices are located. Sluggish clouds of thick smoke hang over the cluster of roofs and the air is full of soot and fine dust. Noise presses in from every quarter,--from the roaring mill, from the trolley cars clattering and clanging through the narrow street which divides mill and rows into two sections, from the trains on the through tracks above the topmost row and from the sidings which separate the lowest row from the river bank and which are in constant use for the hauling of freight to and from the mills. * * * * * (The story of Painter's Row should be considered in its bearings. The United States Steel Corporation is building a remarkable new town at Gary, Indiana; its subsidiary companies have promoted house building along original lines, notably at Vandergrift, Ambridge and Lorain, and the Carnegie Steel Company has fair, low rental houses at Munhall and elsewhere. On the other hand, other Pittsburgh corporations own company houses which have been equally as bad as Painter's Row; and a similar story could be written of a shack at one time owned by one of the foremost Protestant churches of Pittsburgh, and razed to the ground only because the headworker of Kingsley House had the courage to publish its picture and the name of the owner. We have no animosity in singling out one corporation; but we have a very serious purpose in detailing the facts as to this row of company houses. There is ground for difference of opinion from a business as well as a social point of view, as to whether it is desirable for an industrial corporation to own and rent homes to its employes. But if industrial chairmen, presidents and superintendents become landlords, they must bear the responsibilities of landlords; and only as the public holds them up to these responsibilities as stiffly as their stockholders hold them up to dividends, will they be in position to devise and carry out policies which, as individuals, we may assume they would act upon. This story of one high-spirited New England stockholder and 500 company tenants indicates, moreover, that some investors are willing to lead the public in such demands. With the standards it is setting at Gary, the United States Steel Corporation cannot afford to be responsible for such conditions as these at Painter's Row, whether in the Pennsylvania steel district, at its mines in Northern Michigan, or at its plants in the South. For the Survey to have selected a lesser, independent company for criticism, would have been to lay ourselves open to the charge of fear of the big offender; for us to have found a more humanly destructive group of bad houses, would have been impossible. DIRECTOR OF THE SURVEY.) * * * * * [Illustration: WEST CARSON STREET AT TIME OF FIRST INSPECTION. Tenements of Painter's Row at left; nine families on first and second floors without toilet accommodations. One-family houses at right.] [Illustration: WHERE THE TENEMENTS WERE TORN DOWN. Present site of row shown in picture on opposite page. Closets and sinks installed in topmost row, tenants of which formerly had to go 360 steps to get water.] Dirt and noise are inseparable adjuncts to life in a mill district, deplorable, but unavoidable; but workers in the mills need not necessarily be deprived of sufficient light and air such as it is, and water, and the common decencies of life. In the winter of 1908, I spent several days in Painter's Row. I watched grimy little children at play. I talked with the women, the home-makers; I saw men who had been working on the night shift lying like fallen logs, huddled together in small, dark, stuffy rooms, sleeping the sleep of exhaustion that follows in the wake of heavy physical labor. Above all, I sought to learn how the tenants fared in these three things: ventilation and water and sanitary conveniences. [Illustration: CELLAR BED ROOM. Windows entirely below passage level, showing how some households maintain standards against difficulties.] [Illustration: PASSAGE AND AREA. Showing below at right windows of cellar bed room shown above.] [Illustration: THE "TOWN PUMP." Drinking water supply for 568 people living in Painter's Row; and for the operatives in the mill.] In the two rows nearest the river, there were twenty-eight houses divided from cellar to roof by a party wall, so that the rooms in each apartment were arranged one above the other; the result was that there was no through ventilation, and consequently the rooms were ill-smelling at all times and stiflingly close in summer. There were in the different rows, twenty-seven cellar and basement kitchens, dark, unsanitary, ill-ventilated. Besides these, there were six cellar rooms more than halfway below the ground level, that were occupied solely as sleeping rooms. The windows of these cellars were small, and the little light and air that could gain admittance under the best of circumstances was obstructed by a row of ramshackle sheds which bordered the narrow area upon which these windows opened. There were many other gloomy rooms which it would be but repetition to describe. But the tale of dark, ill-ventilated sleeping quarters would be incomplete without passing mention of a space under a staircase that had been walled off and that was entered from a kitchen. Into this "hole in the wall" a bed had been squeezed by some hook or crook, and there two boarders stowed their bodies at night. I found the worst overcrowding in the row at the top of the hill. In one apartment, a man, his wife, and baby and two boarders slept in one room, and five boarders occupied two beds in an adjoining room. In another apartment of three rooms, the man, his wife and baby slept in the kitchen, their two boarders in a second room; and the third room was sub-let and occupied as a living and sleeping room by five persons,--a man, his wife and child and two boarders. This last room was a small one, containing two beds, a stove, table, trunks and chairs. Once inside, there was scarcely room to turn comfortably. Not one house in the entire settlement had any provision for supplying drinking water to its tenants. Mill water was piped out to the rows,--an ugly, dirty fluid, which, however tired or thirsty they were, the people would not put to their lips. I asked the question at every doorstep and got the same reply. They went to an old pump in the mill yard,--360 steps from the farthest apartment, down seventy-five stairs. This "town pump" was the sole supply of drinking water within reach of ninety-one households, comprising 568 persons. [Illustration: PIPE EMPTYING MILL-WATER INTO OPEN DRAIN BETWEEN ROWS.] The water pumped from the mill was used for cleansing purposes. When the pressure was low, there was none even of that to be had. In only two cases was this wash water piped directly into the house. Tenants in the other houses carried it from bent pipes that emptied into open drains running between the rows, or into troughs at the end of the buildings, whence it had to be carried up two or three flights of stairs if they happened to live in the upper stories. From these same apartments the waste water had to be carried out and down and emptied into the drains. The marvel was not that some of the homes were dirty; the wonder was that any of them were clean,--for against such obstacles cleanliness was to be secured only at the expense of tired muscles and aching backs. I talked with one mother whose two rooms on the top floor were spotless, and whose children were well looked after. Day after day, and many times a day, she carried the water up and down that her home and her children might be kept decent and clean. I looked at her bent shoulders, gaunt arms and knotted hands. Work aplenty,--necessary work,--there was and always will be for her to do, but those shoulders and arms and hands had to strain laboriously over unnecessary work as well. "God! Miss, but them stairs is bad," she said. As was said at the beginning, when the Carnegie Steel Company took over Painter's Mill, it renovated the equipment of the plant; when it took over Painter's Row, it did nothing. One row of four houses had waste sinks in the apartments and another row of one-family houses had a curious wooden chute arrangement on the back porches, down which waste water was poured that ran through open wooden drains in the rear yard to the open drain between this row of houses and the next. A similar arrangement had been made for the convenience of six families living in the second story of the row of tenement houses, where two wooden chutes from the porch above carried the waste water down to the curb at Carson street. They carried other things besides waste water,--filth of every description was emptied down these chutes,--for these six families, and three families below on the first floor had no closet accommodation and were living like animals. Some families disposed of slops and excreta in the way just indicated; others used a bucket containing ashes, which was emptied into a wooden garbage bin on the street at the end of the row of houses. Officials of the mill company, when this condition of affairs was pointed out to them, replied that the vault in the rear of this row of houses was built for the use of these families as well as for the other nineteen families in these two rows, and that they could secure a key to a closet compartment by applying for it at the offices. As a matter of fact these people had never been offered keys and they volunteered the statement to the investigator that they had no closets. The vault just mentioned was halfway up the hill between these two rows of houses. To reach it, anyone living in an end apartment in the second story front would be obliged to walk half the length of the second story porch to where the inside stairs led down to the street, then along the street (for the sidewalk was but two and a half feet wide, and completely covered with old lumber and debris of every description), then up a difficult flight of outside stairs, steep and with narrow treads, then two or three steps on the level, then more stairs, and so on until one had taken a hundred and eighty-six steps, sixty-five of which were stairs. This was called "closet accommodations" for want of a better term. [Illustration: WOODEN CHUTE FROM A SECOND STORY GALLERY, DUMPING ITS FILTH AT THE CURB ON CARSON STREET.] [Illustration: THE LOWER ROWS IN 1907. Showing frame two-family dwellings between Carson street and the river. Open drain between the rows; bad surface drainage. Twelve families at right had no toilets.] [Illustration: ONE YEAR LATER: THE ROWS TORN DOWN.] Equally bad conditions prevailed in the row of houses nearest the river. Closets for these houses were formerly located across the railroad tracks on the edge of the bank. During the flood in the spring of 1907, these were swept away and had never been replaced. The twelve families living in this row also used buckets and emptied the contents into the river. One family in the next row of houses claimed that they had never been given a closet key. In all, twenty-two of the ninety-one families were living without the first elementary conveniences that make for sanitation. The full evil of this state of affairs is not really clear until one remembers that these families were occupying two-and three-room apartments, nearly all of them having several children, and anywhere from two to five boarders each. It is fair to ask, why even immigrant laborers put up with such conditions? To the minds of the men, for two very good and sufficient reasons. The houses were near the mill and rents were cheap. The ledge of land along the foot of Mt. Washington affords few building sites; and the Painter's Mill section is, perhaps, the extreme example of the general housing-shortage of the South Side. Men who work in heat, work ten or twelve hours a day, and work at night alternate fortnights, want to live near the mill. Especially is this true of day laborers who work on repair gangs and cleaning-up work, and who may be called out at any time. This is as true of the mill towns, as of the working force of such a plant as Painter's Mill, in the heart of the city. On the other hand, the mill management wants these men there, for just such emergency calls. The rents in Painter's Row averaged $2.40 a room monthly,--cheaper by far than these laborers could secure accommodations from ordinary landlords in many other sections of Pittsburgh; and that is a dominating consideration to a man with a family, earning $1.65 a day, or a single immigrant whose whole purpose in coming to America is to make money and who will stomach any personal ills to hold on to it. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these rents aggregated the company over $7,000 a year. Such an item is a bagatelle in the balance sheet of the United States Steel Corporation; and it would be foolish to suppose that the rows were rented out to their employes as a money making scheme. They were rented out on easy terms to keep laborers within call at any hour of the day or night, and the fact that Painter's Mill is an old plant and likely to be abandoned, no doubt influenced the management in holding the housing property as it stood without rehabilitation. But the fact remains that these rentals amounted to a sum nearly sufficient to pay the whole taxes on the Painter's Mill property, mill, equipment, land and houses. [Illustration: DARK COVERED PASSAGE WAY THROUGH WHICH WOMEN AND CHILDREN WERE OBLIGED TO GO TO REACH PUMP IN MILL YARD.] To-day, the situation in Painter's Row is very different. Three rows of houses have been torn down, and radical improvements made to others. A variety of factors entered into this change and the story is worth the telling. The evolution of social consciousness is interesting, whether in an individual or a corporation. The initial factor in such a development may be one of several,--motives of self-interest, the weight of public opinion or the letting of light into dark places. Motives of self-interest did not suffice to make the Carnegie Steel Company a good landlord in the present instance. In other words, the company had not recognized it to be worth while as a business consideration to house its human machinery with a view of maintaining such machinery at its highest state of efficiency. Its mills, with their equipment, were repaired and improved in order to increase the quality and quantity of their output. But common laborers were too easily replaced for an effort to be made to conserve their health or well-being by repairing or improving these houses in which they lived. If ten men fell out, ten more were ready to step in and fill their places. [Illustration: PAINTER'S ROW TO-DAY. Privy and open drain. Stagnant waste water, garbage, and mill building of the United States Steel Corporation.] But Painter's Row was not the only instance of bad housing in Pittsburgh. Other landlords were equally indifferent, and evil housing conditions were found all over the city. In March, a preliminary report on general housing conditions in Pittsburgh was published by the Pittsburgh Survey. One paragraph dealt with conditions in Painter's Row. The fact that the responsibility for the situation there could be fixed directly upon one of the great corporations enhanced the value of the paragraph as a quotable news item, and _Collier's Weekly_ seized upon it as a text for an editorial. The editorial brought it under the eye of a New England stockholder whose New England conscience was stirred. His protest at the United States Steel headquarters in New York brought from there a communication so favorable to the company that he felt justified in criticising the editors of _Collier's_ for their apparently unwarranted statements; and they, in turn, called upon the Survey to substantiate the quotation. In support of this paragraph, which was but a few lines long in the published report, the full details of how things stood at Painter's Row, as I have put them down here, were transmitted by the editors to the inquiring stockholder. He was aroused, convinced and in position to lodge another protest, this time with the facts behind it. Light had been let in. Meanwhile, pressure was brought to bear upon the owners of Painter's Row from a second quarter. The health authorities were insistent that all houses occupied by three or more families should be altered so as to conform to the requirements of the tenement house law, thus making mandatory the installation of sinks and water-closets in such houses. This also involved the cutting of windows in half a dozen gloomy cellar rooms in one building, in order to procure the required amount of light and ventilation, a structural change which would have so weakened the supporting walls of the building as to have rendered it unsafe. The windows were not cut, the sinks and closets were not installed; instead, the building was razed to the ground,--the best possible thing that could have happened. Two other rows of two-family houses were also demolished. They were old, ramshackle, frame buildings, not worth repairing. Last fall, I inspected Painter's Row for the second time. I found the noise as incessant, the smoke and dust as penetrating, as nine months before. The children were as grimy but they were fewer in number, for as a result of these changes the settlement had been reduced to twenty-eight families. When I reached the topmost row of houses on the hillside, my inspection partook of the nature of a triumphal progress. Some of the tenants remembered me. Gleefully they showed me their sinks with drinking water in every apartment, and told of the closets that had been installed in the basement. Every fixture was clean and in perfect condition,--a refutation of the old argument that such people unaccustomed to these conveniences in the old country will not care for them when supplied. I found a like state of affairs in another building formerly occupied as a tenement, now housing but two families. Here also sinks and inside water-closets had been installed. By so much, then, had life in Painter's Row been made more tolerable. Two rows of one-family brick houses remained untouched. The families living in these houses continued to get along without drinking water on the premises and continued to use outside privy vaults; a few were occupying cellar kitchens. In one row, waste water and garbage were still emptied down wooden chutes leading to open drains through the yards. The result was odorous and unhealthy. Much had been accomplished, something still remained to be done. The company which had gone beyond the requirement of the law in some things still fell short in others. Sooner or later, the health authorities would force the removal of the privy vaults. The old pump had served Painter's Row loyally and well, and would continue to serve it as long as the bucket brigade moved back and forth between these remaining houses and the mill-yard for their water. Sometimes a little child trudged along with a great pail half filled. Again, it was the man of the family, tired after a hard day, who brought in the ration of water. In a way, that big, grimy pump with its old iron handle and primitive spoutings, summed up the Painter's Row situation,--of an industry of great mechanics who could overhaul an old plant and make it pay, but had not brought water a few paces up the hill, or dropped a sewer a few paces down to the river below that men and women and children might live like men and women and children. [Illustration: THE "HOLE IN THE WALL."] [Illustration] LITTLE JIM PARK LEROY SCOTT AUTHOR OF TO HIM THAT HATH, ETC. I had taken a car over to Painter's Mill and Painter's Row and got off at the farther end of the dingy, smoke-hung settlement. I went through and about the houses which the great Carnegie Company leases to its workers (with no trouble about collecting the rent, for that is taken from their wages),--houses so close to the mill, some even wall to wall with it, that they share almost equally with the mill its smoke and grime and clangor,--houses which had been as unsanitary and disease-breeding as any I have ever seen offered the poor even by hardened slum landlords. And then, after I had gone through the rows of houses, at the end of the settlement nearest Pittsburgh, I came upon a sudden contrast. It was an open space, with a portion of it canopied, and over the canopy this black-lettered sign: * * * * * LITTLE JIM PARK * * * * * It wasn't much of a park,--just a little bit of ground, in area hardly more than an average city lot, with a second-hand iron fence around it, with rough benches, a pavement of tan-bark and a few flowerbeds bordered with whitewashed bricks. A poor, pitiably insignificant little place,--yet startlingly pleasant when compared with its surroundings. On the one side, with a row of dreary houses between, rumbled and belched the mill; at its back was a littered waste; at its front, across the street, was a steep hill topped by the ramshackle houses of Stewart's Row, and this hill was muddy, stubbled over with lank dead weeds, gullied with foul-looking, foul-smelling streams of waste water and garbage. I entered the park, sat down beneath the canopy, and my imagination proceeded to explain how the park had been established. Its name was a certain clue. "Little Jim Park,"--that fairly reeked with ultra-sentimentality. Some rich woman had been emotionally stirred by the stories of the cheerless life of tenement children,--the Little Jims and the Little Rosies; she had chanced to see how especially cheerless the life of the children of Painter's Row; she had established the park, and given it as title the more or less generic name by which tenement children are known to sentiment, "Little Jim." I had just credited the park to my Lady Bountiful,--had just finished with Romance,--when Realism sauntered into the park and took the other end of my bench. He was a working man, whose decent clothes and white collar told me this was his day off. His coat collar was turned up, his slouch hat pulled down. One jaw stood out with a quid of tobacco, and his face was deeply wrinkled. He was perhaps twenty-one. "Won't you tell me," I asked, "who gave this park to Painter's Row?" He smiled good-naturedly at me. "Who give it? Nobody give it." "Then how did you get it?" "We took it," said he. "Took it! But the name,----?" "Oh, we just took that, too." Here was something new in the park-building line. I drew nearer. "I wish you'd tell me about it," I asked. "Sure, I'll tell," said he, and I could detect pride in the park in both the young fellow's tone and manner. He tossed his quid down upon the tan-bark. "Used to be a little old church standing here. Little Jim church they called it, Queer name for a church, wasn't it? Damned if I know why they named it that. For the last five or six years it wasn't used at all, and last spring it just collapsed. The Hunkies come scramblin' over it and carried away all the wood to burn, and what was left was certainly a mess. "Well, I don't know just who started the idea,--I guess it was John Donohue and Jim Leary (they works around the rolls in the mill),--but pretty soon a lot of us guys had decided it would be great if we could clear up the place and make a park. So we started at the job, and when any of us was laid off over at the mill we was workin' here. The iron fence we got when they tore down part of Painter's Row,--it was just old junk you know; the bricks 'round the flower beds were some left over from buildin' a brewery down the street, we just helped ourselves to 'em; the arch over the gate we made out of an old pipe; the flag-pole there used to be a pump handle of a barge pump down on the river,--we swiped that; the ball on top of the flag-pole a carpenter give us. We chipped in and bought this tent, and we chipped in and bought a flag. The first one was whipped to pieces by the wind and we had to chip in and buy another before the summer was over. Then we set out some flowers, splashed around with some paint and whitewash, and the park was done. The name of the church seemed sorter to belong to the place, so we called it 'Little Jim Park.' "The park was what you might say opened on Decoration Day when the kids come in and sang and performed. It was a great place for the kids to play all summer, and a fine place for us to sit around of evenings and chin and sing. Never had nothin' of the sort here before, you know. But the big show here at Little Jim Park was Old Home Week, when we had it all fixed up with buntin' and had it lit up of nights. I guess the park ain't much to look at just now, for the geraniums have all been took up, and the fellows are takin' care of 'em in their houses through the winter. But in summer, when the flowers are out, and things are fixed up, I tell you what Little Jim Park looks mighty good to Painter's Row!" * * * * * Somehow, when he had finished, this little park, a park _by_ the people, seemed to be a thousand fold more beautiful, a thousand fold more significant. It and the great mill stood there in striking contrast; the mill and the houses expressing the indifference of the company to its human machines, the park the spontaneous expression of a great native desire, though choked down by long hours and the general oppressive dinginess,--the up-reaching, outreaching desire of the people for light, for air, for natural happiness, for development. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. AN OLD SLAV.] [Illustration: _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ WASH-DAY IN A HOMESTEAD COURT.] THE MILL TOWN COURTS AND THEIR LODGERS MARGARET F. BYINGTON FORMER DISTRICT AGENT, BOSTON ASSOCIATED CHARITIES From the cinder path beside a railroad that crosses the level part of Homestead, you enter an alley, bordered on one side by stables and on the other by shabby two-story frame houses. The doors of the houses are closed, but dishpans and old clothes decorating their exterior, mark them as inhabited. You turn from the alley through a narrow passageway, and find yourself in a small court, on three sides of which are smoke-grimed houses, on the fourth, low stables. The open space teems with life and movement. Children, dogs and hens make it lively under foot; overhead long lines of flapping clothes are to be dodged. A group of women stand gossiping in one corner waiting their turn at the pump,--this pump being one of the two sources of water supply for the twenty families who live here. Another woman is dumping the contents of her washtubs upon the paved ground, and the greasy, soapy water runs into an open drain a few feet from the pump. In the center of the court, a circular wooden building with ten compartments opening into one vault, flushed only by this waste water, constitutes the toilet facilities for over a hundred people. For the sixty-three rooms in the houses about the court shelter a group of twenty families, Polish, Slavic, and Hungarian, Jewish and even Negro; and twenty-seven little children find in this crowded brick-paved space their only playground. The cinder path has led us to the heart of the sanitary evils of the steel town. For this court typifies those conditions which result when there crowd in upon an industrial district, hundreds of unskilled immigrant laborers, largely single men, largely country people, who want a place to sleep for the least possible cash. Most of the petty local landlords who provide quarters care nothing for the condition of their places, and regard the wages of these transients as legitimate spoils. To determine the extent of such congestion, I made a study of the twenty-one courts in the second ward of Homestead, where yards, toilets, and water supply are used in common. In these courts lived 239 families, 102 of whom took lodgers. Even of those who lived in two-room tenements, a half took lodgers. Fifty-one families, including sometimes four or five people, lived in one-room tenements. One-half the families used their kitchens as sleeping rooms. Only three houses had running water inside, and in at least three instances over 110 people were dependent on one yard-hydrant for water. These are but fragmentary indications, but the situation seemed serious enough to warrant an intensive study, with the help of an interpreter, of these courts. The background of life in this section is a gloomy one. The level land forming the second ward, cut off from the river by the mill and from the country by the steep hill behind, forms a pocket where the smoke settles heavily. Here, on the original site of the town, gardens as well as alleys have been utilized for building small frame houses. The space is nearly covered. In some instances these houses are built in haphazard fashion on the lots; more often they surround a court, such as I have described. Though they vary in character, these groups usually consist of four or six two-story houses facing the street and a similar number facing the alley. Between these rows is a small court connected with the street by a narrow passage. Fifty-eight per cent of the houses have only four rooms, and only four have more than six. The former class usually shelters two families, one having the two rooms on the street and the other the two on the court. In summer, to give some through ventilation to the stifling rooms, doors leading to the stairway between the front and rear rooms are left open. As the families are often friends and fellow countrymen, this opportunity for friendly intercourse is not unwelcome. Indeed, the cheerful gossip that enlivens wash day, like the card-playing in the court on a summer evening, suggests the friendliness of village days. Nothing in the surroundings of these festivities, however, bears out the suggestion. Accumulations of rubbish and broken brick pavements, render the courts as a whole untidy and unwholesome. Some of the houses have little porches that might give a sense of homelikeness, but for the most part they are bare and dingy. As they are built close to the street with only this busy court behind, the owner can hardly have that bit of garden so dear to the heart of former country dwellers. Only, here and there, a little bed of lettuce with its note of delicate green or the vivid red of a geranium blossom brightens the monotony. Dreary as is the exterior, however, the greatest evils to the dwellers in the court arise from other things, from inadequate water supply, from meager toilet facilities, from overcrowding. The conditions as to water supply are very serious. In all the twenty-one courts only three families had running water in their houses, and even the hydrants in the courts were not for individual families. In no court were fewer than five families using one hydrant or pump, while in exceptional instances there were as many as nineteen, twenty and twenty-one families. As waste water pipes are also wanting in the houses, the heavy tubs of water must be carried out as well as in. In this smoky town a double amount of washing and cleaning must be done. The wash is a heavy one, and when the weather permits, it is done in the yard. This addition of tubs, wringers, clothes baskets, and soapy water on the pavement to the already populous court makes it no very serviceable playground for children. The toilet accommodations, while possibly more adequate than the water supply, are unsatisfactory in consequence of the lack of running water. There is not a single indoor closet in any of these courts. The streets of Homestead all have sewers, and by a borough ordinance, even the outside vaults must be connected with them. These are, however, ordinarily flushed only by the waste water, which flows from the yards directly into them; when conditions become intolerable, the tenants wash them out with a hose attached to the hydrant. As long as they are in the yards, this totally inadequate device is apparently the only one possible. The closets, moreover, which are usually in the center of the courts only a few yards from the kitchen doors, create from the point of view either of sanitation or decency an intolerable condition. While occasionally three or four families must use one compartment, usually only two families need do so. But even this means that often they are not locked and that no one has a special sense of responsibility, in consequence of which they are frequently filthy. It is not perhaps surprising that this state of affairs is tolerated by people who have lived on farms and were used to meager toilet facilities; but the discomfort and danger here are infinitely greater than in the country, and here the conditions are remediable. The overcrowding within the houses shown by the accompanying chart makes the water and toilet conditions more unendurable. Half the families who do not take lodgers and eighty-five per cent of those who do, average more than two persons to the room,--a number indicative, generally, of conditions which do not permit moral or physical well being. FAMILIES CLASSIFIED AS TO AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSONS PER ROOM. Number of persons per room 1 2 3 4 5 5 plus Families without lodgers, total, 137. percentage 13.8 35.7 38 9.7 1.4 1.4 With lodgers, Total 102, percentage 5.8 8.8 42 30.4 6.8 5.8 Let us consider first the causes of such congestion in so small a town, next its nature and results, and finally the possibility of improvement. Three factors are involved in producing this state of affairs, the growth of the mill and town, the low wage of the laborer, and his ambition. The mill has developed fast, and in spite of improved machinery has rapidly increased the number of its employes. In 1892, at the time of the strike, 4,000 men were employed; now nearly 7,000, exclusive of the clerical force. Moreover at each addition to the size of the mill, homes are destroyed to give it place. And further, the steep slopes of a hill hinder the growth of the town. Although suburbs are gradually building beyond this hill, car-fare is an item to be considered when a man earns $1.60 a day, and as there have not been, except during the hard times of 1908, a sufficient number of cheap houses for rent, the people accustomed to small quarters have crowded together along these alleys. The lowest paid workingmen are naturally the ones that inhabit them. Of 220 men, eighty-eight per cent were unskilled workers receiving less than two dollars a day. This figure is usual among the Slavs, since of the 3,602 employed in the mill, eighty-five per cent are unskilled. That the greatest overcrowding is in the families taking lodgers, shows a general tendency to economize in this way rather than by crowding the family into too small a tenement. The three dollars a month which the lodgers pay for their room might seem a small return for the labor and loss of privacy of home life; but in more than three-quarters of the families taking lodgers the income from them covered the rent, while in one-fifth of the families it was twice the rent or even more. This tendency to economize even at the loss of home life, induced primarily by low wages, has a further cause in the ambition of the Slavs to own a home in a better locality, or to buy a bit of property in the old country to which they may some day return. Again and again in explaining why they took lodgers these excuses were given, "Saving to educate the children", "The father does not earn enough to support the family", "Taking boarders in order to start a bank account". Thrift, it would seem, is not a virtue to be recommended indiscriminately. Figures as to overcrowding are in themselves but a lifeless display; when you see them exemplified in individual homes they become terribly significant. I entered one morning a two-room tenement,--the kitchen, perhaps twelve by fifteen feet, was steaming with vapor from a big washtub on a chair in the middle of the room. Here the mother was trying to wash, and at the same time to keep the elder of her two babies from going into a tub full of boiling water standing on the floor. On one side of the room was a huge, puffy bed, one feather tick to sleep on and another for covering; near the window a sewing machine, in the corner an organ,--all these besides the inevitable cook stove whereon in the place of honor was cooking the evening's soup. Asleep upstairs in the second room were one boarder and the man of the house. The two other boarders were at work. Can you picture the effect on the mother of such a home, the overwork for her, the brief possibility of rest when the babies come? Yet it is even more disastrous to the children. And, as appears in the accompanying chart, many of the families who take boarders are families with children. WITH LODGERS WITHOUT LODGERS No CHILDREN FAMILIES FAMILIES 0 30 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 24 XXXXXXXXXXXX 1 30 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 46 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 2 25 XXXXXXXXXXXXX 26 XXXXXXXXXXXXX 3 10 XXXXX 22 XXXXXXXXXXX 4 7 XXXX 15 XXXXXXXX 5 0 7 XXXX The situation brings serious results both to the health and the character of the children. The overworked mother has neither time nor patience for their care and training. As half of the families use the kitchen for sleeping, there is a close mingling of the lodgers with the family which endangers the children's morals. In only four instances were girls over fourteen found in the families taking lodgers, but even the younger children learn evil quickly from the free spoken men. One man in a position to know the situation intimately, spoke of the appalling familiarity with vice among the children in these families. A priest told me that he preached to the women against this way of saving money, but as long as wages are low and the good ambition to own a home or have a bank account can find no other way of fulfilling itself, it is difficult to persuade them to give it up. The crowding and other ills have also serious physical consequences. The birth rate and the deaths of children under two, show that while among the Slavs in the second ward a child died for every three that were born, among the other population of Homestead one died for every six that were born. Against many of these deaths was the entry "malnutrition due to poor food and overcrowding." Sadder still is the case of those wailing babies who do survive and begin life with an under-vitalized system ready for both the disease and the dissipation that attend weak bodies and wills. Outside of the crowded tenement rooms where are the many children to play? In investigating the conditions in one narrow court, I opened a door into a low shed where the entrails of a chicken lay on the floor. It was foul and dark and I turned away in disgust, but the bright little boy beside me piped up cheerily, "Oh that's our gypsy cave." A sorry region, surely, for a child's imagination to rove! [Illustration: _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ EVENING SCENE IN A HOMESTEAD COURT.] [Illustration: _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ SLAVIC COURT, HOMESTEAD. Showing typical toilet and water supply; also a few of the boarders in these houses.] The congestion in Homestead must be considered not only from the standpoint of the family and the child, however, but of the single man. His problem is no small one. In the figures for the mill we find that 30.5 per cent of the total number of Slavs are unmarried. This large group, in the period before they send back for a wife or sweetheart, must find some sort of a home. While some are scattered in families and create the lodging problem we have been considering, others live in groups over which a "boarding boss" presides. In West Homestead, for example, in about twenty houses there were three hundred Bulgarians, among whom at the time of the depression there were only three women. These scattered houses hidden away on the outskirts of the town housed a group of happy, industrious men, all ambitious to hoard their money and return to the old country as men of property. They cared little how they lived so long as they lived cheaply. One of these homes consisted of two rooms one above the other, each perhaps twelve by twenty feet. In the kitchen I saw the wife of the boarding boss getting dinner, some sort of hot apple cake and a stew of the cheapest cuts of meat. Along one side of the room was an oilcloth covered table with a plank bench on each side, and above a long row of handleless white cups in a rack, and a shelf with tin knives and forks on it. Near the up-to-date range, the only real piece of furniture in the room, hung the "buckets" in which all mill men carry their noon or midnight meal. A crowd of men were lounging cheerfully about talking, smoking and enjoying life, making the most of the leisure enforced by the shutdown in the mill. In the room above, double iron bedsteads were set close together and on them comfortables were neatly laid. Here besides the "boarding boss" and his wife and two babies, lived twenty men. The boss, himself, was a stalwart Bulgarian who had come to this country several years ago, and by running this house besides working in the mill, had accumulated a good deal of money. The financial arrangements of such an establishment are simple. The boarding boss runs the house, and the men pay him three dollars a month for a place to sleep, for having their clothes washed, and their food cooked. In addition an account is kept of the food purchased, and the total is divided among the men at each pay day. The housewife purchases and cooks what special food each man chooses to order: beef, pork, lamb, each with a tag of some sort labeling the order, and all frying together. A separate statement is kept of these expenses for each boarder. Such an account for a group of men in a small Slavic household may prove of interest. The family (which consisted of a man, his wife, his brother, and three children, eleven, eight, one, and four boarders), occupied a house of four rooms, one of them dark, for which they paid a rent of fourteen dollars. The man, though he had been in this country about twelve years, was still earning only $10.80 a week with which to meet the needs of his growing family. One-half the cost of the food was paid by the boarders including the brother, amounting for each man to about $1.06 a week. For the whole family, the expenditure was as follows: flour and bread, $2.03; vegetables, $1.06; fruit, $.56; milk, eggs, etc., $1.98; sugar, $.49; sundries, $.73; meat, $5.78; a total of $12.63. Besides this the boarders ordered "extras," and the following table for a month expresses the men's individual likings: EXPENSES FOR THE MONTH. _Pamhay._ _Baker._ _Drobry._ _Pilich._ _Timko._ Beef .87 1.20 .48 Pork 3.71 .92 2.14 3.04 2.30 Veal .90 Eggs .10 .05 Milk .21 1.90 Cheese .10 .19 .09 .05 Fuel .15 .25 .25 ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Total $3.96 $3.34 $3.04 $4.43 $2.88 This made the average total expenditure about $8.02 a month for each man. Adding $3 a month for room and washing, the total expense each is about $11. These men make from $9.90 to $12 a week. It is obvious therefore that a large margin remains for saving or indulgence, after clothes are provided. They are thus able if they will to send for wife and children, to fulfill their duties to aged parents, or to provide for their own future. While this program is an economical one, it by no means furnishes to this great group of homeless foreigners a normal life. Though some expect to return and others to send for their families when they have made their fortunes, all for the time being are in a strange country with neither the pleasures nor restraints of home life. To those who have no family at home or no desire to save, the temptation to spend money carelessly is great. Unfortunately the saloons get a large tribute. On pay Saturday, the household usually clubs together to buy a case of beer and drink it at home. These ordinarily jovial gatherings are sometimes interrupted by fights, and the police have to be called in. One officer, who had been on the force for nine years, said that while in general these men were a good-natured, easy-going crowd, and in all his experience he had never arrested a sober "Hunkie," when they were drunk there was trouble. The punishment usually inflicted for their disorderly conduct is of course, a small fine, which has little or no effect. It is indeed currently said that the bigger the fine the better they like it, as they feel that it indicates increased importance. [Illustration: A CONTRAST--I. _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ CLOSE QUARTERS. ONE ROOM AND THREE IN THE FAMILY.] It is not surprising that excesses exist in a town which offers so little opportunity for wholesome recreation, and whose leaders have failed to realize any obligation toward the newcomers. The Carnegie Library represents the only considerable effort to reach them. The clubs are open to the Slavs. Aside from a class in English, however, they are not adapted to non-English speaking people. Even the Slavic books which the library bought for their benefit are seldom used. I found that a number of the influential Slavs in Homestead did not know that these books were in the library; therefore I judge that one reason why they are not used is a lack of proper advertising. That the building is on the hill away from their homes, that it has an imposing entrance which makes the working man hesitate to enter, and that certain forms must be gone through before books can be secured, or the club joined,--these things have doubtless acted as deterrent influences. However desirous the management of the library may be to reach them, the Slav's ignorance of our language and customs will keep many from ever getting inside. If a library is really to reach the foreign population, it must not wait for them to come to it; it must go to them. A simple reading room opening right into the courts where the people live, where they could drop in after the day's work, find newspapers and books in their own tongue, and where the Americanized Slav could reach his newly-come brethren, teaching them both English and citizenship, would become an important center of influence. For though these people are in many respects aliens, they are not unwilling to accept American standards. The quickness, for example, with which the women adopt our dress, reveals an adaptability which might find expression in more important ways. That they are glad when they can afford it, to have really attractive homes, is shown by these pictures. They are the homes of two families from the same place in the old country, one a newcomer, the other one of the "oldest inhabitants" of the Slavic community. [Illustration: A CONTRAST--II. _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ INTERIOR OF HOUSE OF WELL-TO-DO SLAVIC FAMILY.] In the first instance, as the man earns but $9.90 a week, rent must be kept low if other bills are to be paid and a little provision made for the future. It is hard enough in a one-room tenement, though the furniture includes only absolute necessities, to keep all one's crowded belongings in order. On wash day morning, when this picture was taken, there are extra complications. On the whole, therefore, the home will be seen to be as neat as circumstances permit. The bright pictures on the wall manifest a desire to make it attractive. The other picture, a "front room" with its leather covered furniture, is in a five-roomed house which the family owns. The vivid-colored sacred pictures relieve the severity of the room; and they reveal a dominant note of Slavic life, for if happiness is to stay with the family, the priest must come yearly to "bless the home." The family who came many years ago, has by slow thrift accumulated the means to obtain this house. And though the mother, who is now a widow, still takes boarders, the family has in general the standards of Americans. This instance I introduce because it is well to recognize that low standards are not necessarily permanent. When Slavs do buy their homes, the size and attractiveness of them indicates that the unsanitary surroundings and crowded quarters of early days were simply tolerated until the ambition could be attained. With a house on the outskirts of the town, a garden about it, and a glimpse of the larger out-of-doors, they begin to feel that the dreams of their emigration have come true. Only the few however have fulfilled the dreams and it is back in the squalid courts that we find the typical problems of every industrial center that has felt the tide of immigration. The Homestead community has so far shown a general indifference to the problems which its industry creates. The mill demands strong, cheap labor, but concerns itself little whether that labor is provided with living conditions that will maintain its efficiency or secure the efficiency of the next generation. The housing situation is in the hands of men actuated only by a greed of profit. The community, on the other hand though realizing the situation, does not take its responsibility for the aliens in its midst with sufficient seriousness to attempt to limit the power of these landlords. The Slavs themselves, moreover, are people used to the limitations of country life, and are ignorant of the evil effects of transferring the small rooms, the overcrowding, the insufficient sanitary provisions which are possible with all outdoors about them, to these crowded courts under the shadow of the mill. And, as we said, their ambition to save and buy property, here or in the old country, is a further incentive to overcrowding. Summing up the results of the indifference of the community and the ignorance and ambition of the Slavs, we find a high infant death rate, an acquaintance with vice among little children, intolerable sanitary conditions, a low standard of living, a failure of the community to assimilate the new race. As we waited in one of the little railroad stations of Homestead, a Slovak came in and sat down beside a woman with a two year old child. He made shy advances to the baby, coaxing her in a voice of heartbreaking loneliness. She would not come to him, and finally her mother took her away. As they went, the Slovak turned sadly to the rest of the company, taking us all into his confidence, and said simply, "Me wife, me babe, Hungar." But were his family in America, it would mean death for one baby in three; it would mean hard work in a little, dirty, unsanitary house for the mother; it would mean sickness and evil. With them in Hungary, it means for him isolation, and loneliness, and the abnormal life of the crowded lodging house. [Illustration: _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ BUCH ALLEY. Showing conditions in the unpaved alleys.] [Illustration: [THESE SILHOUETTES REPRESENT 622 DEATHS IN 1907 FROM TYPHOID FEVER IN PITTSBURGH.]] THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OF TYPHOID THE FEVER'S ECONOMIC COST TO PITTSBURGH AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR PURE WATER FRANK E. WING ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR PITTSBURGH SURVEY; SUPERINTENDENT CHICAGO TUBERCULOSIS INSTITUTE One convincing and startling feature of the Pittsburgh Civic Exhibit in November was a frieze of small silhouettes three inches apart stretching in line around both ends and one side of the large hall in Carnegie Institute in which the exhibit of the Pittsburgh Survey was installed. The frieze was over 250 feet in length, and the figures were distributed in correct proportion by age and sex. They represented six hundred and twenty-two persons in all, the death-toll from typhoid fever in Pittsburgh during the year 1907. Accompanying this frieze, placed prominently over the doors where everyone could read them, were duplicates of the following sign in large display letters: * * * * * IF THE DEATH RATE HAD BEEN 25 PER 100,000, still considerably greater than that in Albany, Ann Arbor, Ansonia, Atlantic City, Binghamton, Boston, Bridgeport, Brockton, Cambridge, Canton, Detroit, Fall River, Hartford, Jersey City, Lawrence, Lowell, Milwaukee, New York, Rochester, St. Paul, Springfield, Syracuse, Worcester, and a score of other cities having a fairly pure water supply, but _114_ of these persons would have died and the line would _be only 2/9 as long_. _Who is Responsible for this Sacrifice?_ * * * * * And next to this placard was another sign, showing in comparative columns the amount of typhoid fever in Pittsburgh during the four months that had elapsed since the opening of a great municipal filtration plant, compared with the amount for the same months of the previous year; for example ninety-six cases in October, 1908, as against 593 in October, 1907. The typhoid problem in Pittsburgh in its larger cause has always been a water problem; in its consequences it has become one of the city's biggest social and economic problems; in its solution, it has been tied up with all the politics of a boss-ridden city. The story of filtration is the story of the navigation of an unwieldy craft through a tempestuous channel. Buffeted by cross winds of public opinion, its sails battered and torn by squalls of commercial opposition and abuse, guided now to the right and now to the left by frequently changing pilots, a plaything for the waves of councils, its booty coveted by buccaneers of each political faction, filtration and its freightage of health (or contracts) has been a prize over which the elements in the municipal life of Pittsburgh have battled hard and long. The docking of this craft in safety and security is one of Pittsburgh's greatest civic achievements; its protracted passage is her most enduring disgrace. In handling the question of typhoid in Pittsburgh, we must then, deal with three distinct themes: water, economics, and politics. [Illustration: Silhouettes are not here classified as to age, sex and occupation.] [Illustration] I.--WATER. THE MENACE. The publicly supplied drink of Pittsburgh has been river water and whatever that river water contained. Prior to the opening of the new filtration plant last summer, that part of the city known as "old Pittsburgh," comprising the first twenty-three[9] wards, received its water supply from cribs in the bed of the Allegheny River at Brilliant Station, about seven miles above the city. Water taken from these cribs (and since 1905 from an artificial channel of sheet piling along the shore) was pumped into reservoirs on Herron Hill and Highland Park, and then turned unfiltered into the water mains for distribution to the shops and residences throughout the city. [9] Ward numbers in this article refer to the existing or old notations. A new ward system has just been adopted. [Illustration] With the exception of two or three wards, which receive a company supply of filtered water, that part of the city known as the South Side, comprising wards twenty-four to thirty-six, and ward forty-three, formerly the Borough of Sheraden, receives its water from the Monongahela direct, and from the Ohio direct, just below the junction of the Monongahela and the Allegheny. The former city of Allegheny, the present North Side, was supplied directly from the Allegheny River from two sources; first from the Allegheny at a point near Montrose, about eleven miles up the river, and second from another point on the Allegheny near Sixteenth street. This latter source of supply was discontinued on March 5, 1908. [Illustration: THE NEW FILTRATION BASINS.] [Illustration] [Illustration] The Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers are turbid at all times, and after a rain or in the spring, so muddy that a platinum wire cannot be seen more than a quarter of an inch from the surface. In addition to this, investigations have shown that the rivers commonly carry in solution the soluble chemical products of the mills along their shores,--organic and inorganic, acid and alkali; oils, fats, and other carbon compounds; dead animals,--rats, cats and dogs; flesh-disintegrated and putrescent; as well as the offscourings of iron and steel mills, tanneries and slaughter houses, and similar industries. But this is not all. Seventy-five up-river towns,--with an estimated population of 350,000 inhabitants,--in the Allegheny or tributary valleys; and in the Monongahela a long string of towns, Swissvale, Homestead, Braddock, Rankin and McKeesport, all furnish their supply of common sewage as a further contamination of the already dirty water with its long list of disease-breeding bacteria. These conditions have existed since Pittsburgh came into prominence as an industrial center. Typhoid has been endemic. The duration of this "plague" in Pittsburgh, unbelievable though its sufferance may appear in view of the facts already given, is a matter of history and record. For thirty-five years, up to the beginning of 1908, the city was in the grip of a scourge which has been in the words of the most recent treatise on typhoid[10], "one of the black records in the sanitary history of our country." Here and there clamorous, indignant voices were raised against it; but public sentiment had become so callous that it only spasmodically and halfheartedly demanded the carrying into operation of a tardy system of filtration. In the meantime, those who could not afford to buy distilled or spring water, continued to drink this filth. [10] Whipple, Typhoid Fever, p. 158. [Illustration] With what result? For the last twenty-five years, an average death rate of 102.3 per 100,000 population; since 1889 never below 107; for the last nine years an average of 130; and last year, the year of the completion of Pittsburgh's filtration plant, 131.5 deaths and 1,115 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. A black record this, in the face of uncontrovertible evidence from other cities, both in this country and abroad, that the purification of the water supply should blot out at least seven-ninths of the typhoid fever. In contrast with Pittsburgh's high mortality, the average for other large American and European cities since 1898 may be seen from the following list: Pittsburgh 130.0 Allegheny 104.4 Washington 59.0 Philadelphia 54.7 Baltimore 35.3 San Francisco 30.5 St. Louis 30.3 Chicago 27.3 Boston 24.5 New York 18.2 Paris 17.4 London 11.7 Vienna 5.2 Berlin 4.2 The very even distribution of typhoid in Pittsburgh,--another indication pointing to infected water as the chief cause,--is seen in the map on page 927, on which each dot represents a case of typhoid within the year,--July 1, 1907, to June 30, 1908, the period covered by the main part of this study. The second map shows the relative mortality, by wards, for the same period. The following chart shows the relative rise and fall from year to year in cases and deaths during the past twenty-five years, and is based on estimates of population provided by the United States Census Bureau. The morbidity figures are taken from the United States census prior to 1901, and from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health records following that year. [Illustration] Previous to 1883 very little attempt was made to compel physicians to report typhoid cases to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health; hence no reliable morbidity records are available up to that time. But in the year 1882 an ordinance was passed requiring such reports to be made. It is very certain that several years elapsed before a majority of the cases was actually reported, and even at the present time, in spite of prosecutions and a more enlightened sentiment, many cases never reach the bureau. Yet the number of cases actually reported in Pittsburgh proper, since 1883, reaches the astounding total of 54,857. In other words, within the past twenty-five years, one person to every six of the total population has had an attack of typhoid fever. [Illustration: TYPHOID FEVER CASES AND DEATHS PER 100,000 POPULATION IN PITTSBURGH FROM 1883 TO 1907] But even more telling in its significance is the fact that out of these 54,857 reported cases, 8,149, or 14.8 per cent died as a result of their illness. Over eight thousand men, women and children were sacrificed here in Pittsburgh in the last twenty-five years to a disease known by modern science to depend for its very existence upon lax methods of handling food, drink and waste. Over eight thousand graves have been dug, half of them (4,069) since February 6, 1899, more than nine years ago, when the report of Pittsburgh's Filtration Commission, advising the necessity of a pure water supply, was placed in the hands of the Pittsburgh councils. In life, these eight thousand people, standing single file, four feet apart, would form a line six and one-sixth miles long, extending from the court house in a straight line to the Filtration Plant; or from the Point Bridge down the Ohio as far as the Borough of Emsworth. [Illustration] II.--THE COST. In order to establish a sure ground for estimate as to the economic drain of this disease upon this community, a concrete study of the cost of typhoid in six selected wards of Greater Pittsburgh was undertaken by the Pittsburgh Survey. The sections of the city chosen are fairly representative of living conditions among the wage-earning population. Wards 8 and 11, in what is commonly known as the Hill District, represent a congested quarter made up largely of Russian Jews, Austrians and Italians, with a considerable number of Americans and American Negroes. The residents of these two wards are chiefly employes of the small trades and the sweating and stogie industries, clerks, factory hands, common laborers, etc., who are rather below the average scale of earning capacity. They number about 22,000 for the two wards and among them there were forty-four per cent of the cases studied. Wards 25, 26 and 27 are on the South Side. Their total population is about 33,000; mill hands, mostly of Slavic origin, occupy those parts of these wards bordering the Monongahela River, and a better-off class of Americans occupy the hilltops overlooking the river. The wards would, therefore, represent a rather uneven population, as based on nationality or wage scale, but were not a large factor in this study, as only eight per cent of the cases covered were found in these wards. [Illustration] [Illustration: PITTSBURGH DISTRIBUTION BY WARDS OF TYPHOID FEVER CASES JULY 1, 1906 TO JUNE 30, 1907 SAME PERIOD AS THAT OF STUDY OF ECONOMIC COST IN WARDS 8, 11, 21, 25, 26 AND 27] [Illustration: PITTSBURGH. TYPHOID FEVER DEATH RATE PER 100,000 BY WARDS FROM JULY 1ST, 1906 TO JUNE 30TH, 1907 ~NOTE:~ WARDS 42, 43 & 44 WERE NOT INCORPORATED AT TIME OF STUDY.] [Illustration] Ward 21, the other section selected, is in area one of the largest in the city, lying to the east in what is known as the Homewood District. The population of this ward is about 26,000, living mostly in good homes, with occasional poorer dwellings along the railroad and in some of the "runs." In the main, they represent a high wage or small salaried class. From this section, the other half of the cases studied, about forty-eight per cent was taken. The period covered by the investigation was one year, beginning July 1, 1906, and ending June 30, 1907. The field work was done by Miss Anna B. Heldman, visiting nurse of the Columbian School Settlement, whose personal acquaintance with many of the families of the Hill District, and whose six or eight years' experience in caring for typhoid patients in this same neighborhood, enabled her to secure in detail many facts that might have escaped a person less familiar with the district or the families concerned. An analysis of the cases thus studied, shows that there were either reported to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health, or known to the investigator, but not reported, 433 cases of typhoid fever in wards 8 and 11, 94 in wards 25, 26, and 27, and 502 in ward 21--a total of 1,029 in these six wards within the one year studied. These cases occurred in 844 families. Miss Heldman, five months after the close of this year period, was able to locate but 338 of these families, the remainder having either moved out of the state, or been lost track of by people living in the neighborhood. There were 2,045 individuals in these 338 families, or an average of 6.4 persons per family. Of this number, 448 individuals, or 22 per cent had typhoid fever within the year. Out of these 448 cases, there were 26 deaths and 422 recoveries, an exceptionally low percentage of deaths to cases. [Illustration: Line representing 8,149 people who have died from typhoid fever in Pittsburgh since report of Filtration Commission in 1899 advising necessity of pure water. Standing in marching order, single file, four feet apart, they would make a procession six miles long.] Of the 448 patients, 187 were wage earners, contributing all or part of their earnings to the family income. As a result of their illness, these 187 wage earners lost 1,901 weeks' work, or 36.6 years. This averaged over ten weeks per patient, and represented an actual loss in wages of $23,573.15. In addition, other wage earners lost 322 weeks' work while caring for patients, thereby losing $3,326.50 in wages, and bringing the total of wages lost to $26,899.65. [Illustration] The other large item of cost is that of expense for care and treatment of patients. Ninety cases were treated in hospitals for all or part of the time, as pay patients, half-charity, or full-charity cases. To meet these hospital expenses, $2,332.00 was paid to hospitals by full-pay patients themselves, and $1,834.50 was paid the hospitals by either individuals or charitable organizations for the care of half-pay patients, making the total cost of caring for 90 hospital patients $4,166.50. This is an understatement, because it omits the contribution of the hospitals themselves to the care of half-charity and full-charity patients. If figures were available, there should be added the amount represented by the difference in the money paid to hospitals and the actual cost of maintenance, presumably another $1,800.[11] [11] Out of the 448 cases studied, twenty-four of the ninety cases treated in hospitals were as full charity patients and sixteen were taken as half charity cases; of the 358 cases treated at home, fifty received outside aid and ninety-six were compelled to incur a debt for all of their expenses, with no immediate prospects of being able to repay it. Moreover, many received sick benefits and others were a direct drain on the business interests of the city from the fact that their employers kept them on their pay-rolls during sickness, at half pay. The expenses of the remaining 358 patients cared for in their homes amounted to $12,889.90 for doctors' bills, $1,965.50 for nurses, $2,640.60 for medicines and drugs; $1,810.10 for milk, $629.20 for ice, $861.50 for servants made necessary by the illness of those naturally caring for the home, and $1,204.45 for other expenses, of which the largest single item was the cost of a trip to Colorado and return at the doctor's orders, for a patient threatened with tuberculosis. The total of these expenses was $22,000.35. [Illustration] The funeral expenses of the 26 patients who died, amounted to $3,186.00. It may be argued that sooner or later funeral expenses must inevitably be met, and that they should not, therefore, be charged against this account. Under the circumstances, however, these expenses were premature, and were directly chargeable to typhoid fever. Consequently, it has seemed fair from the point of view of this study, to include them. The grand total loss in wages and in expenses thus outlined was $56,252.50. Further analysis shows that the average loss in wages per patient among the 187 wage earners was $126; that the average cost per patient in loss of wages and expenses for the 446 patients was $128; and that the average cost in loss of wages and expenses for each typhoid death among the 448 cases was $2,164. Consider the losses in these wards in their bearing upon the city as a whole. There were 5,421 cases of typhoid fever in Greater Pittsburgh in 1907. If the cost to each patient was $128, typhoid fever cost the city that year $693,888 in expenses and loss of wages alone. There were 622 deaths from typhoid fever in Greater Pittsburgh during the same period. If we put the value of these lives lost at so low a figure as $4,000, an additional loss of $2,448,000 was sustained. Or in round numbers $3,142,000 was the minimum economic loss to the community of Greater Pittsburgh, due to typhoid fever alone in the year 1907. This is a conservative estimate, in view of recent values placed on deaths from tuberculosis.[12] The two and a half million dollar death item might be doubled without overstating the case. [12] Prof. Irving Fisher, of Yale, in a paper read at the International Congress on Tuberculosis in Washington last October, held that "the money cost of tuberculosis, including capitalized earning power lost by death, exceeds $8,000 per death." The average "expectation of life" lost through death from typhoid fever is not greatly different from that of tuberculosis. [Illustration] When it is considered that typhoid fever has been almost constantly prevalent within the city limits, with practically no abatement, for the past thirty-five years, it requires only a little applied mathematics to calculate the probable enormity of the money loss to the community, through the ravages of this disease alone, year after year. Was it not time for it to stop? In the face of over a $3,000,000 loss last year, $5,450,000 was not more than the city could afford to pay for the filtration plant that is purifying the drinking water. Nor was it extravagance for the mayor and city councils to grant the superintendent of the Bureau of Health an increased staff of tenement house and milk inspectors, to make it possible to clean up other sources of infection, and hasten the time when typhoid fever in Pittsburgh shall constitute a no greater menace than in any other well-kept American city. * * * * * I have used the term "economic cost" of typhoid fever with reference to Pittsburgh families. The mere phrase carries with it no knowledge of all those family readjustments and inconveniences, the distress of mind and unalloyed misery that must be considered before we can form any adequate idea of what such sickness holds for a wage earning population. Were it necessary to measure the result of typhoid fever only in cold cash, it would be a relatively easy task. In the first place there are the thousand and one makeshifts and re-establishments that must be reckoned with in order to get a clear idea of what typhoid means to those poorer families, where, without the invasion of sickness, the business of getting bread is a constant struggle. In a family consisting of a man, wife and three children, the sixteen year old daughter, who had not been very strong, contracted typhoid. At the end of sixteen weeks in bed and thirty-two weeks out of work, she had developed a marked case of tuberculosis. Not being strong enough to go back to her former employment, she secured work in a bakery where she was subsequently seen coughing as she wrapped up bread for customers. The father of this girl, during her sickness, was keeping six cows on the premises and selling milk to customers living in the neighborhood. [Illustration] The twenty-year-old wife of a Hungarian laborer had a six weeks' old baby when she came down with a slow case of the fever. She remained at home for a week with no one but herself to do the work and care for the baby. The husband, who did not realize the cause of her weakness, gave her a beating each day when he came home, because he thought her lazy. He made her carry up coal for the fires until she became so delirious that he could not keep her in the house. She was then sent to a hospital and the baby given to friends. The woman died in a week and the baby two weeks later. A family of five, consisting of father, mother and three little children, cooked, ate and slept in one uncurtained room. The mother and four year old girl were taken sick at the same time. The girl occupied an Arbuckle coffee box, with a pillow and pillow-case for a mattress, and the man's overcoat was her only covering. The mother slept in the only bed, furnished with a mattress and one small comforter, and shared it at night with the father, the baby and their six year old girl, who lay across the foot of the bed. The girl was in danger of contracting pneumonia from exposure. A family of seven occupied a store and kitchen on the first floor and two rooms upstairs. A small bedroom was the only one which had a fireplace; and the entire family slept there; the mother (who had typhoid), in the only bed, and the father and five children in a row on the floor. In another family, the six year old boy had the fever, and was found lying on an improvised bed, his little dog tied beside him. The mother had rested the ends of two boards in a china closet at one end of the kitchen, and on a chair at the other, so that she might care for the patient, do the cooking and attend to the baby at the same time. By this make-shift, the father was able to keep at his work. [Illustration] One family, consisting of father, mother and five children, managed ordinarily with a bed for the parents, a child's bed for the eight year old girl, a two-third size bed for the eighteen and sixteen year old daughters, and a cot for the fourteen year and ten year old sons, one sleeping at each end. First the mother and one of the boys were taken sick, and during the early part of their illness, no one was disturbed. But within a month, and before the first two patients got well, the four other children came down with typhoid, making six in the family sick together. Then the father slept on the floor and the sick mother got out of her bed to give place to two of the children, she, herself, sleeping at the foot of the bed until one of the children became delirious. After that she moved to the foot of the two-thirds bed. In the day time she had no place to lie down, and sat all day in a chair until she became so weak that she could hardly walk. Occasionally she helped her husband who did the cooking and cared for the patients, by paring potatoes and doing other small work about the kitchen. No one had time to keep the kitchen sink clean, and the accumulation of vegetable matter became so filthy that it had to be reported to the Bureau of Health. With family income cut off, and with nothing saved, the family would have been penniless had it not been that the doctor made his bill moderate; the family was trusted for groceries, milk and ice; friends gave about twenty dollars in cash, and Columbian Settlement furnished bedding and the services of a visiting nurse. The mother did not fully recover for about six months. The father, who suffered a good deal from loss of sleep and exposure while caring for the patients, contracted a cold. This developed into a serious case of asthma from which he died. [Illustration] To these and many similar families there were more serious results than the debts incurred. A school girl's unrecovered health, a stogie roller's reduced speed, a blacksmith's and a tailor's loss of strength, a case of tuberculosis developed, a boy become a truant, a family broken up and deserted, a baby's death,--all are of tremendous concern as items in the annual wear and tear of the city's potential resources. They are items of "economic cost" that cannot be handled by the statistical method. They are, after all, the real human finger marks that typhoid leaves when its clutches are loosened. * * * * * Such a showing, then, of actual economic and personal loss as this study of six Pittsburgh wards brought out, is offered as a final leverage to those who in other American cities may be endeavoring to dislodge inertia and clear their water supplies. This investigation of typhoid fever, however, as it was found in the households of the wage earners of Pittsburgh, had its immediate practical bearings. The sanitary facts it brought out showed unequivocally the necessity for ridding the city of other sources of infection at the same time that the water supply was cleared. There was evidence that many of the after cases in the families studied, were due to conditions existing entirely apart from the water. Reports on housing conditions in Pittsburgh show that a favorable laboratory for the growth and dispersal of germs exists in the city's unsanitary dwellings. Insufficient water supply renders cleanliness almost impossible. Overcrowding means increased possibilities of infection through contact with food and drink in the combined family kitchen, pantry, dining-room, and bedroom. Pittsburgh's thousands of open privy vaults afford ideal conditions for the spread of disease by flies and other insects, and by personal contact. Such plague spots as Saw Mill Run, with its string of double-and triple-decker rear privy vaults discharging on the banks of a stream which are flushed off only when the water rises after a rain, afford further examples, deplorable and disgusting. [Illustration] How much of the Pittsburgh typhoid has been due to direct contagion from such conditions as these, can only be inferred at the present writing. In line with the general question of contagion, and secondary cause, however, our data afford some clews. They show that in forty of the families studied, the first case was followed in from ten days to one or two months by other cases, seventy-six cases in all, in addition to the original forty. It shows further that in at least eighteen of these families, one or more of the following conditions existed: Family crowded into one or two rooms; home dirty and poorly kept; the person who cared for the patient also doing the family cooking; well and sick members of the family sleeping in the same room and often in the same bed; privy vaults in exceedingly bad condition, and often stopped up and overflowing with filth. In one family, consisting of man, wife, four children and three lodgers, crowded into two dirty rooms, a three year old boy was taken sick in October. The mother did the family cooking and cared for the patient. The cesspool in the yard which was in bad condition was used by two families. Another member of the family became ill November 3, and the mother came down on December 19. There were seven cases in this one courtyard within the year. In another instance a man, wife, and nine children were living in three rooms. The sixteen year old son was taken sick on June 20 and was sent to the hospital. Then in July came the thirteen year old daughter for whom her mother cared at home. The mother also did the family cooking. The father, mother and eleven year old son all slept in the same room with the patient. All three of them followed within a month, and another son twelve years old, was taken sick in August. [Illustration] In another family of eight, the sink in the kitchen and the toilet in the yard were in a very filthy condition. The mother and one son were taken sick in August. The sick and the well slept together in the crowded bedrooms. In November four more members of the family came down with the disease, on the sixth, ninth, eleventh and fifteenth, respectively. Let the reader judge for himself whether or not, in the face of these facts, it can be expected that filtered water alone will solve the problem. The Pittsburgh Typhoid Fever Commission is a recognition of these facts, and a recognition also from a national and scientific point of view, that probably never again in the history of any large American city will there be such a favorable laboratory in which to study the epidemiological facts of typhoid fever both before and after filtration. The commission was appointed in April, 1908, by Mayor Guthrie; is made possible by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, and by the co-operation of the bureaus of health and water, which offered the free use of their laboratories for analytical and administrative purposes. Dr. James F. Edwards is chairman, and the membership includes Dr. Dixon of the State Board of Health, Prof. Wm. T. Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. E. S. Rosenau, of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, who has been directing the elaborate governmental investigations into typhoid in the District of Columbia. The following report is made (January 1) by Dr. E. G. Matson, of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health, executive officer of the committee. [Illustration] The work of the commission to date has consisted of a minute investigation of all cases of typhoid which have appeared since May 1, 1908, including the sanitary condition of their living and working places. Investigations have also been made into neighborhoods where there appeared to be fewer cases than the average of the city, the milk supply, and the water supply, both public and private. It is remarkable that not even the smallest outbreak has been traced to milk. A particular feature of the study of water supply is that in connection with the acidity of the Monongahela and the eastern affluents of the Allegheny and its effect upon the sewage discharged by an enormous town population into them. So far typhoid has declined greatly in Pittsburgh since January, 1908, as compared with the average or even the minimum of previous years. This decline has naturally been a subject of great interest though it is too soon to give the results of investigations. We have ascertained that this decline has been shared by the towns on the lower Allegheny, which have hitherto been supposed to be the most important source of our epidemics. During November and December, which would represent the first months of the filtered water period, typhoid has been reported from the filtered water area at the rate of the most favorable American cities, and in Allegheny, which receives nearly the same water unfiltered, at about twice this rate. III.--THE STORY OF THE LONG FIGHT FOR PURE WATER. And now we come to the story of the long fight for pure water in Pittsburgh. The irony of the situation is, that there should ever have been a long fight in a city which has since 1863 publicly recognized the danger of impure water, the significance of which has almost continually been brought before the people by press and platform alike, for the past fifteen years. The story of the whole filtration movement cannot be separated from the story of the struggle for supremacy of contending factions in the dominant political party. And the result,--excess typhoid with its terrible cost,--becomes part of the penalty the city has had to pay for such corruption as the present graft proceedings in councils are bringing to light. [Illustration] The situation at the beginning of the filtration movement in 1895-96 was this: One of the strongest political machines in the history of municipal government was in absolute control in Pittsburgh. It mattered not who was elected mayor; he had no responsible power. Heads of departments were appointed by outgoing councils. This meant that department heads held over, and used their power to re-elect as in-coming councilmen the outgoing councilmen who had elected them. Moreover, councils were controlled by the ring.[13] In this way the political machine was self-perpetuating. The directors of public works drew specifications for public improvements; councils awarded contracts; and it is a matter of notorious record that the well-known firm of which one of the ring leaders was a member usually secured the contracts. [13] For an analysis of Pittsburgh politics during this period under the leadership of Magee and Flinn, see Lincoln Steffens's The Shame of the Cities. The municipal election in February, 1896, was hard and bitterly fought. George W. Guthrie headed the reform party as candidate for mayor. According to one authority the majority of ballots cast were for Guthrie, but when the count came in officially a few days after election, the ring had won. With the mayor, both branches of councils, and the director of public works all of the dominant party, the carrying out of their ante-election pledges so far as filtration was concerned would seem a matter of course. True to these pledges, a resolution for the appointment of a Filtration Commission, to include the mayor, the president of each council, and eight citizens,--making eleven in all,--passed City Councils on June 8, 1896, and was approved by the mayor on June 10. [Illustration] The commission was promptly appointed and set to work to make a thorough investigation into the relative merits of various methods of filtration and water supplies in use in cities of the United States and Europe. Allen Hazen, a leading expert on filtration, was employed for the first phase of the investigation, and Prof. William T. Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, eminent as a sanitary expert, investigated the typhoid situation in the city. Morris Knowles, C. E., was appointed resident engineer in local charge of all items of experiment and investigation. Various members of the commission visited European and American cities to study filtration methods; extended bacteriological and analytical studies of the Allegheny River water were made; small, slow, sand filter beds and standard make mechanical filters were set up at the experiment station to test the relative merits of each as applied to Allegheny River water; and nothing was left undone as a means of arriving at a sound conclusion. Over two and a half years elapsed between the appointment of the commission and the rendering of its report. The report, which was very elaborate, was presented at a joint session of councils on February 6, 1899, and showed that the members of the commission were united in their belief that, all things taken into consideration, a slow, sand filtration plant should be constructed. In accordance with its recommendation steps were immediately taken for the issue and sale of bonds to provide the necessary funds, a public election for this purpose being held on September 19, 1899. The appropriation ordinance for the year 1900 contained "No. 100; for the purpose of extension and improvement of water supply and distribution, including the filtration of such water supply, and providing and furnishing meters to be used in connection therewith ... $2,500,000." The ordinance authorizing the controller to issue bonds for the purpose as above specified was passed by Select Council in March, and approved by the mayor April 3. So that prior to May 1, 1900, a fund of $2,500,000 became available, and the prospect for the prompt erection of the plant would have been bright, but for the fact that during the four years since 1896 certain changes in the attitude of the members of the ring toward one another had taken place, that were destined to involve further complications. One member (Magee) had aspirations toward the United States Senate. In this he encountered opposition from the other end of the state, and in the struggle for state supremacy that followed, Pittsburgh was left largely to another member of the ring. [Illustration] In the early part of 1900 E. M. Bigelow, who for a long time had been director of public works, had a row with this leader (Flinn) over certain matters of public work. The result was that on June 11, 1900, the ring-controlled councils threw Mr. Bigelow out of office and elected as director of public works a man more friendly to the ring. This break between Flinn and Bigelow was the beginning of the long series of events that retarded the filtration movement for at least four years. Bigelow was now "out." The new director of public works, appointed by councils was acceptable to the ring that was "in"; so was the membership of councils. The question with Bigelow was, naturally, how to get back into office. This is the way he accomplished his desire. The ousted director had a brother, who, it is said, had an old grudge against the ring. He went to Harrisburg and prevailed upon the State Legislature to grant Pittsburgh a new charter, abolishing the office of mayor and substituting that of recorder, this office to be filled by the governor until April, 1903, when the regularly elected recorder would come into office. The charter also gave the recorder much larger powers than the mayor had previously enjoyed, among them the appointment of heads of departments and the right to enter into contracts hitherto the prerogative of councils alone. [Illustration] As might be expected, the newly appointed recorder soon exercised the authority vested in him by the terms of the new charter, and on June 11, 1901, removed the head of the department of public works again installing Mr. Bigelow in that important position, just one year after he had been removed by councils. It must be remembered that while Mr. Bigelow had again secured the directorship of the Department of Public Works, there had been no change in councils, which were still enrolled on the side of the ring. While councils could not now stop the preparation of plans and specifications for the proposed filtration plant, they could make a lot of trouble in other ways; and so they did. There are contradictory statements at this time as to just how much progress had been made on plans during the year that Mr. Bigelow was out of office. One side claims that "sixty per cent of the plans had been drawn"; the other said, "only part of the plans." At any rate, within six weeks Mr. Bigelow removed the engineer who had served under his immediate predecessor, appointed as resident engineer Morris Knowles (who was later appointed chief engineer of the newly created Bureau of Filtration), and directed him to start work on plans for the filtration plant. At the same time councils proceeded in an attack on the director for alleged delay in the preparation of plans; and on November 11, 1901, presented a report to its filtration committee declaring Mr. Bigelow entirely responsible for all the delay in the preparation of plans and specifications, adding that these delays had been "gross and inexcusable." This report was accompanied by a resolution ordering Director Bigelow to furnish within ten days, to the filtration committee, for its approval, all the plans and specifications for the work lying north of the Western Pennsylvania Railroad, directing him further to proceed with the utmost diligence to the completion of the plans and specifications for the remainder of the plant, and to submit the same to the filtration committee on or before December 2, 1901. The report and resolution were adopted by both councils on the day of their presentation. The real motive for this attack is readily inferred. [Illustration] In the meantime the opposing faction had been working with the governor, and after a notorious meeting at the Duquesne club, the governor was prevailed upon to remove his first appointed recorder, on the pretext that he had displaced several old soldiers from office, and to appoint another recorder in his place,--this time a man upon whom the machine could rely. At the close of the letter of removal, the governor added a now famous postscript, "I was not bribed." With the appointment of the new recorder, Bigelow was again forced out of the office of director of public works. This put the ring again in full control, with even greater powers than it had before. A year and a half had elapsed since the $2,500,000 became available, and all that the people had to show for it were eighty-five acres of land, part of the plans and specifications completed, and over 600 more deaths from the scourge of typhoid fever. The next move was made within ten days after Director Bigelow's dismissal, when another ordinance for the letting of the contract was introduced. It quickly passed both councils and received the recorder's approval. By this ordinance the contract was not to exceed $1,500,000 and was to be for the construction of "so much of the filtration plant as is shown upon the drawings and description in the specifications, as and to be known as contract No. 1." [Illustration] Under this ordinance the new director advertised for bids, which were received and opened. It appeared that the lowest bid was made by the T. A. Gillespie Company, at about $1,292,000. The director and recorder were preparing to let this contract for part of the work to the Gillespie Company, and it looked as though the faction of the ring now in the saddle would win the stakes. But they had not reckoned all the odds. The opponents of the ring, in this two-sided hold-up game, brought out another winning card. It was in the person of John P. Edgar, a citizen of Steubenville, Ohio, but the owner of property in the thirty-seventh ward, Pittsburgh, who entered suit in the United States Circuit Court at Pittsburgh for an injunction to restrain the recorder and director of public works from awarding the contract. The case was argued before Judge Buffington on March 3, 1902, W. B. Rodgers and George W. Guthrie appearing for the plaintiff, and Thomas D. Carnahan, city solicitor, for the city. Suit was based on the allegation that no estimate had been presented to councils for the whole cost of the improvement, and that the letting of this partial contract would be in violation of the new charter, which required that before any contract for public improvement could be entered into, such an estimate for the entire cost must have been presented. The city solicitor showed that an estimate had been made of the entire cost, but this estimate had not been made public or submitted to councils. Mr. Rodgers maintained that this estimate must be submitted to councils and approved by them. He and Mr. Guthrie also claimed that the contract should embrace the completion of the work. On March 13, 1902, Judge Buffington issued the injunction prayed for. The court held that the estimate of the whole cost, required by the charter, must be made to councils and become a matter of public information, and that such an estimate had not been made. [Illustration] The machine was temporarily blocked, but five days after the injunction had been granted, the recorder instructed his director of public works to have blueprints, plans and estimates of the entire filtration system ready to present to councils at as early a date as possible, thus starting the necessary legal steps for placing a new contract. Within a month these plans and estimates, involving an expenditure of $3,635,500, were prepared and submitted to councils, and three ordinances for the letting of contracts were presented. The increase over the first estimate was explained as due to an increase in the number of services to be metered, and to a general increase in the cost of materials. These three ordinances were indefinitely postponed, however, in councils, because more money for the construction of the plant under the increased estimate was not available. The next hold-up came from the city controller, who on May 1, 1902, sent the following letter in duplicate to Recorder Brown and Director McCandless: In view of the uncertainty attending the proposed filtration of the water, and the doubt as to the ultimate disposition of the matter by councils, this department desires to notify you that on and after May 10, no indebtedness against that appropriation for any purpose, except for labor or supplies previously furnished, should be incurred, as, under the decision of the court, there is now no authority for any expenditure for filtration purposes. In the meantime, about April, 1902, and all through that summer, advocates of a mountain water supply were at work. At the same time changes in councils threw out of the Filtration Committee members favoring sand filtration and elected opponents of the plan to its membership. The result was that on July 21, 1902, an ordinance was brought forward authorizing the Filtration Committee to prepare, in conjunction with the superintendent of the Bureau of Water Supply, or some other competent engineer designated by the director of public works, estimates showing the entire cost of the installation of the proposed sand filtration plant. Early in January, 1903, this resolution had passed both councils. It was, however, vetoed by the recorder on the ground that it was unnecessary, the Department of Public Works, he held, having already furnished full estimates, in good faith, and being ready to assist councils further in any manner that might be suggested. The recorder added in his veto: "If the purpose of this resolution is ultimately to defeat the proposed plan of sand filtration and substitute therefor a system of mechanical filtration, I am unalterably opposed to it." An attempt to pass the resolution over the recorder's veto was made, but it failed for lack of the necessary three-fifths vote. [Illustration] In the meantime an ordinance was presented authorizing a public election for a bond issue large enough to cover the difference between the amount of money then available and the amount required under the increased estimate. All that came of this was an inquiry by the sub-committee to which it had been referred as to whether the new estimate included coverings for the filter beds, and whether the South Side was to be given filtered water. After ten months' further delay, this sub-committee reported that the estimate did not provide for covered filter beds and that it made no provision for the South Side. Another year and a half had elapsed, with 650 additional deaths from typhoid fever; 1,250 to date. [Illustration] In April, 1903, by the election of Mayor Hays, the Bigelow faction again came into power and Mr. Bigelow was reappointed director of public works. Councils reorganized. A reform, or Bigelow man, was elected to the presidency of councils, control of committees was secured, and by the middle of 1903, the Bigelow faction was again in full power. By this time the South Side was demanding filtered water. The new estimates presented by Director Bigelow in September, 1903, included ten filter beds for the South Side, and the raising of the pumping capacity for the first twenty-three wards by twenty million gallons, and included also, new machinery and boilers for the Brilliant pumping station, and a fifty-inch steel main across the city to supply the South Side and the Monongahela River wards of the old city. These brought the total new estimate up to over seven million dollars. The time between September 21, 1903, and January 12, 1904, was required to get a resolution through councils and approved by the mayor, authorizing the finance committee to employ three experts, Col. Alexander M. Miller of Washington, John W. Hill of Philadelphia, and Rudolph Herring of New York, "to verify and make a report on or before March 1, 1904, to the committee on finance, as to the correctness of the estimates made by the director of public works." Under this resolution the experts were employed and went to work. In the meantime, councils had received a petition from the Pittsburgh Section of the American Chemical Society, urging the establishment of a sand filtration plant; also a resolution of the Civic Club of Allegheny county, and a resolution of the permanent civic committee of the women's clubs of Allegheny county, urging sand filtration at an early date. During 1903 there were 450 deaths from typhoid fever. On February 27, 1904, the filtration experts made their report recommending a receiving basin, three sedimentation basins, a clear water basin, and forty filter beds. They also recommended sand filtration and covers for filter beds, but cut down the capacity of the various parts of the plant sufficiently to reduce the estimated cost by $700,000. On March 31, 1904, the Bureau of Filtration in the Department of Public Works was created for the purpose of constructing these important works. No further opposition of a serious character was met, and in July of that year a second bond election for $5,000,000 was held and passed by a vote of nearly two to one. These bonds were issued in September; plans and specifications for the enlarged plant were prepared as soon as possible; bids were advertised; and the contract was let on March 4, 1905. With the final award of the contract the fight for pure water was practically won. Director Bigelow again stepped out of office in 1900 with the election of a mayor independent of either Republican faction; but the work of pushing the plant forward to completion was carried on by the Guthrie administration under the efficient supervision of Directors Clark and Shepherd, and Superintendent Knowles; so that by October, 1908, the plant was supplying a good quality of filtered water to the first twenty-three wards,--the old city. The settling of the pending litigation between the city and the Monongahela and other private water companies on the South Side, together with the taking over of that property by the city was all that remained to be done before filtered water could be supplied to that part of the city.[14] [14] In January, the Monongahela Water Company notified the city of its decision to abide by the decree of the Supreme Court, which granted permission to the city to take possession of this plant and system in consideration of $1,975,000. In the meantime the North Side (Allegheny City) still has unfiltered water. Immediately after Allegheny was annexed to the Greater City in December, 1907, steps were taken to pave the way for filtered water there. $750,000 was appropriated for ten extra filter beds on city-owned land adjoining the plant, and their construction is now under way. Their use for the North Side involves extra pumping facilities, however. A plan to bring the old Allegheny pumping station at Montrose down to Aspinwall for this purpose was recently blocked by members of councils from the North Side. Satisfactory explanation for this action does not seem to be forthcoming. The reason alleged was that its removal would throw some of the men out of a job. In the meantime Allegheny continues drinking unfiltered water with no immediate prospect of relief, and the same sort of political influence that delayed filtration in the old city so long, seems to be accomplishing similar results on the North Side. * * * * * In conclusion, let me apply the economic facts brought out in the first section of this article, to the four years of unnecessary delays in the construction of the filtration plant, from April 3, 1900, to April 29, 1904. They must be considered in making up the whole bill of the city in the cause of pure water. During all this time, more than $2,200,000, on which the city was paying three and one half per cent interest, was lying in the banks favored by the administration, bringing the city but two per cent; and the death rate from typhoid fever was the highest of any of the large cities in the United States. But for this delay the plant might have been brought to completion on January 1, 1904, or at least as far advanced as it was January 1, 1908, and four years,--1904, 1905, 1906 and 1907,--of excess typhoid fever might have been avoided. Not a startling statement, perhaps, on the face of it. But consider seriously what these four years of excess typhoid fever have meant to the people of Pittsburgh in deaths and economic cost. I have told you of but half of the people of six wards out of forty-three, one year out of four. In 1904, with an estimated population of 352,852, there were 503 deaths from typhoid in Pittsburgh. Cities with a fairly pure water supply do not have over twenty-five deaths annually per 100,000 population from typhoid. Had Pittsburgh's typhoid fever death rate in 1904 been twenty-five per 100,000, there would have been but 88 deaths instead of 503, and the grim total of 415 lives would not have been blotted out. By allowing $2,000 as the cost in loss of wages and expenses for each death (a little under the actual costs in the concrete study of economic cost already given), and allowing our previous minimum of $4,000 as the value of each life, the total excess deaths in 1904 alone from lack of pure water was a loss to the community of $2,490,000. There were 425 unnecessary deaths in 1906, and a wastage of $2,550,000; 289 unnecessary deaths in 1905, and a wastage of $1,734,000; 415 unnecessary deaths in 1904, and a wastage of $2,490,000. In the four years the community lost $9,000,000,--over $4,000,000 more than the cost of the filtration plant. And in those four years, 1,538 lives were unnecessarily sacrificed. There are those who will say, and perhaps rightly, that Pittsburgh's filtration plant of to-day is the magnificent triumph of construction that it is, only because of those years of delay in shaping the final plans; that while those who fought the measure tooth and nail for so many years did not have that purpose in mind, yet the set-backs they were able to accomplish, have made in the end for a larger, better, more efficient and more far-serving plant than could have been possible, had the first plans been carried hastily to completion. Such may be the case. If so, let the people be thankful that the cause of pure water triumphed ultimately over a lethargic public sentiment, selfish political purposes, and municipal shortsightedness. Let them at the same time remember at what cost to themselves and to their city the fight was won. And let the plant itself stand as an object lesson of tardy justice, and a monument to those hundreds of lives that paid the penalty unwillingly and unknowingly of being part and parcel of an unaroused municipal conscience. [Illustration: GROSS NUMBER OF TYPHOID CASES, 1885 TO 1907. GROSS NUMBER OF TYPHOID CASES AND DEATHS REPORTED IN PITTSBURGH FROM 1885 TO 1907] PITTSBURGH'S FOREGONE ASSET, THE PUBLIC HEALTH A RUNNING SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATIVE SITUATION SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS Starting at the lowest level, let us formulate our initial axiom in terms of dollars. A sound man can do more work than a sick man. Therefore he can make more money. A sound city can do more work than a sick city. Therefore, in the long run, it can accumulate more wealth. Public health is a public asset. This is a truth which, in her single-minded purpose of commercial and industrial expansion, Pittsburgh long ago forgot, if, indeed, she ever stopped to realize it. Consequently, at a time when all the other great American cities have organized their forces thoroughly and are waging battle, with greater or less scientific skill, against that most potent of all destroyers, the germ, this mighty aggregation of half a million human beings has only just declared war, and has barely established its outposts. After two years of preparation to meet conditions which have been half a century in forming and solidifying, Pittsburgh's little regular army of defence now faces the most complicated problem of municipal betterment to be found in American hygiene. A health bureau performs a defensive and protective function. Its intelligence department must keep it apprised of every manifestation on the part of the enemy; and it must rally to the threatened point to check the advance before it be too late, whether the emergency be a school epidemic of diphtheria, or a localized onset of typhoid. It must maintain a jealous watchfulness over the food and water supplies that are brought into the city, lest with them shall come the invading diseases. And its statistics of death and disability must point out for repair, the breaches made in its walls by the never-ceasing onslaught. Such a sanitary garrison has little rest, and no respites, for the besieging germ never sleeps. The date of Pittsburgh's last annual health report is 1899. That fact is crammed with meaning. Strategically it means that for nearly a decade the sentries have all been asleep at their posts. Politically it has meant that those responsible for the administration of the city were too lethargic, too ignorant, or too indifferent to disturb that profound Rip Van Winkleism. Civically it means "Who cares!", and that companion gem, "What's the use?". Between public indifference, private selfishness, and political inertia, the germ has pretty well had its own sweet way with Pittsburgh, and the city's annual waste of life from absolutely preventable disease has been a thing to make humanity shudder, had it been expressed in the lurid terms of battle, holocaust, or flood, instead of the dumbly accepted figures of tuberculosis, typhoid, and infant mortality. Presumably, before this article gets into print, the Pittsburgh health report for the year 1907 will have been issued. What laborious exhumation of dilapidated statistical skeletons that report represents, I have not space to explain here. The important and significant point is that the authorities are at last at work, and energetically, under the leadership of a skilled sanitarian, Dr. James F. Edwards, superintendent of the Bureau of Health. It would be pleasant to add that Dr. Edwards goes into action with his hands free; pleasant, but quite untrue. On the contrary, he is bound and hampered to an extent that would devitalize the efforts of any but the most patient of enthusiasts. His forces are not under his own control, since under the Pennsylvania system he is at the head, not of a department, but of a bureau of the Department of Public Safety, administered by a layman. The law gives him no power to choose or discharge his own subordinates within the limits of the civil service; all that he can do is to train and educate such of them as most need it, when they come to him. He has no specific supervision or control over public or charitable institutions, those prolific culture-beds of contagion. Even the Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases has been taken out of his hands and put under other management. He cannot condemn a building inimical to the public safety, nor can he revoke a milk license. He cannot abate a nuisance without going to court for it. And, lest the powers of his bureau should wax too great and impinge upon individual privilege, old laws have been raked up and carefully interpreted to restrict the scope of its work. Yet in spite of all this, wonderful to say, the efforts of the bureau seem to have made an initial impress already on the death rate, and, even more important, to have gathered to its support some tangible force of public opinion. "Seem to have made," I say, because figures in this connection are largely a matter of conjecture. Basis for any detailed comparison between present and past, is lacking. What is certain, however, is that the sanitary forces are doing work which must inevitably have its effect in life-saving in the future; and the efficacy, if not the qualitative result, of that work is hopefully apparent. The first attack was made on a condition of affairs which would have disgraced a country village, the prevalence of unprotected outhouses, scattered over the length and breadth of the landscape; not only lurking in the slums, but peering from the proud eminence of hilltops down upon the homes of wealth and elegance below. Through the agency of flies in summer and of wind or heavy rains in winter, these relics of communal barbarity spread filth and contagion through the city. How many of them existed at their maximum will never be known. There are still six thousand survivors, but the number is being reduced daily. Proceeding under an ordinance which declares them illegal, Dr. Edwards began his campaign modestly. Opposition he foresaw, but he waited to keep it, as far as might be, sporadic, and to prevent it from concentrating. In the year 1905 only forty-six of these nuisances had been abolished. In 1906, six hundred of them fell. Thereupon the sensitive nerve of property rights thrilled the alarm throughout the commercial body. Reform was threatening rental profits; was becoming "radical," and "destructive." People with pulls, real or imagined, rushed to councils with demands for the repeal of the ordinance. But here an unexpected ally appeared. Destruction of the old meant construction of the new and modern, with much accruing increment to the plumbing trade. Therefore these shrewd business sanitarians hastened before the committee with lawyers and arguments, and so effectually backed up the case of the Health Bureau, that the repeal project was killed then and there. In the enthusiasm of well-won victory plumbers' supplies soared heavenward, with the result of bringing the unfortunate property owners down upon the Bureau of Health in agonized droves, begging for protection from the masters of the situation. Thereupon the bureau quietly allowed an extension of time, until the enthusiastic plumbers, somewhat chastened, saw the point and came nearer to earth in their prices; after which the process continued, and has been continuing, with accelerated progress. For the issue had now been decided. The proprietors of noisome property had lost the first skirmish. In 1907, 7,755 notices were served on recalcitrants, and 3,590 privies were abolished. By the end of 1910, Dr. Edwards hopes to have relegated these nuisances to a purely historical status. Encouraged, the Bureau of Health sought from the Legislature the power to condemn unsanitary dwellings. At present, in order to destroy property prejudicial to the public health, the bureau must go to court and prove the conditions unsanitary,--a cumbrous, expensive, and uncertain process. It is not long since a presumably upright and intelligent occupant of the bench held that a house which leaked so badly that the floors were rotted and the plaster peeled from the walls could not, on that account, be adjudged unsanitary. The bill passed the Legislature, prescribing condemnatory powers, with a proviso for court review and damages to the owner if the condemnation should be found unjustified. Governor Stuart vetoed the bill on the ground that it was too sweeping. If the local undertakers haven't passed a vote of thanks to the governor, they have missed a gracious opportunity. What would have been the one most effectual check upon the city's mortality, the wiping out of those death-in-life conditions of housing which make for tuberculosis, the active contagions, and above all the undermined vitality represented in Pittsburgh statistics under every division from general debility to suicide,--that the gubernatorial veto has effectually blocked. So certain large and small owners of slum property have an extension of immunity for their rentals drawn, at the worst, from premises where they wouldn't house their pigs,--particularly if they designed to eat the pigs afterward. Evil housing conditions are almost invariably reflected in the mortality figures of tuberculosis. Yet Pittsburgh's given death rate from tuberculosis is low; hardly half the normal rate for American cities, in general: so low, indeed, that I doubt whether any sanitarian would give implicit credence to it. Similarly, the death rate from pneumonia and bronchitis is suspiciously high. For example, in 1907 there were a quarter as many deaths attributed to bronchitis, as to consumption, an incredible assumption. Dr. Matson, who is in charge of the bureau's statistics, has decided, with a wisdom born of experience, to regard _fatal_ cases of bronchitis as belonging, statistically, in the pneumonia column; so I shall lump the two diseases. In the first eight months of last year (which is as far as the monthly figures have been supplied to me) there were but 565 deaths set down to tuberculosis in all forms, whereas the pneumonia and bronchitis totals aggregated upwards of 1,100. This is a condition which, so far as I know, has never been paralleled in any American city. The inference is inevitable that deaths, which should properly be ascribed to the great white plague, are reported by physicians under other heads. This is due, usually, to the influence of the decedent's family, who fear to lose their places if it be known that there is "consumption in the house," or who will perhaps, forfeit the insurance money if the true cause of death appear on the records. Very wisely Dr. Edwards is proceeding, not upon local certificates, which may lie, but upon universally recognized facts, which cannot; and is planning an exhaustive tuberculosis campaign. In this campaign will be concentrated the local official health force, the Pittsburgh Tuberculosis League, and the local dispensary of the State Board of Health, all working in conjunction with a special Tuberculosis Commission now in process of organization by the city government. At present the consumptive poor of Pittsburgh have a small, practically a negligible chance of life. The great, rich, busy city that slowly kills them, has no means to care for them while they are dying. There is no municipal tuberculosis hospital. To be sure, Marshalsea, outside the city, can care for some thirty victims; but they are taken there, usually, only when they are too weak to resist effectually. For Marshalsea is the Poor House. And there is inbred in the American an indestructible, illogical, pathetically self-respecting something which makes the term "Poor House" a poison to his soul. Live he might, within those walls. He prefers to stay outside and die. The late Dr. Charles Harrington of the Massachusetts department, wisest and most human of health officials, said to me once in one of his characteristic bursts of impatience with the stupidity of Things as they Are: "If I had the choice to make between naming a refuge for the helpless sick 'Poor-house' or 'Sure-Death,' I'd choose 'Sure-Death' every time. You could get more people to go to it." Marshalsea doesn't save many of the consumptives who come to its gates. Non-consumptives it does save, indirectly, since it removes from a susceptible environment, a certain number of spreaders of infection. Private effort does its altruistic but minute best in Pittsburgh; the Tuberculosis League has a hospital in which it can take care of fifty to sixty patients. And the State Board of Health relieves the situation a little by maintaining one of its admirable tuberculosis dispensaries in the city, with a staff of visiting nurses; and sends a few hopeful cases to its sanatoriums. Perhaps 100 victims of the plague can be cared for in proper institutions. There are to-day in the city probably 3,000 sufferers in a sufficiently advanced stage to be a peril to all with whom they come into contact. At a very moderate estimate three-fifths of this number are unable to afford proper home care, and of this three-fifths (all of whom will die, barring the few that can be accommodated in the hospitals) probably one-third,--again my estimate is conservative,--could be saved under proper conditions. That is, Pittsburgh of the mighty mills, Pittsburgh of the heaped-up millions, Pittsburgh of the rampant industrialism which has spread its influence to the far corners of the world, stands by helpless while six hundred lives are going out needlessly, not because they might not be saved, but because there is no place in which to save them. Nor is this the worst; since, in the slow process of dying, these victims will radiate the poison to hundreds, directly; indirectly to thousands, who are now well, strong, and unsuspecting the inevitable doom. What can the Health Bureau, the officially constituted army of defence, do to remedy this condition? Nothing. That is the answer which goes over the telephone wires, once, twice, half a dozen times a day, to people who ask for advice for helpless cases of consumption. I suppose that the sorriest duty of a health official, is to deny the application of some man upon whose life depends the support of other lives, for a fighting chance to get well and do his work in the world. Ask Dr. Edwards, oh comfortable resident Pittsburgher, how often he has had to do the very thing in the last year. It may give you new light on your civic responsibilities. Not so often will that hopeless response be made in the future. The united forces, drawn together by the forming Tuberculosis Commission, will make it their first business to provide some refuge of increasing adequacy, for those who are now distributing the infection. Meantime, though there is little to be done for those already stricken, the city is being covered, district by district, by the visiting nurses of the league, of the State Dispensary and of the Health Bureau, soon to be re-enforced by five special nurses from the commission, and all training and instructing the consumptive in those measures of prevention which safeguard the people about him from contracting the disease. One-third of all who die in Pittsburgh, die without having anything to say about it. That is, they die under five years of age. One-fourth of all who die, die without having anything to say about anything. That is, they die under one year of age. Most of these deaths are preventable, being the outcome of conditions which, humanly speaking, have no right to exist. Chief among the causes is bad milk. Pittsburgh uses 40,000 gallons of milk per day, coming from a wide radius in both Pennsylvania and Ohio. Before the present administration, this vitally important merchandise received rather less attention than the corner-stand vending of collar buttons. At the beginning of 1906 the Bureau of Health had one lone milk inspector. He collected samples, and, if one may judge by the brief records of analyses, he didn't imperil his own health by over-assiduity in the job. Dairy inspection was an unthought-of phase of activity. In August, 1906, two more inspectors were acquired and began, by prosecutions, to do some work in the matter of discouraging the use of formaldehyde. There was even some inspection of stores and adjacent dairies. Now the bureau has six men in the milk division, two of whom are dairy inspectors and one a veterinarian, and all of whom do conscientiously the work the city pays them to do. Two more have been arranged for, with which addition Dr. Edwards believes he will have a sufficient force to inaugurate a higher standard of supply. Unfortunately there is no official standard, though an ordinance is being prepared establishing bacterial and temperature requirements. Unfortunately, too, the law has been interpreted to mean that the Bureau of Health must issue licenses on demand; and that it cannot revoke these licenses. What has been done thus far is chiefly in the line of educating the dairymen and dealers. Dr. Edwards admits frankly that, while he regards pasteurization as a make-shift only, he believes that it will be necessary for a time to accept the deteriorated quality of milk consequent upon pasteurization, for the sake of destroying the pathogenic bacteria with which the supply swarms. Analyses made last summer showed an average of a million bacteria per cubic centimetre. The limit of reasonable safety is usually set at half that number. As for conditions as they existed at that time in certain local dairies, I can do no better than quote from the report of Dr. Goler, the health officer of Rochester and an international authority on milk supply: Go out to one of those dairies near the country club which supplies milk to some of the families living in the best localities and see the conditions under which milk is produced for the future citizens of the state and the nation. A dirty one-room house that once did duty as an out-house, supplied with water by a hose, a few old tubs in which cans, bottles and utensils are washed in cold water, and where all the waste flows into a vault beneath the foundation of the house. A damp, dark, old stable festooned with cobwebs, without drainage, where all the liquid refuse finds its way through cracks in the floor to the space beneath the structure, and where, on filthy floors, in some cases raised but one poor plank above the common floor of the stable, the swill-fed cows stand and give milk for some of the babies of Pittsburgh aristocracy, whose parents are willing to pay the munificent sum of eight cents a quart for the product. Visit cow stable after cow stable within easy motor ride from Pittsburgh, and the conditions of filthiness prevailing in the stables are only exceeded by the depth of manure and mud in the barnyards. The conditions of the cows, cans, utensils and barnyards at the distant points from which the city draws its milk may be judged by the fact that they pasteurize the milk before bringing it to the city and pasteurize it again before it is sent out from the dairy. Dairy inspection, it is fair to say, has recently ameliorated the worst of these conditions. Increasingly careful supervision of the retail milk dealers, and constant inspection of the less cleanly stores, which has discouraged many of them out of existence, tend to minimize the danger of contamination of milk at the other end of the line. There is, however, an additional peril in the well-water supply often used to wash cans and bottles. The milk-inspection force faces a situation outlined in the latest complete figures (not yet in print); those for 1907, which show a total infant mortality of more than a thousand from diseases inferentially due to bad milk. The poorer quarters of the city where prices rule at six or seven cents a quart, exhibit the heaviest figures, and there is the typical rising curve of the mortality line in hot weather. Last summer that curve, while still unpleasantly in evidence, was noticeably modified. Education of mothers of the slums was largely responsible. The Bureau of Health put a corps of six special nurses in the field who went about from house to house, instructing mothers in the hygienic care of their children, and working in conjunction with the Pittsburgh and Allegheny Milk and Ice Association, one of the most efficient charitable enterprises in the city. Probably the infant mortality for the whole year of 1908 would have been low but for the winter epidemic of measles, which killed more victims than scarlet fever, diphtheria, smallpox, chickenpox, and all the other active contagions put together. Now the city, having learned a costly lesson in the seriousness of this too commonly disregarded disease, quarantines for it. It is perhaps, hardly ingenuous to include smallpox in the foregoing comparison, as that disease is now a practically negligible quantity. Since the epidemic of 1903 Pittsburgh has been the best vaccinated of American cities. Wherefrom depends a corollary for the consideration of the anti-vaccinationists, that for two years there has not been a death from this loathsome and unnecessary infection in the city, nor has a single original case developed. [Illustration: DISEASE-INCUBATORS. Some Pittsburgh cow-stables which lower the standards set by progressive producers.] We are prone, in this country, to study the public health too much in terms of death rates, and too little in the character of the survivors. Applying this latter test to the children of Pittsburgh's slums, we shall find cause to wonder whether, in a sense, the deaths are not too few rather than too many. Would it not be better for the unfortunate and innocent victims themselves, and certainly for the community at large, that this puny, helpless breed of hunger, filth, and misery which creeps about the city's man-made jungles, should succumb in infancy to the conditions that bred but cannot support them? For there are certain phases of existence in which a high death rate is less to be feared than a high birth rate. Anti-race-suicide has a fine, rotund ring, as it issues from the presidential lips. But President Roosevelt has never, I take it, been in Mulberry Alley, or Our Alley, or a certain unnamed court off Washington street that wafts its stenches into the boulevard below, or any one of a score of other hopeless thoroughfares which might give him pause in the promulgation of his doctrine. Nor are conditions of life here in the city's choked up center greatly worse than in the "runs" which diversify the landscape of the newer parts of the city; damp, heavy-aired, steaming canyons, into which the poorest classes have been pushed; over the rim, and "off the earth," as it were. There they live, pasty women and weazened children, in the heavy air, polluted, as like as not, by the stenches from the creeks which are little else but open sewers. One such little isolated population I found, in a huddle of houses, under a towering steel bridge, faithfully reproducing, in what was practically open country, the deadliest living conditions of the crowded center of population. To return to the central slums, there are whole districts which might well (were it of any avail) be placarded, as are certain New York flats: * * * * * NO ROOM HERE FOR CHILDREN. * * * * * Settlement workers know the truth about this matter. Here are the words of one of them: "Not one child in ten comes to us from the river-bottom section without a blood or skin disease, usually of long standing. Not one out of ten comes to us physically up to the normal for his or her age. Worse than that, few of them are up to the mental standard, and an increasing percentage are imbecile." What can a Bureau of Health do to [Illustration: (By permission of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health). WHERE HUMAN LIFE IS CHEAP.] alleviate such a status? Nothing: the problem is too big for official solution. Either a sense of responsibility on the part of the mill owner toward his employes who must live near the mills will start a housing movement that will do away with the present outrageous rentals for disgraceful accommodations, or an aroused public conscience will, by one means or another, make a clean sweep of these pest holes. Or, a third, and ugly alternative. London's East End is open for the inspection of travelling Pittsburghers. There they may see in its fullness the crop of pauperism, dependence, and degeneracy which is bred in the third and fourth generations, of conditions no worse than their own average, and not so bad as their own worst. As an escape from the slum there is the school. Here again Pittsburgh is in the dark ages of hygiene. Every public school is a law unto itself. The principal, always a layman, and not unusually an ignorant one in health matters, decides when a pupil shall be isolated for a contagious or suspicious ailment. Is it surprising that a short time ago a certain skin disease infected an entire institution, or that eye and scalp ailments are often widely diffused among the scholars? From an inspection of buildings and pupils Dr. Goler draws these conclusions: The school buildings are in many cases crowded, dark, dirty, often of three stories, and bad fire risks. The condition of the children in these schools good and bad, rich and poor, may be shown by the large proportion having defective teeth, reduced hearing, imperfect vision. An excessively large number of them are mouth breathers, partially so because they are unable to breathe through their noses in the smoky air of Pittsburgh, and a very considerable number are below stature for weight of that determined for the average child. In a large percentage, the defects of teeth, nose and throat, bring them below the physical normal. These are the children that wear out in childhood. [Illustration: PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS 10-CENT LODGING HOUSE. In cellar of river-front building; flooded out every year. Dilapidated, unsanitary and unventilated, this and similar lodging houses were breeding place of disease. Closed by Bureau of Health, following investigation and report for Pittsburgh Survey, by James Forbes, mendicancy expert of the New York Charity Organization Society. A lodging house code has since been established.] In no manner of justice, can the Bureau of Health be held to account in this matter. In co-operation with the Civic Club, settlements, physicians and school principals, Dr. Edwards sought to establish a medical inspection of public schools, such an inspection as would, for example, undoubtedly have checked almost at its inception the disastrous onset of measles of last year. But the measure never got past the legal department of the city administration. In view of the present conditions in the schools, Dr. Goler's closing and pregnant suggestion has a special force: _"Ought not the Pittsburgh schools to be closed and the children repaired?"_ Semi-public institutions in Pittsburgh are quite independent of hygienic control or inspection. This seems to me one of the crying evils of the present status. Let me give a few examples: An inmate of an institution for children was infected by another child who had virulent skin disease and soon afterward he became totally blind. This was a repetition of a past experience of the same institution in which a child contracted trachoma within the institution walls, is totally blind in consequence and a charge upon the state. Last spring an institution was found in charge of a matron whose special qualification for her care of very young children was experience. She had had ten of her own, all of whom died of intestinal disease and rickets in early childhood. She was feeding the little ones in her care on coffee and other food suited only to robust grownups. Every child in a certain charitable institution, a short time ago, was suffering from skin and scalp disease. Lack of arrangements for effective isolation, in case of contagious disease, is more common than provision for isolation. A refuge for fallen women has, naturally, a large percentage of inmates suffering from venereal disease. The women of one refuge work in the laundry which gets a certain amount of outside trade. Among other things it washes towels for a hotel. Contraction of gonorrhea or syphilis from infected towels or garments is a well-recognized medical fact. A laundry with infected women on its working force cannot but be a public peril. Grim facts are piling up on the records of the Pittsburgh Tuberculosis Dispensary as to advanced cases of tuberculosis among the little charges of charitable institutions. Instances such as these might be multiplied. As in the case of the public schools the authorities are helpless. Even over the city's own institution, the Municipal Hospital, the Bureau of Health has no control. It has been transferred to the Bureau of Charities within the last year. It receives only contagious diseases, and is too small for the requirements in time of epidemic, having proper accommodation for only eighty, with a crowded capacity of 125. Dr. Booth of the Bureau of Health, who acts as visiting physician by special appointment to the Bureau of Charities, tells me that up to 1905 the plant was housed in buildings erected in the seventies. The furnishings were beds and bedding from the fire and police departments, regarded as being no longer fit for use by the city's paid servants, and therefore proper charity for the city's helpless sick. Two years ago, Dr. Booth put an end to this system by burning the last consignment of furnishings (for reasons principally entomological); and announcing that he would admit to the hospital no more equipment, discarded as unfit by the police and fire forces. Now the plant has its own furnishings. The building is modern but of an obsolete and unsatisfactory type, and has not sufficient grounds for its convalescents. All the other hospitals in the city are private institutions. There is no co-ordination of hospital work among them, and their distribution is such that localities where there are the most ambulance calls are without easily available hospital plants. To sum up, these are some few of Pittsburgh's immediate needs, if it is to fight its battle successfully for fewer deaths and a better living product: Autonomy of the official health authorities (preferably a department of health, not a bureau) under the executive and administrative control of a physician or sanitarian. A tuberculosis hospital for advanced cases which are now spreading infection throughout the city. More visiting nurses and more sanitary inspectors. Eventually a hospital for the incipient cases that can be saved. Municipal collection and disposal of the rubbish which accumulates everywhere, seriously hampering efforts to make the city hygienically clean and which must now be removed at private expense. A general hospital of sufficient size, proper equipment, and adequate surroundings. Some reasonable division and co-ordination of effort on the part of the private hospitals. Authority to condemn and destroy unsanitary buildings. Authority to condemn and destroy, upon its entrance to the city, or upon discovery within the city limits, unclean, infected, or adulterated milk, and to refuse and revoke milk licenses. Establishment of a standard for milk. Medical inspection of schools and school children. Medical and sanitary inspection of hospitals, and of all public or semi-public chartered institutions. These authorizations to be embodied in a city code. At present the health officials work almost wholly under the state law. * * * * * [Illustration: GERM HATCHERIES. THESE FRONT ON THE GRANT BOULEVARD.] What is Pittsburgh going to do about it? Though the foregoing rather general survey may suggest pessimistically "the little done, the undone vast," yet there is not lacking, in the view, definite promise as well as progress. Many and diverse agencies are helping the cause. The monthly reports of the bureau keep a public, which has for years been in a state of Egyptian darkness as to the how and wherefore of its mortality, fully informed. A Civic Improvement Commission has been appointed by Mayor Guthrie, one of the sub-committees of which will deal with needed hygienic reforms. The Chamber of Commerce has appointed a special committee to co-operate with the Health Bureau for the betterment of housing conditions, and another to aid in improving the milk supply. For the protection of the communities downstream, a sewage disposal plant has been voted; and badly needed it is, as is shown by the fact that, at the present writing, two thousand people are ill in the suburb of Bellevue, from drinking water polluted by Pittsburgh's sewage. The Allegheny County Medical Society has constituted a committee on public instruction in health matters; also a milk commission. The Tuberculosis Commission will soon be in the field with its broad campaign. Municipally there has been an important step forward in the establishment of a disinfection corps which sterilizes and makes safe, at the public expense if necessary, the premises from which a consumptive has been removed. Anti-tuberculosis education by the various corps of visiting nurses is extending into every corner of the city that harbors a dangerous consumptive. The state school commission has recommended medical inspection of schools. City ordinances providing for milk standards, and rubbish disposal, are in prospect. The Bureau of Health, only a short time ago a rusted and ineffectual machine fed by incompetents from other departments, has, under its new head, developed an _esprit de corps_, and is now welded into a compact, dependable organization. And this organization will constantly have a supply of better trained men to draw upon, since the University of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Technical Schools have, at Dr. Edwards's suggestion, arranged for special courses in sanitary engineering and practical hygiene. Yes; Pittsburgh is awake to the needs of the situation. But the true test is yet to come. Thus far it has been but the laying out of the lines of battle and a few preliminary, and, on the whole, victorious skirmishes. For when hygienic and sanitary reform impinges, in its advance, as it needs must, upon the private purse of some, the political purposes of others, and the industrial and commercial license of the whole, then will come the tug of war. Then, according as shortsighted selfishness shall prevail over, or succumb to, civic pride and patriotism, the victory will be to the germ or to the city. [Illustration: A SLUM IN THE OPEN.] * * * * * Life Insurance satisfies the conscience, eases the mind, banishes worry and gives old age a chair of contentment. [Illustration] Metropolitan Policies are the Standards of Life Insurance Excellence [Illustration] Metropolitan Life Insurance Company 1 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK (Incorporated by the State of New York. Stock Company.) * * * * * TYRREL PRINT, NEW YORK. * * * * * IT IS SUMMER IN California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, You can Motor, Drive, Ride, Fish, Hunt, Bathe, Climb, Coach, Canoe, Yacht, Golf, Every Day in the Year Points in these States best reached via the Southern Pacific Sunset Route THE NATURAL WINTER GATEWAY THE OPEN WINDOW ROUTE Rock-Ballast Roadbed--Automatic Block Signals--Oil-Burning Locomotives--Superior Equipment. Ten days' Stopover at New Orleans on all Tickets. For free illustrated pamphlet address: L. H. NUTTING, G. E. P. A., 349 Broadway, New York, or Southern Pacific Agent at CHICAGO, 120 Jackson Blvd. NEW ORLEANS, Magazine St. BOSTON, 170 Washington St. PHILADELPHIA, 632 Chestnut St. SYRACUSE, 212 W. Washington St. BALTIMORE, 29 W. Baltimore St. * * * * * Please mention CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS when writing to advertisers. Transcriber's Notes: Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. Bold markup is enclosed in =equals=. Underlined markup is enclosed in ~tildes~. Multiple underscores indicate a long gap in the sentence. 
46029	----	VOL. XXI JANUARY 2, 1909 NO. 14 CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY [Illustration] A JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTIVE PHILANTHROPY PUBLISHED BY THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ROBERT W. DEFOREST, President; OTTO T. BANNARD, Vice-President; J. P. MORGAN, Treasurer; EDWARD T. DEVINE, General Secretary 105 EAST TWENTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK 174 ADAMS STREET, CHICAGO THIS ISSUE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS TWO DOLLARS A YEAR ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE, NEW YORK, AS SECOND CLASS MATTER Telephones { 1646 } Stuyvesant { 1647 } ==Millard & Company Stationers and Printers 12 East 16th Street== (Bet. Fifth Ave. & Union Square) ==New York== ENGRAVING LITHOGRAPHING BLANK BOOK MAKING CATALOG AND PAMPHLET WORK AT REASONABLE PRICES * * * * * =We can print your Book as easily as though you were in our own city= =Books and Reports ARE OUR SPECIALTY= ¶ Let us have your manuscript or full information and we will send you an estimate and samples of our work. =WM. F. FELL CO. PRINTERS 1220-24 SANSOM STREET PHILADELPHIA= * * * * * ==The.... Sheltering Arms= =William R. Peters .... President= 92 WILLIAM STREET =Herman C. Von Post ... Secretary= 32 WEST 57TH STREET =Charles W. Maury .... Treasurer= 504 WEST 129TH STREET * * * * * OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION= "THE SHELTERING ARMS" was opened October 6th, 1864, and receives children between six and ten years of age, for whom no other institution provides. Children placed at "THE SHELTERING ARMS" are not surrendered to the Institution, but are held subject to the order of parents or guardians. The children attend the neighboring public school. The older boys and girls are trained to household and other work. * * * * * Application for admission should be addressed to MISS RICHMOND, at "THE SHELTERING ARMS," 129th Street, corner Amsterdam Avenue. * * * * * =SPECIAL SALE= * * * * * During JANUARY and FEBRUARY we offer you your choice of all $19.00, $20.00, $22.00, $23.00 or $25.00 SUITINGS or OVERCOATINGS TO ORDER AT $18.00 and all $27.00, $28.00, $30.00, $32.00 or $35.00 SUITINGS or OVERCOATINGS TO ORDER AT $25.00 All prices marked in plain figures. =DEVINE & CO.= Formerly DEVINE & RONAN =150 Nassau Street= ROOMS 1611, 1612, 1613. * * * * * Please mention CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS when writing to advertisers. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ AS MEN SEE AMERICA. I. THE FIRST OF THREE FRONTISPIECES.] THE COMMON WELFARE EVERY CITY NEEDS A CITY PLAN NOW The congestion exhibit in New York last spring proved one of the most effective and startling means of making a contented community sit up and think about its "other half." It formulated questions half formed in many minds and demanded answers. Its influence was felt over the whole country, and its discussions have bobbed up here and there and everywhere ever since in articles, conferences and addresses. That the congestion exhibit answered questions as well as asked them, and that it has a constructive program to offer not only to New York but to the whole country are amply proved by the decision just reached, and announced to-day for the first time, to hold an exhibit and conference of city planning next March. "Every American city needs a city plan now," is the conclusion of the committee, and the steps by which it has arrived at this conclusion are interestingly set forth in its announcement. While the organization bears the name of the Committee on Congestion of Population in New York, its scope and purpose are much wider. The program approved by its executive committee is "to obtain a plan for the development of Greater New York, and other American cities, along economic, hygienic and aesthetic lines; and to promote the better distribution of population throughout city, state and nation." To establish the need for such a program, the committee offers as "admitted facts" the following: Many American cities with a population of over 50,000 have congestion of population, factories and offices; such congestion creates problems for which we cannot find solutions; no city should use all the land within its boundaries as intensively as is necessary in its most congested areas,--to do so perpetuates congestion; no American city yet has a legal right to prescribe the height and use of buildings in its various sections; no city can develop normally without a plan which anticipates its growth for twenty-five or fifty years. As a means of stimulating consideration of the subject and of promoting farsighted planning for the future, the committee has adopted as its slogan the statement, "Every American city needs a city plan now." It will show, it announces, the cost of the lack of a city plan in New York, the city planning which has been done in some American and foreign cities, and the pressing need for a city plan in New York to-day. The conference on city planning in March will include an exhibit of the best developments from all over the world. Both exhibit and conference will be keyed up to two major considerations: "the concentration of one-half the population of a great state in one city makes the problem of statewide importance; the concentration of one-nineteenth of a nation's population in one city gives the problem national bearing." There will be study of the best methods for distribution of population, for promoting feasible methods of locating factories and industrial colonies, and an educational campaign to show the advantages of migration from congested centers. EMPLOYERS PAY FOR SANATORIUM CARE Massachusetts, almost invariably a leader in preventive measures, is developing this year a most unique and promising kind of co-operative effort in the prevention of tuberculosis. Massachusetts was the first state to organize a board of health, dating from 1869. It was the first state to choose its factory inspectors from the medical profession, this dating from 1906, and out of these two farsighted provisions of the law has grown during the past two months a plan by which manufacturers are assuming a part of the financial burden in seeing to it that operatives in their factories, found to have tuberculosis in the incipient stage, are sent to the Rutland Sanatorium and given the best possible opportunity for cure. The plan originated in Worcester which, with a string of neighboring towns and villages, forms one of the sixteen inspection districts into which the state is divided. As a result of the activity of Dr. M. G. Overlock, the state inspector of health in charge, seventy manufacturing plants, employing more than 20,000 hands, have followed the example of David H. Fanning, president of the Royal Worcester Corset Company, in agreeing to pay a part of the maintenance cost of any of their employes sent to Rutland. The cost in the sanatorium is nine dollars a week. Of this the state pays five dollars and the company four dollars. The term usually agreed upon is three months. At the end of that time, a large number of the cases have been so far restored that they can be taken to nearby, supervised boarding houses and farms and make room for new patients,--a plan hit upon to relieve the great pressure upon this institution which accepts only incipient cases. The employer continues his contribution. The boarding houses, conducted along approved lines, have sprung up all over the surrounding hills much as they have at Saranac Lake in New York. The factory inspection has been keyed up to take the greatest possible advantage of the co-operation of employers. Frequent visits are made to all plants, but to those in which the work rooms are full of dust, or where there are other conditions favoring tuberculosis, Dr. Overlock makes a visit once a month. All minors on the working staff are taken before him, and required to furnish a full family history. If there has been tuberculosis in the family, even remote, a medical examination is at once made. The others are examined more superficially, but the least trace of suspicious symptoms is at once seized upon as cause for an examination. In this way, it is believed, incipient cases among minors will be caught in their earliest stages. The system will later be extended to adults. An extension of the plan to secure the interest and help of employers has begun in some other inspection districts, and will eventually be introduced throughout the state. But the carefully laid plans to detect and ward off incipient cases comprise only one part of the Massachusetts plan to fight tuberculosis. In May three homes for advanced cases will be opened, and the development of the plan calls for additional homes, scattered through the state, until it shall have made complete provision for all cases, early or advanced. In view of the almost unanimously expressed opinion at the recent International Tuberculosis Congress, that the strategic point of attack in the campaign is in isolating advanced cases, the provision of these homes is, perhaps, the most important plank in the Massachusetts health platform. Governor Guild is much interested in the whole plan. In a recent letter to Dr. Overlock he wrote: "It has been a great pleasure for me to inaugurate the new policy of the commonwealth of provision for all cases of tuberculosis, not merely as at present the care of the curable, but the care of the incurable as well." SALARY LOANS IN CINCINNATI The business of lending money on salaries and wages has received a practical knockout blow in Cincinnati through the _Commercial Tribune_, which instituted the crusade, with the co-operation of the officials of the city and of various private organizations. Aided by an ordinance which orders the licensing of salary loan offices and which makes a weekly report to the city auditor necessary, the campaigners have already been able to put one office out of business entirely, and to sew up all the others in the courts in such a way that it now seems very likely that most of these will retire rather than face the storm which awaits them. D. H. Tolman is more deeply involved in Cincinnati than he has ever been before. His son, E. E. Tolman, who is said to be connected with the business of his father, is under arrest and is now waiting a hearing in the police court. His manager has been arrested and convicted on three counts. Although these cases have been appealed to a higher court, an application for an order to restrain the further interference with the Tolman business has thus far been refused. D. H. Tolman has ordered his manager in Cincinnati to refuse to comply with the ordinance and unless the courts do issue this order the manager will be arrested every week. The _Commercial Tribune_ has secured all of the Tolman forms from a former manager. These have all been printed together with a letter from the ex-manager in which the latter makes a complete exposé of the methods pursued behind the doors of one of his offices. The auditor of Cincinnati has declared his purpose of keeping up the fight. He has forced ten salary loan offices to pay a license fee and to comply with the provisions of the local ordinance. Agents have been permanently employed by the official to watch the loan offices and to ferret out any new agents who may attempt to operate secretly. The Legal Aid Society which was recently formed to advise the poor, has made it its business to impress upon all who seek its meetings the futility of borrowing money from the salary loan people and has furnished a list of the companies which are classified as "loan sharks," to every man and woman whom it could reach. In this way people who never read the newspapers are given information which they otherwise would probably never receive. The Legal Aid Society is also at work on a code of laws which will be submitted to the General Assembly at its coming session and which it is hoped will solve the question of loaning money on salaries and chattels in Ohio for all time. The attorneys of the society promise a law which will set a fixed rate, which will include interest and expenses, on all such loans. It is said now that this rate will be either three or four per cent. The contemplated law will also contain a provision which will make the recovery of usury possible. It is further planned to have a provision in the law similar to the Massachusetts statute, requiring the signatures of the wife, when a borrower is married, and of his employer. Some of the best attorneys in Cincinnati including former Prosecuting Attorney Benton Oppenheimer, are at work on these laws. Another movement now on foot is the founding of a salary loan office on the same basis as several chattel loan offices which are now operating in the country, whose stockholders are philanthropists and men of wealth. Cincinnati has such a chattel loan company and the men who are now fighting the salary loan business there are urging the stockholders of this company to take up the other work. The most gratifying thing of the Cincinnati campaign has been the falling off of business in the loan offices. The companies admit this and one broker left for Florida after explaining that his business had decreased seventy-five per cent during the campaign. FOR A COURT OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS One of the interesting bills to be brought before the 1909 session of the New York Legislature is that drawn by Bernhard Rabbino, relating to a special domestic relations court. Mr. Rabbino believes that if we have courts for the purpose of divorce, for separating mothers from children and children from fathers, we should have a separate tribunal to which families in discord could appeal. There are probably from 12,000 to 15,000 domestic trouble cases handled yearly in Manhattan and the Bronx alone, but as no records are kept of summons cases,--and these come under that head,--it is not possible to compute the exact number. Probably it is greater than the number of cases handled by the children's court, and a domestic relations court is justified by Mr. Rabbino, additionally, on the ground that it precedes the children's court, having for its fundamental purpose the preservation of the family as a unit, with an opportunity for fathers and mothers to secure the same expert and individual attention that is given to the children. Domestic affairs are admittedly out of place in a general police court. The unfortunate participants are not in any sense criminals, and yet they are surrounded by thieves, pickpockets, drunkards, disorderly persons,--the regular rabble of the criminal court,--and an outraged self-respect is the consequence of such treatment. The present organization of magistrates' courts contemplates that the magistrate shall sit one-half of the day on the bench and the other half shall be in chambers for the settlement of just such cases as Mr. Rabbino would bring before the domestic relations court. As a matter of practice, however, so congested are the courts and so pressing their work, that there is no time for this personal consideration which the law contemplates. The magistrate does what he can in the face of tremendous difficulties, but he has not the time to investigate these cases, and without proper attention there can be no adjustment of them. Divorce and separation are the natural results. The idea of such a court would be to prevent litigation as a whole and particularly to safeguard the homes of the poor, for the poor are those who are obliged to resort to police courts. The better-off take their affairs to the Supreme Court. It is very possible that these lower courts might develop into something higher, and many matrimonial difficulties which now cause a permanent rupture of relations be peaceably adjusted with judicial assistance. Such a court might also have a marked effect on juvenile crime, for any force that makes for better home conditions is preventive of crime. The bill requires also that the court of domestic relations have exclusive jurisdiction over all cases of abandonment, non-support, and the non-support of poor relatives as provided by law. The bill as drawn would make this domestic relations court part of the city magistrates' courts, on the lines of the children's courts now being generally established throughout the country. The idea, however, would be to have a special court altogether, and if successful, this would probably be done. The introduction of this bill in the Legislature may bring to sharp discussion the whole question of division of jurisdiction in the city courts. The present established principle is that such courts should be divided geographically, covering a certain borough or section of a borough. The children's court differs radically from this and introduces a functional division. It is an open question whether, with the police courts crowded as they are, such a functional division has not become necessary for more cases than those of delinquent children,--whether the separation of special kinds of cases into children's courts and into courts of domestic relations will not prove more effective than a further division of territory. THE YEAR IN MUNICIPAL EVENTS A review of municipal events and tendencies for the past year, which might be the title of Clinton Rogers Woodruff's report as secretary of the National Municipal League, centers around efficiency and honesty in government as a result of clear accounting systems and understandable statistics; wide-spread efforts at charter revision; a constantly growing sentiment for nomination reform; and a militant desire, evident in many sections, to tackle the problems which have grown up around the saloon in politics. The Massachusetts Bureau of Municipal Statistics, the first of its kind, has already resulted, Mr. Woodruff believes, in a number of cities reconstructing their accounts on a sounder and more substantial basis. The first year's report shows a confusing lack of system in handling the receipts and disbursements of towns and cities; a wide variety of dates for closing the fiscal year; many defects in the treasurers' methods of accounting; and the need for consolidation of the administration of trust funds. In many instances, money left to the community for special purposes has been used by the town trustees for general purposes. But "the movement for uniform accounting proceeds without interruption." Originated by the National Municipal League, it was given momentum by the Census Bureau and by legislation in Ohio and Massachusetts. Accounting investigations and reforms are being made the basis for an approach to the solution of important problems in Boston, in New York by the conspicuous work of the Bureau of Municipal Research, and in Minneapolis. The point of attack in Minneapolis has been the administration of the school fund "which seems to have been particularly inadequate and inefficient." A grand jury found "a startling and deplorably loose state of affairs." The investigation was made by trained men from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast cities. In Wilmington there has been a thoroughgoing examination of municipal account. Legislative reference bureaus are being established to help in this movement, of particular value to Chicago which "is on the threshold of an era of public improvement which will call for the most intelligent direction from the city government." Mr. Woodruff predicts that "we may expect within the next half dozen years to find a series of similar bureaus established in all the leading cities, gathering for their respective municipalities information concerning improvement; and, moreover, we may expect a further development, in that all of these bureaus and libraries will be so co-ordinated, each with the others, as to form a strong chain of information that will banish from the halls of legislation and the offices of administration, the dense ignorance that all too frequently found a welcome lodgement." Charter changes are pressed every year more strongly to the front. It is true now that wherever a good government organization of any sort is found, there will be accompanying it a campaign either for a new charter or for amendments to the existing one. Perhaps the most noticeable tendency of the movement is a demand for a greater degree of home rule for the cities which have been "subjected to a degree of legislative buffeting that has well nigh destroyed the cherished ideal of self-government." Nomination reform has been much discussed, and a number of laws providing for direct nominations have become effective during the year. Mr. Woodruff holds that the results of direct nominations have, on the whole, "recommended themselves to those who are striving for the elimination of nomination monopoly and for the inauguration of a simpler and more direct form of election machinery." Further, he holds that "it is now generally conceded, except by a very small and diminishing group of men, that the preparation and distribution of the ballots at the general election is a proper state function and expense." The objections to direct nominations are discussed at length and finally dismissed with the conclusion: "We must realize that we are living in a democracy, and that the election machinery must be democratic and must record the wishes of the people and be responsive to their desires. Direct nominations are a step in advance because they enable the people directly to express their wishes. No doubt they have made their mistakes, and will continue to make them; but they have had to bear the brunt of them in the past, and they must continue to bear them in the future; and this in the long run will prove to be the most effective way of building up an enlightened and efficient democracy." The initiative and referendum are advocated, because "they are unquestionably proving effective in breaking down some of the privileges and monopolies that have characterized political organizations for many years." TO STIMULATE PARKS AND PLAY The Council of One Hundred, an auxiliary to the Parks and Playgrounds Association of New York, has been fully organized by Miss Pauline Robinson and Seth Thayer Stewart, with a membership of well known men and women who are interested in playground activities and civic improvement. At the first meeting of the council at the home of Mrs. Charles B. Alexander, in December, Richard Watson Gilder presided, introducing Mrs. George C. Riggs (Kate Douglas Wiggin), who read a valuable paper. Eugene A. Philbin, president of the Parks and Playgrounds Association, outlined the development of that organization, which is the union of the Brooklyn Society for Parks and Playgrounds and the Metropolitan Parks Association. Howard Bradstreet, the secretary of the association, gave through lantern slides a synopsis of the active work in conducting playgrounds and baseball centers during the last season. Seth Thayer Stewart sketched a possible plan for the extension of the recreation idea throughout the city, and Dr. Luther H. Gulick spoke briefly on recreation for girls. The Council of One Hundred, of which Mr. Gilder is president, Jacob H. Schiff, George D. Pratt, Mrs. Frederick W. Whitridge and Mrs. Samuel Bowne Duryea, vice-presidents; and Miss Pauline Robinson, secretary and treasurer, will meet two or three times a year. Its purpose is to assist individually and as a body in the active work of the Parks and Playgrounds Association. While much is being done by the city through park and school in the way of offering play facilities to children, nevertheless, so great is their number in New York, that only a small percentage of the possibilities have as yet been realized. With a million children of school age or under, occupied only a small part of the time, the street must be the chief resort for the large majority. The experience of last summer showed both the feasibility and the good result of organizing the children of the street by play leaders who appreciate the value of free play, and are acquainted with child nature. The plan of work as outlined calls for the placing of such play leaders in various sections of the city; the encouraging of the establishment of places for recreation by different organizations and neighborhood committees, and for the provision and maintenance of various forms of play throughout the year in sections otherwise neglected. During the summer the association maintained eight vacant lots as playgrounds, eleven baseball centers and a camp for boys. The neighbors of several of these grounds have asked to have them extended during the winter, and the association will undertake to do so early in the new year. NEW YORK STATE TRADE SCHOOL PLANS Much significance is attached to the recent organization of the New York state branch of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. The passage of the industrial education bill last year opened up to the state possibilities in the way of industrial education which it has not thus far been able to measure. A volunteer body of some sort has been needed to awaken interest and stir up the whole state. Particular opportunity offers among the up-state cities and it was with this in mind that the officers and advisory board were elected, for as the list shows, the members are representative of the state as a whole as well as of many lines of industrial and educational activity. The officers are: President, James P. McElroy, manager of the Consolidated Car Heating Company, Albany; vice-president, Dr. Andrew S. Draper, state commissioner of education, Albany; secretary-treasurer, Arthur L. Williston, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Additional members of the executive committee are: V. Everit Macy, chairman of Board of Trustees, Teachers' College, New York; Joseph R. Campbell, president Diamond Saw and Stamping Works, Buffalo; Thomas D. Fitzgerald, president Allied Printing Trades Council of New York State, Albany; Frank L. Babbott, manufacturer and member of the School Board, Brooklyn. At a public meeting following the formation of the branch, considerable enthusiasm was developed and a number of interesting papers were read. Of these, perhaps the most substantial contribution to the discussion of the evening was by Dr. William H. Maxwell, city superintendent of schools, New York, who presided. Among other things Dr. Maxwell said: Certain things may be taken as demonstrated with regard to industrial education: First, trade schools are needed. They are needed for the sake of our industrial wealth and efficiency. They are needed for the sake of the boys and girls of this city. The best preparation for a trade is the manual training high school where, in connection with elements of a liberal education, students receive instruction in drawing, in tools, and in applications of art to industry. But these schools breed engineers, not journeymen. Hence we need schools to give training that will shorten and enrich the period of apprenticeship for the journeyman. Second, such schools must be a part of the public school system and must articulate directly and closely with the elementary schools, to the end that boys and girls between fourteen and eighteen, or at least sixteen, may obtain that training which will enable them to be of use in a shop; because it is in the public schools that the boys and girls are found who need such training. Third, to carry out this articulation, elementary schools should have manual training to discover these boys and girls who have an aptitude for mechanical pursuits. Brains are as necessary in mechanical pursuits as in law or theology. Certain difficulties stand in our way: First, apathy of manufacturers who have shown little desire to obtain really skilled American workmen, as for example, the firm which established a school to train apprentices and found that they were taken away by other firms as soon as they had learned a few tricks of the trade. Second, apathy of the financial authorities of the city who have just cut out the amount asked for by the Board of Education for shops and kitchens, and given only $22,000 for a trade school. It is encouraging, however, to remember that the first annual appropriation for manual training in Brooklyn was only $5,000. If we make good use of the small appropriation, the demonstration will secure larger appropriations in the future. Third, the foolish or nebulous arguments of many of those who have been advocating trade schools. Arguments have been foolish when they became pleas for the elimination of existing high schools and the conversion of these institutions into trade schools. Those that have not been foolish have been largely nebulous, vapory exhortations to establish trade schools, without the substance of a well considered plan. Such a well considered plan is now the great desideratum. While the advocates of trade schools have been talking, the Board of Education has established and maintained five prosperous and useful evening trade schools which are patronized largely by apprentices. Those evening trade schools confine their operations chiefly to the building and machinists' trades. Shall we stop there? Will our friends not give us a plan for teaching our three largest trades, clothing, beer brewing, and sugar refining? What we need farther is a well thought-out plan of co-operation between the school and the manufacturer, such as that at Fitchburg, Mass. For these reasons,--the apathy of manufacturers, the apathy of the financial authorities of our city, and the need of definite, coherent plans,--the cause of trade schools stands sorely in need of the aid of this local branch of the national society. The time is surely opportune when the Board of Education has appointed a standing committee on this subject and when the state, through the industrial education bill, passed last winter by the Legislature, has decided to give substantial financial assistance to any community that established trade schools. TO RESTRAIN HOLIDAY BEGGING The mummery and begging in which the children of New York city so generally indulge Thanksgiving Day and other holidays have long been matters of concern and alarm to those who are interested in educational work with young people. Many articles have appeared denouncing the custom. On the morning of Thanksgiving, the New York _Times_ contained an especially well directed effort to protest against this growing evil. The children of Asacog Social Settlement, 52 Sands street, Brooklyn, partake very generally in these holiday mummeries, masquerading and begging. The harmful results have long been realized, but the efforts heretofore used to modify the custom have been quite ineffective. It was resolved this year to undertake a different method of modifying the nuisance. It was found in all cases that the children had no idea why they should choose Thanksgiving for begging, beyond the fact that people gave them money on that day and all their playmates chose this method of "having fun," so of course it was necessary to be in the game. So with "having a good time" in mind, parents, young people, children, were invited to a festival on Thanksgiving eve. It seemed quite necessary to draw a moral lesson in the attempt to overthrow such a deeply seated custom, and this was done through a series of tableaus and dances with connecting narrative. The probable historical setting of the Thanksgiving custom was presented through scenes of the Dutch in Holland, during the troublesome times of William of Orange, when the sea beggars made their famous pledge. Two tableaus showing the court scene and the banquet of the beggars were followed by a costume dance by small boys, which was called the "beggars' march." The English contribution to the celebrations was in tableaus from the history of the Guy Fawkes plot. The Dutch and English transferred to America were shown by Peter Stuyvesant and his surrender; the southern scenes with their harvest ideas through a colored plantation sketch; the Puritans and Indians by tableaus and Indian squaw dances. Then followed the times of the Revolution, with the tyranny of the British, the spirit of '76, and the Evacuation Day celebration on November 25, 1783. The tableaus were given in costume by the young people and children, about seventy-five taking part. The members of the Civic Club, composed of mothers and neighborhood women did a great deal in preparing the costumes and dressing the actors. The settlement had the valuable help of Miss Mari R. Hofer in preparing Dutch and Indian dances, and of Howard Bradstreet, the narrator of the evening. Admission was by tickets given in clubs and classes, and the seating capacity of three hundred and twenty-five was taxed to over five hundred. But the carnival spirit was in the midst and no one minded the necessity of standing on a chair with a friend or two in order to catch an occasional glimpse of the stage. Several of the star performers became so interested in the audience that it was necessary to snatch the nearest boys or girls as the occasion demanded, hustle them to the improvised "green" room, hastily dress them in remaining fragments of costumes far removed from the historic time, and with impromptu coaching from the wings, an attitude was struck worthy of any Dutch patriot or Puritan dignitary. The most gratifying results of the performance were that the begging on the street was greatly diminished. Many of the children did dress up and beg, for of course we could not expect a complete reformation on Sands street. But up to eleven o'clock not a begging child had been seen on Asacog corner. Later in the day little beggars began to appear but in smaller numbers and at three o'clock in the afternoon, a very lively hour, all the children on the block were out playing their ordinary street games, and but one child was in fancy costume. From one tenement from which twenty children begged last year, but two indulged this year, one mother having been to the festival, and really beginning to realize the dangers of street gaieties for the first time, refused to permit her eight year old girl to parade in fancy dress, at which the child volunteered to stay in bed, feeling life was too dull for words, and besides she was tired from the night before, the carnival spirit having worked itself out. In reality it was the "day after the fun." FOLK DANCES IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL The pupils in the Lincoln School, situated in the suburbs of Burlington, Iowa, feel no restraint from want of room to play, for the school grounds are as large as a small park, and stretches of prairie land roll before and behind the building. Beautiful oaks and elms form tiny forests round about, a brook rushes through the outskirts, and in each season nature calls so loudly to the boy that it requires all the ingenuity of teachers and truant officers to keep him in school. Many nationalities have congregated in this part of the city, for it is a factory district, and each September there are enrolled little Germans, Russians, Swiss and Irish who are instinctively antagonistic to one another. The teachers of Lincoln School have found it advisable to be present during the noon hour, as well as during recess, to prevent the playing of rough games in which many children were injured, or which resulted in fighting. [Illustration] [Illustration] About ten years ago a may-pole was introduced, which revolutionized the school. A small organ was carried into the yard and as many as forty children took part in this dance at the same time. About five years ago, fearing that this dance would become monotonous, other folk dances were introduced, and now one may see during all intermissions, groups of boys and girls dancing the _gavotte der kaiserin_, Irish reel, Highland fling, sword dance, dance of the Alpine peasants and the minuet. In order that even these should not become uninteresting, costumes have been provided for each dance, and this is bound to be the greatest aid in discipline; for what boy will play truant when he can impersonate Washington in the minuet or some Scottish hero in the sword dance or Highland fling. To defray the expense of the costumes, a play was given,--Spyri's Heidi. This met with such success that they now have a dramatic club, whose members have presented Old-Fashioned Girl, Eight Cousins and Little Baron to large audiences in the Opera House. Many unruly boys have become docile, after impersonating some genuinely honest boy character. The manners and dress of both boys and girls have been much improved since they have taken part in these plays. The folk-dances have been used in this school for so many years that all are prepared to say that they are a success with the boys in as great a degree as they are with the girls. A boy seldom refuses to join in the dances. The most enjoyable period during the session is the time of the rhythmic play. They need no other punishment for disobedience than to threaten to refuse to play for the folk dances. THE STANDARD FOR A CITY'S SURVEY GRAHAM TAYLOR Social research on a city-wide scale is a contemporary product. Appropriately old London was the first to have its living conditions comprehensively investigated. To Charles Booth belongs the credit of having initiated and set the type of such enquiry. His great work in seventeen volumes on Life and Labor in London standardized methods and results in some lines of civic investigation. Its data were almost entirely derived from secondary documentary sources furnished by official records and the reports of voluntary agencies, but the originality with which it is everywhere stamped lies in the handling and verifying of the material thus acquired. The whole great analysis and synthesis of the largest city population of the world, thus attempted for the first time, deserves to be ranked as one of the greatest achievements of the closing decade of the nineteenth century. That this brave pioneering was attempted by one of London's great shippers, and that it was so successfully carried through to completion at a cost of twenty years of labor and a quarter million of dollars, also sets a standard of self-exacting citizenship worthy alike of the world's greatest city and of one of its most modest and personally resourceful citizens. The extent to which this survey of London afforded intelligent incentive and basis for the reconstructive civic spirit and work which attended and followed it is demonstrated by contemporary history. The voluntary efforts to improve conditions, and the London County Council's achievement in increasing open and street spaces and in furnishing housing and other equipment for city life, were on a scale befitting the foundation in fact substantially laid by Mr. Booth's monumental work. Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and many provincial cities received impetus and direction in their heroic efforts to ascertain and improve their own conditions. Seebohm Rowntree followed Mr. Booth's example in his study of poverty in York, but went beyond his methods in making a first hand investigation of the facts. Robert W. deForest and Lawrence Veiller set the type for American enquiry into city conditions by their investigation and reports of the Tenement House Problem in New York. And now the Pittsburgh Survey registers the most inclusive standard thus far set in ascertaining the facts of living conditions in a typical industrial community. In cooperating to carry through this constructive survey the Russell Sage Foundation and this magazine achieve the most noteworthy fulfilment of their common purpose to improve social and living conditions in the United States. PREACHING AND PRACTICE JACOB A. RIIS [Illustration] These two Christmas stamps are next of kin. Our Red Cross stamp is the youngest child of the Danish _Julemarke_ which sprang out of a country postmaster's brain to take its place among the most effective weapons in the world-wide fight with the white plague. Of what stout stock the family are,--it is a big family by this time, with sons and daughters in many lands,--this year's issue of the Danish stamp tells at a glance. For the big building pictured in it is the "Christmas Stamp Sanatorium," built for tuberculous children out of the half pennies the Danish people have given these five years as their contribution to the great campaign. [Illustration] Denmark is a little country. All in all it has not much more than half as many people as the Greater New York, if indeed it has so many. Yet in so short a time it has wrought so great a tangible result. What it has further wrought in the way of arousing public interest and guiding public education in this matter is beyond calculation. For the last is the biggest end of the work of the Christmas stamp, wherever it goes. In New York city two years ago we raised a great outcry about child cripples, made so by tuberculosis. We counted five thousand or more in the tenements of the metropolis and decided that their one chance of life lay in building a hospital on the seashore, on the lines of the little one now run on Coney Island by the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. Forthwith money was raised, a quarter of a million of dollars, to build a much bigger one with, and architects were set to work to draw plans. The city appropriated a site in a great seashore park, to be laid out for the people. Then there happened what so often happens in New York when a great public enterprise is to be carried out. It ran into a rut, somehow. Money became tight, the controller could not find the funds, park and hospital were side-tracked and stayed so. They are side-tracked yet. The money kind-hearted New Yorkers gave for the children is in the bank. The little cripples still crawl around their tenements. The winds blow over the ocean and waste their healing balm. The park is as far away as ever. And the purses of the charitable snap with an extra twist of tightness when they think of it all. Next time we shall plead the children's cause in vain. That is the way of New York. The picture above tells the way of poor little Denmark. No doubt there is an excuse, or a string of them, for the American city. But excuses do not mend aching joints and wasted frames. How long before New York will catch up with Denmark? Would it not be fine if this lusty son of a worthy sire, the Red Cross Christmas stamp, were to help get us started again? RAILWAY ACCIDENTS EMORY R. JOHNSON University of Pennsylvania The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman by J. O. Fagan is an exceptionally able book, worthy of the serious attention of every student of the causes of railroad accidents.[1] The author gives his qualifications for writing the book by saying that he "has been a telegraph operator and tower-man for twenty-seven years and part of the time chief clerk to a railroad superintendent," and he further adds that "the extent of territory covered by this experience is even wider than one would suppose. For a telegraph operator is, of necessity, one of the best posted men in the service." In addition to this experience from which a knowledge of the subject has been gained, the author possesses a remarkably well trained mind and has command of exceptionally clean English. [1] The Confessions of a Railroad Signalman, J. O. Fagan. Pp. 182. Price $1.00, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1908. This book may be obtained at publisher's price through the offices of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS. The main thesis of the book is that accidents are due mainly to non-observance of rules. "Railroad managers, therefore, sooner or later will come to understand that the one thing needed in the railroad service at the present day is to educate employes to appreciate the fact that successful and safe railroading in the future will have to depend, not upon the multiplication of safety devices or the reconstruction of rules, but upon the personal effort and conduct of conscientious, alert, and careful men." Furthermore, the author has "arrived at the conclusion that on our railroads the interests of the community have become secondary to those of the employe and his organization." Mr. Fagan also maintains that "it is actually a matter of reasonable demonstration that at least seventy-five per cent of the casualties might be avoided by increase of interest on the part of the employe, and the earnest concentration of his best thought on the subject." [Illustration: FROM CONFESSIONS OF A RAILROAD SIGNALMAN] The natural remedy for the situation, as stated by Mr. Fagan, would lie in the observance by employes of the company's rules and regulations, in the discipline by the management of all employes for each and every non-observance of any rule, and the enforcement of discipline with appropriate penalties regardless of the personality of those subjected to discipline. The enforcement of discipline, moreover, should not be made to depend upon consequences resulting from non-observance of rules. Employes should be penalized by loss of pay for their disregard of the rules or regulations whether their actions do or do not result in casualties. Mr. Fagan, however, believes, and brings convincing evidence to show, that the above remedy is beyond hope. The organizations of which the railroad employes are members take the position that the member who violates a rule is to be defended against condemnation by the public or discipline by the management. Instead of taking the view that the interests of the public are paramount to those of any individual railroad employe, the railroad employes' organization seeks invariably to shield its members against the consequences of their actions. Furthermore, the managers of most railroads have decided that the strict enforcement of the rules and the punishment of those who do not observe the rules result in so many controversies with the labor unions and are so destructive of harmonious relations between the company and the unions, that it is better to strive for harmony rather than to enforce discipline. In other words, discipline and the safety of the public are made subsidiary to the maintenance of harmonious relations with the employes. Such being the situation, Mr. Fagan believes that reform is not to be expected within railway management but must come from the outside as the result of the exercise of governmental authority. The government must punish employes for non-observance of rules and penalize railroad officers for the non-enforcement of their regulations. The analyses and arguments of the book are convincing. The position taken by Mr. Fagan is one the accuracy of which will doubtless be vigorously denied by the organizations of railroad employes and will be to some extent questioned by the responsible management of railroads. However, it seems to the author of this review that Mr. Fagan has established his thesis. INDUSTRIAL ITALY ARTHUR P. KELLOGG The simple Italian peasant, he whose meager village life was so accurately drawn by Mr. Mangano in earlier issues of this magazine, is familiar in every city in this country, and we have in America what is probably a fair appreciation of his poverty, his hardships and the longing for better things which send great blocks of the population of rural provinces flocking across the Atlantic. Of industrial Italy we know less, having few sources of information. If the life of the factory towns is really as bad as The Forewarners,[2] by Giovanni Cena, makes it,--if wages are as low, work as hard, housing as squalid and amusements as few,--then we have in the book a story of remarkable growth in wretchedness, for the manufacturing towns of northern Italy are, as Mrs. Humphry Ward points out in the introduction to the English translation, only forty years old. [2] The Forewarners, Giovanni Cena, 1908, New York, Doubleday, Page and Company. Price $1.50. This book may be ordered at publisher's price through the office of CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS. The book makes clear the source of the socialist vote in the Italian Parliament and the human stuff which the railway and other big strikes are made of. It is, supposedly, the life story of a Turin printer. Starting as the son of a clay digger, he graduates into the working world after a childhood spent in an orphanage. Having some little education more than his fellows, he becomes a proofreader for a house which is putting on the Italian market the standard works of science and philosophy in all languages. This gives him stronger meat than a weak body and an overwrought mind can digest, and he becomes oppressed with the wrongs of his class, with the grind of the factory and the squalid life of the house where he has a tiny cell in the garret. There he piles up, in proof sheets, a library of the greatest books in the world. Pouring over them by night, half-fed, unsociable, brooding, his mind slips gradually from its moorings and he throws his life away as a sacrifice, for this book, the story of his life and the story of his class, is hidden in his bosom. A tragic death, he believes, will cause it to be published and set afoot nothing short of a revolution. The book does not tell the manner of his death, but it implies that he threw himself in front of the King's automobile, which he often met in his wanderings outside the city. It typified to him the oppression which he felt,--"the griefs of others I have such a longing to relieve that the desire becomes a torment to me, and I cannot shake myself free from it except by action." Of the automobile drivers he had written: "Whilst the nobility are trying to draw in their claws so as not to exasperate us, here come these bourgeoise parvenus to insult us in our own house. Yes, in our own house, for the highroad belongs to the peasant and the poor man." His studies, which put him above the other workmen, were themselves his undoing, for the substance of Tolstoi and Spencer became so much more to him than the form, that his work grew bad and worse until he was discharged,--an incident convincing to one who has attempted to read proof with an eye to things greater than commas and spelling. Out of it all he worked a scheme of things as they ought to be, which, whether it came from the proofreader or from the author who takes a proofreader's smarting sense of wrong as his theme, makes an interesting program: A king who has a lofty ideal of society wishes to lead his subjects up to it by his methods of government, and is willing to abdicate when he feels that they are really free. His chief instruments in the work of redemption are doctors and school teachers. On the one hand freedom, on the other action. Freedom from error whilst doing everything to favor and afford sufficient light. A tendency to abolish all forms of restraint, from the material ones for criminals to the moral ones for all men; from handcuffs to laws. The gradual abolition of hereditary rights of property; every human being to have the needful, and everything to return to a common fund at his death. The legal personality of women, and the equality of the sexes, to be recognized as steps to the conquest of individuality, liberty, happiness. Each to be free to develop to the utmost his own life, his own affections. Birth and education to be protected. Rest to be ensured to old age. Public hygiene to be watched over till disease be eliminated. Every facility to be afforded to manufactures, commerce and science, so as to encourage man to conquer himself, the earth, the heavens. Faith in progress, as if it were not,--and it is not,--destined to die with our earth. The worship of life. Such a scheme and the style and force of the book are difficult to associate with the neurasthenic proofreader, skilfully as the author has drawn the background and made the man's thought develop over his proof table. But whether the character be drawn convincingly or not, the book gives a wonderfully clear and sharp-cut picture of the environment of such a worker. Some bits of description stand out above the others, one of them the Turin tenement, where "from the first flights of stairs, carpeted and warmed by hot air pipes, to the bare flight of our top floor, the steps grew ever steeper and steeper. Each evening we passed through all the social zones, hot, temperate and cold; we were lodged in the arctic regions." There were 142 of these steps to the top floor, where naught but poverty dwelt,--a penniless poet with a sister who supported him, a lonely working girl, a woman of the streets, a drunkard and his screaming, beaten wife and half-witted children, and Cimisin, a cobbler, who always "was whistling at full speed to the accompaniment of his hammer. The tears of women, the curses of drunkards, had for so many years mingled with the merriment of that harmless madman." His history of the printing shop is complete and modern, even to the point where the men went back to their cases after a strike, only to find that long rows of linotypes with women operators had displaced them. These women, he thought, might have among them one fitted to be his mate, but he was too shy to seek her out. He could see them only as workers at the almost human machines, or where "the cylinders revolved with a loud din, the sheets rained out one on top of the other, the women in their long overalls kept on repeating their monotonous movements, feeding the sheets into the press or collecting them into piles. On two side platforms the women were in constant motion. A hundred women and a hundred men. It was impossible to imagine that relations other than those existing between the several parts of a machine might be formed between these beings created for a mutual understanding." Still he wonders vaguely if perhaps in this uniformity of action, foreign to and apart from the monotonous toil which exhausts them, something exists, smiles, shines? Have some got a small bird singing in their hearts whilst their hands grow grimy at the wheel?... No love of their work,--that is to say of their life,--inspired them; each of them constantly saw the work of an hour, a mere fragment, leave his hands anonymously and forever, and none of them could ever say of anything, "That is my work!" What will remain of them at the end of their lives to prove that they have lived? In truth, they have not lived. Of the women in his tenement, girls who were not harnessed to a factory, he found even less of life, though perhaps more of womanhood. Going with his friend to see the latter's young sister in a maternity hospital, he reflects that this is the way with many of them,--"love leads to the hospital." The patients there are mostly unmarried girls. The married ones have few children now. "How talk of love, of family life, in a society which deals out the same ration to the single man and to the father of a family?" His friend starves, the sister dies, the drunkard's wife, mother of six, takes her life,--everyone whom he knew, it seems, all the associates high up in the attic of the "aëropolis," come to grief and misery and death. He greatly admires the woman, a physician, who visits them. "She picks up, joins, straightens out innumerable threads; she seems to be weaving a tapestry of which she will only complete a tiny bit, a work which she has inherited from one generation and will transmit to another." She offers him a part in her work, but he feels "incapable of giving myself in small doses." He is impatient, irritable for "something ready to hand, swift as lightning," that shall right all wrongs and ease all pain at a stroke. He cannot work with others, or for others, and so he tucks his story into his bosom and starts out to meet the King's car. Almost at the last he confesses, "I have passed beside life." SCHOOL REPORTS[3] Reviewed by ROLAND P. FALKNER To the great majority of people the school report is the only tangible evidence of what the school administration is doing. The citizens generally cannot be expected to know what goes on in the school rooms or in the meetings of boards of education, nor what is taking shape in the back of the superintendent's head. Even were they afforded the utmost opportunity and gifted with such unusual perception, it is not likely that without convenient summaries and condensed statements they could form any idea of the public school system as a whole. [3] School Reports and School Efficiency by David S. Snedden and William H. Allen for the New York Committee on the Physical Welfare of School Children. New York, 1908. Pp. 183. This book will be sent by CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS postpaid for $1.50. If the school report is at once the evidence and test of the school administration, it is clear that its ideal is such a marshalling of the facts regarding the schools of the city as will give the reasonably intelligent citizen a clear notion of just how well the schools are performing the duties entrusted to them. The book before us is a study of the school reports for the purpose of ascertaining how far and in what manner they seek to embody such ideal. It is a study in comparative administration. This study reveals so wide a diversity among school reports as to preclude the idea of any consensus of opinion as to what they should contain. While uniformity of scope and treatment is not to be expected, it might reasonably be anticipated that the similar purposes of the school administration in different places would give to these reports a certain family resemblance. In so far as such a resemblance can be traced, it does not appear to be so much the result of parallel internal development as the product of external compulsion or suggestion. State educational departments charged with allotment of state school funds according to a fixed unit in school work, have led to an emphasis upon such units. A similar influence has been exerted by the United States Bureau of Education in its request for information along certain definite lines. Apart from these influences tending toward a certain uniformity, there are other forces working in the same direction though less effectively. The trend of present discussion in educational affairs is not without its influence, and when certain facts are needed to point a moral or adorn a tale the experience of other cities points to investigations or arrangements of material which are new to the city in question. Conscious effort to promote uniform treatment of statistical data, a theme which has been discussed almost to weariness by the National Education Association and kindred organizations, has been singularly fruitless. With these general considerations by way of introduction, the work takes up its main theme, the scope of educational statistics. In them we find the condensation of educational experience, and here more than in other parts of the text we should expect the experience and practice of one city to be helpful to another. Too often, indeed almost universally, the tables of facts are isolated from the text of the report, and no effort is made to explain their meaning or set forth the salient features which they present. In view of the volume of tabular matter there is a painful poverty of interpretation. The method pursued by the author in his record of the facts, is to furnish a specimen table from the different reports in regard to each matter touched upon, a selection of the simpler and then the more detailed statements to be found in them. The following heads are treated in this way: School plant, expenditure, census, attendance, age of pupils, promotions, survival, compulsory attendance, high schools, vacation schools, libraries, medical inspection, teachers and summaries. The variety of forms exhibited is highly instructive although, it may be confessed, somewhat bewildering. The author has confined himself so strictly to a study of methods that he is disposed to let the tables speak for themselves. There is here, too, an absence of interpretation. Tables of figures may speak for themselves but to understand them one must know their language. One cannot help but feel that in many cases some explanation why the detailed tables are to be regarded as superior, other than the fact that they are more detailed, would have been more illuminating and would have relieved somewhat the monotony of this important chapter for the general reader. No attempt is made to outline a model report. We have instead in chapter 5 a series of questions which might be answered in a school report. The list does not pretend to be exhaustive but in reality it constitutes a somewhat formidable program, if it be assumed that the greater part of these questions should receive attention. Conscious of the fact that somewhat staggering demands are made on the school administration, the discussion of "suggested economies and improvement" comes as an antidote. This is a brief discussion of short cuts and methods to get at desired results. It looks to a simplification of records and such forms and registers as will supply the needed information, without excessive work. This is a very vital point and the suggestions as far as they go are admirable. While the subject presented in these pages is thoroughly technical, the work may be commended most heartily to school authorities and to all who are interested in the progress of our schools. It is an appeal for exact information and should not be passed by without a hearing. Such information in regard to our schools,--one of the most important branches of our government,--is painfully lacking. It has too often been assumed that the management of schools was a matter for experts of which outsiders could not properly judge. Within certain limits this is true, but it does not distinguish between the scholastic and the administrative sides of school work. We undoubtedly need both among our school authorities, and in the public at large a keener perception of the requisites of a sound and effective administration. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that there is no great business enterprise of the people of which they know so little as they do of their schools. In private affairs such ignorance on the part of directors and stockholders would lead to bankruptcy. The authorship of the several chapters of the book is distinctly stated. The general considerations herein briefly noted are the work of Dr. Snedden; the particular application to the city of New York is the work of Dr. Allen. Those who are familiar with Dr. Allen's work answer that he can always be relied upon for a readable and spicy statement. But in view of the predominantly local interest of his discussion and the inexorable limits of space, it has seemed best in the foregoing notice to lay the greater emphasis on those large aspects of the subject which are from the pen of Dr. Snedden. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._] HYMN OF PITTSBURGH BY RICHARD REALF My father was mighty Vulcan, I am Smith of the land and sea, The cunning spirit of Tubal Cain Came with my marrow to me; I think great thoughts strong-winged with steel, I coin vast iron acts, And weld the impalpable dream of Seers Into utile lyric facts. I am monarch of all the forges, I have solved the riddle of fire, The Amen of Nature to need of Man, Echoes at my desire; I search with the subtle soul of flame, The heart of the rocky earth, And out from my anvils the prophecies Of the miracle years blaze forth. I am swart with the soot of my chimneys, I drip with the sweats of toil, I quell and scepter the savage wastes And charm the curse from the soil; I fling the bridges across the gulfs, That hold us from the To Be, And build the roads for the bannered march Of crowned Humanity. Published in the _National Labor Tribune_, Saturday, February 23, 1878. [Illustration: _Chautauqua Photographic Co._ PITTSBURGH. THE POINT, AS SEEN FROM THE HEIGHTS OF THE SOUTH SIDE.] [Illustration: THE PITTSBURGH ARCH SESQUI-CENTENNIAL WEEK.] THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY PAUL U. KELLOGG Engineers have a simple process by which in half an hour's time they strike off a "blue print" from a drawing into which has gone the imagination of a procession of midnights, and the exacting work of a vast company of days. God and man and nature,--whosoever you will,--have draughted a mighty and irregular industrial community at the headwaters of the Ohio; they have splashed, as Kipling puts it, at a ten league canvas with brushes of comet's hair. Under the name of the Pittsburgh Survey, Charities Publication Committee has carried on a group of social investigations in this great steel district. In a sense, we have been blue-printing Pittsburgh. Our findings will be published in a series of special numbers of which this is the first, covering in order: I.--The People; II.--The Place; III.--The Work. Full reports are to be published later in a series of volumes by the Russell Sage Foundation and, throughout, the text will be reinforced with such photographs, pastels, maps, charts, diagrams and tables as will help give substance and reality to our presentations of fact. In this sense, then, it is a blue print of Pittsburgh, that we attempt. At least the analogy of the draughting room may make it clear that the work, as we conceive it, lies, like the blue print, within modest outlay and reasonable human compass. Our presentation must frankly lack the mechanical fidelity and inclusiveness of the engineer's negative; but we can endeavor to bring out in relief the organic truth of the situation by giving body and living color, as we see them, to what would otherwise be but the thin white tracings of a town. Occasional articles have been published during the year, but the results of the Survey are put forward for the first time as a consecutive whole in the pages that follow. Here is the place, then, for a simple statement of the drive and scope of the work as conceived by those who have carried it forward: The Pittsburgh Survey has been a rapid, close range investigation of living conditions in the Pennsylvania steel district. It has been carried on by a special staff organized under the national publication committee which prints this magazine. It has been financed chiefly by three grants, of moderate amount, from the Russell Sage Foundation for the Improvement of Living Conditions. It has been made practicable by co-operation from two quarters,--from a remarkable group of leaders and organizations in social and sanitary movements in different parts of the United States, who entered upon the field work as a piece of national good citizenship; and from men, women and organizations in Pittsburgh who were large-minded enough to regard their local situation as not private and peculiar, but a part of the American problem of city building. The outcome has been a spirited piece of inter-state co-operation in getting at the urban fact in a new way. For consider what has already been done in this field in America. We have counted our city populations regularly every ten years,--in some states every five. We have known that the country has grown and spread out stupendously within the century, and that within that period our cities have spread out and filled up with even greater resistlessness. How goes it with them? What more do we know? True, we have profited by incisive analyses of one factor or another which enters into social well-being,--tuberculosis, factory legislation, infant mortality, public education, to name examples; and we have heard the needs of particular neighborhoods described by those who know them. But there is something further, synthetic and clarifying, to be gained by a sizing up process that reckons at once with many factors in the life of a great civic area, not going deeply into all subjects, but offering a structural exhibit of the community as a going concern. This is what the examining physician demands before he accepts us as an insurance risk, what a modern farmer puts his soils and stock through before he plants his crops, what the consulting electrician performs as his first work when he is called in to overhaul a manufacturing plant. And this, in the large, has been the commission undertaken by the Pittsburgh Survey. The main work was set under way in September, 1907, when a company of men and women of established reputation as students of social and industrial problems, spent the month in Pittsburgh. On the basis of their diagnosis, a series of specialized investigations was projected along a few of the lines which promised significant results. The staff has included not only trained investigators but also representatives of the different races who make up so large a share of the working population dealt with. Limitations of time and money set definite bounds to the work, which will become clear as the findings are presented. The experimental nature of the undertaking, and the unfavorable trade conditions which during the past year have reacted upon economic life in all its phases, have set other limits. Our inquiries have dealt with the wage-earners of Pittsburgh (a) in their relation to the community as a whole, and (b) in their relation to industry. Under the former we have studied the genesis and racial make-up of the population; its physical setting and its social institutions; under the latter we have studied the general labor situation; hours, wages, and labor control in the steel industry; child labor, industrial education, women in industry, the cost of living, and industrial accidents. From the first, the work of the investigations has been directed to the service of local movements for improvement. For, as stated in a mid-year announcement of the Survey, we have been studying the community at a time when nascent social forces are asserting themselves. Witness the election of an independent mayor three years ago, and Mr. Guthrie's present fight to clear councils of graft. Within the field of the Survey and within one year, the Pittsburgh Associated Charities has been organized; the force of tenement inspectors has been doubled and has carried out a first general housing census, and a scientific inquiry, under the name of the Pittsburgh Typhoid Commission, has been instituted into the disease which has been endemic in the district for over a quarter of a century. A civic improvement commission, representative in membership and perhaps broader in scope than any similar body in the country, is now in process of formation. A display of wall maps, enlarged photographs, housing plans, and other graphic material was the chief feature of a civic exhibit held in Carnegie Institute in November and December, following the joint conventions in Pittsburgh of the American Civic Association and the National Municipal League. The local civic bearings of the Survey were the subject of the opening session of these conventions. Its economic aspects were brought forward at a joint session of the American Economic Association and the American Sociological Society at Atlantic City in December. [Illustration: SCHEME OF THE PITTSBURGH SURVEY. From Pittsburgh Civic Exhibit, Carnegie Institute, November-December, 1908.] The present issue is frankly introductory. It deals with the city as a community of people. Pittsburgh is usually defined in other terms. First among American cities in the production of iron and steel, we are told that it ranks fifth as a general manufacturing center. There are forty-seven furnaces within forty miles of the heart of the city, with an annual capacity of over seven million tons of pig iron,--more than twenty-five per cent of the total production in the United States. Statistics of the American iron trade for 1907 show that Allegheny county produced a fourth of all Bessemer steel and a third of all open hearth steel, a fifth of all rails rolled in the United States, a third of all plates and sheets, and very nearly a half of all structural shapes. Pittsburgh proper ranked fourth in foundry and machine shop products, second in brick and tile, pottery and fire clay, and first in electrical apparatus and supplies. In coal and coke, tin plate, glass, cork, and sheet metal,--in products as varied as the fifty-seven varieties of the pickles in which it excels,--its output is a national asset. Pittsburgh stands tenth in postal receipts and fifth in bank deposits. Its banking capital exceeds that of the banks of the North Sea empires and its payroll that of whole groups of American states. Here is a town, then, big with its works. [Illustration: BLAST FURNACES AT NIGHT.] Again, there is a temptation to define Pittsburgh in terms of the matrix in which the community is set, and the impress of this matrix on the soul of its people no less than on the senses of the visitor. Pipe lines that carry oil and gas, waterways that float an acreage of coal barges, four track rails worn bright with weighty ore cars, wires surcharged with a ruthless voltage or delicately sensitive to speech and codes, bind here a district of vast natural resources into one organic whole. The approaching traveller has ample warning. Hillsides and valleys are seamed with rows of coke ovens, gaunt tipples bend above mine mouths, derricks and bull-wheels stand over fuel wells, and low lying mill buildings, sided with corrugated iron, rear their clusters of stacks like the pipes of huge swarthy Pans. Then comes the city with its half-conquered smoke cloud, with its high, bare hills and its hunch of imposing structures. The place to see Pittsburgh from is a much whittled little stand on the high bluff of Mt. Washington, where votaries of the national game assemble on a clear afternoon and spy upon a patch of green in Allegheny City, hundreds of feet below them, and more than a mile away across the Ohio River. Their business is with Honus Wagner and the three-bagger he is going to knock out. But yours can be with the great Y of the rivers, churned by stern-wheeled steamers and patched here and there with black fleets of coal barges. Below you to the right is the South Side; to the left across the rivers, is Allegheny City, and between them is a little trowel of land piled high with office buildings. This is the "Point," cut short as it is by the "Hump" and by higher hills behind; and flanked by narrow river banks that grudge a foothold to the sounding workshops and lead up and down to the mill towns. You are looking at commercial Pittsburgh. From the Herron Hill reservoir, mid-way between the forks of the Y, you get a panorama of the other side of the community,--Shenley Park to the right of you, with the Carnegie buildings and the ample residences of the East End, and to the left, long swales of small, thickly built houses that make up Lawrenceville and the adjoining home areas. But it is at night that the red and black of the Pittsburgh flag marks the town for its own. The lines of coke ovens seen from the car windows have become huge scythes, saw-edged with fire. The iron-sheathed mills are crated flame. Great fans of light and shadow wig-wag above furnaces and converters. From Cliff street, the lamps of Allegheny lie thick and clustered like a crushed sky, but from the bridges that span the Monongahela between the mills,--where choleric trains shuttle on either bank, and the rolls are at thumping war with the sliding, red billets,--the water welds the sparks and the yellow tumult, and you feel as if here were the forges of the sunrise, where beam and span and glowing plate are fabricating into the framework of dawns that shall "come up like thunder." Here,--if we doubted it before,--is a town that works; and that works in a big way. But the people, rather than the product or the setting, concern us. In December, 1907, Pittsburgh and Allegheny were merged, and the Greater City entered the class of Baltimore, St. Louis and Boston. This is the half-million class. Last September, Pittsburgh celebrated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and a street pageant exhibited both the industrial vigor of the community, and the variety of its people. There was a company of Corn Planter Indians, descendants of the aboriginal Pittsburghers; there were floats representing the early settlers; there were Scotchmen with kilts and bagpipes; nor were they all. A wagon load of Italians bore a transparency,--"Romans dig your sewers," and Polish, Slovak and other racial organizations marched in the costumes of their native countries. For the life of the city has become intricate and rich in the picturesque. That old man you passed on the street was a Morgan raider, and behind him trudged a common soldier of the Japanese War. Here is an American whose Pittsburgh is the marble corridors of an office building, and the night desks of the men in shirt sleeves and green eye shades; and here, one whose Pittsburgh reaches back to a stately old parlor with gilt-framed mirrors and spindling Chippendale. Here is "Belle," who exchanges her winter in the workhouse for a summer in a jon-boat, which she reaches by a plank. Here is the _gazda_ who ruined himself that his boarders might not starve. And here, the inventor who works with many men in a great laboratory and scraps a thousand dollars' worth of experimentation at the turn of a hand. Here is a gallery of miners pounding their grimy fists at a speech by Haywood in the old town hall; and here a bunch of half-sobered Slavs in the Sunday morning police court. You do not know the Pittsburgh District until you have heard the Italians twanging their mandolins round a construction campfire, and seen the mad whirling of a Slovak dance in a mill town lodge hall; until you have watched the mill hands burst out from the gates at closing time; or thrown confetti on Fifth avenue on a Halloween. Within a few blocks of the skyscrapers of the Point, I have seen a company of Syrians weaving almost unceasingly for four days a desert dance that celebrated the return of one of them to Jerusalem. (An Irishman thought it a wake.) A possum swings by the tail at Christmastide in front of that Negro store in Wylie avenue; long bearded Old Believers play bottle pool in that Second avenue barroom; a Yiddish father and five children lie sick on the floor of this tenement; this old Bohemian woman cleaned molds as a girl in the iron works of Prague; that itinerant cobbler made shoes last winter for the German children of the South Side, who were too poor to pay for them, and stuffed the soles with thick cardboard when he was too poor to buy leather. Here is a Scotch Calvinist, and there a Slavic free thinker; here a peasant, and there a man who works from a blue print; engineers, drag outs, and furnace-men from the mill district; yeggs and floppers and '69ers from the lower reaches of the city; strippers and core makers and coffin buffers. There a Russian exile with a price on his head, and here a Shaker of old Pennsylvania stock! You have heard of Shakespeare's London, of the port of Lisbon in the days of the Spanish Main, of the mixtures of caste and race and faith on the trade routes of the East. They are of the ilk of Pittsburgh. How to get orderly plans of social betterment out of the study of such a community is at first sight a staggering question. But the clue to its answer is that same fact that stood out when we looked at Pittsburgh as a city of tonnage and incandescence. These people are here to work. This fact once grasped in its bearings and we get a foothold for estimating Pittsburgh. The wage earners become a fairly well-defined belt in the population. What the issues of life and labor mean to them will help us in understanding the trend of conditions in industrial communities generally. First, you have the mere fact of aggregation. Pittsburgh has as many people as the whole state of Pennsylvania had at the opening of the last century; Allegheny county as many as at that time the commonwealths of Massachusetts and New York combined. The Greater City has twice as many as all the future cities of the United States had in 1800; as many as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, combined, in 1850. Here, then, is a community worthy of as serious statesmanship as that which has served whole commonwealths at critical periods in our national advance. Now in all history, cities have never reproduced themselves. They draw on the country districts to replace the stock that they burn out. But when one-third of the total population comes to live in cities, they can no longer do this. It becomes vitally important that city people live well, else the race lapses. At risk, then, of going over old ground, let us look at some of the dynamic influences that affect the life of this particular community. No American city presents in a more clear-cut way than Pittsburgh the abrupt change from British and Teutonic immigration. Sociologists tell us that in the mid-eastern valleys of Europe successive waves of broad-headed, long-headed, dark and fair peoples gathered force and swept westward to become Kelt and Saxon and Swiss and Scandinavian and Teuton. They were the bulwark which obstructed the march of Hun and Goth and Turk and Tartar, sweeping in from the East. It is from Slavs and mixed people of this old midland, with racial and religious loves and hates seared deep, that the new immigration is coming to Pittsburgh to work out civilization under tense conditions. A vineyard blighted, a pogrom, torture, persecution, crime, poverty, dislodge them, and they come. Further, the sociologists tell us that by mixed peoples the greatest advances have been made. It was in Amsterdam, Venice, London, and the Hanse towns, places of mart which brought together the blood and cultures of distant races,--it was here that democracy gathered head and the arts flourished. But in Pittsburgh are the elements of a mixture yet more marvelous. A common fund of Slavic words, almost a Pittsburgh dialect, is finding currency. The Pole still speaks Polish, but he makes an adaptation of his words, and the Slovak understands. The Syrian and Arabian peddlers know these words and use them in selling their wares in the courts and settlements,--a contrast to the great gulfs that still separate the Slav and the English-speaking. Furthermore, the city is the frontier of to-day. We have appropriated and parcelled out most of our free land. The edge of settlement is no longer open as a safety valve for foot-loose rebels against the fixity of things. They come to the cities. They swarm in new hives. To Pittsburgh especially where men deal with devil-may-care risks and great stakes, come the adventurous and the unreckoning. A smack of the mining camp is in the air about the mill yards. The life to which these people come is different from that known of any previous generations. We have seen how in Pittsburgh traction lines, tunnels, inclines, telephone wires, weave a city of a size and on a site which would have been impossible in the old days. The householder is far removed from the sources of his food supply. He lives two or three families deep and many to the acre. The very aggregation of people breeds disease, a complication which in turn may yet be balanced by those revolutions in medical science which have brought glad, new optimism to sanitarian and physician. [Illustration: SOURCES OF IMMIGRANT LABOR FORCE, CARNEGIE STEEL CO. Each dot a man. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: 10421 INCLUDING: SLOVAKS 6477 POLES 611 BOHEMIANS 45 GERMANS 135 CROATIANS 1239 HUNGARIANS 1323 ROUMANIANS 410 RUSSIA: 2577 INCLUDING: POLES 1644 LITHUANIANS 476 BRITISH ISLES: 2010 INCLUDING: ENGLAND 1456 IRELAND 257 SCOTLAND 137 WALES 100 SWEDEN: 287 BULGARIA 58 FRANCE 52 TURKEY IN EUROPE 26 ROUMANIA 24] The work to which these people come is not the work of their fathers. The discipline of the mill is not the discipline of the field. Human nature is put to new and exacting tests. It works unremittingly as it has not worked before,--eight, ten, twelve hours a day, seven days in the week, with the chance of twenty-four hours once in the fortnight. It works by artificial light and at night. It works in great plants and creates and puts together in fierce new ways. Of that growing share of the population of Pittsburgh which is continental born, a large proportion is from the country and small villages. This is no less true of the influx of southern Negroes,--a north-bound movement here and in other cities, the final outcome of which we do not know. The newcomers, it is true, may be groomed in passage. A railroad may open up a Hungarian back country and the peasant get his first training there; a Ruthenian may work on the plantations and sugar beet factories of Bessarabia before coming on; a southern Negro may hire out in the mills of Alabama before starting north; or a Slovak may work as a slate picker or miner's helper in the anthracite fields on his way westward. The drift through it all none the less is from field to mill. New stock, then, a mixed people, venturesome, country-bred,--so much the sociologist has pointed out to us; the economist has other things to tell. He sees about him the potent aftermath of those great changes from household and domestic forms of production to the factory system. As each new peasantry leaves the soil, the history of the industrial revolution is repeated, but processes are accelerated and the experience of a generation is taken at a jump. With this has occurred a great lateral stratification of industry. There is no longer the feudal loyalty to a particular concern, but to the men of a particular trade. Unions have sprung up, and have grown or broken. The thing above all others which has tended in Pittsburgh to their undoing in certain great trades has been the subdivision of labor. The flea on the hair of the tail of the dog of the wild man of Borneo just come to town, is an entity large and complete compared with the processes which occupy many men in the electrical works and car shops. This change has multiplied product, and set unskilled labor to busy itself at a thousand stints; but it has fore-shortened trade knowledge and ousted much craftsmanship. Along with it has come another physical change. The skilled men of the old time hammers and anvils work with electric cranes and at continuous processes that reach from the heat of great ovens and the jaws of soaking pits to the piled and finished product. An intricate dovetailing of flagmen, brakemen, engineers and train despatchers makes up a train to carry huge dynamos and steel structural shapes across the continent. This fact has a new and vital social significance. Its essence is team play. Its reactions upon the psychology of associated effort have yet to be explored. Once again, new and unheard of crafts are ushered in, to engage their quota of the time and strength of the working force, and to put it to new tests of adaptability. Take the implications of the steel industry itself, in the building trades. The old time carpenter and builder gives way to the house-smith and the structural steel worker. [Illustration: INDUSTRIAL TOWNS OF ALLEGHENY CO. PA. PERCENTAGE OF NATIVE & FOREIGN BORN WHITES IN CITIES & BOROUGHS HAVING 2500 INHABITANTS OR MORE 1900] In Pittsburgh, too, we have a stupendous example of the influence upon the wage earners' city of a mighty fiscal change in industry, combining in one corporation all processes from the ore to the completed bridge. Work is organized nationally. The steel center like the mill town is not a thing by itself. It is a step in a bigger process managed from without and owned by a multitude of nonresident stockholders. Pittsburgh must build up an active, native citizenship or be merely an industrial department. The community and the workshop are at issue. Finally,--in our roster of dominating influences,--within the last twenty-five years, has come the invasion of women into industry. This is not a simple thing, nor a little one. It can directly affect half the population. Pittsburgh is not primarily a woman's town, yet 22,000 women engage in the trades, and each year they invade a new department. These women workers are affected by all the forces noted and in turn affect and complicate those forces. These are some of the dominant influences that affect wage-earners in cities assembled. One element runs through their complications and brings us clear-seeing and hope. It is the element of change and flow. In the Royal Museum at Munich are the miniatures of a group of medieval towns carved out of wood. The spires of the churches, the walls and gates of the city, markets, houses, outbuildings and gardens are reproduced with a fidelity that has stood these centuries. They embody the old idea of a town, of the fixity of things. A man was his father's son. He worked as his father worked. He was burgher, or freeman, or serf as his father was burgher, or freeman, or serf. His looms and his spinning wheels and vats were as his fathers had contrived them. He lived in the house of his father as his father had lived and it served him well. Pittsburgh is the antithesis of such a town. It is all motion. The modern industrial city is a flow, not a tank. The important thing is not the capacity of a town, but the volume and currents of its life and, by gauging these, we can gauge the community. We must gauge at the intake,--the children, the immigrant, the countrymen who come in; gauge at the outlets; and gauge at the stages in the course of the working life. If there be unnecessary death, if strong field hands are crippled or diseased through their manner of living or working, if the twelve hour man sees everything gray before his eyes in the morning, if women work in new ways that cost their strength or the strength of their young, if school children are drafted off as laborers before they are fit; if boys grow into manhood without training for the trades of this generation,--then we have a problem in social hydraulics to deal with. We must put old social institutions and usages to the test of these changing tides. Herein lies the essence of constructive philanthropy. In this light, tenement house legislation is no more than an adaptation of domestic necessities and customs to the difficulties of living three stories deep, and factory acts no more than an effort to work out the law of skull crackers, freight yards, and electrically driven mines. We have to fashion a city not alone for the hereditary householder, but for the mobile and transient and half-assimilated, for workers with multiple tools and above all for people on an upward trend. Faced with its great task of production, Pittsburgh has not set itself to the thrift of self-knowledge. When half a thousand people were dying each year from typhoid fever, the movement to clear the water supply was blocked and exploited at every turn. Half a thousand workmen are now killed each year in the industries of Allegheny county, and yet the public has not taken the trouble to sift the accidents through and see which can be prevented. Nobody knows how many men are seriously injured every year; nobody knows how many men and women are beset with trade diseases. Nobody knows how much the community is paying for such wastes as these. Nobody knows how far the seeping off of human integers into hospitals, and jails, insane asylums, brothels, and orphanages, could be checked; the guesses of the town's best men are that much is needless. Pittsburgh is a town which does not know the number of its children of school age, nor, the physical status of the children of its classes; it is a town which, for five years, did not so much as demand a report from its health department. In such an arraignment, we must bear in mind that there are notable exceptions in one phase of social concern or another to this lack in Pittsburgh's self-knowledge, and that Pittsburgh is not merely a scapegoat city. It is the capital of a district representative of untrammeled industrial development, but of a district which, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for vigor, waste and optimism, is rampantly American. The Pittsburgh Survey has been carried out with such a working conception of the field it had before it. We have brought to one city people of special experience in others, to gauge its needs. We have measured its institutions against standards worked out in this city or in that, or in other local enterprises; and we have estimated civic and industrial conditions by their effect on groups of individual families. In the present issue we put forward the composite situation as reflected in the lives of two groups--the immigrant and the Negro. Later issues will go into the social bearings of courts and schools, hospitals, houses and factories. But such individual problems have no reality unless seen in their human relations and for this reason, this issue begins with an interpretation of the genesis of the community by a native Pittsburgher, who has become one of the civic leaders of New England. We have an estimate of new immigration by a Welshman from the Anthracite region, who is representative of the old, and an estimate of his fellows by one of the Slavs. The outlook of the steel mill worker is appraised by a man whose eyes have known the broad sweep of prairies of the American Northwest. A description of the working women whose hours and wages and conditions of employment will next concern us, and of the families into whose lives come the tragedies of industrial accidents, are included. And finally, the issues of life in a representative mill town are put forth, standing out more isolated and clear cut for the purposes of analysis than it is possible to find them in the more intricate operations of the Greater City. * * * * * One of my earliest recollections of a canvas covered geography is the prime fact which is Pittsburgh,--that here the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio. Huge economic foundations buttress this fact (oil and gas and clay and iron and coal). History in the making has rolled it into new shapes and a changing significance. The junction is the great left fist of the Father of Waters. The three rivers give the town common cause and intercourse with the Atlantic coast ranges to the east, and the mid-continental bottom lands, north and south, to the west. Their waters carry the ores and fill the boilers and douse the hissing billets of the steel makers. They are not easy overlords, this triumvirate of rivers. They carry fever which scotches one town and the next. They rise a bit too far and the fires are out, the streets flooded. But grudgingly and inevitably, they yield mastery. They are dammed and sluiced and boiled and filtered to suit the demands of navigation and power and temperature and thirst. The mastery they yield is to another current--the eddying peoples which make up the community and all its works--a current more powerful and mysterious than the bulk of brown waters. The War Department engineers can tell you the exact number of cubic feet which slide past either side of the Point every minute. The sanitarians can give you the number of bacteria, friendly or plague-besetting, which infect any cubic centimeter. The weather man in a high building can forecast the exact stage which the water will register hours hence. But what of the people?--they have largely taken themselves for granted. They have rarely taken the time to test their own needs or consciously gauge the destination of the currents that possess them. They are here--the strong, the weak, the cowed, the ambitious, the well equipped and the pitiful. They jostle and work and breed. For the most part they run a splendid course. But they do not keep tally, and their ignorance means sorrow and death and misunderstanding. * * * * * To give a little help to those who are trying to understand, and measure these currents, and deal with them as intelligently as the locks and channels of the rivers are dealt with, has been the purpose of the Pittsburgh Survey. Such chartings as we have attempted have been of these living waters. [Illustration: COKE OVENS AT NIGHT] PITTSBURGH AN INTERPRETATION OF ITS GROWTH ROBERT A. WOODS HEAD OF SOUTH END HOUSE, BOSTON Pittsburgh has always been unique among American towns. Known as the dingy capital of a "black country," during all but the latest period of its growth it has attracted few visitors save those whose business motive brought them. The nucleus of its population is different from that of any other of our large centers. Its situation at the gateway of the Middle West was sure to bring it into significance as the center of the country's population and activity shifted, but the Allegheny mountains were for a long time a barrier against the easy movement of population in this direction. It is the varied mineral resources of western Pennsylvania, and the pertinacity of the chief element among its inhabitants in developing them, which has created a new metropolitan district, having virtually a population of a million, to be added to the seven or eight urban centers which now dominate different sections of the United States. Beginning as a little hamlet about the fortifications used first by the French, then by the English, at the junction where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers form the Ohio, the settlement developed from a trading post to a market town. It would have been limited to the career of such a place much longer if, in spite of the excellent soil of the surrounding region, the farmers had not found it difficult to compete in the matter of the staple crops with the slave-tilled plantations of the South. It was as a sort of forced alternative that small iron-working plants began to spring up along the rivers. The ore was brought down from the Alleghenies. Bituminous coal,--the distinguishing asset of the coming industrial center,--had already been discovered by the French in the river valleys. The "town beyond the mountains" again found itself embarrassed in marketing its commodities,--not by competition this time, so far as America was concerned, but by the heights over which its ponderous new output must be carried. This obstacle was overcome by a system of canals with inclined cable portage lines up the mountain slopes. Meanwhile the great trade with the West for the supply of its incipient civilization was being established through the river traffic as well as by newly dug canals. Some of the first citizens of the town after the revolutionary days were naturally men who had been prominently engaged in the war. Two of them were Irishmen who had leaped to the opportunity to fight England. At the close of hostilities they had foresight to discern that large developments were to come at the juncture of the rivers. The descendants of these men,--some of whom by a curious irony are English and have never seen this country,--are at the present moment the greatest holders of Pittsburgh real estate. The great bulk of the early immigrants into the town were Scotch-Irish, who began to come in large numbers early in the nineteenth century, and almost two generations before the inrush of the southern Irish. Until recent great developments, when the skyscrapers began to appear, the older part of the city in its aspect was distinctly suggestive of British towns of the same size and character. Two of its local sections were very naturally called Birmingham and Manchester, names which have almost passed out of use among the American born generations. The manners and customs of the people showed about equally the traces of pioneer days in the Ohio valley and the traditions of the old country. Unlike the large cities that have grown up along the Great Lakes, Pittsburgh owes nothing to successive waves of migration from New England. It is only in very recent years, with the varied developments of technical and educational interests, that there have been enough New Englanders living in the city to develop any of the organized front which they maintain in all other northern cities. It is natural therefore that, though Pittsburgh was strongly loyal for the union during the Civil War, the spirit of the city should in many respects suggest the South rather than the North. Around the nucleus of Scotch-Irish, gathered, as time went on, large numbers of southern Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Germans and German Jews. But these different types are still to a noticeable degree always considered as being marked off by themselves as against the dominant Scotch-Irish. It is only as individuals from among them gain a position of influence by special achievement that they are considered a part of the bone and sinew of the city. The Scotch-Irish with their contrasted traits of sturdiness and ardor, have two great separate interests in life,--industry and religion. The other nationalities have either had the same traits in good measure, or by process of selection individuals have caught the spirit and have come to the front while the rest have fallen to the rear. Yet those who fell back have in most cases found a reasonable opportunity in the great material progress of the town. Pittsburgh is all the more characteristically American for having been built up from first to last by immigrant stock, not merely by unsettled natives. It remains to this day a sort of natural selection of enterprising spirits from out of every European nation and tribe, Americanized not by any tradition or other educational process than that of having the typical American experiences in what still remains the heart of the country. Pittsburgh has never been a place to emigrate from. It has held its own, and constantly invites each nationality to bring more of its kind. The only deserters were those who found it in them to care for a reasonable measure of cultivated life, difficult to secure in a town where there was not a library worthy of the name until 1895 and where a whole winter would sometimes pass without a single lecture on a significant theme intelligently treated. It was natural that in the formative period there were some who sought more congenial associations in the seacoast cities. In religion until comparatively recent days it could be said that there was not a more Calvinistic atmosphere about Edinburgh, Glasgow or Belfast. The early Pittsburghers had almost as strong a tradition of what it means to fight for their faith as the Puritans themselves, and this sense has not had time yet altogether to fade. The orthodox spirit of the town has all along palpably affected the religion of the other racial types. So it is hardly surprising to find that certain regulations of the Catholic Church seem to be more insistently promulgated and more rigorously observed in Pittsburgh than in other places. There is not a city in the country, and probably not in the world, where strict Sabbath and liquor legislation is more strenuously put into effect. Unusually genial people to those who do well, they are summary and even relentless with those who would lower the moral decorum of the city. But as is very likely to happen where there is a rigid ethical creed, there is here a very anomalous double standard. The amount of Sunday work in the steel mills is appalling. There is a certain sanctity in the operations of business which enables it in specific ways to nullify the precepts of religion, as when the over-strain of seven days' work a week is measured in the gradual destruction of the religious sense in great sections of the population. Local option sentiment is easily bewildered by political cross-currents. Though the Brooks law maintains a severe standard as to the conduct of the saloon business, applied by the county judges to whom a complaint is _prima facie_ adverse evidence; yet Pennsylvania remains, in the midst of an unexampled national temperance movement, among the small and ignoble company of states marked black on the reformers' map. Few cities have had a greater degree of political machine control, and the prime sources of this corruption have been nowhere else than among the Scotch-Irish. Ever since the days of Simon Cameron a clan-like political organization has dominated the state of Pennsylvania; and the city of Pittsburgh has been only a less important headquarters for its operations than Philadelphia. The condition of politics in Pennsylvania has led many to think that the people of the state were characterized by a generally lax moral sense. On the contrary, and in Pittsburgh particularly, this situation is because of a too intense and therefore too restricted ethical motive. The passage and enforcement of certain types of legislation having an immediate and obvious ethical bearing satisfies this restricted ethical demand, and sidetracks tendencies which might check the indirect causes of great underlying demoralization. A long list of charities each year receives substantial appropriations from the Legislature. The 20,000 earnest and influential people in Pennsylvania who are members of managing boards of philanthropic institutions receiving state subsidies, are by the same token so much less inclined and less able to be alert and watchful against such matters as the theft of millions from the state treasury and from banks which carry state accounts. The difficulty with Pennsylvania, and emphatically with Pittsburgh, is not degeneracy; it is simply public moral adolescence, and the confusion that inevitably accompanies it. The materialism of Pittsburgh is that of the overwrought, not of the over-indulgent. No one can study the life of the city without feeling a mighty under-current of moral capacity not yet in any sufficient degree brought to the surface. Its religion cultivates definite restraints and reassurances, rather than aspiration and moral enterprise. This is, however, always the case when a community's moral powers are absorbed in the subduing of nature and the achieving of a great material destiny. The spirit of adventure in Pittsburgh has been thus far economic. The moral movement of this people in any case is slow: but it is unyielding always; and once fully aroused knows how to be irresistible. The situation can hardly seem abnormal when one realizes the unsurpassed material resources of the Pittsburgh district and the pressure which has been laid upon a single community by the whole world for the products out of which the foundations of world enlightenment are laid. It is of particular importance in the case of Pittsburgh, that the social student should take the full measure of the function of the city as the almost limitless and tireless creator of the solid means of civilized existence, for this and other nations. The simple fact that it is the first city in the country in the tonnage of its product, and the second city of the country in banking capital, largely on account of its great wage payments, will suggest both the service which it renders and the power which it has achieved. It is significant that in this district the two greatest individual fortunes in history have been amassed and the two most gigantic concentrations of economic power built up. Without in the least abating the test of moral and legal standards upon the policy of industrial leadership in the great activities of western Pennsylvania, it can hardly be doubted that later generations will include the leaders in such enterprise among the master builders of modern civilization. The place of Pittsburgh in the American system of life is that of the city which in an altogether unparalleled way is made up of producers, of those whose purposes are focused in bringing to pass the creation of durable and indispensable utilities. Contrasted with Pittsburgh, every other city in the country is rather a market-place, made more refined but in some sense less noble by the dominance of traders and consumers. It is one of the curious anomalies of American legislation that it should have so zealously guarded against foreign competition in price standards, while withholding all protection against competitors bringing with them a low wage standard. Pittsburgh, in its larger estate, may be said to be a monument to this anomaly. Severe restrictive protection against foreign steel, and unlimited immigration, have enabled Pittsburgh, well-enough otherwise provided, to throw the reins upon the neck of her prosperity. And it must be borne in mind that the protective system, for years tacitly acknowledged by Pittsburgh manufacturers to be unnecessary, is yet clung to as an exclusive and powerful tribal fetich, from whose point of view every question as to the welfare of the nation must first be considered. The fresh constructive moral aspects of politics and patriotism impress Pittsburgh probably less easily than any other community in the country. So great and continuous has been the tide of immigration, that the insistence of the new immigrants for employment on any terms has made it comparatively easy for industrial captains to control industrial administration, to the exclusion of all substantial efforts on the part of the workmen to organize in their own behalf. Beginning with the British operatives and coming down through the successive types to the present southeast Europeans, each type up to the present has gradually raised its demands, made some headway, organized to reach still higher ground, lost by attack from both front and rear, and disappeared up and down the social scale in the general community. This very costly process has been thought necessary to industrial prosperity. There is, of course, no doubt that the holding down of the wage standard, like the artificial maintenance of the price standard, has conduced largely to the making of some of the great personal fortunes; but it is certain that the future historian will find this checking of the normal and typically American aspirations of successive waves of newcomers, to have been distinctly detrimental to the economic, quite as well as to the social and political well-being of the Pittsburgh community. This unthrift in the matter of the prime essential productive force and economic value is again partly accounted for by the very pressure of opportunity afforded by unlimited resources and the insatiable demand of the world market. There has not even been sufficient time for consideration of many economies in process and administration whose value to manufactures would be unquestioned. It is to the point here to remember that the two great fortunes just mentioned began to be great as individual fortunes through special privileges gained in railroad rates. The topographical convergence of the Great Lake region on the one side and the Ohio river valley on the other to a territory less than a hundred miles wide, brought all the chief means of transportation between the West and the Atlantic seaboard through this particular territory. These exceptional facilities for transportation gave a culminating stimulus to industrial progress. The intense localization of resources and transportation facilities led almost inevitably to the phenomenal concentration of industrial capital, followed by highly centralized industrial administration. This process has in a sense been its own undoing, so far as Pittsburgh is concerned, because the financial and even the administrative center of the great combinations have inevitably gravitated to New York, and the old type of self-reliant leader of industry is fast disappearing. Yet the lesson of the large spirit of associated production is constantly being inwrought into the consciousness of the community. A later article in this series will show that the statesmanlike initiative, which until recent days had been inevitably swung into the strategy of business, is beginning to express itself in many promising forms of public spirited activity. Physical environment, no less than racial stock and economic factors, condition the development of public sentiment in a community. The growth of Pittsburgh as a center of population under the pressure of business opportunity would have been very greatly hampered if electric transit had not prepared the way. The ground plan runs up and down almost impossible foldings of hill and valley. The electric cars make possible the utilizing of all the slopes and hilltops for homes. This has weakened the inevitable centripetal force of urban growth, and led to the building up of suburbs very accessible to the central business section, and comparing for attractiveness and comfort with those of any other city in the country. Such a transfer of well-to-do population has made possible other important shiftings both of poorer population and of business, by which the business center has gained in area and in the character and adaptability of its structures. Pittsburgh has grown into an industrial metropolis with outlying manufacturing towns reaching along the rivers, and following the course of all the railroads for a distance of thirty or forty miles. The time is soon coming when all the large industries will be eliminated from the city, and Pittsburgh proper will become simply the commercial and cultural headquarters of its district. Meanwhile all these methods of expansion and relief have not been sufficient to give adequate room in the downtown section either for industry, trade or housing. This area, which is closely hemmed in by the rivers and the hills, now includes the great central commercial activities, the railroad terminals, several large industrial plants and numerous smaller ones, together with the homes of the unskilled population which finds employment within it. The congestion within these tight limits brings out, in a peculiarly acute way, the breakdown of many branches of the social administration of the city, from the point of view of the welfare of its population as a whole. Here not only the unfitness of hundreds of houses under existing conditions for human habitation, but the actual and serious shortage of roofs under which to shelter the lower grades of the industrial population, is most strikingly seen. Here typhoid fever, for which Pittsburgh has these many years held a tragic pre-eminence, is at its highest rate. Here the actual congestion of machinery within industrial plants which cannot get land to expand upon, is particularly conducive to the diseases, and to accidents which are associated with the different branches of industry. In this situation appears another of the strange contrasts of Pittsburgh life. The problem of the downtown district is further complicated by the fact that great sections of it are held under a landlord system like that of the old world. Thirty-three million dollars' worth of real estate located almost wholly in the downtown district is held by five estates, some of the holders living abroad permanently, others traveling much of the time. Commercial enterprise is handicapped by the difficulty of securing an independent title to real estate. Much of the most objectionable tenement house property is held by two of these estates. Absentee landlordism thus oddly parallels absentee capitalism. To the fact that the industrial authorities are remote and, by controlling many plants, can take the fiscal rather than the close range administrative view of industry, must be largely traced that stern reprobation of any equity on the part of the workman in his work, which has on occasion made, and will again make Pittsburgh the country's chief point of social unrest and danger. The anti-trade-union policy tends strongly to fix and standardize the immigrant rate of wages, and has given strong cumulative force to the personal profit-reapings of the past two decades. Recognizing clearly the serious limitations of trade unionism as part of the organization of a tumultuous industry like that of Pittsburgh, it must still be said that there is substantial evidence to believe that the community cheats itself when it keeps up a glutted labor market and a lower than standard wage. However this may be, the Pittsburgh employers' point of view, more than that of any other city of the country, is like that of England in the early days of the factory system,--holding employes guilty of a sort of impiety, and acting with sudden and sure execution, if they undertake to enforce their claims in such way as to embarrass the momentum of great business administration. A sound standard of living for the workman and his right by organized competition to win it, Pittsburgh must eventually recognize as fundamental to the country's economic and political welfare. Should she persist in excluding trade unionism, European experience shows that her hordes of immigrants will quickly learn to carry their alien types of unrest to the ballot box. The backwardness of Pittsburgh in the development of culture and public spirit, must be traced in part to the negative attitude of a serious minded people toward the amenities of life, and their distrust of the process of government. There has been no sufficient tradition in the city of more balanced and varied human interests. The city's population, instead of finding an increasing social unity, has been increasingly sectionalized by the overwhelming influx of every type of immigrant. There has not been leisure for the consideration and discussion of public questions. The very ground plan of the city, which scatters all of its responsible citizens through the suburbs at night, tends to deprive the city of their disinterested co-operation out of office hours toward raising its tone and standards. But other American cities have shown how, when many of their people began to be released from the treadmill of the purely industrial stage of their growth, it is possible to take advantage of the experience of older communities and move by long strides toward a humanized type of urban life. From the foremost absentee capitalist and the foremost absentee landlord have come as gifts the two epoch-making improvements toward the finer public life of the city. Schenley Park and the Carnegie institutions located at its entrance form a civic center whose possibilities of civic influence are very great. It may be noted that the coming in of these improvements was coincident with the work of a city engineer who, indifferent to the political principles under which the city was administered, and acting as a kind of despot within his domain, carried through many great improvements in the layout of the new districts of the city, and with the first move in the direction of a great hospital, which is one day to be built with money left for the purpose by the man who for many years was the political master of the city. The effect upon the city of benefits wrought out in this undemocratic fashion will of course be subject to heavy abatements; but it would be a strange doctrinaire who could not see that these specific steps represent most substantial net gains in the life of the community. There is indeed a distinct undertone of feeling that such benefactions represent simply a return to the city of what the city itself has produced. One can find comparatively few indications that the park, the library and the rest have placed the city under the depressing bonds of patronage. The existence and service of these institutions, in any case, give a new and strong focus to the rising city sense, and the evidence goes to show that, rather than weakening the spirit of collective initiative on the part of the citizens themselves, they have conduced to give shape and force to it. There are several instructive ways in which this growth of civic consciousness is expressing itself. The movement for a greater Pittsburgh now consummated in the union of Pittsburgh and Allegheny with a few adjacent towns, arises no doubt in the general effort toward power and prestige; but the step toward inclusiveness is entirely normal, and has gathered up into a public movement aggressive impulses which had never before run in that channel. Happily the expansion was preceded by the election for the first time in a generation of a reform mayor. The movement came directly as a result of the impudent interference of the state machine in unseating a mayor who had been elected by an opposing local faction. This action, carried out under the forms of legislation, brought Pittsburgh people into a new feeling of municipal self-respect, and led to their electing on a democratic ticket George W. Guthrie, who is in every respect one of Pittsburgh's first citizens and has for many years been earnestly interested in the cause of municipal reform. The date 1898 may be taken as marking a kaleidoscopic shifting in the Pittsburgh ensemble. Then the city emerged into the day of large things,--into the great concentration of capital, and the incidental liquidation which gave many families overpowering fortunes of cash in hand; the assembling of vast heterogeneous multitudes of laborers to keep up with the demands of a period of unparalleled prosperity; the ampler civic sense signalized by the Carnegie institutions with their unusual cultural opportunities, and embodied after a time in solid municipal reform and progress, in a truly enlightened Chamber of Commerce, and in excellent forms of social service. On the one hand, irresponsible individuals have gone forth with boundless power to represent the city to the world at her worst. On the other, Pittsburgh is gradually and quietly taking to herself the world's lessons in the making of the modern city and in the building up of citizenship. The former phenomenon, in which to many this city is allegorized, is but the froth and the scum; the latter has the beginnings of a tidal energy behind it. [Illustration] THE NEW PITTSBURGHERS SLAVS AND KINDRED IMMIGRANTS IN PITTSBURGH PETER ROBERTS INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT, INTERNATIONAL YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION The day laborer of a generation ago is gone,--a change which has been swifter and more complete in Pittsburgh than in many other of our industrial centers. "Where are your Irish? your Welsh? your Germans? your Americans?" I asked an old mill hand. "Go to the city hall and the police station," he said. "Some of them are still in the better paid jobs in the mills; but mostly you'll have to look for them among the doctors and lawyers and office holders; among clerks and accountants and salesmen. You'll find them there." The day laborer in the mills to-day is a Slav. The foreign-born of the steel district comprise, it is true, every European nation, but I shall deal here only with the races from southeastern Europe, which for twenty years have been steadily displacing the Teutonic and Keltic peoples in the rough work of the industries. The tendency of the Italians is to go into construction and railroad work, a few entering the mines, rather than into the plants and yards; and my group narrows itself down to the dominant Slav and Lithuanian. What I have to say of them in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City is in the main representative of the manufacturing towns of the whole district. Roughly speaking, one-quarter of the population of Pittsburgh is foreign-born. The foreigner is nowhere more at home than here, and nowhere has he been more actively welcomed by employers. The conflict of customs and habits, varying standards of living, prejudices, antipathies, all due to the confluence of representatives of different races of men, may be witnessed here. The most backward of these foreigners are superstitious and ignorant and are the victims of cunning knaves and unscrupulous parasites. On the other hand, the whole territory is thrown into a stern struggle for subsistence and wage-standards by the displacements due to these resistless accretions to the ranks of the workers. The moral and religious life of the city is not less affected by this inflow of peoples. Their religious training differs widely from that of peoples of Protestant antecedents, and institutions that were dear to the founders of the city are fast undermined by the customs of immigrants from southeastern Europe. Yet as a whole, they bring with them physical and cultural resources which the English-speaking community fails to elicit or thoughtlessly wastes. Such an exhaustive study as could be made of the immigrant population of the steel district is outside the possibilities of this paper. I shall set down only what a month brought me as I visited the lodging-houses and the courts and the mills of Greater Pittsburgh; as I talked with priest and leader, policeman and doctor, banker and labor boss, the immigrants themselves and those who live close to them; but I shall put it before you in the light of many years' residence in the anthracite coal communities, where in another section of Pennsylvania, at Mahanoy City and Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, I have known the Slav and the Lett and their efforts to gain a foothold in America. I shall deal with the situation, not as I have seen it in my visits of the past year, during which the immigrants have returned home by thousands, but as I came to know it in the heyday of prosperity, the early fall of 1907, when conditions were as they are likely to be again when industrial prosperity returns. This is the situation which we must reckon with in a permanent way. In 1880, Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians did not form one per cent of the population in either Pittsburgh or Allegheny. By 1890, they had reached four per cent, and out of an army of 90,000 wage earners, one in every ten was an immigrant from southeastern Europe. By 1900, one-third of the foreign-born were of this new immigration, and the movement of the Teutonic and Keltic races had practically ceased. We must wait until the census enumeration of 1910 before we may definitely know what proportion these newcomers form to-day, but it may safely be assumed that the percentage of foreign-born in the greater city will equal that of 1900, thirty per cent, or roughly, 200,000, half of whom will be from southeastern Europe. Poles, Italians and Jewish immigrants lead the list. Lithuanians, Croatians, Servians, Slovaks and Ruthenians are numbered by the thousands, and Magyars, Greeks, Bohemians and Roumanians are here in lesser groups. The representatives of these nations touch elbows in the streets so that the languages heard when the people are marketing in the foreign quarters on Saturday night are as numerous as those of a seaport town. Twenty dialects are spoken. Yet the polyglot mass that confuses the visitor and induces pessimistic impressions as to the future of the city, is each morning marshalled without tumult. The discipline of the industrial establishments converts this babel of tongues into one of the chief forces of production. Therein lies an appraisal not only of the American _entrepreneur_, but also of these men coming from nations of low efficiency, who are able so quickly to fall into line and keep step in an industrial army of remarkable discipline and output. There is no way of knowing the annual inflow of immigrants into Pittsburgh, for the city is a distributing point. The records of the ports of entry show that in 1907, 187,618 persons gave Pittsburgh as their destination, but many of these scattered to the neighboring Pennsylvania towns and many undoubtedly went to the mills and mines of Eastern Ohio. Every day brings its quota of immigrants in normal times; occasionally they come by the carloads. Owing to the shifting of the newcomers, however, the outflow may often equal the inflow. Conditions of the local industries determine which of these two currents runs the swifter. During the first seven years of the century, the city possibly added 15,000 annually by immigration. Before taking up the living conditions in Pittsburgh as they especially affect these immigrant laborers, let us consider for a moment certain characteristics of these people, and their relation to the general economic situation. First, it is the wages that bring them here. The workers in the mills of Galicia, the vine-lands of Italy, and the factories of Kiev, earn from twenty-five cents to fifty cents in a day of from twelve to sixteen hours. When the American immigrant writes home that he works only nine, ten, or twelve hours and earns from $1.50 to $2.00, the able-bodied wage earner in the fatherland who hears this will not be satisfied until he also stands where the shorter day and the higher wages govern. It is these home-going letters more than all else which recruit the labor force. They are efficient promoters of immigration. "There are no able-bodied men," said Big Sam to me, "between the ages of sixteen and fifty years left in my native town in Servia; they have all come to America." [Illustration: DIRECT FROM THE FIELDS OF MID-EUROPE.] Up to September, 1907, the men in charge of furnaces, foundries, forges and mills, in the Pittsburgh district, could not get the help they needed. The cry everywhere was, "Give us men." A foreman, therefore, could assure Pietro and Melukas that if their brothers or cousins, or friends were sent for, they would get work as soon as they arrived. More than that, the Slav and Italian are no longer dependent on the English boss in the matter of finding work for their countrymen. The inflow of immigration from southeastern Europe has assumed such proportions in the industries of the cities that superintendents have, in some instances, appointed Italian and Polish and Lithuanian foremen; and with these, as with German and Irish, blood is thicker than water. They employ their fellow countrymen. They know the condition of the labor market and can by suggestion stimulate or retard immigration. The tonnage industries of Pittsburgh have expanded tremendously in the last two decades. Such industries need manual laborers as do no others. The Slavs have brawn for sale. Herein, at bottom, is the drawing force which accounts for such a moving in of peoples and the readiness with which they find their places in the specialized industries of the district. Pittsburgh has clamorous need for these men. Take the average Lithuanian, Croatian, Ruthenian, or Slovak, and his physique would compare favorably with that of any people. Most of the immigrants are from agricultural communities. Their food in the fatherland was coarse, their habits simple, their cares few. They had an abundance of vegetable diet, pure water, pure air and sunshine, and they developed strong physical organisms. Taking them as a whole, we get the best of the agricultural communities. The day has not yet come when the weak emigrate and the strong stay at home. No ship agents, however active, can reverse the natural order of the tide of immigration, and natural selection added to federal scrutiny gives us a body of men physically most fit for the development of our industries. Nowhere has this been better illustrated than in Pittsburgh. These men come to be "the hewers of wood and carriers of water." There are representatives of each race far removed from the lowest industrial stratum, but taking these people as a whole, it is safe to say that the bulk of the unskilled labor in the city,--the digging and carrying in the streets, the heavy labor in the mill, the loading and unloading of raw material on railroad and river, the rough work around forge and foundry, the coarse work around factories, and the lifting necessary in machine shops,--all is performed by them. [Illustration: YOUNG SLOVAK.] This is the level at which they enter the economic order. What trade equipment do they bring into the work with them? Their industrial efficiency is low and I should estimate that ninety-five per cent have no knowledge of modern machinery or methods of modern production; they are children in factory training. Further, those who have trades find themselves in an industrial environment where their previous training is of little value. They are in ignorance of the English language, and the few mechanics and tradesmen among them can do no better than join the ranks of the common laborers. We must bear in mind, however, that those of them who know how to use tools, once they are put to work that requires some skill, adapt themselves quickly to the situation. Hence we meet not a few Slavs and Lithuanians who execute work of a semi-skilled nature. Sons, also, of men of these nationalities who settled in the city a generation ago have risen to positions of standing in the industries. Thus it is not unusual to hear of this man or that who has become a foreman in the mills or taken a place in business or in the professions. But on several counts the average Slav, Lithuanian and Italian are not as acceptable as day laborers as were the immigrants from northwestern Europe. The common opinion of American employers is that they are stupid and that the supervisory force must be much larger than if they had English speaking help. Many employers would no doubt, prefer the latter; but they cannot get them for the wages offered; they must take the Slav or run short handed. The United States commissioner of immigration in Pittsburgh is constantly besieged by employers of labor who need help. Many stories are told of one firm stealing a group of laborers marshalled at the ports of entry and forwarded to another. [Illustration: YOUNG SERVIAN.] I have spoken of the influence which letters and money sent home have in recruiting immigrant workmen. These people make little or no use of labor agencies unless the saloon and the small bank may be so denominated. There are men in each nationality, acknowledged leaders, who play the part of intermediaries between superintendents and their people. But such investigations as I have made at Ellis Island do not lead me to believe that the employers of labor in Pittsburgh violate the contract labor law. Labor agencies in New York city make a specialty of distributing Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians to firms in need of hands. The leader who supplies men to a mill or mining concern gets so much for each man supplied. Whatever contract there may be is executed this side of the water. For instance, a leading Croatian had a specific understanding with one of the mills of Pittsburgh that all men he brings will find employment. No contract was executed and in the opinion of the local immigration agent, there was in it no violation of the contract labor law. [Illustration: YOUNG CROATIAN.] I have noted the drawbacks to the new day laborer as such. On the other hand, it is a common opinion in the district that some employers of labor give the Slavs and Italians preference because of their docility, their habit of silent submission, their amenability to discipline, and their willingness to work long hours and over time without a murmur. Foreigners as a rule earn the lowest wages and work the full stint of hours. I found them in the machine shops working sixty hours a week; at the blast furnaces working twelve hours a day for seven days in the week. The common laborer in and around the mills works seventy-two hours a week. The unit of wages is an hour rate for day labor and a Slav is willing to take the longer hours (twelve hours a day for men who work fourteen and sixteen in the fatherland) with extra work on Sundays, especially in connection with clearing the yards and repairing. Possibly sixty to seventy per cent of the laborers in the mills come out Sundays and the mechanics and other laborers on occasions work thirty-six hours in order that the plant may start on time. In one mill I found Russians (Greek Orthodox) in favor for the reason that they gladly worked on Sundays. [Illustration: YOUNG SERVIAN.] My belief is that certain employers of labor have reaped advantage from racial antipathies. The Pole and the Lithuanian have nothing in common and each of them despises the Slovak. Foremen know this and use their knowledge when foreigners are likely to reach a common understanding upon wages or conditions of labor. All these considerations have helped make it less difficult for factory operators to keep open or non-union shop in Pittsburgh. The constant influx of raw material from backward nations into the industries of the city has had somewhat the same effect as the flow of water at an estuary when the tide is rising. All is commotion. It will continue to be so as long as the inflow of Slavs and Italians continues as it has in the last decade. But when they have become permanently placed and their average intelligence and grasp of American conditions rise, racial prejudices will give way to common interests. When this time comes, Pittsburgh will witness the rise of stronger labor organizations than were ever effected by Teuton and Kelt. We have seen, then, the Slavic day laborers coming into the steel district in vast numbers. Of their strength and lack of skill at the outset there is no doubt, and we have noted some of the snap judgments that are current about them; such as, that they are stupid, and submissive. All this puts us in better position to consider more in detail my first statement that it is the wages that bring them to Pittsburgh, and to see what advances they make once they have gained a foothold. The Slav enters the field at a rate of pay for day labor which is higher than that which brought the Germans and the Kelts. The lowest wage I found Slavs working for was thirteen and one-half cents an hour. The wage of common labor in the average mill is fifteen or sixteen and a half cents. The day laborer around the furnaces gets from $1.65 to $1.98 a day. But the newcomers know nothing of a standard wage, and when work is scarce, they will offer to work for less than is paid for common labor. Such was the case of a band of Croatians who offered their services to a firm in Pittsburgh for $1.20 a day. When the superintendent heard it, he said, "My God, what is the country coming to? How can a man live in Pittsburgh on $1.20 a day?" The foreman replied, "Give them rye bread, a herring, and beer, and they are all right." [I have known a coal operator in the anthracite fields to pay Italians and Slovaks ninety cents a day, and ask neither what was the country coming to nor how they could subsist.] More, the Slavs will consciously cut wages in order to get work. A man who knows something about blacksmithing or carpentering will work at a trade for $1.65 or $1.75 when the standard wage may be $2.50. They count their money in the denominations of the fatherland and estimate its value according to old country standards. I have known foremen to take advantage of this. Again, those who are skilled will at the command of the boss render menial services without a murmur. "These fellows have no pride," said an American craftsman to me, "they are not ruled by custom. When the foreman demands it they will throw down the saw or hammer and take the wheelbarrow." So the Slav gains his foothold in the Pittsburgh industries, and in the doing of it, he undermines the income of the next higher industrial groups and gains the enmity of the Americans. Shrewd superintendents are known not only to take advantage of the influx of unskilled labor to keep down day wages, but to reduce the pay of skilled men by a gradually enforced system of promoting the Slavs. In the place of six men at ten dollars a day, one will be employed at fifteen dollars, with five others at half, or less than half, the old rate, who will work under the high-priced man. Inventions, changes in processes, new machines, a hundred elements tend to complicate the situation and render it difficult to disentangle the influence of any one element. But this much is clear, the new immigration is a factor which is influencing the economic status of the whole wage-earning population in Pittsburgh; it is bound to be a permanent factor; and its influence will be more and not less. My estimate is that possibly twenty per cent of these laborers from southeastern Europe now work at machines which require a week or two weeks to acquire the skill needed in their operation. To be sure, they are machines "so simple that a child could operate them, and so strong that a fool cannot break them." Many Slovaks work in the Pressed Steel Car Company in Allegheny, as riveters, punchers, and pressmen, while others are fitters, carpenters, and blacksmiths. Some Croatians and Servians are rising and are found in the steel mills as roughers and catchers. I saw Ruthenians feeding machines with white heated bars of steel. It was simple, mechanical work, but of a higher grade than that of scrap-carrier. The Poles who in recent years emigrated from Russia and Austria-Hungary are as industrially efficient as any group of immigrants and work in both mills and foundries. A foreigner who has a chance to become a machine operator generally goes into piece work and earns from $2 to $2.50 a day. But all men at the machines are not on piece work. A foreman explained this to me as follows: "If the machine depends upon the man for speed, we put him on piece work; if the machine drives the man, we pay him by the day." The man operating a machine by the day gets from $1.75 to $2. Many boys and young women of Slavic parentage work in the spike, nut and bolt, and steel wire factories. They sit before machines and pickling urns for ten hours for from seventy-five cents to $1 a day. The Slovak riveters, punchers, shears-men and pressmen in the Pressed Steel Car Company's plant are paid by the piece, and for the most part make from $35 to $50 in two weeks. Fitters, carpenters, blacksmiths and painters are getting from $2 to $2.50 by the day. Mr. Bozic, the banker, told me of Croatians and Servians who made as high as $70 in two weeks, and others who made between $3 and $4 a day--many of them in positions which once paid English-speaking workmen twice those sums. High and low are relative terms and they signify very different standards to a Slav and to an American. But it is a mistake to imagine that the Slav or Lithuanian cannot adapt himself to modern industrial conditions. There is considerable of prophecy in the thousands of them already doing efficient work in the mills. The sooner the English-speaking workers recognize this and make friends of these workers, the better. No class of work is now monopolized by Teutons and Kelts, and the service rendered by the Slav and Lithuanian will before many years equal theirs in market value. With this rapid statement of the economic position of the Slavs, we can more intelligently approach the problem of their living conditions. But first let us bear sharply in mind that their work is often cast among dangers; is often inimical to health. Many work in intense heat, the din of machinery and the noise of escaping steam. The congested condition of most of the plants in Pittsburgh adds to the physical discomforts for an out-of-doors people; while their ignorance of the language and of modern machinery increases the risk. How many of the Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians are injured in Pittsburgh in one year is not known. No reliable statistics are compiled. In their absence people guess, and the mischief wrought by contradictory and biased statements is met on all hands. When I mentioned a plant that had a bad reputation to a priest, he said, "Oh, that is the slaughter-house; they kill them there every day." I quote him not for his accuracy, but to show how the rumors circulate and are real to the people themselves. It is undoubtedly true, that exaggerated though the reports may be, the waste in life and limb is great, and if it all fell upon the native born a cry would long since have gone up which would have stayed the slaughter. In the matter of compensation for injuries, the foreign-speaking are often subjected to hardships and injustice. If the widow of a man killed in a mine or mill of Pennsylvania lives in Europe, she cannot recover any damages, although the accident may be entirely due to the neglect of the company. Because of this ruling, certain strong companies in the Pittsburgh district seldom pay a cent to the relatives of the deceased if they dwell beyond the seas. I asked a leader among the Italians, "Why do you settle the serious cases for a few hundred dollars?" He replied: "We find it best after much bitter experience. The courts are against us; a jury will not mulct a corporation to send money to Europe; the relatives are not here to bewail their loss in court; the average American cares nothing for the foreigner. Every step of the way we meet with prejudices and find positive contempt, from those in highest authority in the courts down to the tip-staff. When I settle for $200, I can do nothing better." The influence of the industries reaches still further into the lives of the immigrants. Each people has a tendency to colonize in one section of the city and work in some one mill. The Bohemians are strong in Allegheny City, but few of them are found in Pittsburgh. The Slovaks predominate in McKees Rocks and Allegheny City, and many of them are found in the Soho district of Pittsburgh. The Poles are numerous in many parts of the greater city. The Lithuanians live in large numbers on the South Side, and near the National Tube Works and the American Steel and Wire Company. Many Ruthenians work in the Oliver Steel Works, while the Croatians and Servians have worked for the most part in the Jones and Laughlin plants. My information is that foremen try to get one nationality in assigning work to a group of laborers, for they know that a homogeneous group will give best results. National pride also enters into selection. In talking to a Lithuanian of the serious loss of life which occurred when a furnace blew up, I asked, "Were any of your people killed in that accident?" He answered quickly, "No; catch our people do such work as that! There you find the Slovak." Of the grades of unskilled labor, the Slovak, Croatian, Servian and Russian (Greek Orthodox) may be said to perform the roughest and most risky, and the most injurious to health. There is, then, a more or less natural selection of peoples in the neighborhoods of the different great mills. The geographical contour of the region has also had its influence in keeping the foreign population within certain limited districts. The two rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, have cut their beds in the Allegheny range, leaving a narrow strip of land on either side of their banks which offers limited sites for dwellings, mills and factories. The lowlands were preempted long ago, and the contest for parts of them between the mills and the homes has been intense. There is an advantage to the employer, however, in having his crude labor force within easy call, and night work and the cost of carfare help keep the mass of men employed in common labor near the mills and on the congested lowlands. The deplorable conditions I found among them I shall describe, but let me say here that all the houses on the flats are not the same. I visited homes of Slavs and Lithuanians which were clean, well furnished, and equal in comfort to those of Americans of the same economic level. These foreigners have been in the country many years and their children have risen to the American standard. But our first concern is with the recent comers, who too often live in lodgings that are filthy; whose peasant habits seem to us uncouth; and whose practices are fatal to decency and morality in a thickly settled district. Yet the foreigner pays a higher rent than does the "white man." In Bass street, Allegheny City, I found English-speaking tenants paying fifteen dollars a month for four rooms, where Slavs were charged twenty dollars. Landlords who received ten dollars and twelve dollars a month for houses rented to the English-speaking, were getting seventeen and eighteen dollars from the Slavs. On Penn avenue a Slav paid seventeen dollars for three rooms, while a family renting eight rooms in the front of the building paid but thirty-three dollars a month. As nearly as I could estimate, the average monthly rent paid by the foreigner in Pittsburgh is more than four dollars a room. I found one family paying nine dollars and a half for one large room in an old residence on the South Side; another paid ten dollars for two rooms, another sixteen dollars for three; and on Brandt street I found a man who paid twenty-two dollars a month for four. The rent is not always fixed by the landlord. Where lodgers are taken, it is sometimes regulated by the number the "boarding-boss" can crowd in, the landlord getting one dollar a month extra for each boarder. Houses of from eight to twelve rooms have in them to-day anywhere from three to six families. They were built for one family, and until the owners are forced by the Bureau of Health to install sanitary appliances, have equipment for but one. Too many landlords when they rent to foreigners have apparently one dominating passion,--rent. They make no repairs, and with the crowded condition above described the houses soon bear marks of ill usage. Whenever foreigners invade a neighborhood occupied by English-speaking tenants, property depreciates. The former occupants get out, the invaders multiply, and very often the properties pass into the hands of speculators. Houses once occupied by Slavs can seldom be rented again to Anglo-Saxons. Foreigners under stress for room use cellars as bed rooms, and it is against these that the health bureau within the last year has taken action. I saw one of these beside which a common stable would have been a parlor. [Illustration: NIGHT SCENE IN A SLAVIC LODGING HOUSE. Three men in the far bed, two in the others, twelve in the room. In some of these lodgings day workers sleep nights in beds occupied by night workers in the daytime.] But it is in the immigrant lodging houses that conditions are worst. These conditions are not always the choice of the men. The Croatians, Servians, Roumanians and Greeks have only from five to ten per cent of women among them; hence the men of these nationalities have but few boarding houses conducted by their own people to go to, and crowding is inevitable. English-speaking and German families will not open their doors to them. Single men in groups of from six to twenty go into one house in charge of a boarding-boss and his wife. Each man pays from seventy-five cents to a dollar a week for room to sleep in and the little cooking and washing that are to be done. Food for the company is bought on one book, and every two weeks the sum total is divided equally among the boarders, each man paying his _pro rata_ share. The bill for two weeks will hardly amount to three dollars a man, so that the average boarder will spend ten dollars a month on room rent and maintenance. The mania for saving results in many cases in skimping the necessaries of life. A priest told me of a Lithuanian who lived on ten cents a day, and by helping the landlady in her house work, the man saved room rent. I found Russians (Greek Orthodox) on Tustine street who were paying three dollars a month for room rent. They buy bread made by Russian Jews, get a herring and a pot of beer, and live,--not always,--in peace. When they pay three dollars and fifty cents for room rent, soup is included in the contract. Domestic tragedies sometimes invade these communal households, such as a case of assault and battery which came up in an alderman's office. The complainant was a single man who appeared with a ghastly scalp wound. When this boarding-boss presented his bill at the end of two weeks, the charges were five dollars more than the man thought they ought to be. He protested and the boarding-boss took a hatchet to silence him. The Italians are close livers; but possibly the worst conditions I saw were among the Armenians in the neighborhood of Basin alley. In these boarding establishments as a general rule, the kitchen is commonly used as a bedroom. When the boarding boss rents two rooms, he and his wife sleep in the kitchen, and the boarders take the other room. It is not unusual for a boarding-boss to rent but one room. He and his wife put their bed in one corner; the stove in another; and the boarders take the remainder. Sometimes the rooms are so crowded that the boss and his wife sleep on the floor; and I repeatedly found cases where beds were being worked double shift,--night and day. The city Bureau of Health has endeavored to reduce the number of beds in a room, but it does not follow that the people occupying that room get out,--they sleep on the floor minus the bed. Here as elsewhere the problem is one of the hardest for sanitary inspectors to cope with. [Illustration: SLAVIC LODGING HOUSE ON THE SOUTH SIDE. Four beds; two in a bed. The young fellow at the table was writing home. Before him were pictures of his mother and sisters in immaculate peasant costumes.] Sometimes four or six men rent a house and run it themselves, doing their own cooking and washing and occasionally bringing in a woman to do a little cleaning. They may stand this for about six months and then get out when the room is past the cleaning stage. Such crowding is very prevalent in the low lying parts of the South Side, in the neighborhood of Penn avenue in the city proper, and in sections of Allegheny. Among the Russians of Tustine street I found thirty-three persons living in one house in six rooms and an attic. These were distributed among three families. The Croatians also are bad crowders. A milk dealer told me of twenty-eight who lived in a house in Carey alley. When I asked, "How do they live?" his reply was, "I don't know and don't care if I get my money for my milk." In Pork House row and near Eckert street in Allegheny, things were no better, and some blocks of houses under the California avenue bridge were as bad as any thing I saw. Before we condemn immigrants for the filth of their lodgings, we must remember that they are largely rural peoples unused to such city barracks. This fact is illustrated especially in their ignorance regarding that terror which has waited upon foreigners in the Pittsburgh district,--typhoid fever. Dr. Leon Sadowski estimated that as high as fifty per cent of all young foreigners who come to Pittsburgh contract typhoid fever within two years of their coming. Dr. Maracovick told me that in four years no less than 100 Croatians in the neighborhood of Smallman street had come down with the fever, and that most of them died. "You cannot make the foreigner believe that Pittsburgh water is unwholesome," said Dr. Welsh of Bellevue. "He comes from rural communities where contamination of water is unknown." Physicians told me of men who had been warned, deliberately going to the Allegheny to quench their thirst. Where so many single men are huddled together the laws of decency and morality are hard to observe. The boarding boss seldom has a family and, in going the round of these houses, the absence of children is conspicuous. A physician among them told me, "The average boarding-boss's wife cannot get any,--the moral condition makes it a physical impossibility." This stands in striking contrast with the average Slavic woman who in her natural environment, is the mother of children. These mid-European peoples are not so passionate as the Italians, but many of the single men, as the case is in all barracks life, fall into vice. A physician told me that gonorrhea is very prevalent among the Croatians and Servians. Another physician said of the Slavs in general, "They frequent cheap houses and come out diseased and robbed." Many bawdy houses are known in Pittsburgh as "Johnny Houses," for the reason that they are frequented by foreigners whose proper names are unpronounceable and who go by the name of "John." The number entering these on a "wide-awake" (pay) Saturday night is large. A man who knows this section fairly well, said, "Sometimes these men have to wait their turn." These are houses of the cheapest kind given over to prostitutes in the last stage. The presence of young immigrant women in the immigrant lodging houses adds to the seriousness of the situation. Here again it is a question of wages that brings them to this country. They do the drudgery in the hotels and restaurants which English-speaking girls will not do; and they are to be found in factories working under conditions their English-speaking sisters would resent. If any persons need protection, these young women do. There is no adequate inspection of the labor employment agencies in Pittsburgh which solicit patronage among them, often to wrong them. Not only do some of these agencies take their money but they send girls to places unfit for them. An innocent girl may learn the character of the house only when it is too late. And even in the boarding houses their lot is a hard one, especially when the men of the place are on a carouse. The Slavs and Lithuanians are fond of drink and spend their money freely on it. Some spend more money on beer than they do on food. The evidences of drink in the homes are apparent on all sides; and not only do national customs and national tastes and usages make for drunkenness, but the undeniable fact that the liquor interests are the only American institutions which effectively reach the great mass of the non-English speaking immigrants. Where else does the stranger find opportunity for recreation at his very hand? Empty beer kegs and bottles are to be seen everywhere among the houses of the immigrant lodgers. In Latimore alley, on a September morning, I counted twenty empty kegs in the yard; and in another corner there was a pile of empty bottles. It is nothing unusual for a beer wagon on Saturday to deliver into one of these boarding houses from eight to twelve cases of beer. When a keg is open the boarders feel that they must drain it. "It won't keep," they say. Sunday is the day for drinking. One man often drinks from fifteen to twenty bottles; while he who drinks from the keg does away with from two to three gallons. No social gathering is complete without drink. Marriages, baptisms, social occasions, holidays are all celebrated with beer and liquor. There is no good time and no friendship without it. The Slavs usually rent a hall to celebrate their weddings. The scenes of debauchery with which such festivities sometimes end are discountenanced by the respectable element among these people. Pool rooms afford loafing places for the young men of the worst sort. The cheap vaudeville shows, nickelodeons, and skating rinks are run for profit and not for the sake of clean recreation such as the community should in some way provide. But such places cannot be eliminated unless the craving of young people for amusement is met intelligently and sanely. [Illustration: SLOVAK GIRL.] Where the environment of the home is unsanitary and repulsive, and where opportunities for recreation are limited and sordid, crime is bound to flourish. Approximately one-fifth of the persons incarcerated in Allegheny county in recent years have been immigrants from southeastern Europe. A visit to the police stations of the South Side on Sunday morning when the police magistrate dispenses justice after a "wide-awake" Saturday night, is a thing never to be forgotten. In such a section the foreigners form a majority of the offenders. On one of my visits to a South Side court, a young Pole was brought up who said he wanted to be arrested just to find out how it felt. The judge asked him, "How do you like it?" "All right," he said laughing. He got a full taste by being sent to jail for ten days. Another young Slav had violated a city ordinance. He could not speak English. The judge asked him how long he had been in the country. "Four years," he replied. "And you cannot talk English?" said the judge. "Don't you know that you ought to learn English that you may know we have laws and ordinances which must be obeyed?" In the judge's remark there was more of a commentary on civic duties unfulfilled than he perhaps realized. But who was to blame? Was it the Slav boy? Or was it the community which had failed to meet him halfway? Here it is well to point out that the public school authorities have not made any strenuous effort to open evening schools for foreign adults in the city. The notable exception to this rule has been the work carried on by Principal Anthony among the Jewish people of the hill district, which grew out of classes carried on at Columbian Settlement. Another evening school, in the establishment of which a priest was the prime mover, met with fair success, but the foreigners dropped out very quickly. When asked why the school was given up, one of the school officials said that the pupils did not want it to continue; but their hours of work and changing shifts are probably still more important factors. Kingsley House, Woods Run and Columbian Settlement have carried on successful classes for foreigners, and the Y. M. C. A.'s of the districts are entering the field of civic and language instruction. The development of the evening courses of the Carnegie Technical Schools has been significant, but as yet they do not reach many unskilled immigrants, who need a nearby elementary help. The camp schools carried on by the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, at Aspinwall and Ambridge, have illustrated what could be done, and the response which comes from the immigrants themselves. More important, they were the means of securing the passage of legislation enabling local school authorities to open classes for adults. But in Greater Pittsburgh, it remains true that the school authorities are not yet awake to the importance of opening schools for foreign-speaking people and inducing them to attend. There could be no greater service rendered these young foreigners (or the city that harbors them) than that of aiding them to form clubs, and of engaging competent men to teach them English and give them some idea of the history and laws of the country. In police station No. 3 on Penn avenue, the cases averaged four hundred and forty-five a month during the ten months I studied them. Drunkenness and disorderly conduct formed sixty-eight per cent of these cases, and the foreigners from southeastern Europe were charged with twenty-seven per cent of them. Three-quarters of the criminals were single men, and the large number of single men among the foreigners who lack decent homes, doubtless partly accounts for the frequency of their arrests. Similar proportions governed at police station No. 7 on Carson street. A study of the docket of the Aldermen's Court on the South Side, in a prescribed area where Slavs and Lithuanians form an essential part of the population, showed a total of 167, or 39.5 per cent for these nationalities; but these cases varied greatly from those in the police stations. 48.3 per cent were cases of assault and battery and 45.6 per cent of the culprits were foreigners. The cases of fornication and bastardy, adultery and rape, numbered seventeen, more than half of which were to be laid at the door of the foreigners. Cases of larceny, disturbance of the peace, and disorderly conduct were about equally divided between the English-speaking and the non-English-speaking of southeastern Europe. Out of thirty-one cases of desertion and non-support, not a Slav, Lithuanian or Italian was implicated. [Illustration: SERVIAN GIRL.] A closer study of this list indicated that aldermen were giving preference to cases where the returns were sure. Pittsburgh suffers under a system of petty aldermen's courts such as Chicago only recently put an end to, and from which Philadelphia is exempted by constitutional provision. The aldermen are dependent upon their fees and the immigrants, ofttimes innocent, are the special prey of such as may be unscrupulous. Profits are not what they used to be for those who prey upon ignorance, as I gathered from the constable who told me, "The foreigner knows too much now; old times are past." In the good old times he had made from fifteen to twenty dollars a day. But even if the most flagrant abuses are now infrequent and if some of the aldermen are of unquestionable character, the system is wrong and the foreigner is its most grievous sufferer. [Illustration: LITHUANIAN GIRL.] But we must not over-estimate the lawlessness among these people. We have seen the manner of life of the single men, and the dangers that beset them. In the Pittsburgh situation what encouragement is there to the immigrant who seriously wants to get ahead in life? I have it from a priest that one-tenth of the young men of his race who come to this district go to the bad; the other nine-tenths may drink more or less, but they manage to save money and in time acquire property. Of the Lithuanian families of Pittsburgh more than ten per cent own their own homes. Many Poles and Slovaks also have purchased their own homes. When an Italian resolves to stay in this country, he buys a house. But as yet few Croatians, Ruthenians and Servians own real estate in Pittsburgh. While the wages of the day laborers in the district are high for the single man who lives on the boarding boss system, the foreigner who brings his family here and pays American prices for the necessities of life, faces a different situation. The father of a family cannot hope to get accommodations for less than twelve or fifteen dollars a month, and then he has only two or three rooms. The Slav, as we have seen, has to pay more than the English-speaking man for the same house. The man who earns thirty-seven dollars a month and has to pay twelve dollars in rent has not a large fund on which to raise a family. He belongs to one or two lodges which means an outlay of a dollar to a dollar and a half each month. He must pay fifty cents a month to his church, and he is compelled to send his children to the parochial school at, say, another fifty cents a head, or three for a dollar. He must buy the school books needed by the child; this may amount yearly to from three to four dollars. Is it surprising, then, that the children are sent to work at an early age and that many are raised in cramped and dirty quarters? But this question of the children, of their health and education, we must leave to later issues. When the mills are working regularly and the father is able to work each day, the family manages to get along. But when sickness comes or work ceases, then the pinch of hunger is felt. Mrs. Lippincott of the Society for the Improvement of the Poor tells me that in good times but few Slavs or Lithuanians apply for aid; that only when the father is killed or injured, is aid needed, and that then it is for medicine and proper food for the patient.[4] [4] A study of the records of the charity department of Pittsburgh and Allegheny indicated that the percentage of foreign born dependents exceeds by perhaps ten per cent the percentage of foreign born in the population. I refer to the city home, the city hospital, the poor houses, the tuberculosis camp and outdoor relief. In the institutions for the insane as many as forty-nine per cent were foreign born and of the $311,470 appropriated for their maintenance on a given year, half was thus bestowed upon the foreign born. It must be remembered that influential men among the Slavs and Lithuanians are prosperous and live in residential sections of Pittsburgh. Some Poles and Italians are in the professions and some Lithuanians are well to do business men. All these people, however, do business among their own countrymen, and as yet their influence is largely restricted to this circle. Sections of the city where foreigners live are well supplied with banking facilities, which are generally conducted by men of those nationalities. The leading banks of Pittsburgh have learned that the immigrants save their money, and many of them have a foreign exchange department at the head of which is put a foreign-speaking man who is a leader among his countrymen. In this connection, it is interesting to examine more closely what might be called the personal ledger of the Slavic day laborer in Pittsburgh. [Illustration: A SLAVIC HOUSEHOLD.] We have seen that more than half the Italians, Croatians, Servians and Ruthenians are single men, and that a large proportion of the other races are similarly placed. Many are married but their wives are across the seas. Their policy is to make all they can and spend as little as possible. We have also seen that the wages of common labor are from $1.35 to $1.65 a day and that those who have acquired a little skill earn from $1.75 to $2.25. The monthly expenditure of single men bent on saving will not exceed ten dollars a month. Some Russians complain when their monthly bill amounts to eight dollars. The drinking bill will not exceed five dollars a month; and the sum spent on clothing will hardly equal that. Hence a common laborer can save from ten to fifteen dollars a month; the semi-skilled workers from twenty to twenty-five dollars; and boarding bosses accumulate what is to them a competence. A banker doing business among the Servians of the South Side stated that each pay day he sent back between $20,000 and $25,000 to the old country on deposit. In September of 1907, one of the banks on the South Side where the foreigners do business had $600,000 on deposit. Such a showing has come only after a vigorous campaign on the part of the banks of Pittsburgh to overcome the mistrust which foreigners feel toward private institutions. Individual small banks conducted by men of their own nationality were the rule for many years. The institutions were ephemeral and the impression prevailed among the laborers that they were schemes of sinister men to wheedle their money from them. Some men still secrete their savings, trusting no one. Through the kindness of one of the Pittsburgh bankers, this table of twelve representative Slavic depositors is given: _Single Men._ _Married Men._ =============================================+========================= 1906-1907. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | 1 2 3 4 5 ---------------------------------------------+------------------------- Sept.-Nov. $95 $103 $45 $35 $110 $100 $60 | $240 $70 $100 $105 Dec.-Feb. 115 63 25 135 60 100 60 | 150 190 50 March-May 20 93 25 95 60 100 60 | 50 145 100 200 90 June-Aug. 207 76 105 73 50 55 | 115 120 200 140 40 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- | ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Totals $437 $335 $200 $338 $280 $300 $265 | $555 $525 $300 $440 $285 =============================================+========================= [Illustration: UNIFORMED NATIONAL SOCIETIES IN SESQUI-CENTENNIAL PARADE.] [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ IN THE CHURCH OF THE DOUBLE CROSS.] [Illustration: A CHURCH OF THE DOUBLE CROSS.] The fraternal organizations also among the Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians provoke an increasing amount of thrift and provide various forms of insurance. They are the dominant form of social organization and afford opportunities for leadership to the stronger men. The National Slovak Society, for instance, has a membership of 50,000, and the Polish National Alliance one of 75,000. Pittsburgh has some thirty locals of the latter alone, each with a list of from forty to 300 members. The lodge organizations of these people cannot be discussed in detail in such a paper as this; here it is sufficient to note that in case of sickness and death they look after their members; they provide social centers for the more thrifty of the people, and tend generally to raise the standard of life. Outside these lodges, the Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians have their organizations for enjoyment and amusement. Among the Poles there are societies for self-culture, such as dramatic clubs and singing societies. There is reason to believe that the home governments of these people foster the formation of organizations along racial lines; the church also fosters these national societies. In so far as such organizations perpetuate national customs and habits in America, they tend to make assimilation difficult. A strong people swayed by racial consciousness on foreign soil will either thrust its own concepts and ideals into the social elements around it and modify them; or it will build around itself a wall which the customs and habits of the country will find difficulty in penetrating. This is seen going on in Pittsburgh. The Poles and Italians form a city within a city; their customs and habits are distinctly Polish and Italian. When we come to political life, we must accord leadership to other than the Slavic groups,--to the Italians. A political leader among them in Pittsburgh claims that four fifths of all Italians who have been in the country five years are naturalized. He held that the Italians of Pittsburgh poll about 5,000 votes which are scattered over eleven wards. Next to the Italians come the Poles. Many of them have been voters for years, but of the influx that has come to Pittsburgh in the last ten years not twenty per cent are naturalized. The Polish vote is set at 4,000 and the Poles have two or three political clubs. Political clubs are also found among the Lithuanians and Croatians. Too frequently these racial leaders,--often saloon keepers,--are the satellites of some English-speaking politician, and through them he controls "the foreign vote." Some of the more intelligent of the foreign-speaking are dissatisfied with this manipulation of their people; among these are rising young men with political aspirations. It will not be long before the city will feel their presence. If the Polish and Italian votes were to be crystallized in some fifteen wards, the leaders there would have the balance of power and control them. Slavs, Lithuanians and Italians have a strong religious element in their make-up which plays a never-ending part in such racial communities as are to be found in the Pittsburgh district. Unless this element is reckoned with they are not to be understood. The vast majority belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Some Protestants are found among each of the races, but they form only a small percentage.[5] Certain of the Southern Slavs are subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Russians maintain a Greek Orthodox church. Religious ceremonies and observances have strong hold upon the Poles and Lithuanians, the Croatians and Servians.[6] We have seen that the number of males far exceeds that of females among the immigrants from southeastern Europe. This the church attendance corroborates. I have seen in Pittsburgh a congregation of one thousand men, all in the prime of life, so intent upon the religious exercises that the least movement of the priest at the altar found immediate response in every member of the audience. The ritual of the church has a deep hold upon Slav and Lithuanian; often the men go to confession at six in the morning that they may go to communion the day following. When men are so employed that they cannot attend mass on Sundays, they will attend one on Saturdays. The home must be consecrated once a year, and hundreds take their baskets laden with provisions to church on Easter morning that the priest may bless the feast they hope to enjoy that day. [5] The Protestant denominations in the city are conducting mission work among the Slavs and Italians. Several missionaries, colporteurs and Bible readers are employed. There are among the Slovaks, Lithuanians, Magyars and Italians, adherents of various Protestant churches. [6] The Roman Catholic Church has not the influence over the Bohemians and Italians that it has over the above mentioned people. The Bohemians are many of them free thinkers. The Italians are deeply religious but for the most part lukewarm in their attitude toward the church, and their edifices do not compare with those of the Poles. [Illustration: GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH.] [Illustration: A GREEK ORTHODOX PRIEST.] If we measure the efficiency of the Roman Catholic Church among the Slavs and Lithuanians in Pittsburgh by money spent on buildings and maintenance, it cannot be equalled either by American Catholicism or Protestantism. The people give freely of their hard earnings to erect costly church edifices and support the priesthood. The Slavs and Lithuanians have been on the South Side of Pittsburgh only for the last twenty years, but to-day they possess church property valued at three-quarters of a million dollars, and most of it is paid for. They also give toward the erection of parochial schools and maintain them. The priests have great power over the lives of their people. Some of them are charged with accumulating riches, but taken as a whole, I view them as a body of men loyal to their vows and honoring the profession wherein they serve. With the great numbers constantly coming from Europe, it is surprising how carefully they keep in touch with the newcomers. Slav and Lithuanian priests whose parishes are constantly changing take a census each year. They know the affairs of their people. They know their housing conditions, their hardships in mine and mill; are familiar with the wrongs they suffer. In trouble the priests are their counselors; they sympathize with them in their struggles; they institute and manage insurance societies against sickness and accident. Some of the priests found and control building and loan associations. They at all times stimulate their people to rise to the level of other people around them. The priests are busy men. A parish of two thousand or three thousand means endless activities. With the influx of Slavs and Lithuanians into the country, and the necessity of organizing parishes where many of them settle, the difficulty has been to secure properly qualified priests to take charge of the work. Hence, many of the Slav and Lithuanian clergy are overworked and no assistance can be furnished them. Their influence lies first with the adults who come from the fatherland. The children are not as amenable to the discipline of the church; neither do they give their earnings as freely to its support. The growing problem of the church is to meet the religious needs of people of Slavic blood raised in a new country. * * * * * This sketch,--brief though it is,--of the foreign-speaking peoples of Pittsburgh shows clearly how dependent the industries are upon a supply of able bodied men from Europe. The enterprising from agricultural communities freely bring their strength to the expansion of American industries, and never was there an army more docile and willing than these newcomers. They believe in mutual protection and organize and conduct various societies for this purpose. They find their pleasure in many crude ways. They are loyal to their church, and the many churches owned by them represent offerings made by men who literally earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Many of them save money and the number of those who own their homes is annually increasing. There are imperative needs of this element of the city's population which must be met if the cause of civilization is to be served. The fatal and non-fatal injuries of the mills fall heavily upon these peoples. Each week a tale of wrong and suffering, agony and death, is sent across the water, which seriously reflects upon the industrial life of America. The value placed on human life here will not bear comparison with that of older countries whose civilization we say is lower than ours. The great need of the hour is a current and detailed record of the serious accidents of the district, that the public may know exactly at what cost of life and limb industry is carried on, and may exhaust every means for lessening the sacrifice. [Illustration: A SLAVIC LABORER.] We saw that the housing conditions of many of these peoples are a disgrace to civilization. The insufficiency of houses, the greed of landlords, the exigencies of some foreigners and the penury of others, bring about this condition. There should be stricter regulation of immigrant boarding houses. Men who coin money in shacks and those foreign born who are too greedy to pay for decent quarters, should feel the firm hand of the law. Crowding, dirt and filth are not American and should not be tolerated in any American city. But negative work is not enough; positive and aggressive work must be done if the foreign-speaking are to rise to the measure of their opportunity. Every nationality has its aesthetic side, and Pittsburgh has done nothing to bring this to the fore. Other cities have fostered the national dance, have encouraged works of art, and have induced the foreigner to show the artistic side of his nature. Cannot this be done in Pittsburgh? Give these people a chance to bring out their needle-work, to show their artistic skill, to sing their national songs, and to dance their native dances, and the life of the city will be richer and stronger. Then why should the people who gave Lafayette a welcome that has become historical, and who championed the cause of Kossuth, not go forth in sympathy to these people of Slav and Iberic extraction? They are left in ignorance of our language, our laws, our government, and our history. This rich inheritance we cherish, and we believe it is more excellent than any of which the older countries of Europe can boast. If this be so, is it not our privilege and duty to train these peoples of southeastern Europe in the principles of democracy? Thousands of these peoples yearn for a knowledge of our language and an insight into that form of government that has made America great among the nations of the earth, and we should be willing to go half way and meet the need. The public school can take up this work with greater zeal; the social agencies of all sorts can stretch the cords of their tents and take in the men who are anxious to learn. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. IN THE LIGHT OF A FIVE-TON INGOT.] SOME PITTSBURGH STEEL WORKERS[7] JOHN ANDREWS FITCH FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN It is estimated that between 70,000 and 80,000 men are employed in the manufacture of steel in Allegheny county. Their homes are clustered about the mills along the rivers, they are clinging to the bluffs of the South Side, and they are scattered over Greater Pittsburgh, from Woods Run to the East End. Up the Monongahela valley are the mill-towns,--Homestead of Pinkerton fame, Braddock with its record-breaking mills and furnaces, Duquesne where the unit of weight is a hundred tons, and McKeesport, home of the "biggest tube works on earth." Here are countrymen of Kossuth and Kosciusko, still seeking the blessings of liberty, but through a different channel,--high wages and steady employment. Here are English, German and Scandinavian workmen, full of faith in the new world democracy; and here are Americans,--great-grandsons of Washington's troopers, and sons of men who fought at Gettysburg. [7] This is a description of leading types of steel workers. A discussion of the labor problem in the steel industry is reserved for a later number. Fully sixty-five per cent of these men are unskilled, but the remaining thirty-five per cent, the skilled and semi-skilled, are the men who give character to the industry. This is the class from which foremen and superintendents and even the steel presidents have been recruited, and it is the class that furnishes the brains of the working force. It is of them that I write. To know these men you must see them at work; you must stand beside the open-hearth helper as he taps fifty tons of molten steel from his furnace, you must feel the heat of the Bessemer converters as you watch the vessel-men and the steel pourer, and above the crash and roar of the blooming mills you must talk with rollers and hookers, while five-and ten-ton steel ingots plunge madly back and forth between the rolls. You must see the men working in hoop mills and guide mills, where the heat is intense and the work laborious; you must see them amid ladles of molten steel, among piles of red hot bars, or bending over the straightening presses at the rail mills. But to know them best you should see them at home. There the muscular feats of the heater's helper and the rough orders of the furnace boss are alike forgotten, and you find a kindly, open-hearted, human sort of men. You grow into an understanding of them as they tell of hopes and plans or mistakes and failures, and understanding becomes sympathy as it comes home to you how close some half-spoken disappointment presses in upon them. It was in this way that for nine or ten months I lived among the steel workers, and came to number some of them as friends. The skilled workers are generally of Anglo-Saxon, German or Keltic origin, the largest proportion being American born. They are not educated, so far as school and university training are concerned, but they are post graduates in the school of experience. The visitor in a steel mill sees only faces reddened by the glare of fire and hot steel, muscles standing out in knots and bands on bare arms, clothing frayed with usage and begrimed by machinery. The men do not differ materially from other workmen, and the visitor passes on and forgets them. The world is full of men in greasy overalls. But a workman is not merely a workman, any more than a business man is merely a business man. He is also a man, whether he works in a mill or sits at a desk. So I shall introduce some of these men and let them talk to you, as they talked to me. Bear in mind that the things they talk about could be taken up from another point of view. In the following interviews I am making no interpretation of the workers from the employer's standpoint. These are the issues of life as seen by the men themselves. [Illustration: _Courtesy Carnegie Steel Co._ POURING MOLTEN IRON, JUST TAPPED FROM BLAST FURNACE, INTO BESSEMER CONVERTER.] Jack Griswold is a Scotch-Irish furnace boss who came to America and got a laborer's position at a Pittsburgh blast furnace, when the common labor force was largely Irish. Those were the days before the advent of the "furriners." I sat in Griswold's sitting room in his four-room cottage one evening and he told me about the men who work at the furnaces, and about the "long turn." "Mighty few men have stood what I have, I can tell you. I've been twenty years at the furnaces and been workin' a twelve-hour day all that time, seven days in the week. We go to work at seven in the mornin' and we get through at night at six. We work that way for two weeks and then we work the long turn and change to the night shift. The long turn is when we go on at seven Sunday mornin' and work through the whole twenty-four hours up to Monday mornin'. That puts us onto the night turn for the next two weeks, and the other crew onto the day. The next time they get the long turn and we get twenty-four hours off, but it don't do us much good. I get home at about half past seven Sunday mornin' and go to bed as soon as I've had breakfast. I get up about noon so as to get a bit o' Sunday to enjoy, but I'm tired and sleepy all the afternoon. Now, if we had eight hours it would be different. I'd start to work, say, at six and I'd be done at two and I'd come home, and after dinner me and the missus could go to the park if we wanted to, or I could take the childer to the country where there ain't any saloons. That's the danger,--the childer runnin' on the streets and me with no time to take them any place else. That's what's driven the Irish out of the industry. It ain't the Hunkies,--they couldn't do it,--but the Irish don't have to work this way. There was fifty of them here with me sixteen years ago and now where are they? I meet 'em sometimes around the city, ridin' in carriages and all of them wearin' white shirts, and here I am with these Hunkies. They don't seem like men to me hardly. They can't talk United States. You tell them something and they just look and say 'Me no fustay, me no fustay.' That's all you can get out of 'em. And I'm here with them all the time, twelve hours a day and every day and I'm all alone,--not a mother's son of 'em that I can talk to. Everybody says I'm a fool to stay here,--I dunno, mebbe I am. It don't make so much difference though. I'm gettin' along, but I don't want the kids ever to work this way. I'm goin' to educate them so they won't have to work twelve hours." There is a considerable difference between a blast furnace foreman and a Bessemer steel pourer. The furnace man gets rather low wages, while the steel pourer is well paid and works eight hours a day for six days in the week. It was Jerry Flinn who told me how he had worked up from his first job as laborer, to a position as steel pourer. I met him just as he got home from the mill one day, and I asked how he managed to work only an eight-hour shift when other men had to work twelve. He told me that attempts have been made to introduce a twelve-hour day in the converting department but without success. Two Pittsburgh mills have tried it and both went back to eight hours because the heat is so great as to make it impossible for the men to work that long. "It must be hard," said Flinn, "for the twelve-hour men to have to work alongside of us eight-hour men. During the twelve hours of their day they work with all three crews of the eight-hour men. One crew gets through and goes home soon after the twelve-hour men come out, the next crew works its eight hours and goes home, and the third crew comes out before those twelve-hour fellows can quit. The eight-hour men get a lot more pleasure out of life than the twelve-hour men do. We can go to entertainments and social affairs as we couldn't if we had to get up next morning and go to work at six o'clock." Flinn is fifty-two years old, and tells you his strength is not up to what it was, say fifteen years ago. The men who went to work with him as young men are nearly all dead, and to-day he is one of the oldest men in his mill. He speaks lightly of the danger of accidents, and says that he has encountered only the minor ones. Once when they were changing stoppers, the crane dropped the old one just as it swung clear of the edge of the ladle. It fell on him, burning him and breaking his leg. At another time he failed to lower the stopper in time, and the stream of molten steel struck the edge of a mold as the train was shifted; it splashed onto the platform, burning his legs so severely that, for six weeks afterwards, he was unable to turn over in bed. It is a common thing for metal to fly that way; the sparks strike his face, they lodge in his nose or his ears, and once he nearly lost the sight of an eye. He refers to these things as trifles. What I said of the half concealed disappointments which are real and tragic in the life of a steel worker, would have been clear to you had you heard the story of Robert Smith, as he told it himself. As a boy he went to work in the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania and did not get into the mills until he was about thirty years old. Then he came to Pittsburgh, took a laborer's position, and began to work up slowly year after year until he occupied a place of some importance, though not in the first class of skilled men. After he had been there a few years, there was a labor difficulty in this mill and he left and went to another plant where he took a position similar to his last one. As a new man he could not advance as rapidly as he might have done in the old mill, and before he could get into the best of standing, he was thrown out of work by further labor troubles. He secured a position in another mill where he remained for two years till forced out by a strike to seek work in a fourth mill. Here he remained for ten years in a subordinate position. At the end of that time, he was promoted and became for the first time in his life, the first man in the crew. Then, in some way, he incurred the dislike of the superintendent, and the man on the opposite shift worked against him because he wanted Smith's job for a friend. So, after working for three years in a position for which, as he said, he had served a ten years' apprenticeship, Smith again lost his place and was obliged to apply for work in still another mill. He had been a leader in the union, and it was a feeling almost religious in its devotion that bound him to it. To get into this new mill he had to agree to give up his union card. To-day he says that he is a strong union man at heart, but his connection with it is over. Now, at nearly sixty years of age, he is working in a semi-skilled position, although fitted to take his place among the men of the best skill and to handle a crew. Smith is a man of more than ordinary intelligence. He is a man of religious inclinations and a church member. He regrets the twelve-hour day now chiefly on the ground that it keeps the young men away from church. If he had not become a church-member when he had an eight-hour day, he doesn't see how he ever could have become interested in religious matters. He lives in a comfortable home which he owns and where he spends most of his time when not in the mill. After supper he sits down to read for a short time before going to bed, but he told me with considerable regret that he was unable to do any systematic reading. A few years ago he read several of Shakespeare's plays, but he had to force himself to do it, he gets sleepy so soon after supper. Since that time he has not attempted anything more serious than the daily paper. Of course, the question of organized labor suggests a number of other considerations. The old union attitude towards employers is not of consequence now in Pittsburgh, for most of the steel mills of the district have been non-union for ten or fifteen years. This fact, however, makes it all the more worth while to consider the present attitude of the men as individuals. Jim Barr is a man thirty-five years old who came from England when he was a small boy. It has been only during the last ten years or so that Barr has worked in a steel mill, but he has lived in the steel district longer than that. He occupies a skilled position in one of the mills where he works every day but Sundays from seven in the morning until six in the evening, and on alternate Sundays he has the long turn of twenty-four hours. This Sunday work, he told me, came in after the union had been driven out, and the twelve-hour day is more general now than it was under unionism. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. OF THE OLD TIME IRISH IMMIGRATION.] "Tell me, how can a man get any pleasure out of life working that way?" Barr asked me almost with a challenge. We were sitting before the grate in his comfortable and tastefully furnished parlor. There were pictures on the wall, a carpet on the floor, and the piano in the corner spoke of other things than endless drudgery. He seemed to interpret my swift glance about the room, for he went on, "I've got as good a home here as a man could want. It's comfortable and I enjoy my family. But I only have these things to think about, not to enjoy. I'm at work most of the day, and I'm so tired at night that I just go to bed as soon as I've eaten supper. I have ideas of what a home ought to be, all right, but the way things are now I just eat and sleep here." Barr works in a position where he encounters considerable heat, and he says that alone is very exhausting even when a man does not do hard physical labor. There is great danger, too, in the sweat that keeps a man's clothing wet all of the time. If he gets into a draught he is likely to contract a cold or pneumonia. Working under such conditions shortens a man's life, to Barr's mind, and although he is but thirty-five years old he tells you he feels a decline in his strength. The men find that it costs more to live, too, when working in the mills, for they need the best of food and the warmest clothing in order to keep going. The little chance for recreation leads them to the saloons as the natural place for relaxation. They go there much oftener, in his opinion, than they would if they had more time for social enjoyment; and of course there is a good deal of money spent there that is needed for other things. He says that men frequently spend twenty dollars in a single night after payday. But the thing on which Barr seems to have the strongest convictions is the plan of the United States Steel Corporation of issuing stock to employes. "The men have been fooled by this proposition," he declared, "and they really believe that the corporation wants to do big things for them in offering such liberal dividends. But let me tell you something that maybe you haven't noticed. The first stock issued in 1903 was followed by a slashing cut in wages in 1904, and it amounted to a lot more than the extra dividends. It's only a scheme to fool the men. They take away in wages more than what they give in dividends and they will do that every time, so that the corporation is always ahead of the game. But that isn't the only thing; it ties the employes down to the corporation. They've got to stay in its employ at least five years from the time of getting the stock in order to enjoy all of the benefits, and even then they won't get the extra dividends unless they have shown what the corporation calls a 'proper interest' in its affairs. It's a fine scheme for keeping out unionism and keeping the men from protesting against bad conditions." Now, just by way of contrast, listen to the story of George Hudson, who occupies a position similar to that of Barr, and has been in mill work about the same length of time. After having tried another line and found it unsatisfactory, Hudson came to the mills at about thirty years of age. He did what American young men dislike very much to do,--he took a common laborer's position along with the "Hunkies." Being a man of perseverance and some education, he worked up very rapidly until he now occupies a skilled position. "The Steel Corporation is a fine one to work for," said Hudson to me with enthusiasm. "It gives every man a chance for promotion, and listens to every workman who has a plan for improvement. All the intelligent men are satisfied. If you can find any dissatisfied men, you will find that they are men who would be discontented anywhere you put them. Take the way they loan money to men who want to build homes. A good many men have their own cottages now just because the company helped them. The company has a savings department too, and it pays five per cent on all deposits, and that is more than the savings banks pay. Then, on the other hand, it charges only five per cent interest on the money that is loaned, and that is a lower rate than you can get anywhere else. The company owns houses which it rents to employes at thirty per cent or more below what other people charge. I pay twenty-five dollars rent, and I've got a friend in a company house which is better than mine, and he only pays eighteen." Hudson is ambitious and he was very proud that his department during recent months had succeeded in beating all previous records known. To turn to the second question raised by Smith in our talk before his fire,--if number of organizations is any criterion the churches in the mill towns must be strong. I found a considerable number of loyal church members among the steel workers. Those of them who have to work on Sunday chafe under the necessity that drives them to such a disregarding of the Sabbath. Especially does this bear heavily on the wife who must attend church alone, while her husband is in the mill or at the furnaces. A Scotch Presbyterian mother at a home where I called one afternoon just as the man was preparing to go to the mill for the night, spoke regretfully of having left Scotland. They might not have been able to live so well there, but "Oh, man, we could have brought up the children in the fear o' God and in a land where men reverence the Sabbath." There are men like Smith, too, who fear the effect of twelve-hour work on the lives of the boys. In spite of this religious sentiment that exists among the workers there is, on the other hand, a good deal of feeling that the churches do not understand the needs of the workingmen. Frank Robinson, for instance, believes that the churches are not interested in some problems that are to him very real. "There are a good many churches in this borough," he said to me one day, "and they are supported generally by the women. The preachers don't have any influence in securing better conditions for the men,--they don't try to have. They never visit the mills, and they don't know anything about the conditions the men have to face. They think the men ought to go to church after working twelve hours Saturday night. The preachers could accomplish a lot if they would try to use their influence in the right direction; let them quit temperance reform until they get better conditions for the men. It's no time to preach to a man when he's hungry; feed him first, then preach to him. The same thing with a workingman; get a decent working day with decent conditions, then ask him to stop drinking. Let the preachers go into the mills and see the men at work in the heat, and outside the mills let them notice the men with crushed hands or broken arms or with a leg missing. If they would stop their preaching long enough to look around a little they could do something for us, if they wanted to try." There seems to be some reason for such a feeling. I talked with ministers in some of the mill towns who knew very little of the problems of the workingmen or of the conditions under which they work. Some of them said that they had never been inside the mills, and, of course, such men cannot be entirely sympathetic. Of a different sort was another minister whom I met who had been a mill-man himself. He had gone into mill work as a boy and had worked up through a common laborer's position to a skilled job before he left the mill to go to college. I have met few men with more understanding and sympathy for the working-men's problems. Unionism is not entirely dead in the mill towns; at least the spirit of it is to be found among the men, though the form is absent. Some of them expect to see an organization in the mills again. Others have given up hope of gaining shorter hours or higher wages through collective bargaining, and are looking for government interference and a legal eight-hour day. There is considerable variety of opinion as to how this is to be brought about. Pittsburgh steel workers are traditionally republican in politics; Speaker Cannon himself does not fear "tinkering" with the tariff more than they. The majority of them have been hoping that their representatives would get time after a while to consider and pass the labor legislation that the workingmen desire. However, there has been much loss of faith in the last few years. A good many men in the mills are socialists at heart, and though they still vote the republican ticket, they would vote with the socialists if that party were to manifest strength enough to give it a chance at carrying an election. A considerable number of others have gone the whole way and are active working socialists. One of these is Ed. Jones, a skilled steel worker. He was left an orphan, came to Pittsburgh from New York as a boy of eighteen years, and worked for a short time as a laborer in one of the mills. After trying his hand at several unskilled trades he went back to a small mill in New York, where his wages were $1.25 a day. He was determined to work up in the industry, and after a year or so as a laborer he found himself in a semi-skilled position with wages correspondingly better. A year or two later he returned to Pittsburgh and became a full fledged skilled man at $5 a day. Since then, in spite of reverses, he has worked up slowly until now he holds one of the most important positions in his mill. Jones has never been a union man. He says he does not believe in unions because they accomplish things only in prosperous times, and go to pieces in a panic. "It is no use for them to try to regulate wages, anyhow," he says, "for labor is a commodity and its price is regulated by supply and demand. The only way out for the laboring men is to get together in a labor party,"--and this to him means the socialist party. "We must go back to the condition when workmen owned their own tools," declares Jones. "We must own the instruments of production. Labor is now the helpless victim of capital, and capital must be overthrown. The workman is given enough to buy food and clothes for himself, and no more if the capitalist can help himself. They keep these workmen employed twelve hours a day at some work, while if every man in the country would work two hours a day, all the labor that would be necessary to support the population of the country could be performed. Now all of this excess, these ten hours over the necessary amount, goes to the employer in profits, and many people throughout the country are living in idleness because other people are working overtime for them." Jones is in comfortable circumstances himself; he owns his house and he owns some United States Steel stock, but he says he is one out of thirty-eight men in his whole plant who could have done as well. One of the near-socialists who hopes for both unionism and for governmental relief, gave me a statement of his belief one Sunday afternoon as I sat in a comfortable chair in his little parlor. "I think there will be a labor organization in the mills again," he said. "It may not come in our day, but it is bound to come; the men will be driven to it. There would be a union now but for the foolishness of the men. They begin to talk as soon as a movement is started, and of course the news reaches the ears of the bosses before the organization is really on its feet. Then the men, who are not in a position to resist, are threatened with discharge. That has happened in this very mill. It may be that political action will be necessary before a union will be possible. There are two things that we've got to have: an eight-hour day and restriction of immigration. I think that we will have to get together in a labor party. I'm not a socialist, myself, though quite a good many of the mill men are, and there are a good many things about socialism that I like, all right. I would vote with them if I thought they were going to win and there are others who feel the same way. I used to vote the republican ticket, but I'm tired of it. They haven't done much for the workingmen when you consider the length of time they've been in power. I'm disgusted with the whole thing and I haven't voted at all for several years." Several of the men had said to me: "Go to see Joe Reed; he can tell you more about the mills than anyone else." So one day I climbed the hill to his home, and found him. I had been led to expect a good deal and was not disappointed, though he was just recovering from an illness and was unable to talk as much as I had hoped. Reed is just the man that one would pick as a leader,--six feet tall, broad shouldered, with strong intellectual features,--and he was in truth a leader of the Amalgamated Association years ago, before the steel mills became non-union. He took a prominent part in a strike that was of considerable importance in the steel district. He is a skilled man and if he had cast his lot with the company in the dispute, it is quite likely that he would have best served his own interests. But he stayed by the men and when the strike was lost, Reed left the steel district. He might have had his former position again, but he was too proud to ask for it, and lived away from Pittsburgh until the bitterness engendered by the struggle had begun to die out. After several years he came back and got a job again in a Pittsburgh steel mill. It is a non-union mill and of course Reed is a non-union man. Reed told me some of his experiences and how during the strike he had received letters of encouragement from all over the country, from men prominent in many walks of life. I asked him what he had done with them. He shook his head. "I burned them," he said, "when I came back to the mills. I have nothing in my possession now which would suggest in any way that I ever had connection with the union. When I came back here, I knew I was coming to a non-union mill and I took a job in good faith as a non-union man. That is a chapter in the history of my life that is ended. The whole matter of unionism is a thing of the past and as an employe in this mill, I have no part in it." This fine sense of honor in conforming to the new regime is not so unusual among this class as one might expect. So these are the steel workers. I have not chosen extreme cases; on the contrary, it has been my aim to select men who are typical of a class,--the serious, clear-headed men, rather than the irresponsibles,--and with one exception, each case is fairly representative of a large group. The exception is the man whom I called Hudson. Not over three men out of the hundred and more with whom I talked at length indicated like sentiments, and he is the only one who gave them such full expression. It should be understood that these are the skilled men,--it is only among the skilled that opinion is so intelligently put forth. The number of positions requiring skill is not large, relatively speaking, and competition for them is keen. The consequence is that the skilled workers are a picked body of men. Through a course of natural selection the unfit have been eliminated and the survivors are exceptionally capable and alert of mind, their wits sharpened by meeting and solving difficulties. Such a disciplinary process has developed men like John Jarrett, consul at Birmingham during Harrison's administration; Miles Humphreys, for two terms chief of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Industrial Statistics, one-time nominee of the Republican party for mayor of Pittsburgh, and now chief of the fire department of the Smoky City; M. M. Garland, collector of customs for Pittsburgh, under both McKinley and Roosevelt; A. R. Hunt, general superintendent at Homestead; and Taylor Alderdice, vice-president of the National Tube Company. In telling about their fellows who are numbered to-day among the rank and file, I have tried to introduce the leading types,--the twelve-hour man with the eight-hour man, the embittered man and the contented man, the man who is at outs with the church, the union man and the socialist. There are many others who talk and think like Flinn and Smith and Robinson, and I could furnish examples of much more radical thought and speech. These are typical cases representing different degrees of skill and different shades of opinion. It is highly significant that there are such men as these in the Pittsburgh mills. In a discussion of the labor problem in the steel industry, it must be borne in mind that these men are more than workers; they are thinkers, too, and must be reckoned with. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. BRITISH BORN.] THE TEMPER OF THE WORKERS UNDER TRIAL CRYSTAL EASTMAN MEMBER STAFF PITTSBURGH SURVEY To study industrial accidents from the "home" side has been my business for a year. To acquaint myself daily with households doubly disabled by sickness and loss of income, to see strong men, just learning to face life maimed, to visit home after home, where sudden death has visited,--a dreadful business, you might say. Yet it has left with me impressions of personality, character, and spirit, which make the year's work a precious experience. The first thing brought home to me was that working people do not have "the luxury of grief." The daily tyranny of hard work in their lives, leaves little time for pondering the unanswerable "Why?" of sorrow. For instance, Mrs. Dennison, the widow of a brakeman who was killed on the Pennsylvania Railroad, spent no quiet days of solitary mourning. She was left with six children, the oldest eleven. All the money she had was $500 from the Railroad Relief Association,[8] to which her husband had belonged, $450 which the men on her husband's division raised, and $30 which his own crew gave. The company gave her $20 toward the funeral. [8] The company pays the running expenses of this association. With some of this money she rented and stocked up a little candy and notion store, using the three rooms in the back to live in. Here she tended store, and cooked, and sewed, and ironed, for herself and the six. She would have done her own washing too, she told me, but she couldn't leave the store long enough to hang her clothes up in the yard. She made a reasonable success of the enterprise, enough to pay for rent and food, until the hard times came. After that she steadily lost money. So now she has put in her application for a chance to clean cars for the railroad at $1.21 a day. For this privilege she must wait her turn among the other widows; and when she gets it she must leave her children in one another's care from six in the morning till six at night. They are now two, four, six, eight, ten, and twelve, respectively. Mrs. Dennison will not have time to sit down and grieve over the death of her husband for many years to come. One mother, whose thin face haunts me, has been able to endure her tragedy only through this necessity of work. She had a daughter, just seventeen, who was employed in the dressmaking department of one of the big stores in Pittsburgh. This girl, Ella, was eager and gay, with a heart full of kindness. She was everybody's favorite in the workroom; at home she meant laughter and good will for them all. To her mother, Ella was joy and gladness,--life itself. One morning this little dressmaker, after leaving her wraps on the eleventh floor, found that she was a few moments late. She ran for the elevator to go to her workroom above. The elevator was just starting up, with the door half closed. Ella tried to make it, slipped, and fell down the shaft. This tragedy demoralized the working force of the store for two days. In the hunted, suffering eyes of the mother one reads that she cannot forget, night or day. She feels that Ella's employers were generous in giving her $500, but it would make no difference "if they gave her the whole store." In the back of her mind are always two visions alternating,--the merry girl who sat eating her breakfast at a corner of the kitchen table that morning, laughing and teasing her mother, and then, as she ran out to take the car, looked back to smile and say goodbye,--this is one. The other,--that unthinkable fall down eleven stories and the crash at the bottom of the shaft. I felt that nothing but the daily insistence of work,--cooking and washing for her husband and two grown sons, and caring for the two younger children,--had saved this mother's reason. Another striking instance of the pressure of work in poor people's lives was in the family of Harry Nelson. They lived on the South Side, near the Jones and Laughlin Steel Works, where the father and two grown sons and Harry, who was nineteen, were employed. Two younger boys were in school. One Sunday night, on the way home after his twelve hours' work, Harry said to his father that he'd "give a lot" not to go back to the mill that night. (There was another twelve hours' work to come before he could sleep, for this was Harry's "double shift.") He didn't tell his mother he was tired, because he knew she would beg him not to go back to work. Harry was ambitious; he was an electrician's helper, getting fifteen dollars a week, and he did not want to lose his job. At 7:30 he was back in the mill, and at 8:00 he was up on an electric crane, making some repairs. When he was through he started along the narrow run-way of the crane to a place where he could climb down. The air was full of steam; some say that he was blinded by this; others, that he must have been a little dizzy. At any rate, to steady himself, he reached for an electric wire that was strung along there. He happened to touch a part that was not insulated, got a slight shock, and fell thirty-five feet to the floor of the mill. After Harry was killed, the two older boys left the mill and looked for work in another city. But the father had no choice; he was too old to find new work. His fifteen a week was all the more indispensable now because Harry had given all his money to his mother, and the two older boys had paid generously for board. In three days the father was back in his old place at the cold saw, within sight of the place where Harry fell. Thus work may be a cruelty as well as a blessing. But in any case it leaves the workers little time to dwell upon their misfortunes. When they do speak of them, it is almost always in a "matter-of-course" way. This is not, I think, because they lack feeling, but because they are so used to trouble that the thought of it has ceased to rouse them. That poor people are used to trouble is a commonplace. I mean by "trouble," the less subtle disappointments of life, those which come with disease, injury and premature death. Of all these rougher blows of fortune, the poor family gets more than an even share. This stands to reason, if experience has not already convinced one of it. To the ordinary causes of sickness,--unsanitary dwellings, overcrowding, undue exposure, overwork, lack of necessary vacation, work under poisonous conditions,--to all these poor people are much more constantly exposed than others. To injury and death caused by accident they are also more exposed. Poor people's children play in dangerous places, on the street, near railroad tracks. The poor man's dwelling is not often fire-proof. Poor people do most of the hazardous work in the world, and the accidents connected with work form the majority of all accidents. Moreover, the poor family is, in a material way, less able to meet these disasters when they come, than the well-to-do family. This is in some degree due to ignorance, for ignorance, whether as cause or result, almost always goes with poverty. In a very large degree, however, it is due to poverty itself. It is because they have no reserve fund to fall back on in emergencies. Suppose a young steel worker with a family gets a long, sharp chip of steel in his eye. He cannot go to the best specialist, to the man who knows all that anybody knows about saving eyes. Through ignorance or lack of interest on the part of the doctor who treats him, he loses his eye. Thus an injury which might mean but a few weeks of fearful anxiety to a well-to-do man, may result in lasting misery to a poor man. In the same way, too, what might often be in a well-to-do family a short struggle with disease, crowned with success, is more likely to be in a poor family an unrelieved tragedy. Thus are the poor, by reason of their very poverty, not only more open to attack from these bodily foes, but also, and again by reason of their poverty, less equipped to fight and conquer them. "St. George killed the dragon; St. George wore the finest armor of his day and his sword was tested steel." With these workers whom I met,--poor people, not as the charity visitor knows them, but poor, as the rank and file of wage earners are poor,--misfortune is almost part of the regular course of things. They are used to hard knocks, if not yet in their own lives, then in the lives of their relatives, friends, and neighbors. Consequently, there is often in their attitude toward trouble a certain matter-of-fact calmness, which looks like indifference. Thus, I have had a mother tell me about her sixteen-year-old son's losing two fingers in the mill. She couldn't remember exactly how or when it happened; she thought he had lost only a week's work; and she had no comment upon it but that it might have been worse. An old steel worker whom I questioned about his injuries answered, "I never got hurt any to speak of." After persistent inquiry, however, he recalled that he had once fractured his skull, that a few years later he had lost half of a finger, and that only three years ago he was laid up for nine weeks with a crushed foot. Troubles like these are the common lot; they are not treasured up and remembered against fate. Often I have found in young women a surprisingly "middle-aged" way of looking at trouble. I remember, for instance, Mrs. Coleman, whose husband was a freight conductor. They had been married nine years, and had made out pretty well up to the last two years, although the wife, as she somewhat proudly explained, had had three children, two miscarriages, and an operation, during this time. On Christmas night, 1903, Coleman had his arm crushed in a railroad accident. He was disabled for three months, and went back to work with a partially crippled arm. Three weeks later, as he was numbering cars, an iron bar rolled off the load and broke his nose. This laid him up again for five weeks, and left his face permanently disfigured. He has been troubled ever since with nose-bleeding, so that he has to lay off every little while, and the doctor says he must have an operation before he can be cured. Since this second injury, a fourth child has come. When I saw her, Mrs. Coleman was just recovering from a bad attack of grip, which had increased their expenses. To help along in this hard luck time they took two railroad men to lodge and board in their three room flat; one of these men had been killed on the road the week before I called. Here are troubles enough, and yet this young woman had no special complaint against fortune. "Yes," she said, as she rose to open the door for me, the last baby dangling over one arm,--"we've had a bad time these last two years, and now with him only working two or three days a week, I guess it'll be worse. But then,"--with a smile, "what can you do about it?" On the same day I talked with a much older woman. She was too worn out to smile at her troubles, but she had the same "everyday" attitude toward them. Ten months ago they had been doing well. Her husband was earning ten dollars a week at odd jobs; two sons, twenty and seventeen, were getting fifteen dollars a week each as lead buffers in a coffin works; she and her daughter kept house and did a little sewing; and they all lived happily together. Then one day her husband was brought home with a smashed foot and a leg broken in two places, as a result of a bad fall. He had been on a ladder, painting, when the cornice gave way and he jumped to save himself. For five months they kept him at the hospital free of charge, and for four months more he went back on crutches for treatment. Finally they told him to come back for an operation, but on the day after the operation they sent him away again with a bill of three dollars for the time he had been there. His wife had to help him home, and he was in bed when I called. The doctor had said it would be better for him to stay at the hospital, but the superintendent decided that they could not treat him in the ward for nothing any longer. The wife laughed a little grimly when she told me this. "Why," she said, "I can't pay a dollar and a half a day to that hospital. Ever since he got hurt I've been cleaning offices. All I can make is six dollars a week and I have to pay car fares out of that." "Well," I said, "how about your sons? They are making good wages." "Oh, they were," she answered, "but Harry, the oldest one, has been home for five months. He's got gastritis, and the doctor says it's from lead poisoning. You know he's a lead buffer on coffins. He don't seem to get much better." "And the other boy," I said, "does he go right on doing the same work?" "Yes, Charlie,--I don't know what we'd do if he lost his job. He's been on half time now for three months, and that means only $7.50 a week." To add to the general desolation in this home, the flood had been in and covered the lower floor, leaving everything smeared with a dry, muddy paste. In the midst of it all sat this tired woman of fifty, who had just come home from her five early morning hours of office scrubbing; and she was less concerned with the bitterness of her struggle with life than she was with the immediate problem of how to get her maimed old man up to the hospital every other day for treatment. This unquestioning acceptance of misfortune does not often amount to either a commendable cheerfulness or a deplorable apathy. Occasionally, however, it approaches heroism. I think the most courageous person I met during the year was Mrs. Herman Baum, a German woman of forty-five or thereabouts, who, after nine years of disappointment and defeat, still meets the days as they come with an unbroken spirit. She came to America as a girl of nineteen and went out to service. At twenty-three she married. Her "man" turned out ugly; he drank and was always mean to her. His parents, who thought he had married beneath him, took a dislike to her and joined him in making her unhappy. They lived along in this way for fifteen years, during which time she bore him seven children. One day, in his work as a moulder, he received a slight injury, from which blood poisoning set in. After this his mind was affected; he became silent, morose, and uglier than ever, giving his wife hardly a moment, day or night, when she was not in fear of him. After a year or so during which he grew steadily worse, he shot himself one night, leaving her with the seven children, another one coming, and no resources except a heavily mortgaged house and $800 insurance. She had no relatives; her father had been run over by a train, soon after coming to America, and her only brother had been drowned in river work a few years before. It was in August, 1906, that Mrs. Baum's husband killed himself. In September a baby was born, only to die before winter. The two older children got work and brought in ten dollars a week between them, while Mrs. Baum took in washing and made two or three dollars a week. Thus things went pretty well until June, 1907, when the second boy, Harry, the jolly one, who "kept all their spirits up with his jokes," was all but killed in an elevator accident at the box factory where he worked. When, after four months at the hospital, he came home with a permanent lameness, and strict orders never again to do heavy work, he turned to selling papers, and is now making about $1.40 a week. After half their small income was cut off by this accident, Mrs. Baum tried to run a grocery store in the front part of her house, but she lost money at it and was forced to give it up. When I saw her, she was hanging somebody's washing up in the yard. She took me into her spotless kitchen and told me this story, not eagerly, as if pouring out her troubles, but only after many questions, rather reluctantly, and with sometimes an apologetic smile. Here, I thought, is a heroine of modern realistic tragedy; the dramatist would have her lost in bitter retrospect. But she was not; she sat there smiling a bit ruefully, and wondered whether she must put aside her sturdy German pride next week, and go to the Poor Board for help. Some people, especially the Irish, even get amusement out of the number and variety of their troubles. This is true of the Learys, whose six years of married life have been crowded with disasters. To begin with, Andy, the husband, who is a brakeman, has had nine accidents on the road in five years, so many that his wife could not distinguish in her memory the one of a year ago which I had come to inquire about. Twice he has been near death. Once the priest performed the last offices, but Andy pulled through after all. Besides all these injuries, none of them less severe than a broken bone, he accidentally shot himself one day and nearly died from that. "And look at him now!" said Mrs. Leary. (Andy is a handsome Irishman, and the picture of health.) In addition to all this, they have lost two children by diphtheria. Mrs. Leary's outlook on life seems to be a mingling of humor and superstition. She told me, with incongruous awesomeness in her Irish brogue, how she had heard the "death whistle" outside the door three times on the night that her little boy died. And one night, when Andy had to stay at home to take care of her, the brakeman sent in his place was killed. She thinks this is a "sign," and has no doubt of Andy's ultimate fate. "Oh yis," said she, "the docthers say ye can't kill Andy,--but I know betther. He'll be a-comin' home dead soon. Ivery time I hear a knock at the dhoor, I thinks to mesilf, 'There now,--it's thim, comin' to tell me Andy's kil't.' Andy, he jokes about it. Ony this marnin' afther I'd been givin' him his breakfast, he starts to go to work out the back dhoor, an' I says, 'Andy, why don't you niver go out the front dhoor?' 'Oh, Leary;' says he,--(that's what he calls me--Leary) 'Leary,' says he, 'the back dhoor's good enough for me. I'll be a-comin' by the front dhoor soon enough, an' I won't be walkin'." With so many misfortunes the Learys have not been able to save anything. Four times Andy tried to join the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, but each time after his papers were made out and he had paid down his dollar, and the day had come to join, he couldn't get together the necessary nine dollars for the first payment. With all this, there is an unfailing humor and philosophy in the Leary household which is irresistible. Among railroad men generally there is a certain laughing, soldier spirit. It is part of the faith; no true "railroader" is without it. Perhaps this spirit leans to recklessness with some of the younger ones, but I believe it is just as essential to the running of a railroad as is the executive skill of the Hills and Harrimans. This spirit stands by the men in danger and makes them meet death bravely. It stands often a harder test; you will not break the spirit of a railroader by cutting off his arm or giving him a wooden leg. Out of fifteen railroad men I visited, who had received permanent injuries, all but four have gone back to the road. Two of the four are totally unable to do work of any kind. Another has gone home for a few weeks until he can "get used to his wooden leg," when he will be ready for any job the road will give him. The other, a twenty-year-old boy who lost his right arm at the shoulder, has learned to write with his left hand and is studying telegraphy as hard as he can, in order to stick by the railroad. Of the eleven who are back on the road, nine were able to go into the same work and pay, but two had to take lower jobs on account of partial disability. This meant in each case five or six dollars a week less, but neither man complained; he took it as part of the day's work. What the railroader dreads is having to quit the road altogether. A watchman's job will be accepted with a good deal of cheer. Notice the spirit of the one-legged watchman at your crossing, who is very likely a man dropped from an active, exciting occupation at eighty dollars a month to flagging a crossing for forty. He is still in the game. But try to retire a railroader on a pension while he is able to work, and you will break his heart. To a large extent, the railroaders' wives reflect this spirit. They are quite resigned to the risks and dangers of the "mister's" trade. But with the mothers, especially those whose husbands have followed more quiet callings, it is different. They lead an anxious life. In every dangerous occupation there is not this sustaining common courage to help a man endure gaily a lifelong deprivation. A certain degree of independence and fraternity in a group is necessary to bring it about. Many go forth from the steel mills maimed for life, who have no such spirit to uphold them. I remember one night in Homestead seeing a boy on crutches, with one leg gone. He was about nineteen, with blue eyes and a shock of yellow hair falling down low on his forehead. In his face was that desperate look of defiance which comes with a recent deformity. He was trying with all his young will to be indifferent to the stares of the crowd, while in every nerve he felt them. All this and a weary hopelessness were written in his sullen child-face. I have shown how grief is crowded out of the lives of working people, and how their frequent experience of trouble gives them an ordinary manner in speaking of it. These things largely account for the opinion held by many, that working people do not feel their sorrows as keenly as others do. Furthermore, I found among working people almost no pretence of feeling where none exists. This too, might give rise to such an opinion. Where the death of a husband has meant merely a loss of income, with the attending problems of struggle and adjustment, there is no effort to have it appear otherwise. Where it has aroused only a feeling of bitterness toward the employer, this is not concealed either. But where the death of the bread-winner, has meant not merely an economic problem, not merely a legal battle, but heartache and emptiness,--that is written, real and unmistakable, in the faces of those left. And in the case of sons, where there may be no question of income, it is often possible to tell in the first glance at the mother whether this boy who was killed was "one of her children," or the child of her heart. There is an outspoken genuineness about these people which allows them neither to make a show of grief where there is none, nor to hide real suffering, even from a stranger. Mrs. Leary took the accidents of "Andy" lightly. If he should happen to be killed some day her heart would not be broken. She spoke of the death of her baby three months before without feeling, mentioning the doctor's bills. But when I asked her to tell me about her oldest boy who died two years ago of diphtheria, I could see at once that I was on different ground. Her eyes filled with tears, and there was grief and longing in her voice as she talked about him. You see he was only five, but they understood each other. When she was unhappy he knew it. He would climb up in her lap, she said, and put his arms around her neck and say, "Don't cry, Mommy; I love you." Mrs. Burns, a pretty Irish widow, whose husband was crushed while coupling cars, is obviously well satisfied with the $4,000 insurance he left. She takes boarders and is carefully saving the insurance money for her little girl's education. Her affections are set on this child. She has a tender memory of her Tom as he started off to work whistling that last morning, but she makes no pretence to mourn for him. She frankly admits that her marriage was not successful enough to make her risk it again. Thus it is with Mrs. Andrews, a woman whose husband was killed in the mill. I found her smiling and contented a year later. Her man had been good and faithful while he lived, but after he died, her brother came to live with her and help her raise her two boys. He earned just as much, and she was perfectly satisfied with the situation. On the other hand, I knew of a six months' bride who shot herself three weeks after her husband was killed. And a young German woman, whose father had been run over by a dinky engine in the mill, said to me in a choking voice, "Oh, when it comes to tellin' how he died, it breaks my heart." I have seen mothers and fathers in middle life who had become broken and old in a year after the death of a son, and a few women whom I visited eighteen months after such a tragedy, were literally unable to speak of it. There was one wild-eyed little Scotch woman, Mrs. MacGregor, who refused to talk with me at all. I learned from a neighbor that she had twice been insane. Some years ago, when they had lived near the railroad, a little three-year-old girl of hers, who was playing before the house, ran in front of a train. The mother reached the child just in time to touch her dress as the engine tore her away. The mother lost her reason and was sent to an asylum. After six or eight months she recovered and came home. Then, one morning two years later, she got word to come at once to the hospital, that her son was dying. He was a lineman at Edgar Thompson, and had left home to go to work as usual two hours before. In some way,--no one ever knew how,--he had fallen from a ladder and broken his skull. After this second blow the mother was again insane. Then there was an old father, Macdougal, who had had three sons. One died of smallpox, and one was killed in a steel mill. The third was a railroad engineer. On the night of March 13, 1907, he was taking a heavy freight across a bridge at Deer Creek, Harmarsville. The creek was high and the pier gave way; the engine and first cars went crashing into the water below, carrying three men to death. The bodies of the fireman and conductor were recovered next day, but young Macdougal, the engineer, was never found. They say the old man's hair turned white in twenty-four hours, and that he can still be found on fair days walking along the banks of the creek, looking for his son. But for the most part mothers and fathers do not lose their hold on things. Their lives go on as before. You can know perhaps only from a weary sadness in the mother's eyes that the light of their lives has gone out. Death does not always mean sorrow, and these working people, it seems to me, feel no pressure of convention upon them to appear sorrowful when they are not. But where affection is strong and love is deep, tragedies are as real with them as with any people I have known. Wherever love is found there is the chance of grief; there is potential tragedy. And it is in poor families, I think, that one finds the most close and lasting affection. So often, in looking up a fatal accident case, I would come upon an intimate and devoted family group. The case of Will Gordon, for instance,--there was a holiday drama I shall not soon forget. The Gordon family was a large one. Father and mother were living, and three working sons lived at home, besides four younger children. Then there were two married daughters, who lived near by and kept in close touch with the family. Will, the oldest son, although he was twenty-eight, was the greatest "home boy" of them all. He still handed every pay envelope over to his mother, unopened, as he had done when a child. His working life had been varied. First he tried the railroad, but he was slight, and the work was too much for him. Then for a while he did river work with one of his younger brothers who was on a government job. But in this he soon developed a chronic cough, and his mother was afraid of consumption. So finally he got a job with the Pressed Steel Car Company, as a pipe fitter's helper. Here the work was lighter and seemed to agree with him. Every two weeks he brought home twenty-five dollars and handed it over to his mother. Meanwhile his father, who was fifty, had taken a job at the Oil Refinery, firing boilers at night. The boys considered this a dangerous job for the old man, and almost every night one of them would go with him. Will felt most strongly about it and was always begging his father to give it up. On Christmas evening, 1906, the son's arguments prevailed and his father promised to give up the job. This made them all especially happy on the next day, when the two married daughters came home with their families to celebrate Christmas. During the day they planned that the whole family should gather at the oldest daughter's house for New Year's. All the boys were to have a holiday except Will, and he promised to get off at noon, if he could, to eat the New Year's dinner with them. The day came, the family was gathered and the dinner was ready. With much joking and laughter and good-humored impatience, they were waiting for Will. In the midst of it came a boy with a scared face to say that Will had been killed at the works. He had been sent to repair a leak in a pipe. The steam was left on; the pipe burst; and he and Wilson, the pipe fitter, were scalded to death. The father put on his coat and hurried down to the mill to keep them from sending his boy's body to the morgue. This family affection shows its true nature in times of trouble. Barring what seemed to me an unusual number of deserting husbands, I was impressed with the faithfulness of these people to one another in struggle and distress. There was Mrs. Frederick, for instance, a Swiss woman whose husband was killed in a runaway, while driving for a wholesale liquor dealer. Just a week before the accident they had bought a small house with a $600 mortgage on it, and Mr. Frederick said to his wife, as they were looking over the deed: "Now we can begin to get along, and lift up our heads, and stop worrying." Since her husband's death, even with the $1,000 insurance, it has been hard to keep things going and continue payments on the house. There are four children and only one is old enough to work. Just in this troublous time, too, the family burdens have increased. Mrs. Frederick's mother has come from Switzerland, old, feeble and without income; and her step-daughter, who had been away from home and independent for years, after lying in a hospital six weeks with a fever, has now come home, weak and helpless, to stay until she is able to work. Mrs. Frederick does not for a moment question the rightfulness of these burdens. The old grandmother and the convalescent daughter help her around the house; she takes in washing; the boy's wages are good. On the whole she is cheerful. The last thing she said to me, as she stood in the open door, was, "Oh, we'll get on somehow. We'll all work together, and if we have to, we'll starve together." Another pathetic and almost humorous instance of family loyalty is the case of a man named Benson. I was hunting for the wife of a brakeman, who had been killed in the same wreck with the engineer Macdougal of whom I have spoken. I was told that I could learn about her at this Benson's house. I went there and found it a tumble-down, three-room shanty with a small shed for a kitchen, crowded in between brick tenements. There was no carpet on the floor and only a bare table and two kitchen chairs in the living room. The man's wife was unspeakably slovenly and, I think, half-witted. When Benson came in, however, I could see that he was different. He was only twenty-six. His father had been a river-man, and he himself was born in a "shanty-boat." Owing to his mother's early carelessness he had lost one eye. When he grew up, he left the river and became a teamster, and in good times he made a living. At the time I saw him, however, he had had only one or two days' work a week for four months. The hard times, and the wife, I am sure,--not any natural shiftlessness in the man,--accounted for the desolation of his home. There was something fine in Benson's face, a certain modest look of steadfastness and pride,--the pride of the "family protector." This protector-ship extended even to the remote connections by marriage of the miserable creature who was his wife, for I found that the brakeman's widow, whom he had taken in and cared for after her husband's death, was his wife's sister-in-law. Further questioning revealed that this widow had an old mother who had also been dependent on the earnings of the brakeman. "And what has become of the mother?" I asked. "Oh," he said, "she lives here, too. She makes her home with me." There he sat, this one-eyed teamster, in his barren, rented, three-room castle, and told me in a simple, serious way, as though it were to be expected in good families, that his wife's sister-in-law's mother "made her home with him." It is not uncommon to find a loyalty like this in relations where one would least expect it. I have quite lost faith in the unkind stepmother of fairy-tale tradition. It is a step-daughter whom Mrs. Frederick, the Swiss woman, is caring for in the midst of her struggle. Three or four times I found a woman utterly uncomforted after the loss of a stepson. There was Conley, for instance, a car inspector who was killed in a wreck. A stepmother had brought him up since he was ten years old, loving him as few mothers love their own sons. And he gave her back a real devotion. When his friends would ask him why he didn't have some fun with his money instead of giving it all to his folks, he used to say, "Well, fellows, home ain't a boarding house." It is not unusual to find young men giving up their own prospects, to take up the burden of the family at the sudden death of the father. But the most memorable instance I remember of self-sacrifice on the part of a son was that of James Brennan, a switchman, who was killed on the Baltimore and Ohio in November, 1906. He, too, was only stepson and stepbrother to the family he fathered. Thomas Brennan, an Englishman, had married in the seventies and come to America, where his wife bore him two sons and then died. Soon after, he went back to England and married a sister of his first wife and brought her here to take care of his children. He soon proved worthless as a provider. He lived off and on with his family, but contributed less and less to their support, and finally left them entirely. The second wife was not strong, and after the birth of her last child, became an invalid. The burden of the family thus fell upon the shoulders of the two boys, her nephews and stepsons. They went to work at eleven and twelve. Arthur, the younger, was drowned at eighteen, leaving James, the older son, as the only support. This young man never deserted his post. During the later years his burden increased. His stepsister made a runaway marriage at eighteen and in two years was deserted by her husband and came home with a child. A feeble old grandmother of eighty-eight came over from England to be taken care of. His stepmother became crippled with rheumatism and lay in bed for two years. In June of the year he was killed, he sent her away to a sanatorium to get well. She had been there for five months, had gained twelve pounds and was doing well when the telegram came to tell her of his death. She came home to face the struggle of life without him,--an aged mother on her hands, a boy of ten, and an in-consequent daughter with a baby,--and she herself an invalid, suffering constantly. One would say that the mere problem of existence would be all absorbing for that woman. Yet, when I found her a year later, it was the emptiness of her life without this son rather than the loss of his income that was her tragedy. There are all kinds of people everywhere. This is the only final conclusion. It is not easy therefore, to describe the spirit in which the working people meet trouble. They meet it in all the ways there are. But most of those I met, had an "everyday" attitude toward misfortune. This seems to support the opinion many hold, that poor people do not feel their tragedies deeply. But I think it is to be explained rather by the fact that they are too busy to entertain grief, that trouble is too common among them to arouse exclamation, and that they make no show of feeling where there is none. That they know the deepest sorrow, is obvious to one who has seen the loyalties and lasting affections which make up so much of their lives. I found usual in families, a generous affection which could rise to self-sacrifice and devotion in time of trial; and sometimes between two members of a family, a rare love, exclusive and complete, so that the death of one left the other in an empty world. * * * * * Tales of trouble like these are worth listening to, chiefly as they reveal the spirit of the people who suffered. It is with this thought that I have told them. But if by revealing a dreary recurrence of the same kind of misfortune in home after home, these stories have roused in the reader's mind a question, perhaps a protest, this too, is worth while. In a later issue, by a study of these work accidents in their happening, by a counting of the cost to the worker and his family, to the employer, and to society,--as at present the cost is distributed,--we hope to answer that question. Possibly we shall justify that protest. THE WORKING WOMEN OF PITTSBURGH ELIZABETH BEARDSLEY BUTLER FORMER SECRETARY NEW JERSEY STATE CONSUMERS LEAGUE It requires a moment's readjustment of our angle of vision to see Pittsburgh as a city of working women. To dig crude ores, to fuse and forge them, are not among the lighter handicrafts at which women can readily be employed. The old cry of the dwarfs under the earth, the first metal smiths, rings out in Pittsburgh in the tap of the miner's tools and in the shouts of gangs of furnace-men and engine crews in the winding recesses of the mill. Yet even in a city whose prosperity is founded in steel and iron and coal, there has come into being beside the men a group of co-laborers. If we listen again, we hear the cry of the dwarfs (the productive forces of earth) not only in the shouts of gangs of furnace-men, but from the mobile group of workers at the screw and bolt works, and among the strong-armed women who make sand-cores in rooms planned like Alberich's smithy in the underworld. Listen still more closely, and we hear the dwarf voices in the hum of machines in a garment factory, in the steady turn of metal rolls in a laundry, and even in the clip of the stogy roller's knife in the tiny workroom of a tenement loft. Side by side with the men, the women workers have found a place in the industry of the steel district in the Alleghenies. In a district that calls pre-eminently for strength in its workmen, and if not for strength, for a high degree of training and skill, there is yet place in the congregate activity of factories and shops for women. Individual and group necessities have forced them out into an increasing number of occupational ways and byways, winding net-like over the city. [Illustration: STOGY SWEATSHOP WORKERS ON "THE HILL."] To understand fully the place that women have taken in the industries of Pittsburgh, we should need to know the history of the "forks of the Ohio," from trading post, frontier settlement, mill-town, to the growing, complex city of to-day. We should need to follow the women's share in the life of the district from the time of the woman pioneer, who was herself a producer of goods and of values, on through the active days of life in a small and struggling town, and later, into the ramifications of the industrial city, when the days came that English speaking labor did not suffice and a new immigrant population was brought in. We know a little of the life of the frontier women and the work that they did. We have hints here and there, of the home industries of intermediate decades, of the weaving and the stogy making[9] especially, of production for the use of the individual home, that helped to make the lives of women in miners' households active and significant. There are gaps in our recorded knowledge of the process of change, of the forces that little by little have been a call to the high-strung girl of American birth, to the unconquerable exiled Russian, to the field worker from Austria, and to the fair-haired Pole,--a call away from the four walls that sheltered the industries of the home, and toward factory and shop, toward division of labor and specialization of work at a machine. The census in the first half of the nineteenth century is small help to us. Even in later years, we can learn from it comparatively little about the industrial life in individual cities. [9] See Jour. Pol. Econ. 5: 1-25. One fact significant of the situation in Pittsburgh to-day is that according to the last census, the excess of male over female population is a trifle less than 10,000. When the industries of the district grew to a magnitude that drew on foreign labor forces, it was the men of Ireland and Germany, of Italy, Austria and Poland who came. Later, in smaller numbers, the women followed. They came because their husbands and brothers were here; not often for the purpose of forging out a life of their own. The women of the later immigrant races, the Slavs and the southern Europeans, are lagging behind. Giuseppina is still keeping the little Italian cottage with the thought that Pietro will return or will have made his way more surely before he sends for her. Life in America for her is not a settled destiny. It is a probability of growing importance for those populations whose need exceeds the productive power of the soil; but even to the strong it is something of an experiment, something for which women,--not industrially adjusted,--must await the issue before they too follow in numbers equal to the men. In the different districts of the city, one can trace something of the effect of this varying feeling of permanence on the ways of life among earlier and later immigrants. Irish and German, in fact, we no longer think of as immigrants. They are as much wrought into the fabric of the nation as those whom we are pleased to call American. The Jewish immigrants from Austria, Germany, and Russia, while their coming has been hastened by religious persecution, have yet been part of the life of the city for so long, that among them there is a distinct family grouping; and there is a normal proportion between men and women. This is in part due to race tradition as well as to length of settlement, but the latter has unquestionably served to diminish the proportion of single men, who from this race as from others, have come to make a place for themselves in the new country. In the congested Italian neighborhoods, on the other hand, women are but an unimportant factor in the industrial life of the city. In the midst of the city itself, there are to be sure streets of Italian families; streets where the women still honor the custom of life in their households. A scattered few roll paste-smeared tobacco leaves into tobies after the Italian fashion, or follow with painstaking docility the signs of the forewoman in a garment workshop. But there are not many of these pioneers of congregate activity. The ties of tradition that keep the girl to her house and early marriage are still too strong for more than the very few to break. There is small opportunity in this smoke-filled city among the hills for the Italian girl to preserve her self-respect by staying at home, and at the same time to increase her income by sewing or making flowers. Flowers of delicate tints and fine embroidered fabrics, belong rather to the trade of eastern cities. The garment industry here is of a different sort from that which has nourished and given employment to its thousands of out-workers in New York city. Such outwork as there is dates to a time before the Italian women were here in numbers, or had grouped themselves into particular districts, and it fell naturally into the hands of Irish and Germans whose homes were, and still remain, in the early settled regions in the coal filled hills. [Illustration: A CANNERY GIRL--BOTTLING PICKLES WITH A GROOVED STICK.] Leave "the hill," and go down toward the mills and to some of the outlying sections, and you will find still fewer women in the colonies of young Italian laborers, advance guards from their native towns. Some of these men are workers on the railroads, others are day-laborers in the mills. They bring up the numbers of the Italian population and contribute to the excess male population of the entire city. Among still later immigrants, this situation is intensified. Near the Pressed Steel Car Works, there are streets of low unpainted houses, each exactly like the other, each filled with its family of "boarders,"--single men who club together and rent a house or hire a bed by turns in order to make their pay serve both for their own support and for the help of those at home in the old country. They are Slavs,--"Hunkies." They are the under-workmen in mill and mine and machine shop, who have helped push the earlier comers a step higher and push themselves into the subordinate jobs. Some of the first comers have since brought their families. Some few sisters and friends with the desire to try new fortune have come, too, leaving their families behind. But the bulk of the "boarding house" population is made up of single men, immigrants of this race. Where families and single women have come, they have tended to settle in the glass-making district, or near the manufactories of iron and steel products that can use quick fingers as well as strong untrained arms. [Illustration: ONE OF THE SOUTH SIDE GLASS-WORKERS.] The Polish women have not the conservatism which keeps the Italian girl at home. They have not the same standard of close-knit family relationship. There is a flexibility in their attitude toward life and toward their part in it. In numbers and in kind of work, they are an element of industrial importance. Altogether, 22,185 women wage earners outside of agricultural, professional, and domestic service, are employed in Pittsburgh. These figures are based on a careful census of the women-employing trades made during the winter of 1907-8. This working force is distributed in 448 factories and shops, and can be arranged according to the numerical importance of the different trade groups as shown in the accompanying table. TABLE SHOWING DISTRIBUTION IN TRADE GROUPS. 1 MERCANTILE HOUSES 7540 2 FOOD PRODUCTION: CANNERIES CONFECTIONERY CRACKERS MOLASSES 2726 3 CLEANING INDUSTRIES: DYEING AND CLEANING LAUNDRIES 2685 4 STOGY INDUSTRY 2611 5 METAL TRADES 1954 6 MISCELLANEOUS: CORK PAPER BOXES SOAP CASKETS PAINT BROOMS AND BRUSHES TRUNKS AND SUIT-CASES 1137 7 NEEDLE TRADES: GARMENTS AWNINGS MATTRESS AND BEDDING GLOVES 1088 8 LAMPS AND GLASS 864 9 TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH 777 10 MILLINERY (WHOLESALE) 406 11 PRINTING TRADES 397 ------ TOTAL WOMEN WORKERS 22185 In the U. S. census of 1900, women's work is grouped under the headings: Agricultural Pursuits, Domestic and Personal Service, Professional Service, Trade and Transportation, Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits. In the accompanying table, agricultural pursuits, and professional service are excluded. Under domestic and personal service come only the cleaning industries, with 2,685 women, 12.10 per cent of the number under consideration. Under trade and transportation, come saleswomen and telephone and telegraph operators to the number of 8,317 (37.48 per cent). The remainder, 11,183 women (50.4 per cent), are included in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. It is worth while to consider not only the broad groupings and the characteristics of the several trades, but the women whom they have called to them, old and young, native born, or from the fields and towns of another country. Each trade has its characteristic racial group, and in some cases a secondary racial group; and on the other hand one racial group may be found in several trades. When the work room is a mercantile house, there is small need to describe it. We know something of the work and of its demands; we know, too, that no other occupation seems so desirable as "clerking" to the girl with some personal ambition but without the training necessary for an office position. A majority of the girls are native-born of Irish or German parents, but there is a scattering of bright Jewish girls who have a characteristic dislike for the noise of machines. The mercantile houses, the stogy factories and the garment factories are employers of Jewish girls. In all three industries many Americans are to be found, but they are in the more desirable positions, in shops of the better class, with provision for light and air. These girls have the nervous readiness to learn new ways, the adaptability, the measure of skill, which tend to bring them the best work, the better workplaces. But where the cheap, hustling business is done, the Jewish girls predominate. They endure the drive in the rarely cleaned upper room, where between narrow walls, faint daylight finds its way toward the machines and where drifting lint and ten hours' stooping over a power-driven needle, have their effect in time on a girl even with the strength of rugged generations behind her. Newcomers cannot choose either workshop or wages. With the subordination of the industrially unadjusted, they crave a chance to learn, whether it be by the whirr of the needle or by team work at cheap mold stogies to supply the workingman's demand. In one or two of the small box factories on "the hill," one finds occasionally a Jewish girl. Box makers paste the bright colored strips of paper along the box edges. They stay the corners by the clamp of a machine. For heavier boxes they glue into place the wooden supports. Such work for a Jewish girl is exceptional, however, and in violence to tradition. The three industries mentioned above make up her circle of possible choices. [Illustration: TOBACCO STRIPPERS IN A HILL SWEATSHOP. WORKERS OF THE LOWEST INDUSTRIAL GRADE.] Yet each industry, notably stogy making and the needle trades, has drawn upon a second racial element in response to a specific industrial demand. When the garment makers, spurred to production by the presence of an army of laborers in mills and mines, began to increase and cheapen their output, they gave the jeans and railroad jumpers to Irish and German women who would make them at home. The sweating system, as old and older than the ready-made trade, has adapted itself to the city, and has taken a form scarcely recognizable to one familiar with the contract shops on New York's East Side. There is no contract system here. Outwork entrenched itself in individual homes before Italians and immigrant Russians had settled into districts, and the only available out-workers were the wives of Irish and German workingmen in Carrick and Lower St. Clair. Even to-day, it takes a rambling journey along muddy foot-paths, across brooks and fields and along the edges of the barren hills to bring you to the sweated district. The workroom here is not a crowded tenement, but a small wooden house with six machines someway placed in the living room, and there is occupation for the whole family, from father to baby. The family has to pay the driver a percentage on every dozen garments that he brings, according to the distance from town. As the driver knows the people and often gives them the chance to work, his position is in some respects that of a middleman. The workers are obliged to meet his terms or to turn to some other means of livelihood. A seemingly inaccessible hill country within city limits, wooden shacks swarming with chickens and children, a whirr of machines audible from the field below,--these contradictions characterize the sweating system of Pittsburgh. [Illustration: STOGY WORKERS TRANSPLANTED TO AMERICA.] We have seen that Jewish and American girls are in the garment factories, while Irish and German women, the hill-dwelling wives of the miners, hold the subordinate place in the trade. In the stogy industry, the Polish women, some of them married and others immigrant girls, have the inferior and unpleasant work. The least desirable occupation for women in stogy factories is tobacco stripping, pulling the stems out of the moist leaves and weighing and tying them in pounds for the rollers. In tenement shops, one may find the strippers in a cellar, their backs against a damp wall, working by the light of a flaring gas jet. In a large factory, one will see them sitting in their low stalls, row behind row, stemming and weighing and throwing the waste to one side. "They would work all night," one foreman said, "if I would give them the chance. We never have any trouble with them; we can't give them enough work to do." They were married women in this case; but the rule holds good and there is seldom trouble with the Polish hands in a stogy factory. They are there too much on sufferance for grievances to be worth their while. They have entrenched themselves in the stripping rooms and are found now and then at a bunching machine or rolling stogies at the suction table, but this more skilled work is still largely in the hands of American and Jewish girls. [Illustration: A LAUNDRY WORKER AT A BODY IRONING MACHINE. ONE OF THE SKILLED HANDS.] The Polish women have pushed their way into a wider circle of industries than have the Jewish girls. They are limited by lack of training and by trade indifference, as well as by the stolid physical poise that cannot be speeded at the high pressure to which an American girl will respond. They have not an industrial standard that would tend to react progressively upon the character of their work and the arrangement of the workrooms. They accept factory positions that girls of other races regard as socially inferior. They consent to do the rough and unpleasant work, the work that leads and can lead to nothing except coarsening of fiber and a final break in strength. They change from one place to another with an irresponsibility, an independence, born perhaps of long-slumbering memories of revolution in their own land. In canneries and cracker factories, we find Polish girls who are lighter-handed, fairer, more delicately built than those of the metal trades and the glass houses. These girls have rapid work to do. They have the nervous energy to pack or to fill cans at high speed. They stand beside the travelling conveyor which carries cans of beans, and slip a bit of pork into each can as it passes. Without turning their heads or changing their position, working with high concentration and intensity, they can keep pace with the chains. While they do much of the mechanical work, the hulling and stemming of berries, the preparing of fruit, the filling and labeling of cans, they are found too among the bottling girls on whom responsibility for the appearance of the finished product largely rests. These latter place each pickle or piece of preserved fruit after the model design taught them in the beginning. They use a grooved stick to slip the pickles into place, and are obliged to be accurate as well as quick, for they work under inspection on a piece basis. A piece of onion misplaced in a bottle of mixed pickles is held sufficient ground for requiring the bottler to do the work over at the expense of her own time. The odor of vinegar and of preserves, an odor that seems to have saturated the air in nearby streets, has made the cannery unpopular among Americans who have acquired fastidiousness in the choice of a trade. It is possible that between the Polish women in this latter industrial group and those in the metal trades, there is the difference between the child of the city and the child whose life and the life of whose parents has been near the earth. At any rate, there is the general difference between the small, slight, fair-haired girl, and the rough-skinned stolid women, whom even a piece-rate scarcely avails to keep up to the pace of the machine. These latter are the women who with knee and hand and metal-centered glove, open the sheets of tin still warm from the furnaces of the sheet and tin plate mill; these are the women who screw nuts on bolts by a fish-oil process, and these are the women who carry trays of sand-cores in the foundries where they have displaced men. They are the packers in glass factories, the riveters and foot-press operators in lamp works. They have a hundred miscellaneous things to do, no one of which is a trade, or can be a trade so long as a shifting group of women, women with muscular strength and the readiness to do disagreeable things, is at hand for the odd jobs about a factory. They learn to operate one machine, but they are not among the hands who know the ways of the shop, and work up to better occupations. Either through the barrier of language, or in part through their own indifference, they are used for the least desirable work in those occupations which in a measure they have made their own. Polish girls of both types are to be found in laundries, but in most cases they are employed in the mangle room only. Their work is to feed in sheets under the metal rolls, to shake them out before feeding, or to receive and fold them at the other end while steam rises from the hot metal and from the huge washing cylinders below. There remain unaccounted for the workers in the candy industry, in many of the miscellaneous trades, in telephone and telegraph offices, in the wholesale millinery houses, and in press rooms and bookbinderies. Here there is variation as the individual and the location rather than as the trade group. In large measure, the employes are of American birth. Telephone and telegraph work share with mercantile houses the advantage of social esteem, and by reason of this, claim the American girl. The same is true of the millinery workroom, in spite of its irregular hours and short seasons. Perhaps a reflected "odor of sanctity," an association by proxy with clerical work, has made press rooms and binderies favored above more obviously manufacturing pursuits. Perhaps, too, the location of the binderies in the business section of the city has given them a force of American employes, for the Polish girl, like her Jewish co-worker, is limited in her imaginings to factories and shops within the few streets that make up the sum of her experience. Yet to an extent press rooms and binderies employ girls of foreign birth, and in the cork factory, many of the sorters are Poles. For some reason, the candy trade is largely in the hands of Americans, and is in high esteem among women workers. [Illustration: SEMI-SKILLED AMERICAN GIRLS IN A GLASS DECORATING FACTORY.] Surveying the city, then, we see American and German girls holding the positions for which a few months' training is needed, a knowledge of English, or of reading and writing. We see them yielding the inferior and unpleasant work to newcomers from Poland and Russia and we see these same newcomers, sometimes by sheer physical strength, sometimes by personal indifference and a low standard, competing on the basis of lower wages with men. Work that otherwise would never have been given to girls to do has come into the hands of Polish women. Workrooms that would not long be tolerated by Americans,--they have been regarded with indifference, perhaps because of inability to share the sensations of a foreigner. The place of the Polish women, scrubbing floors and sorting onions in a cannery, packing crackers, stripping tobacco for the stogy makers, or making sand-cores in a machine shop,--this place is lowest industrially among the women workers of Pittsburgh. It is the place of the woman who is fighting her way but has not yet thought whither she is going. A determination to work and to earn is uppermost. Marriage is not suffered to act as a hindrance. There is notable absence of standard as to conditions of work and rate of wages. With light foothold here and there, the Italian girl scarcely figures, but within a limited circle of industries immigrant Jewesses hold positions beside girls of native birth. From trading post and frontier settlement, from ambitious mill-town, Pittsburgh has come to be a city whose workrooms number a force of over 22,000 women. From home industry and from household work, the younger generation of girls has entered the field of collective service. From doing the whole of a thing and from knowing the user, the younger generation has gradually found its work more and more minutely subdivided; the individual worker makes not even a whole hinge but a tenth part of it, and knows neither the use nor the destination of the finished product. She does not know the relation of her fraction of the work to the other fractions or to the interwoven threads of industry that make up the plant. These younger women have pushed past the traditional activities of cleaning and cooking and sewing; even the congregate form of these industries engages but a few of them. They have not only gone into press rooms and binderies, into cork factories, and into workrooms where candies are made and where fruit is preserved, but they help finish the glass tumblers that the men in the next room blow, they make the cores for the foundry-men, and they are among the shapers of metal for lamps and for hinges and bolts and screws. In a city that is preeminent for the making of steel and iron and the products of steel and iron, women have taken to-day a place in industries that seemed wholly in the province of men. [Illustration] It means readjusting our angle of vision, but it is not a difficult readjustment, to see Pittsburgh as a city of working women. From river to river, women have their share in its industrial life. More than a theory, more than a reform movement, is needed to turn back a tide that is twenty-two thousand strong, that has its roots deep in commercial methods and commercial success. Change in industrial method, when such change makes for cheapness or for efficiency or for the utilization of a hitherto only partially utilized labor force, cannot be stayed by any theory as to its inappropriateness. Industrial forces, in that they are the forces of production, are still dominant in America. There is nothing in the Pittsburgh situation that looks toward undoing the change that has come about in the industrial position of women; but we can find out more exactly in this steel city how the work of women is related to that of men, how far women have reached the point of being self-supporting and independent, and what the social effect of labor under these new conditions seems to be. Through change in some of these conditions, much that seems evil in the nature of women's work may be undone and the real value of it released as a permanent and useful factor in industrial life. IMMIGRANT TYPES IN THE STEEL DISTRICT PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEWIS W. HINE [Illustration: GOING HOME FROM WORK.] [Illustration: CROATIAN.] [Illustration: LITHUANIAN.] [Illustration: _Photograph by Lewis W. Hine._ ITALIAN.] [Illustration: RUSSIAN.] [Illustration: SERVIAN.] [Illustration: SLOVAK.] [Illustration: A YOUNG SLAV.] THE SLAV'S A MAN FOR A' THAT ALOIS B. KOUKOL SECRETARY SLAVONIC IMMIGRANT SOCIETY Above one of the busiest corners in Pittsburgh, an immense advertisement in Croatian solicits patronage for an American bank. In the railroad stations and on the principal thoroughfares you can see groups of people who bear unmistakably the Slavic physiognomy. But the Slav is reserved; even the Southern Slav lacks the unrestrained animation so characteristic of the Italian. He is slow in making an impress on the imagination of the community. Though the Slavs are one of the three largest racial elements that immigration is adding to our population, though in the Pittsburgh district they constitute over one-half of the workers in the steel mills, yet in spite of their large numbers and their importance as an industrial and business factor, there is, I believe, little actual understanding and appreciation of them on the part of Americans. The bosses know them chiefly as sturdy, patient, and submissive workmen; their American fellow-workmen hate and despise them largely because of this patience and submissiveness to the bosses and their willingness at the outset to work at any wages and under any conditions; the public at large knows the Slavs by their most obtrusive and objectionable traits,--especially by the newspaper stories of their rows and fights when they get drunk on payday or when celebrating a wedding or a christening. Few people realize that the "Hunkie" in spite of his proclaimed "stolidity" is capable of all the finer emotions,--that his aspirations are the same in character, though as yet not so ambitious nor so definitely formulated as those of his neighbor Americans. It is my design in this article to present the immigrant Slavs as they have not yet been generally seen,--as human beings even if crude, with some virtues along with their widely recognized vices,--to present something of their spirit, their character, their attitude toward America, and the effect on them of the conditions under which as in Pittsburgh and the neighboring mill towns they live and work. For this design I feel I have at least the qualification of knowledge; in preparation for this immediate task I visited some two hundred families; moreover, I am a Slav by birth, and all my life I have lived and worked among the Slavic people. [Illustration] The natural question rising in one's mind is, Why did these great hordes come to America and to Pittsburgh? Let me answer in terms of men. The main cause is of course economic. On the one side there is the old world surplus of labor accompanied by low wages, the barrenness of the land which every year becomes more insufficient to support growing populations, and economic disasters affecting sometimes individuals and sometimes whole communities; on the other side, the stories of the wealth of some bolder pioneers and of the great opportunities in this country, confirmed and exaggerated by the crafty agents of transportation companies. An illustration of this economic impetus is the simple story of Grigory Leshkoff. Grigory comes from a Russian peasant family in which there were seven sons and twenty poor acres of land. "What were we to do at home?" Grigory demanded of me with a shrug. "Just look at one another,--hey?" One by one these sons left the crowded farm and sought work in the few mines and factories located near them. Grigory's younger brother was the first from the village to seek America, coming here in 1902. But soon others followed him, "and now," said Grigory, "there are in Homestead at least fifty young men from our village." Grigory, by the way, is a veteran of the Japanese war, having come to America immediately after its close. But he has little to say about this one of the great conflicts of modern times; in fact, he looks upon his experience upon battle fields as quite commonplace compared with his experience in the steel mills. From the first he emerged without a scratch; in the second he lost a leg. When I saw him he was deeply concerned with what a strong man of twenty-seven with only one leg was going to do with his future,--and the simple peasant was not seeing much hope ahead. Grigory came from Chernigov. From this government, and from Minsk and Grodno, where the soil is exhausted and where the shares of the villagers in the communes grow less with each redistribution of the land, the Russians are setting out in increasing numbers. Not altogether dissimilar causes operate in certain districts of Austria-Hungary. Pribich used to be one of the richest wine growing regions in Croatia, but some fifteen years ago the vines were devastated by a blight, necessitating replanting with American stock. In this way hundreds of once prosperous farmers were reduced to poverty. Many of them came to the United States in the hope of earning enough money to pay for the necessary replanting of their vineyards. Lazo Milutich, who gave me this information, was himself one of those affected by the calamity. He came to Allegheny about twelve years ago, where he tried different jobs, and after two years wandering landed at Wilmerding. Here he has worked for the last ten years in the same foundry. Other causes than economic pressure have of course played their part in this great migration. Political oppression is one. I have met a number of political refugees among the older Slavs, many now persons of importance. And another is the blandishment and trickery of the steamship agent. John Godus, a Slovak living in Braddock, is one of a group of twelve young men brought here in 1901, by the last influence. To their village came a man dressed as a common workingman. We can imagine him in high boots, wearing an embroidered shirt, and smoking a long-stemmed pipe. He was a steamship agent, thus disguised to escape the attention of the gendarmerie. He quietly found out what young men were at the age when one has to present himself for conscription in the army,--for such youths he had discovered, were the easiest induced to be customers; secretly argued with them that it would be foolishness to give three of their best years to the army, where they would be slapped, kicked and cursed; and in the end sold them all tickets. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. LAD FROM HERZEGOVINA.] It is perhaps but natural that Pittsburghers should believe that the fame of their industries should draw these Slavs straight from their villages to Pittsburgh. Yet this is rarely true,--true only in exceptional cases, such as that of Joseph Sabata, a Bohemian. He was an iron-worker at home and was employed in a large rolling mill in Moravia. Their machinery was imported mostly from the United States and he, noticing the name of an Allegheny firm on some of the pieces, thought that in that city he could learn more about his business; and so five years ago decided to come over. After being landed at Ellis Island, he discovered while in line waiting to be questioned, that everybody was asked to show an address. Such an address he did not have, but he does have quick wits; he hastily scribbled on a piece of paper "Allegheny," and the name of a cousin still in the old country who had probably never even heard the name of that city. He was readily admitted, went straight to Allegheny, and when I saw him was earning $2.75 a day in a machine shop. In another case I met with, the coming straight to Pittsburgh was quite accidental. Václav Málek, a Bohemian, who came here with his parents eighteen years ago when a lad of sixteen, had intended to settle with the rest of the family on a farm in Wisconsin. But on the way across the ocean they became acquainted with another Bohemian family, bound for Pittsburgh, who had been robbed of their money, and to these people Málek's father loaned eighty dollars. In order not to lose the money they decided to keep near their debtors and they too came to Pittsburgh. John even to this day is sorry they didn't go on a farm,--and for a double reason: first, he has a natural preference for farm labor which is never to be gratified; second, in the course of his work for an Allegheny company, an accident crippled him for life. In the vast majority of cases the Slavs in Pittsburgh had not the slightest intention of settling there when they first came to America. Usually their location there has been preceded by a period of a year or two or even longer during which they have wandered hither and thither, from one factory to another, from town to town, looking for the right place to settle. Large numbers of the Slovaks come to Pittsburgh by way of the anthracite fields. At the time of the strike,--and for several years before when conditions were bad in hard coal mining, half-time, and the like of that, the Slavic mineworkers drifted west,--across the state to the steel mill district. The experience of a Ruthenian named Koval is typical of a great number of men. He came to America three years ago, and was sent by an immigrant home in New York to work in the forests of West Virginia as a woodcutter. The wages there were only fifty cents a day, and in other ways the conditions were so bad that he and three other men ran away. They wandered through the woods until they came to a little settlement with a saw mill, where they were offered work and stayed for about two months, earning $1.50 a day. Then a surveyor came to the village, who spoke Polish, and told them that in Allegheny they could earn a good deal more money than in the woods, so to Allegheny they decided to go. There they obtained work as laborers in the locomotive works at $1.50 for a day of ten hours. Such a wanderer also, was Smulkstis, a Lithuanian who started life as a messenger boy in the telegraph service in St. Petersburg. He came to a friend in Wilmerding four years ago, but, unable to get the kind of work he wanted, he sought out another friend in Worcester, Mass., where he got a job in a woolen mill. The next spring found him back in Pittsburgh as a machine operator in an electrical plant. To-day,--he is still only twenty-two,--he is a crane man in the Homestead steel mills. Similarly, a Croatian who was spending the winter in Duquesne, was a type of the migratory railroad laborer, who drifts from one contractor's gang to another. He had been all over Indiana, Ohio and the Middle West and had taken his wife and children with him. They made shift in cars and shanties and construction camps of all sorts. One fact that was continually striking me in Pittsburgh was the number of ordinary men, earning low wages, who seem to be fitting themselves permanently to their new environment. John Gerza, an engine cleaner in the Fort Wayne yards, and his family impressed me as having, in their five years in this country, adapted themselves very readily to the atmosphere and to the life of Pittsburgh. There are no regrets nor looking backward, nothing to draw him away from the present life. The explanation for this adaptation is the explanation in so many other cases that it is worth setting down. Gerza lived in a Moravian village where till sixteen years ago there had been no impulse to move away from the soil. The villagers were rooted to their ancient homes; they thought only of the land, and they tilled it in the same old, primitive manner of their forefathers. Then a railroad was built through the country, and factories sprang up. These drew agricultural laborers from the villages, and thereby unsettled the population; unsettled the old conditions of life, and practically destroyed that love for, that almost physical kinship with, the soil and the old home which I found so strong among the Slavs in general. Gerza's wife used to work in a sugar factory at home; he himself used to be a brakeman on a freight train. With them it was not the severe and wrenching change from farm to factory, with the involved breaking away from loved surroundings; it was the comparatively simple change from one industrial pursuit to a comparatively similar industrial pursuit. Palinski, a Russian Pole of forty-five who has been in America eighteen years, is another example of that really considerable class of ordinary, low-paid workmen who have made a small success,--if owning a home and having a happy family and being content is termed success. The highest pay Palinski has ever received was $1.65 a day, and yet, though he has five children, he managed five years ago to buy in conjunction with his brother the house in which they live. They paid $1,600 for the property, and now Jones and Laughlin want to buy it and Palinski expects to sell for at least $3,000. The oldest child, a girl of fifteen, is kept in public school, and the three other children of school age are sent to the parochial school where tuition must be paid. The house is strikingly clean and well arranged. Palinski seems to be well satisfied with himself, his family and his work. It was a marvel to me how a man with Palinski's wages could own such a pleasant home, raise so large a family of children, educate them, and keep them well-dressed and healthy. The explanation lies in a great measure outside Palinski. He is a good man, but, as in so many of the cases where the Slavs have wrought pleasant homes out of little wages, the credit is largely due to the wife. Mrs. Palinski must have been a wonderful manager; even to the casual eye, she was neat, bright and energetic. In estimating the worth to America of this pair, one must not consider alone the hardworking husband and the able wife; one must consider their contribution of healthy, educated children. These men are fixtures; in a generation or two their children and children's children are likely to be an indistinguishable part of that conglomerate product, the American citizen. In contrast to these men are the great numbers who are not content, who are not fixtures,--whose great dream it is some day to get back to their native village, live out their years there and, what is no small consideration with many, be laid at rest in friendly soil. Why these men, even though successful here, have this yearning and take this action, presents a rather tough question to most persons. That question, I think, I can best answer by reciting the case of Mike Hudak. Hudak is a Slovak who came to this country seventeen years ago when a youth of nineteen. He is a fine type of a man in every way; physically he could almost be classed as a giant, for he stands six feet two, is deep of chest and broad of shoulders. He works in the Pennsylvania repair shops at Oliver, earning eighty dollars a month, which is good pay for a Slav when one considers that the work is regular and not dangerous. He seems to be quite a figure in his neighborhood, for when I walked home with him one day he was addressed from all sides in tones that showed liking and respect. He dresses neatly and has a fluent command of English. If there is any type of immigrant that we need above all others it struck me that Mike Hudak is that type. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. OLD WORLDS IN NEW.] I first discovered his yearning by asking him why he was not a citizen. "Why should I forswear myself," said he. I did not understand and asked for an explanation. "As I am going back to my old country, it would not be right to give up my allegiance there and make myself a citizen here." I pressed him for his reasons for going back, and he gave them to me,--reasons that fit thousands and thousands of cases. With him that preliminary process of being separated from the soil had not taken place, as with John Gerza. He was a farmer by age-old instinct; his love for the land was a part of his being, was a yearning which would leave him only with death. Now, since over here he had been plunged straight into industry, the only land he had ever known in a way to become attached to it was the land in which he was born, and when the time came when he was able to gratify his longing for land his thoughts went only to the land in his old country. So, though socially as well off as he would be there, and economically much better off, he was going back. Undoubtedly he, too, would be a fixture in America could he have gone on a farm immediately upon his arrival here,--for then his instinctive land-love would have been weaned from the old country and fixed upon America. Few Slavs who settle upon the land ever change back to Europe. The Slavs are strong, willing workers, and are generally considered by the steel mill officials the best laborers they get,--but now and then there is a man who is too slow for America. One of these was John Kroupa, a Bohemian who has been here twenty-two years. Faithful, strong, willing, it wasn't in him to keep up the race. He was in his earlier years here employed in a steel mill, but he was dropped. As he frankly said to me, "You have to be pretty quick in those mills, and it isn't a job for a man like me." Later he got a job as watchman on a Pennsylvania Railroad crossing in Woods Run, and there he worked for sixteen years, his wages forty dollars a month for a twelve hour day and a seven day week. (In the last two years, forty-four dollars.) All this while he hoped for promotion, but it did not come and this non-recognition rankled within him. "Other men, who were all sore from sitting down so much, were promoted," exclaimed he, "but I, who was always hustling, was never thought of, and I can tell you it wasn't an easy job to watch that no accident happened, as more than 300 trains passed that way every day and very often at full speed, disregarding the city ordinances,--thirty or forty miles an hour." Three years ago the crossing was abolished, the tracks having been elevated. The superintendent came to him at that time. "Well, John, I am sorry for you; going to lose your happy home. But you'll get another just as good." This was too much for John; his long smoldering disappointment burst out. "Go to hell!" said he, "A happy home! I could just as well have been in the penitentiary over there; I would have been much better off, without the responsibility and worry I have here. During sixteen years I didn't have a single day off. Sundays and weekdays both I have to be here for twelve hours. Do you call that a happy home?" He refused the new-old job. He now keeps a little store in Woods Run, which he has established out of his savings and with the help of his children,--a store which might have served Dickens for one of his grotesque backgrounds, for here are on sale hardware, candy, crackers, bacon, eggs, molasses. Kroupa cannot be classed as a failure, for he has managed to buy a home and raise and educate a good sized family, but he has not made the success that his qualities of constancy, honesty and sobriety should have won him. His inborn slowness was too great a handicap. Among the Slavs the Slovaks strike me as the most ambitious and pushing. This is all the more surprising when one remembers that the conditions out of which they come are as bad as the conditions surrounding any of the Slavs, and worse than most. The Slovaks when they come here, are poor, illiterate, have no training, are inured to oppression; yet they have pluck, perseverance, enterprise and courage. From their ranks are recruited many of the foremen in the mills and an ever increasing number of merchants. In the Woods Run district, with which I happen to be best acquainted,--a low-lying mill neighborhood along the Ohio in Allegheny City, probably one-half of the stores and saloons are in the hands of Slovaks, or their close neighbors, the Hungarian Rusnaks. They were all common laborers at one time. Most of the stores are well kept and, in general, prosperous-looking, and among their customers are not only Slavs, but Americans as well. A type of this class of men, the men who succeed, is John Mlinek. When I first saw him I had not the least thought that he was a Slav, so well-dressed and thoroughly Americanized did he seem, and such good English did he speak. He came to America thirteen years ago when only fifteen years old. He worked successively as a breaker-boy and driver in the mines at Mahanoy City, then in the iron-works at Elizabeth, New Jersey, then as a riveter in the Pressed Steel Car Company at Allegheny, where he was soon making three to four dollars a day. As he neither drank nor indulged in any other form of dissipation he saved considerable money. In 1905, he married a Slovak girl born and brought up in this country who for several years before her marriage, had clerked in a store where they had foreign customers. She is a little more refined than the average English-speaking girl of the working class, and holds a high position in her own circle. She is quite ambitious and induced her husband to start a store in Woods Run. He sells cigars and candy and is doing very well; from what I could gather, they already must have several thousand dollars saved. These young people seem to be much liked in the community; they are prominent both in their social circle and in their church, and Mlinek is an influential man among the Slovak societies, though he does not at all push himself to the front. Mlinek, I would say, is at the beginning of a considerable success; his prospects and his personality favor his achieving it; only some untoward set of circumstances can keep him down. A few paragraphs back, in the case of Hudak, I spoke of the powerful call their native bit of earth makes upon so many of the immigrants. But frequently when men go back, intending to stay, in response to this call, the old country is not strong enough to hold them. Such was the case with this same John Mlinek. It was his ambition to be a well-to-do farmer in Hungary in a few years, and recently he and his wife made a preliminary visit to his old home and bought a farm. They remained a few weeks,--but those few weeks were quite enough. He came back quite cured. "Every little clerk in the village looked down on me, because I didn't speak the official language, Magyar," Mlinek said to me. "He was an official while I was just a peasant. He didn't earn a quarter of what I do, yet I had to bow to him. That made me sore. In America I'm a free man. Besides, I've got a better chance to do well than in the old country. Yes, America is good enough for me." Mike Mamaj is another successful man; he also returned to Hungary, expecting to live there, and he also turned his back on his native country and came again to America, this time to stay. He has learned to speak, read and write English, and he is full of energy, though rather rude and domineering in his manner. During the early part of his career in America (he came here twenty years ago) he had a hard time, but for the last seven years he has been a foreman in the car shops at Woods Run. He has seventy men working under him, and part of the time he has earned $100 a month. He owns the house in which he lives, worth about $2,500, has property in the old country to the value of $1,500, and has money in the bank. Mamaj is proud of his success, of his home, of his children. So proud that, on the occasion of our first meeting, though the bed-time hour of nine had come, he dragged me off to show me the evidence of what he had done in America. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. IMMIGRANT OUT OF WORK.] First I had to inspect his home, which was neat and well-furnished. Then he ordered his children (three daughters, eight, ten and thirteen) who were going to bed, to dress and recite their lessons for the stranger. While the girls rather sleepily displayed some of their English learning, Mamaj stood by, hands in his pockets, and nodded proudly. A quality that I have noted again and again among the Slavs is their readiness to help their countrymen,--already instanced by the case of Málek's father loaning money to a robbed fellow immigrant. Sometimes this generosity shows itself amid the most adverse circumstances, as it did with Koval. Koval (the same man that I mentioned as having wandered about before settling in Pittsburgh) has himself had enough misfortune during his three years in America to drive all unselfish feeling for others out of a man's heart. Two years ago he sent for his family and his younger brother. Immediately upon their arrival his three children and his brother fell sick with typhoid fever. They were no sooner well than Koval himself went down with the fever. This illness, since it drained their resources, forced them to fill their home with boarders,--which was a hardship on the slight wife, all the more keenly felt because keeping boarders had been no part of their original plan. Then all three of the children were taken ill with the croup. The usual price for a doctor's call is one dollar, but the doctor charged three dollars each visit inasmuch as he had three patients; Koval protested, but had to pay. Two of the children died, and Koval, by this time financially exhausted, had to go in debt to the undertaker for the funerals. And then amid these last disasters came the financial crash, with its misery of unemployment. Certainly enough to sour the milk of human kindness in any man. But the penniless Koval did not drive out his penniless boarders, now only a burden. Instead, he gave them a sleeping place, divided with them the food he could get on credit from the grocery, for since he was a steady man and a householder Koval still had some credit; and for the rest of the food, he and his boarders would go and stand in the bread line, which had been established in Woods Run. Not only did Koval not throw out the penniless boarders, who already encumbered him, but he took in seven additional people who were in distress. Two of these latter were young men from his native village who had landed in Pittsburgh in the midst of the depression; two were Russians who had been found wandering through the streets, nearly frozen, by a policeman, who brought them to Koval; the others were a countryman, his wife and child of six, and to accommodate these Koval had to give up his own bed. During the period of my acquaintance with him Koval was supporting twelve boarders, only one of whom was paying him a cent. What he was doing seemed quite the natural thing to Koval; he hardly seemed conscious of his generosity. "Why do you keep all these people?" I asked him. "Why, what else could I do?" he returned. "They have no work and no other place to go. I cannot throw a man into the street. They will go themselves when they can." Frequently circumstances throw the burden of the home upon the child. In looking into an accident case I called at a home in Saw Mill alley,--a cheerless, dingy neighborhood that is flooded every year by the high water. I was received in the kitchen by a slight Polish girl of fifteen, and soon discovered that she was the real head of the home. Annie had just finished the wash, and at such a time even the best of houses are apt to be in disorder, but here everything was neat and clean. She told me her story willingly enough. Her father, who had been a laborer in one of the mills, had been killed by an engine while working in the yard at night. Her mother had remarried, and soon had herself been killed by the explosion of a kerosene lamp. Annie was now keeping house for a brother and her stepfather. As the seventeen-year-old brother was rather shy, and as the stepfather was a night-watchman, naturally a man of no authority and allowed by his work little opportunity to exercise it even had he possessed it, the main control of the household has passed into Annie's hands. That authority she was using well, as was shown not only by the tidiness of the house, but by the fact that it is chiefly through her influence that her brother is attending night school. She has energy, determination and character. She reads and writes both English and Polish. She said she liked to read books, history especially, but that she hadn't the time. Annie's stepfather is soon to marry a widow, but this further complication of her already complicated family relations does not seem to trouble her in the least. In fact she was quite enthusiastic over her future stepmother. "She came to see me the other day," she said, "and she was awful nice. Oh, she's fine all right, and she's rich!" "Rich? How rich?" I asked. "Oh, she's got a lot o' money! It's a benefit she got from a society when her first man died. She's got $1,200!" One deplorable trait I frequently met with among the Slavs was contempt for American law. The existence of this trait is largely due to the teaching of experience,--and experience of one particular sort. The story of Vilchinsky, a Ruthenian boarding-boss, is such a common one, it illustrates so well a wide-spread condition in the administration of law by the petty aldermen's courts of the Pennsylvania industrial districts, that it is worth repeating for the sake of its general significance. October 14, 1907, one of the boarders was celebrating his patron saint's day. This meant a lot of drinking by all, and during the festivities they got more or less under the influence of liquor, but they were in their own home, there was no public disturbance, and toward midnight they all went to bed. About two o'clock in the morning, however, when they were all asleep, policemen came to the house, wakened everybody and loaded them into patrol wagons and buggies and took them to a police station. The boarding-boss, four girls and three men were all taken before the magistrate, charged with disorderly conduct. Without any regular hearing,--none of them could speak English and there was no interpreter,--the squire asked for twenty dollars apiece for the boarders and fifty dollars for the boarding-boss. All but two girls paid the fine immediately, and these two were then sentenced to the county jail. During the following day, their friends succeeded in collecting enough money to pay their fines and the $1.50 extra for board in the jail. Abuses such as this are generated by the fact that aldermen and constables obtain fees out of the fines, which makes it to the financial interest of these officials to get as many cases into court as possible. Many men I have talked with have stated that the constables often provoke disorder when none exists for the sake of the profit in the arrests. The Slavs know that they are victimized, and at the same time they realize their helplessness; the natural result is a bitter contempt for law. "Huh!" sneered Vilchinsky, "the police are busy enough all right stopping disorder when the men have got money. But when there's hard times, like there is now, a man can make all the noise he pleases and the police won't arrest him. They know he hasn't money to pay a heavy fine and costs. It ain't law they think about. It's money." There are plenty of Slavs who are quarrelsome, just as there are among other races; and when you have a combination of Slavic ill-temper and the above-mentioned judicial practice, then there is basis for trouble indeed. Zavatsky and Yeremin, Russians, and neighbors in a steel town, drank more than was good for them one Saturday afternoon in a saloon, and at last Zavatsky spoke his mind about Yeremin's wife, whom he did not consider as good-looking as she should be, and indulged in drunken threats against her if she did not stop throwing ashes on his side of the yard. Yeremin repeated to his wife these threats and remarks and Mrs. Yeremin, being a choleric woman, went to the squire in spite of the fact that it was very late in the evening. But as it was payday, he was in his office ready for business. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. RUSSIAN.] A constable was sent to Zavatsky's house to arrest him. The constable went into the kitchen and, finding nobody there or in the next room, went upstairs. Here there were a number of boarders talking, but they were not drunk. The constable, seeing these men, thought it would be wisest to have assistance, so he brought two policemen and then went for Zavatsky. They broke open the door of the room where Zavatsky was sleeping, dragged him out of bed and told him to get up. He was in a drunken stupor and claims that he did not resist the constable, in fact, scarcely knew what was going on; but the constable felled him with so heavy a blow that it made a scalp wound and the blood rushed out and blinded him. While on the floor, Zavatsky remembered a revolver under his pillow, and raised his hand and got it. The constable wrested it from him and according to Mrs. Zavatsky's version, he exclaimed, "I'll give you a revolver, you son of a gun," and shot Zavatsky in the chest. Mrs. Zavatsky, catching up a hammer, rushed at the constable, but he knocked her unconscious by a blow on the head and she fell down in a swoon. Before that, she had screamed to the men, "Come down, boys, come down, they're killing the gazda!" One of the first to come to Zavatsky's assistance was his kum, (the kum is one who is godfather to one's children, or one to whose children one is godfather; a very close relationship,--generally the dearest friend). As the kum tried to rush into the room, the two officers gave him several violent blows on the head. The other men rushed down, but they were all seized by the officers, with the exception of one whose flight was suddenly stopped by a shot in the leg. As a result of the melee, the whole household of ten men and one woman was taken in patrol wagons to the squire's court and committed to jail, charged with disorderly conduct, felonious assault and interference with an officer in performance of his duty. Zavatsky and the boarder who was shot in the leg were sent to the hospital for treatment. At first it looked as if Zavatsky were not going to live. After a hearing four days later they were all committed to the grand jury, and my reports say that they were all sentenced to jail for varying periods. None of the policemen or the constable had even a scratch to show, although they charged these ten men with felonious assault. The house, when I saw it just following the affair, looked like the day after a battle. Not even so brief a sketch as this would be complete without an instance or two of the men who have been handicapped by industrial accident. Such men are met everywhere in Pittsburgh,--they are so common as to excite no comment. In proportion to their numbers, the Slavs are the greatest sufferers from accident in the Pittsburgh region, for to their lot falls the heaviest and most dangerous work. The report for 1905-1906 of the National Croatian Society, to give a general example of what industrial accident means to the Slav, shows that out of its membership which averaged about 17,000 for that period ninety-five men were killed by accident [almost a third of the deaths from all causes] and that ninety-seven died from consumption, the inception of which is often traceable to the character of their work. In addition, eighty-five other men were permanently disabled. Andrew Jurik's job was to run a "skull-cracker" in the Homestead mill. This is a contrivance to break up scrap so that it can be easier melted, and its main feature is a heavy steel ball which is hoisted into the air and then allowed to drop upon the scrap which has been heaped beneath it. This crash of the ball throws pieces of the scrap in all directions. The work is very dangerous, especially at night when it is hard to see and dodge the flying scrap. One Monday night [the day before he had worked on a twenty-four hour shift] Jurik failed to see and dodge. A chunk of scrap weighing four or five hundred pounds struck his leg and so crushed it that it had to be amputated. Almost a year after the accident I went to visit Jurik, and found a mild-faced, kindly-looking, not very intelligent man of forty, sitting in his landlady's kitchen rocking his landlady's baby. That was Jurik's job now, to take care of his landlady's children in part payment for his board; and that was all he was good for yet, for he had only a leg and a stump. He had been paid $150 by the Carnegie Relief Fund; of this he had sent fifty dollars to his wife in Hungary and had used the balance to pay his board. The company had promised him an artificial leg and light work as soon as he was able to get around, but as his stump was not yet entirely healed, as he had not a cent, as his wife was writing him letters begging for money for the children, Jurik seemed worried. Jurik looks at the future blankly, helplessly. He had at first planned to bring his family here, but now he can never get the money for that. Nor can he go back to them. He would be more useless, more helpless, on a farm than here. The only solution Jurik can see to the lifelong problem suddenly thrust upon him by that flying piece of scrap, is for him and his family to remain indefinitely apart: he working at whatever poor job and at whatever low wage he can get, and sending a little to Hungary to help out,--his wife to continue working as a laborer on a farm at twelve or fifteen cents a day. Often the handicapped man's problem is thrust directly upon the wife for solution, as it has been upon the wife of John Hyrka. Hyrka is a Ruthenian of thirty; his wife is twenty-eight. He was making fair wages in the Duquesne mills; they were both healthy and strong, and they had high hopes for the future as is natural with the young. But May 26, 1907, John, who was working on a platform directly over a limestone mill, stepped on a rotten plank and both his legs shot down into the mill. Before he could be extricated the flesh had been torn from the soles of both his feet. Since then (or at least up to the time of my last report) Hyrka had been in the McKeesport hospital, where attempts were made to graft flesh upon his soles. When I last heard about him his feet were still not healed, and it was practically certain that the grafting would be a failure and that he would be a cripple for life. When this tragedy descended upon Mrs. Hyrka she was within a month of confinement. Into this grim situation entered the baby, adding its cares. Until months after the accident she was in no condition to work, and when she did regain her strength the demands of the infant would not permit her to take up regular employment. For six months she lived upon thirty dollars a month the company paid her, then the company cut off this allowance, and after she had felt the pinch of want for a time, she demanded a final settlement. They offered her $600, she to pay all further hospital bills, which up to then had been paid by the company. She talked the matter over with John, and between them they decided that to have the flesh scraped from your feet and to be a lifelong cripple ought to be worth as much as $1,000. But this seemed an exorbitant estimate to the company, and as Mrs. Hyrka held firm to her own figures, the matter was still unsettled when I left Pittsburgh. She was then living on what she could borrow; the high hopes of twenty-eight were all blasted; she knew she had a cripple on her hands for all his life, thirty or forty years perhaps, and she was wondering, desperately wondering, how she was going to be able to support him. * * * * * In citing these various types I have not tried to make out the Slavs as better than they are. I have, to repeat my opening statement, merely tried to show that these generally unknown people are above all human beings,--that they have not alone vices and undesirable qualities, but virtues,--that though crude, they have their possibilities. [Illustration: _Drawn by Joseph Stella._ PITTSBURGH TYPES. THE STRENGTH OF THE NEW STOCK.] THE NEGROES OF PITTSBURGH HELEN A. TUCKER FORMER MEMBER TEACHING STAFF OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE To-day it is the young north-bound Negro with whom we reckon in Pittsburgh. Seldom is a white-headed Negro seen on the street; but rather the man on the sand cart hard at work. That with every year there is an increasing migration from the South to our northern cities is known in a general way; but if our estimate of these newcomers is to be worth anything, it should be based upon something more than impressions gained from those we notice on the street-cars (the best are too well-behaved to be conspicuous), from loafers at saloon doors, and from newspaper accounts of Negro crime. Here, too often, the knowledge of white people ends. Of the industrious, ambitious Negroes, they know little; and of the home life of those who are refined, nothing at all. As a man who officially comes into daily contact with the criminal Negro said to me, "All must bear the reproach for the doings of this police-court ten per cent." Anyone who is sufficiently interested to desire more accurate information as to Pittsburgh's Negroes than may be gained by a walk down Wylie avenue will readily find signs enough of the differentiation that is rapidly taking place among the members of this race. While with the increasing influx a class of idle, shiftless Negroes is coming, who create problems and increase prejudice, a far larger number are taking advantage of the abundance of work and of the good wages, and are rapidly bettering themselves. There is here a chance, such as perhaps few northern cities give, for the industrious Negro to succeed, and he is improving his opportunity. There was a considerable Negro population in Allegheny county before the Civil War. Both Pittsburgh and Allegheny were important stations of the "underground railroad" and many a man and woman sought refuge here from the nearby slave states. In Allegheny a school was founded for them before the end of the half century. The growth of the Negro population is shown by the following chart: YEAR | NUMBER -----+------- 1850 | 3431 ==== 1860 | 2725 === 1870 | 4459 ===== 1880 | 7876 ======== 1890 | 13501 ============== 1900 | 27853 ============================ These figures show a steady increase except from 1850 to 1860, gradually reaching the point where the Negro population doubles in a decade. The marked increases from 1870 to 1880 and 1890 to 1900 are probably due to the fact that in those periods more Negroes were able to get work in the steel mills. The percentage of Negroes in the total population of the county was 2.2 per cent in 1880, 2.4 per cent in 1890, and 3.6 per cent in 1900. Three-quarters of the Negroes in the county live in Pittsburgh and Allegheny City. Since 1900, the migration of Negroes to Pittsburgh has been greater than before. It is estimated that there are not less than 50,000 in Allegheny county and at least 35,000 of these are in Pittsburgh and Allegheny. In 1900 considerably more than half of these were males, and Pittsburgh was one of three cities in the United States (the others were Chicago and Boston) with a population of 10,000 or more Negroes, to have an excess of males. In general this migration has been from the middle southern states. The greater number, fully one-half, has come from Virginia and West Virginia; others have come from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, with a few from Ohio and states further west. Some of those from Alabama and Tennessee have already been "broken in" in the new mill districts of those states. As in the migration to other northern cities most of these people, when they come north, are in their best working years,--between eighteen and forty. According to the census of 1900, over seventy per cent of the Pittsburgh Negroes were between fifteen and fifty-four years of age; less than five per cent were over fifty years, while but fourteen per cent, about 2,400, were children of school age, between five and fourteen. Many of the children remain in the South, and many of the old people go back there, so that the city of Pittsburgh is under little expense for educating the children and less for caring for the aged. * * * * * The principal Negro street is Wylie avenue. This leads up to the "Hill District" which, forty years ago, was a well-conditioned section. Now it is given over largely to Negroes and European immigrants. Forty-eight per cent of the Negroes in Pittsburgh live in wards seven, eight, eleven and thirteen. In 1900, sixteen per cent were in the thirteenth ward, and the number has increased since then. They constituted fourteen per cent of the total population of the ward in that year. How fast this movement into the thirteenth ward is taking place is indicated by what a colored woman told me who keeps a grocery store on Wylie avenue near Francis street. When she opened there three years ago, there was scarcely a colored family in the district. Now there is another grocery store, a shoe store and two confectionery stores, kept by colored people. Horton street near by is filled with colored people who have recently come from the South. There is a tendency on the part of the Negroes, however, to get out from the center of the city, and fully a quarter of them lives further out in wards nineteen, twenty and twenty-one. In all, sixty-two per cent of the Negroes lived in 1900 in six wards. In these wards there is a large foreign element. In the seventh, eighth and eleventh wards there are many Russian Jews. A Negro church in the eighth ward was sold last fall for a Jewish synagog, and the Negro congregation is building in the thirteenth ward. In the twelfth ward where many of the Negroes live who work in the mills, they have for neighbors the Poles and Slavs. The well-to-do Negroes of the city are moving out towards the East End. Two or three apartment houses have been built especially for Negroes, but in general, though living in certain localities, they are not segregated. This does not mean that there are not some Negro streets, but very often a row of from three to seven houses will be found in which Negroes are living, while the rest of the street is filled with white people. Again, a single Negro family may live between two white families. When Negroes gain a foothold in a new street in any numbers, the Americans move away; but the Jewish immigrants do not seem to object to living near them, sometimes in the same house. And this is true of more than the poorest of them. In a way the Jews have been a help to the Negroes, for they will rent houses to them in localities where they could not otherwise go. In many cases the Jews have bought or built houses, filled them with Negro tenants at high rents, and thus paid for them. But the Negroes have learned from these experiences and many of them have started to buy homes. They have decided that they might as well buy houses for themselves as for the Jews. The poorer Negroes live in a network of alleys on either side of Wylie avenue in the seventh and eighth wards. For years the conditions here have been very bad from every point of view. There are respectable people living here, but the population consists chiefly of poor Negroes and a low class of whites. As a result, there is much immorality in this section,--speak easies, cocaine joints and disorderly houses abound. I think I never saw such wretched conditions as in three shanties on Poplar alley. Until a year ago many of the landlords had not complied with the law requiring flush closets, and I found old fashioned vaults full of filth. Where the flush closets had been put in they were in many cases out of repair. In some alleys there were stables next to the houses and while the odor was bad at any time, after a rain the stench from these and from the dirt in the streets was almost unendurable. The interiors of very many of the houses in which the Negroes live were out of repair,--paper torn off, plastering coming down, and windows broken. The tenants told me they had complained to the landlords and had tried to get something done, but without success. The twelfth ward near the mills also has some bad conditions. In Parke row and Spruce alley, on the day of my visit, the rubbish, which is removed only every two weeks, was piled high. On top of one pile was an old dirty mattress. The houses I visited in Parke row were so dark that it was necessary to use a lamp even at midday. There were also depressing conditions among the Negro homes on Rose, Charles and Soho streets. While some of the more ambitious are moving out from these unhealthy localities, many who would like to move have not the opportunity. One of these said to me, "The only place where there is plenty of room for Negroes is in the alleys." Yet even the very poorest Negro homes are usually clean inside and have a homelike air. It would surprise one who has never visited such homes to see with what good taste they are furnished. There is always some attempt at ornamentation, oftenest expressed by a fancy lamp, which is probably never lighted. Almost every family except the very poorest has a piano. The best Negro houses,--usually not in Negro districts,--are what people of the same means have everywhere. I was fortunate enough to visit at least a dozen of these comfortable, well-furnished, attractive homes and in them I met courteous, gracious and refined women. Only in Spruce alley and Parke row did I find disorder and a general indifference to dirt and there were some exceptions even there. The hopelessness of keeping clean in such a location may have had something to do with these conditions. Compared with certain of the foreigners, the Negroes do not overcrowd their houses, but they do often shelter too many people for comfort or decency. I visited a house of three rooms where a man and wife, five children and a boarder were living. In another house, also of three rooms, there were a man and his wife, her mother, two children and a lodger. These I think are not unusual cases. I also found a family of ten in four rooms, and another family of seven and a boarder in three rooms. Where a house of four rooms is taken by two families, they do not often take lodgers, but if one family takes such a house it usually cannot meet the expense alone. What is more serious than the number of people in a house, is the carelessness in allowing young girls to sleep in the same room with men lodgers. Such a case was that reported by a probation officer of the Juvenile Court, of a girl of fifteen who slept in the same room with her father, two brothers and a lodger. It was "nothing," she told the court; the man was "an old friend of the family." The suggestion that she occupy the vacant room in the house plainly surprised her. * * * * * The low ebb of living conditions in a Negro neighborhood is illustrated by Jack's Run, a narrow, deep ravine leading down to the Ohio river between Bellevue and Allegheny. Here, during the past six or seven years, about one hundred and seventy-five colored people from the rural districts of North Carolina and Virginia have found lodgement. Engaged chiefly in domestic service and common labor, they have settled here because the rents are cheap. Mixed in with them is a class of low whites, and the standards of civilization are sucked down by immorality and neglect, for the run is practically isolated from the rest of the world. A mission Sunday school connected with the white Presbyterian church in Bellevue has been held there for about five years. The superintendent of this mission, who is a colored man, has endeavored to reach the children of the run. As he feels the Sunday school alone cannot do this, he is working to get a day school there. To be sure, the children are enrolled in Bellevue or Allegheny, but he says they really do not attend. A long climb up the hills shuts them off, and the white children pester them when they show themselves. It is hard to know what could be done to better the conditions in a place like Jack's Run, but up to the present time, with the exception of this one man, few people have tried to find out. The run has few visitors, and these are not altruists. "I have seen a politician here," the superintendent told me, "and an insurance collector; but never a preacher." One of the most encouraging signs of the economic progress of the Pittsburgh Negroes is found in the variety of occupations in which they are engaged. In 1900, 146 were engaged in professions: actors, artists, clergymen, dentists, engineers, lawyers, physicians and others. Domestic and personal service, house servants, barbers, janitors, hotel and restaurant keepers, soldiers, policemen, etc., employed 6,618; while in trade, and transportation, clerks, teamsters, merchants, railway employes, telephone operators, etc., there were 1,612. Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits employed 1,365. There was a total of 10,456 Negro wage earners: 8,382 males and 2,074 females. The proportion of those engaged in professional pursuits is small,--only a little over one per cent; and, with one exception, the number does not seem to be increasing. In Pittsburgh and the vicinity there are now eighteen Negro physicians, about three times as many as in 1900. Six were graduated from Harvard University, five from the Western University of Pennsylvania, two from Shaw, and one each from Ohio State, Medico-Chirurgical, and Western Reserve. Four of these men took also the degree of A. B. Ten have practiced five years or less. Among the five practicing lawyers is one graduate of the Harvard Law School, one from New York University Law School and one from Harvard University Law School. Two of these lawyers were admitted to the bar in 1891. They were the first Negroes to be admitted in Western Pennsylvania, as all who had applied up to that time had been turned down. There are four Negro dentists. Most of the men in these three professions have some practice among white people. A young physician who has been in Allegheny about three years, and who at first had such difficulty in renting an office in a suitable location that he almost gave up in despair, has now a number of white patients. One of the first was a German girl to whom he was called at the time of an accident because he happened to live near by, and through her family he has been recommended to other white people. Newspapers conducted by Negroes have not flourished in Pittsburgh but last year there were two,--the _Pioneer_, a small sheet run in the interests of the Baptists, and the _Progressive Afro-American_, a weekly. Twenty per cent of the men follow manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. Because of the abundance of work good Negro mechanics have no difficulty in keeping busy, though they have made little headway in the unions. An occasional Negro is a union member, as, for instance, four or five carpenters, a few stone-masons and a few plasterers. Here, as elsewhere, they gain admission easily only to the hardest kinds of work. The Negro hod carriers indeed make up the greater part of the hod carriers union. In McKeesport there are but two white hod carriers. In Pittsburgh and the vicinity there are over a thousand colored hod carriers. The colored stationary engineers and firemen have a union of their own, the National Association of Afro-American Steam and Gas Engineers and Skilled Laborers, incorporated June, 1903. It was once a part of a white organization. It has three locals in Pittsburgh and it has been allied with other labor organizations and represented in central labor bodies, but it is yet rather weak. Three or four colored contractors hire plasterers and masons. Early in the seventies a few colored men found work in some of the mills. One of the first to employ Negroes was the Black Diamond Mill on Thirtieth street. There were a few here before 1878. In that year, through a strike, Negro puddlers were put in, and since then the force of puddlers has been made up largely of Negroes. About the same time Negroes were taken into the Moorhead Mill at Sharpsburg, and also through a strike, Negroes got into the Clark Mills on Thirty-fifth street. Since 1892, there have been Negroes in the Carnegie Mills at Homestead. It is the prevailing impression that numbers of Negro strike-breakers were imported at the time of the "big strike," but I have been told by an official of the Carnegie company, by a leading colored resident of Homestead, and by a Negro who went to work in the Homestead Mills in 1892, that this was not so. Word was given out that anyone could find work who would come, the Negroes with the rest. Negroes were brought up from the South at this time to take the place of strikers in the Clark Mills. But Negroes already worked there and some of them who went out at that time eventually went back to work. Unquestionably Negro strike-breakers have been brought to Pittsburgh, but I judge not in any large numbers. When the mills were last running full there were about one hundred and twenty Negroes at the Clark Mills; one hundred and twenty-six at Homestead, and about 100 in the other mills of the Carnegie company, making in all the Carnegie works three hundred and forty-six colored men. A conservative estimate would put those at the Black Diamond and Moorhead Mills as at least three hundred more. Many of these mill men are unskilled, but at the Clark Mills two-thirds, and at Homestead nearly half are skilled or semi-skilled. It is possible for a man of ability to work up to a good position. A small but increasing number of Negroes are on the city's payroll. On the date of my inquiry there were in the employ of the city of Pittsburgh 127 persons of Afro-American descent, or one out of every 237 of the Negro population, while a total of 635 directly profited by the $91,942 paid annually in salaries to colored persons. These city employes include laborers, messengers, janitors, policemen, detectives, firemen, letter carriers and postal clerks, and their salaries range from $550 to $1,500 a year. * * * * * The first Negroes to set up establishments of their own, dating back twenty years and more, were the barbers and hairdressers. Formerly these had much of the white patronage, but they are gradually losing it. With a few exceptions, notably the Negro barber in the Union Station, their shops are now found on Wylie avenue and in other Negro localities, and are patronized by Negroes. A partial list of Negro business enterprises,[10] with the number employed is as follows: _No. of Persons_ _Firms Employed_ Barbers 20 78 Restaurants and hotels 12 66 Groceries, poultry, etc. 8 9 Tailors 7 19 Pool rooms 6 6 Hauling and excavating 5 170 Saloons and cafés 3 15 Printers 3 19 Pharmacies 4 8 Undertakers and livery 3 14 Confectioners and bakeries 3 2 Caterers 3 6 to 30 Miscellaneous 8 105 -- -------- 85 514-547 [10] Furnished by R. R. Wright, Jr., of the Armstrong Association, Philadelphia, who investigated the Negro in Business in Pennsylvania for the Carnegie Institution. The number employed does not include the proprietors, so that over six hundred persons are earning a living from these shops. Not counting the barber shops, saloons or restaurants, there are certainly over one hundred small stores kept by Negroes and until the financial depression new ones were opening each month. Three or four drug stores were opened in 1907. One of the Negro hotels doubled its capacity in a year. The nine business enterprises listed under "miscellaneous" include an insurance company, a stationery and book store, a men's furnishing store, a photographer's gallery, a real estate company, a loan company, a shoe store and repairing shop, and a manufactory of a hair growing preparation, which has sent out sixty-five agents. The insurance company has twenty-eight agents, all of whom are colored. Several of the barbers have laundry agencies and boot-blacking stands and some have baths. There are at least a dozen men who own their horses and wagons and take contracts for hauling and excavating. One of the largest of these Negro contractors was employing 135 men. Another employs thirty men for hauling and also works 100 to 200 men on asphalt paving. There are many more men who own a horse or two and do general expressing. One of these told me that he spent his first one hundred and fifty dollars saved after coming to Pittsburgh for a horse, which left him with a capital of seventy-five cents. He now owns four horses. A Negro has had one of the stalls in the Allegheny Market for many years and there is another in the Diamond Market. One of the most successful Negro business men lives in Homestead. As a small boy he moved from Virginia to Ohio, and came to Homestead in 1879. Up to 1890 he was an engineer on the river, the only Negro to hold a chief engineer's license. Then he went into boat building and built twenty-one river steamboats. Five years ago he organized the Diamond Coke and Coal Company, in which he is now master of transportation. There are ten men in this company; the others are white. They own a mine, docks, and steamboats, and employ about a thousand men. This colored man owns considerable property. He lives in a large comfortable house and owns one on either side which he rents. His older son entered Penn Medical School last fall. His younger son was captain of the Homestead High School football team. His daughter, who graduated from the high school and had an additional three years at the California Normal School, is teaching in the South. She could not get a school in Homestead. It is noticeable that the Pittsburgh Negroes show an encouraging variety in their independent business enterprises as well as in their general occupations. Of course they have usually been able to go into only those that require small capital. The Negro who comes to Pittsburgh or any northern city with no capital, no business experience and no business traditions, and succeeds even in a small way in the midst of such competition as he must face, is doing remarkably well. But the mass of the Negroes in Pittsburgh are found in the same occupations that are open to them in most northern cities with perhaps fewer men (fifty-eight per cent) and rather more women (ninety per cent) in domestic and personal service, and more men in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits than is usual. This shifting of the men's activities is due to the nature of the industries in Pittsburgh, to the fact that the city is rapidly growing and consequently that there is much building going on in which labor can be utilized, and to the fact that Negroes gained a foothold in some of the mills during the strike periods. While the largest and best hotels no longer have colored waiters, many are still employed in hotels, restaurants and cafés. Comparatively few Negroes are employed as porters and helpers in stores while large numbers are employed as teamsters, probably more now than in 1900, as most of the sand wagons and other hauling carts are driven by them. There are also many coachmen and chauffeurs. * * * * * While the Negro men find a varied field for their labor, comparatively few occupations are open to colored women. There is one woman who has conducted a very successful hairdressing establishment for twenty years and a half dozen others have opened little shops. A dozen or so find work as clerks and stenographers in offices and stores of colored men, but most are working as maids or laundresses. There are about a hundred dressmakers and seamstresses. That there is not a greater variety of openings for colored women works a great hardship. There is no hospital where they can be trained as nurses; there is no place for them in the department stores, except for a few as maids; they can look forward to no positions in the public schools. Many who would stay and graduate from the high school drop out because they see nothing ahead. They are, of course, unwise in doing this, for more than most girls they need to take advantage of every educational opportunity. A woman who is a stenographer in a Negro insurance office, said her father thought she was very foolish to study stenography as he was sure she could never get a chance to use it. She went into this office to write policies. When the agent found she was competent to do the higher work, he let his white stenographer go and gave her the place. Another woman told me that her daughter seriously objected to going to the high school; she said she could never use what she would learn there. But her parents felt able to send her, and insisted that she graduate. She is now employed in the court house at a salary of $600 a year. * * * * * In 1900 the Negroes of Allegheny county paid taxes on property valued at $963,000. Since that time wage-earning Negroes have commenced to buy homes in still larger numbers. They usually pay something down and the rest as rent until the entire sum is paid. In Beltzhoover there is a settlement of a hundred or more families more than half of whom are buying homes. To buy a house of any kind on small wages means industry and many little sacrifices. One couple whom I visited in Beltzhoover were buying a house of five rooms with a piazza and a generous sized front yard. The husband, when he was married, had saved $300, which went for the first payment. In the four years since then they had paid $800 and they had $1,000 more to pay. He was a janitor getting forty-eight dollars a month, while his wife made six dollars a week as a seamstress. To increase their income, they rented out a room to a man and his wife who paid them ten dollars a month. They also raised and sold chickens which brought in additional money. Most of the houses which colored people of this class are buying are valued at from $2,500 to $3,300. On Francis street, near Wylie avenue, there is a group of five six-room houses occupied by Negroes. Three of these families were buying their houses. One of the men was a waiter, one a porter in a bank, and one owned a horse and wagon and did expressing. The following experience, told me by a Tuskegee graduate, is an example of what may be done in Pittsburgh by an industrious Negro who is ambitious to establish a home: "I came to Pittsburgh in March, 1900," he said, "on a freight train, arriving about three A. M. I asked for the police station, but they wouldn't let me stay there when they found I had fifty cents in my pocket. I was turned up Wylie avenue and finally came to a colored lodging house. All the beds were full, but they said that I could sit in the rocking chair for the balance of the night for a quarter. The next morning I started out to look for work and found it in a brick yard where I worked until August. Meanwhile I sent for my wife and child. My wife, who is a dressmaker, soon found work. She happened to sew for the wife of the manager of one of the steel mills. He asked about me and said he thought he could give me something good in the mill. I went there in August and have been there ever since. Now I am a heater. All you see here was gotten together in the last seven years." This man and his wife have paid $4,400 for a six-room house and have furnished it attractively. * * * * * The churches have the same prominent place in Negro life in Pittsburgh as elsewhere. They include one Presbyterian, one Protestant Episcopal, one Congregational, one Roman Catholic church, ten Methodist churches and between thirty and thirty-five Baptist churches and missions. The largest is the Bethel A. M. E. Church on Wylie avenue, which has recently been built at a cost of $50,000. Colored slaters and roofers, colored plasterers and three colored carpenters were employed in the building of it. The interior decorations were in charge of a Negro firm. The building together with the land, is valued at not less than $110,000. The people give liberally to the churches; Bethel raised over $10,000 in ten months toward paying off its mortgage. But there is a large number not reached by the church in any real sense. Though the new Bethel Church is in a district where the alleys and all the bad conditions they imply are numerous, the pastor's plans for the year as he outlined them were: first to pay the debt on the church, second to have a revival to fill it up. Not a word was said of the great need for active social work at its very doors. The rank and file of the forty or fifty Negro ministers in Pittsburgh and Allegheny have not a very high order of equipment or ethics. There are notable exceptions. I met one minister who seemed filled with the desire to work for the betterment of the Negroes of his neighborhood. In connection with the new church which he was building he was planning to have a day nursery and kindergarten and, if possible, a gymnasium. He hoped to have a deaconess to visit the homes and was also trying to organize a colored Y. M. C. A. At a meeting last fall in his church, the following subjects were discussed: "What is the influence of the Sunday School on the children?" "Is the church accomplishing the desired end toward the masses?" "Practical education and character making for the masses." * * * * * Some of the laymen among the colored people, especially the women, are working in similar directions. In 1880, in a small six-room house, a group of these started a Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women. The present beautiful home on Lexington avenue was built in 1900 at a cost of $42,500. It contains twenty-one rooms, six bath rooms and a hospital room. The furnishings cost about $28,000. Several rooms were furnished by the different Negro women's social clubs. The home is attractive, cheery, clean and well-managed. The Working Girls' Home was similarly started three years ago by some colored women who realized how much it was needed. Girls coming to the city not only found it difficult to get boarding places, but they were sometimes directed to undesirable houses. In three years after it opened, the home had cared for forty to fifty girls. As most of these girls go out to service, they do not remain long at the home, but by paying a dollar a month a girl may store her trunk if she wishes, and may come back there to spend Sundays and other days "out," and to receive her callers. This is an arrangement which is much appreciated by the girls, and its introduction in other places might help solve the servant problem. A few girls who are seamstresses live in the house. They pay $1.25 a week, buy their own provisions, and have the use of the kitchen and gas range. The home has had a struggle financially. Last year the Legislature granted it an appropriation of $3,000 and it moved into a somewhat larger, though still too small house. For this house, by the way, it had to pay thirty-two dollars a month though the rent had formerly been twenty-five and the house had been empty for some time. The State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs formed five years ago, is raising money to establish a colored orphan's home in New Castle, Pennsylvania. A year ago these twenty-eight clubs had already raised enough to make the first payment on seven acres of land. The Colored Orphans' Home in Allegheny is under white management, and the colored women are ambitious to have one of their own; a colored auxiliary to the Juvenile Court Association was formed in 1906 to care for colored boys and girls between nine and twelve years of age who are brought to the court. The auxiliary also pays board for a group of colored children who are in institutions outside the state. One member is a faithful volunteer at the Juvenile Court. More than twenty-five social clubs are formed of colored women. The leading social organization for men is the Loendi Club. Besides this and other private associations there are many such orders as the Odd Fellows, Masons, Elks, Knights of Pythias and True Reformers. * * * * * Since 1874, when separate schools for Negroes were abolished, the colored children have attended the public schools with the white children, and all the educational agencies of the city are open to them. I was told that while a few stood well in their classes, the majority lacked concentration. One principal attributed this to the impoverished home conditions, lack of food and housing,--while another principal to whose school came many of the children from the alleys, laid their backwardness largely to their irregular attendance and immoral tendencies. It was agreed that the average colored child requires about two years longer than the white child to finish the grammar grades. The total enrollment at the high school for the year 1906-7 was about 2,300, and of these only forty were colored. Forty-two were enrolled last year, twenty boys and ten girls[11]. Few of these colored students graduate. Five who were graduated in 1907 ranked well in their class. [11] Transcriber 20 + 10 obviously does not equal 42 Thirty colored students attended the evening high school last year. Two girls are in the day classes, and four in the night classes at the Carnegie Technical Schools, and they have three colored boys. Five or six boys have been graduated from the Schwab Manual Training School in Homestead. In writing of the Negroes of Chicago, Mr. Wright says "What Chicago Negroes need is a great industrial school to teach Negroes domestic science and the skilled trades." Greater Pittsburgh has a school that should do this work. As early as 1849, Charles Avery, a Methodist minister of Quaker descent, who was much interested in the colored people, established for them in Allegheny the Avery College Trade School. At his death he left the institution an endowment of $60,000 which has since increased in value, and it has also received a yearly appropriation from the state. The school is controlled by a board of trustees, of whom six are colored, three white. The principal and teachers are colored. The courses which have been offered include millinery, dressmaking, tailoring, music, some English courses and some domestic science. Last spring, a hospital department was organized under separate charter and offers a training course. There is no doubt that the Avery school is not fulfilling the purpose for which it was founded. It is inferior in equipment and in methods and does not employ trained teachers. It is not reaching the colored boys and girls of Pittsburgh and giving them the up-to-date training which they so sorely need in those trades in which they can earn a livelihood. It should be crowded and would be if it were offering what the people want. Instead the enrollment at the end of the school year is about one-third what it was at the beginning. There is no difficulty in placing responsibility for success or failure, for the superintendent is also secretary and treasurer. The colored people have brought many complaints to the trustees in regard to the management of Avery but no action has been taken. Here is a clear cut illustration of a badly managed trust fund. Mr. Avery also left twelve scholarships of $100 each to be awarded to colored boys in the college and engineering departments of the University of Pittsburgh, where a total of nineteen colored students is enrolled. * * * * * Of the 1,124 cases brought before the Juvenile Court in 1906, 168 (14.9 per cent), dealt with colored children. The court records show most miserable conditions in the homes from which such children come. Usually both mother and father are working away from home all day, so that out of school hours there is no one to look after the children. They stop going to school and begin to stay out late at night and the descent to petty thieving and other offenses is swift and easy. On the morning of my visit to the Juvenile Court several colored children were brought before the judge. Harry D., a boy of eleven years, was under arrest for his second offense. Twice he had broken into a chapel, the last time stealing a lamp. The probation officer reported that on investigation, she found Harry had scarcely been in school for a year. His mother worked all day, earning three dollars a week and many days she came home only early in the morning to cook. With three brothers and a sister this boy slept on a cot in one room in which there was no other furniture except two plush chairs and a plush sofa. An uncle who lived with the children had taken to drinking and had not worked for some weeks. The neighbors also bore testimony that Harry was neglected rather than bad. Following Harry came a group of four colored boys on the charge that on the previous Sunday they had broken into a liquor store and done much mischief, such as turning on the spigots, breaking bottles full of beer and smearing pretty much everything in the store, including some cats, with black paint. The next morning they were arrested in a new house near by where they were stealing lead pipe. Eugene, the youngest boy, nine years old, had been in court two months before on the charge of incorrigibility. His father was dead but his mother, by working out by the day, managed to keep the home fairly clean and comfortable. But Eugene was a truant; he stayed out nights and was in the habit of stealing. For the lack of a more suitable solution, this nine-year-old child was committed to the reformatory at Morganza. Two of these boys, thirteen and eleven, were brothers. Their mother was dead; their father was at work in a blast furnace, while their nineteen-year-old sister, who might have kept the home, had left soon after the mother died because she thought her father was too strict. The younger boy had been staying out nights and playing truant. The older boy had never been in trouble before. He had a good reputation and claimed, as did the fourth boy, that he was not stealing but was trying to get the others away. In other cases that came before the judge the parents were themselves immoral and it is safe to say that the colored children who reach the Juvenile Court have, as a rule, seen little but the seamy side of life. A ready market for any bottle or piece of junk that these children can beg or steal is found among the numerous junk dealers. The children will be under a constant temptation to petty thieving for the sake of a few pennies so long as this kind of exchange with juveniles is allowed. The percentage of commitments among the adult Negroes (fourteen per cent), is all out of proportion to their percentage in the population (three and six-tenths). Women are most commonly arrested for disorderly conduct; men for fighting and cutting, petit larceny and for gambling, of which craps is the favorite form. There is much drunkenness. For some time the police department of Pittsburgh has been warring against the sale of cocaine. To the mind of the warden of the Allegheny county jail the greatest single cause of crime committed by Negro men and women is the use of this drug. * * * * * It is evident that the Negroes of Pittsburgh are making commendable progress along industrial lines. Some few have been conspicuously successful while many more are earning a comfortable living and attaining property. Negroes of this class present no special problems, for they are usually good citizens and are educating and training their children to be good citizens likewise. Their needs are the needs of the rest of the community. They would be benefited by better housing, better schools, better sanitation and a clearer atmosphere. But the problems in connection with the poor, ignorant, incompetent or vicious Negroes are many and pressing. We have seen the need for eradicating the sale of cocaine, which drags men under; and we have seen the need for rousing and equipping the ambitious among them through industrial training, comparable to that offered the southern Negro by Tuskegee and Hampton. A few of the more obvious needs of the people who live in the alleys are day nurseries to care for the babies of mothers who must go out to work; some sort of supervised play after school hours, either in connection with the schools or at playgrounds, for the older children of these same families, settlements; and most pressing of all, a building on lower Wylie avenue for social purposes with free baths, club rooms, a gymnasium and other amusements as a counteracting influence to the saloons and pool rooms that abound in this neighborhood. There is now no place in Pittsburgh where a young colored man, coming a stranger to the city, as so many are coming every year, may find innocent diversion and helpful companionship. It is becoming increasingly clear that these needs must be met by the Negroes themselves. A few, singly or in small groups, are already working for social betterment, but so far there has been no concerted, organized action. Left to themselves the Negroes are slow or unable to organize but until they do, much of their efforts as individuals will be wasted and but little definite good can be accomplished. If the white people who have had greater experience in dealing with civic and social needs realized this and extended to them their co-operation, the community as a whole, no less than the Negroes, would be richly repaid. THE JEWISH IMMIGRANTS OF TWO PITTSBURGH BLOCKS ANNA REED COLUMBIAN SCHOOL AND SETTLEMENT, PITTSBURGH The greater part of the Jewish community of Pittsburgh is situated in what is known as the Hill District. This immigration brings with it characteristics so entirely its own that much that is significant of the common life was found summed up in a study of the families of two blocks in the heart of this district. A census of them proved more surely than even those of us who had long been residents in the neighborhood would have anticipated, the permanence and stability of this new element in the population. The two blocks reflected the sort of foothold which is open to this distinctive people in what is for most purposes, a purely industrial center; what relation their new occupations bear to their training and experience in the old countries of Europe; and what, as measured in terms of livelihood and accomplishment, comes to them in this new setting. The blocks selected were two adjoining Center avenue at different points on the incline of the hill. Pittsburgh has no really large tenement houses. These homes were originally built for two families, and while some still contain but two, many have been converted so as to house a great many more. In the process of rebuilding, downstairs front-rooms have been changed into small stores where grocers, butchers and tailors supply the needs of the neighborhood. The houses are of brick, and many are garnished by a government license sign, which indicates that somewhere in these already crowded quarters, a small stogy-factory is located which sells in the larger market. The many synagogs where the men still wear the old time praying shawls, and each repeats for himself in monotonous, low, musical tones the ancient Hebrew prayers, bring into this capital of the steel district, the wonderful and fascinating spirit of the East. The Cheders where the Hebrew language, which every hardworking father and mother, no matter what else is sacrificed, feel must be taught to the boys, and the Kosher butcher-shops, where the dietary laws are still observed, are all distinctive of a people, which though it adopts American customs, still keeps many of the traditions in its own communal life. There were 1,080 people in these blocks, 817 of whom were Jewish. Of the 143 Jewish families, 110 were from Russia, twenty-seven from Roumania, five from Austria-Hungary and one from Germany,--all largely from small towns. Among them there were very nearly three hundred children of school age or younger. A third of these families had been in America over ten years and two-thirds over five years. Of course, the fact that the census was taken in a year of industrial depression may have had a large influence on the comparatively small number of more recent immigrants in residence in the neighborhood, for these would have less resources to keep them in Pittsburgh during a period of hard times. But the actual number of stable family groups was very considerable as shown in the following classification: _Under 2_, _2 to 5_, _5 to 10_, _10 to 20_, _20 to 40_ Years in America 10 33 50 32 18 Years in Pittsburgh 12 36 49 29 17 This permanence as an element in the citizenship of Pittsburgh is in contrast to an uninterrupted shifting among them as tenants. On the one hand, the latter is merely a reflex of the success of particular families in making their way and raising their standard of life; but the greater part of it is due to the lack of proper houses at a fair rental in Pittsburgh. It is a common occurrence for a family to move from place to place in an effort to secure more livable quarters. One family went through the torture of moving six times in one year. Two have lived from ten to twenty years in the same place, eight from five to ten, forty-six over two, while eighty-seven had been living in their present homes less than two years. Unsuspected by the casual visitor, there is a background of tragedy and national crises to such a neighborhood. Among the great nations of Europe, Russia and Roumania have absolutely refused political and industrial freedom to their Jewish subjects. The concrete forms which oppression and restriction assume are very real: prohibitions against their owning land, their exclusion in one part of Russia from the learned professions, in another from taking part in a government contract, and in whole districts from owning their own homes. Here in these blocks there are many families who have lived and traded in daily terror of an outbreak or of the tyranny of an unscrupulous governor; who have been deprived of the rights and privileges of citizens and yet subjected to the full strain of military law and the brunt of religious persecution. You chance to meet a man in the corner grocery,--he is tall and gaunt; his long beard is well sprinkled with grey. On talking with him you find he has served in the Russo-Turkish War, that his only son served for four years in the Russian army, and that a "pogrom" finally drove him to leave everything behind and flee to these shores. One man was robbed and his family outraged,--a son and brother-in-law killed in a recent massacre; another man already past forty, had to take up his burden, and, like the pilgrims of old, go forth and search for a new home, because the edict had been given in Moscow. It was found that forty-one of the families had come for purely religious and political reasons, ninety-two to better their economic condition and thirty-four had followed relatives, friends and townsmen who either sent for them or urged them to make the journey. Indeed, this personal relationship is on many counts the most important factor in swelling the population of a Jewish neighborhood. As a rule, no matter how poor the immigrant may be, he saves, often by the most drastic measures, to send for some loved ones. Such was the experience of a young man, educated in the public schools of Roumania, who had suffered in the uprisings there. His first employment in Pittsburgh was with a local druggist. He went through the usual apprenticeship, and soon another brother had come over and was working as a barber. They saved and sent part of their earnings to their parents in the old country, while the first, by work and study, prepared himself for entrance into the local college of pharmacy, was graduated and his earning capacity thereby increased. Then, the parents, a sister and two brothers were brought over and, when an opportunity for buying a drug store offered itself to him, the combined forces of the family made the purchase possible. To-day, after eight years of hard work, he owns a well-established business, is married and the entire family seems well started on the road to success. The question of what a man does, when he comes here an uninterpreted stranger, is interestingly reflected in these two blocks. The stogy industry and peddling are dominant; of those who have become stogy-makers, four were students, two grocers, one was a peddler, one a tailor, one a lumber trader, one a merchant and another a butcher. The peddlers represent an even larger variety of skilled trades and other occupations. A jewelry peddler and a rag peddler were printers; a weaver, two lumber dealers, a gardener and a grocer have become peddlers of clothing; a carpenter sells pictures; two blacksmiths, a tailor and a farmer are peddling rags. Of those who were skilled, a goldsmith has become a presser, a shoemaker is working at iron beds, an umbrella-maker runs a pool room and a Hebrew teacher is now an egg-candler. In contrast, and much more encouraging, are the six blacksmiths, eleven tailors, three barbers, two bakers, three shoemakers, two printers and a locksmith, a machinist, a plumber and a glazier, who started and continue to use the trades they learned in the old country. One of the most interesting facts brought out was that the number of peddlers, grew from ten in the old country to twenty-eight on their arrival in America and to thirty-two as the first work in Pittsburgh, dropping again to seventeen who are peddling at the present time. The following table compares occupations in the old country with those practiced in the new: _Old New_ _Country. Country._ Store keepers 20 20 Craftsmen 37 28 Laborers 4 7 Peddlers 10 17 Hucksters 4 16 Factory workers 1 9 Factory owners 1 5 Restaurant keepers 2 4 Lumber dealers 3 .. Gardeners, farmers, etc. 7 .. Clerks 1 4 Travelling Salesmen .. 2 Miscellaneous 2 7 NOTE.--Under miscellaneous were classed a foreman, manager, agent, contractor, collector. The meaning of this table will be made clearer by telling two stories, one of a man who is succeeding, and one of a man who has known the keen anguish that to the great masses of men is involved in the words "hard times." For the results of an industrial depression show themselves with promptness in such an immigrant neighborhood. One man, married and the father of three children, was employed as a porter in a downtown store. He was thrown out of work, and to the terrors of rent was added the fact that his wife was soon to give birth to another child. Four weeks afterward, the landlord levied on the furniture for the unpaid rent and the weak, under-nourished mother became temporarily insane. She was placed in a sanatorium, two of the children were sent to a day nursery and the youngest child,--too young to be taken by the nursery,--was sent to a private family. And then, for the man, began the struggle to get work. He bought a small quantity of fruit and peddled it in a basket from house to house. He was arrested one morning, in a freight yard where he was charged by the yard policeman with stealing. He was acquitted at the trial and the police sergeant claimed that cases of injustice of this kind were not infrequent. Next, he secured work as janitor in a hospital at five dollars a week, and after a time, his wife's condition improved and he was able to reunite his family. Thereupon, he borrowed ten dollars and bought a second-hand pushcart with a license, and now he is once more trading in fruits and vegetables in his struggle against odds to care for them. Another man, forty-eight years old and the father of eleven children, had spent his early life in a small town. His first job on coming to New York was that of a clothing operator. The over-strain of the sweatshop caused the only too frequent breakdown in health. Two years later he came to the Pittsburgh District, where, as a peddler in the country towns, he gradually regained his strength. To-day, he owns his home and has a paying grocery business. Of the 263 non-Jews in these blocks, nine out of ten were Negroes; and among them four questionable houses were found. Such an environment, with the change from former surroundings and conditions, does not always work out satisfactorily; the higher cost of living, the severe struggle for existence, the sudden transition from oppression to freedom, often have a deteriorating influence. They result in cases of wife-desertion, in laxity of religious observances, in gambling sessions at the coffee-houses, in occasional moral lapses, and in contempt for the ideals, customs and beauties of the traditional family and religious life of the old country. Yet, as a whole, we know the people of these blocks, and of the hill, as immigrants who have suffered oppression and borne ridicule; who in the face of insult and abuse have remained silent, but who have stamped on their countenances a look of stubborn patience and hope,--always hope,--and of capacity to overcome. [Illustration: HOMESTEAD FROM THE HILL BEHIND THE TOWN.] [Illustration: THE STREET--HOMESTEAD'S ONLY PLAYGROUND.] [Illustration: MUNHALL HOLLOW.] [Illustration: HOMESTEAD.] HOMESTEAD A STEEL TOWN AND ITS PEOPLE MARGARET F. BYINGTON ASSOCIATE SECRETARY FIELD DEPARTMENT FOR THE EXTENSION OF ORGANIZED CHARITY Seven miles from Pittsburgh, up the valley of the Monongahela River, lie the town of Homestead and the largest steel plant in the world. Seventeen years ago, Homestead was, for a time, the center of national interest, while the men and the Carnegie Steel Company fought to the finish one of the most dramatic battles in the history of the labor movement. The men failed,--public interest died out,--but the mill has gone on growing steadily and the town has kept pace, until now it numbers about 25,000. Throughout this time, the corporation, through its practically unquestioned decisions as to wages and hours of labor, has in large measure determined the conditions under which the men shall live. There is only one other industry in the town, the Mesta Machine Company, and little other work except in providing for the needs of the mill workers. We may consider then that the conditions resulting when a great organized industry creates about it, without a definite plan, a town dependent solely upon it for development, are fairly represented in Homestead. For, after all, the town is to be considered in part as a product of the steel industry, as well as the rails and armor plate shipped in the great freight trains that puff away down the river, and the success of the corporation must be estimated, in part, by its share in creating the homes and moulding the lives of the workers. Thirty years ago, two farms occupied the land now covered by the vast plant and the homes of hundreds of workers. In 1881, when Klomans built the mill, now a part of the United States Steel Corporation, the change began. The very aspect of Homestead shows how during the twenty-seven years that have passed, the plant has been the unifying and dominating force in the town. The mill has now stretched itself for over a mile along the river and the level space between the river and a hill rising steeply behind, which was the original site of both mill and town, has been entirely shut off from the water front. The smoke from the many furnaces and from the two railroads which cross the town settles heavily, making the section gloomy even on the brightest days. Wash day for some must wait for a west wind, if the clothes are not to come in blacker than when they went into the tub, and mothers find it a problem to keep children even reasonably clean in a place where the grass itself is covered with oily dust. This level space was originally large enough to accommodate the houses as well as the mill, but with the growth of the town, the homes have spread up the hill, and even out into the region beyond. For the English speaking people who were earlier comers, have been glad to leave the level, smoke-hidden section to the more recent immigrants. Here, in houses huddled together, where the totally inadequate sanitary provisions and overcrowding are comparable to the worst sections of a great city, we find now the homes of the Slavs. Courts where seventy-five, or even in a few instances more than a hundred people, are dependent for water supply on one hydrant, and houses with an average of four or five persons to each room are frequent. These facts will be considered more in detail in another article, exemplifying as they do conditions existing in many small industrial centers. Though there are no definite figures available as to the composition of the population of Homestead, the nationality of the men employed in the mill in July, 1907, will serve as a clue to the make up of the town as a whole. Of 6,772 employes, 3,601 or more than half were Slavs, 1,925 were native whites, 121 colored, 397 English, 259 Irish, 129 Scotch, 176 German, and 164 were of other Europeans. Aside from the Slavs, there is almost no tendency among the different nationalities to live in separate sections. The more desirable part of the town, which includes aside from the upper part of Homestead proper the politically independent boroughs of West Homestead and Munhall, is occupied by the whole English speaking group and it is with their life that this paper deals. Parallel to the main thoroughfare, along the side of the hill, runs street after street lined with simple frame houses. These stand detached from one another, though often with only a passageway between. There is usually a porch in front and a small yard where growing flowers or shrubs give a cheerful homelike air. The streets are full of merry children, coasting in winter down the steep hillsides, or in summer playing marbles and jumping rope. The hill lifts this section out of some of the smoke, but even here the sky is seldom really bright, and the outlook is over the stacks of the mills with their plumes of smoke. In general arrangement, the town shows an absence of interest in future development on the part of its original planners. The avenues, which run parallel from east to west with alleys between, are crossed at right angles by the main streets, cutting the town into rectangular blocks. Here and there are beds of old water courses down the hillside, on whose banks small houses, hardly more than shanties, have been built. The narrow lots of the original plan have had, moreover, a bad effect on the houses built on them. These houses are small, usually consisting of four or five rooms, but the middle room in the latter case opens only on the passage between the buildings, which is of necessity very narrow, and is never reached by sunshine. Moreover, the narrow lot which limits decidedly the choice in plans has resulted in a uniformity of design and a lack of artistic quality in the houses. This, especially in winter when there are no flowers to relieve it, gives to the streets an air of monotony. As Homestead grew, houses were built to the east of it on property outside the borough limits, owned by the Carnegie Land Company, a constituent part of the United States Steel Corporation. This district and a section including most of the mill property were formed into the separate borough of Munhall, said to be the richest one in Pennsylvania. From the beginning the mill officials have taken a marked interest in its development, and the general effect of Munhall shows the results. In the center stand side by side, the imposing library with its little park, the gift of Mr. Carnegie, and the handsome residence of the superintendent of the mill. Behind are the houses of the minor officials, whose wide lawns are kept in beautiful condition by men in the employ of the company. On the streets farther back, where the employes live, are many attractive houses, and on Sixteenth avenue cottages of varying design set back from the street, show the possibility of securing effective yet inexpensive plans. But neither the presence of the mill nor the dull sameness of the streets can hamper the sense of home-likeness which the workmen feel as they step across their own doorsteps. The burden of creating this falls on the shoulders of the housewife. Usually in these homes there is that proof of an upward social trend, a "front room," which with its comfortable furniture and piano or other musical instrument is the real center of the life and amusement of the family. As one woman said, "The children don't realize how much it costs to keep up the parlor, but they want it to look nice so they can bring their friends in, and as long as it keeps them home I'll manage it somehow." And no outsider can understand the sacrifices involved, the ceaseless economies if parlor curtains and pianos are to be evolved from a wage of fifteen dollars a week. [Illustration: SIXTEENTH AVENUE, MUNHALL.] Of course extremes of thrift and inefficiency are met. In one home, where the man earns but $1.65 a day and there are six to feed, they had not only managed to buy an organ and give one of the girls lessons, but had saved enough to tide them through the hard winter of 1908. But the wife, the daughter of a Pennsylvania farmer, had learned the thrifty ways of such a household. For this is skill amounting to genius and cannot be expected of all. I remember, in contrast, a kitchen where all is wretched, the children unwashed, the woman untidy, the room unswept. In such a scene, it is not surprising to have the woman complain that the man always goes to Pittsburgh with a crowd to spend the evening. Though he earns nearly twice what the other man does, his wife, who had been trained as a servant in a wealthy home and had learned extravagant ways, realized in a helpless sort of way her inability to "get caught up" financially, or to display any efficiency in managing her home and training her children. Between these two types is that of the average family, where the effort to make life wholesome meets with mingled successes and failures. [Illustration: GLEN ALLEY, HOMESTEAD.] The recognition among the people of the value of home life, finds perhaps no more striking proof than the zeal shown by many of them in purchasing their houses. According to the census figures of 1900, 567 families owned homes in the borough, 27.3 per cent of the entire number of houses, and 268 of these were free from encumbrance. Such business organizations as the Homestead Realty Company have met the needs of those wishing to buy on a slender income by a system of selling on the instalment plan, which in large measure takes the place of building and loan associations. The initial payment is small, sometimes as low as $150 for a house of four rooms, the real estate company assumes the obligations for insurance, taxes, and interest on the mortgage, and the buyer pays a monthly instalment large enough to cover all this and make a small reduction on the principal. For example, one family I know bought a four-room house worth about $1,750. Of this, they paid down $150, and thereafter a monthly instalment of sixteen dollars, which was little more than they would have had to pay for rent. Though it has taken fifteen years to buy the house, they now have a home of their own; and without unreasonable sacrifice. No phase of this attitude towards saving was to me more interesting than the reasons given for and against buying. Two sisters were typical of these different opinions. One with six children, whose husband made something over three dollars a day, said: "I didn't try to buy, because I wanted to give my children everything that was coming to them, and I wouldn't stint them." So, as far as she could, she had given them what the other children in school had, and truly three dollars goes but a little way in a town where the rent is four dollars a room and food-stuffs are said to be the highest in the country. The other, wiser perhaps, had begun early to buy her home. Though she has been married only five years, to a man whose income is about the same as the brother-in-law, and there are two little ones to care for, they have already made the initial payment on their home. It is a neat five-room house on one of the good streets, with running water in the kitchen and a bath-room, and is worth about $3,000. Of this they paid $300 down, and their monthly instalment is twenty-five dollars. Since their family is small, by subletting two rooms for eight dollars a month, they reduce the monthly expenditure to about an ordinary rent. While it will take some years to pay off the indebtedness, by the time that the children are large enough to need the other rooms, they plan to be well on their way toward accomplishing this. With many, however, the initial purchase is only the beginning of their home making, and, as soon as the house is paid for, the family take the most genuine pleasure in its improvement. Sometimes it is the addition of a bath-room; sometimes it is the repapering which the busy mother finds time to do in the spring; sometimes the building of a wash-house in the yard. But wherever such improvements are made it means always the development of the sense of family life and its common interests. In home buying there lurks, of course, an undeniable danger to the workman: the danger of putting all his savings into a house, when death, discharge, or a season of hard times may mean the necessity of a forced sale with its inevitable loss. That the owning of a home tends to lessen the mobility of labor is a factor to be considered in upholding it as a desirable form of thrift. In Homestead, however, this danger has been minimized by what has otherwise been a disadvantage to the town, the lack of a sufficient number of houses.[12] Buildings have not been erected fast enough to keep pace with the town's growth, and consequently rents have risen and desirable houses are hard to secure. This situation, while it stimulates people to buy their own homes, also makes it possible to sell at almost any time. [12] During the depression of 1907-8 there was an abundance of houses, as families were doubling up to save rent, but this was only a temporary situation. There are many, however, to whom these real homes are not possible. There rises to my mind, in contrast, a two-room tenement down in the grimy corner where the mill joins the town. Here a woman was trying to support four little children by sewing and washing. Her husband had died after eight years of semi-invalidism resulting from an accident in the mill. With his small wages they had not been able to save, and as the injury had occurred so long ago, she was not eligible for a benefit from the Carnegie Relief Fund. The kitchen was small and hot and the younger children noisy, and the not unnatural consequence was that the oldest girl drifted to the streets, mixed with a gay crowd, and eventually became a charge of the Juvenile Court. The girl was not bad at heart, and had there been a cheerful home where her friends could come, the end might have been different. [Illustration: BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD--I.] This instance illustrates the fact, more or less true of the whole town, that local conditions are such as to lay too large a responsibility for providing enjoyment on the skill of the wife and mother. Where she succeeds, the home becomes the center of the family's happiness, yet even so, we should look to the town itself for those wider opportunities for mental and physical relaxation which help maintain a normal life. But to the stranger approaching Homestead, the town speaks more eloquently of toil than of pleasure. The river, elsewhere so often a source of endless enjoyment, is muddy and swift. Moreover, one bank is preempted by the railroad, the other by the long and unsightly stretches of mill yard. In the second ward, near the river, which is almost solidly built up, the only place for the children to play is the street or the alley. That the boys do not find these a wholly satisfactory playground is shown by the following clipping from the local newspaper: BOYS CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS ARE BEING INTERFERED WITH. The boys of Homestead want to know why they cannot play basketball on the street, and they want to know what they can do. Burgess please answer in Monday's _Messenger_. On the top of the hill there are open places where the bigger boys find room for recreation, but it is a long climb, too long for the small children in the section where a place for play is most needed. The two recreation parks within a five-cent fare of the town, owned by the street railway, are the scenes of many school and church picnics and lodge gatherings. Here the young people find the skating rinks and dancing pavilions and the shrill music of the merry-go-rounds, while tired mothers seek quiet grass plots where they may sit and watch the children play, and where they may have the rare chance to gossip with their neighbors. In Homestead itself the two popular forms of amusement are the skating rink and the nickelodeon. The former fills the papers with advertisements for moonlight skating parties, a "marriage on rollers," and other devices for attracting patronage. The gaiety and swing of this pastime, which appeal to the young and vigorous, have made it in general very popular. It offers, however, those dangers common to the indiscriminate meeting of young people, which make some mothers hesitate to let their girls go unless with "our own crowd." [Illustration: BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD--II.] The nickelodeon, whose small cost brings it within the financial reach of most families, is perhaps the most popular entertainment. You are admitted to a room the size of a small store, with rows of chairs, a small stage, and an atmosphere that is soon unbearably close. Here you witness for five cents a show lasting about fifteen minutes. On the Saturday afternoon when I attended, there was a series of moving pictures illustrating a story on the same theme as Camille, and two sentimental songs illustrated by colored slides. While none of them was of a high grade of amusement they evidently really entertained the audience, at least half of whom were workingmen. To them the nickelodeon seems to make a special appeal since it offers the variety they crave after long days in the mill. This limited range of amusement offered is almost the only entertainment which is available for older people, or which can be enjoyed in common by them and by the young and active members of the community. While this lack is met, in a degree, by the entertainments which lodges and churches give, the latter are rather sedate. The festivities which appeal to young people are all money-making enterprises, with the abuses likely to result under such conditions. Many of the clergymen expressed their belief that there was need of a better kind of amusement, a need which might be met by such institutions as the public recreation centers of Chicago. Among the causes contributing to this lack of amusement is the possibility for those with more money and leisure of securing the better class of entertainment in Pittsburgh. Still as it is a forty-five minutes' ride to the city, mothers tied down by the care of children, and men wearied by the day's work seldom avail themselves of what Pittsburgh offers. Another cause is found in the fact that the owners of the mill are non-residents, and give neither money nor influence to help the everyday normal development of the town. There is a marked contrast in this between Homestead's situation and that of independent towns of similar size. In the latter, where there is a larger proportion of the well-to-do who are dependent for entertainment on what the town offers, it is possible to secure fairly good theatrical performances, as well as concerts and lectures. [Illustration: EIGHTH AVENUE AT NIGHT, HOMESTEAD.] Two additions to the opportunities for relaxation have, however, been made by prominent officials of the steel corporation. At the Carnegie Library there is a club providing classes for musical training which give occasional concerts, as well as a gymnasium with a swimming pool, bowling alleys, etc. This club, which is open to all on payment of two dollars a year, is popular with the young men, especially those on the clerical force. A series of entertainments, however, given during the winter of 1907-8 under the management of a lecture bureau was not successful. [Illustration: A NICKELODEON AUDIENCE IN HOMESTEAD.] The second, the gift from Mr. Frick of a small formal park transformed from an ugly hole at the end of one of the ravines, is the source of much pride to the town. A need which it does not supply, however, was shown by a visit there one hot afternoon. Three or four men were sitting in the sun on the benches set along the cement paths. The grass had recently been cut and in a pile which lay on the edge of the street, half a dozen little chaps were turning somersaults and revelling in the coolness. For them, the park with its set flower beds and well-kept lawn offered few inducements. They would prefer a real playground. The chief obstacle to the development of amusements is, doubtless, the hours and nature of mill work. Every other week the men work on night turn. Then they get home early in the morning and are ready, right after breakfast, for the much needed sleep; at four o'clock in the afternoon they must be called, and after an early supper they are off to the mill for the long night. That week there is no chance for outside festivities, nor chance even for the family to have quiet evenings together. Sometimes when sons who are also in the mill are on the opposite shift, the family is not able to meet even for meals. This irregularity not only tends to break into the family life, but also by making regular engagements impossible, lessens the interest in outside things. Even when the men are on day turn and are through work at half-past five, the ten hours of heavy labor in the mill leave them little ambition to seek out amusements. The exhausting nature of the work, coupled with the lack of sleep due to this constant change of habits, makes them weary enough, as they show by the slow steps and bent shoulders of the homeward procession. Change of thought and genuine relaxation are nevertheless a necessity, if the men are to maintain even mere physical efficiency. The spirit of the mill is the spirit of work. We have found that the town itself provides for the men little opportunity for genuine relaxation after the strain of the day's work; and when we turn to the town again, seeking whether it offers any stimulus to mental activity, we find in it the same failure to help in the development of a normal life. There is the Carnegie Library to be sure, which has classes in metallurgy, and provides expensive periodicals dealing with the steel trade as well as general reading matter. But as many a man said to me, "Oh what's the use of a library when a man works twelve hours a day?" Although efforts towards a reorganization of the union are practically at an end, because of the opposition of the mill officials, there is earnest thinking going on among some of the men about the great corporation which controls wages and hours, and so much of the rest of life as is dependent upon them. One man, who during the recent hard times was not earning enough to pay his rent, said, "I don't blame the superintendent here for our being out of work, but the men in New York could help it, only they don't know or don't care what a cut in wages means to us." That the changes in wage scale or the decisions to work but half time last winter, which came to them without explanation, were related to an industrial depression which affected a whole continent, was but dimly understood. They knew of dividends, and they knew of wage-cuts. With the feeling that they are impotent to change conditions, some of the more thoughtful men are turning to socialism for the larger solution it seems to offer. I was surprised to hear socialism advocated by the wife of a mill clerk making two dollars a day. She and her husband were thrifty people who had just succeeded in buying a piece of property,--not at all the typical socialists of a conservative man's fears. But in their twenty years of married life, the clerk's wages had been cut fifteen per cent. With a growing family, needs had increased, and only stringent economies, the cutting out even of five cents for the nickelodeon, had made their home what it was. And now with mills idle and their little savings rapidly going, a sense of social injustice was making itself felt. [Illustration: GOING HOME FROM WORK. This picture grimly sums up Homestead--the mill at the left, the Carnegie library on the hill in the center, and the mean houses of the second ward to the right.] Recently considerable agitation in regard to the subject was aroused by the preaching of a minister, who is a Christian-socialist. While many of the men were keenly interested in his theories, there was so much opposition among the conservative members of the congregation, that finally he was obliged to leave. I was told that in one of the first committee meetings to discuss the situation, his position was approved by the workingmen members, while opposition was expressed by two men who served corporations in a professional capacity. Again, a Scotchman, feeling the capitalist's lack of sympathy for the working man's problems, expressed surprise that a number of wealthy Scotchmen had joined in the celebration of Burns's birthday. "How can they," he said, "when they think of his social theories? I should think they would be ashamed to." To him, Burns was the man who wrote A Man's a Man for A' That. But men such as these are the exceptions. One of the most intelligent men I know, an ardent socialist, told me of his exasperation because his fellows were, he held, so unintelligent and were so unwilling to talk about social questions. This he thought was due to the long hours and hard work, since it took the other twelve hours to rest from the day's labor. Most of them, truly, are both too tired to think and too conscious of the dominance of the corporation to believe it worth while to seek a solution of these problems. Neither is there much within the mill to develop intellectual keenness. The men, it is true, are encouraged to invent improvements, but though these undoubtedly influence their promotion it is currently reported that the men receive no direct reward. The general feeling, moreover, that promotion is due to favoritism, lessens the stimulus to study and work up. With the attitude of the mill officials toward trade unionism, men are more or less afraid to discuss industrial questions with one another. An old resident gave me this as a current maxim, "If you want to talk in Homestead you must talk to yourself." In one respect, however, the men do unite to meet conditions arising under the industry. The work in the mills brings them constantly face to face with the danger of accident. Almost daily, occur minor accidents: a foot bruised by a heavy weight, a hand lacerated by a machine; accidents not serious enough to prevent work for any length of time, or perhaps to justify damages. But where the margin is small, two weeks or even one of enforced idleness means a serious problem in family finances. While the men injured are eligible to the Carnegie Relief Fund, this fund gives assistance only when a man has been disabled for a year or more, and consequently is of no help in minor accidents. In order to meet these emergencies, then, the men have utilized the fraternal orders which form one of the chief centers of interest in Homestead life. There are more than forty lodges, and while it was impossible to learn the exact membership, twenty-three lodges report a total membership of 3,663, of whom 3,400 are men. The strongest of these is the Odd Fellows, with a membership of over 1,000, most of whom are steel workers. In all but two out of twenty-seven, concerning which data were secured, there are benefit features; a sick benefit usually of five dollars a week for three months with a smaller sum thereafter; and a small death benefit of only $150 or so. The fraternal insurance orders, which vary the assessments with the amount of the benefit, give as high as $5,000. Sometimes both regular and lodge insurance policies are carried. In sixty-three families investigated, only nine of the heads of families were uninsured, while eighteen carried both kinds. What this insurance means, however, is but feebly shown by the amounts involved. One woman, speaking of her early struggles, told how in the first year of her married life, her husband was seriously burned in the mill and for three months was unable to do a stroke of work. Fortunately, from the three benefit orders to which he belonged came $12.50 a week, which supported the family. "My baby came then," she added feelingly, "and if it had not been for that money, I could have bought no clothes for her." In addition to this benefit feature, the lodge offers an opportunity for the development of sympathy and the consciousness of social solidarity. A woman, who was a rather recent comer to Homestead, had been a member of one of these lodges in another town. Her little baby became ill and died, and where otherwise she would have been alone in her grief, her fellow members came at once to watch with her during his sickness, and to console her after his death. "Why, they were like my own sisters," she said, and it was this which counted rather than the twenty-five dollars which helped meet the funeral expenses. The lodge also affords an opportunity to show that interest in outside matters, which otherwise finds scanty means of expression. I saw one day a half bushel of fine potatoes ready for baking, which a woman told me were her contribution to a supper being given for an emergency hospital in Homestead. "We don't need that hospital," she said, "because my man isn't in a dangerous place in the mill, but I'm glad to help even if most of them are 'Hunkies.'" During the winter of 1907-8, almost every lodge in town gave some sort of entertainment for the benefit of this hospital. Aroused by the suffering of men seriously injured in the mill, who have to be taken on the train to Pittsburgh, the whole town united in a determination to meet this need of their community. While the individual contributions of the workingmen would have been discouragingly small, their real interest could express itself through the existing lodge organizations. In fact, aside from the church, the lodge seems to offer the one possibility of co-operative effort. Many men also find here their one chance of meeting other men socially. All the lodges, even the purely insurance ones, have social features, and often at special meetings the whole family go together. While these features of fraternal orders are of course common in all communities, in Homestead, with its danger of accident and its limitation as to other amusements, they play an especially important role. [Illustration: ITEMS FROM THE HOMESTEAD "MESSENGER." Illustrating how accidents become everyday happenings in a steel town. Period: two weeks when the mills were running slack.] Yet life needs some outlook for the future other than preparation to meet its disasters. With the increase in the size of the corporation, the days are passing when a rise to a position of eminence is possible for a poor boy, so that personal ambition has become a negative factor. But to the parents who seek for their children a better position, more education and more of the refinements of life, the future is full of interest. One woman complained that her neighbor was "all right, only she talks too much about her children," but when one realized how much the mother's interest and devotion had done to make her sons successful, it was easy to forgive her. Another woman, of natural sweetness and grace of manner, told of her efforts to teach her little girls those formal niceties in which she had not been trained. "I bought a book on manners," she said, "so as to teach the children, and I make myself do the things so they will. It's awfully hard to say 'excuse me' when I leave the table, but if I don't they'll never learn," and the greeting given a stranger by the little daughter showed how well this mother was succeeding. The center of interest, especially to the fathers, is in the future of their sons. Often the sons go ahead of their fathers in the race, and one elderly man told me with pride that he owed his easy job to his son who had become an assistant superintendent. Sometimes parents, most frequently the mothers, are unwilling that their boys should enter the mill, for the fear of accident makes the long nights a time of terror. Many a woman has said, "When I was first married, I couldn't sleep when the 'mister' was on night turn, but, of course, I'm used to it now." Still when their sons grow up, they begin again to dread the danger. The great mill, however, has a fascination of its own, so that most of the boys "follow the stacks." They then live at home, contributing their share to the family income, and we find that economic bond which Mrs. Bosenquet has pointed out as so dominant a factor in strengthening family life in England. This mutual affection is undoubtedly the most potential factor in keeping pure the moral life of the town. Morally the town is an average one. Along one of the railroads is a section comparable in a small way to some of the dark parts of a great city, and there gambling, immorality and drunkenness have their meeting place, but in the districts where most of the workmen have their homes, the former two evils are practically unknown. A doctor in a position to know the situation well, believes that in the main this town is clean morally, and his statement is confirmed by clergymen and other physicians. Intemperance, on the other hand, is a serious factor. In Munhall there are no saloons, but in Homestead, there are fifty, eight in a single block on Eighth avenue next to the mill entrance. As one resident summed up the situation, "I think we have at least sixty-five saloons, ten wholesale liquor stores, a number of beer agents, innumerable speak-easies and a dozen or more drug stores,"--and this in a town of 25,000. In addition to their usual attractions of light and jollity, the saloons appeal to the thirst engendered by hours of work in the heat. Though this heat-thirst is frequently offered as an excuse for drinking, men who do not drink are emphatic in their belief that alcohol lessens their ability to withstand the extreme temperature. While intoxication is not very frequent, the saloons do a thriving business and their patrons were among the first to feel the hardships of the industrial depression. A clergyman assured me that preaching against intemperance did no good and that substitutes must be offered, but so far none has been developed. The library, which is on the hill out of the men's way, cannot be reckoned as a counter attraction, for they are too tired to be often tempted by it. The church, too, finds it hard to hold them. The fact that they usually have to work either Saturday night or Sunday night, and some men during Sunday as well, affects the attitude of the whole town towards Sunday keeping. A clergyman who complained because a certain store was open on Sunday, was told that as the mill ran that day, nothing could be done about closing the store. "We can't take the little fish and let the big one go." The men feel the inconsistency in being urged to attend church when they have to work hard part of the day. Then too, they are often very tired. One big, jovial colored man told me how he came home Sunday morning from the mill expecting to go to church, but fell fast asleep while waiting for the hour of service. The churches, however, play an important part in the life of those, especially the women and young people, who are actually connected with them. The thirty churches represent all denominations, some of them preserving their original race distinctions. Two Welsh churches still have their service in the Keltic language. There are a number of missions, among them one on the main street, whose transparency bearing the legend, "The Wages of Sin Is Death," suggests a Bowery type. The Salvation Army, while it has a short muster roll, has a strong grip on the community which seems impressed by its earnestness, simplicity and poverty. For whatever its intellectual limitations there is throughout the town a profound respect for genuine spiritual devotion. During the winter most of the churches, in addition to their regular weekly services, held special revival meetings. These, while they have little of the tense excitement sometimes associated with such meetings, seem to be a strong force in developing the real spiritual power of the churches. The church, moreover, meets certain of the social needs of the town through its wholesome festivities. All winter the stores were full of signs of "chicken and waffle suppers," and the papers told of socials of all the varieties that a small church evolves. These were usually to raise funds, sometimes for church expenses, sometimes for charity, and in one instance, I remember, to help send out a foreign missionary. But, whatever the object, they serve to increase the happiness of life under wholesome conditions. [Illustration: KENNYWOOD PARK AT NIGHT.] [Illustration: A.--Profile of line A. B. in map opposite, showing slope on which Homestead is built.--B.] So the church plays its part, both spiritually and socially, in helping its members to a fuller individual life. It does not, however, furnish an opportunity for that discussion of matters of everyday concern to the men, which might serve to arouse their interest in the whole life of the church and to quicken their sense of civic responsibility. Moreover, in a town where industrial questions are of paramount importance, the church is only beginning to take an interest in them. In the larger question of leadership in civic life, the churches seem also to have missed a great opportunity. Though they took some action in the local option campaign, this was an isolated instance, and in general they do not appear to have accepted their full responsibility in arousing men to a realization of the duties of citizenship. [Illustration: HOMESTEAD VS. MUNHALL. The town-site back of the mills is divided into two boroughs. Munhall embraces most of the property of the U. S. Steel Corporation: the tax rate is 8-1/2 mills and the corporation pays $40,000 in taxes. In Homestead, where most of the workmen have their homes, the tax rate is 15 mills, and the corporation pays $7,000.] That a sense of civic responsibility is needed, is emphasized by those who know the life of the town, and who find there a serious political situation. In Homestead, which is by far the largest and most important of the three boroughs, the political conditions are worst. The borough government consists of a burgess elected every three years, and a council, which is also elective. Of the two important committees, the Board of Health is appointed by the burgess with the consent of the council, and the School Board is chosen directly by the people. In spite of the possibility of influencing some of the local conditions through these elected representatives, there is general indifference in regard to local politics. In one matter where their direct family interests are concerned, the people have demanded and received an efficient administration. They are proud of their schools and the personnel of the School Board, and certainly this is the best service given to the people of the town. But while the men all agree that the situation is dominated by the wholesale liquor interests, schemes for political reform arouse little enthusiasm. In spite of years of casual agitation against inadequately guarded railroad crossings, it was not till the summer of 1908 that any effective protest was made. People still pay a neighbor fifty cents a month for the privilege of getting good water from his well, instead of insisting that it be provided by the borough. A river, polluted by the sewage of many towns above it, and by chemicals from the mills strong enough to kill all the fish, furnishes the drinking water for the town. To a certain extent at least, mental sluggishness due, as we have seen, to the conditions under which men work, is at the root of their indifference. It is, of course, true that the mill is not the source of all the undesirable conditions in Homestead. Many of the disadvantages of the town are similar to those of other suburban and industrial centers that are less definitely influenced by a great industry. But for a large part of the evil the mill must be considered responsible. There was its influence, for example, in making Munhall into a separate borough, thus securing a lower tax for its plant and real estate and by that much adding to the burdens of the majority of its working people. For in Homestead, the mill owns little property. In Munhall, the tax rate is eight and one-half mills and the mill pays $40,000 a year in taxes, while in Homestead, where the larger part of the workers live, the tax rate is fifteen mills and the mill pays a tax of but $7,000. The mill has, moreover, done nothing to give the town an effective leadership, the most striking need of the situation. On the one hand by the destruction of the union it has removed the one force by which workingmen could have been trained for leadership; on the other hand, since its owners are scattered throughout the country, it has not supplied such a group of educated men with free time and public interest as have been the strong influences in developing normal communities. When I asked, in discussing the sanitary condition of the Slavic courts, if anything could be done to improve the situation I was assured that only a man of strong local influence could accomplish such a reform; but no one could suggest the man. In contrast then to the wonderful development of the industry itself, with its splendid organization, its capable management, its efficient methods, we find a town which lacks sound political organization, which lacks true leadership, which lacks the physical and moral efficiency which can come only through leisure to think and to enjoy. The only genuine interest we find centers about the individual home life, and, in spite of outward physical disadvantages, the hindrance of inadequate income, the lack of proper training in household economics, and the limited outlook which the town affords, the men and the women are creating real homes. That many fail against these odds is not surprising. "Life, work, and happiness, these three are bound together." The mill offers the second, indifferent whether it is under conditions that make the other two possible. THE CIVIC RESPONSIBILITIES OF DEMOCRACY IN AN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT[13] PAUL U. KELLOGG American spread-eagleism has matured notably in the past ten years, but there is still youth and ginger enough in it to make my first postulate simply this,--that the civic responsibilities of democracy in an industrial district are to come abreast of and improve upon any community standards reached under any other system of government; and, second, to do this in a democratic way as distinct from a despotic or paternalistic way. [13] An address given before the Joint Convention of the American Civic Association and the National Municipal League, Pittsburgh, Nov. 16, outlining some of the findings of the Pittsburgh Survey and drawing upon data secured in various fields of investigation. It was my good fortune to spend a week the past summer in Essen and other industrial towns of the Rhenish-Westphalia district of Germany, following something over a year spent in the Pittsburgh district. I fancy that in our attitude toward the old countries, we are inclined to regard their cities as long established and to find justification for any lapses of our own in the newness of America. But Essen, for instance, as an industrial center is new. The chronology of the development of the steel industry there is not altogether different from that of the same industry in Pittsburgh; and one of the great problems of Fried. Krupp was to mobilize and hold within reach of his furnaces and rolls a large and efficient working population. Entering the industrial field generations later than England, German manufacturers have not had a trained working force ready to hand. Krupp had to draw his men from the country districts,--healthy, unskilled peasants, unused to the quick handling of their muscles, unused to working indoors, unused to machinery, unused to living in large communities. The wages offered, as against the wages of agricultural districts, drew them there; he must keep them there out of reach of his competitors, and he must see that they worked at the top notch of their efficiency. It was a loss to Herr Krupp when a man with five years' training in his works left Essen, or was sick, or was maimed. As a town, Essen was unprepared to absorb this great new industrial population. There were not houses enough; the newcomers were sheltered abominably and charged exorbitant rents by the local landlords. There weren't food supplies enough within reach of the growing city, and the workers had to buy poor bread and bad meat, and to pay heavily for them. The town had not enough sanitary appliances to dispose of the waste which a congregation of individuals sloughs off and which, if not properly disposed of, breeds disease. The rents and high provisions pared away most of the incentive in the wages which must attract this working force to Essen; poor houses and poor food made directly for stupid, half-roused workers and for poor work. Primarily as a business proposition, then, Herr Krupp started that group of social institutions which have since been expanded from one motive or another, until they supply an infinite variety of wants to the Essen workers. The firm bought up successive plots of land, laid them out, sewered them, parked them, and to-day, at the end of fifty years, over thirty thousand persons are living in houses belonging to the Essen works (ten thousand of the sixty thousand Krupp employes are thus supplied). There has been a growth in quality as well as in numbers of houses. The buildings of the first workmen's colony, West End, are rough, crude boxes; the new colonies of Alfredshof and Friedrichshof are beautiful, with their red roofs, graceful lines, lawns, housekeeping conveniences and modest rents. Not less than seventy-seven Krupp supply stores, operated on a profit-sharing basis, sell meat, bread, manufactured goods and household furniture. One of the greatest bakeries in Germany is operated on a cost basis, and there are slaughter houses, flour mills, ice making establishments, tailor shops, etc. Hospitals, convalescent homes, pensions, and invalidity and accident funds have been instituted, and have since been fortified and expanded under the imperial scheme of industrial insurance, which governs throughout Germany. This welfare work of the Krupps has not succeeded in keeping either trade unionism or socialism out of the ranks of the working force; it has tended to put the workers in a position of semi-feudal dependence for comforts and to sap their initiative; and in those bearings it is not in accord with American ideas; but it has served to gather at Essen, to keep there, and to keep there at a high standard of working efficiency, one of the most remarkable labor forces in Germany. It is solely the latter aspect of the case that concerns us here. I think it is agreed that when it comes to armor plate, I-beams, tubes, or rails, the Pittsburgh steel plants can beat the world. But a week's stay among the Krupp colonies at Essen brings with it the conviction that we in America have considerable distance to go if we are to match the Germans in the science of improved community conditions. The question is how some of these higher standards can be worked out in an American industrial district where one corporation does not dominate; where you are dealing with a much greater aggregation of people spread over a much greater territory, and where you must work out your solution in democratic ways through democratic agencies. It must be borne in mind that much that I say of Pittsburgh is true of practically all our industrial centers; our severest criticism of any one comes not from a comparison with its fellows, but from a comparison of the haphazard development of its social institutions with the splendid organic development of its industrial enterprises. And more, in the methods and scope of progressive business organizations we have some of the most suggestive clues as to ways for municipal progress. My first point has to do with administrative areas. The most effective city administration cannot act to advantage unless the units through which it operates are workable and bear some relation to the function they are designed to perform. The radius of the old time city, as one English writer has pointed out, was the distance you could walk from your work in the center to a home convenient in the outskirts. To-day, for most purposes, a city is a rapid transit proposition. For most purposes, a municipal area can be governed most effectively if it includes all such districts as can be reached by city workers, by subway, steam, or surface lines. The movement for a greater Pittsburgh, which, within the last year, has been advanced by the merging of Allegheny and the movement for a greater Birmingham, which is now in progress in the corresponding English industrial center, are recognitions of this fact. The police, fire,--in fact, every department of municipal activity is cramped and rendered less effective by restricted bounds. But for certain functional activities much wider areas must be covered. The sanitary inspection force of Cleveland, for instance, inspects dairies and slaughter-houses throughout all that part of Ohio that supplies the Cleveland market; in contrast with the Pittsburgh inspection service which is at present able to inspect supplies only as they come into the city and sources in the immediate neighborhood. Again, the sewer and water problem of Pittsburgh is a water-shed problem. One hundred and twenty-nine towns and boroughs are dumping their sewage into the rivers which run past Pittsburgh and from which Pittsburgh must draw its water. No one of these governmental units can work out its sanitary problem alone. Close co-ordination of sanitary work is needed throughout the whole river district. There is necessity, then, for increasing our municipal administrative areas and for relating them to the functions which must be performed through them; and this very fact raises the distinctive civic problem of creating this enlarged municipal machinery, without sacrificing that local loyalty and interest which in neighborhoods and smaller districts make for good government. In Pittsburgh we have a central city,--a market and office center with groups of outlying mill towns and half-agricultural districts between. The opponents of city congestion would break up all our big urban centers into such an open work structure; and if the citizenship of the Pittsburgh steel district can work out effective methods of government and high standards of community well-being for this ganglion of working communities, it will have made an original contribution to municipal science. * * * * * But let us look more carefully at this question of area as applied to the functioning of particular social institutions. We have the theory in America, for instance, that common school education should be supplied by the public, and to this end, besides state subsidies and other revenues, a general millage is laid on all taxable property in Pittsburgh for the salaries of teachers and for other general expenses. But the actual operation of the schools continues on an old vestry system of ward control,--a system given up by Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities of Pittsburgh's class, because the ward has proved an ineffective administrative unit. Let us see how it works in Pittsburgh. Each ward lays and collects a tax on property within its limits for the erection and maintenance of school buildings. Thus, ward two in the business district, with a total of only 363 pupils, can draw on property with an assessed valuation of $37,491,708; while ward fourteen, with 2,423 children, can draw on property worth $34,264,077 (less taxable property and seven times as many children); while ward thirty-one has 1,173 children and only $3,074,085 in assessed property (or three times as many children as ward two and not one-tenth the taxable property). No wonder, then, that the valuation of school buildings and equipment ranges from approximately $41 per school child in the thirty-first ward to $1,033 per school child in the second; and the income for maintenance of buildings, etc., from $6 per school child in the thirty-fifth ward to $84 per school child in the first. No wonder, then, that in these ward-school buildings and their equipment there is the utmost divergence. Our investigators found buildings every room of which was overcrowded, with children sitting on benches, with chairs in the aisles; wards in which basement rooms were thrown into commission without adequate heat, light, desks or ventilation; schools unconnected with the sewer; schools without fireproofing, without fire escapes, without fire drills;--all these in contrast to progressive schools in other wards with first-rate equipment, small classes, good plumbing and adequate light. Wards which have the most children, whose children have the least cultural environment and stimulus at home, have, many of them, the least resources to tax for school purposes. By an out-worn system of ward control and taxation, then, the teaching force of Pittsburgh is supplied in districts where the work is hardest with schoolhouses and other tools which are least effective. Some districts have schools which in equipment and spirit rank with any in the country; while in some the school plants ought to be scrapped offhand. Turn to another social institution,--the hospitals. We may conceive that the first service of hospitals is to be accessible to the sick and injured, and that an adequate hospital system should be at all times quickly available to the people who may have use for it. We may compare it with the efficiency of the telephone company which, through sub-exchanges, centrals and private connections, effectively reaches every district. How stands the case with the hospitals of Pittsburgh? The city is served by a group of private institutions, many of them adequately equipped and progressively managed; but there is no system of co-ordination between them, either in the operation of their free wards or in the maintenance of an effective ambulance service. New hospitals are erected under the eaves of old hospitals. Sick and injured people are carried long, unnecessary distances at great risk. Seven new hospitals are going up in Pittsburgh and yet, when they are all completed and other changes which have been decided upon are carried out, there will be a great belt of river wards, thickly populated, without a convenient hospital plant,--wards in which we shall see disease is most rife. This failure of a co-ordination of hospital work in Pittsburgh is appreciated by a number of the most progressive superintendents, and no one would welcome more than they a movement to interlock the hospital service of the city in some effective way. * * * * * Another point of contrast between Pittsburgh, the industrial center, and Pittsburgh, the community, lies in the progressiveness and invention which have gone into the details of one and the other; for instance, aldermen's courts which dispense justice to the working population of Pittsburgh and deal with the minor civil business of a city of half a million. They serve very well in an agricultural district. They are of the vintage of the village blacksmith. But with the exception of a few well conducted courts, the forty or more ward courts may be said to clutter up and befog the course of minor justice, and to be an exasperation in the conduct of civil business. They add to rather than subtract from the business of the higher courts, and there is no effective supervision of their operation. They compare with the new municipal courts of Chicago about as the open forges of King John's time compare with a Bessemer converter. Again,--Pittsburgh is the second city in Pennsylvania in point of population; in some respects it is the center of the most marvelous industrial district in the world. Thousands of men and women are engaged in hundreds of processes. But the state factory inspection department has not so much as an office in this city. There are inspectors, but they are not easily get-at-able for the workingman who may be laboring under unsanitary conditions or with unprotected machinery, or for the citizen who may know of violations of the factory acts which he conceives it his duty to report. My conception of an adequate labor department office in Pittsburgh is more than that of an industrial detective bureau. My conception is rather that of a headquarters, with an adequate force of technical experts and physicians who would be constantly studying the work processes of the district with the idea of eliminating wherever possible, those conditions which make for disease; with laboratory facilities for experiment and demonstration of protective devices calculated to reduce accidents; drawing, to this end, upon the industrial experience of the whole world. The factory inspector's office in Birmingham, for instance, is in close co-operation with courts, with employers and with workmen. Within three years, its suggestions have reduced the number of deaths due to one variety of crane from twenty-one to three. The old time city built a wall about it. That kept out invaders. The invaders of a modern city are infectious diseases. In the development of sanitary service and bureaus of health of wide powers and unquestioned integrity, the modern city is erecting its most effective wall. In Pittsburgh, the health authority is still a subordinate bureau without control over appointments under the civil service, and without that final authority which should go with its supreme responsibility toward the health of 500,000 people. Until the present incumbent was appointed, there had seldom or never been a physician at the head of this bureau. For five years there had not been so much as an annual report. Two-thirds of the appropriations to the Pittsburgh Health Bureau are to-day engrossed in a garbage removal contract; only one-third is free for general health purposes. With such an inadequate barricade, we can imagine that disease has sacked Pittsburgh throughout the years; and comparison of death rates with four cities of corresponding size,--Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis,--for five years, shows this to have been the case. In her average death rate per 100,000 for typhoid fever, for diarrhoea and for enteritis, Pittsburgh was first and highest. Pittsburgh was only fourth or next to the lowest in the list in pulmonary tuberculosis; but in pneumonia, in bronchitis and in other diseases of the respiratory system; and in violence other than suicide, Pittsburgh was highest. To retrieve the lost ground of years of neglect of health conditions has been a task upon which the present superintendent of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health has entered, but it is a task in which the city must invest increasing resources. For such work it needs more than a health bureau. It needs a health department. My point, then, is that democracy must overhaul the social machinery through which it operates if it would bring its community conditions up to standards comparable to those maintained by its banks, its insurance companies and its industrial corporations. * * * * * There are at least two tests to which the community can put such social machinery. The first is that of operating efficiency. In hospitals, in schools, in municipal departments, units of work and output can be worked out as definitely as are the tons of the steel workers, the voltage of the electricians, the dollars and cents of the banks. By vigorous systems of audit and intelligent systems of budget-making, understandable to the ordinary citizen, the community can see to it that the output of these social institutions is comparable with the investment it makes in them; that the taxpayer gets his money's worth. The Bureau of Municipal Research in New York embodies this idea in its program. There is another, equally intensive test to which social institutions and sanitary conditions can be put. It is conceivable that the tax payer may get his money's worth from the municipal government, while the families of the wage earning population and householders may be suffering from another and irreparable form of taxation, which only increased municipal expenditure along certain lines could relieve. So it is that while I subscribe to the movement for stiffer standards of municipal accounting as a basis for effective government, for knowing the waste of a city's money, I subscribe further to the movement for such methods of social bookkeeping as will show us the larger waste of human life and private means; and will stand out not only for honesty and efficiency, but for the common well-being. Let me illustrate by the case of typhoid fever which has been epidemic in Pittsburgh for twenty-five years. To eliminate typhoid Pittsburgh has erected a 5-1/2 million dollar filtration plant,[14] for the years of delay in the erection of which the city has suffered a terrible toll of deaths and misery. There were 5,421 cases of typhoid fever in Pittsburgh last year and 622 deaths. Computing death rate per 100,000 population for the larger cities having the highest rates in 1901, Pittsburgh was first with 124, New Haven second, Allegheny third; in 1902, Pittsburgh was first, Allegheny second, Washington third; in 1903, Pittsburgh first, Cleveland was second, Allegheny third; in 1904, Columbus was first, Pittsburgh second, Allegheny third; in 1905, Allegheny was first, Pittsburgh second and Columbus third; in 1906, Pittsburgh was first, and Allegheny second. But even these figures, startling as they are, fail to afford a grasp of the meaning of this typhoid scourge in the lives of the wage earners of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Survey undertook to gauge this. In co-operation with Columbian Settlement, we collected data as to 1,029 cases in six wards reported in one year; 448 cases were found and studied. Of these 26 died. 187 wage earners lost 1,901 weeks' work. Other wage earners, not patients, lost 322 weeks,--a total loss in wages of $28,899. The cost of 90 patients treated in hospitals at public or private expense was $4,165; of 338 patients cared for at home, $21,000 in doctors' bills, nurses, ice, foods, medicines; of 26 funerals, $3,186; a total cost of $57,250 in less than half the cases of six wards in one year,--wards in which both income and sickness expense were at a minimum. But there were other even more serious drains which do not admit of tabulation. A girl of twenty-two, who worked on stogies, was left in a very nervous condition, not as strong as before, and consequently she could not attain her former speed. A blacksmith will probably never work at his trade with his former strength. A sixteen-year-old girl who developed tuberculosis was left in a weakened physical condition. A tailor who cannot work as long hours as before, was reduced $1 a week in wages. A boy of eight was very nervous; he would not sit still in school and was rapidly becoming a truant. A mother developed a case of pneumonia from over-exposure in caring for children who had the fever, and she has not been well since. So the story goes,--very real to the lives of the many who are so intimately concerned. The money losses can be replaced. My figures include no estimate of the value of human lives lost. And it is impossible to compute in terms of dollars and cents, what it means to a family to have the father's health so broken that he cannot work at his old job, but has to accept easier work at less pay. It is impossible to put in tabulated form the total value to a family of a mother's health, and strike a proper balance when typhoid has left her a physical or nervous wreck. It is impossible to estimate what is the cost to a boy or girl who is obliged to leave school in order to help support the family, because typhoid has incapacitated the natural bread-winners. Such facts as these show the drain that typhoid has been on the vital forces of the community. It is only one of such drains. [14] In October there were but ninety-six cases of typhoid in Greater Pittsburgh, as against 503 for October, 1907. Such facts as these bring home concretely to the average workingman his stake in good government. * * * * * It is not possible here to enter into a discussion, even briefly, of the democratic methods by which a community can improve the quality and lessen the cost of its food supplies as an integral part of the program for building up a vigorous working population. There is a direct bearing between these costs of living and the holding power of the wages paid in the Pittsburgh District. * * * * * But there is one necessity of which there is a paramount shortage; that is shelter. I should like you to compare the efficiency to perform the function for which it is devised of a modern blast furnace and the shacks which house some of the families in the Pittsburgh District. The output of the one is pig iron; the output of the other, home life and children. According to the tenement house census carried on by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health the past summer, there are 3,364 tenement houses in the greater city. Nearly fifty per cent of these are old dwellings built and constructed to accommodate one family and as a rule without conveniences for the multiple households now crowded into them. Let me give you an example,--a house on Bedford avenue, with three families in the front and three in the rear, Negroes and whites. The owner was notified over a year ago that the building must be repaired and certain alterations made, but nothing has been done, and by the veto of the governor of Pennsylvania of a bill which passed the last Legislature, the Bureau of Health has no power to condemn such unsanitary dwellings. In this building, two-room apartments rent for twelve dollars a month. Water has to be obtained from a hydrant in the yard, shared by eleven families; the foul privy vaults are also shared by neighboring families. Under Dr. Edwards's administration 5,063 such privy vaults have been filled and abandoned in Pittsburgh and 8,281 sanitary water closets installed in their place. The work is less than half done. The census of only the first twenty wards of the older city shows a total of nearly 6,000 vaults still existing in these wards alone. Consider the contrast,--these old, ramshackle, unwholesome, disease breeding appliances of the back country here in Pittsburgh, the city of the great engineers, of mechanical invention and of progress. In a typhoid-ridden neighborhood, a vault is an open menace to health. Investigations in army camps and in given neighborhoods in Chicago have proved that insects carry disease from such places to the tables and living rooms of the people. There are three points which I should like you to consider in connection with this problem of shelter. The first is that the Bureau of Health, however efficient in its supervisory work, cannot meet it single handed. Even if through the activities of the Health Bureau, Tammany Hall, Yellow Row and other old shacks have been torn down, even if the owners of other old buildings are made to install sanitary appliances, the situation is still unmet, unless new houses,--vast quantities of new houses,--are erected to care for the increased population which has flooded into Pittsburgh in the last ten years and which, there is every indication, will multiply as greatly in the next ten. Real estate dealers and builders have not been inactive in Pittsburgh, but the situation is so serious as to demand the development of a constructive public policy that will comprehend such elements as town planning, tax reform, and investment at "five per cent and the public good." My second point is that this haphazard method of letting the housing supply take care of itself is a monetary drawback to the merchants of the city. In the first place, it radically reduces the margin which the workingman's family has to spend for commodities. Especially is this true of immigrant tenants, who are obliged to pay more than English-speaking. For instance, on Bass street, Allegheny, we found Slavs paying twenty dollars a month for four rooms, as against fifteen dollars paid by Americans. In the second place, it puts a premium on the single men, drifters, lodgers, as against the man with a family. The immigrant boarders who rent from a boarding-boss, and sleep eight or ten in a room or sleep at night in the beds left vacant by the night workers who have occupied them throughout the day,--such fellows can make money in the Pittsburgh district. But the immigrant who wants to make his stake here, bring his family over, create a household, must pay ten or fifteen dollars a month for rooms; and must pay high prices for all the other necessities of life. If I were asked by what means the merchants of Pittsburgh could increase the volume of purchases of the buying public, I should say that no one thing would affect that so impressively as the multiplication of households, through the multiplication of low cost, low rental, sanitary houses to meet the needs of stable family groups as against the transient lodger. My third point is that the housing problem is not a city problem alone. It is repeated in each of the mill towns. I could cite instances in Braddock, Duquesne, McKeesport, Sharpsburg, where old buildings are filthy and overcrowded and where new buildings are put up in violation of every canon of scientific housing,--back-to-back houses such as were condemned in England seventy-five years ago as breeding places of disease. Homestead, for instance, has no ordinance against overcrowding, no ordinance requiring adequate water supply, or forbidding privy vaults in congested neighborhoods. The foreigners live in the second ward between the river and the railroads. In twenty-two courts studied in this district, only three houses had running water inside. One hundred and ten people were found using one yard pump. Fifty-one out of 239 families lived in one room each. Twenty-six of the two-room apartments are used by eight or more people; one two-room apartment sheltered thirteen; two, twelve; two, eleven. A crude reflection of the effect of these conditions is indicated by the death rate in this second ward. Of every three children born there one dies before it reaches two years of age, as against one in every six in the rest of Homestead, where detached, and livable dwellings prevail. * * * * * This comparison of health conditions in a small town is true in a large, cruel way of Pittsburgh itself. In co-operation with the Typhoid Fever Commission we have analyzed by wards the death certificates of people dying in Pittsburgh for the past five years. We have grouped these wards into districts, the living conditions of which are more or less of a kind. Let me compare the mortality figures of wards nine and ten and twelve,--a group of river wards in the old city, near the mills, peopled for the most part with a wage-earning population of small income,--compare these wards with ward twenty-two, a new residential district in the East End. What are the chances of life of the men, women and children living in the one and in the other? The chance of a man's dying of bronchitis in the river wards is two and a half as against one in the East End; it is four of his dying from pneumonia as against one in the East End, five of his dying of typhoid as against one in the East End, six of his dying a violent death as against one in the East End. These are rough proportions merely, but they are of terrific significance. Our American boast that everybody has an equal chance falls flat before them. The dice are loaded in Pittsburgh when it comes to a man's health; his health is the workingman's best asset; and the health and vigor of its working population are in the long run the vital and irrecoverable resources of an industrial center. This brings us to a point where we can define more concretely the plain civic responsibility of democracy in an industrial district. That responsibility is to contrive and to operate the social machinery of the community, and to make living conditions in the district, such as will attract and hold a strong and vigorous labor force, for the industries on which the prosperity of the district must depend. Here lie the responsibility of the community to the individual manufacturer,--and the responsibility of the community to its own future:--that the efficiency of its workers shall not be mortgaged before they go to work in the morning. * * * * * This carries a counter responsibility. In the interests of the community as a whole, in the interests of all the industries as against the interests of any single one, the public cannot afford to have such a working force impaired or wasted by unsanitary or health-taxing conditions during the working hours. What I mean will perhaps be clearest by illustrating in the case of industrial accidents. Pittsburgh cannot afford to have over 500 workingmen killed every year in the course of employment, or the unknown number of men who are seriously injured. During the past year, the Pittsburgh Survey has made an intensive inquiry into the facts surrounding the deaths of the entire roster of men killed in industry during twelve months, and of the accident cases treated in the hospitals of the district during three months,--not with the idea of raising anew the question of responsibility for particular accidents, but to see if there are any indications as to whether these accidents could be prevented and whether the burden of them falls where in justice it should. The work has been done by a staff of five people, including a lawyer, an engineer and interpreters, and we have had the co-operation of claim agents, superintendents, foremen, trade union officials and others. We found that of the 526 men killed in the year studied in Allegheny county, the accidents fell on Americans as well as foreigners; 224 were native born. The ranks of steel workers and train men suffer most,--the pick of the workmen in the district. There were 195 steel workers killed, 125 railroad men, seventy-one mine workers, and 135 in other occupations. It was found that it was the young men of the district who went down in the course of industry. Eighty-two were under twenty years of age, 221 between twenty and thirty. Over half the men killed were earning less than fifteen dollars a week, a fact which raises the question if the law is fair in assuming, as it does in Pennsylvania, that wages cover risk. Fifty-one per cent of the men killed were married with families to support; an additional thirty per cent were single men, partly, or wholly, supporting a family. It was shown that the greatest losses were not due to the spectacular accidents, but to everyday causes. In the steel industry, for instance, forty-two deaths were due to the operation of electric cranes, thirty-one to the operation of broad and narrow gauge railroads in the mills and yards, and twenty-four to falls from a height or into pits, vats, etc. Pittsburgh has stamped out smallpox; its physicians are fighting tuberculosis; the municipality is checking typhoid. Cannot engineers, foremen, employers and workmen come together in a campaign to reduce accidents? Considerable has already been done in this direction by progressive employers. The problem is that of bringing up the whole district to progressive standards. On the other hand we have put these industrial accident cases to that same test of human measurement which we found of such significance in gauging the losses due to typhoid fever. This steady march of injury and death means an enormous economic loss. Is the burden of this loss justly distributed? What takes the place of the wages of these bread-winners? What resources of their own have these families to fall back on? What share of the loss is shouldered by the employer? What share falls in the long run upon the community itself, in the care of the sick and dependent? Is the Pennsylvania law fair that exempts the employer from paying anything to the family of a killed alien if that family lives in a foreign country? Are the risks which the law supposes that the workman assumes when he hires out for wages, fair risks under modern conditions of production? Is it in the long run, to the interest of the employer to leave to the haphazard, embittered gamble of damage suits, this question of meeting in a fair way the human loss which with even the best processes and the greatest care, is involved in the production of utilities? I am not in a position here to put forward the economic facts brought out by our inquiries; but I can say that on every hand, among employers and claim agents and workmen, there is profound dissatisfaction and an increasing open-mindedness toward some such sane and equitable system of working-men's compensation as those in operation in Germany and in England. But this question of industrial accidents is only part of another and larger question of the relation of industry to health. The workers of Pittsburgh are dealing not with simple ploughs and wash tubs and anvils, but with intricate machines or in great work rooms where hundreds work side by side; dealing with poisons, with voltage, with heat, with a hundred new and but half mastered agents of production. Are the conditions under which some of this work is carried on directly inimical to health? Could they be bettered without serious loss to the trades and with great gain to the workers? In the rapid development of factories in America, we have only begun to devise our plants with reference to the health of the worker as well as with reference to output. Let me illustrate from the women employing trades. In only two of the twenty-eight commercial laundries in Pittsburgh, is the wash room on the upper floor. In twenty-six, rising steam and excessive heat not only cause discomfort in the other departments, but tend to induce diseases of the respiratory organs. Tobacco dried in many of the stogy sweatshops, makes the air heavy with nicotine, fills the room with fine dust and increases the danger, always present in the tobacco trades, from tuberculosis. In foundries and machine shops, the custom of placing annealing ovens in the rooms where the cores are made, causes excessive heat in the work room and fill the air with a black dust. We have the statements of old employes that not more than twenty-five girls of the 300 in the coil winding room in one of the Pittsburgh electrical industries have been in the plant as long as three or four years. The speeding-up tends to make the girls nervous, weak and easily overcome by illness. Apart from dangers of accident, of speeding and of injurious processes, the health of a working force bears a direct relation to the length of the working day. The tendency with respect to both hours and Sunday work in the steel industry in Pittsburgh has been, for fifteen years, towards an increase, and there is no indication that the end has yet been reached. There is not the opportunity here to analyze the time schedule of the varied departments of the steel industry, but in a majority of them the day of twenty-four hours is split between two shifts of workers; and the men work not six days, but seven a week. And a very considerable share of them, once a fortnight in changing shifts, work a long turn of twenty-four hours. Employers may differ as to whether they can get the most work and the most effective work out of a man if he works twelve hours a day, or ten, or eight. But I hold that the community has something at stake here. How much citizenship does Pittsburgh get out of a man who works twelve hours a day seven days a week? How much of a father can a man be who may never see his babies except when they are asleep; or who never gets a chance to go off into the country for a rollick with his boys? The community has a claim on the vigor and intelligence of its people, on their activity in civic affairs, which I believe it is letting go by default. It is getting only the tired out leavings of some of its best men. My argument, then, is that if the civic responsibilities of democracy in an industrial district are to be met, the community should do what a first-rate industrial concern would do, figure out the ground it can cover effectively and gear its social machinery so to cover it. By social machinery I mean hospitals, schools, courts and departments the city structure, and all that wide range of activities that have a direct bearing on the living conditions of a people. Second, to hold these agencies as closely accountable as are enterprises in the business world; and to bring them to the ultimate touchstone of their effect on the welfare of the average citizen. Unless a wage-earning population is so insured against disease, its vigor and effectiveness so conserved, the community is not meeting its responsibilities toward the industries which must depend upon these workers for output and profit. In turn, the public should see to it that the industries do not cripple nor exploit the working force which constitutes the great asset of the community. And further, if such a program is to be carried out in an American and democratic way, the workers themselves must have greater leeway and leisure in which to bear their share of the burdens and responsibilities of American democracy. I bear a message to Pittsburgh from John Burns, president of the Local Government Board of England, one of the foremost labor leaders of Great Britain, who has been hailed this fall as one of the conserving forces of the present Liberal ministry in dealing with the vast economic problems which are facing the British Empire. He has visited America and Pittsburgh as a member of various commissions, and it was on the basis of his knowledge of our situation here that I asked him for suggestions as to ways of advance, which would lead to the improvement of civic and labor conditions in the Pittsburgh steel district. "Six days work a week instead of seven," he said. "Three shifts of eight hours instead of two shifts of twelve; no twenty-four hour shifts; better housing; counter-attractions to the saloon; more parks,--open spaces; the improvement of the river front;--the humanizing of labor instead of the brutalization of toil. There you are. Those are Pittsburgh's marching orders." Pittsburgh's three rivers and the great mineral resource's they tap brought the people here. Environment is inevitable as a selective agency; but the people once here, can by their willing, mould and perpetuate or destroy the holding power of the district. Other cities have large admixtures of clerks and trading classes. I doubt if there is such another working force in the country as that which peoples these valleys. Therein lies a civic resource worth conserving to the utmost of its potential goods. Will Pittsburgh as a community, as a democratic community, meet that responsibility? Will the industrial communities of the nation, as democratic communities, meet their responsibility? THE TREND OF THINGS The working woman is coming up as a result of her invasion of commercial pursuits. While the department store pays poorer wages than the factory or domestic service, it has a standing, its girls a position due to their dress and their surroundings, which the others do not give. Grant it every evil ever charged against it, say Mr. Hard and Mrs. Dorr in the third article of their series on The Woman's Invasion, in the January _Everybody's_, make the case out as bad as long hours, poor pay, Christmas rush time, the need for expensive clothes, can total. Still it is superior socially; its hours are shorter; it draws the American as against the foreign-born girl; it offers better opportunity for marriage, and all these things appeal to a girl because she is not, consciously at least, in industry to stay, but to pass the time until marriage. That's why "a store can get for six dollars the kind of girl that will earn ten dollars in a shoe factory." Low as the wages are,--and they are set by this social advantage and by the predominant number of department store clerks who are not wholly dependent on themselves,--there is a chance for real advancement. Woman has been in factory work for a century, but she remains an operative except for occasional forewomen, and as a result of piece work she quickly reaches her maximum earning capacity and afterwards declines. But in the department store, where she has been only a few years, she has advanced to positions of real responsibility, particularly as a buyer, and sometimes draws a salary of from $1,500 to $6,000; her wages go steadily up, and the clerks in some departments draw good, living wages with the ever-present example of the buyer and her kind just ahead, elevated from their own ranks. The article, in parts, in a stirring description of the life of the 20,000 department store clerks on State street, Chicago, and one of the best parts of it is the contrast of the girl clerk who sells handkerchiefs, and the girl machine operative who makes handkerchiefs, the clerk "getting handkerchiefs out of boxes for querulous, exacting customers, putting handkerchiefs back in boxes for querulous, exacting stock inspectors, taking parcels to the cage of the wrapper girl, pacifying purchasers waiting for their change, attracting new purchasers coming down the aisle, discriminating between 'buyers' and 'shoppers,' drawing the 'buyers' on, edging the 'shoppers' off, rearranging the counter,--from eight or half-past in the morning to half past five in the afternoon;" the factory girl sitting before a counter on which there are a blue cross, a red cross and a machine with a clutching hand, who "takes a handkerchief, places it on the blue cross, pushes it over to the red cross, and the claw of the machine snatches it away. She takes a second handkerchief, places it on the blue cross, pushes it over to the red cross, and the machine snatches it away. She takes a third handkerchief, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, two a second, 120 a minute, 7,200 an hour, all the morning hours, all the afternoon hours, of every week, all the working weeks of every year.... The wide prevalence of this kind of sub-human toil in factories is one of the two great reasons why department store managers can often pay sub-human wages." * * * * * Mrs. Dorr has an article along very similar lines in the January _Hampton's Broadway Magazine_, using with effect little stories of women workers in many trades. Girls come out of school at fourteen and go to work; after a short apprenticeship they are put at the machines, and quickly earn the most they ever will earn. Gradually their nerves, their muscles, their eyes, their efficiency decline, their wages follow. Later they stand beside the young apprentices, earning the minimum wages after a life spent in a factory. Women do hard, manual work, too, much as we have been accustomed to think of that as peculiar to some European and Asiatic countries. Indian squaws no longer till the fields and do the heavy work in America, but Mrs. Dorr has found a modern substitute: "Go into the iron and metal working factories of American cities and see Polish women working in the heat of horrible furnaces, handling heavy weights, doing work fit only for strong men. Go into the rubber factories of Boston and see Greek and Armenian women drunk in the fumes of naphtha. See them in non-union hat factories with the skin scalded from their hands as they shrink the felt in streams of boiling water. We do not want to see American women doing such things. Yet not a year ago, in the first months of the panic of 1907, I received a letter from an American woman out of employment, asking if it were not possible for her to obtain work as a street cleaner. That work, she said, seemed to her easier than the office scrubbing she was doing then." But to return to the factory girl, Mrs. Dorr declares she is not arraigning those who own and operate factories, for they are keen for skilled workers to replace the unskilled girls who must be driven at a pace set by the machines; but rather the system under which our industries are run and by which we make our workers. The skilled worker can be made only by training, and in that she finds the keynote to the whole situation. Let us establish a great network of industrial training schools, such as the Manhattan Trade School for Girls and the Hebrew Technical School for Girls in New York, and the school maintained by the Woman's Industrial and Educational Union in Boston. Then we shall have not only skilled workers, earning fair wages, but we shall be safeguarding the mothers of to-morrow and the Children of the day after. * * * * * "The doctor," says Rudyard Kipling in the January _Ladies' Home Journal_, "can hoist a yellow flag over a center of civilization and turn it into a desert; he can hoist a red cross in the desert and turn it into a center of civilization." He can break the speed limit, go unmolested through riotous crowds, forbid any ship to enter any port in the world and order whole quarters of cities to be pulled down or burned up. These are some of his conspicuous privileges. On the other hand, "in all times of flood, fire, plague, pestilence, famine, murder and sudden death it is required of the doctor that he report himself for duty, and remain on duty till his strength fails him or his conscience relieves him,--whichever shall be the longer period." There is no eight-hour law for the physician, no one cares whether he is "in his bath, or his bed, or on his holiday, or at a theater." It is pretty well worth while, though, for "every sane human being agrees that this fight for time which we call Life is one of the most important things in the world, if not the most important. It follows, then, that the doctors who plan and conduct and who re-enforce this fight are among the most important men in the world." * * * * * The Immigration Department of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association has issued two attractive little pamphlets for the newly arrived immigrant. The policy of the association is neither to encourage nor to discourage immigration but to give a helping hand to those who have fully made up their minds to immigrate or are already in this country. The two new books are entitled The Country to Which You Go, giving an elementary outline of some of our political and social institutions, and How to Become a Citizen of the United States, which gives the immigrant a clear idea of the process to be undergone in order to become a voter. Oscar Straus, secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, says of the work of the Immigration Department, "No nobler, better or more practical work can be done by the Young Men's Christian Association than to teach our young men, be they either native-born or alien, a proper understanding of the basic principles of our government." * * * * * The last issue of _The Outlook for the Blind_, published by the Massachusetts Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind and edited by Charles F. F. Campbell, contains a chart showing in detail all educational institutions for the blind in the United States and Canada, with information of the training offered, the number of pupils, number of instructors, and other information. Presented in this form, the information is graphic and may readily be compared by states. The same issue contains articles on industrial training for the blind, a new typewriter for the blind, conferences here and abroad, reports of work in different states, and some splendidly printed illustrations. Such an issue seems indispensable to any one interested in the sightless. * * * * * It is to be expected that an anti-suffragist should take the particular attitude toward woman clearly manifested by Dr. Lyman Abbott in The Home Builder.[15] In speaking of the wife he says, "Her one dominating desire is, not to be independent, but to be dependent on the man she loves." It is true that Dr. Abbott speaks of the widest and most perfect unity between man and wife but it is ever the attitude of the dependent, the chattel, the possession of man as the end and aim of the woman's existence. It is hardly a modern ideal for either the daughter, the wife, the mother, the housekeeper or even the philanthropist, as some of the headings are called. One of the most valuable points which Dr. Abbott does bring out, however, is the preservation of the sense of humor through all of the vicissitudes of the woman's life. If the book is intended for a quaint old lady, far away from the confines of civilization, it might meet her placid requirements. But it hardly possesses the philosophy that the modern, active woman of the larger communities can find use for. [15] The Home Builder by Lyman Abbott. Small 12 mo. Boards. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 75 cents. Pp. 129. This book may be obtained at publisher's price through CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS. Life Insurance satisfies the conscience, eases the mind, banishes worry and gives old age a chair of contentment. [Illustration] Metropolitan Policies are the Standards of Life Insurance Excellence [Illustration] Metropolitan Life Insurance Company 1 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK (Incorporated by the State of New York. Stock Company.) * * * * * TYRREL PRINT, NEW YORK. IT IS SUMMER IN California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, You can Motor, Drive, Ride, Fish, Hunt, Bathe, Climb, Coach, Canoe, Yacht, Golf, Every Day in the Year Points in these States best reached via the Southern Pacific Sunset Route THE NATURAL WINTER GATEWAY THE OPEN WINDOW ROUTE Rock-Ballast Roadbed--Automatic Block Signals--Oil-Burning Locomotives--Superior Equipment. Ten days' Stopover at New Orleans on all Tickets. For free illustrated pamphlet address: L. H. NUTTING, G. E. P. A., 349 Broadway, New York, or Southern Pacific Agent at CHICAGO, 120 Jackson Blvd. NEW ORLEANS, Magazine St. BOSTON, 170 Washington St. PHILADELPHIA, 632 Chestnut St. SYRACUSE, 212 W. Washington St. BALTIMORE, 29 W. Baltimore St. * * * * * Please mention CHARITIES AND THE COMMONS when writing to advertisers. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected. Italics words are denoted by _underscores_. Bold words are denoted by =equals=. P. 606 added transcriber footnote "[Footnote 1: Transcriber 20 + 10 obviously does not equal 42]." Obviously the total or the boy or girl numbers are incorrect. 
40116	----	EDITH AND JOHN _A Story of Pittsburgh_ _By_ FRANKLIN S. FARQUHAR Copyright 1912 by Franklin S. Farquhar Published May, 1912 Type set by Rush G. Faler & Co., Linotypers Printed by Commercial Bindery & Printing Co., Tacoma, Wash. EDITH AND JOHN _A Story of Pittsburgh_ CHAPTER I. THE WRECKED UMBRELLA. Fog and smoke and grime hung over the city of Pittsburgh: a thickening blanket, soggy in its cumbrous pall. The rain came down like gimlets; the air was savage, miserably embracing; the streets were sodden, muddy, filthy, with dirty streams babbling along the gutters; the lights gleamed ghastly, ghostly, hideously, in radiating through the gloom; water dripped from eave, awning, wire, sign, lamppost--from everything, spattering, trickling, everlastingly dripping, till the whole world seemed to be in an advanced stage of the diabetes. It was a gray, grim, medieval night--a cold, raw, nerve-racking night in November. The gleaming forges, the ponderous hammers, the monstrous rolls of the mills boomed in the distance, sullenly, ceaselessly, like unto the grumblings of a maddened Tubal Cain irritated beyond endurance. Mill and factory and boat and shop whistles tooted and screeched and howled demoniacally, with little agreement as to rhythm. Trains rumbled, cars rattled, and all manner of conveyances bumped along, over crossings and grades and Y's, through tunnels, under sheds, through yards, beneath buildings, over streets, across bridges; some rapidly, some slowly, some cautiously, some recklessly--all going, coming, hither and yon, with a remorseless energy, and for an inexorable purpose. A medley of bells smote the air with a harshness, a sweetness, a madness, that was startling enough to drive the nervous into a wild panic. The rumble of cart, the thud of horse, the crack of whip, the tread of feet, the sound of voice, was a confused mass of noises added to the greater roaring of the turbulent city of iron and steel. Tired, wan women, coarsely dressed; proud, haughty women, fashionably attired; strips of boys and girls, shivering and chattering, bedraggled and humped up; horny-handed men, roughly clothed; kid-gloved men, faultlessly groomed: some with bundles, baskets, dinner-buckets, or nothing--all hurrying through the elemental dreariness, bending their way from office, from store, from shop, from mill, from factory to home, to hotel, to palace, to mansion, to hovel, to downy beds, to straw pallets, to bunk, to bench, or doorstep; or to place of nightly service, or to pleasure; to rest and refresh themselves, and await the coming of another day of toil, or leisure. * * * * * John Winthrope was a strapping young man but a few months from the country--aged twenty-two. He had quit his pen and ink and account sheets at his high desk in the office of Jarney & Lowman as the clock in the court house tower pealed out six deliberately solemn strokes. He put on his coat and hat, took up a bundle of reading matter selected for its quality from that which daily cumbered the desks and waste-baskets, procured an umbrella from the many that had been left in a rack in one corner, and went out the door, down the elevator, and into the street. As rain was falling, he turned up his pantaloons, turned up his coat collar, raised the umbrella, and joined the throng of hurrying pedestrians, homeward bound. Home! John had no home in the city. He had left his home behind--the modest, cheaply builded, scantily furnished and illy appointed home of his parents in the mountains--to come to the city to make his fortune. His home now was a "room"--merely a room among a multiplicity of similar rooms, in between the four angles of plastered walls. His remuneration as the lowest bookkeeper in the line of such functionaries was insufficient to purchase more than the most meager accommodations in a cheap boarding house up Diamond Alley way. This room in question was in an ancient brick and timber building, that, in its earlier days, was an architectural ornament in its stateliness compared to other business blocks; but by reason of the rapid striding of modern prosperity, it was long ago left in the vast shades that great fortunes had reared into iron and concrete, standing by. There were only two sides open to the light and air in this low and aged building--one in front and one on top. In between were three tiers of small dark rooms, one tier above the other, resembling very much the little cubes of a concentrated egg case. Two small paned windows looked drearily into them from the street, on each floor, with a smaller time-stained window in each resounding hallway. The inner rooms were lighted by abbreviated wells dug in from a skylight on the side adjoining the blank walls of a dizzy skyscraper. And cloudy and shadowy and dim and cheerless, indeed, was the light let in on the brightest of days, while on dull days it was nothing more than the semblance of a waning twilight; so that, if used in day time at all, a light were needed to make out and clearly discern any object within. In one of these dark and inodorous rooms, John Winthrope had his temporary abiding place. There were in it a cheap iron bed, with musty smelling tick, sheet and coverlets; a small oak-grained pine washstand, with such a wavy little mirror hanging over it, that one could not tell, in looking at himself in it, whether he were a Chinaman, a Greaser, or a crooked-faced Irishman toiling in the streets; a small bowl, for washing, and a correspondingly small pitcher, with water in it, sat upon the shaky stand; a cheap chair, a weak imitation of quartered oak, with many marks of usage all over it, stood by a little table, also with many marks of usage on it; a flowered carpet, faded, worn and fretted by the sure hand of wearing time, covered the floor, with here and there ragged spots of bareness to enhance the room's impoverishment. Leaving the office of Jarney & Lowman on that very disagreeable evening, as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, John pushed down the foggy thoroughfares, with a rain: which seemed to be coming from a reservoir in the infinite space above: pouring down. The streets were crowded with people, going in various directions, and jostling each other with little regard as to manners. Everybody had, apparently, but one motive, and that was to get somewhere out of the terrors of the elements. Nobody went with any precision as to plan of action, aiming only to reach a near or remote destination. John pressed along the best he could, with what care that the rain, the umbrellas and the crowd permitted. He drew his shoulders downward, and bent forward, leaning against the driving rain, with his umbrella in front of him. He hugged the buildings closely, stepped rapidly, dodged from right to left of the other pedestrians, who were attempting the same artful measures as himself, to keep out of the rain, if that were possible. So absorbed was he in his own behalf, that he did not observe a young lady approaching, in line with him, with the same absorbing carefulness as to herself. She had but a moment before stepped from a store, not perceiving that it was raining hard till she was plodding along through it. She was also bending forward slightly, picking her way with dainty but quickly executed steps to get where everybody else was aiming for--home. Like John, she was unobserving as to the actions of the fleeing people about her; and it is difficult to tell just how she expected to keep her feet dry, considering how the water fell, and how it splashed about. Howsoever, the lady, all of a sudden, came to a stop; two ribs of her umbrella snapped with a loud click, one side flapping down over her shoulders; her hat flew off as if it had been kicked by an athlete, and rolled across the swimming pavement into the gutter. She uttered a little cry of distress, and was in the act of turning around, and repairing to the store whence she came, when she beheld a young man performing an ungraceful act in attempting the recovery of her hat. He was fleeing after it, with upspread umbrella over him, and running and stopping and reaching for the piece of headgear that seemed determined to evade his efforts to secure it. Seeing him thus, in his ludicrous movements, she half smiled, and then decided to await further developments. Securing the hat, finally, after it had started to float away on the tide of the gutter, John (for that is whom the young man was) returned with it to her, he himself showing some moiling, like the hat, as a result of his gallant endeavors. When he approached her, with it in his hand, she exhibited such an air of respectability and unfeigned independence that John was fairly startled. "Beg your pardon, lady," he said, handing her the hat, bowing as he did so; "it was an unavoidable accident--or rather the result of my heedlessness. I beg your pardon." The lady stood a short moment confused, hesitating as to whether she should deign to answer a stranger in the street, any more than to say "thank you," and acknowledge, lady-like, that she was partly in the blame, and ask his pardon also; or accept his blunder in good nature, as he seemed to take it, and go her way. But John's voice was so mild, and his manner so gentlemanly, that she felt as soon as he had spoken that she need have no fear of him. "Oh, sir," she said, pleasantly, with a laugh; "as much my fault as yours. Thank you." "May I hold your umbrella while you adjust your hat?" he asked, seeing her dilapidated rain shade, with water streaming off of it on her shoulders, falling about her head. "If you wish, you may," she replied, shyly. "I fear it is about done for." "You may have mine," he returned. "May I take yours?" "You may hold it," she answered, as she began to lower it, having her hat now also in her hand. "My, what a predicament I am in!" "Pardon me," he said; "but you will be left in the rain, if I take yours and you do not accept mine." "Why, yes, indeed, I forgot it was raining," she responded, with a laugh that indicated her confusion. "Give it me," he said, as her umbrella shut up tightly. "Will you accept the protection of mine? The rain is falling hard," he continued, as he took hers; and then reached as far as possible, without going closer, holding his over her, and standing himself in the rain. "Oh, my, this hat is so soiled and nasty from the street," she said, as she held it before her in the light of a fog enshrouded street lamp. "If you will give it me a moment, I will make an effort to remove some of the grime," he said, in such a deferential tone that she was moved to reply: "Indeed, sir, I find now I need your assistance, or perhaps I would be doing a wrong in standing here in the rain with you. I find most men are gentlemen, though, when a lady is in trouble." "Thank you," he returned. "May I take the hat for a moment?" She hesitated a second time about accepting his proffered aid, but finally, becoming more convinced of the futility of aiding herself alone, said: "You may." He then took the hat to clean, and she took the umbrella to hold, and they both stood together, closely, under his rain protector. While he cleaned the hat of its smutage, she watched him with some trepidation as to the propriety of the act. When she saw him draw forth his pocket handkerchief and begin, with delicate carefulness, to mop the slimy accretions from the rich material, she breathed more easily, and stood as silent noting the performance as the street lamp that gave forth such an haloic light. They were both facing the light, he holding the hat in his left hand, whirling it round and round as he diligently soaked up, with his handkerchief, the water from it. His head was bent forward, with his eyes cast directly upon the object of his attention. She glanced up into his face from time to time, wondering at the strange situation she was in, and seeing how good a face he had. She was very careful that he did not catch her throwing furtive glances at him, fearful that he might think her very bold. John paid no heed to her for the time, so bent was he in attempting to make courteous amends for his awkwardness. But when he had so soiled his handkerchief that it would not absorb any more of the hat's defilement, he raised his eyes to her and said: "There!" "Thank you," she returned, taking the hat, and handing him his umbrella. "Will you be so kind as to hold the umbrella while I put on my hat?" "With your permission," he replied, with condign simplicity. "I am delighted to be of service to you for the grievous work I have done this night," and he took the umbrella again, and held it over her. After a few minutes of prodding about her head with two long silver pins, with something sparkling like diamonds on one end of each, she said, as she lowered her hands: "Now, my umbrella, if you please?" "You may have mine," he answered. "Yours is so desolate looking that you might as well go on your way without one as to attempt to use it again." "You are kind, indeed," she replied, with reserve, as she was making an effort to hoist her wrecked umbrella, which he had turned over to her, but still standing under his. She was now facing the lamp that was feebly radiating down upon them, and he could see, plainly enough, that she was pretty. He had divined as much, however, basing his divination upon her beautifully modulated and sweet voice, which he thought could accompany no other than blue eyes, rosy cheeks and cupid lips. "Will you accept mine?" he asked again, seeing she was having trouble in raising her own to a due and rigid uprightness. "To whom shall I return it, should I accept it?" she asked. "Oh, never mind its return," he replied. "Then I shall not accept it," she insisted. "If you insist on returning it, then to the office of Jarney & Lowman," he answered. "Why, what have you to do with that firm?" she asked, with surprise. "I am one of the bookkeepers in the office of that firm," he answered, hesitatingly, for her tone of surprise was such that he could not guess its meaning. "Ha, ha, ha!" she laughed. "It seems so ridiculous in me standing here this soggy night, feeling so fearful all the while that I might have fallen into the hands of a ruffian! Ha, ha, ha! I must tell papa as soon as I get home. Such a strange coincidence one never heard of before!" The pleasant demeanor of the young lady, so suddenly taken on, set John to staring at her, now in a great quandary, now in mingled confusion and hesitancy as to what to say further. "To whom have I the honor of being so unceremoniously introduced on such an aqueous night?" he asked. "Why, I am Edith Jarney, daughter of Hiram Jarney," she replied, with so much more confidence in herself that she felt she would not now hesitate to be on friendly terms with this humble worker in her father's office. "And your name?" she was emboldened to ask. "John Winthrope," he blurted out, a little flustrated over the turn the accidental meeting had taken. "Mr. Winthrope," she said, extending her hand; "I am very glad to know you, and to know that you are an employe of my father." As he took her gloved hand, she continued, "yes, with your permission, I will accept your umbrella; but it seems so ungracious for me to do so. What will you do without one, and the rain coming down so?" "I have not far to go," he answered. He pressed her hand lightly, while she held his firmly and sincerely in her effort to impress upon him how very thankful she was for his kindness. "It gives me pleasure, indeed, Miss Jarney," he returned, looking steadily at her, "to assist you. I hope I may have the further pleasure of seeing you again, some day; but I can hardly expect that--" "Why not?" she interrupted. "--unless it should be by chance," he finished, releasing her hand. "Mr. Winthrope, really, I have enjoyed our accidental tete-a-tete," she pursued. "When we first ran together, I was somewhat angered, as I had a right to be, at your awkwardness; but when I saw you running for my hat, and when I heard you speak, and when you offered to aid me in my distress, all fear left me. I felt that a gentleman was at hand to mollify the grievous circumstance. Now, you know what I think of you." "Thank you," he replied, bowing, with considerable condescension, for her praiseworthy remarks. "I would like to prolong our now quite interesting little episode, were it possible," she said, with more earnestness in her feelings than he could believe; "but this horrid night is already sending the shivers through me, and I am beginning to realize that, should we stand here longer, the rain will have, soaked us through and through." John gasped at this reassuring confidence and interest in himself. He would have asked her, as a matter of continuing his courtesy, to accompany her to her home, or to some convenient point for her to take a taxicab; but recognizing his station in life was not on a plain with hers, he could not conscientiously attempt to ingratiate himself into her favor, let alone asking the pleasure of her company homeward. He felt it would be exceedingly bold and entirely out of place for him, being as he was poor, to make such a dubious request of her. But still she remained continuing the conversation. And the rain still came pouring down. "I assure you, Miss Jarney," he did say at last, "I have, since I came to know you, never enjoyed anything so monumentally humorous as this affair; and I would have been greatly disappointed on it, and weightily embarrassed over it, had you not have taken my umbrella, even though I had not learned your name, nor ever expected to see you again." "That is very clever in you," she replied, with the sweetest little chuckle, being amused at the simplicity of his manner and loftiness of his speech. "The eloquence of your deportment cannot be improved on." "Thank you, Miss Jarney, for your kind opinion," he answered. Still Edith Jarney stood, on this cold, gloomy, miserable November evening, talking to this young man from the mountains, who was without money, or fame, or glory, or name, except that which his good parents had bestowed upon him--this young man alone in a big city, with a multitude of others in the struggle for existence, and she so rich. And still she talked on with this unassuming country youth, emboldened to the act by the strange hand of chance that should bring her to it, and by the novelty of the situation, and by some other unfathomable mystery that caused her to see in him something more than usual, continuing to intimate the while that she was loath to forego further indulgence in their very entertaining meeting; and she so rich, and he so poor. But as all happy events in one's life must have an ending, she at length said, while the rain still kept pouring down: "Mr. Winthrope, I must express my sincere regret that the time and place are inappropriate for a continuance of our very, very pleasant talk on this highly felicitous event, as it has turned out to be." Again she extended her hand, and still the rain came beating down as before. He took it, and pressed it more firmly, and she permitted him to hold it as he said: "The pleasure is not all yours, Miss Jarney, I assure you. Were I--were I equal to the occasion, which I can never hope to be, I might ask the pleasure of accompanying you--part way at least--through this soaking night to your home, or to your nearest friends. But I shall not ask it of you." "Good bye," she replied, with some disappointment, it appeared to him, as he released her hand. "Good bye," he returned; and they parted. She turned, and disappeared, like a spectre, into the depths of the grayish shroud of the melancholy night. He turned a corner, lost his way in the hurrying crowd, and drew up eventually at a restaurant. After refreshing himself, he returned to the street again, and plodded on, with the broken umbrella over him, through the dampage to his cold and dimly lighted chamber--there to sleep, and dream, perhaps, of a fair young face, miles and miles above his station in life. And the rain beat down above him with the same homely sound, it seemed, as it did in the past, upon the roof above his chamber in his mountain home. CHAPTER II. AT THE MANSION ON THE HILL. In Highland avenue, far removed from the crowded thoroughfares, the congested tenements, the cheap homes of the middle class, the rush and roar of industry--out where the wind and sun (when they combine together to have a sky cleaning and an air purification) first lay hold with brush and broom and water to scour away the smokage of the manufactories of wealth--stands a mansion. It is a dull gray mansion on a hill, with an outlook to the four winds--over every hill and valley, park, suburb, town and community--embracing everything that a prospect could possibly be endowed with. Standing alone in a small private park, studded with oaks, beech and maple trees, and brightened by a sward faultlessly maintained, with gently sloping hillsides, rockeries, aquariums and flower beds, and winding paths and roads and byways, it impresses one not much unlike that of same landed member of nobility when men were masters of men even with less harshness than now. It does not resemble an ancient castle. It does not resemble a manor house of England. It resembles nothing at all that ever was in the way of abode of men. It resembles more the newer ideas of builders put into stone and mortar and glass--a conglomeration of the old styles blended into one more modern, more pleasing to the eye, more harmonious with the colors of the air, the trees, the fields and all things around--representing the craft and graft and greed of men of this age. Without, on this November day, it seemed to be forsaken, cold, damp, dull, forbidding, sombre in every delineation of its outline, rearing through the haze of smoke and fog and rain like a stranded Adamaster in a sea of penury, misery and woe, with the lesser lights of affluence beaming dimly in its neighborhood. But within, there were the warmth of the tropics, the effulgence of the Riviera, the glitter of the Orient, the polish of the court of France in the hey-day of its kings, the laughter of youth, the smile of the aged, the cheer of the domestic, and over all the atmosphere of those brought into the world to conquer among men in the science of business. This is the home of Hiram Jarney of the firm of Jarney & Lowman, makers of iron and steel. Here lived Miss Edith Jarney, the only child. She was twenty-two, tall, willowy, graceful. She was raised as became a daughter of a man of wealth; but she was not spoiled. She was not a sham, as many such young ladies are. She was not affected. She was level-headed, self-possessed, modest, kind, beautifully unselfish, lovable, very handsome, very noble. Mrs. Jarney was a buxom woman still, although gray was sprinkled well through her hair. She must have been handsome when young, for yet her cheeks were rosy, with the refining marks of motherhood toning them down to the fading point. She was bouncing in her manner, lofty in her speech, pleasant in her smile, and a little haughty in her bearing, but always cheerful. She had come up from adversity with her husband, climbing the ladder of success side by side with him, adjusting herself to each rung as the dangers of the height increased, till at last she sat, with him, on the top, and scornfully, although not willfully, cast disparaging glances on those below seeking her altitudinous environments. The husband and father, Hiram Jarney, was a tall, clean-cut business man, proud, vain, nice, neat, with a monumental ambition to accomplish in every purpose he set out to do. And he had accomplished many. When Edith Jarney took the taxicab for her home, after parting with John Winthrope in the rain, she was in great good humor all the way, and for some hours after arriving at her domicile. Thinking little of the wet condition of her clothing, or her hat, or her shoes, or anything else, she leaned back on the soft, dry cushions of the cab and laughed and laughed, time after time, over the singular episode with that young man. In truth, it raised her sense of risibility to such a degree so often that she had to hold her sides for the pain of laughing. Nothing in all her short and interesting life appealed to her as so ridiculous, nothing so amusing, nothing so ludicrous, nothing so out of the ordinary, nothing so new, nothing so out of the common run of happenings in her daily ins and outs, as her encounter with this unspoiled youth of the mountains. And the more she thought of it, the more she laughed over her own discomposure, over the cheerful attitude she had assumed toward him, over her apparent boldness, over her clever mastery of a situation made possible only by the cheerless night. Indeed, so forcibly was she impressed with the affair that she began already, while riding in the cab, to write the incident down in the tablet of her memory as one of the most extraordinary events of her life. And more--the longer she thought of it, the more impressed she was with John Winthrope. His politeness, his bearing, his voice, his face, his size, appealed to her young idea of what constituted proper proportions in a good young man. She gave no thought of him being a poor employe of her father; she gave no thought whether he was possessed with worldly riches; she gave no thought as to whether he had blooded ancestry; or who, or what he was, any more than that he appeared to be above the stuff of the average man with whom she had previously come in contact. "Ah, he must be a good young man," she said, almost aloud, during one of her oft recurring spells of happiness. "He cannot be so bad," she thought, "when he was so good to me. But still--" The taxicab was at her home. The door was opened by the chauffeur, who had raised her umbrella, and was standing waiting for her at the door. It took a word from him to rouse her from her meditation. "Oh, are we home?" she said, as she bounded out. She grasped the umbrella, and ran up the pathway to the big piazza of the mansion. She was so gleeful that she bolted toward the door, which was not opened soon enough to suit her impetuous haste to get within; and when it was opened, she rushed in, forgetting to lower the umbrella. This action caused the footman to look aghast at the dripping water and her much bedraggled skirts. And not till she had gone to the center of the big reception room, and had left a trail of water behind on the polished floors and turkish rugs, on curtains, chairs and settees, much to their ruination, did she notice her absentmindedness. "Why, Edith!" exclaimed her mother, with uplifted hands. "Oh, mamma! mamma!" exclaimed Edith, out of breath, almost. "What is the matter, Edith?" asked her mother, excitedly, as she came rushing toward her from her cozy corner, where she had been embowered this dreary night, among richly-scented cushions. "One would think it raining in here, Edith, from the way your umbrella is shedding water. Put it down, and explain yourself, Edith!" "My, oh, my," laughed Edith, for the first time realizing that she was still carrying the umbrella. "What is it, Edith? What has happened?" continued her mother. "My! Your clothing are so wet! What has happened to that hat?" "Enough for one night, mamma--enough," returned Edith, now lowering the umbrella, and looking it over searchingly--at the handle, at the material, at the ferrule, at the tassel, at the "J. W." on the silver plated strip that formed a narrow ring around the briar root handle. Then, without answering her mother definitely, she went into the great hall and deposited "J. W.'s" rain shade into a glistening receptacle of pottery with a dragon's head looking viciously at her from one side. "Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed, joyfully, with soiled hat, wet coat and soaked shoes still on. "What is it, Edith? Do tell me! What has happened?" questioned her mother for the third time, as she stood with her hands clasped before her in expectation of hearing something terrible, and wringing them sometimes to give vent to her wrought up feelings. "I had a most extraordinary experience this evening, mamma," answered Edith, slowly pulling off her wet gloves that seemed to want to adhere to the flesh. Edith was looking down at her hands, with a very pleasant smile lighting up her face, which she turned into gyratory expressions now and then as she pulled and jerked at the clinging glove fingers. "Tell me, Edith--tell me quickly, before something happens to me," said her mother, now impatient at Edith's slowness. "It was such an extraordinary affair, mamma," answered Edith, finally getting off her gloves, and then reaching up to remove her hat, "that I am still all excited about it, mamma--and the old hat is ruined--call the maid to assist me into dry clothing--look at that hat, mamma; it fell into the gutter," and she turned it round and round, just as John had done, looking at it admiringly--not that she admired it for its beauty in its present condition, oh, no; but for something else; and she touched it in several spots with her little bare hands, which she could not forbore doing on any other occasion. "Edith! Why are you so procrastinating? I cannot tolerate your delay longer! Answer me! What has happened?" demanded the little bouncing mother, with some pretention toward exasperation. "Oh, mamma," answered Edith, with charming affection, "I will, I will, if you will only give me time. It was such an extraordinary event that I want plenty of breath to proceed with the story. Nothing serious has happened, mamma--but it was unusual." "Go to your room, Edith, and then return to me with changed clothing, and tell me what it is that excites you so," said her mother, now reconciled and satisfied that her daughter had not met with any serious mishap. Edith, thereupon, kissed her mother, fondly patted her cheek, and then, when her maid came, tripped lightly to her dressing room. "Sarah, I never before felt like doing things for myself as I do now," said Edith to her maid, as she sat down to have her shoes removed. "And would you?" meekly asked the maid, looking up at her mistress. "Indeed, I would," returned Edith. "I would commence to learn at once were it not for giving offense to my parents." "And leave me without my lady to wait on and love?" asked the maid, apprehensive of her position. "I could not bear it, dear lady. Why, Miss Edith, I have been with you since you were a teeny baby, and I love you so that I imagine sometimes you are my own dear child." "Never mind, Sarah; don't be alarmed," returned Edith. "I will keep you if I do learn to wait on myself. But I was thinking, Sarah, that you cannot always tell what might happen. Every one of we mortals is a possible subject for the poorhouse; and if it should come to anything like that I should want to know how to bear my own burdens." "Don't tell me, Edith," cried Sarah, now alarmed, "that it has come to that!" "Oh, no, indeed, Sarah," replied Edith, consolingly. "At least not that I know of anything of the kind as being likely to happen. But that was not it, Sarah--not it--why, what am I saying?--it is something else." Sarah looked up quickly at Edith. Edith was half serious, half mirthful in the little laugh that followed her words. And she toyed with Sarah's graying hairs. "Edith, are you keeping any secrets from me?" asked the suspicious Sarah. "Now, Sarah, do not be cross with me, will you, if I tell you?" asked Edith, with some hesitancy about revealing what had so recently happened to give her such a wonderful new vision of life. "Never--never, Edith--unless you say," promised Sarah. "I met the finest young man this evening, Sarah," began Edith, slowly, blushingly, still toying with Sarah's hair, Sarah still being on her knees before her mistress. "There--I have let it out! Now, don't you tell, Sarah. No, of course, you will not?" "Since you have forbidden any of the young bloods of your own set coming to see you, I am anxious to know just where you got your 'finest young man,'" said Sarah, sarcastically. "I found him!" "Is he rich?" asked Sarah. "Never thought of that!" "Where did you find him, Edith?" "Bumped into him in the streets--now, don't scold me, Sarah!" "Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, rising, and holding up her hands, and opening wide her prudish eyes. Sarah's sense of the proper fitness of things old-maidenishly would not permit her even to meditate on such a horrible deed. "Do not be unduly alarmed, Sarah," calmly remarked Edith. "It was an accident--oh, such an extraordinary accident, Sarah, and so ridiculous on my part that I still feel the effects of it on my mirthful nature." "Tell me all about it, my dear Edith?" said Sarah, now buttoning up the back of Edith's dinner gown. "If you will not tell--promise?" "You have my promise, Edith; but you wouldn't keep such a secret from your mother, would you?" "I do not want to, Sarah; but I am afraid, if I tell her, she will scold me." "Now, what did you do, Edith?" asked Sarah. "Stood in the rain the longest time talking to the strange young man." "Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, for the fifth or sixth time. "No why about it, Sarah. It was an unavoidable accident. I ran into him, he into me. My hat fell off, rolled into the gutter, and my umbrella was rendered limp in one of its poor wings. Now, could I help that, Sarah?" "Perhaps not." "Well, he recovered my hat, held his umbrella over me while I put it on again, gave me his umbrella and he took my crippled one." "Is that all?" "We talked some." "Talked? Good gracious!" "Yes, talked, Sarah--really talked." "Why, Edith!" "Now, Sarah, be sensible, and listen. He was so polite, so courteous--" "They're all that way," interrupted Sarah, a man hater. "--but him," returned Edith, not meaning it in the same sense that Sarah did. "I was going to say, Sarah, that I could not resist his good face." "Who is he?" asked Sarah, coldly. "John Winthrope!" "What does he do?" "Works in my father's office!" "Lordy!" exploded Sarah at this revelation, for really Sarah was the snob instead of Edith. "And you stopped to talk with him in the street?" "Sarah, you are mean--real mean--cruel, exasperating. Sarah, I will have nothing more to do with you, if you talk that way any more! I will get a new maid, or have none at all--that I will, Sarah! Now, take your choice!" This from Edith, who was usually so calm, so even tempered, and so reasonable in all matters. But Sarah had aroused her dormant nature by such a reference to class distinction, that Edith, in her liberal way of looking at the world in general, could not reconcile Sarah's views with justice, if each human being concerned was equally endowed morally, physically and mentally. "I will say no more, Edith," humbly surrendered the prudent Sarah. Dinner was announced, and Edith descended to the brilliancy of the great dining room, where her parents were awaiting her arrival to be seated with them. Edith was charming in her changed habiliment. Could John but see her now! But John had no password as yet to this rich home. "Now, Edith, to the story," said Mrs. Jarney, after they had seated themselves around the sumptuously provided table. "What is that?" asked Mr. Jarney, looking at his wife, and for the first time getting an inkling of Edith's experiences, then turning his eyes questioningly upon Edith. "Nothing serious, papa," said Edith, noting that he was surprised over the manner in which her mother had put the question. "Well, then, dear Edith, go on," said her father, in his usually kind tone. "Promise, papa, that you will not be hard on me?" pressed Edith. "As long as you have done no wrong, Edith, I promise," he replied. Then Edith related her tale, down to the minutest detail, even as to how it affected her afterwards--except that she kept the impression that it left upon her heart as her own inviolable secret. "Edith," said her father, after she had finished, and after he had pondered a few moments over the possible effect on the young man in the office, and after smiling and laughing heartily, "Edith, it certainly is a peculiar coincidence. I am glad to know the party turned out to be our newest addition to the office force, and not a ruffian." This ended the general conversation about John Winthrope. None of them considered the event in any other light than if she had had a similar encounter with the ash-man--except Edith. But still they did not cease referring to the matter occasionally for some time, for after all they could not help but marvel on it. Edith was unusually cheerful after she found her parents were not vexed. She sang and played on the piano, read a few pages in a novel, talked, laughed, went up and down the rooms, wondering, wondering what it was that agitated her so and raised her spirits to such a high tension. Finally, after what appeared to be an age in passing, she became weary, and went to bed, to sleep, and dream, perhaps, of a fair young man, miles and miles below her station in life. And the rain beat down upon the roof above her with the same homely sound as it beat down upon the roofs above all mankind that night. CHAPTER III. THE OLD JUNK SHOP. The rusty perspective of a four story building rises in the midst of many similarly nondescript structures, between Wood and Liberty streets, looking out over the cobblestoned wharf skirting the Monongahela river, flowing lazily by. It was builded in the days when it was a lofty office building: when its three flights of darkened stairs were mounted by leg muscle: in the days when its little windows were barn-doors of undimmed light, and the panes were of minimum size for economy sake: in the days when the steamboat trade was a valuable asset of the river front merchants: in the days when men fought in the merry war of competition, and when life was not so strenuous as it is now: in the days when its name stood prominently among the business blocks in the city directory. But now it has no resemblance to its former self; it makes no impression on the passer-by, unless he be the curious delving into ancient lore; it is silently languishing into the past, waiting for the strong arm of Progress to raze it to the ground for something more imposing in its place. Here, in the past, were offices on the upper floors devoted to the exclusive use of professional men; while on the ground floor, for years, a merchant held sway with an assortment of merchandise that equaled in variety, if not in quantity, the great department stores of the present. Where the store was, there is a junk shop now, and it is called The Die. In it may be found, collected together in an heterogeneous mass, a miscellaneous lot of rubbish that even the bearish-like proprietor himself wonders, sometimes, where it all comes from, and whither it all goes. Here may be found the worn out and cast off articles of rivermen: boatmen, wharfmen, raftsmen, and every other class of men who ply their trade in, on, and about the water. Here may be found an indeterminable assortment of wearing apparel, for all ages of men, women and children, in all conditions of wear and tear, from a riverman's oiled coat, with greasy spots upon it and burned holes in many places in it, to a worn out pair of infantine shoes. Here may be found a hecatomb of articles of the household, of the store, of the office, of the hotel, of the church, of the school, of the cemetery, of the railway yards, of the building of justice, of jail, of penitentiary--from every place, almost--all telling a tale of grandeur, of poverty, of happiness, of misery; of pride, of modesty, of virtue; of honor, of dishonor; of sickness, pain and death. The keeper of this shop, at this period in this narrative, was Peter Dieman--a red-jowled, pig-eyed, sharp-nosed, dirty-mouthed, frowsy-headed, big-bellied American, whose ancestry may be determined by his name. A glance into his gloomy place was enough to convince the most unobserving that he was specially adapted to his established trade of buying and selling all manner of second-hand goods, ranging in value from a penny to the enormous sum of one great American Eagle; and seldom, if ever, did anything go above the latter figure, when he was the purchaser; but when he was the seller--that was different. In the rear of the darksome room, on the ground floor, there was a little cubby-hole built around a little window that opened on the rear street. The window was so begrimed with dust and cobwebs that it was necessary, even on the brightest days, to keep a sixteen candle power incandescent globe going continually to furnish sufficient light for the proprietor to see himself, and enable him to scribble down his accounts, what few he kept in books. In this gruesome little office Peter sat, from early morning to late night, smoking his foul smelling pipe, receiving his cash from sales, and also receiving the people who did not call on strictly commercial affairs; and betimes he peered through a smoky glass-covered square hole that perforated one side of the thin partition that circled him about, into the store, watching, with squinting eyes, Eli Jerey, his clerk, dealing out the junk to the poor purchasers. Peter Dieman was a fiend incarnate, after money. He was avaricious to the core. He was relentlessly pressing in the collection of overdue bills, and heartlessly "jewing" in the purchase of the worn-out, worm-eaten, moth-ravaged articles that he gathered up, in his rounds, from the unfortunates, the n'er-do-wells, the hopeless mortals who had to sacrifice their goods and chattels to make ends meet; or who, peradventure, were glad to dispose of any cumbersome article of their more prosperous days. Further, besides being a close dealer, he was a shaver of notes, a conscienceless dealer without regard whatever for the principles of justice, or the duties of a citizen, or the honor of the brethren of his tribe of men. And still further, he was so selfishly constituted that no barterer could ever equal him in his surprisingly pronounced talents for cheating, filching and over-charging. Without education, and alone, on his own initiative, and through his own painstaking, persistent, persevering efforts he arose from nothing to, what would be considered by many, a state of enviable affluence for his station in the ranks of the commercial men of the city. He could neither read nor write when he started out for himself on the road of life; but by dint of much endeavor he learned to write by rote, like a blind man, and talk by imitation, like a parrot. For many years he was his own buyer, his own seller, his own bookkeeper, his own handy man and henchman. But when he had accumulated a world of experience, a great quantity of junk, a large sum of money, and the desire to be an expert ward heeler, he hired Eli Jerey, as a boy of ten, to be his helper. Now, Eli was a lad with no more ambition than a toad. Being obsessed with that slavish passion one finds in so many of his class to serve a master for a mere competance that would meet his daily expenses, he went about his business with such translucent simplicity and dutiful obedience to his master's will that he worked from six in the morning till seven in the evening with such a zeal that Peter could make no complaint whatever to his energy in keeping shop, while he in turn kept office and watched through the little square hole aforesaid. This place became known as The Die early in the career of Peter--a corruption of the name of Dieman, and perhaps a revealer of his principles. One day, in September, while the fog and smoke hung darkly over the river and everything, a short heavyset man, very plainly dressed, but with an inquisitorial air in his bearing, sauntered into the shop, and looked about as carelessly and indolently as if he were a sojourner come to view, with a curious eye, the accumulation of things as if on display in a museum. The stranger walked about, with his hands in his pockets, through the narrow aisles between ropes, chains, furniture, pictures, old shoes, hats, clothing, saws, hammers, hatchets, and a thousand and one other things piled up, hanging about, swinging here, or perching there. He was so mysterious in his movements that Eli, upon concluding a simple deal with a louting riverman, came timidly up to him in such a condescending manner that the stranger was struck with amusing amazement at the deferential halo that seemed to pervade the shrimp-like head of the clerk. "Anything?" asked Eli, approaching. "Well, I don't know," answered the stranger, his eyes roving about the room. "I just came in to see if you had anything I wanted." Still gazing abstractedly into a far corner where lay deeper piles of junk, he went on, "I guess, though, from the looks of things, I might get anything I want here, from a gimlet to a gibet." Eli stared doubtfully at the man, wondering at his utter lack of concentration on the object sought. In the meantime, Peter was not off his guard at his peephole. He was standing, looking out, rubbing his hands and squinting, in an effort to make out the identity of the man. "Nothing in iron? Nothing in ropes? Nothing in old clothes? Nothing in furniture?" asked Eli. "Don't know just yet," answered the stranger, now with his eyes cast down upon the docile but ever guardful Eli. "What then?" asked Eli, still pursuing his questioning, and still indecisive as to how to approach this uncommunicative customer. "I am just looking," answered the stranger, vacantly. "Oh, well--just to see if I can see anything of benefit that I might carry off." Then off he went, mozying through the congested aisles, with that vacuous stare about him that is assumed, usually, by a Jehue in a vaudeville show. Eli followed him, very closely, watching very sharply, being suspicious all the time that he might pick up a stray pin and carry it off without just compensation to his close-fisted master. The stranger strayed on, in and out, in and out, among the junkage, till he came at last to the cubby-hole, eyed through at that moment by old Peter. Arriving at the entrance of Peter's sanctuary, the stranger stopped, looked about him listlessly, and took hold of the latch of the door, pressed his thumb slowly upon it, opened it, and walked within, without invitation, or concern as to who might be the occupant therein--bear or man. "Good morning," said Peter, eyeing him suspiciously. "What do you want?" "Well, sir," answered the stranger, "I just stepped in a moment to see if you could supply me with a kit of tools." "This is my office, sir; my office," said Peter, cross as a she-bear. "Why didn't you ask my clerk, sir; my clerk?"--now rubbing his hands briskly and leering at the stranger. "He will supply your wants, maybe, sir, if he has what you want." "I always deal with the proprietor of an establishment," remarked the stranger, seating himself. "No harm in that, I reckon, sir?" "None," returned Peter, with a growl. "None, sir." "Then, do you have a kit of burglar tools?" asked the stranger, with a suavity of an oily-tongued vender of patent medicine. Peter looked him over again more critically, eyed him more suspiciously, growled out an unintelligible word or two, and sat down himself in a corner, but in such a position that he still could keep one eye on his loophole of observance. "No, sir!" deliberately groaned out Peter, "I never carry such articles by choice." "Then by chance, perhaps?" questioned the stranger. "Nor by chance, if I can help it," screeched the crusty Peter. "I am an honest dealer in my wares." "I presume so," returned the stranger, with his eyes roaming about the four bare walls of the cubby-hole, as if he were unwinding his thoughts preparatory to a plunge into the secrets of something hidden within his breast. "You doubt my word, sir?" said Peter, on his dignity. "Your veracity, I presume," calmly remarked the stranger, "is equal to the rest of men in business." "It is, sir," answered Peter, foaming. "Well, if you have not got what I want, I must leave your place without it," said the stranger, with a nonchalance that caused Peter to squint one of his little eyes up like a question mark. "I am a fair dealer in all things, I am, sir," retorted Peter, "and I don't like for strangers coming about here and eyeing as if I was in league with criminals, or any other such disreputables." "That's all right, stranger," replied the stranger, with mollifying effectiveness. "This being a junk shop, I took it to be no more than natural to find here such tools as I have indicated." Peter rubbed his dirty hands together for a moment, gave an avaricious curl to his under lip, squinted his porcine eyes, and asked: "What do you propose doing with them tools?" Then he suddenly turned his head, with a grin of malice on his countenance, and looked through his peephole at Eli, whom he saw at that moment parlying with a forlorn creature of the feminine gender. After gazing thereat for a moment, he turned to the stranger to receive an answer to his question. "Nothing, any more than that I want them," answered the stranger, carelessly. "That is not a satisfactory answer," said Peter, again turning to his peephole, from which place he could not now unrivet his eyes. "That's my only answer," replied the stranger. "Your name is Peter Dieman, is it not?" Peter quickly unriveted his eyes, and looked up with astonishment at the peculiar tone in the stranger's voice, and the sharp look in his steel-gray eyes. "It is my name," growled Peter. "I knew it was--judging by the sign over the door," said the stranger. "Then why in the devil do you ask such a foolish question, if you knew it?" said Peter, ferociously. "Because, I wanted to make sure," said the stranger. "Say, Mr. Dieman," he now asked, "do you know Ford & Ford, who are after the contract for repaving 444th street with wood blocks?" "I do." "Do you know Councilman Biff?" "I do." "You know all the other councilmen?" "I do." "Very well. Do you know the chief clerk?" "I do." "How many can you buy?" Peter eyed him again, growled again, again peeped out of his place of espial at Eli and the forlorn creature still parlying, rubbed his hands, ran his greasy fingers through his thin setting of hair, coughed, sneezed, looked out the peephole, screwed his mouth to one side, hem-hawed, then snorted: "Who do you represent?" "Ford & Ford. Here is my passport to you," replied the stranger, handing Peter a typewritten sheet of paper signed by a member of that firm. "Why, in the devil, didn't you make yourself known in the beginning?" "Oh, I just wanted to lead you up to the question." "What do they want?" "They want the contract." "Have they got the money?" "They have." "It will cost you--" "We have the necessary amount." "--Fifty thousand to get it--money first." "When do you want the money?" "Tomorrow at eleven o'clock." The stranger arose, went out into the smoke and fog, and disappeared somewhere into the infolding channels of great business undertakings of this wonderfully prosperous city of steel and iron, where even the hearts of men are as the material that the great blast furnaces spew out, day and night, for seven days in the week, week in and week out. CHAPTER IV. IN HELL'S HALF ACRE. The forlorn individual whom Peter Dieman saw through his spyhole, during his soul stirring conversation with the stranger, was Kate Barton, the wife of Billy Barton, the waterman, and the ragged but chunky young woman with her was her daughter, Star Barton. They had come into Peter's place to redeem, if possible, or to take away as a gift of charity, if lucky, a few battered and broken kitchen utensils that Billy Barton had sold during one of his thirsty spells while staggering through a vaporless period of inebriacy. Kate Barton's outlook on life was hopeless. She came into the world as poor as the proverbial church mouse, and seemed doomed to go out of it even poorer. She married Billy Barton, a shiftless young man, with an inherent predilection for hankering after the flowing bowl, and ere she had passed a score of years of wedded life twelve innocent starvelings had opened their eyes to her as their mother to gravitate for themselves around the "old block." The poor woman! She was a meek victim of the direst kind of circumstances that could possibly surround a human being. She was one of those submissive and inept mortals that blindly plod the road of domesticity without a spark of the beautiful to light up the narrow channel of unrequitted effort. When she married Billy Barton, she went about it with that fatality of purpose as is usual with her class, and bore her burdens with the equanimity of a horse hitched to a loaded cart on the uphill pull, without a thought for anything beyond her daily tribulations, save that vague idea that the good Lord would take care of her in the after while. She had no ambition further than the difficult task of caring for her home with its limited accommodations and plethoric adornment of young life. The unworthy addition of an imbibing husband, on whom she looked as an inalienable part of her existence, did in no sense tend her thoughts to any less love for him than if he had been a more renowned character among men. Poor, helpless woman! When Peter Dieman saw her that day through his place of outlook, he saw a woman as lean as a bean pole, as tall as a rail splitter, as cadaverous as a ghost, with a hook nose, deeply sunken gray eyes, a complexion that was a cross between yellow and black, brown stringy hair and toothless mouth. Her dress was of faded black alpaca, her shoes coarse and well worn, with a dirty yellow shawl hooded over her head and hanging with frayed edges over her shoulders. After the stranger had left him, Peter stood a few moments, blinkingly observing her. He then stepped out of his office into the less dingy shop. He lumbered up to where she stood having an altercation with Eli Jerey. "Well, Mrs. Barton," he said, rubbing his hands as if very cold, and grinning like a cheshire cat; "can't you and Eli come to terms? What is the trouble?" "Eli Jerey says I cannot redeem my goods without I pay a profit for your trouble," she answered. "Can't have what?" he quizzed. "Them things that Bill sold you to get drink money with," she replied. "What things?" asked Peter. "Them dishes of mine--them tin pans--them knives--them forks--them spoons--he carried off," she whimperingly returned. "I paid him the cash for them--the cold cash, Mrs. Barton," said Peter, with a stony smile. "You did, no doubt, or else he wouldn't've been drunk last night," she replied. "I never ask any questions where the things I buy come from--I give all anything is worth; no more, no less, and never ask where the money goes when it leaves my hands--I expect to sell them for a profit, or else what am I in business for?" thus screeched the junkman. "Oh, Mr. Dieman!" wailed the poor creature. "I have nothing left to cook with or eat on. He's taken the last dish in the house. My children have been eating off the bare boards--and eating their vituals raw." "That's not my outlook, Mrs. Barton," retorted Peter, rubbing his hands now more vigorously than ever, as if he had a fresh chill, or had just come in out of a cold blast of weather. "I thought you might return them to me," said Mrs. Barton, appealingly. "Thought nothing," he answered, with a croak. "Give me my price and you can take them." "I have only fifty cents," said the forlorn woman, "and I need that to buy something to eat." "I have nothing to give you, Mrs. Barton," he snorted, turning his back to her, and rubbing his hands as if in meditation, and batting his small eyes, as if he were winking at his little god--Mammom. Feeling that it was hopeless to plead with him for the articles, and wanting to save her fifty cents, Mrs. Barton turned slowly, pulled the yellow shawl closer over her head and shoulders, and started to leave the junk shop. Eli stood by agape, without a sign of sympathy for her, or an emotion of any kind, any more than if he had been a fence post. Mrs. Barton bowed her head as she walked away, and her daughter, Star, after casting a disdainful look at Eli, followed. Eli stood still looking after them. Peter stood still rubbing his hands and batting his eyes, as if he were preparing to offer up devotion to his deity. Then of a sudden he turned, and roared: "Come back, Mrs. Barton!" Mrs. Barton stopped as suddenly as Peter had cried out, faced about, and looked blankly at the object who gave the command. "Come back!" roared Peter again. The poor woman, having no reason to be independent about the matter, went hesitatingly toward him. When she came up to the blinking idol of greed, she stood waiting for him to speak further. "Take your old things, and tell Bill the next time he comes into my place of business I'll tear him to pieces," he cried. "I've had enough of him already. He's nothing but an old sot, unworthy of a woman like you," now with commiseration in his sordid heart for her, and only condemnation for her weak husband. "Take them, and go, and tell him that I'll get even with him sometime." "Thank you; thank you," said Mrs. Barton, with a gleam of merciful gratitude in her eyes for this philanthropic pig. "Eli," said Peter, without returning a "welcome" to Mrs. Barton, as he turned to that dutiful menial, "give the woman her trumphery and let her begone." Then rubbing his hands more furiously, and squinting his eyes more swiftly and gritting his teeth more viciously at the turn this action of benefaction gave his conscience, he waddled to his black office, where he resumed his smoking, and took to calculating to a certainty as to how he could recover from some one else the small pittance he was out by this disreputable transaction, as he termed it, on the part of Billy Barton, the waterman. Eli Jerey at once proceeded to obey his superior, for that was his only aim at that period in his life. Into a gunny sack he piled the chipped and broken dishes, the battered pans, the rusty iron forks and knives, and tin spoons, composing the entire culinary outfit of Kate Barton. With the sack thus loaded, Mrs. Barton swung it once in front of her, and with a quick jerk whirled it over her right shoulder, bent under it as if it were of great weight, said good bye to Eli, and strode out, with Star following. They crossed the street and went down the glacis of the cobblestoned wharf. Following the water's edge, they passed among the miscellaneous collection of freight piled high on every hand. Over taut ropes, holding boats, barges and rivermen's houses, they stepped, catching their toes now and then, and almost falling; proceeding ever on, through all kinds of heaps and piles of freightage; ever on, among the men moving about performing their duties silently. Ever on, Kate Barton led the way, a tireless, fearless, forbidding being, who created no more comment among the habitues of this district than if she were nowhere to be seen; till, at last, she, like one with the joy of success bound up in a spiritless heart, arrived where a dog-boat lay tethered to a ring-bolt in the stone abutment of the Point bridge. Into the boat she tumbled her bundle, with no thought as to the result such an act might have upon the dishes, ordered Star to climb in and take a seat in the rear, untied the rope, and jumped in herself as she gave the boat a shove into the stream. Taking up the oars she bent to them with the energy of a man, and pulled through the puffing, snorting, wheezing, churning craft for the farther shore--where house boats lay moored; where shanties hugged dangerously close to the water line; where decrepit buildings stood in all stages of deformity; where every inch of ground on the narrow space between the margin of the river and the verticle cliff behind was utilized to its utmost with everything imaginable, from the detritus of the hill to a pretentious manufacturing plant of equivocal worth in its baleful aspect. The hill above was straight up and down, almost, rock ribbed and bleak, a barrier to the pleasant places above and beyond; and at its base a railway system held indisputable sway; while betwixt it and the river were the straggling homes of men, with a few stunted and wheezy domesticated animals and fowls roaming about them. Once upon a time this place bore the evil name of Hell's Half Acre. To a low-browed, unpainted, unadorned, uninviting three-roomed shack Mrs. Barton took her way, with the bundle of precious household articles on her back, with Star following. They passed along narrow, winding alleys, with frightful looking fences bulging out, or leaning in; past foul mud holes; past filthy doorsteps, where brawling children, like her own, screamed at her, or taunted her, or spoke friendly to her; through sticky mire, over rickety board walks, over stepping stones at watery places, and on, over everything and through everything that had a squalid and sickly hue she went--with Star following--and with one unswerving gait, or changed expression of her leathery face, to the door of her own abode. The door squeaked with the pain of lassitude as she shoved it open. She entered the kitchen--Star following. Dropping the sack on a dilapidated chair, she began lifting the contents therefrom, as the children gathered around, in all stages of filthiness, to see the operation. A toddling three-year-old grasped a spoon, as soon as he saw it come forth, and resorted to the ashes in the grate as material by which to test its usefulness. Another child took up a knife and began hacking at a table leg; another took up a cup and ran out to procure some water; while another took up a small battered tin pail to fetch in a little coal to replenish the dying fire. The children ranged in age from one to nineteen, the eldest--Michael--being away earning money for his own keep, so that she had a short dozen mouths to fill for the nonce. After completing the task of unburdening the sack, Mrs. Barton delivered the youngest child unto Star to tend while she set about to cook a meal. Her bill of fare was meager and simple, withal. It consisted wholly of fried potatoes, dough-bread hurryingly mixed, and coffee. After the fare was spread upon the table, ten greedy youngsters and their mother sat down to dine, while Star stood off, waiting to take potluck with the leavings. Unselfish child, as she was, she deferred always first to the appeasement of the hunger of the others. The savory provender lay heaped in a lusterless dish in the center of the table, and the coffee stood hot in a tin pot on a corner of the stove, while the bread was broken into fragments, as per age of child and capacity, and laid by each place. As plates and cups and saucers, knives and forks, were not sufficient to go around, the younger children fought and scratched and pulled as to whose turn should come "next" in being served. Some being ferociously hungry, and impatient over delays, dipped into the platter with their hands, clapping the contents to their mouths, like monkeys, and ate their bread with such an eager determination to get filled up that they almost choked. Some drank the coffee out of the pot, and spluttered and cried and slobbered with such wild frenzy that they were called she-wolves by their mother sitting by eating sparingly but as contentedly and as heartily as if her young hopefuls were angels instead of brats. "Where's your pap?" asked the mother, directing her question to any, or all, of them, so indifferently was the question pronounced. "Went to the city," answered the eldest. "Naw he didn't," said the ten-year-old, after taking a swallow of the faintly discolored water called coffee. "When did he go?" again questioned the mother, after the lapse of a few minutes. "Soon after you left," answered the fourteen-year-old, indifferent as to where he went, "and took his overcoat with him." "To sell it, too, s'pose," said the mother unconcernedly. "Yep," replied the ten-year-old; "said he'd bring me a pair of shoes." "I see you gettin' a pair of shoes from him, Liz," retorted the mother, without the least concern whether the child had any or no, as she rolled the fried potatoes and dough-bread between her gums. Thus the mother and the children talked about "pap," the father, who had that day wandered out of his beaten course, the one that he had learned to travel in so regularly for twenty years or more. This course lay between his squalid home and the tempting saloons that lined the streets of old Birmingham farther up the river way. Billy Barton was a man with an unconquerable appetite for strong drink as might be judged from what has been said heretofore. All his unvarying life before this memorable day he had but one thought, but one ambition, but one predominating idea, and that was to get drink--either by buying, begging, stealing, or trading for it. But when his wife left him this morning, with the parting word that she would fetch home the things that he had sold the day before, he, too, left shortly after her departure, taking with him an old rusty overcoat. As he departed from his door, with his flock of half-starved children standing in it watching him leave, he went with a new resolution in his mind, a new determination formed, a new purpose in view. This was that he would go away and find work--away from his old environments, away from his drunken associates. With this new resolve burning feebly in his irresolute breast, he struck a course for the mills in the Soho district. That night he did not return; nor the next day; nor the next night; nor the following day. Mrs. Barton and the family thought little of his failure to return in the space of time, for they had been used to his absence on a spree for almost a whole week at a stretch. But when a week had gone by, and when ten days had gone by, and two weeks had finally passed, they began to feel uneasy at his prolonged absence. When a third week had passed and he did not put in an appearance in the hilarious condition they anticipated to behold him wheeling down upon them, the mother thought it time to make some concerted attempt to ascertain the cause of his disappearance. She took the matter very calmly, consoling herself with the reflection that her spouse was safe somewhere, or otherwise she would have heard about him through the police department, or through the gossips of her disreputable neighborhood. Little by little she began to inquire cursorily among the neighbors, then among the keepers of the saloons, then of the policeman of the district. She got no tidings of him. A month passed; no news. Another month passed; no news. He was gone. So Kate Barton, with her twelve children, was left alone to fight against starvation, or go to the poor house, or have her family broken up, and scattered among the charitable, who are very often among the worst as saviors of the outcasts. Alone, alone! What if we, who live in gilded halls, had to take her place! Ah, we would call on a merciful God to deliver us! For there are things in this life, mind you, my good keepers of the loaves and fishes, that are even worse than death--worse than death. Alas, too often, men of piety are prone to shun their christian duty. Millions of beings, such as she, vegetate from the cradle to the grave and never see the ministering hand of the followers of that Christ who taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Millions go up and down the obscure pathways of this world, within the sacred sound of the clanking bells of religion, and never receive the helping meed that was promised them. Millions live like the rioting motes invisible in the air about us as if all the philanthrophy of Christendom were set aside for the chosen few. The successful gloat over and glory in their achievements, and extend a cursory hand to those below as if they were fulfilling the ten commandments as a great finale of their extravaganza. But, do they do any good? There are many Kate Bartons all around us, the natural among the unnatural, who deserve more compassion from those preachers of the Good Will than they ever receive. It is not believed by all that only the chosen few shall answer the call. It is not believed by all that the doctrine of the Christ should prevail one day in the week and be sunk in oblivion for the other six. No, not by all. But Kate Barton's day shall come, some day; and those who shun her now will assert their cringing hypocracy when she has been lifted up, and not lifted by their hands. Charity is not what the Kate Bartons want--it is the meed of opportunity. CHAPTER V. STAR BARTON SEEKS A NEW HOME. Star Barton? She was the one scintillating light that shone out of the milky way of the Barton family. She was a sport of the family tree--a lily nourished in a quagmire. And how a wondering world marvels at such unaccountable things of nature! Through eighteen weary summers and eighteen dreary winters she went, before seeing a light above the dim horizon of her impoverished world. Through babyhood she crawled in frightful filth, as if it were a part of her wretched existence, seeing nothing beyond the bare walls and bare floors of her cramped up playgrounds; through childhood she toddled, with the same dismal conditions abetting her expanding innocence; through the period of adolescence she walked without a thought of what the outside world contained, except as she intuitively gathered such knowledge as the thick curtain of ignorance slowly rose before her; till now she had come to the springtime of womanhood, full of its snares and pitfalls for such as she. Then, like the bursting of the sun through a rent-way in the clouds on a rainy day, she, for the first time, saw the beckoning star that should lead her on--on--on--to a life of rectitude, or--dissoluteness. Star Barton was the second child of Kate Barton, and early in her teening years gave some promise of her future. When only ten she began to be a drudge, doing all the things that her delicate hands could, with exertion, be laid to. She was the patient "little mother" to all the new babies as they yearly floated out of Paradise to this place of desolation. She was the scrub-woman, the washer-woman, the charwoman, the cook, the chamber maid, ever cheerful in her efforts to perform her tasks. Illy clad, scantily fed, roundly abused by her father, continually scolded by her mother, and never praised by either parent, she mutely submitted, like a black slave, to all the torments of blighting servitude that could be heaped upon her. Thus, for eighteen long years, Star Barton was subjected to all the demoralizing influences of drunkenness and poverty; and how she came out of it unblighted any one may wonder at. And now, at this age, she stood looking out the narrow window of her vantage point, seeing the promise of a brighter life. Then why was she a freak of nature from the family tree? Because she had a round face, pink cheeks, two even rows of white teeth, two mild blue eyes underneath dark eyebrows, a sharp, shrewd, straight nose, and dark hair; and because she was of average height, well formed, muscular and courageous; and still, because nature had provided her, as it provides the offspring of the weak, sometimes, with all the qualities and graces that were necessary to combat the deteriorating effects of a life of toil. As suddenly as she had seen the new light mount the horizon of her life, as suddenly did she long for better ways, a better home, a better life. This longing came to her the very time her father disappeared. She sought work, and found it, still as a drudge, in a lodging house up in Birmingham. The small pittance that she earned she took home every Saturday night, and gave it to her mother as a helping mite towards banishing the horde of wolves that constantly prowled about her door. This small sum was not sufficient to maintain a successful contest with those beasts of starvation that gnawed their way, like famished whelps, into the growing bodies of the ten starvelings of Kate Barton. But, notwithstanding, Star never failed in her willingness to turn her last penny for their sustenance. An older brother had been her assistant in this trial, and he kept it up with a good will till about the hour the father had deserted them; but he, losing heart, after acquiring new habits and forming ill-savored acquaintances, so far forgot his duty to his mother that he also deserted her in her time of greatest need. He went away as suddenly as her father--they knew not where. And Star was ever faithful, ever trustworthy, ever to be relied upon by her hapless mother. One day, after ten hours of the severest toil, Star came home, with the little bundle of her personal effects under her arm. It was on that memorable day in November when the heavens seemed to have bursted their flood gates and let out a deluge to come down in gimlets to pierce the fog and smoke with its weird pattering. Without cloak, or coat, or protection of any kind, Star waded through the sodden streets, arriving at the door of her home as wet as a drowning rat. Entering, she deposited her bundle on the only table in the house, and took up a position close to a cast iron stove that was about as cheerless in its warmth as the evening itself. She was so thoroughly soaked that every lineament of her form could be seen through the thin garment that clung to her body as closely as paper on a wall. "Mother," said Star, as that lean creature came indolently into the room, "I have quit my job." "You have?" answered the mother, about as carelessly as if she were talking gossip over the back fence. "Yes, mother, I have quit." "Very well, I've lots to do here; I reckon you can keep busy," said the mother, as if the future had been provided with all the necessaries of life. Star left her mother suckling a child by the stove, and proceeded to her dark and shabbily furnished room for a change of clothing. Presently she returned looking less distressful. Then she bathed her face in a water bucket that stood on a box by a besmoked window, following with the combing of her long dark hair. After which, she rolled her hair into a knot at the back of her head, looked into a crooked mirror, dampened her fingers on her tongue and touched her eyebrows, then set to work to cook the evening meal for the brats caterwauling around like so many wild-cats. Kate Barton gave no concern about Star's future. She asked no questions as to why she quit her work as scrub-woman at the lodging house. She said nothing that would leave the least impression as to what she thought about providing for the family. Deplorable mortal! "Mother," said Star, after awhile, "I am going away tomorrow to look for a new place." "It makes no difference, Star," was the response of the mother. "I can use you here." "How will we live, if I don't work, mother?" "As we have always lived, s'pose." "And that has been poorly, mother." "Yes." "Don't you want me to go away, mother?" "It makes no difference, s'pose," answered the mother. "I've put up with it this long, s'pose I can put up with it the rest of my days." "Mother," said Star, whose love for her mother was of the undemonstrative kind, the kind born of instinct, and is taken for granted among the very poor; "mother, I am going to the East End tomorrow to look for a job as a domestic in a rich man's home." "Yes," replied the mother. "A woman came to me today and told me to go to a certain house, in the East End, where I could get work at six dollars a week, and board thrown in." "Yes, Star," returned the mother, now showing a little more interest in the conversation than she had shown in any thing before--unless it was, perhaps, her drunken husband. "Mother?" "Yes, Star." "That is twenty-four dollars a month; that will keep me in clothing, and plenty for the children to eat." "Yes, Star," said the mother, as she rose from her chair, with the suckling still hanging to her breast, and walked across the floor, for no purpose whatever, other than that perhaps the performance might dissolve her cold brooding into a semblance of interest in her material welfare. Then she sat down again and rocked to and fro with the rockerless chair, as a jolting dose of soothing syrup for the pain that had suddenly twisted the child's mouth into a howling breadth. "And mother," continued Star, "the woman gave me the address of a rich family that wants a maid for a young lady, or a cook, or something else, I forget which." "Yes, Star." "And she said I could get the job if I go at once." "Yes, Star," responded the mother between the infinitisimal intervals of the noise of the thumping chair and the yelling child. "And mother, she said they live in a grand house as big as all our forty shanties here put together." "Yes," said the mother. "And she said it was lit up by electric lights, and had steam heat, and furniture as grand as any place, mother--as grand as any king's palace, mother. I am going tomorrow, mother." "Yes," returned the mother, as she turned the yelling child over her knee and gave it two or three smacks, causing it to become so red in the face that its phiz shone more brightly than the lambent rays that filtered through the smoky chimney of the kerosene lamp sitting on the table. "And she said, mother," still pursued Star, as she went about among the battered pans and rattled the cracked and broken dishes she was displaying on the family board, the while stirring the frying potatoes in the sheet-iron skillet, and watching the coffee pot that it did not boil away all the aroma, "that the young lady who wants a maid is so very handsome and so fine that I cannot sleep till I get there." "Yes," croaked the mother, a little irritated, it appeared, by all these revelations that Star was unfolding before her; for nothing disturbed her so, it seemed, as the mention of such hifalutin things, although she herself, in all her lowliness, never disparaged, by word, anybody who had more than she, being a woman absolutely contented with her lot. "May I go?" asked Star, who always felt it a matter of filial respect to defer to her parents' beck and call. "Yes," dolefully replied the mother, as she rocked the squalling brat on the rockerless chair with greater vigor than had been her practice. * * * * * That night Star Barton went to bed with more stirring imaginings in her untrained head than she had ever presumed upon before in all her dreary life. For a long time she lay awake seeing of the new vista that so suddenly opened before her disreputable habitat; dreaming of another place, so widely dissevered from hers, that it was like the enchanted land she once read about in a book that some roving spirit had conveyed to her haunts; dreaming of the wonders she had oftentimes conjured up to placate her plagued thoughts that hung like burning tapers of despair in her abiding place of want; dreaming, yea dreaming, for the first time in her whole unvaried life, of the things that are beautiful, grand and regal. Then she went to sleep to dream some more:--of the fantasies of an idle brain, of the children of her unconscious world, of the evil spirits that had ever been a part of her uneventful being, of the spirits that come to checkmate us in our mad rush, causing us to turn aside to ponder over their real meaning. But none of the visions of the sleeping hours was as promising as the fancies of her wakeful time. For when she awoke in the morning, the lustre that had pervaded her dreaming had waned, and she faltered over making the new and uncertain step. Oh what a bad little imp it is that seems to possess those of us, at times, who, when a new undertaking is to be entered upon, hesitate, procrastinate, pause and deliberate, till the time of opportunity is over! Star was, on this morning, in such a state of uncertainty, probably very much on account of the continuation of the nasty weather, that it was near the noon hour before she could resolve finally to spend ten cents for the fare to take the journey she had so set her head on the previous day. She donned her best blue gingham dress; coiled her hair up into a knot on top of her head; tied a faded black ribbon in it; adjusted an odd looking round black straw hat, with some faded flowers breaking its sombre monotony, to her head; looked into the crazy little mirror that reflected her not much unlike some distorted beast with a white face; threw a grayish cape over her shoulders, and went out into the rain. After a period of time that was very slow in passing, and after much fluttering of her virtuous heart, and considerable indecision whether to go on or to return to the place she knew so well, she arrived at the Highland avenue address given her the day before by the unknown, but friendly disposed, woman who met her at her last place of bondage. When she reached the great iron gate that opened into the spacious yard of the mansion on the hill, she again hesitated, and walked back and forth on the pavement so many times that the keeper of the gate, with suspicion cast upon her, came out to inquire the meaning of her actions. "I have come--I have come--" faltered Star, feeling like fleeing from him in that moment of her bewilderment over the bigness of the outside world, "--to look for a place. They gave me this number," handing the keeper a card. The keeper, who was an oldish man, and perhaps had a daughter of his own, took the card, looked it over, looked at her, then looked at it; then looked at her. He saw that she had a beautiful face, was innocent and unbeguiling. "This is the place, miss," he answered, kindly. "This is the way in," and he opened the large gate, and passed her in. Star went up the smooth asphaltum walk with considerable trepidation, heeding nothing about her, and seeing only the big house at the end. The most serious thing that she did was to go directly to the big front door, with its shining knocker that looked to her like the face of a bull in brass with a pendulous ring in its nose. She was in such a flurry that she could not have believed her own tongue, had she spoken then and there. She had never, in all her dreaming, imagined such things. Her head was in a whirl, and more than once she was on the point of turning back to her forlorn mother, where she felt she would be equal to her surroundings. However, summoning up all the courage and fortitude that she possessed, she at last tapped timidly at the door. No answer. She touched her red knuckles on one of the polished panels. No answer. Then, merely as a matter of curiosity, caught hold of the ring in the bull's nose, pulled on it, and let it drop back into place, which was immediately followed by a dull brassy ring. Suddenly the door swung wide open, appearing to her as the door of a factory building, in its immensity. A tall, pompous gentleman--dressed like the men she had seen in a book on colonial characters, only this one had short hair and scragly sideburns--loomed up before her, like the Giant did to Jack, perhaps. His sudden appearance caused her to involuntarily start and draw back, with a greater desire than ever to flee; but in a moment he spoke, hoarsely: "Go to the rear door!" Whereupon, he closed the door. The way into such gilded piles of luxury, for such as Star Barton in her present condition, is not by the front entrance. No graven lintel was ever raised to pass such as Star thereunder. Away, away, like a rat to its hole, steal into the less prominent openings leading to the apartments of the flunkies! Star was dazed by this action; but not knowing that it was any more than a big apartment house for the rich, she judged she had gone to the wrong door. So she, with a still fluttering heart, proceeded in the direction indicated. Before she had found the proper place, she had tried a number of the openings in the grim, gray walls, receiving the same reception at all of them as at the first. "Go to the rear," "go to the rear," was repeated so often to her that she began to feel dizzy from its repetition, and drowsy and faint over the possibility of failure. Then she came to a door where a cook answered her knock. He wore a white, brimless cap, and a big white apron covered up the rotundity of his front clear up to his chin and almost to his feet. He was large and fat and filled up almost the entire space of the opened door. He was red-faced and genial, and had a merry twinkle in his blue eyes. He reminded Star of a big German butcher whom she knew in the marts of Birmingham. "Well!" he exclaimed, seeing the visitor to his quarters was a lady. "I came to see if you want a cook," said Star, now feeling more composed since some one deigned to talk with her. "A cook!" he exclaimed, grinning. "A cook, yes, sir," she answered. "We employ none but men cooks here, lady," he replied, and was about to close the door. "Surely, I have made a mistake," thought Star, in this moment of her rebuff, as she took it. Her heart was failing her. She felt disconsolate. She was about to turn and flee--back to her own elements, back to her own humble surroundings; to all the shortcomings of her home, to her stupid mother, to her unfortunate brothers and sisters, to her wretched existence again, and there take up her burdens as she before had borne them. The fat cook noticed the pallor that had come over Star's face, as the consequence of his remark, and instead of closing the door in her face, as he intended, he opened it wider, and said: "You must be in the wrong place, Miss." "No sir; I am not," she answered. "This is the address that was given me, where a cook was wanted--or I might be mistaken--it might be a maid is wanted for a young lady." "Very doubtful," said the cook, scratching his head. "None wanted?" she asked. "To get a place here you must have recommendations," he answered. "I have never worked away from home," she replied, "except for a few months. I have never been a maid to a lady. But--but--I want to learn." "Wait," said the cook, quickly, as if he had thought of something that had been commended to his keeping and it had slipped his memory, as he retreated, and closed the door. In a few minutes the cook returned, with a smile on his round face that made him look like the full moon, and bade Star to walk within. Star walked within, dazed, trembling and mortally afraid of the line of domestics, before whom it appeared she was passing in review. She was conducted into the presence of a bouncing little lady, dressed like a princess, with gold on her wrists, in her ears, on her breast, around her neck--a charmingly spry little lady, with a dignified nose, a pretty smile, and an air of geniality about her that might not be expected in the mistress of such a household. The little lady looked Star over, scrutinized her from head to foot. Every inch of the plumpy girl she seemed to weigh in the fine scale of her discrimination. She was neither pleased, nor displeased, so far as Star could see. She took her in as if she read the whole story of her life without the aid of a palmist's text book, or geanalogical dictionary from which to take her cue. "So you want to be my daughter's maid?" asked Mrs. Jarney, for that is whom the lady was, the mother of Edith. "I had thought I would like to learn," replied Star, who was already feeling at home in the presence of this fine lady. "Have you had experience?" "None; but I can learn." "How old are you?" "Eighteen, past." "You are large for your age." "But I have worked hard--that has made me strong." "You will need a little fixing up--what's your name?" "Miss Barton." "I kn--I mean your given name?" "Star." "Have Edith come down," said Mrs. Jarney to her maid; and she told Star to be seated. Edith came down in a few moments. She was so radiant that Star fairly held her breath. Edith advanced and presented her hand to Star, saying: "What is your name?" "Star Barton." "I kn--that is a fine name," replied Edith, holding Star's hand, and for the first time she began to feel that there was some mystery about her coming here, or else why this kindly greeting? "Mama," she said, still holding Star's hand and turning to her mother, "I shall like her, I know. I shall take her to my room and have her redressed. Will you come with me? Yes, of course." Edith, who had been very light hearted all that day, wheeled gracefully, lifted her skirts, and went up the stairs so lightly that she was like a bird of Paradise, so fairily did she trip along. Star Barton, in her poverty-stricken clothing, followed in such a delirium of amazement that she felt as if she were treading the clouds into Heaven itself. And thus into a new Heaven she went, with as little formality surrounding her going--once she was let into the mansion by the ever guardful servants--as is seldom found in this world of inequality. CHAPTER VI. THE TRANSFORMATION OF STAR BARTON. To Star Barton, it was like going into a fairyland. Edith was the fairy, Star the lowly nymph. Edith was the sparkling diamond that gave it its setting, Star was the rough jewel come to be recast. The rich, velvety, orange-colored rug, with pale pink flowers blooming like butterfly eyes peeping at her, was as soft as snow to the rough maiden's touch; only it gave back, instead of a chill, an enthralling sensation like the sound of a distant harp that beats upon a wayfarer's ears. The creamy, snow-fringed curtains evolved themselves into miniature cascades of dazzling frost, to her eyes; and gave back, instead of a shiver, a lulling peace to her disturbed imagination. The gilded furniture, the beautifully crocheted lavender cushions, the paintings, the photos of friends, the pink tint of the walls, the shining chandeliers, with sparkling globes and translucent shades, gave back, instead of a frown, a smile. Edith was, on this occasion, the advent of Star Barton into her life, an animated piece of pinkness, which gave the room its vitality. To Star's eyes, unused to such things, she was an angel without the wings. Her gossimer gown of pink, her gold, her diamonds, her fine face, all appealed to the poor girl of such lowliness to such an ecstatic degree that she was astonished beyond belief. It was all so entrancing, so enrapturing, so overpowering to her theretofore undemonstrative spirit that she sat down and burst into tears. This was the outward sign of her joy over her disenthrallment. Poor simple maiden! To be brought from a hovel to this place of glory, so suddenly, was even more than her strong nature could endure. The transition was too sudden. The climax to the fanciful things she had conjured up in the short time she had put into such imaginings was too real. No pathway had ever been struck out by her with such beautiful borderings as this. No, no; not in her limited sphere. Simple, uneducated, modest, as she was, with a pure soul and a heart that beat for better things, she gave way when the door of chance was thrown open for her, at last, and poured out her joy in the agony of tears. Edith, who had been so radiantly happy, and who had formulated such great plans for this girl, ceased in her joyous behavior when she saw Star sink into a chair and put her soiled handkerchief to her eyes. Edith at once divined the cause of Star's weeping, and knelt down by her side in commiseration. She took both of Star's rough hands between hers, so soft and delicate, and cried herself in the fullness of her heart. "Do not weep, dear girl; it grieves me so," she said, looking up into the blue eyes of her poor benighted sister. "Dear, kind lady, I cannot help it," returned Star, in an effort to stop her tears. "Come, come, my dear girl, you must prepare yourself to be my companion," said Edith. "Be brave; that is a good girl. I shall love you." "Dear lady, I am not fit to be here," said Star, still weeping. "These are all the good clothes I have." "I have new clothing for you, my dear; come, and make ready to go down to dinner with me," said Edith, rising, and still holding Star's hands. "Oh, I am so rough, I am afraid I will contaminate this place should I remain," replied Star, hesitatingly. "No, no; you must not think of such a thing, my dear girl. Cheer up and follow me," said Edith, as Star arose from her chair. Edith kissed her. Star wiped away her tears, and smiled. Then Edith lead her to her private bath room, which glistened so in its whiteness that Star drew back when she came to the door of it. This was something that Star had never seen before; but she entered, as if it were a place to be shunned, and was seated. Edith knelt down, in all her finery, and unfastened Star's coarse shoes, and removed them, revealing a foot that was as small as Edith's, but reeking with water. Edith then prepared the bath, and gave Star instructions how to use such a modern thing of sanitation--all foreign to Star. Then Edith left to fetch new garments, when Star should give the signal that her ablutions had been performed. In the course of time, Star gave the signal as agreed upon, when Edith opened the door and entered, with both arms piled to her chin with sweet smelling clothing, and a merry smile on her face, and a laughing twinkle in her eyes. Modesty caused Star to conceal herself behind the door, in the attitude of the statue of Venus. "My dear girl, do not be alarmed at me; I am as harmless as a kitten," said Edith, as she beheld how naturally modest Star impelled herself to be, even in the presence of her own sex. "It is my nature, dear good lady," replied Star, reaching for something to conceal her person. "In deference to your modesty, dear, I shall retire, if it is your wish," said Edith, laughing, as she put down her bundle of clothing. "Just for a moment, if you please, kind lady," said Star. So Edith sidled out of the room without looking around at her protege, while Star pulled on her unmentionables. After which she called Edith to assist in the furtherance of her dressing in some of the new things she was thereafter to be seen in. "These must have been made for me," said Star, as one article after another was adjusted to her form, seeing that they all fit so well and so charmingly. "They were," said Edith, buttoning up the back of Star's dress, an act she had never done before, being as she always had a maid for that performance. "Made for me?" replied Star, with some surprise. "Yes, you, my dear girl." "By whose orders?" "Mine." "I don't understand," said Star, still more surprised. "Didn't you know you were to come here?" "Why, no; I thought I came by chance!" "You apparently did." "I wonder who had that much interest in me?" asked Star, for the first time realizing that she had not been so altogether overlooked as she imagined she had been. "I had--I have." "How? Tell me, dear lady." "It is a long story, dear girl, and I will tell it you some other time. Dinner is about ready. You must go down with me. Put your hair up quickly, so we will not keep them waiting. Oh, let me help twist it round for you! How do you do it? I will learn some day, perhaps. Yes, this way. Now, look in the mirror. Isn't that better? It certainly is. You are charming. Why, I didn't know you were so sweet. Let me kiss you now to bind our companionship henceforward. There!" This from Edith while she was acting as maid, in her finery, for this poor girl, who but an hour before exhibited all the characteristics of having been pulled from the ruins of Peter Dieman's junk heap. Indeed, such a transformation had Star gone through in that short hour that the fair Edith herself hardly recognized her as the same untidy being who had come to her boudoir for what she knew not. "It is all so strange, dear lady, that it seems more like a dream," said Star, now with her cheeks aflame from the bathing and the attending excitement of the ordeal through which she had passed. "Oh, stranger things than what has already happened you may come to pass," replied Edith, as she turned to take the lead down the stairs. "What about my old clothes?" asked Star. "I will send the washer-woman after them," answered Edith. "I shall want to send them home to mother." "Never mind them," returned Edith; "your mother will be provided for." "Oh," said Star, mystified. Star Barton was now a fit subject of envy for any young lady, even with less aspiring thoughts than she. Edith might have been jealous of Star's good looks, had it been her nature; but Edith was not so inclined, in this instance. The fact is, that Edith was so pleased over her handiwork, in rejuvenating this fair damsel, that she bubbled over with happiness. Star was now clothed as became a lady of rank, except that sparkling jewelry was lacking as yet. Star's dress was almost a counterpart of Edith's, and set her off to advantage, in a comparative sense. Her mild blue eyes, pink cheeks, noble white forehead, dark wavy hair, caused the dining room attendants to stare when she came down the great staircase and passed under the brilliant lights into the presence of the mighty man of wealth and his bouncing little wife. Hah, even those two august personages held their breath for a moment when they cast their searching, but kindly, eyes upon her. "This is Miss Barton, papa," said Edith, as she came up to him with her fair charge and presented her, "and my mamma, whom you have met before." Both parents received her so graciously that Star was dumfounded, and exceedingly awkward in returning their salutation. "Miss Barton, I am happy to make your acquaintance," said Mr. Jarney. "I assure you that you are welcome." Neither Mr. Jarney's pride, nor vanity, nor money, prevented him from taking kindly to this young maiden, for he knew already whom she was, and often longed for the time to help her, although at present he must act with some circumspection toward her for reasons that he did not wish her to know. And Mrs. Jarney, for the same reasons, had to conduct herself accordingly, and meet Star on the basis of a stranger to the name of Jarney. So keeping her in ignorance of her true relationship to them, they hoped to make a lady of her, and do all that generous hearts could do, under cover of being Edith's companion, to help her to a brighter life. Star needed some instruction in the art of being a grand lady, which function she never conceived in acting when she humbly presented herself, so recently, at the back door of this mansion. The transposition of her habitat was so expeditiously executed that she saw in it something of the miraculous. In nowise, on so short a notice, could she be expected to conform to the spirit and the letter of the laws of usage in this undiscovered country to which she had been unceremoniously transported. So, recognizing these deficiencies in Star, Edith took it upon herself to be her teacher and took a seat by her side at the table. But Star was not so uncouth that she was wholly deficient in quickness of perception, and constantly kept on guard; noting every move that the others made; noting every move of Edith with sly glances; noting every action of those opposite, so that she should not, if possible to prevent it, make herself ridiculous in her first appearance on the stage of grandeur. Thus, with much carefulness on her part, in this respect at least, she got through the dinner fairly well, considering the great length of time--one hour--they took in mastication, conversation, deglutition. Finally, when it was all over with, she arose, with the rest of them, with a gladsome thanksgiving beating in her breast. But the worst ordeal yet, for her, was to come. The entire family adjourned to the parlor, where Edith sat down to the piano, and ran her hands across the key-board so rapidly and with such a wild harmonious result that Star almost had the ague. Then Edith sang a song--a lullaby--so appealing in its sentimentality that Star was lost in oblivion for a time. She let her agitated thoughts wander, unrestrained, back to her own haunts--to the misery, want and woe she had left behind; to the crooning mother attempting a similar lullaby; to her dark old face, to her tearless eyes, to her faded cheeks; to her hopeless life, in her sad, dull, stupid, sullen contentment in her wretchedness. Verily, what mortal, with a heart, could withstand the contrasts as were revealed to this tender maiden? No one could. She broke down under it, like the strongest of us break down, sometimes, under the strain of sentiment when dear ones are under the ban of misfortune. The sweet voice of Edith was to her an angelic orison to heaven for a lost soul; and who knows but that the angels then were pleading with the Great Father to send His benediction down upon that other home and save it from further damnation. Without being the least concerned as to who might take notice, or without any effort to control herself in the company of those grand people, Star let her emotions have full swing, and the tears flowed down her cheeks as freely as they flowed when her father beat her as a child. The dainty handkerchief that she now carried was soon soaked with the lachrymose outburst of her misery. Her eyes became red, her cheeks paled, and her hair, which had not been put up by trained hands, fell down over her shoulders. Despair! despair! despair! Edith played on, and sang, wholly unconscious of Star's sad moments. But her mother, happening to look Star's way, noticed her despairing plight, and went to her side with a consoling smile and a sympathetic word. When Edith had finished playing, she wheeled about on her seat, with beaming face, to receive the plaudits of her auditors; but a mournful silence greeted her. Her smiling face calmed to a serious tone when she saw her friends standing about Star in all manner of comforting attitudes. Then Edith, grasping the situation at once, glided to her side, and, kneeling down, took Star's two red hands in hers, and cried. Dear Edith, so good of you. Then she assisted Star to rise, placed her arm around her waist, and conducted her up the great white stairs, like a guiding angel going into Heaven with a new soul. CHAPTER VII. JOHN WINTHROPE PROMOTED. The day following the accidental meeting of Miss Jarney and Mr. Winthrope, under such wretched meteorological circumstances, was spent by the latter in the office of Jarney & Lowman as usual; with this exception, that the young man went about his duties as assistant bookkeeper with more alertness and decisiveness of purpose, at the same time pondering over another chance meeting of the morning. He arose an hour earlier than had been his wont, sleep having been dispelled by the train of thoughts that the awakening moments had set in motion in his brain. Notwithstanding that the inclement weather held almost at the same steady pace as on the night previous, after dressing himself, he went out, with the broken umbrella over him, into the streets to wander aimlessly about; observing, as he did so, the mad rush of the people; or taking a percursory view of the store windows; or standing in the shelter of a door; or beneath an awning, looking idly at the crowd, ever on the go. He wended down Fourth avenue to Smithfield, up to Fifth, down to Wood, down to Second; halting now and then, in his sauntering, to gaze in the windows, being interested in nothing in particular any more than to have time go as rapidly as it would go, so that he could get down to the absorbing task of putting down and reckoning up columns of figures in his books. So he wended on in this irresponsible manner till half way up the block on Second avenue, when he was compelled, by a sudden outburst of the elements in pumping down more water than he could contend with in the flabby condition of his umbrella, to take shelter in a doorway that was sunk deeply into a wall of brick, which was grimly garnished by the wear of years. He had let down the umbrella, and was scanning it, with perhaps some vagrant thoughts as to its former user; of the fine quality of the material, and of the "E. J." engraved on the gold handle; when the door at his back opened noiselessly, and was closed just as noiselessly, and quickly. A young man stepped to his side with a rain shade of his own in his hands. He was of medium height, dressed fairly well in a hand-me-down, and sported a flaming red necktie. His face was neither handsome, nor ugly, but there was in it signs of recent dissipation. "A beastly morning," he remarked, as he began turning up his collar and buttoning up his coat. "A very bad morning," answered John, not with the view of striking up a conversation, but simply to be civil to a stranger. "Couldn't be worse in h----!" said the stranger, as if talking to himself. "No; I suppose there is not much water falling in that region," said John, looking up at the cork-screws of water twisting their way down, and breaking into pieces on the hard pavement. "I reckon not," responded the stranger, for the first time turning his dull gray eyes upon John. As John made no further response, the stranger continued: "What are you doing in here? Looking for a place like this, eh?" "I merely stopped to await a moderation of the rain," answered John, innocently, knowing nothing of the character of the place into which the door led. "Then you are not looking for a joint like this?" said the stranger, eyeing John. "What kind of a place is it?" asked John. "Don't you know?" "Have not the least idea." "You must be from the country?" "Not very long since I came from that indefinite place." "Come around some evening and ask for Mike Barton, and you'll find out," said the stranger, in a whisper, sizing John up as a likely victim for such an institution. "I never go to a place unless I know of its character first," returned John. "Huh, you don't! I pity such greenhorns as you," flippantly retorted the stranger. "You scamp!" exclaimed John, hotly, and his dark blue eyes snapped with anger, as the insolent chappy cringed beneath him. "Don't leer at me, or I will wipe up the streets with you." "Now, my dear sir," replied the stranger, seeing his mistaken opinion of the man he had met; "don't get angry; I feel a little blue this morning." "You should be more courteous, young man, whatever the time, or place, or your state of mind," answered John. "I'll heed your advice hereafter," said the stranger, with a sarcastic smile. "But take the number and come around sometime, when I'll make amends for this insult, if you choose still to take it as such." "Oh, never mind about that; but what did you say your name was?" "Mike Barton. Your name?" "John Winthrope." "Do you work?" asked Mike. "I do." "Where?" "At Jarney & Lowman's." "Jarney & Lowman! Jarney! Jarney! Hah! Well, good morning," saying this rapidly, Mike Barton stepped to the wet pavement, hugged the walls as he went along, and disappeared directly. John Winthrope then resorted to a cheap restaurant. After eating a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs and coffee, he, having plenty of time yet to spare, mozied out into the elemental downpour, and sauntered to his office. He arrived there just in time to see the doors flung open to let in an army of clerical men and women for the day. His shoes being damp, he exchanged them for a pair of slippers, a supply of which aided in cumbering up a rubbish room in the building. In selecting a pair, through the scramble with the others, he was unfortunate enough to get a size too small. Thus he was caused no little pain in his big toes during the rest of the day, which detracted his attention a great deal from his work. It was a busy day in the office of Jarney & Lowman, by reason of the approaching end of the fiscal month; and he was therefore kept busy, sparing not a moment from his accounting for casual conversation with his associates, or for anything for that matter. In about the middle of the afternoon, while John was very industriously setting down, and adding up, and balancing and counter balancing books in his department, Miram Monroe, a thin, sleek, middle-aged gentleman, with the polish of a Chesterfield about him, came up to him as silently as a mouse steals up to a trap, and tapped him on the shoulder. Now, Mr. Monroe was the general manager of the office, and went about his duties in such a sly unsentimental manner that no one could ever unravel his motives when he approached an individual of the staff. There was never any change in his expression, nor in the hump of his shoulders, nor in his step, nor in his actions whenever he took upon himself his bestowed privilege of approaching a subordinate, either to inspect his work, or to tell him gently that his services were not wanted longer. He was always the same in handing out his authority. He never laughed. He never smiled. He never winked. He never talked, except in a low voice, and then in an unrhythmic monotone. So, knowing the peculiar character of this gentleman, John had a severe shock of surprise when he turned at the tap on his shoulder and beheld the light brown eyes of Mr. Monroe shedding their unintelligible lustre on him. "Mr. Winthrope," said Monroe, so smoothly, so gently, so mildly, so blandly, that John felt a faintness steal all over him, "will you have the kindness to step into the private office of Mr. Jarney?" Ho! John had never been in that office before. What did it all mean? Was the head of the firm to dismiss him? For what? It was, indeed, a very deep mystery to John. John obeyed the summons, and followed his conductor through many rooms, with a fear possessing him all the while that he was to be summarily dealt with for some unaccountable transaction with which he had been charged. He was ushered to the inner sanctum of the head of the firm. He saw Hiram Jarney sitting in a deep mahogany chair before a big mahogany roll-top desk that stood in the center of one side of the room. On the floor he saw a green Turkish rug, and on the green-tinted walls he saw, displayed appropriately and proportionately about, steel engravings of Washington, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Roosevelt, the latter being directly above Mr. Jarney's desk, from which high position that bespectacled president and mighty nimrod continually looked down upon him, as if he were the chief's main idol of modern strenuousness. John halted a moment, on seeing all these things, stepped lightly, with his pinching slippers causing him to wince, into the deep velvet, as if he were treading on a field of the most delicate violets. He took in the room at a glance. He had never seen the head of the firm but once before. This was the first time he had come face to face with the great captain of industry. Although he was uncertain of the wishes of Mr. Jarney to have him in his presence, he did not quail at advancing to be presented; but he trembled unnecessarily over the fear that he might be discharged, and thrown out of a position, for what, as he thought, as the affair of the night before. "Mr. Jarney, this is Mr. Winthrope," said Monroe, almost in a whisper, and he turned and left the room, going as quickly as a fleeing ghost. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Winthrope," said Mr. Jarney, rising and presenting a warm hand. Mr. Jarney shook the extended hand of John's with such vigor that John came near losing his tight-fitting slippers and his balance in the pulling force of Mr. Jarney's grip. "I am glad to know you," returned John, recovering his surprise over Mr. Jarney's graciousness. "Sit down," said Mr. Jarney, releasing John's hand, and motioning him to a deep mahogany chair by his desk. John sat down. Without removing his eyes from John, Mr. Jarney drew a box of cigars out of the depths of his desk, and, opening it, extended it toward him. "Have a smoke?" he said, pleasantly. "Thank you; I do not smoke," answered John, confusedly. "Good!" exclaimed Mr. Jarney, as he flapped the lid on the box. As he laid it away he still kept his eyes on his visitor. John was so uncomfortable in the big chair, and the slippers were pinching him so unmercifully, that he was very miserable. When he leaned backward, he seemed to have fallen to the floor on his back; when he sat up straight, his back pained him; when he leaned forward, he felt awkward. "Young man," said Mr. Jarney, easily, lighting a cigar, and still keeping his keen eyes on John, "this is an unusual procedure on my part, you will no doubt think." "I don't know," gasped John. "Well," continued Mr. Jarney, "I have summoned you here for a quiet chat." John wondered what this great man could find in him to talk about. "Yes, I want to talk with you," he continued. "You are a good young man, I understand. How old are you?" "Twenty-two." "Hah! twenty-two; the proper age. Where is your home?" "In the city, at present." "I mean, where were you raised?" "In the mountains of Fayette county." "Hah! just so. Another point in your favor. Now, then, do you have any money?" "None; only what I earn here." "How much is that?" "Fifteen per week." "Hah! what do you do with your money above your keep?" "Send it to my parents." "Hah! another point in your favor. With whom do you associate?" "Have not been in the city long enough to acquire intimate associates." "Hah! four good points in your favor. What is the extent of your education?" "I attended the common schools of my district, then learned bookkeeping and stenography at a business college." "Hah! five good points in your favor. That is enough. Would you like to be my private secretary?" John was calm under the ordeal of this examination into his character and habits and ability, answering the questions as deliberately as if he were before a court-witness examiner. But when the last question was put to him he became unduly nervous, as is so often true of young men of sterling worth and latent capabilities. The question came so unexpectedly and from such an unexpected source that he could not, at first, clearly comprehend its meaning; nor could he frame an appropriate answer on such a momentous proposition. While he was ambitious and desirous of rising to an eminence in the world of business that would place him where he thought he deserved, he, at the same time, knew his failings, if any he had worth mentioning. "Mr. Jarney," said John, finally, after studying for a few moments; "this has been unsought on my part, and is a great surprise. If I deserve such a promotion, so soon after coming into your service, I assure you I am thankful, and shall endeavor to make good." "I take it, then, that you have accepted?" said Mr. Jarney. "I have." "Mr. Winthrope, your duties will be to look after my private affairs. You will have your office in the adjoining room. You are to be under no one's orders but my own. Your salary will be increased to twenty-five per week, and if you prove satisfactory, after a fair trial, which I believe you will, you will be compensated according as I value your services. Be at your desk at ten a. m. tomorrow. Now you may go." John arose; Mr. Jarney arose. They stood a moment looking at each other. Mr. Jarney then laid his hand upon John's shoulder, and said: "Mr. Winthrope, I believe you will make good." "I will be faithful to any trust imposed in me," returned John. Together they walked across the room. Mr. Jarney opened the door, as he said, "Good bye." John stepped out. The door closed behind him. John stopped a few seconds before that blasted flower, Monroe, who gazed at him without the least intimation of what was going on in his apparently inactive brain. John gazed at Monroe as if he meant to inquire the reason for his unimaginative stare, for he thought he wanted to ask a question. John stood waiting for it to issue forth from his thin lips; but, as none came, he went out through the labyrinth of offices, and to his desk, where he resumed his pen and figuring as if nothing in the world had come up to alter his preconceived routine of existence--except the pinching slippers, which he soon discarded. At the quitting hour, Monroe, as empty as ever in his stare, came to him and whispered: "He has told me of your promotion." "Yes," answered John, without looking up. "Your desk will be ready at ten." "Yes, I have been instructed." "Yes," returned Monroe; and he walked away, with the same mouse-like tread he always assumed among the main office force. That evening, in his dingy little room, John meditated a long time over this extraordinary turn in his wheel of fate. He could attribute it to no other cause than the incident of the night before. What other reason had Mr. Jarney for selecting him, he thought, for this important post, when there were above him in the office men with more experience, more capabilities, more knowledge of the world of business than he? Could it be, he thought, that Mr. Jarney was repaying him for his gentlemanly actions toward his daughter? Could it be? Mr. Jarney gave no reason for his promotion, nor intimation as to why he favored him above so many others who had been in his service so much the longer time. John never thought that such men as Mr. Jarney give no reason for their actions, except, perhaps, on graver questions. If it was not for that affair, then what was it? But why should Mr. Jarney favor him for that? He had given Edith Jarney a great amount of compound consideration. He thought of their chance meeting from the viewpoint of one, who, knowing fully his lowly station, could not, by any unheard of reasoning, ever hope to meet her on friendly or intimate terms. He might chance upon her, of course, sometime, somewhere; but that was, while possible, hardly likely--unless it should be in her father's office. But recalling that he had never seen her there, nor ever heard her name spoken in the office no more than if she did not exist, he was still less inclined to a faint hope. Such young ladies were not the topic of confabulating remarks among the employes of such great fathers as hers. Still, with all his meditating, deliberating, weighing this and balancing that, he could not get her out of his bucolic head. Ah, he thought, he would fill a new position on the morrow! Perhaps she would come to her father's office, sometime; not an improbable thing for Edith to do. Then, in that event, he could only hope to bow to her as she should switch her way in or out past him, with a toss of her dignified head; or a contemptuous look out of her bright blue eyes; or, more like it, to give him a blank stare for his presumptuous ogling. Would Edith Jarney do this? Dear Edith, it is hoped that John has a wrong impression of you. So, after thinking on all these things, John could, in nowise, bring himself to believe, or ever to expect that he would receive any recognition from Edith. Therefore, with such extraneous ideas excluded from his thoughts, he concluded that day-dreams were useless; and with all the assumed wisdom that was stored up in his soul, he deliberately cast her aside as beyond his attainment. CHAPTER VIII. PETER DIEMAN RECEIVES VISITORS. Peter Dieman, since he had reached his present state of affluence and influence, did not condescend to wait on customers. He was now above that menial branch of his trade. He seldom went into his store, as a clerk; but he went occasionally to settle some dispute, of one kind or another, that Eli Jerey was continually involved in with some one of the many people, who, for one reason or another, visited The Die. Eli, in this period of his trammeled existence, was a combative sort of an individual--not through a natural disposition in that direction, but mainly by force of circumstances. Being a creature who was impelled by any line of action by the urgent necessity of earning his bread and butter, he became a willing tool in the hands of Peter for the furtherance of that man's business, or any other of the transactions with which he might be connected. Eli, therefore, was a good servant more through a sense of duty, than through any reason he would bring to bear in applying himself. He might be classed with one of those trusties who is purblind to any one else's good, save that of his employer. Hence, he loved Peter, not for any attraction that the personality of the man had for him, but simply for the job that he filled. Peter Dieman had that way about him that causes men of any rank, almost, to bow down to force and power and money. While he was revolting in his general aspect, as a man socially, he was certainly a genius when it came to manipulating the "ropes" that so often lead men and women into combinations against society's welfare. Even in the building up of an established business in the marts of other men, he exhibited a wonderful gift of sagacity in organization, and in a knack of accumulating wealth, so far as his endeavors went in the one particular line that to the world at large he was supposed to follow. One day Peter was sitting at his place of espial, intently concerned for the time with the one predominating thought as to whether his spider-like clerk, Eli Jerey, could accommodate all the customers he saw in waiting, before any of them could get away without leaving a few shekels behind. As he looked, he rubbed his hands nervously, whimsically, naturally, as was his habit; then he squinted up one of his piggish eyes, and scowled menacingly. The reason for this contorting facial expression and revolutionary exhibition with his hands was that he noted his clerk suddenly throw up his left arm to a guarding position, rear backward, clinch his fists, look daggers out of his cat-like eyes, and then lunge forward, with the force of a battering ram going into execution. He also saw two other long arms whirling through the air like a Dutch wind-wheel in motion, saw a head duck, saw the bodies of two men writhe and squirm, and then saw them fall together on a bundle of dirty coiled-up ropes. Seeing all which, he put down his pipe, put on his black cap, and waddled out with the intensity of the furies spread over the wide expanse of his red and rounded visage. "Wow!" he roared like an exploding blunderbuss. "What in God Almighty's name be you doing, Eli?" Eli did not look up to respond to the query. He could not look up had he wanted to. The stranger, with whom Eli was in combat, had him gripped so tightly around the neck with one arm, that Eli could neither hurt his antagonist, nor get hurt himself. All that Eli could do was to breathe heavily, strike out at random with his one free hand, hitting the ropes, the floor, a bench leg, and many other things about him. Meanwhile the stranger seemed to lie contentedly on his back surveying the upper regions of the interior of the junkery. When Peter came up to the combatants, he stopped, with his hands upon his hips, and his arms akimbo, sized up the situation in an instant, and then seized Eli by the scruff of the neck, and raised him to the floor, with his victim still clinging to him in a very loving-like embrace, and with Eli still beating the air at random with his free hand. "Loosen yourself, brute!" squealed Peter to the stranger. "Loosen yourself, I say!" he shouted. But the stranger paid no heed to him. Whereupon, Peter, using his fat hands as an entering wedge, heaved away with mighty force, to left and to right, and the twain came asunder. The stranger now stood back, with tousled head and frightful mien, glaring savagely at Eli; while Eli looked the same in the matter of dishevelment, his scanty face showed little more of the baser passions than would a paving stone. "You rascals! What's all this about?" demanded Peter, directing his eyes on Eli. "Nothing," piped Eli. Then turning to the stranger, who was a young man, Peter said, stentoriously: "Clear out at once!" The stranger took up his fallen hat, turned malevolently upon Peter, and hissed: "All right, you hog! You will pay dear for such an insult!" He turned toward Eli. "You scoundrel," he shouted, "your master keeps you here to insult people--" but he did not finish the sentence, so wroth was he in his anger. Peter rubbed his hands so rapidly that it would be a wild guess to say whether he was doing it in jest or in earnest. The stranger proceeded toward the front door. "Wait!" exclaimed Peter, as the stranger was about to make his exit. The young man turned about, very deliberately, in his tracks, leered at Peter as if he would again hurl a terrible threat at him, but he said nothing. "Mike Barton," commanded Peter, for that is whom the young man proved to be, "come to my office." Whereupon, Peter led the way, and Mike Barton followed him to the little black office. Peter removed his cap, resumed his pipe, and sat down, wheezing like an asthmatic pup, near his place of espionage; and he looked curiously at Mike, who had taken a seat unbidden. "What was the trouble, Mike?" he asked. "I simply sought to pass him to get to your office, when he confronted me with the insulting remark, 'No pimps allowed in there--your office--without permission of the boss.'" "He's a good clerk, Mike; he is; and he serves me well." "Too well, Mr. Dieman, for your safety." "Ha, ha! Well, he has my instructions, and you know the password to this office." "I do, sir; but I resent the insult." "All right, my boy, it's over with now; Eli is a good one for me, you know." "I reckon he is," returned Mike. "Now, what can I do for you?" asked Peter, eyeing Mike with one of his singularly inquisitorial stares, which gave Mike a spell of the fidgets. "I was sent here by the keeper of our place to know the outlook for a continuance of police protection," he replied without any circumlocution about saying what he had in mind. "Eh!" Peter ejaculated. "Yes; we want to know--or they want to know. What's the prospects?" "Eh?" "What's the prospects? is my question," said Mike, surlily, put out by the evasiveness of Peter. "Hey?" "You have my question." "I have." "Then answer me." "How much more is it worth?" "You and your gang are getting enough already," retorted Mike. "Don't get gay, young man; don't get gay," said Peter, raising his furzy eyebrows with surprise. "You people are in business--I'm in business--we're all in business--for money." "Yes, Peter, yes; all in business--all in business--a nasty thing it is, sir, this grafting business," returned Mike. "But my employers are getting tired of having their legs pulled so often. All the profits already go to your bunch--how can they pay any more?" "Eh, young man, you are talking a little too gay--a little too gay, for one of your experience; hey?" "Well, it's the truth," answered Mike. "What have I to do with that? Yes, I, sir; I? Answer me that question?" asked Peter, with a little more animation than he had previously shown in the conversation. "A whole d---- lot!" exclaimed Mike. "Don't! don't! don't! boy! Don't cause me to throw you out!" roared Peter, now looking out his peephole. "I am not a bit afraid of you--no more than I am of that door knob," answered Mike, haughtily. "Maybe not, Mike; but you fellows must be reasonable," said Peter, less uproariously than before. "So must you fellows," remarked Mike, placidly, as he indolently shifted one leg over the other and bent forward. Peter pursued his quest no further for a few moments, being interested in Eli in the outer room. He drummed with his fingers on one arm of the chair, then rubbed his fat hands together. Peter then turned to Mike, as Mike said: "I want to know, Mr. Dieman, what your gang intends doing?" "One thousand more per month," was Peter's reply. "That means two thousand for our house, does it?" "If I figure right, it does." "Then, you can go--to--h----!" returned Mike, rising to depart. "Five hundred will do this time," said Peter, now feeling inclined to be decent in such a deal. "Go to----" responded Mike, looking back at Peter over his shoulder, as he turned to go out the door. "Set down, boy, and be respectable," said Peter in a mollifying tone. "Anything new, Mike?" "Nothing unusual, only I hear that my sister left home today for a finer home in the East End." "Did sh-e-e?" asked Peter, with a comical leer out of his right eye, which he turned upon Mike, as if the information was of vast importance to him. "She did," answered Mike. "Good for her!" said Peter, musingly. "When did you learn this?" "This afternoon, when I was home for the first time since I got my new job, over three months now," replied Mike, looking down at the floor. "I meant to take her out of that place myself to a finer one, where life is worth while; but she eluded me--if that is the right word, eh." "Did you intend taking her to the place where you work?" asked Peter. "I did." "I have always had such a notion of you in my head," said Peter, squinting at Mike. "You had? How did you know?" shouted Mike. "Guessed as much," said Peter, rubbing and looking Mike squarely in the face. "You old reprobate!" exclaimed Mike, hotly. "Be careful, boy; be careful. I am no fool," admonished Peter, unruffled as yet, in outward signs. "What other news?" "I understand my sister's at Hiram Jarney's home," said Mike. "Yes," responded Peter. "A strange coincidence," mused Mike. "I met a young man named Winthrope this morning, who works in Jarney's office." "Good or bad subject?" asked Peter. "Bad--I judge from his answers." "That's good," said Peter, rubbing his hands vigorously. "I don't understand," said Mike. "You don't?" quizzed Peter, drawling out the words sluringly. "No, d---- if I do!" "Well, then go about your miserable business and quit bothering me," commanded Peter. "You haven't answered me yet about police protection," said Mike. "Oh, go away; they'll not bother you," replied Peter, impatiently, shaking his head as if he were shaking the words out of his mouth. "Have I your word for it?" demanded Mike. "That's all I have to say. Go!" snorted the now exasperated Peter, resuming his habitual work of spying. Mike retreated, like a man who is cornered by a bear in his den, going out at the opportune time. Passing through the store he beheld Eli looking as dumbly as a lamppost at him. Mike skinned his eyes, as it were, lest Eli should pounce upon him again, and complete the operation of a sound threshing. But Mike got safely to the outer door, and was about to go out, when he turned and hurled back at Eli, shaking his fist: "I'll fix you, you hireling!" Eli, becoming riled at the threatening taunt, made a rush for Mike, like a terrier after a scampering cat; but Mike soon disappeared around a corner, leaving Eli standing in the door shaking his fist at the vanishing figure, who did not cease running till he got two or three blocks away, so fearful was he of Eli. As Eli turned to re-enter the shop, he ran counter to a man--a tall, slouchy fellow with a stubby moustache, short hair, red nose, round face, brown eyes, white complexioned--who had entered unobserved, while Eli was sending his sworn enemy threateningly away. The man sallied lazily through the alleys of junk, paying no heed whatever to the ubiquitous clerk, who was dogging his heels at every turn for an opportunity to inquire about his wants. Several times Eli was sure the man was about to stop and make reply to his questions; but in this he was sorely disappointed. For the man proceeded till he came to the door of Peter's cubby-hole, and was in the act of entering it, when, to his astonishment, he found Eli wraithing up before him in the doorway. The man hesitated for an instant, gave Eli a contemptuous smile, then, with a quick sweep of his strong arm, thrust him aside, as if he were only a part of The Die's junk that had got into his way. Eli, of course, was taken off his feet, both figuratively and literally, and went sprawling in a heap in a corner, on a pile of rubbish. "Come in!" shouted Peter to the man, with no thought as to what harm might have befallen the dutiful Eli, who, on catching his master's voice as meaning an intimate acquaintanceship with the man, gathered himself together, and took up his burdens still feeling unsquelched as a faithful servant. "Well, Jim," said Peter to the man, when he seated himself, "how's things going these days?" "Well enough," answered Jim Dalls. "Ford & Ford got the contract?" said Peter, without a semblance of his gladness over the matter in his own face. "Yes; they got it; but hell'll be to pay some day for that dirty piece of work," answered Jim Dalls, moodily. "That's a hard old place to satisfy," remarked Peter. "Can't be worse than the grafters of this old city," returned Dalls. "Don't be pessimistic, Jim." "Don't like to be; but, I say, there'll be a reckoning up some day, I suppose, when the people once wake up, and find out what is going on in this old town." "Ah, the people; the dear people," answered Peter; "they don't know enough to eat mud pies." "Why, haven't they been fed on them a long time, eh, Peter? Their stomachs will revolt at the mess sometime, Peter; then, look out!" "Have no fear, Jim; have no fear; they'll never catch us," replied Peter, with confidence in his secureness behind the throne of graft. "But, nevertheless, it is rotten business, Peter; rotten business, and I am tired of playing the game," said Dalls. "Oh, I'm not; I'll play it till I die," returned Peter, with a bravado air. "You can afford to, Peter; it's been a gold mine to you and your backers. But to me? Look at me! Nothing is all I get--nothing but a pittance." "You are paid well, Jim," said Peter, severely. "Paid well; yes; but it takes it all to keep those below me in line." "Well, what more do you want, Jim?" "Nothing--I'm quitting the business." "Ho! you are? You can't quit, Jim; you can't. If you do, what'll become of the ring?" asked Peter, now for the first time bringing his reasoning faculties into play in connection with such a probable event. "Bust, I suppose," replied Dalls. "Never!" exclaimed Peter. "I am going to quit, I tell you, Peter." "How much do you want to go away from here?" asked Peter, rubbing and squinting. "Ten thousand," replied Jim Dalls, slowly. "You are cheap," said Peter. "Come around tomorrow, when I will pay you and furnish a ticket for you to Europe." "Agreed, Peter! Shake! I always knew you'd be on the square with me. But put it down in writing," returned Dalls, with less gloom pictured in his face than when he entered. "I never put anything down in writing, Jim; particularly such things as we have been discussing. I consider my word good, Jim," answered Peter, palaveringly. "I'll take you at your word, then, Peter." "Very well; you have been a good lieutenant, Jim, and we don't like to lose you. But if you have scruples on the matter, Jim, I want you to leave--get out of the country, and stay out till I call you back. Jim, do you understand?" "Just so I get the cash, I'll go anywhere, Peter," answered Jim Dalls. "That will do, then, Jim; come tomorrow at two," said Peter. "You have a mighty obnoxious clerk out here," said Dalls, rising to go away. "Oh, he's all right, Jim; you know the password, and didn't give it," replied Peter. "That's my fault, then," answered Dalls, as he stepped into the shop, there to encounter the angry look of Eli, who was at that moment waiting on a customer, or otherwise there might have been another little affray, on the spot. Jim Dalls, as he was familiarly known among Peter's henchmen, had been a member of the present political ring since its inception back in the early nineties. He had now but a poor chance of ever rising higher in the ranks than a poorly paid lieutenant; and so what was the use, he argued with himself, of playing third fiddle any longer, if there was any likelihood at all of getting out with a good round sum in cash. So, as a bluff, he preferred to work the "conscientious scruple" scheme to get what he thought was due him for his valiant services in the corporals' guard of the gang; and he went to Peter playing that he wanted to lead a new life, and his bluff worked out better than he ever anticipated. It was very necessary, in the workings of this mysterious institution, that whenever an officer felt conscience stricken to remove him, with great dispatch, from the scene of operation, so as to keep out the light of investigation when house-cleaning time should come, which it would sometime. Jim Dalls had been bred in the business and knew its entire ramifications in every branch of civic affairs of the city. He had not prospered in it, as some others had, considering the length of his services and the good that he had done, and the care he had taken in fighting for success. He had not been raised to the sublime degree in the ranks of the upper luminaries, where marched the fitted, to which others had been raised, considering the amount of service he had put into the cause. He had not been treated as equitably in the division of the spoils that had come into the coffers of the charmed circle of grafters, as others had been treated, considering the sum of his own earnings he had put into the hands of his own satellites shining around him, as those above him shone around the great center of this gigantic solar system. In consequence, the monster, Disaffection, lurked within his breast, and became a thing for the master minds to watch with care. Yes, watch with care, and hold in check. Of course, Jim Dalls was no squealer. No--if he got his price. And now, getting his price, he would leave the city. He would leave his country; and go to Europe, and live like an American Captain of Industry lives in that land when his native soil becomes sterile in its bountifulness of pleasure. Yes, he would go to Europe at the behest of his superiors, so that he could not, for a time, tamper with any of their marked cards, and cause a breaking up in their game. And to Europe he would go, with his trusting wife and family believing that he had earned his lucre honestly; and they proudly looked every one in the face, believing that the world is on the square. Oh Europe! Europe! If you only knew the private history of many of those Americans you receive with open arms, craft and graft and greed you would see as their only virtues. But, ho! Let us smile, instead of crying at their follies. For no nation ever yet raised a monument to men representing such principles. CHAPTER IX. A THANKSGIVING PARTY. In Oakland avenue there stands another mansion. It is a lofty pile of brownish stone, and is luxuriously complete in its every detail. Standing as it does on a prominent hill, it comes in for a great share of excellent praise for its beauty and magnificence, and is classed as a close rival of that other mansion in Highland avenue. Here lived, when in the effulgence of his power and influence in the complicated machinery of a big city, one Jacob Cobb--a short, squatty, round-faced, blue-eyed, clear-complexioned man of business, so far as anybody knew about his worldly affairs. Here his wife Betty, and daughters, Susanna and Marjorie, entertained the eclat of society according to the à la mode of fashion; and many were the gay parties, balls and dinners that they gave for the select few constituting their circle of acquaintances. Charming, indeed, were these great affairs, unrivaled in all their appointments in the high-toned residential district in this unequaled city of social madness and financial debauchery. Oh, yes; charming they were, indeed, to those select of the very select who pandered to Mammon in the workaday hours and to Bacchus in the time of refreshment. Aye, aye; here came the proud, the haughty, the vapid, the insipid; the hilarious strumpets of swelldom, the strutting monstrosities of fashion, the pompous parrots of mimicry; the glib scandal-mongers, the gregarious loiterers over afternoon teas; the straight-laced of the kid-gloved gentry, the snobs, the prudes, the fops; the blase young men, the genteel puppets, the vacuous gentlemen, the bombasts, the old curmudgeons; the doting mothers, the innocent maidens; with now and then a sprinkling of the good, the sage, the savant, as a savory condiment to the mess of social pottage the Cobbs dished out of their pot of ethics. These events were wonderful achievements in the life of Mrs. Cobb, and Mr. Cobb paid the bills without a murmur or complaint. Mrs. Cobb was sumptuously independent in the conduct of these affairs. All the glories of the Queen of Henry of Navarre could not equal her glorious accomplishments in the one great and only ambition of her life--shining in society. Mr. Cobb was bumptuously indifferent as to how his wife shone, just so she shone, and that in her shining she did not obfuscate him altogether. Mrs. Cobb was chunky, like her husband. She was the quintessence of charm. She was the substantive mood of the present tense of the verb to be. She was gay, humorous, and a true leader--in her line of activity. She was near the middle time of life, but she had lost little of her beauty. Her dark brown eyes snapped like sparks of fire, and her cheeks glowed pink when she was enjoying the company around her; when in a different mood, she ever had the fine quality of knowing how to be pleasant when most bored. Mrs. Cobb's afternoons were of course mild affairs, but still very grand to all those idle ladies who deemed it a distinctive honor to receive an invitation, and a compliment to their refinement to be there. Accomplishment and refinement! O, fudge! Mrs. Cobb must celebrate Thanksgiving day. She and her husband must offer up their oblation, in their own unhampered fashion, to the gracious Lord who had blessed them with so much to be thankful for. And they did celebrate. It was to be an unsurpassed dinner at seven, a violation of the rule of etiquette for such state affairs; but as dancing was to follow, the order of formality was modified, so that the exhilarating whirl could thereby be prolonged. She, therefore, sent out the exact number of fifty invitations, equally distributed among ladies and gentlemen. The dinner was served in the great dining room, dazzling with its silver, gold, glass and polished wood, with carnations and roses burdening the air with their mesmeric fragrance. Promptly at the hour of seven, Mr. Cobb, with Mrs. Cobb on his arm, struck out through the maze of palms and smilax and other greenery, for the feasting board. Arriving at the table, with her husband, she delivered him at the head, and she took a seat on his right hand (all contrary to form, but she was original, if anything), with her favorite bachelor friend, Miram Monroe, on Mr. Cobb's left, as a cold balancing weight to old man Cobb's ebulliting spirits. Next to Mr. Monroe sat Miss Edith Jarney. Jasper Cobb sat opposite Miss Jarney, and by his side was Miss Star Barton; and so on down the long table sat the other sublunaries of the Cleopatra of fashion, the number not stopping till a second long table was filled with similarly handsomely gowned ladies, and gloomily groomed gentlemen, with the Cobb girls sitting among them in peek-a-boo fluffiness. "Mr. Monroe," said Mrs. Cobb, after having made some trifling remarks to some of the other guests, showing her white teeth with the vivaciousness of a young girl, "you appear not to be enjoying yourself tonight." "Oh, yes, Mrs. Cobb," he replied, with a board-like stiffness, "I am delighted." "Mrs. Cobb," interjected her husband, beaming one of his sly winks at her, "you should not tease Mr. Monroe tonight. Just behold the fair young lady he has by his side!" "Mr. Cobb, you are so jolly tonight," she answered. "Mr. Monroe did not salute me when he arrived this evening, so I am in ill-humor with him." "Beg your pardon, Mrs. Cobb," said the ghostly Monroe. "The fact is I had no opportunity. Sure, madam, I would not slight you for the world, did you give me the opportunity." "Mr. Monroe," said Mrs. Cobb, in her best humor, "you must get rid of your rigidity of expression, or I will be compelled to get another man, younger than you, to take your place. I am now almost tempted to put my son in your place; Jasper, you know." "I will not hear to that, Mrs. Cobb," interrupted Edith. "Why, I shall attempt to enliven Mr. Monroe." Then to that sedate imbecile, she said: "Mr. Monroe, cheer up. See, every gentleman present but you is in the fullness of his grandiose verboseness tonight. Cheer up, and be alive for once!" Mr. Monroe turned a lethargic smile upon Edith, and whispered, loud enough for his near auditors to hear: "Miss Jarney will do me the pleasure, I am sure, of reaching me the salt." "Why, with pleasure--salt--salt," said Edith, with a gay and mischievous laugh. "This man--waiter, waiter--wants some salt to salt down his opinion of women's rights." "Good, good!" applauded Mrs. Cobb. "Now, what are your opinions of women's rights, Mr. Monroe?" "I am salting them down," he replied, sadly, as he began to spray most liberally his salad, which looked, before he ceased, as if it would be in a brine of thick salineness. "My opinion of women is--aside from my mother--that they are a lot of soap bubbles." "You bad man," said Mrs. Cobb, lowering her eyebrows; "that is no definition. Women's rights--what is your opinion?" "They haven't any rights, save what the men choose to give them," he whispered looking at Edith, with as much expression as a monkey. "You bleak old bachelor," retorted Mrs. Cobb. "Edith will never have you for saying that." Edith turned a wrathful glance upon Mrs. Cobb, and gave a scornful laugh at the jest. Then she turned to Mr. Monroe, who had ceased in his rapid-fire eating long enough to look at her like a plaster cast might look. "Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, who had been earnestly engaged with Miss Barton, paying her the closest attention with his palavering nonsense, "I am jealous of Mr. Monroe." "Indeed," returned Edith. "I am, indeed," he answered, and the impropriety of his remark struck Edith's ear discordantly. "What a great teaser you are, Jasper," said Mrs. Cobb. "A chip of the old block," said Mr. Cobb, smiling at his joke, as he took it to be. "Jasper does not mean a word of it," said Mrs. Cobb, at the same time hoping that he did. "With due consideration for my friend, Mr. Monroe," said Edith, "I will turn my attention to him." Then Edith summoned up all her latent substitutes for naturalness, and bore down upon Mr. Monroe with such a load of banter and mirthful sayings that that gentleman eventually smiled, to the surprise of everybody. Then it became alarmingly noticeable that Mr. Monroe was paying close attention to Edith's highly interesting but entirely assumed form of gabbling--so much so, in fact, that it was feared by Mrs. Cobb once that he was on the point of taking Edith in his unloving embrace, and running away with her. But Mrs. Cobb saved him from this duncely possibility by saying: "Be careful, Mr. Monroe, or you will do something desperate directly!" Mr. Monroe quickly recovered himself and became a living sphynx again. "Hah, Miss Edith," said Jasper Cobb, catching the trend of things Edithward, "now, I am jealous." Miss Edith turned to him, with pretended hautiness, and should liked to have said, "Impudence," but forbore that unlady-like expression in deference to her own good breeding. She was relieved, however, from making any answer to him by Mr. Cobb, who arose at that critical moment and announced, most graciously and grandiloquently, that the table would be cleared of the women and menu to make way for cigars and wine. All of which orders being carried into execution, as per custom, the waiters proceeded to serve those two refreshing desserts. They sat long over their cigars, and longer over their wine--till the air was an ultramarine blueness, and the men in tipsy joyousness. Mr. Monroe was very thirsty, it turned out, from the number of glasses that he drained, which had an happy effect upon him. For, with the disappearance of the wine down his esophagus, came a set grin on his face, akin to the smile of a disgruntled ghost. Young Cobb, aside from smoking enormously, imbibed freely, much against his personal appearance and qualifications to enter much farther into the pleasures of the evening. All the other gentlemen, including old man Cobb, entered into the libations with rare partiality--except Mr. Jarney, who, it was seen, refrained from participating in the dispatching of the invigorating liquor, a constitutional habit with him. This trait was looked upon by his now inebriating friends as a high breach of etiquette in not sipping wine after breaking bread at the home of a friend, and was an affront not to be condoned on such an occasion. But Mr. Jarney, while not approving of such bacchanalian practices, as far as he and his family were concerned, looked askance at them, so long as they were confined to others, and he made no protest. After the free lubrication of their unsettled nerves and muddled heads, the men arose to join the ladies, who in the meantime had dressed for the ball, now to follow. When all was in readiness and the band had struck up a softly insinuating waltz, Mr. and Mrs. Cobb wheeled out on the floor and glided around the room with the agility of two sixteen-year-olds. Mr. and Mrs. Jarney came after them, stately and graceful in their evolutions. Then came the ghost--Monroe--looking like a piece of burning asbestos, as a result of the wine, with his arm around the waist of Miss Edith. Then came young Cobb, whispering words of foolishness into the ear of Miss Barton, as they went round and round in a delirious whirl--to him. Then came all the other ladies and gentlemen, the latter suffering wondrously in the advanced stage of booziness. No, we will not cast all the shame upon the men in their journey of giddiness, for some of the bewitching woman, ah, and even unbewitching, too, presumed it their blessed privilege to partake of a little of the tonic of joy, as an equalizer to the wabbling motions of their husbands or friends. Number after number, in this wise, was pulled off, each time the bibbers adding more and more wine as a wash down after each exhausting exhibition. So in consequence, after awhile, man after man began to fall by the wayside, and call feebly upon the good Samaritan: Bromo-seltzer, or bromo-something else: to keep them in condition to continue the mad seance. But the little imp Wine, once he secrets himself in the corpuscles of the blood, is a pretty difficult being to placate in so short a time. Not satisfied was he in laying hold of the faultless gentlemen in spike-tailed coats and immaculate bosoms, sparkling with all the iridescence of the purchasing power of money, but he sought out some of the decolleted dames and gauzyed damsels, and enveloped them in his opiatic arms. Even Mr. and Mrs. Cobb were not spared from his envelopment; for, after the fourth set, they became so maudlin in their hilarity that the sober servants were called upon to lead them out of the ballroom, from which they went, in a great state of regal debility, into the seclusion of their own bedchamber, there to sleep away their Thanksgiving potation. And it was not long till every corner in the house had a sleeper languishing in the happy shades of somnolence. Mr. Monroe, the astute ghost of quietness, after cavorting for a considerable time like a nanny goat in a field of crimson clover, was among the first to succumb to the silencing influence of the giver of potency, and disappeared, like a settling stone, into a whirlpool of revelry. And young Jasper Cobb, the gay and handsome son of the Thanksgiving father and mother, after cutting capers that would put to ignominious flight a colored gen'man at a cake walk, gave up the contest at last and became numbered among the recumbent forms that rested, like so many babes in the woods, along the walls. You are not supposed to believe that the Jarneys witnessed all these antics of the merry makers at this party, to which a half column space in the society page of the Sunday newspapers was devoted. No, you are not to believe they remained, retaining all their senses, to witness this pyretic debauch of high society. The truth is, that the Jarneys came as a matter of form in deference to Mr. Cobb, one of the high-ups in business; and they left in deference to their conscience and self-respect. The fact is, that after the second number was rendered, Mr. and Mrs. Jarney, seeing how things were going, and also at the solicitation of Miss Edith, took their ward, Star Barton, and repaired to their home. "Well, how do you like high society?" asked Edith, when she and Star had reached their boudoir for a short lounging before going to bed. "If that party is a fair sample, I don't like it," emphatically answered Star. "Why, it is no more respectable, if half as much, with all their fine things and glitter, than some of the hoe-downs in Hell's Half Acre." "I am very sorry we attended," said Edith. "I am not," returned Star. "It has been a great lesson to me." "Would you go again?" asked Edith. "I shall always be guided by you, dear Edith." "Then you will have no further opportunity to attend a function of that kind, for that is the last for me," said Edith; "especially with that class of people. Papa and mamma care nothing for such doings; neither do I; but owing to business connections, we are obliged to lend our presence, sometimes. Formality! Star; formality!" "Is it one of the requirements of business?" asked Star, innocently. "It is a deplorable truth," answered Edith. "I am glad, dear Edith, you are not wrapped up, heart and soul, with such people," said Star. "It is my pleasure to be independent, Star." "And I shall follow your example, dear Edith," returned Star, with unbounden confidence in her friend. "Say, Star," said Edith, as she seated herself on an ottoman at the feet of Star, and taking one of Star's hands in hers, "I have a trip planned for you; will you go?" "If it is your wish, I will," answered Star. "Star," and Edith looked up into her friend's face, blushing the least bit, "you remember the young man of whom I was telling you about meeting by chance? Yes. He is now my father's private secretary." "Oh, is he?" asked Star, by rote. "Yes; and by my request, too. I will take you to my father's office tomorrow, and, if he is there, you shall share his acquaintance with me." "I shall be glad to meet him--if he is your friend," said Star. "He is my friend, Star--no, not yet--but I want him to be, Star," and Edith buried her head in Star's lap to hide her tell-tale face. Then raising her head, in a moment, "Will you go? Of course you will." "If you permit me to talk with him," said Star, teasingly, "I will go." "Who would think of being jealous of you, my dear Star? Why should I? He is no more--yes, he is--" and Edith buried her face again, while Star stroked her long silken tresses in loving admiration. "Ho, ho, Edith! I know," said Star, pointing a finger of jest at her, as she raised her face. "Do you guess my secret, Star?" "Why, dear girl, I cannot help but know it." "And you will keep it, Star?" "To my dying day. Does he know it?" "Oh, no, no; I have seen him only once. Do you think it right in me, Star?" "I don't know, Edith. How will you ever make it known to him?" "Oh, Star! I do not wish to; I do not wish to! He must find it out for himself. I know he is such a fine young man; for my father even praises him." "He may never know it, Edith," said Star, not yet knowing herself the secrets of love, as old as she was; albeit, she possessed a true sense of the great mystery of life; "and then what?" "I can only live in hope that he will, some day, see and know. Do you think it wrong in me, Star, to say these things?" "If it is from your heart, no." "Let me kiss you, Star? There!" Love comes to a pure woman veiled in mystery, and departs only when her spirit returns unto God who gave it. Were they all as pure as Edith, the temptations of our modern Edens would be as holy as the waters of Siloam's Pool. CHAPTER X. JOHN WINTHROPE'S SECOND PROMOTION. John Winthrope had a small cozy room by himself off the main office of Hiram Jarney. It was about the size of a twelve by sixteen rug, and so richly furnished that when he got into it, he felt as if he had been clandestinely concealed in a bandbox lined with rare and costly velvets. There were a green rugget on the floor, a miniature roll-top desk in one corner, glistening in its polish; a typewriting desk near a wide plate glass window; a cabinet for letter stationery; three leather-seated mahogany chairs, one at each desk, and another for company. The walls were green tinted, and around them John had hung some landscape pictures in chromo, mostly rural scenes; photographs of his parents; one of a mountain girl, his sister; one of a big young man, his brother; and those of two boyhood friends. Every morning at nine o'clock John came into this palatial private office. First, he perused the morning newspapers, then looked over the bundle of private letters that came to the head of the firm, and assorted them according to the postmark, or the nature he judged of the contents as near as he could make out from outside indications; after which he placed them in a letter tray, got ready his note book, and placed them all together orderly, to be picked up, at the ring of the bell, to be carried to the desk of Mr. Jarney, who arrived at the office, when in the city, every day punctually at ten. John learned rapidly. A week had not gone by, after he assumed his new post, till he was master of every detail of a secretary's work in such an important place. He was quick in taking down the dictation of Mr. Jarney, who was a rapid talker, a clear enunciator, never lacking for the exact word to lucidly express himself. John was speedy on the typewriter; hence he was but a brief time in conveying, what would appear to the average person, the unintelligible phonetic characters into Englishized words, sentences, paragraphs, and finally completed letters, ready for the chirography of that great man to be attached thereto. Many letters of little importance, such as from the beggars, cranks, politicians, boodlers, or of the routine kind, John was soon authorized to answer himself, to the relief of the chief. For a whole week John had been at this pleasureable labor, doing it with far greater ease than he had the more arduous task of keeping books; and he did it with such dispatch that Mr. Jarney was surprised at his adeptness, and he favored him with due commendation. For several days Mr. Jarney was taciturn in the presence of his new secretary. He talked with him purely on matters in hand after the dictating period was over, and then but briefly. Not once for nearly a week did he condescend to converse with him on any other question--except that occasionally he would remark about the continuing "beastly weather," as he invariably termed such climatic conditions. John went through the daily routine earnestly and methodically, with no thought for anything but that he might make good, and prove himself worthy of his hire; and also thinking very often of his good old parents, his dear little sister and big strong brother on the farm in the hills. He had dismissed Edith Jarney from his mind, as a lost cause goes before the reasoning man. He had not seen her, nor heard of her, since that memorable night. He was not presumptuous enough to imagine that she would contaminate her thoughts about him. For why should he be so imaginative? He had no reason for believing that such a conventional lady, as she appeared to be (basing his opinion of her on her station), would ever think of the affair one moment after she was gone out of his sight, or was ensconced in her own palatial home, where the shadow of such as he was not likely of ever being cast. Still, in his idle moments, he would revert to the event, and simply wonder what had become of her: whether she had gone to some sunnier clime to bask in the smiles and receive the addresses of richer bloods than his; or whether she was not then leading a gay existence among her class in the gilded halls of her surroundings, where flash and gleam the lads and maidens of her own selected set in the brighter light that luxury provides. But such musings were on rare occasions, and then only reverted to as a pleasing pastime in his lonesome hours. For, since assuming his new duties, he not only was serving his own master, but was serving himself by reading, studying, and working out the mysteries that surrounded the privacy of Mr. Jarney's business. He did this so that, if the time ever came, he should be fitted to perform further duties in the advancing line. However, no matter how busy he was, there were times when homesickness would steal over him, and he would long for his own people and their humble fireside to soften his distraught feelings, whenever they should assert themselves. Be these things as they may, two weeks, almost, had passed by since he went into his bandbox office, when Edith Jarney, accompanied by Star Barton, came to see her father. The time was in the middle of the afternoon. Mr. Jarney was sitting at his desk dictating a third and last batch of letters, and John was sitting by diligently taking notes. Edith opened the office door of her own accord, and she and Star walked within unannounced. Edith was dressed in dark colors in harmony with the weather. She carried a sealskin muff, and had a boa of the same fur around her neck, and the cutest round hat possible sat upon her head. Verily, she looked like a princess out on winter parade as she advanced toward a broad, flat-top table in the center of the room. Star, dressed much in the same fashion, and looking as stately as any lady at court, followed Edith. Both young ladies sat down at the table to await Mr. Jarney's convenience to greet them. John was sitting with his back to them, and so silent was their tread that he did not hear them enter. His pen flew from left to right on the pages of his note book as Mr. Jarney talked in his low monotonous voice, without inflection to his words, or change in his countenance. Mr. Jarney saw the young ladies enter, but, through a habit of his of never being disturbed when in the throes of grinding out letters, the young ladies' coming did not bother him in the least. Edith and Star sat quietly, abiding their time to speak. Edith tapped the polished top of the table with her gloved hand. Star sat meditating, with her eyes bent upon the young man. Thus they sat for ten minutes or more, watching master and servant at the fountain head of industrial achievement. Then, without a word to John, Mr. Jarney arose; and, coming forward, grasped his daughter by the hand and kissed her on the lips. Turning to Star, he accorded her the same fatherly greeting. John arose as Mr. Jarney arose, and was folding his note book as he was taking a step to make his exit. In that moment, when Mr. Jarney was saluting Edith, he looked toward her. Recognizing the young lady, he hesitated for a second, flushed, faltered, hesitated again, for he had not known they were present. As Mr. Jarney turned to Star to greet her, Miss Edith turned to John. Her face flushed also. She stood a moment, with that light of recognition in her eyes, that gives a peculiarly sensational effect upon the beholder, sometimes. He was uncertain. She was uncertain. He made a step forward to continue toward his office, when Edith smiled, came up to him, and extended her hand. "Mr. Winthrope, I believe?" she said. John was in the act of bowing when he saw her extended hand, and foregoing a completion of that act of politeness, he extended his hand to meet Edith's. John looked very grave. He had needs to look grave, if the beating of his heart indicated a particle of his feelings at that moment. Edith continued smiling as only she could smile. Then John pulled himself together sufficiently in his embarrassment and said: "Miss Jarney, if I am not mistaken?" "You are not mistaken, Mr. Winthrope," she said. "I am very glad to meet you again; but under more pleasant circumstances than when we last met." "The pleasure is not all yours, Miss Jarney," he replied, releasing her hand. "How are you?" she asked, still smiling. "Fine, thank you," he answered. "I want you to meet my dear friend, Miss Barton," she said to him, and then turning to Star: "Miss Barton, my friend, Mr. Winthrope." Star advanced, and made a low bow in return to that of John's. Mr. Jarney stood off a few steps taking in the formal introductions and salaams of his daughter and her friend with his new secretary, at the same time looking as unbending in his demeanor as a cast iron pillar, from all outward appearances; but really relishing, with a glad heart, the simplicity of his beautiful daughter in her cordiality toward Mr. Winthrope. "Star--Miss Barton, this is the young man of whom I was speaking." Then, looking at him, with a quizzical air, as if she wanted to be patronizingly humble, said, directing her words at Star: "He is the young man, Star, who rescued my hat and gave me his own umbrella." "That was a gallant act," said Star, smiling genially upon him. "I have heard nothing but praise of you for the past two weeks." Edith thereat blushed more crimson than ever before in all her innocent career; and sought to turn the subject by saying: "Oh, Star--it is spitting snow," looking out the window as she said it. John's face turned a pinky color also, and he began to have qualms of consternation in being detained from a prompt execution of his work at hand. Star immediately saw she had made a blunder, and tried to make amends by continuing: "I told Miss Edith that I should be happy to meet such a gallant young man, as she says you are." Edith was now more flushed. She burned with confusion and despair over Star's untimely statement of facts. "If you ladies will excuse me, I will resume my work," said John, to avoid further complications between Edith's expressive face and Star's expressive words. "We will excuse you, Mr. Winthrope--business before pleasure, always," said Edith. "I am glad to meet you--to have met you--and hope to see you again, Miss Barton," said John, bowing to Star; and then, bowing to Edith, he departed. In the meantime, Mr. Jarney had taken his seat at his desk in a highly flustered state of mind by reason of his daughter's sudden change of countenance over the unintentional reflect assertion of Star's. When John had closed the door of his office behind him, and the two ladies were alone with Mr. Jarney, the latter turned about in his chair, as if in a passion of rage, and said: "My dear Edith, what is the meaning of your actions?" "Why, papa, dear," she answered, "it is only my way of showing my appreciation of his former kindness." "My little chit," he returned, as she put one arm around his neck, "you exhibited more than simple appreciation in your looks, when you greeted Mr. Winthrope." "Now, do not scold me, dear papa; if you do, I will cry," said Edith, fumbling for a handkerchief somewhere about her garments, with which to stay the flow of tears already glistening in her eyes. "Ha, ha, Edith," replied her father; "I am not chiding you; I know my little girl would do nothing unbecoming." "Papa, is it unbecoming to be civil to a young man like him?" she asked. "Not in the least, my child; he is a fine young man--" and Edith hugged her father more closely--"and--ah, Edith, you make me wonder, sometimes, at your way of looking at other young men of our class." "None of them is as good as he, I know," she said, with such sincerity, and so pensively, that her father was really disturbed. "I know he is a good young man; but, Edith, it would be very naughty for you to encourage him," he said advisedly. "Then, you do not like him, papa? I know you do not. Wish I had never requested you to advance him to this place, then--then--I would not have seen him again." "Why, Edith, my child! what are you saying? If you persist in your talking that way, it will be necessary for me to dismiss him at once, and have no more of this benefactor business on my hands," replied her father, sternly; at the same time winking at Star, belying the asperity of his voice. "Now, papa, you do not mean that," she responded, patting him on the head. "I know you too well, you bad dear papa. If I thought you did, it would make me feel very cross toward you. There--now--papa--do not--say--any more." She concluded the last phrase with kisses between the words. "My dear, we will drop the matter," he said. "I mean to keep him, Edith; for I like him; really I do. Miss Barton what is your opinion?" "The same as Edith's," she answered. Edith turned quickly and looked at Star, a mobile stiffness clouding her face, not knowing how to take Star's words. "Ha, ha, ha," laughed her father; "you are an extraordinary girl, Miss Barton--as extraordinary as Edith." "Thank you," returned Star, bowing to him. "I have reasons to feel extraordinary since two weeks ago." Father, daughter and ward whiled away the time for an hour in such kind of interchange of colloquy. Then John returned, with his tray full of letters, and set it down on Mr. Jarney's desk. "Mr. Winthrope," said Mr. Jarney, looking up, with a deceiving frown, which caused John to have queer sensations go through him at first; "Mr. Winthrope, I am going to--I am tired of signing letters, and shall delegate that power to you. So sit down here at my desk, and put your 'John Hancock' on these, using my name, of course, instead of your own. You may do this while Miss Barton and I take a little turn down the street. Edith, I will leave you here to see that Mr. Winthrope does not shirk his work." John was amazed; Edith was astounded; Star was astonished. Mr. Jarney repaired to the cloak room, from whence he returned in a few minutes wearing a high silk hat and heavy overcoat, and carrying a gold-headed cane. "Miss Barton, will you accompany me?" he said to Star, after his preparation, taking it for granted that she would not refuse. When they went out, Edith seated herself in the chair where John sat when he took down her father's dictations. John sat in her father's chair at the desk, looking so near overwhelmed at the turn of things, since morning, that he felt like sinking through the floor, or going straight up to the ceiling and out through the roof to some other country. As Mr. Jarney and Miss Barton went out the door, John turned and looked at Edith. He blushed; she blushed. "This is certainly an unusual situation," said John. "It more equals our encounter that night," she replied. "But under pleasanter circumstances," he returned. "If we had that old umbrella of mine, how realistic we might make it," she said, giving a little laugh, and sinking back into the depths of the cushioned chair, folding her gloved hands as though perfectly at ease, although showing some timidity of expression in her conversation. "I have it yet," he said, as he took up a pen loaded with ink, as if it were his intention to commence signing the letters but looking at Edith shyly. "Yet?" she raised her eyebrows. "I put it away among my other keepsakes," he answered, turning now as if he really did intend to execute his "John Hancock" on the letters. "What for?" asked Edith, tapping a finger on the arm of her chair. "Oh, as a hobby; I always try to keep something to remember any unusual happening in my life," said he, forgetting to sign the name of "Hiram Jarney." "Do you know what I did with yours?" she asked, folding her arms. "Consigned it to the garbage heap, I suppose," he replied, letting the ink fall off his pen to the spoilment of a letter. "You are not a good guesser," she replied, her blue eyes sparkling. "It came near going there--but I have 'J. W.' as an ornament in my boudoir." "I imagine it would be out of harmony with the rest of the decorations," he said, dropping more ink, and still neglecting to sign the name. "It harmonizes with my sentiments on certain matters," she said. "For instance?" He looked at her. "Class distinction." "What does mine signify?" attempting to sign, but only getting down the capital H. "You," she looked to the floor. "And yours?" Now interested. "Me." Still looking down. "Then, we should exchange them," he said wonderingly. "That would not be to my liking," as she looked up. "Not?" he asked, turning from his paper and pen. "No," she said, demurly. "Ah, Miss Jarney," he said, with despair indicated in his voice, "I have presumed, at times, to wish to be better acquainted with you, since that night; but I have thought it useless." "Mr. Winthrope, nothing would give me more happiness than to be on good terms with you." "But I see no possibility of that, except--I believe we ought to be on good terms--that is, friends." "So do I." "May I hope--no, I must not--may I hope to see you here again, sometime?" he asked seriously. "I used to come here often." "I never saw you here before." "No--I did not like the last secretary." "Then you will come again?" "I anticipate that I shall." "Then we may become better acquainted?" dropping his pen. "If you wish it, Mr. Winthrope," she answered, looking at her hands lying on the arms of the chair, then up to John, who was taking up his pen again to reach for a new dip of ink. At that moment the door opened and Mr. Jarney and Miss Barton entered. He carried his hat and cane in one hand, and arrived at his desk in time to see John completing the signing of his name to the first letter of the pile before him. "Mr. Winthrope," he said, "you have been remiss in your duties. Edith, I am afraid you would make a poor overseer in this office." John, thereupon, fell to work with a will to expedite the signing of the letters that had been so woefully neglected during his entertaining tete-a-tete with Edith. Edith and Miss Barton prepared to take their departure. Both were standing before Mr. Jarney in low conversation, when John turned around, as a new thought came to him, and said, to Miss Barton: "Miss Barton, do you have a brother?" "I have several brothers, Mr. Winthrope," she replied; "but one of them disappeared months ago." "What was his given name?" "Michael." "Meeting you today. Miss Barton, reminds me that I met a young man about two weeks ago who gave the name of Mike Barton." Then John related to her the incident of meeting her brother, and of the words that had passed between them, without making it clear to the young ladies, however, that the nature of the business that he followed was of the most questionable. "Poor brother! that must be Michael," said Star, when John had concluded his story. "Wish I could see him; I know I could prevail on him going home." "Would you help us find him?" asked Edith, directing her question to John. "It would give me pleasure to aid you," replied John. "How interesting a company we three can make in this undertaking," cried Edith, with enthusiasm. "Papa, will you permit me to join them?" "If Mr. Winthrope is your guide, you may," he answered, now interested himself. "When shall we begin our search?" asked Edith, eagerly looking at John, and beaming one of her sweetest smiles on him. "Whenever Mr. Jarney gives me leave of absence--or, better, I can do it before or after hours. How will that do?" "Capital!" cried Edith. "Papa, that will be fine. You can trust me with Mr. Winthrope?" "Oh, of course," he answered. "Good, papa, dear!" she exclaimed. "Now, Star--Miss Barton, we will go home. When shall we begin?" "When I notify you," replied John, rising to bid the ladies good day. The two young ladies departed. To John, it was like the going of two sunbeams that had crossed his lonely pathway, to shine for a moment, then disappear, with the promise of returning on a fairer day to come. CHAPTER XI. THE AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT. Mike Barton, the rounder, knocked off from his lecherous avocation the afternoon referred to in the previous chapter, as was his custom every day at that time, and wandered aimlessly through the throngs of pedestrians in the main thoroughfares of the city. He was submerged in an elegant overcoat of black that shut him up from head to foot, so that only his feet stuck out below, and his head half protruded above; for the day was in its nastiest mood. A new derby hat sat cocked to one side of his head, and his hair was in imitation of the devotees of the game of football. With his hands poked deeply into his side coat pockets, he shambled along, smoking a cigarette, that, at times, sent up a cloud, like a halo of fog, around his head. He was careless, unconcerned, and impudently independent in his gait. He pushed his way through the crowds with such an abandon of gentility that the curious stared at him, and gave a shrug of their shoulders, as much as to say, "There goes a bad one." He would stop at times, when a crowd had formed to gaze at some new attraction in a window; then, with a toss of his head, would push on, maybe shouldering a meek little woman out of the way; or sidling up to an unsophisticated girl with a licentious stare, or a suggestive smile; or he would drop into a saloon, or billiard hall, or tobacco stand to see his fellow touts; and then go on, ever aimless in his peregrinations. After lighting a fresh cigarette, he took up a position on the steps at the main entrance to the Park building; looking into the faces of the passers-by, or doing nothing but kill time; when his attention was arrested by a tall, sleek gentleman in a plug hat and heavy overcoat, and who was slinging a gold-headed cane, crossing Smithfleld street, with a lady on his arm. "By the Gods!" he exclaimed, so loudly that those standing by gazed at him in wonderment. The cause of his exclamation was the lady and gentleman in question, crossing the street. The tall gentleman was talking animatedly, and the lady was smiling and laughing in return, as if what he said gave her great merriment. As they passed the corner, going down Fifth, Mike stepped to the pavement, and followed. He kept a few paces in the rear, but always in sight of the swiftly moving pair. The plug hat loomed above the heads of other people, and the lady was conspicuous by her elegant costume. As they walked on, he followed, ever in view of the high hat. They turned up Wood, he followed. They crossed Wood and went down Sixth street, he followed. They came to Liberty and went down Sixth avenue, he followed. They went out on the Federal street bridge, he followed. They stopped at the center span, he stopped. They looked down the river, he took up a position behind an iron girder of the bridge, and peeped around at them. The wind was blowing briskly, skudding snow-like clouds across the sky, and white caps danced upon the river. Smoke from factory chimney, or train, or boat, lay in horizontal rolls of grayish blackness, like tubular pillars floating in the air on the breast of the wind. They looked down the Alleghany, facing the pelting breezes--through the maze of craft; through the uplifted arms of many bridges, rearing themselves like spider-lines criss-crossing the vista of the river; through the distance over black buildings, sheds and shanties, and everything, they looked, over and above to the bald bluffs of Washington Heights, where clung the homes of the middle class, like crows' nests in aerie oaks. Then down beneath that hill of rock, staggering under its weight of poverty, they looked--she seeing, as if in a vision, the depressing hovels of the very poor; and a tear came to her eyes. But Mr. Jarney did not see those tears. He was intent only in passing away a short space of time with Star, as a gratifying diversion in his daily course of life. The wind brushed by her skirts with great vehemence, and blew her hair about her face in straggling strands of plaits. She placed one elbow upon the iron railing, and rested her chin in her hand, and looked down at the dancing water. Her mild blue eyes were still moistened, and she wondered how deep and cold the water below her was, and what there was beneath its surface. Her lips were blue from the chaffing wind, her teeth chattered from the chill, and her cheeks paled before the scurrying blasts. "I wonder if there is life down there in that dirty yellow water," she said, meditatively. "There used to be many fish in there, at least there was when I was a boy," he answered, leaning over the railing and looking downward; "but the defilement of the water by the mills and mines has killed every bit of life, almost." "Nothing escapes the hand of men, it seems, in their search for wealth," she mused. "Nothing--you have been crying," he said, turning his eyes upon her. "No; it is the wind," she answered. "Ah, the wind; it is raw today," he returned. "Let us turn our backs and go to the other side of the bridge." They crossed the bridge; and looked northward--through the interminable spans of other bridges; through the blue fog and smoke that rose in the distance like vapor from smouldering pits of peat, suffering their eyes to wander over the serrated house-tops that filled Alleghany City as a checker-board filled with "men." He directed her attention, by his raised and extended cane, to some prominent objects that stood out bolder in the landscape than any of the rest. And of all their movements, Mike Barton was a stealthy observer from his place of espionage. He recognized his sister when first he set eyes on her. He was inclined to approach her as she stood with Mr. Jarney on the bridge, and make himself known, and take the consequences of the possible result of meeting such a gentleman under such dubious circumstances. But the longer he stood observing them in their quiet contemplation of the scene, the more disinclined he was in attempting to carry out his scheme. Mike Barton knew very well where his sister had gone when she left home. He knew the home that she lived in; but in his vaccillation he could not formulate a plan that he could operate tending to its fulfillment, in reaching her. Therefore, he concluded to wait his time to meet her alone. This was the first time that he had seen her since she had entered upon her new life, or in months for that matter. Ah, my dastardly brother, with all your vile thoughts and debased notions, thy chaste sister is beyond your unholy machinations! He was not deterred, however, by pity, or brotherly love, or homely feelings from pursuing his purpose. After the panorama had been viewed from the bridge to Star's complete satisfaction and joy, Mr. Jarney, after taking out his watch to note the time of day, turned, with Star on his arm, and began retracing his steps. Mike followed doggedly, surreptitiously, going into stores, into hotel lobbies--out again into the streets, always at a safe distance, that his actions would not be noticed by those being followed. Finally, the trail and the quarry ended at the entrance of the Frick building. Here Mike took up his post, after Mr. Jarney and Miss Barton had gone within. There he stood buried deeply in his collar, still smoking the delectable cigarette (to him), with as much energy and enjoyment as when he started out on his perambulatory quest for fresh air. The air being chilly, Mike crouched in a corner beneath the big arch of the doors to keep the chills from going up and down and through and through his snakish frame. An enclosed auto, complete in all its appointments, stood closely hugging the curbstone, the chauffeur having taken refuge from the rawness in a nearby lounging place, where a little warmth was obtainable while he waited for his charges to be taken homeward. Shortly, after Mike had taken up his position as a sentry might on more important and graver business, the great doors by him suddenly bursted open, and the two young ladies hurried out. They approached the auto together. Edith opened the door of the cab, and let Star within, she following. After being seated, they leaned back on the soft cushions of the enclosed conveyance to wait the coming of the chauffeur to take them at a giddy speed to the mansion on the hill. Mike, from his sentry corner, watched their every movement. Twice, or thrice, he was tempted to approach them, and make himself known; but he was restrained by an inward impulse that told him, even in his vapid sense of reasoning, that he would be committing an egregious mistake, should he do so at that time and place. The chauffeur did not come. The ladies sat quietly, happy, oblivious of their surroundings, quietly talking; with now and then a little laugh from each other as a climax to their joyous spirits. Still the chauffeur did not return; and still the ladies sat on, paying no heed as to whether the chauffeur was at his post, or off somewhere in China. Suddenly the machine puffed, snorted, and sent up a fog of acrid fumes. Then a lever clicked over a rachet, then another; and the auto began puffing regularly, and moved slowly out into the street. It creeped and crawled among the wagons and carts and horses to Smithfield street. Up that crowded thoroughfare it went, weaving its way certainly, cautiously, deliberately, determinedly, till it was out of the congested district; and out where the streets were freer from the impedimenta of human contrivances. As the distance increased, the speed of the machine increased, accordingly; and they were directly whizzing onward at a lively whirring, gathering speed continually as the course lengthened into the thinly traversed streets. Onward they flew--over crossings, past wagons in a flash; past street cars, autos, vehicles of all kinds and without number; past block after block, dingy and austre, shooting by like moving picture scenes; up hill and down, over smooth asphaltum, jolting over cobbles, over rubbish, over everything imaginable; fleeing, fleeing, with policemen shouting at the driver to cease his mad race, and noting down the number for haling him into court. But on, ever on, they went, with silent tread, but wild whirring of the thing that gave it life; and still on, with a swerve and a turn, and a humming; past naked trees, tall gangling poles, beautiful residences, sere lawns, barns, stables, fences, open fields and now wooded places, they traveled, with meteoric speed; up steep hills, down; up, across, over--ever on, at the same hair-raising flight, throwing mud and water and gravel with a furious splashing. At first, Edith and her companion supposed they were bounding homeward at the usual rate of progress in that direction when riding in the Jarney auto. But when Edith beheld new scenes--new objects, new places on the way, and finally a countryside in its wintery dress, she became necessarily alarmed; and she was still more alarmed when she saw that darkness was hovering over the land, and they not yet home. Star, being composed and guided mostly by Edith's actions, was not bothering herself, but when she saw Edith exhibiting intense anxiety, she, too, became alarmed. Whereupon, Edith attempted to attract the attention of the chauffeur to the strangeness of the places they were passing; but he paid no more heed to her calling than if she were not inside; and he went on, ever faster, if possible. Edith opened the side door of the auto once, and put her head without, but owing to the swaying of the machine under the prodigiousness of its hurrying, she momentarily closed it again, fearing an accident. In the flight, Edith and Star paid no attention to the identity of the man at the steering wheel, believing that he was their old faithful one, who had gone quite crazy, or had met with hail companions, and had imbibed too freely. "Oh, oh, Star!" cried Edith; "if we do not stop that man there will be a terrible accident soon," and she tapped on the plate glass window in front of her. "He must be crazy," suggested Star. "Poor man, if I could only get at him, I would soon check the machine," said Edith as the car turned a corner, throwing her into the arms of Star, who caught her, in her fright, and pressed her to her breast. Edith was in a very agitated state of mind, for their situation, seemed to her, to be of the most precarious kind. Star had already clasped Edith in her arms, but she wanted to hold her closer, if possible, to whisper consoling words. And as she was about to say a word of comfort, there was a sudden stoppage of the machine. They were thrown forward, and it turned on its side, buckling up like a crushed egg shell. All that Star remembered was a terrific crash, a grinding noise, and the breaking of glass--then darkness. Edith rose up from the middle of the road, stunned, dazed, bewildered. She stood a moment beholding the wreckage; then, quickly surveying the scene, rushed to the ruined cab, from which she had been flung, and seized Star by the arm, and lifted her up and dragged her out. Star was unconscious. Edith administered a little dirty water, taken from a puddle in the road, to her face; and she soon recovered. "Are you hurt?" asked Edith, kneeling by her side, as she lay by the roadside. "Not much," she replied. "Only had my wits knocked out a little; I am all right now. Are you hurt?" "Not much," answered Edith, as she brushed back the hair that had fallen over Star's face. Then Star arose. "Where are we?" she asked. "We seem to be in the country," replied Edith. "I see a house across the field aways. We must have help, Star, at once. I do not see the chauffeur; he must have disappeared." Edith now released Star, seeing that she was not hurt, and began to brush her clothing to remove some of the be-spatterment that came as a result of her dropping so miraculously in the mire of the highway. "The chauffeur may be under the car," said Star. "Why, I do not see him; it is strange," said Edith, as she walked about the car, and looked beneath it. "Let us search the weeds by the fence." Carrying out the suggestion, the two young ladies, now fully recovered, but much excited still, began to tramp among the dead herbage by the fence. Edith plunged in among the weeds and thistles and briars, with as much courage as she would have shown in hunting for some piece of finery in her boudoir, having no regard for the dispoilment of her fine clothes any more than if they were of linsey-woolsey. Star climbed the fence and was treading down the reedage of the field with an earnestness of purpose that became her character to act her part well in any employment. "Here he is!" shouted Star, after trampling down a few square feet of bramble to get to a spot, where she thought she saw, while mounting the fence, a man's coat. "He is dead!" The man was lying on his face, and Star stood over him. "Dead!" cried Edith, climbing the fence, and running toward Star, tearing her dress on the briars in her haste to join her friend. "Dead!" she repeated, as she took Star by the arm. "Dead! Poor man!" Both stood looking down upon him, wondering what next to do. Edith stooped down and turned him on his back. "Oh, Edith! He is my poor brother!" wildly cried Star. Edith arose, shocked by Star's sudden outburst, wondering what it all meant. Star knelt down by his side, and tenderly took up one of the dead man's hands in hers. "He is dead! dead! dead! Poor brother!" she said sadly, with her tears falling over him. "We have found him alone, dear Edith, ourselves. God must have sent him on this wild ride to reach the pearly gates before his time. Poor brother! We did not know it was him. It is better that we did not know. Poor brother, he is dead!" Edith bowed her head and wept in sympathy with the grief-stricken Star. The hollow face of Michael Barton turned up to them, like a Death's Head, in the twilight. He was dead! And this loving sister never knew of the depravity of her fallen brother. It is probably well. For he must have his reckoning with his God. CHAPTER XII. JOHN IS CALLED UPON AN EXTRAORDINARY MISSION. John Winthrope was sitting by his inelegant little table, and was reading, by the dim gas light, a new text book on modern business methods, and feeling perfectly contented and extremely happy over his prospects for the future, when there came three distinct and quickly repeated knocks at his door. The knocks were made apparently by a person impatient to gain admission. John dropped his book; ran to the door to ascertain the cause of the alarm, so significantly given, and threw it wide open. A messenger of the telephone company, standing in the hallway, handed him a message, and with it the additional information that he (the messenger) was to await an answer. Nervously John tore open the envelope, took out the contents, and read, with considerable trepidation, the following, dated eight p. m.: "Come at once to my Highland avenue residence. Hiram Jarney." Without taking time to think or meditate for a fractional part of a second over the call, John hastily wrote out the following: "Will be on hand as soon as possible," and gave it to the messenger, with the instruction to dispatch it immediately upon arrival at the office. He then began grooming himself for the journey, so suddenly called upon to undertake. He could not conceive the urgent necessity of the summons, except in the light of his position as a servitor of Hiram Jarney, who, he thought, might have very important matters to look after that night. He pondered confusedly, while dressing, over what the business might be that required attention so promptly, and at that late hour of the day. He had never been called on such a mission before; nor had he been instructed that he would, at any time, be requested to go to Mr. Jarney's home on business. As he always dressed neatly and looked very tidy while on duty in the office, he deemed it advisable, on such an occasion, to don his best Sunday suit; for he did not know but that some fortuitous event might occur to take him into the presence of the young ladies, who had that day made such an impression on him. So in less than a half hour he was prepared to start, and in fifteen minutes more, so speedily did the taxicab travel with him inside, he was pulling at the ring in the bull's nose at the Jarney front door. He had noticed, on ascending the high front steps leading to the great piazza of the mansion, that people were moving about in the interior as if everybody and everything was in commotion; and this puzzled him. No sooner had he given the alarm, however, than the door flew open, and he saw a brazen man standing like a statue before him. It was evident that he was expected, for the flunkey, after receiving his card, passed him in without ceremony, and without relieving him of his coat or hat. He now saw, at a glance, that something out of the common had happened. The maids and waiters were rushing about excitedly, and Mr. Jarney was pacing the floor with nervous movements; and the little bouncing lady, all in pink, was ringing her hands and crying. On seeing John, Mr. Jarney rushed up to him, with the tension gone from his nerves, and grasped him by the hand, saying: "Mr. Winthrope, I am glad you have come--something has happened my daughter and Miss Barton. They have not been seen since leaving the office this afternoon." John gasped. "What can I do to aid you, Mr. Jarney?" he asked. "I am glad to be of any service my help will avail." "I do not know what has occurred to cause them to disappear so mysteriously," answered Mr. Jarney. "We must find them, if possible, this night." "Have you notified the police?" asked John, believing, like many people, that these hawkashaws of the law readily knew how to solve any kind of a mystery. "I have already informed the police--miserable service we have--some two hours ago, and no tidings have they found," he replied, as he again took up his nervous walk, leaving Mrs. Jarney to talk with John. "No clue?" asked John. "None whatever," said Mr. Jarney, turning again to him. "It is strange," said John. "Where is the chauffeur?" "Why, that rascal was off his seat, and a stranger is supposed to have driven the car away," replied Mr. Jarney. "Beg your pardon, Mr. Winthrope, in my distraction I have so far forgotten myself to fail to introduce you to Mrs. Jarney." This formality being then dispensed with, although John had already struck up a conversation with that lady, Mr. Jarney said. "Mr. Winthrope, I have called you here to lead a searching party for their recovery." "Oh, Mr. Winthrope," wailed the little lady; "I hope you can find them this night." Just then a maid came rushing in with the information that Mr. Jarney was expressly wanted at the telephone. "It has been ringing all evening, and to no purpose," said Mr. Jarney, impatiently; "answer it." The maid retreated; but in a moment she returned again with the further information that a lady was at the other end of the line, and wanted especially to see Mr. Jarney, as the maid put it. Mr. Jarney begged John to accompany him to the phone room of his residence, and, when the former took down the receiver, he made the following replies to the voice at the other end: "Hello! This is Mr. Jarney!" "Yes; this is he." "Talk louder?" "Talk louder?" "I can't hear yet!" "Who is this?" "Ed-d-Edith?" "God bless us!" "Where are you?" "At Millvale? Good gracious!" "What the deuce are you doing there?" "You were!" "You did?" "Ah, she is safe?" "He is dead! Who is dead?" "Mike Barton?" "Killed! Accident!" "Farmer brought you to Millvale, eh?" "Coming in on the street cars, did you say?" "I'll send Mr. Winthrope in a taxicab for you." "Yes, he is here." "Yes; he came out to direct a search for you." "Wouldn't know where to look for you?" "Never could have found you?" "You wait there till he arrives." "Well; I thought you would be glad." "Do with the body?" "Leave it there, of course." "Yes; he will come at once." "Good bye!" Putting up the receiver to disconnect the phone, Mr. Jarney called up the main office of the taxicab company, and ordered a cab post haste to his residence. Then turning to John, he said: "It is very strange; very strange! Miss Barton's brother was killed in an accident with my machine! Very strange, indeed." John took the answer to the voice at the other end of the phone to mean a peremptory command for him to go; still he thought his services were not now particularly needed to conduct the lost ones home. Mr. Jarney simply wanted him to go and act as their body guard on this momentous night. John would have been glad of the opportunity to thank him for the new trust imposed in him had Mr. Jarney asked him to go; but as he did not make a request for his services, but a command instead, he took it to mean that he was to comply implicitly, as any faithful servant would have complied. When the taxicab arrived, and after John had been admonished repeatedly as to how to proceed, and loaded down with wraps and robes and other things, he made his exit and went upon his mission. Arriving at Millvale without incident, but feeling very much concerned as to how he should conduct himself with his charges, he found Edith and Star both laboring under great mental and physical strain, as a consequence of their experiences, with Star at that moment the worse of the two, by reason of the tragic ending of her brother. Both young ladies were bedraggled. Their fine clothes were bespattered with mud and their shoes soaked with water. They trembled from the strain, and shook from the cold. But John could do nothing at that hour to give them relief, except to wrap them up in blankets and bundle them into the cab; which he did with much tenderness and courteous behavior toward each, slighting neither in any little attention that would tend to their immediate comfort. Then, after giving orders for the disposition of the body of Mike Barton, he seated himself within the cab, and they were directly speeding homeward. On the way, Edith related to John, with many a break in her story, of all that had befallen them since leaving the office that afternoon. "A very sad ending, indeed, for you, Miss Barton," said John, after Edith had concluded. Star was not of an emotional nature, consequently she bore up under the ordeal with great fortitude. She felt very sad; naturally, very sad. "It is a miracle that we both were not killed," said Edith. "The car was left a total wreck by the roadside. It struck a telegraph pole in making a turn, and Star was struck unconscious, while I was thrown to the road. Star's brother was thrown at least forty feet away, so terrific was his driving." "What impelled him to such a trick, do you suppose?" asked John. "I cannot fathom his motive," answered Edith. "Nor I," said Star. "Poor boy!" "Perhaps he was unawares of whom you were," suggested John; "and was out for a lark to give some one a scare." "Poor boy!" said Star. "I will forgive him." "Oh--my--I am so dizzy!" suddenly exclaimed Edith. "I do not know whether it is this car or my head that is whirling round so. Oh, o--o!" She was sliding forward on her seat, and her head was falling to one side. She sighed. "Oh--o--o!" she uttered. Sighed; then was quiet. In the darkness of the cab John could not discern her movements plainly; but he knew, by her heavy breathing, that something was wrong with her. Star being in a very distressed condition herself, failed to understand or comprehend the suffering signs of Edith; so John, noting all these things, lent his personal attentions to Edith, who was just then in a mortal state of suspended animation. John was very careful that he did not make himself promiscuous in either one's behalf, except when the most imminent danger was confronting them. By the reflected lights of the streets, as they were whirled along, John caught a glimpse of Edith, and was not slow to see that she was in need of care from some source. He therefore caught her by the arms, just as she was senselessly keeling over, and raised her to a sitting posture. As he lifted her up, her head fell to one side; but in a moment she roused herself and attempted to sit up straight. In another moment she lapsed unconscious, and limply declined into helplessness. At first, John placed her head on the cushion in the corner of the cab. Seeing this position made her look uncomfortable, he then put an arm around her, and laid her head upon his shoulder. Thus they rode for a brief time. Then he lifted up one of her gloved hands. Finding it wet and cold, with Star's assistance he removed the gloves. After having chafed her hands, and rubbing them together to start up a circulation brisker than appeared to be natural, he drew his own heavy gloves over her quivering fingers. After which Star removed Edith's shoes and stockings, and rubbed her cold damp feet, and wrapped a blanket around them. Shortly her blood resumed a freer circulation, and she roused herself, faintly asking where she was. "We are on our way to your home," answered John, removing his arm from around her. He acted voluntarily in this matter, always having the fear upon him that what he might be then doing for her would appear to be impertinent. But she was growing more serious, and in spite of his desire to withdraw his arm from her support, he was compelled to hold her more firmly than before. She was now breathing heavily and her hot breath he could feel in his face as her head lay on his shoulder. She was like a child, and was beginning to mumble, and mutter inarticulate words, disconnected in their sequence, none of which could he form into intelligible sentences--except the two words, "Papa and mamma." Once he thought she was trying to say "Mr. Winthrope"; but he could not exactly tell. This troubled him some now, for his only thoughts toward her were of dutiful respect in this her hour of great trouble. They arrived home at last, with Edith still in a comatose state, and breathing like one entering into the dreadful sickness of pneumonia. She was hot and feverish. Her hands twitched nervously. She was muttering incoherently, but not ravingly. When the cab rolled up the driveway to the side entrance of the mansion, John lifted Edith up in his arms, and, bidding Miss Barton to collect their effects together and follow, went into the brilliantly lighted hall. He was about to hand her over to her parents, but, by their direction, he continued, silently, with the father and mother, maids and physician coming after him, to her own room, and there he laid her down upon her bed. As he released her, he gave one longing look at her pretty white face; and trusted, in his heart of hearts, that her parents would tenderly care for her, and fetch her back to life and health. Then, bidding them a whispered adieu, he departed for his own simple abode, with some lingering regrets that he could not have stayed by her bedside and nursed her through her illness. CHAPTER XIII. SECRET WORKINGS OF THE SYSTEM. Peter Dieman was happier than usual one morning, if he could ever be called happy by any possibility of reading such a state of feeling in his otherwise perverse and irascible countenance. Happy! Well, Peter was never more happy in all his born days; but what the extent of that emotion might become in his after life was hard to predict at that time. Whenever he was in good humor, it was his never failing custom to puff at his pipe like a locomotive getting off a dead-center, and to rub his hands with less expenditure of energy, and to squint his eyes with less vigor, and to shut his mouth with less desire to keep it closed. In fact, on such rare occasions, it might be said of him that he was in his subconscious region of retroflection, one peculiarly of his own conception. The cause of all his good humor was nothing more nor less than the refreshing information, imparted to him the day before by Jim Dalls, i. e., that Jim Dalls had decided to go to Europe. Ever since this enlightening piece of intelligence broke in upon the deepness of Peter's outward density of intellect, that gentleman was in a high fever of unemotional genuflexion. Why, mortal man! Peter sat in his chair all that night offering up his devotion to the Gods that They might be propitiated for Their timely intervention. And betimes eating cheese and crackers, and drinking beer, and surfeiting the air with the delicious fumes of his strong pipe. He was, as it were, riding on the back of Alborak into the Seventh Heaven of satisfaction. Not only did he offer up devotion to his Deity, but to other people's Deity as well. Oh, ah, he would think often, but never utter; it being merely his manner of getting rid of superfluous enthusiasm. And his oh, ah's extended on through the night, mixed with cheese, crackers, beer and smoke, to the hour of nine o'clock in the forenoon, at which time he suddenly aroused himself to the position of the hands on the dial of the dollar-clock that hung above his desk, where he could always keep his eyes on its horological exactness. Having noted the time, Eli, after having opened the shop without the least interference with his master's meditations, was summarily summoned into the august presence of Peter through the tintinnabulating medium of a large iron spike applied to a piece of sounding brass suspended by a string from the ceiling on the right hand of his chair. Eli came to attention, with the alertness of an orderly, before Peter, and waited to be commanded. "Call up 206070-m and tell him to come to my office by 9:45 sharp," said Peter in a less tragic tone than he had been used to in hurling his commands at Eli. "Yes, sir," said Eli, departing. Directly he returned, stood attention, and said: "He will be here." "Ha! Good!" cried Peter. "Go to work, you lazy scamp." The last to Eli. Peter sat still and mused on in the same barbarous manner, with only one change in the program of his devotions, and that was, that since 7:30 o'clock he had kept his face close to the peephole that gave him a view into his store, and upon Eli's performances. With his sharp little eyes he saw the store, with all its junk and jumble; he saw poor imbecilic Eli skipping about with undying devotion in his heart; but his devotion was to serve his master, and serve him well he did. Verily, he saw everything within the store, almost; at least what he did not see, he knew of, as if his eyes were optical divining rods. And he saw also beyond the confines of the four walls that bound him about during his personifying period of the devil:--He saw his henchmen going here and there, like earth-worms, through the devious passages of the dark and dangerous undermining of the civic welfare; he saw the policemen on their beats, wielding their maces, as if he had as many hands as there were officers, and doing the execution thereof himself; he saw the aldermanic bodies sitting in grave deliberation on important or unimportant questions, knowing well himself what their action might be on anything out of the purely routine order; he saw the fawning sycophants, with their justifiable tale of complaint, being brushed aside by the higher hands; he saw the givers of tribute paying into the coffers of the system the doubloons of unwholesome preferment; he saw special privilege unsatisfied, always; he saw the needy come up with their last dollar out of the depths of their nefarious haunts and lay it at the feet of the King of Graft; he saw the glow-worms of society in a trail of phosphorescent splendor making the welkin ring with the hallelujahs of their perfections; he saw the merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, the craftsman, the civic officer, the banker, the broker, the justice, the bailiff, the warden--all he saw bending to the power of the system in all its ramifying debasement. Aye, aye, he saw, too, the danger of it all to that system; to himself, to his friends, and to those who sat above him on the high throne erected to the debauchment of popular government, should Jim Dalls not be removed to some other ruler's domains. And Jim must go; and he must remain away; and all those of his present tendencies must go, and they, too, must remain away, if money was all that were needed to that end. While Peter was reflecting on all these things, there came into view in the store, the short stalky form of a man past middle life. He walked with a business air in his every movement directly into the presence of Eli, to whom he gave the pass, which was 206070-m, and then continued through the alleyways of junk to the black hole in the rear occupied by Peter. Arriving at the door, he stepped inside, took off his hat, and sat down, sniffing with some annoyance at the foul atmosphere. "Now, what is the game?" he asked Peter. "I want ten thousand by ten o'clock," replied Peter, without any ceremonious introduction of the question. "That's mighty short notice, I must say, Peter," replied the man. "Fifteen minutes is time enough to rob any man or institution," answered Peter. "The pull on our purse strings is very great at present," said the man. "Cut the strings," retorted Peter. "Cut them, you all say; but that won't preserve enough to pay the fiddlers," responded the man. "Fiddlers be damned," roared Peter; "we must get Jim Dalls out of the country." "Is he wanting to squeal?" asked the man, with upraised eyebrows. "He is ready," answered Peter. "Can't he be staved off by bluff?" asked the man. "He's best in Europe." "Is he going there?" "He's going." "When?" asked the man, bluntly. "Get the money, and buy a ticket also." "Why, Peter, it will take a little more time than you have given to complete the transaction." "You may have till 10:30 to fix it up." "I will return at that time with the amount," said the man, reflectively. The man was rising to pass out, when the tall figure of Jim Dalls entered. The latter halted, and stood a moment gazing at Peter and the man, with a contemptuous smile breaking up his smooth features. "Well, Jacob Cobb, you here?" he asked, with some asperity in his voice. "Who else do you see, Jim Dalls, I would like to know, besides we three?" asked Jacob, for that is whom the man proved to be, and who was known to Peter only as 206070-m; and to his henchmen as the same. "You fellows are not turning a trick on me?" asked Jim Dalls, with suspicion. "We will be only too glad to get rid of you," answered Peter. "And see you safely out of the country," joined Cobb. "I think I should have more money," remarked Jim; "ten thousand won't last long in Europe, where you have to bribe every sonofagun who looks at you; it's worse than Pittsburgh." "How much more?" asked Peter, in alarm. "Twenty thousand ought to be sufficient," answered Jim. "Bring three tickets, Cobb, reading from Pittsburgh to Paris, and twenty thousand," said Peter. "And that's the last sou I'll give you, you cur." "Don't be too sure, Peter; I may ask for ten thousand more," said Jim, independently. "You won't get it," barked Peter. "Get the tickets and the money, Cobb." Jacob Cobb forthwith departed, going direct to a vault in one of the big banking institutions. Procuring the money, he purchased three tickets for Jim Jones and wife and daughter. Returning with the tickets in his pocket, and the money safely lodged in the depths of an immense sack, he hiked it, with expeditious tread, to The Die; and thereat turned the sack, with its valuable contents, over to the lamentable Eli for secret delivery. In the office. Jacob Cobb confronted Jim Dalls with the three tickets, which that gentleman refused, at first, to accept without the accompanying "dough;" but being informed that that little feature of the transaction would be consummated through the faithful Eli, Jim returned to the store to be further set upon by more mysterious signs of secrecy as to the source of the money. On entering the store, Jacob threw the sack, with all its preciousness, under a bundle of other similar sacks, and told Eli to offer it for sale to the man in the office, who would, in a moment, be along to make a purchase in that article of usefulness. So when Eli saw Jim Dalls approaching, not then being busy himself, he casually withdrew the sack, and laid it upon a table, and asked him if he did not want to purchase it. Only ten cents, he said, was asked for it. Didn't he want it in his line of business, whatever that might be? Jim caught the cue, of course, and paid the ten cents without protest. After obtaining it, he returned to the office. "Good bye, Peter; good bye, Jacob," he said, extending his hand. "I'll be off this very day; but, remember, if I should run short in touring Europe, I expect more help from you two." "You dog!" howled Peter. "Ah! you may 'you dog' all you want to now; I have you where I want you. I will see that as long as you fellows play the game, I am properly cared for--so long, gentlemen." With these parting remarks, Jim Dalls took his leave; and in another twenty-four hours had vanished from his beaten tracks in the city that knew him so well. A newspaper announcement said that he had gone to Europe for his health. Alter Jim Dalls left that day, the implacable Peter turned upon Jacob Cobb and said: "We must raise the levy." "It's already reaching the high tide mark," said Jacob. "We will let her reach it; then we will let her ebb, after this sum is raised," said Peter, rubbing his hands. "But we may be drowned in the flow before it turns," answered Jacob, with emphasis on the may. "Let her drown," replied Peter, resolutely. "We'll go down in the wreck, if we get too reckless," said Jacob, fearfully. "Who cares?" responded Peter, inexorably. "I care," said Jacob, with some humility. "I don't," said the dogmatic Peter. "But I have daughters and a son," protested Jacob. "No more than lots of other men," replied the angry Peter, rubbing excitedly. "But look at the difference?" now pleaded Jacob. "There isn't any," snapped Peter. "Do you infer, Peter, that you will play false, too?" asked Jacob, seized with the impression that his fellow grafters would desert him. "I infer nothing; I act," said Peter, turning to look out his place of espial. "You think you are safe?" said Jacob. "I think nothing; I act. If I fail, I fail, and don't cry!" he shouted. "You are exasperating, Peter; come, now, let's get down to business--what will we raise it on first?" asked Jacob. "On every resort in town; I'll send word tonight to my entire force to press on the screws," answered Peter. "Good!" exclaimed Jacob, now in full accord with Peter's views. "Have you seen Monroe?" asked Peter, now turning to a new subject. "Had a talk with him yesterday." "What did he say?" "Said he was with us still." "Can he be trusted?" "Without a doubt." "Does Jarney know of his connection with us?" "No." "Jarney, the goody-goody, must be made to pay for big knocking." "Monroe has been detailed to work on him," said Jacob. "And you can trust to Monroe for that?" asked Peter. "I believe we can; but he is handicapped now by the firing of Jarney's old reliable secretary." "He's been fired? Who has he now?" "A young country bumpkin." "Can't you get him in your ranks?" asked Peter. "I fear not," replied Jacob, with a shake of the head. "He's been approached, and seems to be as susceptible as a cow." "Ah, we must get rid of him, some way--get him out of Monroe's way." "That's what Monroe will attempt to do," said Jacob. "Can he do it?" asked Peter, squinting. "If he's slick enough, he can; nobody else can get so near the scene of operation like Monroe." "How's Jarney's adopted daughter coming on in society?" asked Peter, with a faint attempt at smiling. "Fine, I hear," answered Jacob, rising in his chair, and turning around with his back to Peter. "That's a funny piece of business on Jarney's part," said Peter, puffing very hard at his pipe. "His daughter took a fancy to her, on seeing her one day while slumming on the South Side, and she's trying to make a lady of her," said Jacob, sitting down again, after throwing away the stump of a cigar. "Can she do it?" asked Peter, with considerable interest. "She's doing it," responded Jacob, who noticed the change of Peter's interest, which was now of the kindly kind. "God bless her!" exclaimed Peter, as he turned again to his ever present peephole expression. "Mike Barton's dead," said Jacob, slowly. "The devil!" shouted Peter, turning from his peephole. "Yes; didn't you hear of it?" "No. How?" "Automobile accident." "There are others to take his place," said Peter, grunting like a satisfied pig after eating heartily. "How did it happen?" "Stole Jarney's auto, with the two young ladies in it; run it like h---- to the country, to kidnap them, I suppose; ran into a telegraph pole--busted the machine, and busted his head." "Poor wretch! I am glad he is gone, for his sister's sake," said Peter, sighing, which he could do sometimes. "Ah, I see you are very compassionate for the girl all at once," said Jacob, eyeing Peter. "I have reasons to be," replied Peter, spiritedly. "Were the girls hurt?" "No; but Edith Jarney is very ill--." "Very ill! What?" interrupted Peter. "Brain fever, she's got." "Ah, she is too good to live," said Peter, looking out his peephole again. Then turning quickly, with his peculiar little eyes turned up sidewise at Jacob, he said: "Say, Jacob, we must put our sleuths on the trail of that old drunkard, Billy Barton. He has been gone a long time, and not a single word from him." "What do you want with the sot?" asked Jacob, mystified. "He's no good." "That's my business--poor Billy," and Peter lapsed into a moody spell, for sometimes he seemed to have a little of the feelings of a natural heart; but this quality in him was as rare as the air on Pike's Peak. "His family must be cared for." "Jarney's doing that," answered Jacob. "Is he?" jerked out Peter, wrathfully. "I'll not allow it from him, the interloper!" "You are getting generous all at once, Peter; I should not begrudge him the privilege." "Well, then, I don't," replied Peter, after a moment's reflection. "Let him keep them; he owes it to them." "It is time for me to be at my office, Peter; so good bye," said Jacob, rising to leave. "Remember Monroe," said Peter. "Oh, I'll see to that," said Jacob, as he went out. So are the "ropes" laid, as per the rule of things, to further the ends of the men who neither toil nor spin. Were the dear people less disposed to supine indifference toward their public officials, the government of our country would be as perfect, no doubt, as that of the fabled Utopia. CHAPTER XIV. JOHN WINTHROPE IS SURROUNDED BY PERPLEXITIES. The morbidly silent Monroe went about his duties with the serenity of a cat out on a dark night. The immobility of his starched face left no impression on the beholder of it as to whether he could be successfully punctured with the light of pleasantry. His feline movements from office to office among the clerical force cast an uncanny glamour over them all; and when not in the act of always appearing to be ready to make a spring upon them, as he glided whisperingly through the aisles of desks and high stands, he would be sitting at his own desk, in a corner of his private room, scanning sheet after sheet of reports and balances, and running over leaf after leaf of notations that had been left on his spindle for his especial perusal. He was a very precise man, very accurate, very painstaking. He was a very obdurate man, very exacting, very positive. He was a very efficient man, very dependable, very obliging. He was a very incomprehensible man, very calculating, very mysterious. And besides, he was by nature very crafty, revengeful and egotistic. None of which traits could be read in his marble-like physiognomy; but they had to be worked out, to see them plainly, by a system of watching, and close scrutiny of his acts. He had risen in the office force from the bottom, and held his present post by right of apparent merit. No one under him, or above, for that matter, ever dreamed that behind his iron mask lay another man, unscrupulous and unfaithful. No one ever thought of him but that he was honest, upright and beyond reproach. No one ever thought of him being a depraved man, as being licentious, as being impure in thought and actions; because all these things were hidden under his bushel of contrarieties. At his desk, Mr. Monroe always worked with dispatch in disposing of the matters that daily came before him; and rarely could he be approached, except by the carrier of messages, or by an important personage, and then by announcement--except the head of the firm, who, of course, had free access to his room. He was sitting, one day, enveloped in a great pile of work, when it was announced that Mr. Winthrope, the secretary, desired an audience with him. The secretary was admitted; but he was not asked to sit down. He stood before him in his own power; and he drew his own conclusions. But he said: "Mr. Monroe, do you have at hand the balance sheet of last month?" "I can get it," he answered, automatically. "Mr. Jarney desires to go over it again," said John. Mr. Monroe procured the sheet, and stiffly handed it to John, with one of his stony stares. John took the sheet and left him. When he reached the door, going out, he turned and caught the stolid face of Monroe still upon him. Neither said a word. John went out. Mr. Monroe pressed a button. A short, heavy set, square shouldered man, with green eyes, answered the button's call. He was Welty Morne, the head of the bookkeeping department. "Welty," said Monroe, familiarly, "do you ever see the secretary after work hours?" "No." "Do you know where he lives?" "At The King House, Diamond alley." "He is never out at night, is he?" "I have never seen him." "He never associates with the boys, does he?" "He seems to be a seclusive chap," said Welty. "Yes; and very selfish," said Monroe, quietly. "Does he spend any money?" "Have no way of knowing--except, perhaps, he pays his board and rent." "Let us call on him tonight, and initiate him; will you?" "I should like a little outing in this disagreeable weather, and will be happy to join you," replied Welty, with his green eyes beaming in anticipation of a lark. "Will you call at my place at nine p. m.?" "I will--whee-e-e!" Welty Morne retires. The button is pressed again. Bate Yenger, assistant to the head bookkeeper, enters. He sits down, and looks indolent. He is a slim chap, with a fair face and black eyes, which show indications of night-hawking. "Bate," said the impressionless Monroe, "have you met the new secretary after work hours?" "Have not." "Know anything of his habits?" "Nothing." "Do you want to go on a lark tonight?" "Wouldn't mind it." "Then come to my place at nine p. m." Bate Yenger disappears. Monroe resumes his work. John returns the balance sheet, and hands it to Monroe. Monroe takes it, and scans it over. He sees some check-marks upon it. He folds it up, and puts it away. John remains a moment, as if he would like to speak to Monroe; but Monroe does not speak. John, then, goes out. * * * * * Promptly on the hour of nine p. m., Welty Morne and his boon companion, Bate Yenger, called at the apartments of Mr. Monroe at the St. Charles. That chunk of stiffness they found was ready, and together the three fared forth for a night of rounding. They called upon John Winthrope in his dingy quarters--a hideous contrast, they thought, to their own bright and luxurious living places. John was surprised, of course, to see them. Would he go out with them? Whither? For sight-seeing. John looked at his open books and papers on his little table, glanced down at himself, half inclined to accept; but very perplexed about it. He hesitated, and then asked them into his room. They entered, but did not sit down, as there was only one chair, which later was preempted by Welty. "Why don't you get decent quarters, Mr. Winthrope?" asked Welty, who was a lively and a very talkative fellow. "Cannot afford it," answered John. "Oh, bosh! You receive as much, and more, than many of the other young men in our office, and the way they fly one would think they were millionaires' sons," replied Welty. "I have a mother and father to assist," said John. "Won't you go tonight; we will pay the way," insisted the persuasive Welty. John still hesitated. He pondered a moment, and then replied: "No, thank you; I do not care to go." "Just tonight, Mr. Winthrope; three is a company, and four is a crowd," pursued Welty. "I thank you very much, Mr. Morne; but really, now, I do not care to go," persisted John. During this ineffectual conversation, Monroe stood leaning against the door as passive as a tombstone, with Bate Yenger leaning awkwardly against the wall near him, looking as vapid as a snake in winter time. Welty was disconcerted, disappointed, and aggravated. At John's last remark, he tried to hide his displeasure of it beneath a subtle smile that was a cross between sarcasm and disgust. John sat on the edge of his bed in a thoughtless mood, chewing the end of a tooth-pick. All four were silent for an uncomfortable period of time. Then Welty broke the spell. "So you won't join us?" he asked. "No; thank you; I do not care to go," answered John. "Ah, he is not so easy as I thought," said Monroe to himself. Silence followed. John sat still, masticating his tooth-pick, being little concerned as to how they took his answer. He wanted to be curt to them, by demeanor; and wished they would depart. For reasons of his own, which he considered private, as far as he was concerned, he did not desire their company under any circumstances. Therefore, while he aimed always to be polite to the triumvirate schemers, he would rather show himself to be a boor than to have them about him. So, disgusted with John's susceptibility to fall into their trap, and displeased at their own lack of tact, the three gentlemen went rattling down the stairs, and out into the street. "He's a Sunday-schooler, all right," said Welty, as they lined up side by side, with Monroe in between, to go down the avenue. "Aw, a cheap skate," said Bate. After Monroe began to realize the abject failure of his scheme, and after the words of the other gentlemen had percolated through his adamantine head, he remarked, in reply to each of the other's opinion, that Winthrope was a sissy, which application, it is readily seen, was not well placed; then he said: "He is an impeccable good-for-nothing. He needs to be shown a thing or two in this old town--but he will learn all right, like the rest of them." "You are a poor inveigler," said Welty to Monroe, facetiously. "My time, like that of all dogs, will come yet," said Monroe. "Well; I would like to know your motive?" asked Welty. "Oh, I just wanted to get him limbered up a little," answered the astute one. Thus being vanquished in his purpose, Monroe excused himself, after they had walked a few blocks, and retreated to his rooms, there to enter upon the duties of outlining a more ingenious campaign toward the destruction of John Winthrope's name, and to ruin his chances for continuing in the office of Jarney & Lowman. His first conceived plan was to get John Winthrope out of the way, in the head office. This he could only hope to do by besmirching his character, or cause him to commit some overt act of deportment that would be laid up against him in the eyes of Mr. Jarney. So, after being rebuffed in his first effort, Monroe concluded to take another tack, and would thereafter become and be John's intimate friend, a good fellow towards him, and a hearty supporter of him before the firm, and thereby get results. These things he thought out pretty clearly, and definitely decided that on the morrow he would bombard the fort from another angle. So on the morrow, as soon as Mr. Winthrope had arrived, he was surprised to receive a polite little note, via the messenger, to call in the office of Mr. Monroe as early as convenient, and without interference in his official capacity. Ever prompt in complying with such informal invitations (which he took it to be, instead of a command), and having time to spare before the arrival of Mr. Jarney, he repaired at once to the sanctum of Mr. Monroe. That gentleman, John was also surprised to see, had unbended to such proportions, that, when John approached his desk, he arose, and shook hands with him, an heretofore unheard of performance of cordiality on Mr. Monroe's part. "I have asked you in, Mr. Winthrope," said Monroe, "to apologize for intruding on you last night. It was only a whim of one of the boys out on a lark, with whom, unfortunately, I fell in with at the untimely hour." "Oh, that is all right, Mr. Monroe," replied John. "I took no offense at your visit." "I thought, perhaps, you might have been offended." "The fact is, I was very busy last night and forgot all about your intrusion after you had gone," said John, smiling affably, but with noticeable indifference in his voice. "I should like to have your confidence, Mr. Winthrope," said the wily one. "Inasmuch, as we are near to the head of the firm, we should be on better terms." "Perhaps we should," answered John, still indifferent. "I shall deem it a pleasure to have you call on me some evening, and accompany me to dinner; or, if you will set the time, I shall call on you." "You are very kind, Mr. Monroe." "May I call, or will you call?" "Neither," replied John, without exhibiting a sign of what he meant. "Then, I am to understand, you do not court my company?" said the unruffled one. "No; not that, Mr. Monroe. I am very busy of evenings. Sometime I may accept your invitation; but not for the present," responded John. "What is it that so engrosses you of evenings, may I inquire?" asked the worming Monroe. "Yes; you may ask whatever you please--I am taking a post-graduate course in business on my own time," said John. "To what end?" asked Monroe. "That I may be better prepared to perform my duties; for that reason I do not care to spare the time to go out." "Very well, Mr. Winthrope; success to you," said Monroe. "But may I not anticipate your company to dinner before very long?" "I cannot now decide, Mr. Monroe--not now; but will inform you of my decision at a later date," replied John. Hearing Mr. Jarney enter his office at this juncture, John said good bye to the cat, and retired. He found Mr. Jarney tuned to a conversational degree that morning that perplexed him. Mr. Jarney dictated a few letters, beginning on them as was his custom, immediately after taking his seat, and looking over some important ones; then he lighted a cigar, and reared back in his chair in pleasant contemplation of the circles that he blew out and sent upwards like escaping halos. John sat regarding him for a few seconds with calm complacency; then, seeing that he did not intend to proceed further, for the present, with the dictation, said that he would retire and transcribe the letters. "No hurry, Mr. Winthrope; no hurry," said Mr. Jarney, looking searchingly at John. "You are the most unfathomable chap I ever saw, Mr. Winthrope," he continued. "Here a week has gone by and you have not yet made inquiry about my daughter's health." John was astonished at this statement. "Mr. Jarney, I should have inquired," he said; "but I felt it out of place for me to be so familiar with your family matters." "Why so?" he asked, with sharpness. "I feared you might think me presumptuous," replied John, timidly. "You presumptuous? I am not snobbish, Mr. Winthrope," he returned. "Well, I felt that I would be keeping my place, by keeping silent," said John. "I never mentioned the matter, Mr. Winthrope, because I wanted to see just how long you would be silent," said Mr. Jarney. "And don't you care to know?" "Why, Mr. Jarney, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to know that Miss Jarney is improving." "She is not," he said, despondently. "Is she serious?" asked John. "Very serious," he replied. Mr. Jarney must have noticed the pallor that stole over John's face at this unwelcome information; but if he did not, he divined John's eagerness to know more of Edith's complaint, and continued: "Yes, Mr. Winthrope, she is very serious. She has brain fever. The escapade of young Barton brought a great blow upon us all; for I have great fears of her recovery." "Do the doctors give no hope?" asked John, eagerly. "No hope," was the reply, as Mr. Jarney shook his head, and resuming his old demeanor of being affected by some inward impulses that had pervaded him for the week past. "I am very sorry, Mr. Jarney, that I did not know of this before now, so that I could have sympathized with you," said John, feelingly. "I appreciate your modesty, Mr. Winthrope, in not inquiring, and I deplore my disposition in not being more communicative; for I knew all along you were anxious to know, after the kind services you rendered us by bringing her home," said Mr. Jarney, speaking now with considerable emotion. "I know I should have inquired, Mr. Jarney, and was on the point of doing so several times, but I always felt that you were indifferent as to how I felt about the matter." "Mr. Winthrope, I must be frank with you, for dear Edith's sake, and tell you all. She--" "--not expected to recover," interrupted John, bending forward intently. "No, that is not what I was about to say," he replied, scanning John's face. "While in a delirium, she repeatedly calls for you. Every day and every night she has been doing this, since you brought her home. We would have sent for you to come to see her had we believed your presence would have been of any avail in bringing her to her reason. But, as the doctors said that is true in all such cases, we deferred to their advice. As her father, I do not believe their opinion is of much moment in her present critical condition, so I am going to request you to accompany me to my home this evening for dinner, and incidentally you may see Edith, for what comfort she, or you, may have in such a meeting." This was certainly startling information to Mr. Winthrope. He had put through many fruitless hours wondering about the outcome of Edith's illness, and suffered some pangs of heart thereby; but little did he dream, or anticipate, that he could, in any manner, be considered by the lady, whose station in life was miles and miles above him. The statement of Mr. Jarney only caused him more regret, for he considered Edith's use of his name, in her delirious hours, the wild fancies of an afflicted brain. And he was perplexed. "If it is your wish, I shall be glad to go with you, Mr. Jarney," said John, after gaining his composure. Mr. Jarney noticed the effect of what he said upon the young man, and he could not restrain from saying: "I shall deem it a pleasure; and I know it will be a great favor to Mrs. Jarney if you go." "I shall go," he said. "Then we will leave the office early," said Mr. Jarney. "May I have time to dress?" asked John. "All the time you require, Mr. Winthrope. You may leave the office at three, and be ready to go at four." "Thank you; I will be ready," returned John, as he gathered up his note book and papers, and repaired to his office. CHAPTER XV. WHAT DOES THE HEART SAY? An auto being in waiting at the curb, and John being ready at the appointed time, he and Mr. Jarney joined each other at the main entrance of the office building; and together were whirled away, in a twinkling, toward the mansion on the hill. This was the second time that he had been summoned to that palace of a Croesus; for a second time he went, not of his own volition; for a second time he drew near the place, with a strange feeling in his soul; and he wondered if Fate, after all, is not a strange outliner of one's life. The first time, a deep mystery surrounded his sudden summoning, ending with a very romantic sequel; the second time, the cause leading up to his going was as deep a mystery as the first, with no telling what the climax might be. So, with these thoughts alone passing through his head as he rode silently by the side of his superior through the whizzing wind and beating rain and whirling smoke, he was not a little agitated when the chauffeur drew up at the side door, and the master had stepped out, and he was bidden to follow. He remembered well that entrance on the former occasion, in the night, with its beaming lights and glistening panels of glass and brilliancy of the interior reflecting over him in his amazement. He remembered very well the gliding through the rooms of the family and the attendants, like roving spirits in despair in a fairy bower. He remembered all these things through the eye of the night:--of his sudden departure from the mansion; of his mission through the space of miles, and his quick return, and triumphant end--for the sake of duty. All these things he recalled, as if ruminating on a hazy dream. But when he came the second time, in the gloom of the late afternoon, and seeing the sombreness of the walls, the doors, the porches, the lawn and everything, stripped of the glare of artificial light, he felt that within the house a similar gloom prevailed. He followed Mr. Jarney, now with a palpitating heart. The valet took his coat and hat and umbrella; and he was escorted to the warmth, the cheer, the beauty, the radiance, the grandeur of the parlor, and was begged to be seated. And he saw that the house was as silent as a morgue; he saw the long faces of the servants, and noted their confidential looks and glances toward him; he saw that the lights were burning dimly, and as they might burn for several days to come; he saw friends of the family glide in like spectres, with inquiring faces, and whisper, and saw them depart as silently; he saw the piano was closed, and the music piled up. He saw Mrs. Jarney coming down the great white stairway, darkly clothed, with tear-stained eyes and tired movements. He felt the oppressive dread that was over all. And he trembled. Mrs. Jarney approached him, with Mr. Jarney at her side, he having met her at the foot of the stairs. John arose as she put out her hand, and when he shook it, he noticed that she was excessively perturbed. "I am very happy to see you, Mr. Winthrope," she said, with some effort. "I wish to thank you for your services in behalf of my daughter on that dreadful evening." "You have my sincere sympathy, Mrs. Jarney," responded John. "May I inquire if Miss Jarney is improving?" "No improvement, Mr. Winthrope, that we can see," she replied. "Is it so that Mr. Winthrope can see her?" asked Mr. Jarney of his wife. "He may go now, if he does not feel it too great a favor to us," replied Mrs. Jarney, wiping away her tears. "I assure you, Mrs. Jarney," said John, "that I do not hold such a matter in the light of favor; but as a matter of the gravest importance to you both." "Mr. Winthrope," said Mrs. Jarney, placing her hand upon his arm, "there are trials in this life, to a mother, which no man can understand; and this is one of them. We have asked you to come here because we believe in you, because we know and feel that you are good. Do not think that we are not under obligations to you, and that my dear Edith will not be thankful to you, if she recovers. We know and you know that your coming is by reason of unusual circumstances; and as her mother, I do not want you to think, Mr. Winthrope, that my emotions have gone beyond my reason. She has called your name so many times that I could not bear to hear it longer without you coming here. I fancied, at first, that it was, as the doctors have said, only the fancy of an afflicted brain; but I believe it is more than that. I beg your pardon, Mr. Winthrope, if I have spoken too plainly. Now, if you are ready we will proceed to her room." John was proud himself, though poor. He was proud of his good name; proud of his old father and mother, and his own dear sister and brother in the mountains; he was proud that others held him in high esteem; proud of their friendly consideration, of the confidence in which they held him, and of their frankness. When Mr. Jarney first broached the subject of his going to see his daughter, he took it as a question of duty, albeit he was not altogether dum to its influence on his heart; and when Mrs. Jarney spoke to him, with even more freedom than her husband, he could not resist the effect any longer. He therefore went up the stairs in a state of mind that was a mixture between despair and hope. He was preceded by the parents of Edith. They passed through a hall bewildering to John in its elegance, he following, and at length came to the door of a bed room. Mrs. Jarney opened it, and they silently filed within, like going into the chamber of the dead, so softly did they move. At one side of a bed sat a nurse, on the other sat Star Barton, faithful in her bleeding heart. On the bed lay the fevered form of Edith in snowy whiteness. To the beholders she was like a transporting angel, only the flush of life was in her cheeks--the flush of her affliction. Her white hands lay twitching over the coverlets. Her face was upturned, her blue eyes staring, her lips mumbling indistinct words. She was apparently dead to all things mortal. No wonder Star was in tears; no wonder the parents felt a dread shudder pass through them; no wonder the nurse had a solemn face; for the spirit of this pure young woman seemed to be passing, passing. John was not unmoved by the scene, for even his brave strong heart sent forth a sigh. The parents stood by the bedside looking down upon their unconscious child in her struggle. After a few moments Mr. Jarney turned to John, and whispered: "We will leave you alone with her and her friend, Miss Barton." Then they went out, and the nurse went out. John spoke a word of recognition to Star, and drew a chair up to the bed and sat down, looking meditatively at Edith. "Has she been unconscious since the night I brought her here?" asked John. "Almost all the time," answered Star. "Sometimes she is rational--then she calls for you." "If she should become rational while I am here, and should see me, do you think my being here would have any beneficial effect upon her?" asked John. "That is the opinion of her parents," replied Star. "You appear to be pretty well worn out by your vigil, Miss Barton," said John, turning to her, sitting close by his side. "I have been in this room ever since she took ill, or since you brought her here," answered Star. "Haven't you taken any rest?" asked John, dubious about her statement. "I lie down on the couch there sometimes," pointing to one in the room; "but I cannot sleep." "I fear the trial will be too much for you, Miss Barton." "Oh, it is no trial for me to sit here, where I can see her dear face all the time," responded Star, and then she burst into tears, and John could hardly restrain his own from flowing, through his deep sympathy for her in her simple faith. Just then Edith turned her face toward them, and gazed wildly about with her pretty blue eyes rolling in their sockets. Then she threw one hand over the side of the bed. John lifted it up tenderly, and laid it back in place, and then it was that he became aware of how feverish she was. Edith mumbled something. "She is making an effort to speak your name," said Star, who was now used to her strange fancyings, and could interpret almost any unintelligible word she spoke. Then bending over Edith, she said: "He is here, dear Edith." Edith looked up at Star, with what appeared to be a faint smile. Star took one hand, and held it, patting it lovingly. "Here he is, dear Edith; don't you see him?" she said, as Edith now uttered the name distinctly. Edith paid no heed to Star, but rolled her head and muttered John's name. Then she became calmer, and lay still; arousing herself after a few minutes, and repeating the name again. "He is here, Edith, by your bedside; can't you see?" said Star, bending over her. "Come closer, Mr. Winthrope, that she might see you." John thereat moved nearer to the bed, and leaned over her. "Here is Mr. Winthrope, Edith," said Star, as she placed a hand upon her hot forehead. Edith turned her head, and sighed. Her eyes ceased their starey look. She became calmer; sighed again. Then, without assistance, she raised herself up, and her long hair fell over her shoulders. In her illness now, John thought she was prettier than before when he saw her in her best of health. As she arose, Star caught her by the shoulders, and made an attempt to lay her down on her pillow again; but Edith shook her off, with her fever-strength supreme in her. She then crossed her hands before her, bent her head forward; then threw it backward, and gazed across the room to the farther wall, like one staring into the infinitude of time in its blankness. John sat watching her, moved to piteous supplication for this fair young lady in her distress of mind. "Star," said Edith, turning upon Miss Barton, in a strange clear voice, "have you seen Mr. Winthrope?" "Here he is, dear Edith," replied Star, stroking her hair. "Here by your bed; don't you see him?" "That is not Mr. Winthrope," she answered, in the same strange tone. "No, no, dear Edith; he is here--Mr. Winthrope look into her face?" said Star, turning to John, whose head was bowed under the weight of the impression that this girl's ravings made on him. John obeyed Star's request, and looked Edith in the face. Edith then put out a hand, and touched that of his; then fell back, burying her head in her soft pillow, with her hands over her face. "She knows you," whispered Star. "Shall I retire?" asked John, believing that the crisis had been reached. "Oh, not yet," answered Star. Then leaning over Edith again, said: "Edith, do you want to see Mr. Winthrope again before he goes?" Edith reached out a hand toward him, turned her head, and let her eyes move slowly in his direction. Then she laid her hand upon his. He picked it up, and she permitted him to hold it. "Mr. Winthrope?" she said. "I am he," he replied. She smiled, and her eyes became less roving. "I am better," she whispered. "Edith, I knew you would be better as soon as he came," said Star, kissing her. "Are you not glad, Mr. Winthrope?" asked Star of him. "Very, very," he responded. He touched his lips to her fevered hand; and how it thrilled him. "Now, you may retire, if you wish," said Star. "Will you come again?" said Edith, in a very low voice; "often; often?" "If I am permitted," replied John, releasing her hand, and rising. "You have my permission," whispered Edith, feebly attempting to smile. "Oh, I am so weak, I am afraid it will be such a long time before I can leave this bed." Turning to Star, she said: "Have mamma keep him for dinner, if it is near that time--or breakfast, or lunch." "He will remain," answered Star. "You will come in before you go--you will come again, Mr. Winthrope?" asked Edith, faintly. "By your father's permission," he answered, smiling down upon her. "He will permit you," said Edith. "Good bye," said John, taking Edith's hand again. "Good bye; don't fail to come in again before you go?" said Edith. "I shall come," he said, kissing her lily hand; after which he lay it down with the greatest reluctance. Then he left her, with a world of thrilling emotions consuming him. Seeing no one in the hallway, he proceeded alone down the stairs to the parlor, there to be met by the gloomy countenances of Edith's loving parents, who were at that moment in such a distracted state of mind that they almost collapsed over wrong expectations over this singular meeting of their daughter with John Winthrope. Both rose as they saw John approaching, and sighed. "How is she?" both asked together. "Better," was John's response. Mr. Jarney took John by the hand, and said: "How greatly relieved I am." Mrs. Jarney did not wait for further information; but ran up the stairs, and went headlong into her daughter's room. "Oh, my child! my child!" she cried in the excess of her joy, seeing the token of rationality in Edith's face. She fell on the bed by Edith's side, almost in a faint, throwing her arms about her. Edith was not in condition to withstand such a stormy outburst of motherly affection. Star, understanding the bad effect such extreme commotion might have upon her charge, persuaded Mrs. Jarney to be calm, and all would be well. "Did you know him, Edith?" asked her mother, still mentally agitated. "Yes, mamma," replied Edith, so low she could hardly be heard. "Was it he that effected a cure, Edith?" "Oh, mamma, I am not well yet," said Edith; "and it may be a long time before I get out of this." "Was it he, Edith, that brought about the crisis?" persisted the mother. "It might have been, mamma," said Edith. "Edith, are you keeping a secret from me?" pursued her mother. "Dear mamma, I cannot bear up, if you keep on," whispered Edith, growing restless. "Mrs. Jarney, it would be best not to disturb her any more; she needs sleep," said Star, advisedly. Mrs. Jarney, realizing her mistaken enthusiasm, quieted down, and slipped out of the room, and bustled down the stairs in an uncontrollable plight of flusteration. She rushed up to Mr. Winthrope, and was almost in the act of embracing that young gentleman, who had earned his way unconsciously into her faver to such proportions that the good lady could not keep away from him all evening. In verity, Mrs. Jarney was so dignifiedly considerate that she would have, under the spur of the stimulent of joy, given her consent right then to John becoming a permanent member of her household (had he thought of asking that privilege of her) had it not have been that a little bit of money-pride overbalanced her gratitude. And, in truth, too, Mr. Jarney might have fallen under the same magic that John had also cast over him, had it not have been that his pride was a little greater than he could consistently overcome. But this did not prevent Mr. Jarney from showering upon John encomiums of all kinds for the rest of his stay in the house that evening. John, being prodigiously sensitive on the matter of the propriety of a thing done, was with difficulty persuaded in his own mind that Edith's wish was any more than a good woman's gratefulness. Although he made a great effort that evening to keep down the blazing fires of the one great human passion, he could not extinguish them altogether, for the more he thought of the cause that led up to his coming there, the fiercer the coals blazed within him: till his soul was almost afire. Dinner was eaten in great state, the first of the kind for John; but he, being an adaptable young man, was equal to anything that confronted him. And while dining, he did not fail to notice the changed spirits of all the inmates of the house, from the head of it down to the waiter; for the later were profuse in showing him deference, in their looks and actions; he did not fail to notice the change in the lights that gave back a much more cheerful caress, where before they were feebly lifeless; he did not fail to notice the change in the countenances of the friends of the family, who came in with a deadening look, and went out with a smile; he did not fail to notice all these things; nor could he help but feel that he was the one person who might have brought it about. In consequence, he passed through the evening in the ascending mood of rapturous delight; but, though, always with a fear--a fear bound up in one corner of his heart--that he was only being rewarded for his services as the servant of this great man of money, the father of Edith. But John, do not despair; there are worse people in this world, who are rich, than the Jarneys. John kept his promise, and called to see Edith just before he was ready to leave the mansion. She was sleeping when he was let into the darkened room; and when he looked down upon her, in her purity, dreaming, perhaps of him, he felt the power of love that was bearing him down. Were everything made of sweet toned bells, and they were every one ringing, no greater would be the alarum than that which at that moment knelled through him. The fear of death coming to her, the fear of her loss should she come back to life, the fear of those who brought her into the world, the fear of Fate, the fear of Chance, struck him dumb. Would her death be worse than life? he thought; would her life be worse than death? Sleeping calmly, peacefully, without a murmur from her lips; breathing lightly, evenly, without a break in the respiration; resting now as if the angels had brought a cure from out the skies--John felt the holy thrall which controlled him. He knelt down by the bed, and took her white hand in his, and tears of his mercy wet her limp fingers; and he prayed. Then, rising, with his heart too full to speak, he turned to the door to leave. Miss Barton, seeing his agitation, came up to speak to him, with her eyes also filled with tears. "Wait till she awakes," she said. "I cannot," he replied. "She expects to see you before you go." "Tell her--" and he was gone. CHAPTER XVI. BILLY BARTON'S FLIGHT. When Billy Barton left his home and family, he went without a clue to his destination; and he left no word behind of his going. The world to him had been a series of degenerating allurements ever since he could remember anything; and Evil Repute was the sum of his reward. He was brought up amid the scenes of the river's traffic as a wharf man, or roustabout; and was called the waterman, by reason of an ineradicable habit he had of invariably falling into the stream when intoxicated. This predilection of Billy's might have cured such a failing in any other man; but the more often Billy fell into the river the less inclined he was to accept the water cure. The frequency of these periodic immersions grew to such dimensions that his qualifications as a wharfman became nil, and he thereby lost his right to a permanancy among the gang, causing him, one day early in his years, to be placed on the reserve list to take his chances for obtaining work as an extra. Billy was like many another man of his class: he had no inclination to reach a higher level, or lacked the ability to go higher; and by these well developed attributes, in him, he found it pretty hard picking among the dispensers of jobs. It appears that he was continually in ill-luck, when it came to making assignments for the long line of men in waiting. Sometimes he would put in a day or so of work, with a disposition to be light-hearted over his luck; but it very often happened that when he was wanted, he was under the influence of drink; or had just recovered himself from a baptism in the river; and so he was many times overlooked. This vicarious situation did not tend to better his condition. It only made him worse. What between his few spells of work, and his numerous spells of sprees, he had a petty sum left on which to keep his growing family. Billy Barton was a very clever man in his sober moments; but so seldom was he ever in that state of good behavior, that his cleverness was overlooked even by his most intimates. What is hereof meant by this use of the word clever, is that it was applied to him in the vernacular sense, and not in its strict usage. So when in that state of temporary sanity, he was ever ready with a rough wit of the hang-dog style--the wit of the waterfront, of the grog shop, of the slums, of the rough-and-ready characters of his calling; and this he carried to his home, very often to his sorrow. He used to tell the "boys" that he had an "old woman" who could give any one spades in cards in her fetching ways toward general cussedness. But Billy would condone all that poor woman's incapacities, whenever he would get drunk, and, with a great display of imaginary wealth, which he said he would fall heir to some day, impress upon her impressionable mind the beauties of their future. Thus by such tactics, he, for a number of years, kept her hopefully on the high wave of anticipation and expectation. This trait of Billy's was one of his redeeming qualities, if he ever had any other; so much so that ere he had reached his present age of discretion, he began really to believe that he was as rich as the man in the mansion on the hill; which mansion he always kept a weather's eye out for, no difference how much smoke or fog clouded his sense of perception. But Kate Barton, long ago, began to realize that his tantalizing predictions and promises were merely vaporings. So, when things with her became inordinately unbearable, she began to attempt a reformation of him by the process of her voluableless tongue. At first she scolded him gently; then firmly, then remorselessly; tongue-lashed him; berated him from Soho to McKee's Rocks; and, finally, seeing that this method was without effect, adopted the corporal punishment plan. But by no such inducements, however, could she prevail upon him to reform, and act the true part of a husband and father. Thus, being in an environment that would, without a doubt, corrupt old Satan himself, Billy went from bad to worse, and from worse to the finite degree of dissipation. Resorting to the saloons as a solace for his sorrows, he there found out, when too late, that as long as he had a penny he could secure the required consolation that he craved. Ultimately, reaching an end in this direction, he became obsessed with the desire to flee. And flee he did. * * * * * Any one standing, at any point, on the south side of the Smithfield street bridge, on the day of his departure, might have seen the bent form of a once well built, square-shouldered, red-faced, blue-eyed man, wearing a slouch hat, check shirt, blue overalls, faded coat, and brogans on his feet, and a rusty overcoat on his arm, aimlessly walking across it, going northward. Had he been followed, the observer would have seen him turn up Second avenue, with the same shambling gait, and with his nose directed toward the devious ways of Soho. They would have seen him wind in and out among the alley ways and bypaths between the mills and factories and shops, have heard him ask for work, and have heard the answer, "Don't want you." They would have seen him come out into the street, stop, hesitate; go on, with the same determination in his bleary eyes. They would have seen him continuing, with an inquiry here and there; they would have seen him brushed aside, and go on. They would have seen him treading the ties of the Baltimore & Ohio, through the interminable region of noise--of belching furnaces, of rattling factories, of shouting men, of screeching engines, mile after mile. They would have seen him stop at a poor man's house--one almost like his own--and heard him ask for food and bed, and would have seen him receive it, sometimes. They would have seen him stop, and rest, and meditate; have seen him sneered at, chased by policemen, stoned by boys, hooted by ruffians, scolded by women; have seen him rejected, dejected, despondent, and in despair--a weary wayfarer, an outcast, discarded by his family, condemned by his fellow man--a human wreck, with not a hand outstretched to him to lend him the aid and encouragement that he needed in that hour--except, perhaps, the hand of the Almighty, in retribution. And more; they would have seen Billy Barton go through the suburbs of Glenwood, Hazelwood, Rankin; through the boroughs of Braddock, of Homestead, of Duquesne, and on to McKeesport, meeting always with the same inglorious reception--day after day, week after week, asking, begging, starving. They would have seen him sleeping in deserted buildings, in fields, in box cars; by the roadsides, on the hillsides, in the woods; everywhere where man was not, save some stragglers of his own ilk. They would have seen him eventually entering saloons in the slum quarters; have seen him set upon, beaten, kicked and thrown into the streets, a poor worthless cuss, too vile, even now, for any of his former cronies to recognize, had they chanced across him. They would, as a climax to his wanderings, have seen him dragged into a town's nasty, filthy, foul, venom-infested jail, there to await the merciful order of a just and honest judge, who might, peradventure, take compassion on him; and, as a finality, have seen him sentenced to penal servitude as a vagrant. Holy of Holies! praise be to God! cry the keepers of the loaves and fishes! But for the goodness of a pure young woman, his children might have starved. And say that the male-man is a generous creature! * * * * * In the little black office of The Die, Peter sat humped up, like a drooling ape, scanning the interior of his junk shop through his peephole. He saw the cringing Eli, like a witless ass, having another set-to with a short stalky fellow because he did not give the password. He saw Eli floored, and thumped in the ribs by the man's foot. Whereat Peter gathered up his courage and went out to ascertain the wherefor of the disturbance. "Hah, Welty Morne," whispered Peter, seeing who the man was; "come in;" and he waddled rearward, leaving the defeated servant to readjust himself as to how he may. "Set down," said he to Welty, after falling down himself like a bloated lobster, and taking up his pipe, and espionage. "What? What now?" he asked. "We have heard at last from Billy Barton," said Welty. "Where'd you get that information? The wretch!" roared Peter, sardonically. "From Monroe." "And Monroe?" "From Cobb." "And Cobb?" "From the warden." "The wretch!" shouted Peter. "Let him die there! What's his time?" "Six months." "Good! We'll make it six more." "Am I to return that information?" asked Welty. "Yes," snapped Peter. "What else from Monroe?" "He has failed to rope in Winthrope." "What next?" "His new scheme is to put him as treasurer of the company." "Good! Go to it, tell him. How's the girl?" "Jarney took the young man to his home to see her, and she is recovering." Peter frowned at this, that is at that part of the information relating to taking Winthrope to the Jarney home. He rubbed his hands, pulled at his pipe vigorously, almost spat on Welty in an effort to reach a saw-dust box used as a receptacle for his expectorations. "She's a mighty fine girl," said Peter. "What does Monroe draw from that incident?" "That Winthrope has inclinations toward her." "And her father?" asked Peter. "He permits it." "Why don't young Cobb push his suit?" asked Peter. "Oh, she would never have anything to do with him." "Why doesn't he get Winthrope out of the way!" exclaimed Peter. "He is laying the ropes to ensnare him," said Welty, showing his teeth like a grinning dog, and flashing his green eyes. "What else?" asked Peter, ceasing to rub his hands, and looking up at Welty with some anxiety. "There's going to be a strike on all the papers," replied Welty. "Oh, that's all fixed up," said Peter, with consuming pride (judging from the speed he rubbed his hands). "The police have instructions to arrest every dog of them so soon as they step out of their jobs. What else?" "An extra levy has been made on the red-lighters," replied Welty. "Good!" exploded Peter. "Tell Monroe to watch out for flurries among them." "They will all come through." "Hah, I thought Jacob would bring them to time," whispered Peter. "How's he coming with his new company?" "He'll have a million to float in a week." "Why didn't he make it ten?" asked Peter. "He's afraid the people are getting weary with so much stock already on the market." "The coal combine went," said Peter, smiling. "But that was the project of the other gang," said Welty. "Well, I got my tribute, as well as Jacob, for our little assistance," he answered, with more fierce rubbing. "Ah, they will all pay--that is, the big ones." "Some of the little ones, too, eh?" said Peter. "Where do I come in, Peter?" suddenly asked Welty. This question caused Peter to look up quickly, with a leer. "You're not showing the white feather?" asked Peter. "No, no; but I need some money." "How much?" "A thousand." "I will have Jacob see you," returned Peter. Then Welty departed. He found Eli where he had left him, unconscious, with some customers standing about waiting for the young man to take his own good time about rising. The customers had come into the store, and when they saw Eli lying on the floor, remarked among themselves that he was taking an afternoon's nap. When one of them sought to arouse him, they became alarmed as to what might have happened, for Eli would not rouse himself. So they were standing about him in contemplation when Welty came out of Peter's office. Welty glanced at Eli obliquely, as if deigning to stoop so low as to lend aid to his victim, brushed past the onlookers, and made his exit by the front door. Peter, seeing that something was wrong, strutted out in a fluster, with his belly about a foot ahead of him. He had not observed from his peephole that Eli had not resumed his duties while Welty was in his office, so great was his interest in that visitor. But finding Eli in his predicament, Peter called on one of his customers to assist in his resurrection. Eli, thereupon, was lifted to his feet, but he was so near the limberness of a rope it was impossible to cause him to assume the perpendicularity of a standing man. Then that old remedy--water--was applied, with no effect. Eli looked like a faded piece of blue calico, so deathly was his face. They called a doctor; with no results. They called an ambulance, and conveyed him to a hospital. They called in the police to make an investigation; with no results. Peter knew nothing. It was a strange affair. The customers, of course, knew nothing; nobody could get head nor tail of what had happened Eli. It was a deep mystery--to the police department. Peter employed a new clerk, temporarily, and resumed his pipe and peephole. Welty resumed his duties in the office of Jarney & Lowman. In the meantime Eli Jerey's life hung in the balance; and the world of business still moved on; for he was only a poor clerk. CHAPTER XVII. GOOD BYE! GOOD BYE! GOOD BYE! As a metaphysician, John Winthrope could not present his bill of services, in the nonprofessional sense, for his visit to the Jarneys. This was the calamitous burden that bore so heavily upon him as he left the mansion on the hill that night, and kept his head in a whirl all the way to the city, and to his room, and to his bed, and even late into the night, till exhausting time relieved him near the breaking of another day. It was the first time that the real tempest of passion had broken in upon his sea of life; it was the first time that Cupid, with his implements of war, came to offer battle on his serene and peaceful field of budding bachelorhood. It was the very first time for him, so amourously passive was he toward the whiles of the little meddler into one's heart affairs. It is so with many people, men and women; but when the storm once breaks in upon their unimpressionable souls it is like a hurricane let loose, and is unrestrainable. He now saw a new light in the heavens, even through the smoke of Pittsburgh; a new evening star appeared in his firmament, and whirled through the universe of his night to meet him in the dawn; a new moon arose, and burst into full reflection of shadowy mysticism; a new sun circled the arch of his cold earth, and made the plants of joy come into leafage. Ah, there were no seasons to him now--it was light by day, light by night--and he was seeing everywhere through his visual horoscope--except--always except--as to a solution of the great problem that confronted him. The next morning after John's visit to see Miss Edith, Mr. Jarney arrived at the office a half hour before his time. He was so different to what he had been on the previous few days that John instinctively felt his exuberance of pleasantry throughout the entire day. Instead of taking up his dictation, as had been his wont, Mr. Jarney paced the floor in his proud and haughty way of doing such things. He spoke to John, on entering, in his calm, formal explicitness, as had been his custom, when John entered to take his seat by his master's desk. John sat waiting for Mr. Jarney to open his letters and proceed; but he did not touch a letter, at first. He said nothing for some time, but walked the floor, pondering, as if wrestling with conflicting thoughts. After awhile he broke the spell. "Young man," he said, as he stopped in his walk in front of John, with his hands deep in his pockets, and his keen eyes sparkling, "I do not know what to make of you." "Am I such a conundrum as all that?" asked John, as he met his master's eyes, with his own as sharp as those cast upon him. "In truth, you are," returned Mr. Jarney. "You are the biggest puzzle I have ever had to work out." "Mr. Jarney, you place me in a very awkward position," answered John. "I am not certain yet as to what you mean by your allusions." "My dear boy--" he started to say, then checked himself, thinking his manner too familiar, and went on: "Mr. Winthrope, you are master of your own destiny. You can make it what you will. You can be a leader of affairs, or you can be nothing." "I only hope for an opportunity, Mr. Jarney, to claim the honor of the first," responded John. "That is not what I mean, Mr. Winthrope; it is--well, it is--that you can do it." "I am certainly at a greater loss to understand you, Mr. Jarney," said John smiling, but still believing that he understood. "Nevertheless, I appreciate what you say, and will always regard your views with much favor." "Let me tell you, Mr. Winthrope," he pursued; "that business life is a terror to the average man. It has so many ups and downs that I have often wondered how so many succeed through all its uncertainties. I started out as poor as you, and maybe poorer, and have arrived where I am, with many a pain to accompany me. And still they call me successful. Had I to start again, I would pursue a different calling--science, literature, art, or music. These are the things that are a compensation to one's peace of mind. But most people believe it is money. I do not. I did once; but I have passed that period of putting money above everything else. Some will say, no doubt, that it is my view now, since I have got the money. Truly, had I not a cent, I would be of the same opinion. It was my opinion before I accumulated it, and I still cling to that hobby. Still I must continue on acquiring it. Making money is an endless chain proposition. Once you get into its entanglements, you cannot let go--you cannot resist its wonderful influence. Why, I should like to be free from its thralldom; I should like to be as you are, without the worry and the bother that money entails; I would like to exchange places with you, were it possible. But that can never happen, I suppose, so long as I have my present connections. I have often thought that I would like to tear myself away from its engrossments, to be free to go at will; to enjoy life with my wife and daughter in some way that would be to our liking--some way that is different from our present existence. I do not say that I will take up such a life; I may. I did not mean to make this lecture to you, Mr. Winthrope; but as I have made it. I will stand by it." "Still I am in as deep a mystery as ever, Mr. Jarney," said John frankly, and more familiarly than he had ever spoken to him before. "If I were a young man like you, and had my money, I would go to my home--assuming that your home is mine--and there live peacefully the rest of my days," he replied. "Would you suggest that I do it, in my present poverty?" asked John. "No; I am just supposing," he returned. "I cannot suppose anything, Mr. Jarney; I am not in a supposing position." "That is right, Mr. Winthrope, don't suppose anything; always believe it, and then go ahead," he said. "That is what I have attempted to do; but believing a thing and obtaining it are two entirely different matters." "Yes; you are right." He then strode across the room, and returned. "I am shocked at your manner of conduct," he said, looking down upon John. "You have not yet asked about my daughter's health?" "I fully intended to, Mr. Jarney, at the first opportunity of breaking in on our line of conversation," said John. "I am very happy to report she is growing better every hour," said Mr. Jarney, turning on his heel and walking across the room again, and returning, with a freshly lighted cigar in his mouth. "I wish her well," replied John, and then he halted in what he intended to say further--halted for a moment only, when he asked: "Mr. Jarney, with your permission, I should like to see Miss Jarney, once in awhile during her illness. May I have the wish granted?" "I have no objection--while she is ill," he answered, with that singular proviso attached. Then he sat down, and took up his work. At noon he asked John to lunch with him. John accepted, and lunched. At four p. m. he asked John to accompany him home for dinner. John accepted, and went. The combination of circumstances surrounding John's intimacies with the Jarney family was very indefinable to him, at first. But, as the days passed, he was slowly and assuredly convinced that his services as employe of that man of wealth were not of the sordid kind alone. Mr. Jarney's condescending manner, his straight-forwardness, his implicit faith in him, his good will toward him, his extinguishment of form, all showed to him that he was not so unapproachable as might be believed by any young man of the qualities of John Winthrope. Possessed with an unquenchable desire to do that which is right, honest, honorable, or justifiable, John pursued a course that ever kept him in good favor. He did not do this with any preconceived plan, or scheme, to accomplish a purpose, but it was through an inherent prepossession of his makeup. Through the days he labored with great assiduity to get results; through the evenings he studied with great concentration on his subjects--always busy, always ready to answer a call, or a summons. All these traits in him, Mr. Jarney was not slow in perceiving, and he gave encouragement, as he would, like any other man of his mould, to any one who showed the same relative adaptation and faithfulness. Mr. Jarney looked upon John as having many parts worth cultivating. As he had, for a long time, been gleaning in the field of young manhood for such a reaping, he now considered, since he acquired John, that he had harvested a good sheaf of wheat when he garnered him; and he purposed, if all continued straight in him, to flail out his true worth, if the throwing out of opportunity would be effectually grasped. But while he had these views concerning such material for his purpose, he, at no time, thought that his daughter would, in any manner, enter into the proposition. He would not have thought of compromising his views on business with his paternal ideas; nor would he ever have condoned himself, or his wife, should either have entertained an iota of a notion that it were necessary to bring her name into such mercenary transactions. By reason of the extraordinary events, however, that had come to pass, anent his daughter, he was perforce compelled to extenuate any qualifying conducements that might connect her with whomsoever claimed the privilege of being his second, as John was, in business. His amiableness toward John during the past few days might be interpreted in one particularity by the reader; which is, that he was encouraging that young man to press his suit for his daughter's hand; but this is farther from the thought than that he would give her away to any young profligate who might ask the favor of him. He was, withal, a true father, in its supremest meaning. He loved his daughter. He granted her every reasonable wish. He even went so far as to make unrelenting enemies among the Four Hundred, of which he was considered a worthy member, by discanting and discouraging their form of pleasures for the young men and women, and looking with disfavor upon the youths who paid his daughter the least attention. One of his most unpardonable offenses, in this connection, was his unsparing resentment toward Jasper Cobb's persistency in wanting to pay court to Edith, with matrimonial intent. The Cobbs could not, naturally, forgive him for such treatment of their young hopeful, who was just then strewing his pathway with the wildest kind of oats. And, as if fortune never failed him, Edith and her mother, coincided with him. This attitude of theirs, therefore, gave him the greatest kind of pleasure, and enhanced his inclination to stop at nothing that would satisfy their claims to his patronage. The foregoing statement is made to show what manner of man he was with his family; but not to excuse him for the manner of man he was with his business associates. So, in showing favors toward his secretary, he acted from a double possibility, i. e.: one to have a trustworthy employe in a very important position; the other to curry favor with a very lovable daughter, who had an independence that might run wild on a clear trackage of his own building. He had asked John to lunch with him that day mostly to be generous. He had asked him to his home again mostly for the good that his going might do for his afflicted child, in her hallucination. Nothing more. He did these things in such a cheerful way, and in such an unusual manner, that John was confounded. And he did it without reckoning the consequences, as many fathers act in the excitable moments of their infinite love for their offspring. Entering the mansion on the hill, on this, his third visit, John had a very different feeling than before. The interval since he had been there had been spent in musing and meditating, with the consequent result of him being hopelessly smitten. No gilded hall of magic palace, no form of cast or idol of fetich, no conventional rule of wealth or arm of power, no scornful threat of irate father or scolding mother, no nothing could desist him in his conquest, if Edith were willing. If not, then he would forgive her, and--perhaps, perhaps-- Edith was sleeping when John was ushered into her room. Star, ever hopeful, ever faithful, sat by her bedside. Seeing John, Star arose and advanced to meet him, whispering, as she took his hand: "She is better--growing better every hour; but very slowly. She now sleeps." "Then I shall retire till she awakes," said John. "No; remain; she will awake soon," said Star. No sound came from the sleeper, so peaceful was her rest, and so low her breathing. Her hands lay exposed above the spotless covers, with no nervous tremors in them. The flush of fever of the day before was gone. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were tightly shut. Her hair lay in ringlets over her temples. Was she dead? thought John; or was it the peace of a tired soul in rest that hung upon her? He trembled with great fear. Those dear blue eyes were closed to the light of day; those rosy cheeks had faded; the smile was gone. There was nothing to convince him that she lived. Emboldened by the great anxiety that overwhelmed him, he drew up a chair and sat down by her bed. He picked up one of her hands, and felt her pulse. He found it throbbing, and he was relieved. He sat there silently, inconceivably happy, with his own heart throbbing so loudly that he could hear it beating. Ah, Edith, in her slumbering, might have heard its telepathic beating, too, for she suddenly opened her eyes, and turned them upon John, and smiled, so undisturbing was her awakening. She did not withdraw the hand that John was holding, nor did she seem to give a sign of recognition. But she sighed. Was it a sigh of her malady, or a sigh for him? "How do you feel this evening, Miss Jarney?" asked John, in a low voice, deep with sympathetic tenderness. Then, she opened wide her eyes, as if surprised, and withdrew her hand. "Don't you know me, Miss Jarney?" asked John, with a fearsome thought that she had declined to her former condition. "Is it you, Mr. Winthrope?" she asked, with her eyes lighting up. "Why, yes; I believed you were the doctor. I am so very weak, Mr. Winthrope, that I can scarcely speak." "Do you feel better?" he asked. "A little," she responded, feebly. "How glad it makes me feel to think you have come." "Perhaps it would be better for me not to come while you are so low," he said. "I feel better every time you come," she answered. She involuntarily threw her hand over the side of the bed. He took it up, and held it; and then touched his lips to her small fingers--fingers so small and delicate and white now that they were like chiseled marble, pliable in his. She did not resist, through inability mostly to draw it away, had she been so disposed. She made no pretense to conceal her fondness for him, nor did she attempt to talk with any design to hurry him away, when he suggested that she would better rest in absolute quiet. John saw all this. But he believed that, in her frailty, he should be very prudent in how he acted, and leave nature, and what little he could do himself, to restore her to her former mental and physical health. "You will remain awhile longer, Mr. Winthrope? I am growing better," she said. "I hesitate about remaining, Miss Jarney, for fear of disturbing your peace," he answered. "I rest better after seeing you," she whispered, with a trembling voice, as if she would break into crying. "Then I am assured that I may come again?" he asked. "You must come often--very often--every day--will you?" "If your father continues his permission to that extent?" "Oh, he will; papa is so good." Is it an hallucination she is laboring under, thought John; or is it the will of a pure heart, feebly speaking? He was still perplexed; but his hopes were not deserting him. "Mr. Winthrope," she said, after a silent spell, "will you go with Miss Barton on Sunday to her home, and act for me in what I had planned to do before I took ill?" "Indeed, I shall be glad to accompany her, and shall do anything you wish," he answered. "I had planned to do so much for the poor in Miss Barton's district," she continued. "I brought her here to be my companion and my aid--such a good girl she is--but I cannot do anything now, unless you will help. Will you?" "I will, willingly," he responded, wonderingly. "When I recover I shall enlist you in my service; we can do so much good for those distressed people." "Nothing would please me better than to help you in this work." "Then, you and Miss Barton may begin it now; I shall join you when I have recovered." "That will be a fine combination for charity's sake," he replied, enthusiastically. "I knew you would enter into the scheme. How good you are!" she said, with a feeble effort to express her gratitude for him in a smile. "I am afraid you flatter me, Miss Jarney," he answered, still holding her trembling hand. "Oh, no; papa says you are so good; and I know you are." "What time Sunday shall we go, Miss Barton?" asked John, turning to that young lady, with increasing enthusiasm over his accumulating duties. "About ten o'clock, perhaps. You call here at that hour, when the auto will be in waiting for us," answered Star, sitting by him, with as much interest in him as Edith had herself. "I shall be prompt to the minute," he replied. John had remained an hour by Edith's bed talking in very confidential terms to those two divine maidens--one of them rich, one of them poor, but both blessed with many heavenly virtues. Edith was growing restless; although through it all John had been careful of what he said, and how he said it, so as not to excite her. "Are you going?" she asked, seeing him rise. "I am sorry I cannot withstand the strain longer." "I should go," he answered. "You will come tomorrow? then I will be better," lifting up her hand to bid him good bye. He knelt down by the bed, and held her hand in both of his for a moment. How it trembled, and how it thrilled him! "Good bye," she said. Oh, he prayed, within his heart, that she might be well in that moment of his own deep affliction, so that the fear that was in him might be expelled, and he knew his fate. "Good bye," she said. Going down the stairs he could hear that tremulous little voice saying, "Good bye." All through the dinner he heard it ringing like the distant trembulations of a wind-bell; going out the house he heard it calling after him; all the way to the city he heard it tinkling, tinkling from everything about the fleeting things in the streets, turning all the grime and misery into music. Going to his room it kept trembling, trembling, till that dingy little place was a Paradise. And going into sleep it kept singing--singing "Good bye! Good b-y-e! G-o-o-d----b--y--e!" CHAPTER XVIII. PETER DIEMAN IS AVENGED. Black and sinister, like The Bastille, rears the bulky rambling building of that famous institution where infractors of the law are compensated for their weaknesses. Amidst verdent hills and by the murky river it sits as a ramparted fortress in a savage land. In sunshine and cloud, in fog and smoke and grime, it stands brooding, ever silent, ever sullen; it is a place of the damned, the wonderment of law-abiding men who hap to pass it by. Beyond the sounds of the teeming river, beyond the noise of forge and hammer, beyond the regular haunts of men, it is like a secluded bee-hive, when the workers are all within. No one hears the hammering, no one hears the sawing, pounding, dinning, breaking, singing, chanting, praying of all of those therein, save the unambitious workers themselves. For it is a penal institution. Grim-visaged men, with loaded gun, stalk through its ringing halls, while haunting faces peer out from behind steel bars. The tread of many feet is hard, in step, on the hardened floors, as the men file to their places, like trained dogs cringing before their masters; the thump of many hammers is like a dreadful funeral march for the lost; the chant of many a tune is heard, in the time of rest, as the only cheerful note issuing therefrom. And above all is the old familiar human smell. In one corner of a cell, on a cot, lies a man. He is bleary-eyed, and his face is swollen. His feet are bleeding, and his worn-out shoes lie on the floor. His old blue overalls and check shirt are torn, filthy and ready to fall from him. He rolls his head from side to side, and beats his breast with his knotted hands. The spume of an hectic cough hangs around his mouth, and blood flows out his nostrils. He is Billy Barton--dying--dying--alone! While the hammers ring, and the men chant, and the guards pace to and fro; while the clock is ticking for other men to come and go; while the sun is shining somewhere for the happy, the good and the bad alike, and all life outside is palpitating with a vigorous existence, Billy is going upon his final journey. He was brought from a nasty jail, where mephitic filth was supreme, to this place where brutal men are supreme in their cruelty. Emaciated, gaunt, and made desperate by reason of the abuse heaped upon his crazed head, he was terrible in his obstinacy of prison rules. He was put to work with ball and chain tied about his ankles, when lying down on a feather bed would have been a severe and painful task to him. He was weak. He could not work, let alone stand. He was faint, sick, heartsore. But no one saw his misery. No one wanted to see it. For why should they? He was only a vagabond, and why should he receive attention? He was pushed and pounded and thumped and beaten because he could not work. He was fed on bread and water for his failure; he was straight-jacketed, hung up by the wrists, given the water-cure; thrown into the dungeon and flogged. But the brute rises in man, sometimes, when met by a brute, and Billy struck back. This was the beginning of his end; for the deputy, being not yet satisfied in the full exercise of his authority, threw more of his brutishness into display, and laid Billy low with a cudgel that he carried, and dragged him, like a dog, to his cell, and threw him on his cot to die--alone! An investigation into poor Billy Barton's death by the Honorable Board of Authorities revealed one of the most peculiar and singular cases that ever came to their discriminating notice. Billy died of heart failure, they announced. Of course, every man dies when his heart ceases to beat. Even those good and upright members of the Honorable Board of Authorities will die of that disease some day; and no doubt a tombstone will have all their virtues enscribed upon it. Billy Barton's--will simply be, William Barton, that's all. Who should claim the body? Had he any friends? they punctiliously inquired. Yes; they found one. A man of worth, too--Peter Dieman, the humble junkman; Billy's old friend, of course, who would provide a decent funeral, and see that the last sad rites were said over his corruptible remains. Yes; Peter Dieman would do all this, being very generous, and a philanthropic man; for who would impinge his motives? * * * * * The body was, in the true fiction of such events, conveyed in very solemn state to that hovel on the south side of the Monongahela river, near which and within which all of Billy Barton's living time was spent. All his children were present at the funeral, except that one of ill-repute who had preceded his father upon the long unknown trail. All his former friends were present, with one extra added: Peter Dieman. Another friend was present, in the person of John Winthrope, as the representative of Edith, who sent the only flowers. Had Billy Barton been resurrected the time he lay in his coffin, supported on two chairs, he would have seen a change in the furnishings of his earthly home; he would have seen paper on the walls, where once were the smutchings of discoloring time; he would have seen a carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, one of which he would have seen was Madonna and her child; he would have seen many things that were not there when he was its besotted, irresponsible master. Ah, he would have seen his little girls dressed in new frocks, with a simple imitation of pride in their deportment; and his boys he would have seen, although still very rude, in a feeble effort to be vain over their new toggery. He would also have seen his slattern wife in a new dress, with her hair done up, and a new hope masked behind her stoical face. And he would have seen that other one, his daughter Star, whom he maltreated all her sorrowful years, come to offer up to God supplication for his soul; and, if his spirit had not yet departed, he would have heard her weeping in her anguish. As he lay in his shroud he would have felt the warm touch of little hands on his hard face, as the little ones stood about his bier taking a last farewell look at "Pap" before the man in black had covered up his face from their view forever; and he would have seen John, in all the freshness and beauty of young manhood, a consoling support to his only child that shed a tear. Still more, he would have seen that exaggerated piece of humanity, Peter Dieman, in all his implacable hatred for him, sitting in one corner, listening with exhultation to the droning voice of the minister saying the ritual words and singing "Rock of Ages." Solemnly went the funeral cortege through the crowded thoroughfares bearing him away; and as the people looked with awe on his passing, remembering, perhaps, that they would take the same long ride some day, little did they reck how he lived and how he died. To Homewood, a pretty decent place, they bore him, and put him beneath the ground, with the skeltering winds singing his funeral dirge. Above his grave Star and John placed a tombstone, with, "Our Father, William Barton; born Friday, December 13, 1861; died Friday, December 13, 1907," as the only legend. No virtues had he to be recorded, like those of the Honorable Board of Authorities. But he was gone--finally gone--out of the turmoil of this world. * * * * * Peter Dieman again sat in his little black office in The Die, smoking his scandalous pipe, rubbing his red hands, and squinting his piggish eyes; and giving vent occasionally to devlish outbursts of perfect satisfaction. Nothing consumed his mind so much at present as the reflection over his victory--his victory over Billy Barton, the worthless drunkard. In his youth Peter went into the contest with Billy for the hand of Kate Jarney, a cousin of Hiram Jarney. Kate, being young and ignorant, selected the most prepossessing face, and took up her lot with that face, and all the horrors that accompanied it. Peter being of a revengeful nature, took up his life alone, a disappointed man, and sought to drown his sorrows in the role of Chief Ward Heeler. Peter was not such a bad man in his younger days, but remorse over his unrequitted love drove him to diabolical things. Hence his attitude toward all mankind. For twenty years, almost, he was cross, crabbed and oppressive; and the wonder is how he maintained his power in his invidious treatment of his henchmen and his superiors. But this may be explained by his one saving grace of knowing how to string the "ropes" for the system--Graft--without breaking any of them, and screening the arch conspirators; for which he was amply rewarded. For twenty years, almost, he lived like a bear, spending his days in his black shop, and his nights in a shabby room above, like a miser--always with an irreconcilable fury burning beneath his hairy breast. For twenty years, almost, he brooded while he amassed a fortune, which gave him but the one comfort that the "some day" might bring. And his day had come at last. Thus, as he sat in his office smoking and rubbing, the old light came back to him; and he was not slow to act. Leaving the shop in the care of the new clerk (Eli Jerey being yet indisposed) he went out. Finding a purveyor of "houses for sale," he traveled the circuitous rounds with that individual in search of a satisfying heap of stone and mortar. Selecting one of approved style and with the requisite number of rooms, in the rich men's district of the East End, he purchased. Then, fitting it up with all the dazzle that money could buy, he installed therein the entire Barton family, with one exception, of course; and ere the month was out, so little was his compunction as to propriety, he made the withered love of his youth his wife. And the gods caused him to smile, at last. So affecting was this piece of news on Eli Jerey's mind that he forthwith began to arouse himself from his convalescing lethargy; and by another fortnight was down at his old post, with the same cadavorous look in his face, and the same slavish notions in his head. Since Peter had left his office: which he did immediately after his marriage: that little black hole stood silent, smokeless, with the accumulated filth of years still clinging to it. The little peephole was there, now with no wolfish eyes behind to peer through it, but still a source of much anxiety to Eli, who, so strong was the force of habit in him, even after he knew his master was gone, looked suspiciously at it ever and anon, as if it itself would turn into green eyes and knock him down by their stare, as those without the secret password had often done before. Otherwise, Eli had peace of soul, since that irritable old curmudgeon had surprised him into getting well. Being faithful to his trust, he could not do different than he did; and it is well for him. For after Peter had returned from his long-delayed honeymoon, he came to the office only as a visitor. So magnanimous was he now, in his rejuvenated character, that he turned the junk shop and all his business over to Eli, to be managed as he willed. But this change in proprietorship in nowise took from the place the name it had acquired, nor from it the honor of being the repository of all the secrets of the System built up around it, with no apparent connection. So, instead of Peter being in his den, curled up like a stoat, he delegated, after awhile, to Eli the perfunctory duties of receiving and transmitting messages between himself and the henchmen, with Eli ensconced in the black office. One day after taking up his incumbency therein, Eli received a call from Welty Morne. "Where is Peter?" asked Welty, as he softly entered the sacred precinct of The Die, unawares to Eli. Remembering his encounter with that young gentleman, Eli bustled up like a porcupine on the approach of an enemy, forgetting that he was to let by-gone be by-gones, and serve his master in a new role. "Gone," answered Eli, boldly; "I'm boss here. What will you have?" "Where's he gone?" asked Welty, a little ruffled. "He's quit these quarters for good," answered Eli. "Wonder he wouldn't let a fellow know such things," said Welty. "I'm his messenger; what can I do for you?" "You! I hope not to that extent!" "Yes; me--to that extent," retorted Eli. "Well;" and Welty studied a few moments; then continued: "Convey to him that Monroe wants to get in communication with him at once." "I will do it," responded Eli. Whereat, Eli descended into the darkness of his private phone booth, remained a few minutes, and returned, with the information that Peter would see him that evening at eight o'clock at the "Bartonage," as he called his new residence. "Very well," said Welty, leaving in a sulky temper. At the hour of eight p. m., Peter was sitting at his home in all his pomp and grandeur, when the starched smile of Monroe irradially floated in upon his complacency in an hitherto unknown expansiveness. "You old tout," said Monroe feelingly; "you surprise us all by your new stunt." When Peter laughed, which he did now sometimes, he was the picture of a crying calf, if the simile is permissible; so when he broke his face into one of his cunning signs of mirth, Monroe could not but help feeling amused himself, and accordingly split his barren face up into waves of noncommittal wrinkles. "Ho, ho, ha, ha," cried Peter, forgetting now to rub his hands, and instead slapped his fat hand on his fat leg; "you old batches will have to fall in line. Look! and see how glorious it all is, Monroe; and to think that I have missed it all these twenty years! Ho, ho, ha, ha, he, he; you ought to try it, Monroe, and get those crimps out of your face!" Peter laughed at this jolly till tears ran down his cheeks. "Why, I should think you were happy, Peter, the way you are going on about it," said Monroe, gloomily. "Yes; try it, Monroe; you can get some one; can't you?" said Peter, with an extra bang on his fat leg as an extra emphasis to his seriousness. "I've never met my Fate--that is, no Fate that would care to take me," he remarked, with the smile gone. "How about Jarney's girl?" asked Peter, in a confidential tone. "That young chap, Winthrope, seems to have the way to her door all to himself," responded the gloomy one. "Who did you say?" "Winthrope." "I told you to get him out of the way." "Well?" "Well?" "He can't be got out so easy," cried Monroe, with asperity. "He's an immovable, unapproachable, indefinable young cuss, who can't be inveigled." "Have you given it up?" "Oh, not yet." "What you leading up to now?" asked Peter. "To have the boss send him to the New York office." "Will he send him?" "He may." "Say," said Peter, whisperingly, with an idea, "get him in the bribing line, and then let him drop." "He's beyond that," said the undaunted Monroe. "We are going to send him to New York; give him authority to handle money, and lay our net to catch him. This can be done. We will work it so slick, with Bate Yenger as his assistant, that he can't crawl out; and we'll keep the money for our trouble." "Good!" said Peter, forgetting himself and rubbing this time. "Go on?" "That's all." "Humph;" ejaculated Peter. "You are a genuine dough-god!" "You bear!" scowled Monroe--that is, he tried to scowl. "You unplastic scoundrel," shouted Peter, turning on him, "if you don't get him out of the way, and get that girl, I'll get your job away from you!" "Oh, no more of your jollying," said the putty-faced Monroe; "get down to business. How much do I get out of the swag I get with the girl?" "Half," replied Peter. "Well, it's worth trying for," said Monroe. "Say, by the by, Monroe; I received this today from Europe. Read it," said Peter, handing Monroe a letter, which had the following P. S. at the end: "I have lost fifteen at Monte Carlo; send ten, or I will return at once. (Signed) J. D." "Does he mean fifteen thousand and ten thousand?" asked Monroe. "He does." "What will you do?" "Send for Jacob Cobb." "What will he do?" "Furnish the money, of course." "Jim Dalls is bleeding you for all the game is worth," said Monroe. "We can do nothing else till we cease bleeding other people." "You are plain about it, Peter." "I am always plain, Monroe." "Have you seen Cobb lately?" asked Monroe. "Yesterday." "How're things coming?" "They're coming for the present," answered Peter. "Don't you think I need them coming to keep up this establishment when I am fully in the swim?" "You probably do, Peter. I will run opposition to you when I get what's coming to me." "Be sure you don't get into the Pen, Monroe," said Peter, looking up sidewise at Monroe, with a strange meaning in his eyes. "And you?" asked Monroe. "Oh, they can't get me; too much pull with the--" Just then a howling brat, in silks and satins, came tearing into the room, riding a brass curtain pole as his "horse." On seeing a stranger, the youngster promptly made a flail out of the said curtain pole, and began to belabor Peter over the head with such effectiveness that Peter caught the child by the seat of his breeches, and hurled him blubbering into a corner. "I thought you enjoyed your new existence," humorously remarked the staid Monroe. "I do," answered the angered Peter, with a "humph." "Well, if that is an example of what married life is, I don't think I want any of it in mine," said Monroe, with some dejection in the curl of his lips. "Don't be so easily discouraged, Monroe; I've got ten like that one, on whom I spend my time in reforming." "Oh, Lordy!" exclaimed the placid Monroe. "Yes; it is Lordy sometimes, you would think, if you were here when they are all in." "Why, I'd soon be in an asylum," said Monroe, despairingly. "Say, Monroe, I've put Eli Jerey in my office," said Peter, changing the subject. "He deserves promotion, no doubt; can he be trusted?" "None more so; that's why I put him there. I'll give him the store when we pull off the next big deal." "Will she go through?" asked Monroe. "She will." "How much?" "One hundred thousand; then I'll quit." "And we poor devils will have to take the crumbs," said the disheartened Monroe. "Every one is paid according to his services," said Peter, in reply. "Get Winthrope out of the way, get the girl, and you'll have yours." Monroe departed, feeling better. CHAPTER XIX. WHILE THE FATHER WORRIES, MONROE SCHEMES AND CELEBRATES. "Mr. Winthrope," said Mr. Jarney, abstractedly, pacing his office floor, with his hands behind his back, and his head bowed in commiseration, "my daughter is getting no better--no better." John made no reply, feeling that no reply should be made at that time, while the father was worrying so; for in that same moment he was moved himself beyond the efficacy of a consoling word. The garish light of the burning incandescents, in that late afternoon, was tantalizing and unbearable. The pictures on the wall stared down like taunting ghosts; the green-hued carpet and the reflect glimmer of the polished furniture seemed to reproach them for any sense of alleviation either might feel. The busy sound, the clamor, the roar and rumble of the streets was a hideous nightmare dinning in their ears. The heavy pall of smoke that heaved and rolled over the house-tops, infiltrating in its aqueous touch, was a magnet of melancholy. Mr. Jarney stood by the window and looked out upon the flat-roofed buildings sitting below. He wondered if all the life therein and thereabout was so torn with dread expectation as his own; or whether any of them thought of life at all; or of the past, or of the present, or of the future. All his years he had had no inflictions, no sorrows, no troubles to set his latent sentimentality into ebullition. He had gone through the mill of business always prospering, always successful, always a leader, without a counteractive element to his iron will. He had gone through his wedded period with a love for his wife, his child and his home, that was unsurpassable, believing that no untoward thing could ever happen to disturb the tranquility of his perfect life. He believed that God had blessed him in this respect alone, to the exclusion of other men. But now the blasting hand of Fate, he felt, was turned upon him; and he had no peace while his child lay ill near unto death. Back and forth he walked his office floor, in his anguish, fretfully silent, and deeply feeling for every one who might have a similar burden to bear. Coming to a stop by John's chair, he gazed down at his secretary, with a fixedness that caused John to have pity for his master. "Mr. Winthrope," he said, "if she dies, my grief will be irreconcilable. The doctors say there is no hope." "No hope?" faltered John. "No hope," and the father sat down and cried. Tears of sympathy came into John's eyes. Under the trying situation, he could not control his emotions. The breaking down of that strong man was more than he could stand, and he arose and walked across the room to a window, where he stopped for some time looking out, contending with his own passion. Then he returned to his chair, where he stood in an undecided frame of mind as to what to say. "Mr. Jarney, you have my full sympathy," he said, about as expressive as he could say it, without unburdening his own heart's secret. "Mr. Winthrope," he replied, turning to John, "it may seem weak in me giving way so easily; but you do not know, you cannot know what a father suffers in such extremities--no man can know, if he has a heart, unless he goes through it as I have these past few weeks. With all my worldly ambitions, I have willingly permitted my whole being to be infolded by her being, till no other thought so dominated me. She was such a lovable child, so good, so kind, so generous, so unlike any one else I ever saw, that my fatherly soul rebelled at the thought that anything would ever happen to tarnish her name, or that of my own. Of these things I was very careful that they did not come to pass. I have brought her up and educated her, with the one purpose, that she would be my one consolation in my declining years. And I intend, if she lives, that all I have shall be hers; and I know that she will give no cause for me to ever regret, like so many of the daughters of the rich do. I am rich, Mr. Winthrope, very rich; but I will give all I have, if that would save her for me, and would face the world anew without a dollar. Oh, you do not know--nobody can know what my anguish is!" "Mr. Jarney, I realize what it might be," said John. "I had hopes that when she came out of the trance the first time the crisis had passed," he went on. "She did improve for a few days; but suddenly she took a relapse and began to weaken, and weaken day by day, and now I fear for the worst. She is of my own flesh and blood--oh, God, I cannot bear it--yes--I must bear it. But in bearing it, what have I as a compensation? Money is nothing; home is nothing; life is nothing, without some one like her depending on you. A child might be ever so bad, but still a parent's love goes out to it, in all its misfortunes and shortcomings. But to have a child like her is not given to every man, and the parent of such a child should be doubly blessed. I know that I am selfish in these views. I know that other parents will differ with me in what I say as to my child being the best; but no one can say that I am wrong did they but know her. I do not know what I shall do, if she is taken from me--I do not know. I am already losing interest in things." "Mr. Jarney," said John, after he had ceased, "I hope the doctors' conclusions are wrong, and that your expectations will not come to pass. I believe that she will recover; I have believed it all through her trial; but I may be mistaken." "I hope you are not mistaken, Mr. Winthrope," he replied. "I hope I am. I have never hoped before that I might be mistaken, and I hope I shall not be disappointed this time." Mr. Jarney then took up his accumulation of letters, that had not been attended to for three days, and began dictating answers. He was so overcome by anxiety, dread and fear, that he had great difficulty in composing himself sufficiently to go through them all. Some he answered with a line, where a whole page would have been necessary before. Many he did not answer at all, being indifferent as to what became of them. He was nervous, agitated, and careless. After he had finished, although not very satisfactorily to John, who had been used to his methodical handling of his correspondence, and after John began to prepare to depart, he turned to him and said: "Mr. Winthrope, I am thinking of promoting you; would you like to go to New York?" "I should not care to leave you, Mr. Jarney, so agreeable have my connections been in this office; but if you desire me to make a change, and if I am capable, I shall go wherever I am sent," said John. "An assistant treasurer is wanted for the New York office; how would you like that?" "Well, Mr. Jarney, this comes as a greater surprise than when you gave me this position; but, however, I shall accept, if it is the wish of my superiors." "They want a man immediately for the place; but--I do not want to see you go away yet, though I want to see you get the place. You are capable, and deserving of it." "I would rather remain here; but if I am to go higher, I suppose I should go at once to wherever I am to go." "Another thing, Mr. Winthrope; you should not go while my daughter continues ill. Or--or--No, you shall remain here till she recovers. Some one else can fill the place till that time comes. It may seem strange for me to say so, her recovery may depend upon you remaining. It is only an hallucination of her mind, I know; but if her seeing you will do any good, I shall not forget it." "Do you believe it is an hallucination?" asked John. "Can be nothing else," he replied, gravely and reflectively. "You were the last one whom she saw and talked with while in her rational mind. The doctors say this is invariably true in all such cases--the impression of that person is indelibly left on the mind of the one afflicted, and remains there till recovery." "But Miss Barton was there also," returned John, in disputation of his theory. "That is true; but Miss Barton is with her all the time," he replied, as an argumentative fact. "It may be," said John, in a deeper quandary than ever. "Then I am to remain here?" "Yes--till her recovery, or--Be ready to go home with me an hour later today--five o'clock," said Mr. Jarney, as John left him. In the meantime, while the confidential conversation was going on between master and secretary, Miram Monroe sat in his office scheming against his employer, against the secretary, and against the sick young woman, whose knowledge of things worldly was now a blank. It is always true of men of limited ability that they aim far above the possible. Monroe, with his microscopic smile this day stretched almost into a cynical grin, so satisfied was he with his genius, was perusing page after page of complicated figures. He was doing this mechanically, though, or otherwise he could not have O K'd them, being as he was in such a ruminating turn, with his mind set on other things so much dearer to his undefiling heart. Who was possessed with his special inborn faculty, qualifying him for his employment? Who had such a special disposition to accomplish what he purposed? Who had such a presiding genius for good or evil over the destiny of other men? Why, Miram Monroe--Mr. Monroe, if you please. He rang a bell. Welty Morne stepped within, and closed the door behind him, meeting his superior with a superior smile to that of the rigid face. "Welty," said Monroe, with the solemnity of a gray goose, "I have seen the boss of the Board of Directors." "Well?" "They have decided, he tells me, to create the office of assistant treasurer in the New York branch." "No!" "Yes," without a crow's foot. "Good, old boy; we must celebrate it tonight," said Welty, in a whisper. "And the young chap goes." "No!" "Yes," without a wrinkle. "We must celebrate that tomorrow night--When?" "At once," without a crack. "Bully! We must celebrate that the next night--Who?" "You," without a wink. "No!" "Yes," without a twinkle. "Whee! We'll celebrate that the next night--Where?" "At the Bottomless Pit," with a microscopic smile. "Be at my room at nine p. m." "With joy, old boy; I'll be with you! Hah, you're no two-spot!" With this Welty expired, almost, over his good feelings that his promotion brought over him. The bell rang again. In came Bate Yenger, with a crimped smile on his stale face. "Bate, do you want Welty's place?" asked the marble idol. "Want it?" exclaimed the idolizing Bate. "Can I get it? or are you buffooning?" "You have it, Bate," without a twitch. "When?" asked the anxious Bate. "Soon," without a quiver. "Shall we celebrate?" asked Bate. "We will," with a smack. "Where?" "At the Bottomless Pit," with a feathered smile. "Be at my room at nine p. m." "Bully!" With this Bate also expired--with joy over his air castles. Accordingly, at nine p. m., the trio met in rooms Nos. 4-11-44 in the St. Charles hotel, a hostelry of good repute where men of disrepute would sometimes get through the cordon of morality that was strung around it. Monroe had a suite of three rooms, as became a man of quality, as he was, with no disparagement of the "quality." These quarters were furnished, of course, in such magnificence that contrast between the riches of the room and the nature of the man was like the temperate and the frigid zones. His bed room was in white enamel, with cream-colored carpet, a frail white iron bed-stead, with dainty white materials on it. Why the combination? It was that he, when he donned his white night gown, imagined he would be in a little heaven of his own, during his nocturnal sojournings into Dreamland--the only heaven he ever would be enabled to approach, perhaps. He had a lounging room fitted up in gray, in which he lounged during his hours of rest, and in which he received his friends. The other room he called the Bottomless Pit--not that it was bottomless, nor that it was a pit, in the strict sense, but that here was where he refreshed himself and entertained. It was done in dark-brown, probably in commemoration of that old jest, "dark-brown taste the morning after." Welty and Bate had been there before, so they needed no formal reception to cause them to make themselves at home. So repairing to the Pit, a spread was in waiting. The bill-of-fare (ach, god in himmel, it should be menu) was mushrooms on toast, frogs' legs in butter, calves' brains in cracker meal, squabs in stew, oysters in whisky, rolls in brown, butter in squares, sugar in cubes, coffee in percolator, pickles in acetics, cheese in limburger, nuts in hull, desserts in bottle, and cigars in box. All this in honor of Monroe's erudition as a manipulator of things clandestine in his attempt at circumvention of a certain favored young man. When they sat down at the table, which was just big enough for three to hear each other across with loud talk, with the load of savory things in china, garnished by genuine sterling, upon it, they were all very hungry, and besides very thirsty. "Gentlemen," said the stiffness, rising, without a break in his metallic visage, the others rising with him, "gentlemen, a toast to the lady; may the good Lord preserve her." "The lady! the lady!" cried the two Monroe dupes in unison. "And to Welty and Bate; may they ever prosper in their new jobs," he continued. "Hah, too conscientiously modest to toast yourselves, are you?--take water, you kids." This last remark was made by him when he saw that Welty and Bate hesitated about toasting themselves. However, they toasted. Thus they toasted, and they gabbled, and they ate, till all the viands had vanished, and nothing was left upon the board but the smeared platters. Then to the bottles they betook themselves with a wild and merry gusto. Monroe pulled the corks, and poured. He drank, and they drank. He smoked, and they smoked, till the air was a blue haze of whirling objects, only to be dispelled by the dark-brown in the morning. Once, during a fit of eructation, Monroe thought he would surely die, and got ready to make his will. "Write it out, Welty," he commanded, in a severe maudlin tone; "and write it out so that She shall get it all, with a codicil that you and Bate are to get one-third of what is left, after I am gone. Whoop! Woe me! Woe me!" he wailed, with his face like that of a gargoyle. "Write it out before I die," he said, as he went staggering against a wall, falling over a chair, crushing down a rocker, flailing his hands like bat's wings, as he retched and perambulated through the Pit. "Give me a pen first, and paper; I can't write (hic) with my fingers like a chink," said the hysterical Welty--hysterical in mirth only over the wild effusions of Monroe. "I'll write it; I'll write it, if I have to use my toes, if you get me the ink, or tar, or something else that is black--only get it; get it!" weeped the disconsolate Bate, who at that moment had a fearsome feeling that his friend Monroe would die before the act was done, lolling his head the while over the back of his chair, as if that part of his anatomy was too loose ever to be set back to its normality. At this outburst of Bate, Monroe plunged forward through the door of the Pit to the gray room, and to his secretary, from which he withdrew everything before he found the ink, the pen and the paper. Returning with these articles, Welty wrote the will in such hiroglyphic chirography that a Greely himself could not make it out. But it was writ, and signed, and sealed in due form. Welty in his hilarity did not lose sight of its import, and put it away in a secret pocket, for future use should the occasion ever demand it. He then shouldered Monroe into his downy bed, in full dress, with "Woe me! Woe me!" escaping in a groan from his unsmiling lips. Then Welty took the inebriated Bate, in the completeness of debauch, and rolled him, shoes and all, into that otherwise spotless couch. Then, before he should completely lose the balance of his own muddled reason, he also tumbled into Monroe's heaven, leaving the dark-brown room to clarify itself of their revelings. And amid the stillness of the lights, all left burning brightly, they went sailing into the land of ethereal asphyxia, to await the hour of the "dark-brown taste" to bring them back to the time of remorse, and its painful complications. CHAPTER XX. WHAT THE SPRINGTIME BROUGHT FORTH. Christmas had come and gone; New Years was here, and passing, and Edith still lay upon her bed. Her face was thin and wan and spiritless. Her form had wasted away till she was almost as a skeleton. Her little hands were fleshless and cold, and her eyes were dull. The malady was in her brain yet, refusing to lift its anchorage, although she saw and recognized everybody permitted in her sight. John came and went every day, in the late afternoons; and every day he came with the same perplexed feelings. The "good byes" rang in his ears, growing weaker and weaker in their timbreling, from morning unto night--following him everywhere, till he was near crazed himself, in his helplessness, for the sweet one that breathed the "good byes" in his ears. He went up and down and in and out the pathways of his small world, and got no comfort in anything, save what consolation there was in his work, which was meagre now in the sadness of his love-making. As he would sit by the bed holding her hand in his, tears would roll down his cheeks. She would lie so still, so beautifully transcendent in her weakness, looking at him, and speak so low and so trembling that he could scarce make out her words. Oftentimes he would kneel down and pray for her deliverance from the scourge that lay upon her. Sometimes the sun would break through the clouds and smoke, in its setting, and throw its transient rays upon her face, and he would take it as a good omen; but most often the days were dark, and the light was sombre, like his spirits. Sometimes he would sit by the window, while she slept, watching the snow driving by in its purity, and his mind would revert to the sleeper, whose purity was whiter than the snow. Day after day, he would come full of hope, and depart full of fear; for she was growing worse; and all the inmates of that mansion were in despair. Would she die before she waked? they all would question in their looks, looking at her in her sleep. Would she ever reach the crisis again that once before had given joy? or would she linger on, and finally pass away, without a murmur, like a child? No one could tell--no one could tell! Still she lingered on, bravely refusing to give up her fluttering spirit. Sometimes she would brighten up, and talk with Star on her only theme--John--and then relapse into comatose. Often she would ask for him, when he was away, as if he were gone forever, and when he would come would only look, with a faint smile of satisfaction in her face. Sometimes she would raise her hand, and lay it on his, as if she wished to express her love, but could not. "I am so weak--so weak," was her constant plaint, as if weary of the fight she was making. Whenever John was ready to depart, she roused herself to the saying of "Good bye, good bye," and then sleep. O, what are the pains one must endure, in this life, to keep it going! Through the days and through the weeks this continued, without an indication that there was any chance. Through the weeks and through the months, the Reaper, with his Scythe, sat outside her chamber door--waiting, waiting; and the angels appeared to hover over her--waiting, waiting--to transport her to their own abode, where she seemed more fittingly to belong. But he, nor they, never entered that chamber door. For the coming of the birds and the budding of the trees was the magic cure. Her eyes opened up, like a startled violet, in the springtime, as if she had slept, like the violet, through the winter season. The wild rose lodged its colors in her cheeks, after playing with the April winds, and the spirit of the new life overwhelmed her. The little skeleton that she had been for months was transformed into a vitalized being. As she once was, she was again, only more lovely, with the effects of a lingering illness still in its subduing tones. Sitting by the window, when the birds were singing in the park about her home, she was dreaming of the new world that was opened to her view. It was not the singing birds alone, nor the budding trees, nor the greening grass, nor the blooming cowslips or jonquils that she saw outside rejoicing at the turn of the season, that made her heart rejoice; neither was it returning health alone that brought the glint of the diamond in her eyes, the pulsing flush upon her cheeks, the happier smile to her lips, the sweeter tone to her voice. It was--it was--it was that Love that lights the Soul, and causes even smoke and grime to be dancing gems and pearls. Sitting by the window, she was dreaming of him, who had gone, and who had said he would return--some day--some day. Oh, that some day is what makes the heart so sore, at the parting; for it is an indefinite time of chance, but still a solace to the craving heart. Edith was dreaming of the last words that John had said before he went away, "May I come to see you some day, now that you are getting well." They kept ringing in her ears as a pleading hope, as "good bye, good bye," still was ringing in his. She was thinking of what she had said, as he was going, "You may come, you may come--yes--yes, you may come," as she still was lying on her bed. And now, in this time of her day-dreaming, she hoped that he had not gone. In dreaming back over the oblivious days, she remembered faintly that he came to her somewhere. Was it in this world that she saw him all the time? or had it been in some other that she saw him? or was it a mere illusion, after all? and he had come at last only to say farewell, as a duty. No; she saw him every day through the long silence of her sleep. It was he; it must have been; and did he know, or think, or believe, that she loved him? He must have known it, she kept dreaming, if that were he that she saw every day. And would he return to meet her love in that Some Day. He would, she kept dreaming; he would. Sitting by the window, on this the first day of her convalescing period, she saw the smoke and fog roll by; she saw the sun warming everything into life, as the time was stirring her into a loving being again. Star was sitting by her side holding one hand in hers, with faith and hope in her own dear heart. "You are getting well so fast, dear Edith," said Star, patting her delicate hand. "I feel new all over, dear Star," said Edith, smiling down upon her dearest friend. "Everything is so bright and so charming outside today, it seems it was made just for me in my recovery. How I wish I could go out upon the lawn and pluck the flowers, and listen to the birds, and even sing myself." "You may go some day, dear Edith; you may go, and I will be the first to go and lead you the way," replied the constant Star. "Oh, Star! that some day, some day, always keeps ringing in my ears--I hope it will come," said Edith, with a tear of regret coming down her brightening cheek. "Do not be despondent, dear," said Star, brushing away Edith's tears. "I am not despondent, dear," said Edith; "I am happy." "I thought tears were shed in sorrow, Edith," responded Star, in her innocence. "I have had no sorrow, dear. My life has been one of happiness; and when I am most happy, I shed tears, sometimes," said Edith. "Oh, Edith, I know," said Star, with a mischievous look. "Does he know?" asked Edith, putting her arm around the neck of her friend. "He must know," answered Star, seriously. "Tell me all about it, Star--all?" said Edith. "Since you first took ill?" asked Star. "Everything--I want to know," said Edith. "My, Edith! he did so many things, that it might make you blush, did I tell you," said Star, laughing. "Why! what did he do?" asked Edith, with an inkling that she had not been dreaming all the time. "Do? Why, Edith! the first thing he did, was to put his arm around you in the cab coming home that night," began Star. "Why, my faithful Star! Did you permit him to do that?" asked Edith, appearing to be repellent in her tone. "He couldn't help it, dear; you was as limp as a rag, and he had to hold you up. When we got home, he picked you up, and carried you into this very room, and laid you on your bed." "My! oh, my, Star! he didn't do that, did he?" exclaimed Edith. "How dreadful!" "It couldn't be helped," replied the sympathetic Star, as her only explanation. "Now, I am real mad at you, Star, for permitting such a thing. I would have been real mad at him, too--I would not have permitted it, had I been in my senses," said Edith, affecting anger. "That is the reason he did it, Edith; you couldn't help yourself; you were not in your senses," said the compromising Star. "Go on, Star," said Edith, seeing that Star was hesitating about telling her more. "You called for him every day for a week, Edith, till--" "--I am a little goose, Star; I always knew I was; now I know it. Did he come?" "He came; and brought you back to your senses, dear." "I do now remember seeing him somewhere--sometime--I can't think, Star--where it was--what else?" said Edith, growing nervous. "He came every day, Edith--every day, after that, and sat by your bed for an hour, and held your hand--" "--now I know I am a goose for allowing such conduct--no, I am not mad, Star. Did he do that?" "--and he knelt down and prayed for you, every day, almost, Edith." "God bless him!" said Edith, as the tears came to her eyes. "--and you talked to him, Edith, sometimes, and always asked him to come again--" "--I must have been out of my head." "Don't you remember it, Edith--any of it, at all?" "I have a faint recollection of something, which I cannot clearly make out--I know--I know, Star. It has possessed me ever since I saw him--I am not provoked at anything he did, Star." "But, Edith; Edith, listen," said Star, in an admonishing tone; "he came as a matter of duty, believing it was an hallucination of yours." "He will forgive me, then," returned Edith, with calm resignation, "if I did or said anything unbecoming a lady, who--who--oh, Star, I cannot believe that I did anything wrong, do you? If he never knows, I will keep my secret, and you will help me in my troubled heart, will you not, dear?" "He loves you, Edith." "Dear Star," said Edith, as she threw both arms around her friend's neck; "does he? Does he? Are you sure?" "I am sure, Edith," said Star, kissing Edith. "He told me as much." "That was not kind in him; he should tell me first," said Edith, pensively. "But he told me not to tell," replied Star, regretfully; "and he said he never expected to claim your hand--" "Why? My riches will not be in the way," she said, as she began to cry. "That is why, Edith," said Star, consolingly. "He said he could not hope to meet you on the same level--" "Money!" exclaimed Edith. "Money," replied Star, very low; "he hasn't any." "That is why I love him, Star; and because he is better than any man I have ever seen, except, perhaps, my father. This is one of the greatest troubles the daughters of the rich have--the finding of a good young man among them; and the good young men who are poor are too self-conscious to seek us." "But he has asked to come again, Edith," said Star, hopefully. "Some day--some day," sighed Edith, looking out the window. Then: "I wish I had never seen--no, no; that is not what I mean. Had I never seen him, I would not have this pain, the pain of uncertainty, in my heart. Awhile ago I was very happy; but now I feel like lying down in the bed again, and remaining there till--oh, I wish he would come, and I--no, I could not do that; he must find it out, if he is ever to know. I will get well first, Star, and then we will take up the work, Star, I had planned before I became ill; and work to do some good in the world. I am feeling very weak, Star. This has been too much for me; will you assist me to my bed. Oh, Star, I am sorry--sorry for it all. You do not know, dear Star. You will not know till some good man comes along and strikes a responsive chord in your heart--you will not know, Star, till then. Help me to bed, and let me rest." Sitting by her bedside, Star heard, for the first time, the story that Edith promised to tell her that day when she first came into Edith's life. After lying down, Edith was more calm, and was still in the mood to continue her confidential talk with Star. "Star, do you know that you are my cousin?" asked Edith. "Cousin!" exclaimed Star, as if she did not understand. "Yes, Star; cousin! Your mother is a first cousin to my father; but I never knew it till about the time I sent for you." Star leant over and kissed Edith, and drew her face up till their cheeks touched. "Edith," whispered Star, "you are an angel," and then released her, and assumed a kneeling position, while Edith continued: "I saw you one day, Star, when I was with my father on a mission of mercy in the poor districts of the South Side. When first I saw you, you were on your knees scrubbing the floor--at that place where you worked. I saw your face, and fell in love with you as soon as I saw you, for I knew that you were good. I told papa that it was a pity for a beautiful girl like you to be doing that kind of drudgery, when he said that we could, perhaps, get you a better place. We asked you your name, if you remember--" "I remember," said Star. "--and when you said it was Star Barton, papa gave such a turn to his countenance that I thought it meant something that he had concealed from us at home. So when we came home I asked him what he meant, and he told me then who you were; and he told me who your father and mother were; and how they, when young, ran away from home and were married. I sent my maid, Sarah Devore, to search you out, telling her who you were, and have you come to this place in search of a position as a domestic, for fear that if I told you the truth you would be too proud to work for your rich relations. You came, as you know how, and when I saw you again, I fell in love with you. First, I wanted you to be my maid; but my pride of you was too great to make you anything but my equal in this house. So you see, instead of being my maid, you have been my faithful companion--and nurse. Dear Star, I love you, and if you will always remain with me, I shall be the happiest person on earth." "Dear Edith," said Star, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, "I knew you were good when first I beheld you; but I never knew that such goodness could be in any kinsman of mine. I never told you of the life I lived; I never told you how we lived at home; I never told you of my father or my mother. For it always gave me grief to think of it. Poor father is dead!" "Dead!" said Edith. "Yes; died last December; and my mother has married Peter Dieman, who courted her--" "Dieman!" "Yes; the junkman. They live in one of the finest places in the East End. I am sorry, very sorry, that my father died, as he was the only father I shall ever know; but I am glad that my mother has married again. When you get well, I shall take you out to see her, and you can see how she now lives. I never was ashamed of my parents, Edith, never. I did all I could for them, in my simple way, and would do it again, if called upon to do it. After you took ill, I carried out your wish, and, with Mr. Winthrope, went to our home and fitted it out decently for my mother and the children. My mother was always sad and brooded over her troubles, and had no heart for anything. Poor mother! I am glad that she has married again." Star cried in remembrance of it all; for her heart was good. Even dear Edith could not help but shed a tear. And they sobbed on each other's breast over sorrows that had passed. Then, brushing away their tears, and laughing over their tender-heartedness, they resumed their talk. "Edith," said Star, "I must confess that I marveled at your actions. I could not resist you, though. I cannot see how anybody can. It seemed strange to me that any one so good and rich as you should light upon me, and make me your companion. Yes, I marveled at it. Now, I know it is not strange. I love you, dear Edith, and shall never leave you, unless--" "Unless what?" asked Edith, smiling. "--he should come to claim you." "He shall never know from me, dear Star; that would not be womanly--why, yes, you dear, you had to go and tell him. But will he ever see the true light burning--burning for him?" "He shall, if I ever see him again; or I shall write," said Star, teasingly, still with her eyes red from crying over recollections. "You must not, Star; I could not forgive you--oh, yes, Star, I would forgive you anything--but not that," said Edith, concealing and revealing her true feelings at the same time. "What do you think papa would say, if he knew my love for him?" asked Edith. "Oh, I dread the time he hears of it! And my mamma? but she will be with me, I know, for she has told me that she likes him." "She suspects something of the kind, Edith," said Star. "She asked you once just after Mr. Winthrope was here the first time; but she did not pursue the question. She believes it now." "Star, I shall get well; that is my first duty, now that I am this far on toward recovery. I shall get well, Star, and you and I shall go--go--go--" "Where. Edith?" asked Star, seeing her hesitancy in saying what she wanted to reveal. "--to do missionary work among the poor." True love comes but once in life to the pure in heart. Were we all as pure in heart as Edith, mankind's tribulations might be less irksome. CHAPTER XXI. MONROE AND COBB VISIT PETER DIEMAN'S HOME TOGETHER. Peter Dieman sat in his high-backed leather-cushioned chair smoking a black cigar, surrounded with all the ease and sumptuousness of a successfully domesticated gentleman. As he smoked his favorite weed, the circumambient gray was as a smudge in the midst of a fruiting orange grove. And above it all, he smelled like one who had been soused in aromatic oils. A pair of satin-embroidered slippers encased his broad flat feet; a red skull-cap, with a maroon tassel on top of it, bore down upon his rufous head of hair; a purple-flowered mandarin-like robe enfolded his pudgy body. The hairsuite appendage that had gone neglected for years, had been unceremoniously removed from his chin; a yellow stubby moustache, closely cropped, hung above his lips like clipped porcupine quills, and a new set of hand-made teeth filled his sprawling mouth. The rubicundity of his face might have been taken as a danger sign on a dark night, with his green-gray eyes lighted up as a companion signal. A masseur had rubbed the scowl of years and the hate of time out of his face, till its rotundity was equaled only by the full moon recovering from a case of the dumps. So, all that were necessary to complete his personification of Old King Cole were the long-stemmed pipe and the serrated crown. While the latter would not have been essential to the enhancement of his kingly appearance, it might have been a fitting part toward the completion of his princely makeup. Thus he sat and thus he looked in his spectacular pomp of power--a sub-king of the grafters--since he went into the soul-quieting business of matrimony. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was let into his presence. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Jacob Cobb, the ring-master, was ushered in--one following the other. Would the visitors smoke? asked His Majesty. Yes, the visitors would smoke, as a favor to this potentate. And they smoked, and they smoked till they filled the air so full of toxic fumes that the fair king was almost obscured by the baleful haze. "Before we get down to business, gentlemen," said Peter, in all his suavity of new refinement, as he slapped his fat right leg with his heavy right hand, and scratched his head behind the ear with his left, "I must escort you through my palace. I've got a place--" waving now his right hand above his head in indication of the building that enclosed him--"good as any man's; and I want you two old friends to see it before we get down to business. Pleasure first, gentlemen, you know; pleasure first, to me, now." "I'll be glorified to see it," said the ghost. "I'll be sanctified to see it," said the ring-master. Peter arose with kingly mien, shaking the rheumatism out of his joints and the gout out of his toes, and then swelling out his breast to a boa constrictor size after swallowing a goat, wheezing like a horse with the heaves. He led the way, with his robe dragging on the carpet, to circumnavigate the building, the ghost and the ring-master following, respectively, with the sanctimonious bearing of laymen following a high-priest. "The kiddies are out this evening attending a party, and I have all this great house to myself--" waving his right hand around like a preacher of the Word. "We will go up the stairs first." Up the stairs Peter went, the ghost next after him, looking ahead and considering fearfully what he would feel like should the king lose his balance, in mounting the steps, which he seemed likely to do constantly as he elevated himself lift after lift, so clumsily did Peter climb; and the circus-master took his time, a safe distance behind, with a sweet air of passivity in his patience over Peter's laughable pomposity. Peter led the way through brilliant halls and brilliant rooms, without a dark corner in any of them, nor even a blind closet in which to conceal the proverbial family ghost; which shadowy being, however, was not likely to seek a place of concealment in this home, since, as it happens, he had evaded all these pure pleasures of domesticity for so many years; so it would be an hazardous presumption to expect the stalker of family trouble to abide with him. "Where're you going to keep the family ghost?" asked the real ghost. "You old batch! Do you think I'd tolerate him round here?" said Peter, with connubial pride. "Cobb has a cinch on them all; eh, Cobb?" with a refreshened squint towards Cobb. "Don't be so rude, Peter, as to bring me into your argumentations with Monroe here, whose own reputation needs a little stringing up," responded Cobb. "Never mind your moralizing--show us your house," replied the ghost, without being the least irritated. When they came to the bath room, they all stepped within; and the visitors were charmed. Peter took on a new halo of beamingness as he saw how delighted his patrons were over this dream of modern bathery, with its shining fixtures and alabastine walls. "Do you bathe, Peter?" asked the ghost. "I guess, yes--every morning at eight," answered Peter, with a swell. "Humph!" responded the ghost; "and you didn't catch cold the first time?" with no attempt to be facetious. "Alcohol is a great preventative," answered Peter. "Within, or without?" asked the ghost. "Without; you mummy," retorted Peter. "You surprise me, Peter," said Cobb, as he was testing one of the faucets; "the last time I saw you, you looked as if you hadn't touched water in years." "Once a year then; once a day now; three hundred and sixty-five days in the year," said Peter, grinning. "I always believed you had some redeeming qualities," said Cobb; "but how does it come you have clean water?" he asked, holding up a glassful between his eyes and the light. "Private filter," answered the king. "That's infernal water to turn into the public trough," remarked Cobb. "I mean this, before it was filtered," pointing to the glassful still in his hand. "It's all they deserve," said the king, snapping his eyes. "When ought we to work them for a new system?" asked Cobb, emptying the glass. "Pretty decent water, this--when filtered," he observed, washing his hands. "We'll talk about water systems when we get back to business," answered the king. "Do you wash your feet in water or alcohol?" asked the ghost. "Don't get too fresh, Monroe, or I'll loosen up your face with some soap and water," with a hearty chuckle. "Oh, sometimes I forget, Peter, seeing you heretofore as a bear," as a mollifier to his allusions. "You're a corrugated donkey, Monroe," said the king, with a louder chuckle than before, rubbing his hands, this time with a towel between them. "You're a convoluted mule," returned the ghost, tapping the enameled wall with his knuckle, as a clincher to his assertion. "Here, here! You fellows are getting too personal," said Cobb, stepping forward, as if he expected trouble, so as to be ready as a queller of what he thought might lead to a melee. "Hah, ha, ha!" roared Peter, strutting out like a gallinaceous cock. "Cobb, you must pay no attention to Monroe's foolishness," as he swept theatrically along the hallway to the stairs; but still presenting the incongruous habits of a waddling duck. Monroe followed languidly, puckering his mouth into a low whistle, that might have meant more than the blowing out of good humor. With most men, whistling means the venting of a superfluity of joy; but with Monroe, it might have meant a cooling drop in his cup of anger. Cobb came lolling after them, in his usual undisturbed forbearance. Debouching into the parlor, with the stellar lights trailing, the king touched a button; presto! starlight, moonlight, sunlight, all together, in one grand aurora borealis, flashed mute darkness into palpitating day. "This is my universe," cried the king, throwing up both hands, as if he were beginning the Sermon on the Mount. "Grand!" whispered the ghost. "Grand!" said the ring-master. "Grand" cried back The Moses, The Napoleon, The Wellington, The Washington, The Roosevelt, The Pathfinder, The Man With the Hoe, The Babes in the Woods, The Doves, The Dieman, on the walls. "Grand!" echoed Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shakespeare, Milton, Poe, Irving, Longfellow, Emerson, standing about in corners and alcoves in their statuary dumbness. "Grand!" pealed the Giant Grand resting on four legs, like an exhibition slab of mahogany, in a corner. "Grand!" laughed the settees, the tete-a-tetes, the rockers, the cushions, the chairs, as if they were ready to jump up and slap the visitors on the back and seat them down. "Grand!" shouted the king. "Well, I should eat a bedbug, if you can surpass it in this old town for dazzle." And everything hung its head in mortification. "Grand!" they all said, as the king entered the dining room, with its glitter and its glimmer and its splendor and its grandeur. "Here is where I eat," he remarked, after seeing his friends dumfounded and speechless. Dumfounded? Why, of course! Speechless? Why, to be sure! Shucks! Who said the average man isn't a pompous idiot? "To business, now, gentlemen; to business," said Peter, waving his hand toward his private den, where first he was greeted in his royal robes by the genteel ghost and the ring-master. "Well?" said Peter, after seating himself in his chair of state, directing his question to Cobb. "Let Monroe speak," said Cobb. "Let Cobb speak," said Monroe. "Gentlemen, my proposition is the proposed new water system," said Cobb, venturing forth. "What about it?" "Well, what about it?" asked Peter. "Can we pull it off?" asked Cobb. "How much is there in it?" asked the generous Peter. "Couple hundred thousand," said Cobb. "Pull her off, then," decided Peter. "How much do I get out of it?" asked Monroe. "Aren't you working your little stunt for bigger game, Monroe?" asked Peter. "What new stunt you up to now?" asked Cobb, suspiciously. "That's a private matter," replied Monroe. "What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb. Then to Monroe: "Not scheming behind my back, Monroe?" "No such intention," answered Monroe. "What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb, feelingly. "Monroe, I told you to keep no secrets from Cobb," said Peter. "What is it. Peter?" asked Cobb. "Shall I tell, Monroe?" said Peter. "Dogged if I care," said the unimpressionable Monroe. "He's after Jarney's daughter and her money," said Peter, rubbing his hands on his legs, and pulling hard on a freshly lighted cigar. "Ho, that's why young Winthrope was sent to the New York office, was it?" said Cobb, carelessly. "Yes; it looked too serious seeing him going to her home every day," replied Monroe. "While I also went, sometimes, I never got a squint at her." Cobb became serious at this piece of intelligence. He thought of young Jasper Cobb, his son, as being entitled to a share of the spoils that might be obtained by an alliance with the Jarneys. He thought all plans had been laid for this catch, and all that were needed was to draw in the net and sort the fishes. He thought that, as a matter of course, there could be no failure. He never thought that his son was unfit for a young lady of the graces of Miss Jarney. He never thought children had a right to be heard in making their choice of a life partner. He never thought that Jarney should be consulted. Men of Cobb's stripe never think of the ethical side of a question. They never think of anything but money--how to get it, and how to spend it. They never think of anything, aside from getting money, but of the voluptuous side of life. And this astounding statement of Peter's, relative to Monroe's plotting, came as a cross-complaint to him. Baseless wretch is Mr. Monroe! "What're your prospects, Monroe?" asked Cobb, leaning his head far back in his chair, and blowing smoke upwards, indolently meditating over something that did not go down very well. "Good," said Monroe. "Explain?" said Cobb. "Oh; why, that's a private matter, Mr. Cobb," said Monroe, looking more uncommunicable than ever. "I must know," insisted Cobb, fidgeting in his chair, with a fine interrogative smile of assertive power. "Tell him, Monroe; tell him," said Peter, rubbing his hands, and blowing smoke like a whale spouting water. "There's nothing tangible yet," said the yielding Monroe. "Tell it, Monroe!" commanded Peter. "What is it?" asked Cobb, sarcastically. "Well; here goes. First, I am working into the good graces of the father first," said he. "When I accomplish that feat, having Winthrope out of my way, I shall press my suit for the young lady's hand. I have been to the Jarney home a great many times for dinner this winter"--he looked as if he wanted to keep the matter a secret--"and I have always found young Winthrope there. He was permitted to see her, as Mr. Jarney explained, as the result of an hallucination caused by an auto accident, and her illness following it. I never got an opportunity to see her. Of course--" he seemed to be unconcerned about her illness, so listlessly did he talk--"it would have been a delicate matter for me to have attempted to have seen her while ill; so I concluded to abide my time. Getting him away was my first scheme. This accomplished, and, she recovering as I am told, I shall take the first opportunity presented to ask her." During the recital of the above. Monroe acted more like an automatic talking machine, than a human, so inanimate was his facial expression. "Would she throw herself away on you?" asked Cobb, drawing one eyelid down as an accompaniment to a mental sneer. "Am I not as worthy as anybody else, especially Winthrope, who is poor, and has no ancestry?" said Monroe, without a rising or falling inflection in his voice. "Bully, Monroe; well said!" roared Peter, rubbing and smoking. "But you fellows forget that a woman is usually made a party to such little affairs of the heart. I've had experience, gentlemen; experience; and look at this grand house," waving his hand, with a flourish, around the maroon tassel. "That's true," assented Monroe, without a tremor. Cobb assented too, as it suited him to assent. Peter assented to his own theory, looking through his own mirror of experience. They all assented, and reassented, acquiesced, agreed, yielded--to this assertion, time after time. "Still, I have a fighting chance, like all dogs," soliloquized Monroe. "Ah, you must win," said Peter, not yet discouraged, like Monroe appeared to be; "I never lost hope." "But what did you get, Peter?" said Monroe, without a glint that would indicate that he meant a jest; "a woman and ten kids!" "That's all I wanted," replied Peter, grinning. "Why, you old poltroon, I don't pretend to have ancestry; but I do pretend to have money and gratitude." "Don't get personal, Peter," said the admonitory Monroe. "Don't, don't get personal," said the pacifying Cobb. "Oh, no, Cobb; I do not mean to be personal; but how is the money coming from the dives?" answered Peter, rubbing his hands first, then scratching his ear, then pulling an extra pull on his pipe, then spitting, then squinting, then sneezing as if to give three cheers for his observations on the various subjects up for discussion, in all of which he seemed to have the best of the results. "Fine!" exclaimed Cobb, with his eyes lighting up. "The police are just rolling it into our coffers." "I need ten thousand more for Jim Dalls," said Peter, looking gloomy, and ceasing to rub his hands. "It would be cheaper to send a man over there to kill him," answered Cobb. "Maybe it would; maybe it wouldn't," said Peter; "but he will be back, if he don't get it." "Well, send it, then," said Cobb, relenting of his grim suggestion as to the best means of disposing of Dalls. The door bell rang. A servant answered it. Into the house filed ten children, in all stages of wildness, accompanied by the mother. Seeing them rushing in like an invading army of young Turks, the visitors retreated with as little loss to their dignity as they could spare. And Peter was happy again in the bosom of his family--a Prince at home; a King at the office of Graft. Mrs. Dieman was now the acme of reincarnation. The jaundice of a sorrowed life had been burned out of her face by the new brand of cosmetics, and she now stood before the world a justly deserving woman. But such is the passage of poverty when embellished by a little of the olive oil of good treatment, fairer living, and a chance. Instead of the downcast woman, with a heart laden with lead, as she once was, she was now an upcast personage, with a heart that was a jardiniere of roses, doing her duty, and bearing her old sorrows silently as the mistress of a mansion. Chance was all that were needed. But still she loved Billy Barton, the drunkard. And this is the way of woman, sometimes. CHAPTER XXII. THE CONSPIRATORS' PLOT IS REVEALED. Hiram Jarney sat in his lounging chair, in evening clothes, reading the daily newspapers, and smoking a Santa Clara cigar. His feet were encased in a pair of patent-leather slippers. A diamond sparkled on his spotless bosom front. His right leg hung comfortably crossed over his left. His clear cut features denoted his strength, and his active blue eyes his power; both combining to produce a wholesome pride of peace. There was not a smutch to mar his impeccability. He was immaculate from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. His closely cropped hair revealed a head that might be taken as a perfect model by a phrenologist to show the parts of a well-balanced man. With a broad high forehead, high arched brows, fine nose, and a pink complexion, his completeness as a man of parts was unequaled. As he read the news, turning his paper over and over, as he glanced at the head lines, or waded through the matter of some article that interested him most, an almost invisible vapor lazily ascended from his cigar--a man at ease in the bosom of his family. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was ushered in for a chat and to take dinner. When he saw who his visitor was, Mr. Jarney laid down his paper, crossed his left leg over his right, and leaned back in his chair, in such a resigned state of studied equanimity (always his pose in the presence of Monroe) that Monroe felt he must let loose one of his evanescent smiles. "Have a seat," said Mr. Jarney, in his familiar way of greeting Monroe; "dinner will be ready soon." "Thank you," said Monroe, as he stiffly bent himself into the capacious depths of an arm chair, sitting near. Monroe was faultlessly groomed. He wore an evening suit, and had a diamond in a shirt front that looked no more starched than his frosted face. "My daughter will be down tonight for the first time to take dinner with the family," said Mr. Jarney, in a conversational mood. "She is improving rapidly, Mr. Monroe; rapidly; and you don't know, being a bachelor, how much I am relieved of worry since she began to mend." "I imagine how one would feel," said the feeling Monroe, now inwardly cogitating over how to approach the subject that brought him there on this occasion. Having no hint of Mr. Monroe's intentions, Mr. Jarney proceeded: "Yes; she has improved so rapidly lately that I feel, myself, like coming out of a long illness. My daughter and I are planning a trip, Monroe, just as soon as she is quite able." "A trip!" said Monroe, without expressing his surprise in his visage. "We had thought of going to Europe," pursued Mr. Jarney; "but my business affairs are such that I cannot leave here this summer." "Where then?" asked Monroe, as if it were any of his affair where they went. "We may go to the mountains for a few months, so that she can recuperate, and later in the summer we may go to Europe," answered Mr. Jarney. "Mr. Jarney," said the ghost, in a muffled voice, as if he would burst with his secret, and as if his tongue were tied, "Mr. Jarney, what--what--do you--think of me--as a suitor for your--daughter's--hand?" And then he looked as if he were made of translucent glass, or polished marble, or anything that was hard and white and had a polished surface, with sterile spots on top of it. This was a stunner to the placid Mr. Jarney. The irrepressible Monroe looked stony enough that he might be taken for a real stone god of the Stares, as Mr. Jarney pierced him through with his piercingly keen eyes. "You don't mean it, Monroe?" he finally said, after looking at him a long time, with a smile of the ridiculous mould. "I am in earnest, Mr. Jarney--never more in earnest," responded Monroe. "Have you asked the young lady yet?" asked Mr. Jarney, still unable to believe the man was in earnest. "Not yet; but I want your opinion first, Mr. Jarney," answered Monroe, fingering his watch fob. "You are very amusing, Mr. Monroe; very amusing," said Mr. Jarney, facetiously. "Then you don't look upon me with favor?" asked Monroe. "Mr. Monroe, I am afraid you lack experience--at least in this respect," said Mr. Jarney. "I have money--I have ancestry," said the imperturbable Monroe. "Oh, fudge, Monroe! fudge on your money, and your ancestry!" said Mr. Jarney. "You need a little schooling in the art of love-making," he said, smiling at the audacity of the ghost. "Do you suppose I would put my daughter up to be sold to the highest bidder, and knocked down to any old money bag that should come along? Do you? Do you? Answer me that?" No answer. "Do you think, or presume to think," he continued, "that I would allow a child of mine to be bandied about in this mercenary manner? She is my daughter--my only child; she has a mind of her own; she is independent; so when she makes up her mind to that end, I shall consider it. She will first counsel with me before her intended suitor does. Mr. Monroe, it is very unbecoming, ungentlemanly, ungracious in you to come here this evening, and speak as you have spoken, not having seen her in months, or talked with her at all on the subject. I would do well, Mr. Monroe," continued Mr. Jarney, in the same equinimity of temper, "to dismiss you from my house, and from my service; don't you think so?" "Beg your pardon, Mr. Jarney; beg your pardon, if I have given offense," said the ghost, with frozen affability. "I have given these thoughts considerable consideration, and I thought it only proper and meet in me to ask your opinion--it was only your opinion I asked, Mr. Jarney; so I beg your pardon. May I ask the young lady, then?" "You may do as you like about that," said Mr. Jarney, knowing, in his kind fatherly heart, the finality of such a procedure. "Mr. Winthrope has been permitted to see--" pursued Monroe; but Mr. Jarney broke him off by saying: "Don't mention Mr. Winthrope's name in this connection as an excuse for your imbecility." Mr. Monroe sat through this grilling, unmoved as a donkey might. After cogitating again for a moment, he said: "I thought I was as good as anyone else, when I broached the subject." "You have lost the point of view, Mr. Monroe; lost it entirely," answered Mr. Jarney. "Lest you fall into brambles, you would better brush yourself up a little on the subject of courting. You will find a book of rules, perhaps in a ten cent store; get one, and brush up a little, Mr. Monroe." Dinner was announced. Monroe, unabashed and stiffly congruous, descended upon the dining table with such great gravity that he was likely to break in two before his hunger could be appeased. Opposite him sat Edith and Star. Edith, in her pale blue evening gown, was the essence of delicacy. Her face was fulling into health again, though showing the toning wounds of long illness. Her eyes sparkled almost as the diamonds that were set in ring and brooch. Star was like a fresh young sun on a bright summer day. Mrs. Jarney was as bouncing as ever in her sprightliness. Monroe was cold, as marble-like, as statue-like, as ever. The dinner was very formal, very cheerless, very unappetizing to every one, save Monroe, who ate with relish everything set before him. The cause of all this coldness may be laid to the front door of Mr. Monroe. He had cast a shade of the grouch over them all. Somehow, the mother was calmed by the sense of some pervading evil thing, inexpressibly unaccountable. Somehow, the two young ladies felt the chilly presence of a tentacled fish out of water, that was wholly inexplicable. Somehow, the father (unknown to the rest) could not raise himself out of the coolness, into which the ghost had plunged him. The two young ladies had greeted Monroe very gracefully and profusely, when they first came down stairs; but they momentarily lapsed into mediocre silence by the all pervading something they could not fathom. The mother started out to be very gleeful over her daughter's recovering health: but instinctively having a premonition of a mysterious caul overhanging her, she slumped into an unbearable quietude. So dinner was eaten with a sort of wingless spirit in them all, proving a discomforting failure in its pleasureableness. Monroe, in his impenetrability, did not see anything unusual. Had he seen, had he noticed, had he heeded, he would have departed at the most opportune time. But no; he loitered in the parlor, after dinner, and sought to engage Edith in quiet conversation. And he succeeded. Edith was sitting on a settee, with a silk mantle thrown over her shoulders. Star was drumming on the piano, on which she was now taking lessons, the father and mother being out. Monroe sat down by Edith. After foolishly gazing about the room, as if in an indecisive state of mind about how to entertain himself, he said, icily: "Miss Jarney, may I have the pleasure of calling on you sometimes?" Edith was startled at this unheard of piece of rashness participated in by the ghost. She trembled through the inward fear she had of this man of unapproachable demeanor. But summoning up what little of her former courage she had left after the blighting effect of her long illness, she replied. "Oh, Mr. Monroe, I have no objections to your coming here sometimes as a guest of my papa; but as for calling on me, for the purpose you intimate, that is impossible." "Why do you object to me, Miss Jarney?" he asked, undeterred by repulses that would have sent any self-respecting man into hiding. "Why, you are as old as Adam himself," replied Edith, feigning to be gay, but still frightened. Seeing Edith's dainty hand, with a diamond shining on it, he caught it up, as if he would touch his vile lips to it. Edith withdrew her hand quickly, without a word, arose and walked toward the piano, leaving the ghost sitting alone like a confused statue when hit with a snow ball. Thereupon, Monroe came to his senses, and forthwith departed, leaving a cloud of mystification behind, over his actions. In a huff (inwardly), he sought his companions, and escorted them to the Bottomless Pit, there to celebrate his great victory, as he called it. "Well, what luck?" asked Welty Morne, as soon as a bottle had been uncorked, and he held a glass of its contents before his admiring eyes. "Aye, what luck?" chimed in Bate Yenger. "Bully good luck," said the ghost, like an owl. "All right with the old man, I suppose?" said Welty, swallowing down his glassful. "All right--the old duffer," said Monroe, draining his glass. "How about the girl?" they asked. "She fell right into my arms, and accepted," responded the ghost, seemingly without the glint of a frown. "Whew! Quick work, old boy; quick work! When is it to come off?" asked Welty, speaking loudly. "Sometime in the future," answered Monroe, mysteriously. "Drink! and the devil have done for the rest!" shouted Welty, and he imbibed another glass as an additional stimulant to his joy. "Bully good people, boys; bully good people," said Monroe, pulling another cork. "How soon you going to drop the pole set up to impale Winthrope?" asked Welty, unrestrained now in his enthusiasm, which he gave vent to occasionally, by whistling and humming a doggerel, alternately. "The dog," growled Monroe, changing his tone. "Not yet, boys; not yet. It goes up as if nothing had happened." "When will you transfix him?" asked Welty. "I am going to New York tomorrow to complete plans," said the invincible ghost. "Up goes the flag of destruction!" shouted Welty, with Bate repeating the words after him, both raising glasses and emptying them. Thus they talked and thus they drank, till the potent power of wine laid them low in a delirious sense of delirium in Monroe's downy bed. After Monroe had left the Jarney home, Edith and Star ascended to the former's chamber for that rest which night should bring to the pure in heart. Divesting themselves of their day clothing, they invested themselves in their night robes, and laid down together, side by side, in the bed where Edith had lain so long as an invalid. When the lights were out and the coverlets were drawn up over them, Edith heaved a sigh, like one does who lies down in exhaustion to find that peace that darkness and a soft bed fetches on. Star fell asleep directly, and lay in that peaceful calm which comes to one in good health and having no intangible fancies in the mind. But to Edith, repose was as difficult as the quietness sought by the brook in seeking an eddying pool after long racing down a roughened mountain bed. She turned first on one side, and then on the other, dozing many times almost to the slumberous point, where the transport to the land of dreams is imminent; then awakening with a start, as if the nightmare were treading her down to death, only to see the little imaginary beings that the half-closed eyes see in the illusory light-disks that whirl through impenetrable darkness. She tried to recollect some few of the nights through which she had passed, lying here, as if they were transitory dreams, remembering indistinctly how long and dreary some were, with flitting spirits and hurrying beings filling up the surroundings; she tried to recall the forms of hopes and doubts that seemed always to possess her, and wondered how intangible creative mind is in its wandering; she tried to conjure up the scenes of the tall, handsome figure in black that called every day and knelt by her bedside, but all that she could see was the form kneeling there, and never losing sight of the face, as if it were a part of her existence; she tried to recall the last day that he was there, when he said farewell, but all that she could remember was, "May I come, some day--some day;" she tried to recall whether she had said yes, or no, so uncertain was she now in her remembrance. She did, however, recall very distinctly what the unconfiding Star had told her--a secret given by John--and she was happy. And still there lurked before her the white marble face of a man, whom she had repulsed that evening. She saw it, when she closed her eyes, like a menacing statue in every corner of her brain; she saw it, when she opened her eyes, like a statue in every corner of the room, grimly and remorselessly pursuing her. And she shuddered. Finding sleep impossible under the wild riding of her thoughts, she placed a hand on Star's shoulder, and shook her into drowsy wakefulness. "Star, Star," she whispered. "Are you awake?" "Yes," said Star, yawning. "Star, I cannot sleep; will you talk to me?" she asked. "Yes, deary," responded Star, in a semi-conscious tone. "Well, talk then; I cannot sleep," pleaded Edith, to arouse her companion from her natural stupor. "Yes; I will talk, deary; go on," answered Star, not yet being willing to comply with Edith's request. "Star, are you awake?" asked Edith, shaking the sleeper. "I am awake," answered Star, rising full upright in bed. "Can't you sleep, Edith? Lie down and count the sheep jumping over the fence." "Now, do not be cross, Star," said Edith, sighing; "I am very nervous tonight." "Poor dear; this day has been too much for you," said Star, leaning over and kissing Edith. "Talk awhile, Star; then maybe I can sleep," said Edith. "Shall I tell you about the wolf that comes to poor people's doors?" asked Star, jocularly. "Oh, no; not so hideous a story as that, Star; I am nervous enough now," replied Edith. "Then about the mouse that moved the mountain?" "That is a fable, Star; something real!" "Then about the man as old as Adam, who asked a maid of twenty-two to marry him?" "He did not ask me, Star. Do you believe he was in earnest?" "I think he is a sham, Edith," replied Star; "and I think he was in earnest. Now, Edith, if I tell you what was pledged to me in secrecy, will you not tell where it came from? Yes, you will. When I was home today, Mr. Dieman told me that Mr. Monroe is going to New York for the purpose of causing Mr. Winthrope trouble before he should ever get home to see you again. I should have told you this, Edith, before now; but seeing how nervous you were all evening, I thought it well to put it off till tomorrow; or till you get better." Star ceased, yawned, and became quiet. "Did he tell you any more?" asked Edith, sitting up herself in bed. "Yes, Edith; it is too awful for me to tell you tonight." "I cannot sleep till you finish, Star," said Edith, lying down again, with Star following her actions. "Mr. Dieman told me of the whole plot, Edith," said Star, talking in a low sleepy voice; "not sparing himself for the part he played in it; for when the plot was conceived Mr. Dieman was unforgiving toward any of my mother's people who had opposed his marriage to her before she ran away with father. But now, that he is going through a period of penitence and reconciliation with his conscience, he was not loath to tell me all." "What is the plot, Star? Don't keep me waiting; I am impatient to hear it." "Mr. Winthrope," continued Star, "was sent to the New York office through the conniving of Monroe, to keep him out of your sight. His aim was to make an effort to have you marry him, get your money, and divide the spoils (that is your money) between himself and his fellow conspirators. That failing, he is to ruin Mr. Winthrope's chances by tempting him to steal the company's money, but stealing it himself and laying the blame on Mr. Winthrope, and then flee to Europe." Edith lay quiet during the recital, breathing lightly. "That failing, they will cause him to carry certain large sums of money to a certain place; then hold him up and rob him," continued Star. "They have been planning all winter, and are now about ready to bring it to a conclusion. The time set, was to be as soon as possible after you were able to be seen by Monroe. Having seen him this evening, Edith, it must be time for them to strike. We must intercede to save him, Edith, if possible." "I cannot do anything, in my enfeebled condition; but I shall see papa early in the morning. I shall forestall Monroe, in his madness! Mr. Winthrope shall be saved from those bad men! Star, something seemed to have told me that all was not going well for him. Bless your dear heart!" said Edith, firmly, sternly, but calmer. Concluding her story, Star soon fell asleep. Edith, after having her fancies put to rout by the serious things that causes a more determined course to mark its way through the brain, also fell asleep; and did not awake till the morning sun, breaking through the smoke, had kissed the damp of slumber from her cheeks. CHAPTER XXIII. EDITH REVEALS HER SECRET TO HER FATHER AND HE GOES TO NEW YORK. Refreshing sleep, though late in coming, restored Edith's composure. She came down to breakfast temperamentally disposed to enter into negotiations with her father toward the combating of any plot laid by Monroe and his friends to entice John Winthrope into questionable dealings. Like a wronged woman, through an excess of virtuous actions, she felt it peculiarly incumbent upon herself to frustrate the plotters--not that it would save John alone; but that it would, as well, be consistently in line with her ideas of just dealings between man and man. During the hour which she consumed in making her toilet, she revolved the whole matter, as related to her by Star, over and over in her now becalmed and determined little head; and the more she revolved it, the brighter became the sparkle in her strong blue eyes, and fiercer grew the militant spirit in her nature. The fatigue that had put her into a nervous state the night before had been routed by that blind force that comes upon depression through a quick series of changes attendant upon a wrong done, to be displaced only through wearying fortitude. Edith, being primarily one of those strong natures that survives by shock of incident, went boldly to her conceived duty, as though it were given her to be ever strong when the crucial moment arrived. She now knew that her father's good nature was being imposed on by that man of unconscienceable principles. Before she fell ill the year before, the actions of Monroe, two or three times, excited her suspicion, and she had then thought of a plan to forestall him; but by reason of the fatal auto ride, her movements were delayed; and as well did it delay the schemers in their dark and dastardly plotting. It seemed a formidable undertaking for one so frail as Edith, just coming out of a spell of mental derangement; not in its simpleness of action was it so big, but in the momentousness of its results on her enervated system. She would brook no importunate pleading of her friend, Star, to stay her in her course, and leaped into it, as if she were a veritable Goliath of strength. When she arrived in the dining room that morning with re-enforced courage, she greeted her father and mother, both waiting her arrival, with a kiss, and sat down next to them. Several times she was on the point of bringing up the subject, but lest it should disturb her mother, she calmly awaited a more convenient time for the rehearsal she expected to have with him. Breakfast was usually a quiet affair with the Jarneys, so little was thought of the reserve with which each held speech. After breakfast, Edith took her father's arm and guided him to a quiet nook in the drawing room, and seated him in his favorite seat on one side of a long plate-glass window that opened on his private grounds in front of the mansion. "Papa, I want a word or two with you this morning before you leave," said Edith, drawing a chair up and sitting down by his side. "This is unusual, Edith; now, what can my little girl want?" he said, endearingly, taking one of her hands. "You are not going to give me a secret, are you?" "Too true, papa," replied Edith, and Mr. Jarney expected something else just then than what he heard. "I am not going to lose my little girl, I hope?" he said, patting her hand. "Not yet, papa; now, you must sit real quiet, and be not so inquisitive, nor so suspecting till you have heard me," she said, fondly. "Why, Edith, I had suspected some dark and mysterious deed you had committed; but, with your assurance that I am not to lose you yet. I am listening," he replied. Then she related all that Star had unfolded to her the night previous; and even how Monroe had acted. "From whom did Star get the information?" he asked, meditatively, after Edith had finished. "From her step-father, Peter Dieman." "Humph! Peter Dieman! and he married Kate Jarney at last--to her betterment," he said, in a ruminating mood. "Well, after all, I am satisfied. Had she heeded me, she would not have gone through all these years of misery that her profligate husband brought upon her. Once I offered to assist her; but she was too proud in her lowliness to respond to my proffered aid. It is better, perhaps; it is better. It seems that the scheme of things is wrong, sometimes; but in the end it is righted." "Now, what is to be done, dear papa?" asked Edith, seeing that he had taken a discursive course in response to her irrefutable facts. "I shall act at once," said he, gazing out the window, abstractedly, as if he had been wounded by an aspersion cast upon his magnanimity. "Ingrate! Ingrate! all of them!" he mused, drumming on the arm of the chair with his fingers, deep in study over some plan of action. "Edith, what would you do?" he asked, as he turned his head and looked at her trustfully. "I have trusted him in his department all these years, and he has given such satisfaction that no one mistrusted his motives, or questioned his integrity. I can hardly believe it, Edith. What would you do?" "Do you leave it to me?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with suppressed fire. "I do," he answered, half seriously; half in jest. "Then eliminate him, and his dupes, at once," she answered, with great seriousness. "It is hard for me to do that of my own volition," he replied. "He is so fortified with friends on the board of directorate that they must all be taken into consideration." "Will they not see the necessity of his removal, when apprised of the facts?" she asked. "They may; but he is so strongly entrenched that his removal would be almost disastrous to me." "How, papa? How?" she asked, now quickly perceiving a new gleam of the entangling meshes of business associates. "By turning them against me, if the story should turn out to be false," he answered, reflectively. "But I shall lay it before them at once and investigate." "In the event that you should remove him, would you bring Mr. Winthrope to your office?" asked Edith, and a tiny flush suffused her cheeks. "No; Mr. Winthrope must remain in New York," unthinking of the effect his answer might have on his daughter. Edith turned a little pale at this response, and her hand trembled in his. "Why, Edith, are you so much interested in him that you want him to be ever present?" asked the father, noting the tremor of her hand. "Oh, no, papa--not that much--yes--what am I saying, papa--I don't know," she replied, excitedly, turning her head at the sound of her mother approaching, which seemed to have been prearranged at that moment; but, of course, was not. Mrs. Jarney left, after seeing the interview was private. "It appears to me, Edith, that you are acting strangely about this matter," said her father, beginning to be enlightened. "Papa, I--I--love him," she whispered in his ear, as she put her cheek up to his to hide the blushes in her face, and to conceal his own countenance which she expected to see turn into a frown upon her at this unexpected answer. "Papa, you will forgive me, won't you?--yes, you will. It is my heart, dear papa--I cannot help it--do forgive me?" she went on, with her eyes filled with tears of happiness and weakness and misery over her uncontrollable feelings. "Let me see your face, Edith?" said her father, making an effort to turn his head, which she held pressed to her own. "No, no; I won't papa, till you say you will forgive me," she answered, kissing him. "To keep peace, Edith, I will forgive you; let me see your face?" "There!" she exclaimed, suddenly releasing him, and standing off, with tear stains marking through her flushes, and her hair tousled by the performance. "I believe you," he said, beholding her in a state of mixed emotions; "but I am not yet ready to approve of your selection." Her heart sank at this answer, and she sank to the floor by his side. Throwing one arm over his knee, and her head upon her arm, she burst into a fit of passionate grief that shook her frame. "My dear Edith," said he, placing his hand on her head, grieved himself by her outburst of new affliction, "you cause me grief. I would not hurt your dear little heart for anything. Now, come, explain to me fully what that heart of yours tells you?" She arose, half laughing, half crying, almost hysterically discomposed, rubbing her tears away, as she smiled through them rolling down her face. "I feel ashamed, papa, for being so weak; but I cannot help it," she said, sitting down on his knee, and throwing her head upon his shoulder and one arm around his neck. "Well! Edith. I am in sympathy with you," said he; "but you gave me a severe shock being so plainly spoken about such an affair of the heart. Does he suspect it of you?" "I do not think so, papa--but, papa, he told Star that he loved me, and told her not to tell--and, goosey that she is, she told me, and caused me more--because he said he could not expect to ever meet me on the same level; and that is all I have against him--" "Well! Of all things I ever heard of," said the father. "I had not been inclined to interfere with you, Edith, in such affairs; but I--" he hesitated. "You make your choice, but be careful, child; be careful." "Don't you think he is good, papa?" she asked. "Very good--fine--perfect, Edith! I should not disfavor him; but he must love you for your own dear self before I shall ever give my consent." "He may never find it out, papa," she said, drearily; "and if he does not, I shall never let him know, and shall go through the world alone." "That is noble in you, Edith," said her father, kissing her. "It is time for me to go," he said, as she released him. * * * * * On arriving at his office, Mr. Jarney was informed that Mr. Monroe had quietly taken himself off that morning for New York. He was further informed that Mr. Monroe had been requested to make the trip by certain members of the Board of Directors; and further, that he was entrusted with a large sum of money, in the form of drafts, made payable to the order of the treasurer of the company at the Broadway office. When this news was flashed upon Mr. Jarney, there seemed to penetrate his tractable mind, like a thunderbolt, the concatenating links of a plot, too realistic to be waived aside; which he was prone to do, when Edith gave him her story that morning. Side by side with the facts concerning Monroe's leave-taking and purpose, he also learned that the genteel ghost had taken with him certain office books and papers, to be used in checking over accounts while auditing the books of the branch office. This was not in accordance with precedence, and proved another corroborative circumstance in the duplicity of the culpable Monroe. Putting all these correlated facts together, Mr. Jarney, after due deliberation, and after duely weighing them all as incriminating integral parts, and after combining them with the main story of the plot, arrived at the inevitable conclusion that Monroe was up to some deviltry that should be probed to the bottom. He, therefore, called a meeting of the Board of Directors, and put the whole question, in all its phases, before that body. It was almost noon when the board met. They must act without going through the circumlocution of formal discussion and the entanglements of red tape, he told them. Some of the members were for postponing the meeting till the next day, to await a telegram from New York, so great was their faith in Monroe's honor. Monroe, they said, would be in the metropolis on the morrow. The procrastinating members prevailed in their vote on the question, and adjournment was had till the next day. But Mr. Jarney was not disconcerted, nor did he allow himself to be wholly blocked in his plan of action. So as soon as the board had arrived at the decision to go slow, he took it upon himself, knowing the shrewdness of John Winthrope, to send him a private wire, addressed personally, briefly saying: "Beware of Monroe; I will be there tomorrow afternoon, if possible." Dispatching this message, Mr. Jarney returned home, related to Edith what he had discovered as confirmatory evidence against Monroe, got ready, and left on the next train for the seat of trouble. Edith, from the morning of her conversation with her father to the time she received a wire from him, went through a siege of terrible mental conflicts. She confided in no one, at first, not even Star, the cause of her father's sudden call to New York. She was in a highly nervous fright throughout the hours that seemed never to pass between his going and the receipt of the telegram. Her flights of fancy went to unreasonable complications for the doomed young man in the New York office. She thought she must rescue him at all odds to her health. Had she been in a condition physically able to bear the journey, she would have gone alone, if need be; or with her father, if permitted; but as it was, she remained in her prison like an unwilling subject in a sanitorium. Thus exhibiting an excitable demeanor in her actions, her mother and Star made futile attempts to draw from her the cause of her fervid agitation. Still strung to a high tension of determination, still overcome with an uncommon fear, still anxious and studiously meditating over the eventualities that might come to pass before her father should reach his destination, she wandered about the house in uncontrollable perturbation, sticking tenaciously to her secret. "Edith," said Star, approaching her in one of her rounds of walking the floor, "come, tell me what is agitating you so today, that I might be of help." Placing her arm around Star's waist, without a word, she drew Star along in her walk, looking dreamily, and seeing nothing, save what the illusive eye might see in the distance. Star returned the friendly embrace of Edith, and with their arms around each other, the two walked and walked, both silent. Edith silent over what she was pondering on, Star silent over what she feared was an unnatural mental balance. "Are you ill today, Edith?" asked Star. "Oh, no, Star; I am feeling very well today," replied Edith. "But you are so quiet and unresponsive that I can't quite make you out," said Star. Then leading Star to the window where she sat with her father the day before, Edith asked her to sit down that she might have a word with her. "Star," she said, seriously, relenting in her purpose to keep her secret longer, "what you told me two nights ago I have discovered to be too true--at least in a circumstantial way," said Edith. "Why, then, haven't you told me, Edith, so that I could have a fellow-feeling for you?" asked Star. "Papa requested me to keep it a secret till he returns; which I should do. But, deary, you know I am like you, it is hard to keep a secret," said Edith, still uncertain whether to proceed farther. "Now, my dear Edith! I never tell anybody any secrets but you, and you tell them to nobody else, and you never tell any to me, so that is as far as yours ever get." "Star. I must refreshen your memory a little," said Edith, playfully. "I am not scolding you, you know; but just reminding you a little. Now, didn't you tell Mr. Winthrope something?" "Well, wasn't he entitled to it?" said Star, laughing. "Then you won't, in this instance, tell anybody?" "No--o--hope'm'die," returned Star, crossing her breast. "Papa has gone to New York to intercept Monroe." "Has he?" said Star, with wide eyes. "Monroe, then, has gone?" "Went yesterday morning before papa reached his office. Papa learned some things that substantiated what Mr. Dieman told you, and, putting everything together, he became convinced of the truthfulness of the stratagem of that man Monroe to bring Mr. Winthrope into disrepute. Star, had Monroe succeeded in his designs before I had learned the true status of affairs, I should not have believed anything against him; but now that I have been forewarned, I shall never lose faith in his honor and integrity. Star, I told papa of my love for him, which papa did not accept pleasantly at first, thinking I was in fun, or doing it as a lark to tease him; but when he realized I was never more serious, he called him a fine, perfect young man, and was pleased. There, Star, I have told you what has been on my mind since yesterday. Am I a goosey still?" "You are a little dove, Edith," said Star, sweetly. "Star, I should like to see Mr. Dieman," said Edith, changing the subject. "Can you have him come here?" "I may; but it is doubtful." "I would go to him, if I could." "He has a young man named Eli Jerey, who transacts business matters for him. He might be summoned. Mr. Dieman places implicit confidence in him. Everything now must be conveyed through him to Mr. Dieman, I am told. I have seen Mr. Jerey; and I can have him called here to see you for whatever you might want to impose upon Mr. Dieman." "Is Mr. Dieman so exclusive as that?" asked Edith. "He is, indeed, Edith. Since his marriage to mother, he has set up in great state, and does nothing but look after his family affairs personally, and transacts other affairs by the way of Mr. Jerey." "You will vouch for his trustworthiness? at least you can promise that much through what Mr. Dieman represents him to be?" "Oh, yes; whatever Mr. Dieman says can be relied on." "Then you may have Mr. Jerey call here at eight o'clock this evening, if he can come." "Shall I call him now?" asked Star, rising to go to the phone to have a talk with that gentleman. "Yes. Papa must be in New York by this time; I should know soon, by wire, what Monroe has accomplished," said Edith, as Star was leaving her. CHAPTER XXIV. ELI JEREY IS CALLED INTO REQUISITION. It is wonderful how prosperity transcends every other medium in working a transformation in a poor stick of humanity, who has been chortled, like a shuttle-lock, through the shifting warp of adversity. It is refreshing to observe, sometimes, how often men and women of lowly state can rise, as it were, by their own boot-straps from the great misfortune of having nothing to the ravishing luck of plentitude. It is, indeed, very promising to know that favoring chance does not fall altogether upon the many who are born with silver spoons in their mouths. It may not have been by his own boot-straps, unaided, that Eli Jerey rose to his plenary rank, or to his financial exhaltation. It may not have been luck alone, or chance, or extended aid, that hoisted him to the skies in the estimation of Peter Dieman; neither could it have been native ability, for his qualifications were of the superficial kind, to the casual observer. However, whatever the cause might have been, it is one of the certainties of the things that be, that Eli was now in high favor with his former master, and was prospering like a well-conditioned house cat. For Peter was certainly expiating himself for all the cuffs and rebuffs that he had heaped upon that poor lad's head during the period of his vengefulness. Eli was now made plenipotentiary extraordinary of the former junkman, with full rank of major-domo of his private affairs, insofar as they appertained, incidentally, to the junk shop, and the purveying of news of the System between the main totem himself and his sub-lunary lights. And this elevation of Eli remodeled him as a being. Instead of the stoop-shouldered, thin-faced, frowsy-headed, dirty, unwashed, ill-clad, uncared-for individual that a scanty stipend produces, we now see an erect, sharp-featured, cleanly-shaved, neatly-clad, bright-eyed young man. Although not handsome, his face called for an adulatory responsiveness on the part of those who came in contact with him. Instead of having his hands continually soiled by the labors that he performed in sorting junk and displaying it to customers, it was not uncommon to see him going about the shop gloved in brown kid. Instead of a dark-brown lay-down-collar shirt that always gave him the appearance of a water front workman, he wore boiled linen, decorated with a sparkling stud and flashy necktie. Instead of a greasy coat that hung loosely over his shoulders, he wore a neat business suit. Instead of the sweat-marked slouch hat, that used to loll on one side of his head, he wore a derby. Instead of a chain made of leather, to which was attached a brass watch, he carried a gold ticker fastened to his vest by a delicately-linked chain. Instead of the black, filthy office, in which his master sat for years, and in which he sat for a time after his advancement, he could now be found in a bright, clean place, papered and tinsled and decorated, with a new desk to write at, and a leather-cushioned chair to recline in. Thus he appeared in his new role, when the phone rang one day, as it often did, but now with a different purport than ever before. "Hello!" responded Eli, taking down the receiver and adjusting it to his ear. "Yes; this is Mr. Jerey." "Eli Jerey; yes." "Yes; Mr. Dieman's office." "Very busy day; but we're always open for new business." "A private interview!" "Can't you come to my office?--I never go out--except ordered by Mr. Dieman." "Can I come without him knowing it?" "That depends on the business." "Well; who wants me?" "Can't set a time or date till I know." "What! Mr. Jarney's residence!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side). "Miss Jarney!" "Who's this talking?" "Star Barton!" ("Well, did you ever!" on the side.) "Where are you?" now more interested. "At Mr. Jarney's?" ("Well, what now?" on the side.) "What time?" ("Bless me!" on the side.) "Yes; 7 p. m. will do." ("Ha, me!" on the side.) "I will be there." ("On the dot!" on the side.) Eli hung up the receiver, stood a moment tickling his right ear with his right forefinger, a habit of his. He was in a confused and perplexed state of mental consternation. Miss Barton! Miss Barton! Peter Dieman's step-daughter! went through his head in a rollicking way. "Hah! Miss Barton! I've heard of her; and Miss Jarney--rich--young--poorty--and wants an interview with me! Humph!" he mused, after sitting down. "Well, I must make myself presentable and go henceforth to meet them in all my dignity; yes, meet my superiors now in all my dignity--hah!" In due time Eli repaired to his room in the Monongahela House, a very ancient and a very honorable institution of its kind, no other being now suitable to Eli's enlarged notions of refinement. He clothed himself in his best bib and tucker, swatted down his hair so flat that it looked as if it had been laid by a weaver's hand to his swelling head, and powdered his sallow face till it was resplendent with the polish of good looks. Now, when all was completed he stood before the mirror, like a coquettish maid primping to make a hit, and there saw reflected back a very well appearing young gentleman. He saw all that the art of massaging and ointing and cologning and talcuming and starching and tailoring could mould out of the material at hand. He saw reflected back a youth five feet ten, with hollow eyes, peaked face, broad high forehead, condensed lips, and good teeth, long fingers, all supported by a suit of black, full dress style, with low white vest and patent-leather shoes. He saw also a diamond in his shirt front, white necktie banding a high collar, dark gray gloves, gold-headed cane, and high silk hat. Before withdrawing from the allurements of the mirror, Eli touched his fingers to his lips, stroked his sandy eyebrows, turned around a time or two, with admiring glances over his shoulder, as he raised or lowered his brows, or opened his mouth to show his teeth to himself; adjusted the plug correctly on his head, drew on his gloves, took his cane in one hand, and receded from his reflected self, with many glancing and furtive farewells at the glass; closing the door at last, regretful that he had so soon to part company with such an admirable picture of budding manhood. Settling himself inside a glass enclosed auto, he was whizzed through the appalling roar and grime of the city, like the formal gentleman that he was, sitting among the soft and heaving cushions, and looking to the passers-by, in his flight, like the silhouette of a grand bourgeois in contradistinction to the votaries of swelldom. In his present state of perverted obsequiousness, Eli was intensely vain, usually; but now, while in the gentlemanly act of calling upon a lady, so rich that he could not count all her money did he live a thousand years, and at her own request, for an interview, he was ludicrously haughty, and hopelessly ignorant of the rules of deportment surrounding the secluded haunts of the refined and the mighty ones of power and place. Any failings that he had, he did not recognize. His limitations were his blisses. What he did not know, he took as a matter of no consequence. If he saw a thing, it permeated him with unwarped fascination; if he did not see it clearly, he was not troubled. Rising to his present state, was of more importance as to present results, than as to permanency. In truth, he was a queer combination of meritorious attainments now, meaning well, and doing his best to be an efficient collaborator of his famous mentor--Peter Dieman. He was a person of little imagination. Everything was realistic to him. So, in journeying to the Jarneys on this auspicious occasion, he imagined very little about how he should act, or perform, or conduct himself, any more than what would come naturally to him. When he presented himself to the two young ladies in the drawing room of the mansion on the hill, he shocked them by sitting down with his hat on his head, though they could not help but admire his rich habiliments. "May I take your hat?" said Edith, approaching him, of course expecting to receive that piece of fine head covering to deposit it where it belonged at such a time. "No, madam, no; it is just as well where it is," he replied, showing his white teeth through a crooked smile. "I've been used to setting with it on." He was so unapproachable that Edith was embarrassed before him. Star had remembered him as the former disheartening clerk of her step-father. She had seen him when she had gone to the junk shop with her mother that time for the redemption of her kitchen utensils, and she had not forgotten how cadaverous and impoverished he then looked. "I presume you remember me?" asked Star, to break the monotonous silence into which the interview had perforce fallen. "I don't know that I do," said he, showing his fine teeth again, and lifting his eyebrows. "So many people came into the store in those days that I paid little attention to them all." "Don't you remember the girl who was so poorly clad that was with her mother the day Mr. Dieman gave back the dishes her father had pawned, and against which you protested?" asked Star. "Are you the gal?" he asked, with brightening face. "I am the gal," returned Star, laughing. "Well! how time makes changes in this world," he responded, looking her over carefully, hardly believing that the pretty face of Star's, with pretty gown to match, could possibly be the same. "It beats all; and you are the sister of all of Mr. Dieman's children?" "Mrs. Dieman's children," she corrected. "Yes, that's it--I know your sister May," he said, with a smile. "Do you, really?" said Star. "I call on him often, and see her, sometimes--she's a dandy," he said. "A fine girl," corrected Edith. "Yes; mighty fine," he answered, as he crossed his gloved hands over the head of his cane standing perpendicularly in front of him, and putting his chin down upon them, as if posing as a rejuvenated old man "by the wayside on a mossy stone," looking steadily at them both. "And you are May's sister? Well!" "I have that honor," replied Star. "Well! Who would think it? You are so much poortier," he said, quietly and naturally, without intending to be impertinent. Star blushed at first; but in a moment became vexed, and looked very black at him; that is, as black as she could look, for no matter how she tempered up, not much sign of her resentment was ever evidenced in her face. Edith was astonished at his rudeness, and glanced at Star for an explanation of the bold manner of this young man. Eli, in his transparent innocence, did not feel the effects of their interchange of glances, and was not disturbed. Anticipating that he might precipitate a scene by an unfortunate remark, Edith took up the subject that had caused her to have him present. "Mr. Jerey," she began, faltering in her speech, "you are Mr. Dieman's agent, I understand?" "I am," he replied, loftily. "Do you know Mr. Monroe?" "I do." "Do you know Mr. Morne?" "I do--he's a scamp." "Do you know Mr. Yenger?" "I do--he's another scamp." "Do you know my father?" "Not personally." "Do you know Jacob Cobb?" "I do--he's a--" "Do you know Jasper Cobb?" "I do--he's an--" "Do you know James Dalls?" "I do--he's a--" "Well, now; has Mr. Dieman decided to continue keeping company with these people?" asked Edith, warming to her subject. "For what reason do you ask?" he asked, eyeing her closely, so much so that Edith was discomfitted by his sharp stare. "It is a matter that concerns me personally, Miss Barton here, and my father," she answered. "That's not very informing," he replied. "Do you know Mr. John Winthrope, my father's former secretary?" she asked. "I never saw him--don't recall that I ever heard of him--yes, believe so--didn't Mr. Dieman speak to me once about him? (asking himself)--yes, believe he did. Well, what of him?" "Do you know whether Mr. Dieman bears ill-will against him yet?" "Let me see," said Eli, now in a cogitating tone, still with his chin upon his hands still on top of his cane, but lowering his eyes to the floor; "he never mentioned him but once, and then in connection with--let me see--what?--with your father as secretary, sometime ago--got a phone?" he asked suddenly, now disposed toward being cautiously communicative. "Yes; do you wish to use it?" asked Edith. "I would like to before going farther in this talk. Where is it?" Edith then led the way to the phone room, Eli following, with his hat still on his head, to the disgust even of the servants. "I wish to be private," he said to Edith and Star, seeing they were inclined to linger near. "As you wish," they returned, departing and closing the door behind them. After finishing his phoning, Eli emerged from the room, and strode through the dining room and on through to the drawing room, whistling a ditty, with his plug hat cocked back on his head, swinging his cane round and round, like one out walking for pleasure. He resumed his seat as before, with the ladies as his examiners. "Well?" said Edith. "He says he has no ill-will against Mr. Winthrope any more; and requests me to take steps necessary to right any wrong against him. What's your wish?" "Before I go farther," said Edith, "may I ask you if it is Mr. Dieman's purpose to remain the go-between in the graft system, of which Mr. Cobb is the head?" "He's making an effort to break from the gang--he's been making the effort ever since he married; but it's hard to let go," said Eli, casting an admiring glance at Star. "Now, then; as to my wish, Mr. Jerey," said Edith, trying to get his eyes away from Star; "I want you to assist me and my father to break up the ring; in a quiet manner, if possible; if not quietly, then by law." "What's your object, mainly?" he asked. "To get such men as Monroe and his dupes and old Mr. Cobb into the toils. These men have not been satisfied in working the graft system for all they are worth, but they have been plotting for months against me and my father. Can I depend on you?" "You can. But what has Mr. Winthrope to do with it?" "That is a part of the plot against my father and me." "Still I can't see--but never mind, I know the other fellers well, and will help you." "First, get Mr. Dalls back from Europe, and--" "Say, miss," he broke in, "how did you know all this and these men?" "Dieman communicated the information to Miss Barton, and she to me." "Ha!" he ejaculated, and then subsided into a quiet turn for a few moments. "He did, eh?" he proceeded; "then I know he'll approve anything I agree to here. Understand, I only carry information between Mr. Dieman and the lower men." "I understand," said Edith. "I will get Mr. Dieman to throw them all overboard soon as I can get my hooks to going," he replied, rising. "Where is Mr. Winthrope?" "In New York," replied Edith, rising also, and standing awkwardly by waiting for him to move. "I don't understand where he comes in?" said Eli, as he placed his cane between his arms behind his back, and spraddling out his legs, with his hat cocked back. "That is another matter," said Edith, attempting to pass it over. "I am very busy," he said, half-whistling a tune, then drawing his legs together and whirling round on one foot, he directed his eyes upon Star, and remarked: "You are so much poortier than your sister May; and this young lady (turning to Edith) is poortier than all the rest," after which he smiled broadly, showing his good teeth. It was rather a delicate moment for the young ladies. It was hard to reprove him, when they had solicited his aid in their great undertaking. Star was vexed. Edith was disappointed in him, for she expected that he would show a little more solicitude for her affairs than he showed in his actions and answers to her questions. She drew down her dark brows when he spoke as he did, feeling indignant, and looking at him sharply, said: "Mr. Jerey, that is very impolite in you." "Oh, my! beg your pardon!" he said, with an innocent smile. "I am so used to talking to my own sisters when I go home that I really forgot where I was. If you will pardon me, I will go? and not do it any more--but that's my opinion." As he concluded his apology he simmered down as to smile, looked serious after seeing the ladies were provoked, struck the toe of his patents with his cane, set his hat squarely upon his head, crossed his legs, put his hands in his pockets, with the cane under his right arm, smiled again, resumed a correct form of standing, expecting the while to hear the ladies go on with their scolding. But as they did not say any more, he turned round, and walked out as straightly as a West Pointer on parade, opened the door himself, and let himself out. After closing the door behind him, he stepped to the piazza, and stopped on the edge of it, gawking around like a country lout. He was nothing of the kind, being absolutely indifferent as to what people thought of him, or as to how he acted, so long as he was not immorally sensitized. He was playing his part in the drama of a great city's life, and playing it excellently; so what did it matter, if the sticklers for formality were shocked. Going down the long walk through the Jarney grounds, with frosted incandescents throwing fantastic shadows about him, he whistled something that sounded like a hot time in the old town--sometime soon. CHAPTER XXV. MONROE IS CAUGHT IN A NET OF HIS OWN WEAVING. Ever efficient and ever advancing, though the time since he left his mountain home was short, John Winthrope had pressed onward and upward till he was not only the assistant treasurer in the New York office, but stood high in the favor of the heads of the great firm; and, if he continued on his outlined course, promised to enjoy still further favors and special privileges. His rapid rising, his pecuniary uplift, his progress in favor, his increasing enjoyment of privilege, his continuing prosperity, did in nowise diminish his sense of duty, nor beguile him from that course which he had laid out to follow when he first became obsessed with the idea of making his mark in the world of finance, as seen through the eyes of steel and iron. During all the months, dreary though they were, that he went through in the city of Pittsburgh, he continued to live, according to his own adopted code, at the cheap lodging house in Diamond alley. The emoluments of his position, handsome though they might be considered for one so young as he, and for one so new in the ranks of the employed, were not any more compensatory than the allotments, as per schedule of bills to be met, demanded. For, after paying for his simple lodging, his small personal requirements, and sequestering a sum for the inevitable rainy day, he sent the balance to his parents to assist them in the liquidation of a debt of purchase on their home in the hills beyond the roar and turmoil of business; to which home he hoped to go sometime, an ever present dream, to spend his leisure days, or to rest when the burdens of life should become too great for his shoulders to carry. Being steadfast of purpose, and retired in a social way, he had it over other men in his unquenchable ambition to make good--in that, instead of idling away his time in questionable company, as so many such young men do, or loafing about clubs being a good fellow at a high cost, he enlarged his knowledge of the details of business by utilizing his spare moments in courses of suitable studies, in which he exercised his energies and ability to their utmost. After being transferred to his new post, he did not change his plans, even though his compensation was enhanced to a surprising and very agreeable amount; nor did he deviate one iota from his habits of living. He did one thing, however, which is pardonable and commendable, and that was to dress as became his office with a much more satisfactory and becoming taste. Blessed with good looks, a frank, open countenance, a finished polish, and a natural grace, any personal adornment was befitting to him. In his case, the clothes did not make the man, but the man made the clothes, as is often true in some men and women. By gradual degrees, his cheap shop clothes, as they gave way to the ravages of wear and time, were displaced by stylish modern cuts, tailored and otherwise; but this only happened as wages increased and exigencies demanded. So he may now be seen at his desk in a neatly fitting business suit of dark serge, with creases in the trousers, and his coat collar always clean of dandruff and falling hair. His shirt fronts were the nattiest, his collars the whitest, his ties the neatest, his shoes the highest polished of anyone in the office. With his dark-brown hair, clear blue eyes, fair skin, smooth face and dark eyebrows, he could well be envied by those less gifted. Still, with all these characteristics, he was the least reconciled to his lot. In March he was called upon to take his leave for New York. In March he was compelled to take leave of the sick young woman, whom he had visited every day without a break for months by force of the most unusual circumstances that ever came to a young man, or to any man, perhaps. He had become so accustomed to these daily visits to Edith's bedside, and had become so fraught with the most formidable fire of life, that when the final day came round, he seemed to have buried the object before his going, and lived in a perpetual dream thereafter, still perplexed and confounded by a mystery. Edith was not yet well when he last looked upon her face; but signs of improvement were ever growing brighter. This is what gave him such pain of heart--the thought that he had to leave when the time had come for him to see her in her reason. But still, he thought, perhaps it was for the best. For was she not laboring under an hallucination, a delusion, a wild estrangement of the senses? And, of course, when she came to herself, he would, by virtue of the natural laws of caste, have to go his own way after all, and find solace for his passion in some other person less worthy. It was better, thought he, that he was away--so far away that he should never see her again; and time, the sure healer of all ills, of all regrets, of all sorrows, of all misery, would bind his wounds from the harrowing effects of proud flesh. He could never hope, was his everlasting complaint, to vie with other men in the conquest of her heart. So why fret away his time on such an improbable question? Seeing all these things in this light, and believing in them seriously and honorably, he exerted his best endeavors to cast the burden from his soul. But the burden was too heavily laden to be so easily thrust aside. He had not heard from her since the last evening he left her home--except on one occasion, when a letter from her father to another member of the firm in the branch office, indirectly referred to her improving condition. This was all--a very slim thread it was upon which to build any hope that she, in her enlightening mind, ever again called for him, which seemed proof sufficient to convince him of his preconceived opinion. But--why? but--why? he always asked himself, did she make such an impression on him, unless he had struck, in her heart, a responsive chord. No matter how he reasoned, he invariably got back to the premises of his theme, namely, that he could not hope for any recognition on her part so long as their stations in life were miles and miles apart. He had spent many days on this unsolvable proposition, in all its various phases, and was still weighing it in his mind, even while busily engaged at his desk, when, one day, Miram Monroe was announced, and led into his office with all those outrageous formalities that flunkies about such offices show to their superior beings, who have the brains and money to conduct gigantic industrial corporations. Mr. Winthrope was surprised more than he felt able to express himself; but he good-humoredly extended his hand and saluted him with a cheerful, "How are you? and how are all the people back in old Pittsburgh," meaning, of course, the people only in the main office. Mr. Monroe was as stoical as ever, but he greeted John with considerable more cordiality than had been his wont. "They are all prospering," he answered, as he glanced around the room. John watched him closely, in a critical way, having in mind the telegram he had received the day previous from Mr. Jarney that said, "Beware of Monroe." John did not fully understand the meaning of this telegram; but he read its significance in the face of the man standing now before him, which, as he then looked at it, presented a mixture of tragedy, comedy, treachery and sculduggery. He saw these traits now in Monroe, not that his face had presented them to him on any other occasion, but the telegram had revealed to him too forcibly what he could not before comprehend. Why did Mr. Jarney send it, if the coming of Monroe was not for some insidious purpose? he asked himself. "You do not often come to New York, Mr. Monroe--at least, not to this office," said John, breaking the ice for a plunge into Mr. Monroe's perverseness toward a hateful silence. "Not often," he answered, extracting some papers from an inside coat pocket. He began deliberately to run over these papers, as if looking for a particular one. Finding one that seemed to meet his searching approval, he drew up a chair to a desk in the middle of the room and sat down, still very deliberately, with his eyes bent upon the paper that he held in his hand. Concluding that Monroe was not willing to be communicative about his errand, John sat down at his own desk. Scrutinizing Monroe from a side view, he saw it was the same face that was so indefinable to him in his apprenticeship in the head office; the same lengthened visage that then struck him so forcibly as that of a mountebank, clothed in undeserving power; the same white, wrinkleless skin that reminded him perpetually of a true portraiture of a ghost. John sat spell-bound, drawn irrisistably to this peculiarly eccentric man. Monroe sat pouring over his papers, as if it had been his custom to come there every day and do the same thing, unbelievably composed in his manner. To John, there was a mephistophelean aspect about Monroe, as he sat at the desk, apparently in the throes of some abstruse problem that he could not readily make out. But, however, after awhile Monroe seemed to have reached a solution of what he was delving into, and directly turned and faced John, with his usual inane stare. "Mr. Winthrope," said he, with no change in the monotonous enunciation of his words, so precise did he give utterance to them, "there seems to be an error in your accounts, which indicates a shortage in this office." "An error! A shortage!" gasped John, as if he had been stabbed from behind with a dagger. "Yes;" answered Monroe very slowly, very mouse-like, very aggravatingly, "a shortage--or an error." He straightened up in his chair, after saying this, to see the effect of his assertion in John's countenance. Recovering his composure in a moment or so, John drew down his eyebrows to a scornful straightness, and glared at his accuser. John was not very often convertable to such an exhibition of temper; but when his name and his honor were brought under reproach, his resentment became visibly uncontrollable. "Do you mean, Mr. Monroe," said John, looking straight into his gray-green eyes, "that I am short in my accounts with this office?" "That is my intimation," replied the insinuating Monroe, opening his mouth squarely at the emphasizing of "my". "I have been sent here to have a reckoning with you." The very bluntness of his statement was so monstrous to John, that he could not, for a short time, comprehend what it meant for him. The very essence of the assertion was too much for his grasp, so horrified was he for the few moments that he sat facing the serene detractor of his character. The very thought of such a crime was so contrary to his nature, that he was almost blind from the sensations of the blow coursing through him. "Are you in earnest? or are you here to jest with me, Mr. Monroe?" asked John, rousing himself to face the inevitable. "I am in dead earnest," answered Monroe. "Then you," responded John, weighing his words, "lie--or some one else--is lying--for--you." "Don't get agitated and go off half-cocked," said Monroe, in the same icy tone as before. "I'll show to you, in due time, where you have been peculating." At first, John was on the point of taking physical issue with the challenger of his good name; but remembering the significant telegram from Mr. Jarney, and remembering also that he was at a disadvantage with Monroe over the question of fact, he subdued his passionate feelings, and thought he would parley for time to await the coming of Mr. Jarney before long. "Some one has been doctoring the books," said John, smoothly, "if there is an apparent defalcation. I know what I have been doing, Mr. Monroe. My cash has balanced each day. My accounts in this office are straight, Mr. Monroe. I am straight, Mr. Monroe. You are crooked. And I will have no more from you till my superiors have been consulted." "Well, Mr. Winthrope," responded Monroe to John's asseveration, "I am the auditor of the firm for this office, and I am to be consulted first. According to our books you are short. I was, therefore, sent here to have an accounting with you, and if I find that our books are correct and your accounts wrong, I am to have a warrant issued for your arrest. Believe me, Mr. Winthrope, when I say that I find an error which indicates peculating on your part. I do not want to see your name blackened by an exposure that would naturally follow should I take it in my head to proceed against you. I have a free hand to act any way I choose, be that what it may. Now, I can fix this matter up for you so that no word of it will get out, and so that you can leave with money in your pockets, and mine, and no one will be the wiser. I can compromise the matter by you being reasonable. Will you be reasonable and enter into my scheme?" John was surely astounded at this long speech of Monroe's. He studied a short moment. He did not want to compromise himself with Monroe in any scheme that, if he were guilty, would cover up the crime with which he was charged. If he was found to be responsible for any shortage, he was fully willing to take the consequences which arrest and exposure might entail, rather than attempt to clear himself of the blame, if blamable. But not being guilty, as he had good reason to believe, he held that justice, unless mercilessly blind, would deal fairly with him. Moreover, he would be making a mistake if he did not draw Monroe out, and secure from him his plan of a secret compromise. "How would you propose compromising the matter, if I am guilty?" he asked. "By leaguing with you," answered Monroe, artlessly. "Leaguing with me?" said John, doubtful of his meaning. "Yes," he answered. "I have a draft here for one hundred thousand, made payable to the treasurer of the New York office. You can get the money yourself by signing it as assistant treasurer. Get it, and we will divide the amount. I will fix the books at the other end so that a discovery cannot be made till we are safely in Europe or South America. Will you do it?" A new idea came to John, growing on him gradually as Monroe unfolded his nefarious scheme. "Yes; I will do it," he answered, with alacrity. "Where is the draft?" Monroe immediately pulled the draft from an inside pocket of his vest. He looked it over, as if he regretted to give it up; then he turned it over to John, with a hesitating hand. "Get the money," said Monroe, without an intimation that he was pleased, or not pleased, over the readiness with which John seemed to be falling into his trap. John leisurely put the draft with a number of other drafts he had in his possession belonging to the firm, placed them all together in the firm's bank book, and retreated, without a word, from the enervating personality of Monroe. After depositing the entire sum in the name of the firm, he returned to the office to report to Monroe. "That is rather a crude piece of business, Mr. Monroe," said John, as he entered the office. Standing with folded arms on the opposite side of him at the flat-top desk, he gave a laugh, and smiled sarcastically, as he said: "Crude! I should say; so crude that it smells of rusted iron!" Monroe looked up nonplused at the haughty and sneering tone of his inferior; but he showed no irritation. "Did you get the money?" asked Monroe, blandly. "I did," answered John, good naturedly. "Well, divide up," said Monroe, having doubts. "Oh, I forgot to return with it, Monroe," replied John, as he laughed in his superior's face. "I placed it to the credit of the firm. Believing there was no hurry about dividing up, and thinking tomorrow would do as well as today for that little formality, I changed my mind between here and the bank. The money will keep where it is, Mr. Monroe." The door of the office opened. The form of Mr. Jarney stood in it for a brief time. Then he closed the door and stood inside the room. He did not advance at once. As Mr. Monroe saw him first, his face took on a yellow pallor. John noticed the change in the coloring of his marbled visage, and turned about. Seeing who the intruder was, he took a few steps across the room, and lively grasped his former master by the hand. "Glad to see you, Mr. Jarney; very glad," said John. Mr. Jarney, in turn, greeted John very warmly, and said he was inexpressively happy to see him looking so robust, and hoped that he was still the same unpolluted young man as when he first met him. All of which abashed John so that he blushed. "Did you get my telegram?" he asked John, yet not turning to greet Monroe, who sat without a tremor at the desk. "Yes; I have been looking for you all day," replied John. "Here is Mr. Monroe," he said, as he turned and waved his hand toward that brazen piece of trickery. "Yes; yes; I see Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney, shooting his sharpened glances at him. "I came here to see about some little tricks he is up to. What have you accomplished, Mr. Monroe?" "Aren't you laboring under a misapprehension, Mr. Jarney?" asked the ghost. "Oh, not at all, Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney. "I have found you out. I came here to beard you before this young man," rising almost to the angry point in the vehemence of his threat. "Why, Mr. Jarney," said the lamentable Monroe, "what have I done that you, whom I have always served so faithfully, should hurl aspersions upon my name and cast reflections upon my integrity?" "Your name and integrity!" said Mr. Jarney, with rising voice. "You haven't either. Where is that draft and those office books? Turn them over immediately to Mr. Winthrope here for safe keeping." "I have already deposited the draft," interrupted John. "Mr. Monroe proposed to me that we cash it and divide the money. I assented--of course not. He has accused me of being short in my accounts. But he lies--I am not afraid of an investigation, Mr. Monroe." "Is this true, Mr. Monroe?" asked Mr. Jarney, fiercely, and piercing him through and through with his firmness. Mr. Monroe cowered before Mr. Jarney's rage, like an abject criminal brought to the confession stage of his stricken conscience, but as blank as ever. "Is this true, Mr. Monroe?" demanded Mr. Jarney again, still upbraiding him by his fierce tone. "I am afraid it is," responded Monroe, meekly, with a crestfallen tone, but no change in his countenance. "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Monroe," said Mr. Jarney, relentingly. "I was infuriated with you a moment ago, and meant to be harsh; but now all that I can say is, that you deserve my pity. Ingratitude is the worst of all mean traits, Mr. Monroe. My advice to you, coupled with my injunction, is that you hasten to the Pittsburgh office, close up your accounts and leave the employment of the firm, taking the other two dupes with you. You may go now. I have no further use for you here." Mr. Monroe sat dumbly under this withering dressing up; but he was obdurate in his inexpressiveness. Taking Mr. Jarney's cue, he arose, put on his hat, and departed, without a farewell to either one. That was the last they ever saw of poor Monroe, alive. His body was found next day on a muddy shore, where the sewer rats fight among themselves for a share of the food that the foul sewage spews out with its bile. CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHIEF GRAFTER IS FOREWARNED AND GOES TO EUROPE. Jacob Cobb, the big boss, sat in his easy chair, surrounded by his spendthrift family, with whom he was communing on the glories of that fame which money brings to those who earn not, nor spin. It was a bright evening in May, with a red sun setting through the upper haze on the horizon, and throwing back through the windows of his mansion a fiery glare, like the gleam of a blast furnace permeating the density of the pall that ever hangs over the valleys skirting the hills to either side. Had he, or they, or any of them, been of a meditative turn, the evening scene might have been likened to the scenes that surround the tempestuous lives of those who toil and dwell where the counterpart of the sun, in this comparison, holds sway throughout the day and night. But as they were not of a meditative turn, they never saw the black old buildings of the workmen, as grimy as the squat old mills themselves spouting fire from thousands of smoke-stacks, all huddled together in the narrow ways and defiles, like so many barbarous places of habitation, with sooty walls and streaked window panes, and fuming chimney tops, and nowhere scarcely a sign of vegetation to brighten up the dull tones of the desolation. They never saw the grim-visaged, hard-fisted, half-naked men, sweating blood, almost, subjecting the native element of iron to the changing process of the caves of fire, before which they worked and strained their energies to produce the finished product that made it possible for men like Cobb to live in splendor. They never saw the simple homes, the poor homes, the impoverished homes of some of these workmen; or their children in their styles, their plays, their sports, their love-making, their dutifulness to parent, their respect for law, or their shortcomings; nor heard their ambitious cry; nor saw their cheerful endeavors to improve their worldly affairs; nor saw the blight of poverty, nor the curse of rum. They saw nothing, save the rolling smoke from the factory fires which the poor man teased; and, even though it brought them plenty, it gave them long periods of annoyance that they had to endure it. They only saw the setting sun, in that direction, going down into a tarnished sky. But they saw, in the iridescence of their surroundings, the gloat of pomp, the pride of power, the sen-sen of gayety, the joy of lust, the glib of society, the whirl of scandal--the right to graft. Jacob Cobb was at ease, if ever there was a man in such a heaven of exalted purification, as he sat in his easy chair on this evening. It was the time of his domestic enjoyment, in which no one ever took more delight, the divorce scandal talk to the contrary notwithstanding; and this is one thing to his credit, if he should have credit for anything he has done in this world. Money was his God. Not being competent to amass a fortune, had he applied his talents in genuine business, he, early in life, became a petty politician. Starting as an election board clerk, he ascended the winding stairs of a ward heeler up the many flights till he reached the chief seat in the inner chamber of the Temple of the Bosses, and there he reigned--till he should be dethroned by an aroused public conscience. He was now in the hey-day of his power, and he ruled with a clenched fist; albeit, at times, he heard temblors below him that might become powerful enough to shake him from his seat. Through a College of Embasies, with Peter Dieman as the dean, he worked the system through the tortuous windings of every channel of business, collecting his tiths as Pharoah collected his charges on his garnerings in the seven years of famine, with about as pitiless a hand. And these tithings were heavy. They poured into the System's exchequer from every source, like the waters that flowed by the city of his birth to form the La Belle Reviere; but, unlike that stream, which flowed to a bigger sea, they stopped at Cobb's gate to enter silently into his dark pool to disappear via an unseen outlet. Jacob, not being wholly satisfied with what was clandestinely coming his way, connived at other schemes to perpetuate the inflow to his coffers; which was to his shame. The worst of which of his many other designs, was to marry his children to rich men or women, and divide the loot, if money may be christened, in this instance, by that pelfic name. Susanna, the eldest, and Marjorie, the youngest of his two daughters, were already bargained for by two young scions of the rich who had no more reputation to hang to them than discarded touts of the underworld; but their daddies had money, and that counted for much, while innocence had to suffer. But there was Jasper yet, his own young hopeful, past the age of twenty-six, and not yet disposed of. A glimpse into that young man's character has been given in a previous chapter, so here it will suffice to say that he was a profligate of the evilest sort. And Jacob wanted him to capture Edith Jarney! God forbid such a union! Purity joined to degradation in holy wedlock? Not if Edith Jarney knew her mind; for it would be unholy wedlock. Mrs. Cobb was equally as mercenary with her children as their father. She it was that first proposed the horrid scheme. She it was that taught them how to ensnare the victims marked for their bows. She it was that led them to the idol that they were to worship. She it was that schooled them in the ways of snobbery. And they called her a doting mother. And Jacob willingly acquiesced. Those who teach that man is only a biological entity might find in such sons and daughters good subjects for their experimentation, and prove their theory by the aid of the divorce courts. "Jasper, it is time for you to make some headway with Miss Jarney," said his doting mother, on this evening, as they all sat around their father in his ease. Jasper, who had been sitting near in a despondently moping manner, suddenly aroused himself to the importunate remark, and looked disconsolate enough to arouse the sympathy of every one bent on reforming young blades; for he had been out the night before, and showed evidences of heavy dissipation. "Mother, you are always going on at me about Miss Jarney," he retorted. "She's been sick for the past five months or more; I have seen her but once, and then had no chance of seeing her alone." "Yes, dear Jasper, you must brace up, now, and make of yourself more of a man, if you want to improve on your opportunity of winning such a prize," said Jacob Cobb, with some disparaging sentiments in his tone. "Father, you too? Give me a chance, and when the opportunity arrives, I shall propose," returned Jasper. "You should not lose a minute's time," said the mother, with faith. "That man Monroe is out of the way now, and the other young man is too poor for her to take in place of you. See your sisters! Both already engaged, and soon to be married, yet both of them younger than you. You are too slow in pursuit of such happiness. Why, you should have had it settled long ago. Had I had my way about it, it would all have been over with, and you two fixed comfortably in a house of your own, giving swell dinners, balls and parties, eh, Jasper? Edith is a fine girl, and I know she will be a good keeper of a house for you." "She is going to the mountains soon, mother, I am informed," said he, with design; "and I have half a notion to go up there for awhile to get away from my associates." "That's the thing! that's the thing!" exclaimed the father, delighted at the prospect of getting the two together at some summer place. "Go it, boy! go it, and push your suit." "How nice it would be, Jasper," said Susanna, with glee, "for you to get away from the city for a time." "It would do you worlds of good, brother," assented Marjorie, "to get away from the smoke awhile." "You know, Jasper, we had planned to go to Paris for the summer and take you along; but we can spare your company this time," said the doting mother, "if it will give you the opportunity to make good." This inane conversation anent Jasper's future was broken up by a messenger appearing at the door, with a very urgent note from Peter Dieman, requesting Jacob Cobb to come to his mansion without delay. Jacob responded without delay, and was soon sitting by the throne of that spectacular king, who still was wearing his mandarin robe, fez-like cap, and smoking another vile cigar. "Have you heard the latest, Jacob?" asked Peter, when Jacob was seated comfortably blowing up clouds of white vapor in corresponding rings with Peter's smoke-stack. "No," answered Jacob, with no uncommon concern. "Well, be prepared to hear the worst--Jim Dalls is back from Europe, and is going to squeal on us," said Peter, with as little concern as Cobb at first appeared to show. "No!" exclaimed Jacob, with a cloud on his face that was sufficient almost to obscure the smoke from his cigar. "It is true," said Peter, still unconcerned. "He was here this evening." "What brought him back?" said Jacob. "Run out of funds, he said," said Peter, blowing smoke with much complacency. "Couldn't you send him any more?" asked Jacob. "I sent for him," said Peter, now looking at Jacob with an air of supercilious gravity. "God man! what do you mean? Do you mean to ruin us all?" shouted Jacob, excitedly. "Be calm, Jacob; be calm, and save your nerves for what is coming," said Peter, gently. "He came by my request, and is to make a confession before the grand jury--at my request, too. So if you want to save your old bacon, pull down your shaky house of graft and hit the trail for Europe; for you will be the first one caught in the net, Jacob." "Oh, Lord man! What do you mean? This is awful! This is horrid! This is terrible! Exposed by my chief deputy like that! I'll never forgive you, Peter! Never! And when it blows over, I shall return and cook you a dish that you won't relish!" cried Jacob, now in a frenzy of excitement. "Why, I am safe from harm," said Peter, calmly. "What did you do it for?" asked Jacob, in great anger. "To be plain to you, sir, I may state that that's my business," said Peter, cooly. "Then, we part enemies?" asked Jacob, with a daggerous look. "We do--if you want to; but, Jacob, you'd better take my humble advice, and go to Europe as quick as you could skin a cat. You know the whole thing will come out anyway when that bank affair is known, which I am assured will be exploded soon, and then the whole shooting match will be busted." "You had better call on heaven to help you, Peter, when I return--if I go," said Jacob, rising, and leering down upon the king, who sat looking at the floor now, in quiet thought. "I am not afraid of you, or any one else, Jacob," responded Peter, looking up. "I am a domesticated man now, Jacob, and intend to enjoy the rest of my days right here, in this house, with my wife and ten children." "You scamp!" hissed Jacob, snarling down upon him, like one dog snarls at another dog with the prize bone. "Take my advice, Jacob, and go home," said Peter, looking sidewise at Jacob. "You'd better be there packing your grip than standing here calling me hard names. Europe is the safest place for you for the next ten years; so go. I can take care of myself." "Things have come to a nice pass," said Jacob, "when a man can't enjoy the comforts of a home in this age without every upstart wanting to interfere in his business!" "It's a nasty business that of yours," said Peter, remorselessly. "I've been tired of it for a long time, and wanted my chance to get out. The chance has come, and I am getting." "You are an ingrate," replied Jacob, wrathfully. "Being entrenched yourself with safety lines thrown out, so that no one can invade your private affairs, you care nothing for your friends who have divided with you for years. An ingrate! An ingrate, I repeat, Peter! I shall go, and may those vapid detectives who have been here for months trying to make a break in our lines, find you out, and help to punish you." "Oh, that's all right, Jacob," said the suave Peter. "I know all about their work in this city; but I am beyond their reach. So go, if you don't want to be pinched within a week. Go, I say, to Europe, and maybe you can enjoy life there; and while you are doing it, think of me sometimes, just for old friendship's sake, and take an extra drink on the side for me--that's all. I shall never forget you till my last breath is gone; and I shall never forget the words you have just now said to me, and what impression they have left upon me. Go! Jacob; go! that I may be done with you; that's all." Peter concluded this speech, without either smoking, rubbing or squinting. "Good night," said Jacob, leaving the king's throne; and the two old cronies in legalized crime (for that is what graft is, nothing more), parted forever. "Good bye," were the last words that Peter said to him; but Jacob did not hear them, so blind was he in his rage when he stepped out into the cool night air to take up his return to his home again to seek solace in the bosom of his family. Arriving home, Jacob put his family into a wild uproar when he told them of the result of his visit to Peter Dieman. "Well, we were going to Europe anyway," said Mrs. Cobb, as a consoling climax to her bewailment. "It is good that I informed our friends of this trip, so they will now be none the wiser. The wedding of the two young ladies can come off in September, as planned. I can return for that, and you can remain in Europe--ill, perhaps. And Jasper need not postpone his expedition into the mountains, you see." "No, Jasper; you must not fail in that," said Cobb, still unable to give up any of his schemes, so fascinating were they all to him yet, "as I will be compelled to remain for some length of time. If you fail, our fortunes may be somewhat impaired as a result of all this trouble. So don't fail, my boy." "Oh, I'll win; don't despair, father, for me; I'll win," said Jasper, hopefully, with more interest than ever now in getting a wife with money. So to Europe Jacob Cobb and his family betook themselves, leaving young Jasper at home, as agreed, to sport awhile with the vixenish little Cupid. Punctilious, as on every other such occasion of the going of such people, the Sunday newspapers, in their society columns, gave a glowing account of the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Cobb and their two daughters for Europe to spend the season (or several seasons it might have been) in Paris; and probably, if not otherwise detained, to Baden-Baden, or to some other noted place, purportedly for the benefit of Mr. Cobb, who (poor man) had been in poor health for months past. Mercy on us! CHAPTER XXVII. ELI JEREY AT THE DIEMAN HOME. Dressed as on the great occasion when he visited Miss Jarney, Eli Jerey called at the home of Peter Dieman but a short ten minutes after Jacob Cobb had left in such a bad temper. Peter was in his jolliest frame of mind, and was still having jerks of felicitation over his fine stroke in besting Jacob Cobb, as he looked at it, when Eli floated into his presence like a fluted lamppost with its light extinguished. Eli sat down with his high hat on the top of his untutored head, as his only hat rack, when Peter took up the thread of the subject about where he and Jacob broke it in their slight misunderstanding. "When I told him to skip out, Eli, he flew the handle to beat all," said Peter. "He threatened, if he ever returned, to cook a dish for me that I would not relish." "Did he, though?" said Eli, raising his eyes to the level of Peter's. "Now what kind of a dish could he cook for you, do you suppose?" "I suppose he refers to the street paving proposition," responded Peter. "Which one? Where the wooden blocks were used?" "I suppose so." "Well, Mr. Dieman, we might as well be honest now and say the truth sometimes; but that was a very bad piece of jobbery for all connected with it--even for the wood blocks, as you will see when a year has passed." "How?" "In it, the city got its worst job, the contractors worser jobbed, the grafters got jobbed good and plenty, and the wood blocks will be so jobbed that you will not be able to find any in another turn of the sun around the seasons." "But how will he connect me with it?" "He can't, Peter; he can't. I can swear that none of the money came to you by the way of our office. It all went through Cobb's hands, and I have the receipts." "Bully, boy! Bully for you! When I die, I will leave you the old shop and all it holds. You have a slick head, Eli, for such things. Who'd thought Jacob would have given his receipt?" "I forced it out of him. Told him: no receipt, no money." "I knew you'd fix it all right when I left it all to you. Why, boy, you don't blame me for having confidence in you?--But Jim Dalls?" "Oh, he's to keep you out, as agreed, and is to go free on making his confession, and sticking to it at the trial. I tell you, he'll fix a lot of them high-ups and others who've been in the game so long they can't believe but what they're honest and upright citizens." "Bully! Then all danger for me is over?" asked Peter, chuckling in such a whimsical manner that Eli felt moved himself to get up and hammer him on the back for fear he was choking on his good humor. "Over," returned Eli, decisively. "Good! Say Eli, I was only running a bluff on Cobb at first, when I said they couldn't get me--I hear Monroe's dead?" "Deader'n a fried oyster since he jumped into the Hudson." "Poor Monroe, I always thought he would hang himself, if given enough rope." "I am told Mr. Jarney has cleaned out the gang that helped Monroe in his dirty work--that's what becomes of not being faithful to your job, like I've always been, Mr. Dieman," moralized Eli. "Say, did I tell you about seeing May's sister at the Jarneys?" "No; do tell me about it?" "Well, I saw her, that's all; and spoke to her, that's all--and my! she's poorty; but I'll stick to May." "If I let you," said Peter, squinting his eyes, with a funny little twinkle mixed in their movements. "Why, I came this very night to ask you, Mr. Dieman," said Eli, as an opener to his subject. "Really, Eli? Impossible!" "What's impossible?" asked Eli, disheartened at the word "impossible." "That you came for that purpose," said Peter with a smile. "I did, sir; indeed, I did, Mr. Dieman," responded Eli, with much feeling. "Well?" said Peter, with a bearish look. "May I have her?" blurted out Eli, as he snapped a piece of imaginary lint from his angled knee with the index finger of his right hand. "Is she willin', Eli?" asked Peter, changing his tone. "She is," he responded, firmly. "You've made fine progress, my boy; but you'll have to ask her moth--Kate--" turning his head as he shouted her name for his voice to carry to where that lady sat in the parlor, in the distance, surrounded by her squirming herd of youngsters--"come here!" Kate came, looking like a queen--in her "rags"--still bearing some of her old sorrows in her lean face, now reduced to a pleasanter tone by the artful hand of plenty. "This young man wants May; can you spare her?" said Peter, not giving Eli a show at performing that part of his simple playing in courtship. "I'll speak for him, Kate. He's a mighty good boy, and May might do a thousand times worse." Eli sat like a docile lamb before the altar of matrimonial sacrifice, humbly waiting his fate. Kate looked at him. He looked at Kate. Peter looked at both. All silent. Intense was Eli's emotions--so tense that he was like a pine board in the hot sun ready to warp with the intensity of the heat that perforated the skin on his brow, sending forth scalding globes of perspiration. "I re--I gu--how did you tell me to say it?" she said, turning to Peter for intelligence on the right word. "May," answered Peter, rubbing. "I may--no, that's not it," she said, appealing to him. "You may!" suggested Peter again. "You may, Mr. Jerey," she said, finally hitting upon the proper phrase that would express her answer. She had no more than uttered the word, than Eli leaped to his feet, dropped his cane, and caught Mrs. Dieman in his sweeping arms, and hugged her powerfully. It could not be told whether he exercised a son's indubitable right to kiss her, for the very momentous reason that his plug hat fell off at the critical moment when he appeared to be performing that gracious act. But, in any event, his future mother-in-law grunted from the grateful embracing that she underwent in the clasp of Eli. Finding his prized and fashionable hat had toppled off with imminent danger of being crushed by ruthless feet, he hastily released her, picked up his hat, put it on his head again, with such grandiloquent precipitation that he made things in the room look as if they were going up in a whirlwind. After catching his breath, he glanced inquiringly toward the parlor. There he saw May sitting in a very deep and richly decorated chair perusing a novel, which she, since her coming out, had been taught was a beautiful source of pastime for young ladies of noble families. But Eli saw not the novel; neither did he see the pencil and tablet on May's lap, with which she had been instructed to provide herself to jot down the things that impressed her most when reading; nor did he see with what beautiful material she was dressed. All that he saw was the plump little face of May, a face that had no equal, to him; and all that she saw was the tall Eli racing toward her, like a galloping giraffe, with love-lit eyes, with grinning teeth, with plug hat on his head. Then-- "May! May! May!" The world turned upside-down, and he plunged headlong with May in his arms, into the laughing stars that flecked his heaven of delight. In the sudden onrush, May dropped her novel, dropped her pencil, dropped her note book; and Eli dropped his hat, which the youngest child momentarily toddled to, and took his seat within it as contentedly as if it had been placed there for his especial enjoyment. Eli minded nothing, not even the cloud of children that rose around him like fairies in astonishment at a bogie man come among them. But the whirlwind that Eli started soon abated, and its wreck and ruin was more noticeable upon May than any one else; for, in his awkwardness, he had loosened her hair, till it fell down around her waist, and mussed her pink messaline till it needed ironing afresh, and caused a burning place on the one cheek which he pressed so closely to the rough twill of his coat collar, that she seemed to be aflame with indignation. She was not indignant, however. Her little pout was only a sign of shame-faced happiness brought about by the astonishing behavior of Eli in the presence of her family; which she declared was shameful familiarity. "Why, May," said Eli, in support of his actions, "your mother says yes, and your daddy says yes, and I say yes; now, what do you say--I don't care who knows!" "I don't care what they say, you had no business to do it," she answered, looking black at him, as she was brushing out some of the wrinkle marks in her dress. "Is it yes, or no, May? Tell me quick, before I go hang myself!" he cried in his anguish. "I haven't said no, Eli," replied May, as she attempted to put up her hair, and blushing from ear to ear. "Is it yes, May?" said Eli, with eyes brightening. "I want to know." May glanced up pensively, with a hairpin between her lips cutting a smile in two. "Yes," she answered, as the pin fell to the floor, and her hair straggled down again. "I am happy, May," he replied; "now will you excuse me for my impetuosity?" May was gathering up her hair again when Eli said this. She turned to him with a smothered laugh, and remarked: "You are all right, Eli; I am happy." Whereat, both being perfectly agreed as to their feelings and opinions, Eli looked about for his hat, preparatory to taking his departure. "Well, Lord bless us! Look here, May!" he exclaimed, standing over the youngster, sitting in his hat. Then, bursting into a loud guffaw, he stooped down, grasped the hat by the side rims, and lifted it up, baby and all, and ventured forth to the throne room. As he lifted the burden up before him, the baby laid hold of his string necktie with one hand and his collar with the other, as a support to his precarious position. In which position Eli, hat, and baby proceeded, Eli singing a foolish ditty, till they arrived at Peter's seat, by the side of whom sat Mrs. Dieman. Eli stood before them a moment that they might see the load and the oddity of the situation of baby. They laughed; Eli laughed; baby laughed. He swung the hat this way and that, up and down, and bounced him a little. Eli blowed a tune of coo-coo at him, then whistled, and sang snatches of songs, of all of which baby seemed highly appreciative, judging from his looks. Then--the bottom fell out of the hat, and through it, feet foremost, shot the baby like a stone, and fell in a squalling bundle on the floor at Eli's feet. At the outcry that followed, all the other children came rushing in and circled around the party; and laughed and clapped their hands in great glee at the mishap to the baby and the hat. Eli picked up the crying child, and stroked his hair, and cooed to him. The child placed his little arms around Eli's neck, and sobbed till his grief was gone. And this was the little child that touched his father's hard face with his little hands, saying da-da; but perhaps he will never remember that day. Procuring a new hat from Peter, one that fit him illy, Eli tore himself away from this man's dominions, encircled by Billy Barton's family, to return some other day for a beautifully appointed wedding with his beautiful May. The world may laugh and sneer at such as Eli Jerey; but, after all, in such as he may be found the man who will make marriage a heaven to a poor man's daughter, raised as she was in poverty, and lifted by chance to a higher plane of living. CHAPTER XXVIII. IT IS DECIDED TO SEND EDITH TO THE MOUNTAINS. It was a morning in May. Happy birds sang in the tree tops, and flowers speckled the green grass of the park with their variegated bloom. The sun, the first for days, threw his lustrous light over the smoke begrimed hills; the air, which a brisk wind from the north cleared, was bracing in its freshness, and all creation was breaking into renewed vitality at the touch of advancing spring. Edith, on the arm of Star, walked down a bypath bordered by nodding Easter lilies, late in blooming, and watched the bounding butterflies and plunging bees and hopping birds, and heard the call of nature in all its thrilling voices. Life is beautiful and life is sweet, but what is life when the soul is craving for that which cannot be had? The wind may sing to you in its softest notes, the birds may send forth their enchanting rhapsodies, the flowers may emit their most becalming fragrance, but what are they to a spirit unanswered in its callings? The sun may shine ever so brilliantly, the moon may beam in mellowing brightness, the stars may twinkle in their deepest mysteries, but what are they when love is crying out, with no responsive cry? Deep, deep, unanswerable is the mystery. Edith asked the flowers, the birds, the bees; she felt the soothing wind, heard the sweetening notes, and caught the lulling scents, but they all gave back the answer--mystery! mystery! They walked the paths together, Edith and Star, arm in arm; they sat in the cooling nooks, and whisperingly conversed; they let the wind play with their locks, like playful fairies; they saw, they heard, they sang, they laughed. But still, to Edith, there was that mystery ever hanging over her--a blot to everything that should entrance her--a dim, dark, cold, benumbing longing that paints frightful pictures from a palpitating heart that gets no response to its secret throbs. Weary, worn out, lagging, spiritless, because of her long illness and worry over late happenings among her father's unfaithful employes, Edith got no comfort now out of her home, or its surroundings. Pale still, and nervous, her spirits ever flagged, even under the promptings of her dear friend Star, who had been resorting to all her charms and graces to give pleasure to the sick young lady that she might be diverted from her moody spells. Edith was bright at times, and laughed and chatted like a child under Star's cheerful influence; but more often she was melancholy, and seemed never to be reaching that time when the shadow of her malady would fall off. Music had no charms for her, nor books, nor young company. Life was lifeless to her. The mansion was a dreary castle. Her days were spent in wishing for night, and nights in wishing for morning. All her mother's endearments, all her father's love, all of Star's sweet companionship, were alike to her--unconsoling. The mother was in despair, the father grief stricken, but Star, of all of them, had hope. "Edith," said Star, this day, while standing by the pond watching the leaping fountain and playful golden fish, and noting how quiet Edith was. "I wrote to Mr. Winthrope yesterday." "Oh, Star," said Edith, with a deprecating frown, "I hope you have not gone and forgotten yourself to such an extent that you have written first?" "Forgot myself, Edith? Why, bless your heart, no; he wrote me first," replied Star, with a merry laugh. "Wrote first?" asked Edith, in surprise. "Yes; he just did write first; and I told him that he was real mean in not writing sooner," said Star. "What did he say?" asked Edith, gazing vacantly into the water. "About all he said was asking about your health. It is mean in him, I repeat, that he said no more. He said, though, that when your father was in New York, he told him you were fast improving." "What was your answer, Star?" "Oh, goodness! I wrote six pages, about everything, almost, and informed him that--" "Now, Star; you didn't write anything that would be indiscreet, did you?" "Why, deary, no, of course not; I only told him that you--" "Star, don't tell me that you have violated my confidence?" "I will not say what I wrote, Edith, if your are not more attentive. I said that--" "Star! Star!" said Edith, with tears glistening in her eyes; "do not tell me that you have broken your pledge; if you do, I shall never--no--go on; what did you tell him?" "That you--that you are getting better very slowly, and that your father will take you to the mountains for the summer. I told him everything else, Edith, but that which you forbade me telling." "You are very prudent, Star. Will he write again, do you suppose?" "I wound up my letter with a P. S.: 'Don't forget to write!'" "You bad girl! I suppose he will be coming to see you sometime?" "Wish he would," said Star, hopefully, with a teasing expression in her face. "Really, Star?" "Yes; I do--I'd turn him over to you," she responded, with a laugh. "You are a tease, now! If he comes, it must be of his own free will." "You are not looking well, Edith; we had better go in the house," said Star, seeing the pallor of weakness coming over her face. "Assist me in," responded Edith, willingly submitting to Star's admonition. As they were nearing the steps leading up to the great piazza, Edith remarked that she would go to the mountains next day, if able, with her father, and, of course, Star was to be her companion. "I was never out of the city," replied Star, "and I am wondering what mountains look like. Can you tell me?" "Oh, they are only big hills." "Do people live there?" "Yes. Many people live in them. He came from up there somewhere." "From the mountains?" "Yes; from the mountains." "Then, we may see his home," said Star, suggestively. "We may; but the mountains are very large, Star--miles long and miles wide, with dense woods everywhere and with but few roads through them, and homes of farmers scattered about." "Oo-oo!" exclaimed Star. "We would not want to go far into them; we might get lost. Do people live there?" "Yes. There are bears there, Star, and deer and owls; and many birds live in the gloomy depths of the forests." "My!" exclaimed Star, alarmed. "I would not want to go out after night. Where will we live when we go up there?" "In a big hotel on top of the mountains." "How fine! I can hardly wait till I see it all!" "Our trunks should be packed today, Star, for a two months' stay. Father says I will be benefitted when I get out of the smoke of this city." "Is your father going with us?" "Oh, yes; but for a short stay only. He will visit us once a week thereafter." "Won't that be fine, Edith; and we will get to see the mountaineers, and maybe his home," said Star, with all that fullness of anticipation that comes to one emancipated from a round of daily worry and abject commonplaceness, as they reached the top of the flight of steps, up which Star had been assisting Edith. Edith looked up into the face of Star with a smile, showing neither hope nor doubt, but full of that wearying pain that leaves a sore upon the heart. "It will be very pleasant, no doubt, Star," returned Edith; "but I am so weak that I am afraid I cannot enjoy anything. How kind and good you are to me," and Edith glanced up with tears; "you take so much pains in comforting me, and wishing for my welfare. I would be lost, dear Star, if it were not for you--lost--utterly lost," and the poor nerve-wrecked, distracted little Edith fell into Star's arms through utter exhaustion. Edith was carried to her room, and restoratives were administered. The contemplated journey was therefore postponed for a week to await her recuperation. The weeks passed, and Edith was still no better. Nobody saw her condition. Nobody quite understood what it was. They were all blind. Lying on her bed one day, when the sun was shining, and the fragrance of the flowers and the songs of the birds came in the open window as a caressing wave of sympathy, Edith was roused from her unpleasant meditations by her father, who came in to see her. Sitting down by her bed, the father took up one hand of his child and petted it, with his eyes full of the tears of his abiding grief. "Edith, dear," he said, with his voice full of emotion, "do you think you can now withstand the trip to the mountains?" "I think I will be just as well off here, papa," she answered, faintly and indifferently. "If you are able, we will go at once, dear," said the father, noticing how low her spirits were, and wishing to do anything that would tend to revive them. "I believe a change of air and scenes will do you good. Do you think you can make the trip?" "I will try, papa--any place; any place--it makes no difference, papa. I am so weak all the time, papa, that I am--" "Don't; don't, Edith, my dear child," he said, with anguish in his kind heart, and parental remorse on his conscience. "You would not have been in this state, pet, had you not become so wrought up over that Monroe affair, I know; and I am to blame for being so blind, so blind--so--" The father laid his head in his hands on the bed, and wept; and as he wept, Edith laid her hand upon his head, and smoothed down his ruffled hair. "Dear, papa," she said, "dear papa, don't cry for me; I will get better." "Edith," said her father, raising his head, "I have sent for Mr. Winthrope to return to my office to become my chief assistant. I expect him here today, Edith. Shall I have him out for dinner?" Edith gave a nervous start, and for the first time in days her little heart beat faster, and a color mounted to her pallid cheeks. "Do as you like, papa; I shall be glad to see him, if he comes to my room," answered Edith. "When did you say you would take me to the mountains?" "Tomorrow, if you are well enough." "I will go, papa." That evening John came, and ate dinner with the family. Instinctively he felt the great veil of sorrow, of fear, of dread, of worry, of sadness that brooded over the household. Strong, healthy, handsome, mannerly, John seemed to have brought a new ray of sunshine with him that was absent there before. His pleasing conversation, his cheerful smile, his hearty laugh, his quick wit in repartee flooded every department of the mansion--even into the cook's chamber, where was sung that evening love-songs of youth long suppressed by the weighty forebodings of the coming of the White Horse and his rider. "Mr. Winthrope," said the bouncing Mrs. Jarney, now less demonstrative of her spirits by her long siege of fretting, "it seems so natural to have you here. I told Mr. Jarney just the other day that I wished you could come out occasionally to see us, for you were always such pleasant company." "I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or a pretty piece of flattery, Mrs. Jarney," responded John. "I am sure, however you mean it, I shall not be negligent in expressing my thanks to you." "Compliment, Mr. Winthrope; compliment," returned Mrs. Jarney, with a sweet deference towards accenting the word compliment. "I never indulge in flattery with people whom I like--leastwise, I do not care to with you." "I feel grateful to you, Mrs. Jarney, and to Mr. Jarney also, for your kindnesses in my behalf, and friendly consideration of my welfare. The only manner in which I can express myself, is that you have my sincerest thanks for your good deeds and kind words," was the way he thanked them. Mrs. Jarney never lost an opportunity to say a good word for John to her friends, or to himself. Sometimes he was touched to a modest degree of bashfulness in her presence by her assertive way of praising him. On this evening he was more severely tested than ever before by reason of her motherly familiarity. When he arrived, she was so over-joyed at seeing him, that she was almost in the act of throwing her arms around his neck, and weeping, perhaps, as the mother did on the return of her prodigal son. She, no doubt, would have committed this informal act of gladness, had it not been that to have accomplished it, she would had to have stood on a chair, John being so much the taller. But as it was, she took both his hands in hers in welcoming him, and shook them with such energy that John was disconcerted for a brief time. Mr. Jarney was just as profuse in his greeting, but more restrainful in his actions than his wife. Why all this joyfulness, this gladsomeness, this unusual cordiality, on their part, John never stopped to consider in any other form of reason than duty and gratitude. "You will want to see Edith before you go?" said Star, after the diners had risen from the table, and as she was walking with him to the drawing room. "Of course," replied John, "if she is in condition to see a stranger. I should not want to leave without seeing her." "She knows you are here, and is expecting you. Will you go up now?" asked Star. "If it is her pleasure, and your wish, I shall go with you," replied John. Together Star and John repaired to Edith's room, Star entering first and John following. Edith lay in her night clothes, with the covers drawn up well around her throat, her two white hands reposing on the white spread. She had expected him for the last two hours, and began to be weary over the long waiting. So when the door opened and Star entered, she turned her head in time to catch him coming in the door; then as quickly turned it away, in an attempt to stop the fluttering of her heart. When he approached her bedside, she extended to him a hand, which he took, as he sat down on a chair by her side. "Mr. Winthrope," she said, very low, "I am glad to see you." John saw that her mind was with her now, and he should act accordingly. The appalling look of illness was in her face yet, the appealing smile of hope was in her eyes. He was overcome again. Oh, for that hour of health for her, when the raptures of a true soul answers to the responsive note! "You look so much better, Miss Jarney," said John, the moment of his recovery over her glad greeting, "than when I saw you last." "Do I; really, Mr. Winthrope?" she asked, with her eyes illuminating. "Surely, you are better; I can hope so anyway." "I was better for some time after you left in March; but lately I have been gradually growing worse, till now I am in bed again, as you see." "I plainly see," he said jocularly; "but, if you would get out of here and into the country somewhere, and get the fresh air and open doors, I am sure you would improve rapidly?" "Do you think so?" she asked, withdrawing her hand and folding them both together, as she turned on her side, facing him. "Why, nothing would be better," he answered. "I am going away tomorrow," she said decisively. "Tomorrow! So soon, and you in bed yet?" he exclaimed. "My papa insists that I shall have a change of environment at once." "Can you go? Where will they take you?" "To the mountains--up somewhere where you live." "That should make a very enjoyable journey for you, and you should be benefitted," he said, cheerfully. "I am going home in June, and I shall hope to find you improved in health by that time. May I anticipate the pleasure of calling to inquire about your health, Miss Jarney?" "The pleasure will be mine as well as yours, Mr. Winthrope." "Then I may call some day?" "You may, if--" and Edith offered up the daintiest little smile to meet his glowing looks--"if you will take me and Star to see your mountain home." "Oh, I shall be glad to do that. I have got the nicest little sister and the finest big brother you ever saw, and my mother will cook you such a rare dinner that I know you will recover soon after eating of it." "My! I can scarcely wait the time, Mr. Winthrope. I can already taste that dinner. When will you be there?" "The first week in June." "How delightful! I know I shall recover my health, once I get there. How impatient I am already! Star, is everything packed?" "Almost, Edith," answered Star. "We will not want many fine clothes, Star; I am going out to rough it for awhile. Is it rough up there, Mr. Winthrope?" "Very--in some places," he answered. "And you will be up in June?" she asked, now feeling enthusiastic. "That is my plan, now," he replied, uncertainly. "You will not let anything interfere, for I want to see your sister, and I know Star will want to see your brother," she said, with a weak smile toward Star, who blushed very red at the idea of meeting John's brother. Edith was by this time worked up to a high state of excitement over the prospect of the new life she was to lead. John, discerning the bad effect it had on her, and fearing further complications should he remain, rose to depart. She raised her hand to bid him good bye. He took it, touched his lips to her fingers, looked down upon her, and said, "Good bye." "Good bye," she said, "till we meet in the mountains. Good bye!" And John was gone. The same wild emotions whirled through his soul, as in those other times, when he was so fraught with the uncertainty of her demeanor during her night of illusions, as he left the mansion on the hill. The same musical good bye, he heard echoing from the buzz of the automobile that wheeled him to the city. The same he heard following him, pursuing him, pervading him and everything--in the crowds of the streets, under the lights, in the hotel corridor, in the lobby, in his room; and, finally, the last he heard singing him to peaceful sleep. But he heard it now played on a different harp from that which lulled him into sleep many times before. CHAPTER XXIX. EDITH RECOVERS AND YOUNG COBB PAYS HIS RESPECTS. It was another morning in May. The sun was climbing over the wooded hills to the east; the wind was pulsing through the leafing trees; the wild flowers were blooming by the roadside and in the dusky dells; the butterfly, bee and bird were in their delights of mating, and all creation was swinging in the swing of renewed vitality at the touch of speeding spring. Edith, with the ever confiding Star by her side, sat wrapped in a summer cloak on the eastern end of the sweeping reach of the veranda of the Summit House, which sits, with much pretentious rambling, where the old National way winds up from the east and twists up from the west in its macadamed smoothness in crossing the mountain divide. Life is beautiful and life is sweet; but what is life without that which the pure heart craves? The wind may sing to you in dulcing notes; the birds may send forth their most ravishing rhapsodies; the flowers may spray you with their cologne of incense; but what are they to the spirit in which the call is answered? The sun may shine, the moon may beam, the stars may twinkle; but what are they compared to the responsive cry of the soul's affinity. Deep, deep, unanswerable is the mystery. Edith asked the sun, the moon, the stars; the wind, the trees, the birds, the flowers, and everything; she felt the soothing wind, heard the singing birds, caught the lulling scents; but they all gave back the answer: mystery! mystery! It is all a mystery, that bright, beaming, radiating longing that paints the beautiful pictures from a palping heart that has received an echo from its secret throbs. As the sun climbed up his way, the wind lowered its beating pulses, and a shimmer of warmth spread over the hills and woods and fields and deep valleys. Life came up out of the east; and out of the depths of the hotel. Farmers would pass in their rattling rigs; woodmen roll by in their lumbering wagons; autos puff up the hills with their loads of pleasure seekers, stop awhile, unload, and spin on again. Late risers sauntered out on the veranda--ladies and gentlemen of leisure, and children--in idling costumes, and tramp off time, as a bracer for the morning feast. Noises came out of the interior, like a modified din from chambers of revelry. Bells, on straying sheep, or browsing cattle, tinkled in the distance. Axes rang somewhere in the silent forests; sounds of many kind broke out from everywhere; and the world was full astir. It was wonderful to Edith, this new life, with its healing balm of fresh air, bright sun, green vegetation, pleasant sounds--all undimmed, untarnished, uncontaminated by smoke and fog and grime of her native city. It was wonderful, to Edith, to see the bright faces of the mountain people, coming and going on their daily trips to Uniontown; it was wonderful to see how light-hearted, how gay, how spirited were those of the leisure class who spent their nights at this health-giving resort, and their days in the towns below. It was all wonderful, indeed. It was wonderful how fast she recovered her strength; how quickly the fires of health returned to her cheeks; how speedily her drooping spirits mounted to that pinnacle where the flagging soul ceases to repine. But was it all the bracing air, the burning sun, the happy birds, the blooming flowers, that effected her cure, as if by the magic touch of that enchantress, Isis? Mystery! Among those who arrived that morning from the nether lands was Jasper Cobb. He came in due formality of traveling as was his wont. He had his valet, who had his hat boxes and suit cases and trunks. He had his cane, his pipe and his et cetera. He was surprised, of course, but delighted, naturally, to see Edith and Star sitting on the wide veranda, as he jauntily floated up to them after disposing of his valet and other personal things. "Well, well! if this isn't a surprise to shock your grandmother and throw your granddaddy into hysterics!" he exclaimed, coming up to them, making a bow that almost threw them into the titters, over its profound ridiculousness. "Why, when did you come here?" he asked, as if he had not known beforehand. "We have been here for two weeks," answered Edith, respectfully, although she abhorred him. "You certainly look better, Miss Jarney; you, too, Miss Barton," he said, with a protracted smile of the wheedling variety. "This rarefied atmosphere, away from the Pittsburgh smoke, appears to agree with you two, charmingly." "It does very well; very well," said Edith, disinclined to be friendly. "I hope we may see each other often, Miss Jarney--and Miss Barton," he continued, insinuatingly. "If you two have not dined I should deem it a favor to have your company." "Thank you; we have already dined," responded Edith. "If you will excuse me, then, I will perform that necessary duty myself," he returned. After a sweeping bow and another wheedling smile that he might as well have kept to himself, he left them. "I do hope we will not be bored to death by that young man," said Edith. "What will we do, Edith?" asked Star. "If we remain here and he remains here, it will be rather awkward to get rid of him." "Oh, we will show him what respect we can without losing our own self-respect," said Edith. "I wonder what brought him here?" "Pursuing you, I suppose, Edith." "He will have his trouble for naught, Star," replied Edith, with a toss of her head. "I should think he would know enough to comprehend a few hints," said Star. "Some people don't, you know, Star," said Edith, rising and drawing the mantle closer about her shoulders. "Let us go for a walk down the mountain road, so we will not be bothered with him, at least for awhile." But Jasper was not to be so easily shook by such a furtive departure on the part of Edith and Star; for that young man, immediately after finishing his breakfast, and ascertaining from the keeper of the grounds the direction in which they had gone, lighted his pipe, gloved his hands, and, armed with his cane, went after them at a pace that would do well for a Weston in his hikes. He found them after a short walk down the hill aways, sitting in the shade of a spreading chestnut tree. The young ladies saw him coming, but they could not retreat, nor flee in any direction, so had to make the most of him, for a time. He, being a very brisk and bold young man, with a dandified swagger in his bearing and a distorted vainness about his personality, approached Edith and Star with such a rush of enthusiasm that they had cause to be exasperated at his manners. "Hah, playing hide and seek with each other, are you?" he said, with an overbearing sweetness and an impertinent geniality. "Not at all; just resting after our walk down the hill preparatory for the returning climb," answered Edith, with an effort to be a little disdainful; but if he noticed this in her, it was more than anybody else could see, for it was quite contrary to her nature to be disrespectful, except when brought to extremities, no matter how hard she tried, even toward the worst of fists. "Finding it getting warm," she continued, "we sat down here to rest before returning." "Aren't you going any farther? Which way?" he asked. "Up the hill," she answered his implied questions. "Then I may accompany you on the return?" he asked. Edith glanced at Star, Star at Edith, for an answer; but neither answered for a moment. Then Edith, seeing the predicament they would be in of either saying yes, or offering a rebuke, said: "We came out for a quiet walk together, Mr. Cobb, and thought we would find rest down here, and be away from the people up there--" pointing toward the hotel; "but if you are going up the hill, we will see who can go the faster." "Banter me for a race, do you?" he said, ingratiatingly. "Oh, not necessarily," returned Edith, with a laugh. "All right, then a walk it shall be," he said airily, not a whit disposed toward being piqued at the young ladies' desire to have done with him. Edith and Star started off together at a lively step on the upgrade tramp, Jasper keeping by their side, with even step, in a palavering mood. His talk was simply airy nothings, commonplace enough in its most brilliant stages, and foolish enough for the most twadling and appreciative loiterer of swelldom. He had a sort of rude wit about him that might be very interesting and enjoyable to a crowd of sports, but to Edith and Star he was a driveling idiot. The walk progressed at such a rate that very soon Edith, in her desire to keep in advance of him, began to lag, and her breath was coming too fast and furious for her benefit; but Star, who yet showed no signs of fatigue, had taken Edith by the arm to urge her along the best she could. Edith's face was excessively red from the great exertion, and sweat stood out on her forehead like morning dew on the crimson clover bloom. "Whew!" exclaimed Edith, at last, puffing and blowing, and heaving her breast in harmony with her rapid respiration, and saying between breaths, "that is--a little--too--much." "You are blowing like a porpoise," said Jasper, as he stopped and was contemplating her from head to foot, using his cane for a rest, on which he leaned. "Shall I fetch an auto for you?" "No; I can make it up the hill; but I must take it slower," she answered, holding her hand over her heart. "If you will permit me, I will assist you," he said. "Oh, never mind me, I will get there, eventually." "Come on, then," he said, with coarseness, as he laid hold of her arm to urge her forward; and thus between the two they got her up the hill. Simultaneously with their rounding the hill from the east, there rounded the same hill from the west a double team of farm horses hitched to a cumbersome wagon. On a flat board seat, across the bed in front, sat a young man about twenty years of age, and a lass of about sixteen blooming summers in her face. The horses moved at a slow and lazy pace, after having pulled a heavy load up the winding stretch of three mile grade, and stopped at the apex for a "blow" before relieving the pressure on their collars for the downward pull. At the stopping of the team, Edith and Star and Jasper came abreast in their walking, and also stopped for a "blow" before entering the hotel. This meeting seemed to have been the result of prearrangement, so natural did the precise moment of stopping appear. The young man in the wagon was a pronounced blonde; but the many seasons that he had spent in the mountains had bronzed his cheeks to a coppery red, and made him a very healthy and rugged youth, withal. He had a regularity of features that could not be gainsayed for their Grecian similarity. His light blue eyes were sharp, steady, penetrating. With a slouch hat on his head, flapping down on both sides, and tending to pokeness at the crown; a check shirt opened in front and turned aside, revealing a deep manly breast, and turned up sleeves exposing muscular arms from the elbows to a set of rough but well shaped hands--he sat like a monument of Strength and Health and Robust Beauty, resting his horses, and indifferent to the astonished gaze of the city bred people standing by. The young lady by his side, in the flower of young maidenhood, was a counterpart of the young man; and they were, without a doubt, from the same family tree. Her pink-lined sun-bonnet of gingham, accentuated by the warming sun, caused her face to glow, as if on fire, and her red calico dress could not have added more demureness to her looks had it been made of the richest silk. Thus, as they came by chance together, at such a time and at such a place, and under such pleasant circumstances, the three a-foot and the two a-riding cast contradictory glances at each other. Edith thought she saw in the young mountaineer an embossed replica of some one else; and also in the face of the young girl she was sure there was the heavenly-traced picture of another face. Star, with her head thrown back, in contemplative grandeur, looked at them with a stare of uncertain recognition. The young man in the wagon was about to speak, believing them to be friendly disposed vacationists, and would not mind a turn of conversation with him, being as he was of the out of the way places of their humdrum existence; but before he could do so, Edith suddenly plucked Star by the arm, and with her ran toward the hotel entrance, not stopping till she had gained the wide veranda, panting again, and all excited. Reaching the vantage of that viewpoint, and while standing behind a shielding porch column, she peeped from behind it, like one frightened. She beheld the mountaineer, with the little girl, disappear below the hill, and heard the screeching of the rubber blocks of his wagon, and saw the louting Jasper ambling, with a whistling note to keep him step, down the pikeway toward the hotel. "Star, that was John's brother!" exclaimed Edith, after he had disappeared over the hill, "and that little girl was his sister." Resuming her composure over the excitement the incident caused, she sat down in one of the lounging chairs, with Star by her looking serious enough herself. "I believe so, Edith; but why didn't we stop long enough to talk with them?" said Star, apparently disappointed. "Oh, I wanted to stop to speak--but that would not do, dear Star--would not do at all; but I will have a talk with them when he comes here next week, never mind," cried Edith, with much joyousness in the ring of her voice. "Isn't she such a pretty creature--just like one of those little fairy mountain girls you see sometimes in romantic plays in the theaters, and I know she is more romantic." "What do you think of him, Edith--the man--her brother--if that is whom he is?" asked Star, blushing for the first time Edith ever saw that intelligible sign in her face. "If he is not Mr. Winthrope's brother, he is his living stature in bronze," replied Edith; "and now, Star, tell me your opinion?" "I can't say that I have an opinion, Edith; I am really dumb with amazement. He is such a big fellow--more like a mill-worker, or such--oh, my, Edith; don't ask me for--" "Well, now, I like that way of speaking about Mr. Winthrope's brother. Maybe it was not him at all, and we have had our little scare for nothing. Oh, goodness! here comes Mr. Cobb again! dear me!" and Edith subsided. Pursuing the tenor of his prevailing thoughts, Jasper Cobb sought Edith and found her on the eastern end of the veranda. After saluting the two young ladies again quite prodigiously, he asked Edith for a private interview at once. Star, hearing the request, rose and left them, as if she had an errand in her room, before Edith had time to ask her to remain. Star, however, was waiting for such an opportunity to absent herself, knowing what young Cobb's mission was. Having been informed by Edith what her answer would be, she went away satisfied that she would return to find that young man laboring under a severe jolt to his mercenary soul. Now, when alone, Mr. Cobb drew up a seat and sat near Edith. "Miss Jarney, we have always been friends--our families?" "Yes." "And we have been friends for years, you and I?" "Yes." "Would you consider a proposition from me to make that friendship permanent and lasting?" "Yes." His heart bounded--a little. "Well, Miss Jarney--may I call you Edith?--I came here to ask you to marry me?" "You?" she said, turning on him. "Yes; me," he answered, dejectedly, for he caught the tone of her voice in no uncertain meaning. "No," said Edith, firmly, looking at him, with a sort of a commiserated smile for his imbecility. "If you want to be my friend, Mr. Cobb, all right, you may consider me as such; but, as to marrying you, never can I make up my mind to that end." "Dear Miss Jarney, you don't know the blow that you have struck me--it almost topples me over," he insisted, and Edith came near laughing in his face, so ludicrous was the expression that he had now assumed. "I have always thought you had encouraged me--" "Oh, never was I guilty of such an offense, Mr. Cobb--never. You are laboring under a misconception, or a delusion, or something else. Encourage you, Mr. Cobb? How ridiculous!" "Then, you refuse?" he asked, coldly and fiercely. "I most certainly have my senses with me," she retorted, with a laugh. "Ah, then, I'll go my old way. I thought I might settle down some day and be a man," he whispered. "Be a man first, Mr. Cobb, and settle down afterwards, is my advice to you," she responded. "You are cruel, Miss Jarney--cruel--as cruel as all the other women of the rich, who make monkeys of we men folk," he said, despairingly. "You must understand, Mr. Cobb, that I am not one 'of all the other women' of the rich, of whom you speak so slightingly," she replied, still keeping a good temper. "Well, I guess not, Miss Jarney," he said, with a sneer, looking away from her. "I see, Miss Jarney--I am not blind--that you have set your cap for that young man in your father's office." "You are disrespectful, Mr. Cobb; leave me at once," she replied, with some scorn for the first time exhibiting itself in her bearing. She arose and left him sitting there alone, with his pipe as his only comforting companion. After recovering from this jolt, as Star predicted, he gathered up his belongings, together with his valet, and vanished. Imagine such a union of hearts! There are plenty of them founded upon the rock of riches. Yes; imagine it! See this young man Cobb, and know his worth! His face was like that of a well bred bull terrier, with a pipe between its lips, and a red cap upon its head. He had a pair of dull-gray pants on his hind legs, and they were turned up, with a pair of yellow shoes sticking out below the turn-ups. Around the middle of his body was a yellow belt fastened by a silver buckle, and above the belt was a silken white shirt, with turn-down collar, and around the collar was a red necktie, in which stuck a scarabee pin. And he called himself a man worthy of Edith. He had been to Harvard, she to Vassar. She had learned to write a grammatical sentence and spell in the good old Websterian way. She could sing and play on the piano; and converse on the economic questions of the day with the perspicacity of a Stowe. She read the poets down through the catalogue of famous men and women, and the novelists of the class of Dickens and Hawthorne. She knew of the painters, the musicians, the theologians, and could talk intelligently on them all. Him? He had learned a lot of things. He could flip the Harvard stroke with the ease of a Cook. He could make a touchdown without breaking sixteen ribs of an adversary. He could twirl the pigskin like an artist of the green cloth. He could take the long jump, or the long hike, with the grace of a giraffe. He could dance like a terpsichorian dame. He could drink whiskey, champagne and beer, smoke cigaretts, play cards. He could talk with the profundity of an ass and write with the imbecility of an ox. Yes, indeed, he had all the refinements of a college education--the kind confined to the male gender. The only virtue he had was his prospective inheritance from his father--money. And he wanted Edith to marry him! Pooh! CHAPTER XXX. FOR JOHN IS COMING HOME. There is a little frame house sitting, in the shade of maples and oaks, by the roadside to the south aways from Chalk Hill. It is a leaning building, to some extent, in many ways, by reason of its age. A crooked little chimney heaves up on the exterior of one end, by reason of its insecure foundation. Shingles curl, up, as if in dotage, by reason of the sun. Weather boarding warp and twist and turn, grayed by the wash of years, by reason of their antiquity. Windows peep out, with little panes, and rattle in the wind, by reason of their frailty. Wasps and bees, in season, build their mud nests beneath curling shingle and behind twisting board; bats fly out, at eventide, from unseen holes in the gables; and swallows chatter and circle round the chimney top in the twilight of the summer days. An ancient porch, with oaken floor, hangs against the front wall, and the woodbine and morning glory creep and twine and bloom around its slanting columns. A gate swings out at the end of the path leading from the door to the highway. Flowers--the rose, the marigold, the bouncingbetty, the wild pink, the primrose, all as old-fashioned as the people who dwell here--border the pathway. A paled patch of ground stands to one side, as sacred as the Garden of Gethsemane. In the rear a gnarled and aged orchard has but recently shed its snowy burden of bloom, with lingering scents still in the air; and beyond and around, fence-enclosed fields are greening with growing crops, and still beyond are dark forests and open fields and noisy ravines. Evening is coming on. The sun has gone down over the mountain top. Shadows have disappeared into the gray of fading light. Odors of night are ascending from the cooling earth. The robins are rendering the last stanza of their solemn doxology to the dying day. The whippoorwills send forth their melancholy praises to the approaching darkness through the wooded chancel of their shadowy choir loft. And frogs swell their throats in grave bass tones to the melody of country life at this time of departing day. A gray-haired farmer, in rough garb, sits on the porch, smoking his pipe, and by his side sits his patient, loving wife. On the top step of the porch sits their young daughter, reading her fate, perhaps, in the evening stars, the while glancing up the road, and listening for the click of horses' feet on the stones. But no sound is heard before night comes on. The mother rises, goes in, and lights the oil lamp, and sets it by a window for the expected visitor to see. For John is coming home. "They are late in getting here," says the mother, as she descends from the porch, and goes down the path to the gate. She looks up the road through the shadows; then returns, and sits down by her daughter on the steps. The father relights his pipe, clanks down to the gate, in his heavy boots, looks up the road through its shadows; then returns. "They are late," he says, and resumes his seat. "I wonder what is keeping them," says the daughter, with an expectant hush in her sweet voice, as she rises, and goes down to the gate. She looks up the road through its shadows; then returns, and sits down. Listen! John is coming home. They hear the clank of horses' hoofs, the rattling wheels, the rhythm of a lively trot; then indistinct voices far in the distance. John is coming home. The son who went away the year before--the brother--is coming home. The father's boots clank on the porch as he impatiently walks back and forth. The mother rises, and shades her eyes, and peers up the roadway through the shadows. The sister rises, with a dancing heart, and flutters down to the gate, like an angel in the darkness. For John is coming home. Home! His only place of sweet rememberance. It is an age, it seems, before the team draws up and John leaps out to catch his sister in his arms. "Come into the light, Anne, that I may see your face, for I know you are growing so handsome," said John, putting his arm around his sister, and went laughing with her toward the house. Could he have seen those blushes, in the darkness, because of his brotherly praising of her! "How is mother?" was his greeting to his mother, as he kissed her at the foot of the steps. And, with her clinging to him on one side and Anne on the other, he ascended the steps to the porch. "Where is father?" asked John, not seeing him in the darkness, standing just ahead of them. "Oh, here he is!" John exclaimed, as he released himself from his mother and sister, and grasped his father's rough hand. "Come into the light and let me see you all," said John, after the formalities of greeting had been performed, to the satisfaction of all around. The light brought forth a revelation for them all, as light does for everything. The family now saw in John a new being in outward appearance, but still the same loving son and brother. John now saw his father and mother a little older, it appeared, perhaps, from anxiety over his absence, or it may have been their strenuous toil was showing plainer on them. He also saw in his sister, a simple country maiden in the rusticity of young beauty. "Anne, will you let me kiss you again?" asked John, as he stood in admiration over her by the lamp, holding her hand, after his mother and father had gone to complete the supper that had been almost ready for hours waiting for him. Anne tip-toed up to her brother, at his request, and put up her sweet lips to his. "And how has my little sister been all these months?" he asked, patting her on the cheek. "Very well, John; I hope you have been a good boy," she answered. "Sister wouldn't expect anything else of me, would she?" he asked, kissing her again. "Oh, no, indeed, John," she replied, with wide eyes. "And have you been good?" he asked. "Very, John," she responded. "No beaus yet, I hope?" he asked, in his teasing way he always had with her. "Why, no, John!" and she blushed, not that she had a beau, but through maiden coyness. "You are the only one I've got, John." Supper was then announced. James, who brought John from town, came in after putting away the horses. And they all sat down in happy reunion once more. For John was home. "What was the cause of your delay, John?" asked Michael Winthrope, the father. "Oh, by the way, father, I must tell you about it," answered John, laughing heartily, and looking slyly at James, who was now dressed in his best clothes, and presented as good an appearance as John himself. "I have two lady friends, who--" "Why, John!" exclaimed the mother, looking over her glasses. "Wait, mother; will you hear my story?" said John, turning a happy smile upon his mother. "As I was going to say, I have two lady friends stopping at the Summit House. One is the daughter of my employer; the other her cousin. They saw us, as we were coming by, and, of course, we saw them. Knowing them as I do, I could not come on without the formality of greeting them. I introduced James to them, mother; and what do you think?--" "Now, John, you mustn't be too severe on me," said James, modestly, "for I don't pretend to your polish since you went away." "Never mind, James; you are a capital fellow, after all--but, mother, James and sister here"--turning to Anne--"saw them the other day, and they are--they think he and sister cannot be beaten as--roving mountaineers--no, they didn't say that sister"--turning to his sister again--"They did say they would come out to see us, if you will drive in for them." "Law, me, John; we have no place here to entertain such grand people. What do you mean?" asked the mother, holding up her spoon, and shaking it with a remonstrative motion as emphasis to her thoughts. "Wait, mother; wait, and hear me out, before remonstrating any further," said John, cheerfully. "They wouldn't accept my invitation; but they want sister to drive our old rig in for them, and extend the invitation to spend the day with us. They thought it would be so romantic to go on a lark with little sister"--turning to her again with such a fond look that Anne beamed under his countenance. "Will you go, sister?" he asked. "Shall I, mother?" asked Anne. "If John says so. What do you say, James?" asked the mother. "That is up to John," responded James. "And father?" asked the mother. "Whatever John says about it," replied the father. "Now, everything is up to you, sister," said John. "Are you going?" "Why, of course, brother," she answered. "When?" "Tomorrow," replied John. So it was settled. That night, as John lay down to sleep in his old bed, so pure and white, in a little room up stairs, he heard again, above the screeching insects, the booming frogs, the wailing owls, that old sweet song that carried him into the slumberous land of nowhere--"Good bye! Good bye!"--as on so many nights before. In the night, when the house was still, a gray-haired man, in night clothes and carrying a lighted lamp, softly stole into John's room. John lay with his face upturned, his eyes closed, and his lips parted in a sleeping smile. The father stood over him a moment, bent down and touched his lips to his son's brow. "He is a good boy yet," he said to himself, and softly stole away. Anne was singing, as she went about her work, when John awoke in the morning; and life was astir on every hand. The pigs were squealing in their sty; the calves were bawling in their pens; ducks were squawking in their pond; chickens were cackling in the barn yard, and the sun was shining everywhere. John dressed himself and descended the narrow stairway, with tousled head and open shirt front. The mother was milking the cows, James was in the field, and the father was in the barn. Anne was preparing breakfast. "Now, I may see you in the sunlight, sister," said John, as he sauntered into the old-fashioned kitchen, and stood before her, with folded arms, and half yawning yet from sleep, as she was spreading the cloth upon the table. "I didn't know I had such a dear little sister," he said, as he put his arm about her and kissed her on the lips. "You are such a fine brother, John, that I am almost in love with you," she returned, as she lovingly left an imprint of a kiss on his cheek; then leaving him to pursue her work. "Whose love would I want more than yours, Anne?" he asked, in his laughing manner. "Oh, I don't know, John; maybe you have a girl better than me to love you," she replied. "I shall never place any one above my dear little sister," he said thoughtfully; "but--for no one can be your equal--except--one." "Is it one of those, John, whom I am going after this morning?" asked Anne, rattling the skillet on the stove. "One of those whom brother James and I met on the road a short time ago?" "One of those, Anne--the rich man's only child--but I am too poor for her," he answered, regretfully. "Is she as good as you, brother--and me?" asked Anne, distributing the plates around the table. She was innocent yet of the ways of the world; but was feeling the first calling of young maidenhood. "She is very good, Anne; very good; but no better than you," he returned, with the same uncertain cloud of perplexity that overcast him so often before, still pervading him like a wave of blinding light that comes to obscure the vision, at times, by reason of its intensity of purpose. "She is very fine looking, John--both of them, John. Which one is it you mean?" "The smaller of the two." "Oh, the one with the bluest eyes, who took fright at us and ran." "That is just like Edith, to run." "I know I could love her, John." "You are anticipating, sister." "Why, who couldn't love you, John?" asked Anne, looking up at him, with some doubts as to what he meant. "That is a sister's opinion, child," said John. "A sister's opinion of her brother is better than any one else's. Maybe she does love you, John. Did you ever ask her?" "Maybe she does," said John, going toward the door and looking out over the garden fence and into the fields, and dreamily into the distance; "but she is too rich to accept me, sister," he said, turning about. "How soon will breakfast be ready?" "As soon as you wash your face," she answered. John, heeding this hint, went to a basin on a bench in the yard, which forcibly recalled the old days. How refreshing it was to him to soap and souse his face into the cold water! And how inconveniently unpleasant it was, after such soaping and sousing, to rush with blinded eyes, and water trickling down the neck beneath the shirt collar, to the kitchen and fumble, like a blind man, for the towel. But it was home to John. The rattling wheels and squeaking springs of the old rig could be heard far up the road after Anne, dressed in a clean white frock and wearing a pink sun-bonnet, had left the front gate on her mission, guiding the old farm horses on their sure and steady gait. Oh, John, John! If there is anything worth while, it is Edith's love, the love that never dies. Blind man, as you are, and too considerate of high state, and too proud of your own, you are the only one to make her sweet soul happy. Bestir yourself, John, and come out of the fog of self-consciousness that has kept you in obscurity so long as to your final intentions. High state and low state are all the same to the Cupid that has engaged you so relentlessly. High caste and low caste do not count for him. Come and see the right, and see the light. She is only mortal, you are only mortal. Money is nothing to her; money is nothing to you. Love is all to her; love is all to you. It is the man and woman, after all, that makes happiness supreme. Come! John has donned the garb of a mountaineer, which gives him a wild romantic bearing. It is the garb of his former self. This is the one in which Edith, secretly, wished to see him in, sometimes; and she shall have her wish fulfilled. He wears a gray slouch hat; a check shirt, opened in the front and turned up at the sleeves; a pair of blue overalls, with bed-ticken suspenders, and high boots. Typical! He is in his elements now, for his vacation period. He wishes Edith, when she comes, to see him as he once was. It is not vanity; it is pride of home. He wishes her to see life as it really is in a well directed loving home, where toil is the simple reward of living. He wishes her to see what life is to these people of the hills, how they thrive, and how they bear their burdens. He wishes her to see all this in contrast to her own life, and how love and duty can go on perpetually in a humble home, as well as in a mansion. Work must not cease on the farm, at this season, except in case of sickness or death; visitors must make themselves at home during the work hours, and be entertained only at meal time, or go their way. The wheels of industry must go on there as noisily, ever grinding, as the wheels of industry, ever grinding, in the city. But there are rare occasions, even in both instances, when surcease is had for a spell to meet the call of recreation. And this was one of those rare occasions on the farm. For Edith and Star were coming, and a half holiday was cut out for their especial pleasure. James would cease his ploughing the corn at noon. The father would knock off duty at eleven to help mother get up the feast, and then smoke his pipe thereafter, perhaps, as his company. Thus it was planned. After Anne had gone, John roamed about the place, speculating on the tender association everything had for him. He went through the house from garret to cellar, and beheld, with warming heart, how dear the old things were, and how different they were to the things in the mansion on the hill. Here was everything still that he knew in his boyhood days, and he saw with a thrill of regret, but not remorse, for it was still his home any time he wished to abide therein. And no one could gainsay him that privilege. But how would Edith look upon all this, and not be struck by the simple evidence of his lowly origin? Ah, the comparison is too great, he thought, as he went into the garden, where he first learned the secrets of plant life; and then into the orchard, where he first saw the wonderfulness of the fruiting time; and then into the old barn, where was taught him the nature of domesticated animals; and then into the fields, where he had ploughed and sowed and reaped. How different from his life for the past year! How different! Edith could see nothing of interest in such bucolic surroundings, he thought. She would come, and see, and go, and want to forget him. It is well, he thought, that she sees it now, and of her own coming. CHAPTER XXXI. IN CONCLUSION. The rattling wheels and squeaking springs could be heard far up the road. Anne was returning with her precious load. The horses trotted down the hill, and came up with a rattle and a bang, and a sudden stop, at the gate, with Edith at the lines, and Anne by her side, and Star in the rear seat alone holding on tightly lest she should be bumped out. "Wasn't that great!" exclaimed Edith. "I told you I could drive. This is your home?" to Anne. "This is our home," replied Anne, as she began to climb over the wheel in getting out. "Isn't it a beautiful place, Star!" said Edith. "Just look at the roses blooming! and all those flowers around the porch! Anne you have such a romantic little home! Well, if here isn't our mountaineer, for a surety!" she exclaimed seeing John coming down the walk. "How do you do, Mr. Winthrope? I see you at last in your true character! How will I ever get over this wheel?" "If you will be real good, I will help you out--with your permission," said John, as he approached, and offered up both hands for her to fall into, as she liked. "Sister, I will put away the horses," he said to Anne, as he saw she was holding the head of one of the horses to await the unloading. "Remember, this is not an auto," he reminded Edith, as she was cautiously putting out one little foot on the rim of the wheel before her. "I would not have had so much fun if it had been an auto," returned Edith, looking down into his upturned face, and laughing; "and you have such a fine sister," as she turned her head toward Anne. "Now, jump," said John, as he caught her beneath the arms, she resting her hands on his shoulders in the momentary act before the plunge. "Down you come--there!--not so difficult after all," he said, as she bounced on her feet on the ground. "Now, Miss Barton, we will see with what grace you can perform the feat." "You will have to be careful; I am so awkward," said Star, preparing to go through the same acrobatic act. "Jump, Star!" said Edith, seeing her hesitate. "Here I go, then!" she said, laughing, as she took the downward dive. "Oh, my! Miss Barton!" exclaimed John, as she tumbled into his arms, as a big rag doll might. "Are you hurt?" he asked, as he released her from the necessary embracing he had to perform to prevent her from falling to the ground. "Not hurt, but a little frightened," she answered, flushed from the incident, and brushing out her skirts. "I am all right." "Now, you ladies go into the house with my sister while I put the horses away. Here, Anne, you take the ladies, and I will take the horses," he said, leaving his guests, and taking up Anne's position in charge of the team. "May I call you Anne?" asked Edith, as Anne came up to her. "Yes, Miss Jarney, if you wish; we all use our first names up here," responded Anne, opening the gate. "You may call me Edith, if you like, and this other lady will be our guiding Star," said Edith, walking with her arm around Anne's shoulders up the walk, her face aflush, her eyes beaming, and seeing everything about, talking continually. Star was not as talkative; but she was just as seeing as Edith was. She, too, saw something in that home, more than its simplicity, to attract her admiration. Was it the fragrant flowers and hopping birds and cool freshness that she saw? or was it the peace of contentment, indefinably overloading everything? or was it the radical difference in the two homes, ideal though in both, and irresistable in their contradictory elements, that caused her spirits to rise above the normal point of enthusiasm? Or was it something else? Star did not know. Arriving at the door, arm in arm now, Anne passed straight through the opening, holding on to Edith, and Star followed with considerable wonderment at what she might encounter. "Take off your hats, ladies," said Anne, withdrawing her arm from Edith's and standing off, with folded hands, looking at her, with gladness all over her face. "No, you must say Edith and Star," said Edith, seeing how humbly courteous Anne tried to be. "If you will have it that way; Edith and Star, take off your hats and gloves. Now, I've said it, and I didn't mean to be so rude," said Anne, abashed. "Anne, I will not love you if you do not call me Edith," said Edith, scolding pleasantly, pulling off her gloves. "I do not like too much formality. I have had so much of that that it does my heart good to get out where I can be free; and you will let me be free here, Anne, won't you?" "Oh, yes, Edith," answered Anne; "and Star, too; you may be as free as you please, Edith, for we are such common folk, so long as you don't carry off my brother, John." She said this without the least knowledge of its true meaning; not mentioning her brother James, because she did not think of such things in his connection. Edith blushed a deep crimson, as well as Star, at this extraordinary remark on this the most extraordinary day that ever came into their virtuous lives. Anne had a faint inkling of what these blushes meant, for she continued: "Now, Miss Edith, since you want to be free with me, I will be just as free with you, and tell you that my brother l--l--likes you." Edith was not prepared for all this, and she had to turn her head in the most confused state of feelings she ever fell into, all for wanting to be tender and kind and loving toward this mountain girl, who was not yet clearly or fully instructed in the propriety of fine speech. Edith made no reply. She stood a moment, after facing Anne, cogitating on what an appropriate reply should be. "Anne," she said directly, with a bright smile, "will you let me kiss you?" Edith held out her hands for Anne to come to her. Anne responded to the ineffable sweetness of Edith to make amends for her offense, which she realized she had committed against the fine lady opening her heart to her. "I love you, Anne," said Edith, holding the dear little girl to her breast; "I love you; will you be my friend?" "Why, of course, Edith," replied Anne; then she broke away, and was gone, leaving Edith and Star alone. They removed their hats and placed them on a table in a corner; and then sat down on a lounge that graced the wall under a window looking out on the porch, both in bewildered confusion and agitation. "What do you think of his sister, Star?" asked Edith. "She is a fine young child; no more than sixteen, perhaps," responded Star, "and so lively that I wish I could be here with her all the time." "I wonder if they will let us take her with us to the city, Star, to be our companion?" said Edith. "We would educate her, and teach her music and everything." The kitchen door opened, and Anne came in with her mother, who wore a gingham apron as the badge of her position in the household. Anne advanced with her mother and presented her, with much dignity, as she conceived it, to Edith and Star. "This is my mother, Edith and Star," said Anne, as the two young ladies arose and advanced to the middle of the room. Edith presented her small white hand and took the coarse hand of Mrs. Winthrope. "I am so glad to know you, Mrs. Winthrope," said Edith, as she kissed the aging woman, whose age was more from toil than years. Star having performed the same act of greeting, including the osculatory part thereof, Mrs. Winthrope held up her hands in an astonished attitude, and said: "Well, well; I declare; and you two are John's friends, are you? I hope you are well." "We are well; thank you," they both repeated. "Just make yourselves at home, ladies, with what we have here to entertain you, while I finish the dinner. Be seated by the window where it is cool, for I know you must be warm after the long drive in the sun." "Thank you, Mrs. Winthrope," they answered; and were seated. Then the mother and daughter disappeared again; and Anne returned, after a little, with her father, who was in the clothes of a ploughman. Mr. Winthrope was a tall man, a little stooped, with chin whiskers, and gray blue eyes; and, while rough looking, was not boorish. Anne escorted him to the young ladies, who arose at his approach. He greeted them so warmly and effusively that, for some time thereafter, they felt the grip of his vise-like hand on theirs. "Just make yourselves at home, as you like," he said. "We are farmers, you know, and if you find any pleasure here it is yours. We will be through our work by noon, then mother and me will find time to talk, if you care to be bothered with us at all." Then he left them. "Are they not very good people," said Edith to Star, after the father had gone out with Anne. "I like them very much," opined Star; "they are so pleasant." John came in shortly, and sat down on a split-bottom chair in the middle of the room. "I hope you ladies are enjoying yourselves," he said, toying with his hat he held in his hands. "I could not enjoy myself any more if it were my own home," answered Edith. "Why, you have such a delightful home, Mr. Winthrope, and such nice parents, and such a sweet little sister, with whom I have already fallen in love. I am regretting that I have not known them longer." "That's a beautiful encomium, Miss Jarney, on my native heath; but you know that you and your father and mother have been saying so many nice things about me that I am uncertain whether you mean it or not." John said this while glancing at the floor, picturing intangible things in the woof and warp of the old rag carpet. "I mean every word of it. Mr. Winthrope," replied Edith, also picturing similar intangible things in the old rag carpet as easily as if she had pictured them out of the delicate flowers in the velvet rug in her boudoir. Star sat gazing out the window, looking at some intangible shapes that made up the green hills beyond. Their conversation thereafter was not of the progressive kind, nor was it brilliant. Both became secretively reserved, and time was hanging monstrously on their hands. John was dreaming. Edith was dreaming. Both were uncertain as to what to say or how to act, so discomposed were they. But James came in soon to break the spell. He was such a strapping fine fellow, fine in texture, and as good as he was fine. "I knew very well who you were the day we met you on the road," said Edith, shaking his hand. "Had I known all this then. I should have bundled you into my wagon and brought you right home," he replied, with considerable liveliness in his speech. "But not knowing you, of course, I could do nothing else but drive on. However, the pleasure of meeting you now, here, is certainly beyond my mean ability to express." "We might have come," said Edith, with a ringing laugh. "Would it not have been odd, and so romantic, just to have come right along with you?" "I am sure I would have enjoyed it," he said; "and by this time I would have had you converted into farm hands." "And wearing calico dresses," said Edith. "And brogan shoes," said Star, remembering how she used to wear such articles of clothing. "Yes; it is certain one can't work here and wear silks," responded James. Then looking down at himself, he was reminded that he was still in his rough garb. "If you ladies will excuse me, I will make myself more presentable for appearance at dinner." He then left them; and when he returned, wearing his best Sunday suit, all brushed and fitting him very well, he was equally as stylish looking as his brother John in his best. When dinner was announced (dinner is at the noon hour with the mountain people), John lead Edith and James lead Star to the bounteously laden dining table set in the kitchen. It might have been noticed by Edith, had she not been otherwise engaged, that Star was more aflush than ever before, just at this period of her proud behavior. James talked to her very entertainingly during the progress of the long meal, and she was very cordial toward him. She laughed and talked with great glee, being amused at his ready wit and simple manner. But John and Edith were distressingly quiet, for some reason, listening mostly to the conversation of the others. Little Anne, at times, cast side glances at Edith and John, that might have been suggestive of their meaning. "Would you ladies like to try your hand at fishing?" asked James, who was warming up for any kind of sport that might be introduced for the entertainment of their guests. "Oh, delighted!" cried Edith. "I never fished in my life." "Nor I," said Star; "will you teach me how, Mr. Winthrope?" (meaning James.) "I thought we old people were to entertain you this afternoon," said the father. "We will return in time for that, father," James said, rising. "John, I'll get the bait; you get the tackle, and we will teach these young ladies how to fish." "Be careful," admonished the mother; "don't fall into the stream." "Anne, are you not going?" asked Edith, as she rose with the others. "I must remain here and help mother; and will await your return," said Anne, as she came around to Edith and put her arm around her. "You are a dutiful child, Anne," said Edith, kissing Anne thereat. Edith and Star were both dressed in gray serge skirts, white silk waists and sailor hats. While John and James got ready the ladies prepared themselves for the event of their lives. They were in waiting on the porch when John and James came up, with plenty of bait and tackle in their hands. So off they went immediately: John and Edith together, and James and Star, the father and mother and Anne standing on the porch watching their going. They struck the mountain stream a mile below the house, and the two ladies fell to the sport with the spirited joy of youth. The pair became separated after awhile, as all such sportsmen and women often do. One pair went up the stream, and one went down, after the elusive fish. John and Edith came to a pool, after wandering through the bypaths of the forest, far below the other two. Around the pool the trees hung low, and the shades were heavy, and the water was dark and deep. By the pool they sat down on a log, and cast their lines to await the fisherman's luck. "Isn't this delightful," said Edith, holding her pole with inexperienced hands over the water. "Fish won't bite, if we talk too loud," said John, critically, but pleasantly, as he sat below her on the log, slanting into the stream. She became quiet; he became quiet. The water trickled over the miniature falls at the head of the pool in such an isolated tone of ripling that it made wild sweet music for Edith. The trees above them sighed in a low crescendo, and the birds were singing everywhere. The sun rays glinted through the boughs of the trees, and danced upon the water, making a fretted work of moving lights and shadows. Water riders ran back and forth, as if playing with the sunlight let into their darksome place of habitation, and fish jumped up now and then, as if to taunt the patient anglers. And Edith and John sat quietly--waiting, waiting. Then a fish came along, and caught the bait of Edith's hook; and went tearing away in its struggle for liberty. So sudden was the unlooked for happening that Edith lost her balance, by reason of the gyrations of the fish, which she pluckily attempted to land, and plunged into the water. It came so sudden that John, who was at that moment meditating on the catch he would make, and on how he would boast over the rest of them when he got home, did not notice Edith's danger till it was too late. Without a moment's reflection, however, he dropped his pole and leaped into the pool after her. Edith came up with a scared look, beating the water with her hands, as he went down by her side. He seized her around the waist, and swam for the shore, and when they reached the shore, she laughed, being reminded of another watery occasion; but still permitting him to hold her in his arms. "I am a pretty sight now," she said, still remaining in his arms on the sloping bank, up which he was assisting her. "It seems we have an affinity for water, Edith," he said, reaching the top of the slope, still holding her in his arms. "May I call you Edith, now?" he said, clasping her wet form to his. She laid her dripping head upon his breast, one arm stole around his neck, and she looked up into his face. "Yes," she answered. And he kissed her for the first time on those sweet lips that had so often uttered his name before; but now they said, "John." And still he held her in his arms. "Edith, will you be my wife, some day?" he asked, looking with the fervor of an impassioned youth into her dear blue eyes, and pushing back the wet hair from her white temples. "Why, yes; dear John, I love you, as I always have since the first time I met you," she answered, with such an appealing tone for that old responsive note in him that he pressed her closer to his bosom. And the longing in her soul was recompensed in that moment of her eternal bliss. "You know me, Edith; you know my people now; you know what I am. Are you satisfied?" he asked, still harboring that same old uncertain doubt that always perplexed him so; and still holding her in his arms. "I know you to be a noble young man, dear John. I know your people now, and I love them. I am satisfied," she whispered. "You are all that I care for, John--all. I love you, I love you," and she kissed him. "I am satisfied, dear Edith. It was not an hallucination, after all, was it dear?" he answered. Thus, plighting their troth, they went hand in hand up the shady wood path as happy as two young children over their mishap. Life is beautiful, and life is sweet; but what would life be to those young people without the love between them? Coming to the path where they left James and Star, on parting, they found them sitting there, waiting. When Star saw them coming, she instinctively comprehended, and knew that the crisis was over between Edith and John. Star was happy herself over a secret of her own. And together they returned home. John proudly, on arriving in the old-fashioned sitting room, announced to his parents and sister his intended bride, and told them they could take her now, in her bedraggled condition, for their daughter and sister. "Now, will you go with me, Anne, to the city?" asked Edith, after she had been costumed in some of Anne's clothing that fit her narrowly. "I will educate you, and have you for my own dear sister," hugging Anne to her breast. "Some day, Edith; some day," answered Anne, uncertain in her mind. "When will you come after me?" "When I am your real sister, Anne," replied Edith, stroking Anne's golden hair, and then she looked up at Anne's mother, who could not fully realize what it meant for her future life. "You will let her go, Mrs. Winthrope?" "I may some day," answered the good old mother. "I wouldn't want to leave papa and mamma yet, Edith," said Anne, with a happy smile. "You shall return to see them often; so shall I," said Edith. "I will go some time, Edith, after you are my sister," answered the coy Anne. "That will be soon, dear sister," said Edith, folding Anne in her arms and crying with excessive happiness. "You may have two sisters soon, Anne--Star, I am sure, will be your other sister." Star blushed, and therefore told her tale. The family stood on the porch that evening, and listened to the receding sound of the rattling wheels and squeaking springs of the rig, as John drove away with his precious load. "God bless them," said the good old father; and Anne cried when the last hoof beat came down the shadowy roadway. In silence they sat in darkness till they heard the clanking hoofs returning. The mother went in and lighted the lamp; the father went in, the sister went in, the two brothers went in; and they all knelt down in family worship. As the curtain of the passing night drew thickly over the mountains, and the lights in the corridor of the Summit House became dim, and their room dark, Edith knelt down by her bed and offered up her prayers to the Good Lord, who had brought her safely through her troubles; and Star, kneeling by her side, said, "Amen." A few days thereafter, after Edith had written her parents of the happy culmination of her fishing trip, the following message was received by her from them: "Congratulations." So endeth the story of Edith and John. 
43769	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Examples include peddler and peddlar, grandmere and gran'mere, Mr. de Ronville and M. de Ronville. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg The "Little Girl" Series By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS In Handsome Cloth Binding Price, per Volume 60 Cents A Little Girl in Old New York A Little Girl of Long Ago A sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York" A Little Girl in Old Boston A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia A Little Girl in Old Washington A Little Girl in Old New Orleans A Little Girl in Old Detroit A Little Girl in Old St. Louis A Little Girl in Old Chicago A Little Girl in Old San Francisco A Little Girl in Old Quebec A Little Girl in Old Baltimore A Little Girl in Old Salem A Little Girl in Old Pittsburg For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price. A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 52, 58 Duane Street New York A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD PITTSBURG By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS [Illustration] A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1909, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published, September, 1909 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I A LITTLE GIRL 1 II A JOYFUL RETURN 19 III WELCOME 39 IV OLD PITTSBURG 60 V HOW THE WORLD WIDENED 81 VI A NEW FRIEND 103 VII DAFFODIL'S NEW WORLD 120 VIII IN SILK ATTIRE 141 IX WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH 152 X THE PASSING OF THE OLD 169 XI THE WOOF OF DAILY THINGS 189 XII SPINNING WITH VARIOUS THREADS 209 XIII THE SWEETNESS OF LOVE 227 XIV SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW 242 XV ANOTHER FLITTING 261 XVI SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER 284 XVII OH, WHICH IS LOVE? 305 XVIII A REVELATION 320 CHAPTER I A LITTLE GIRL "Oh, what is it, grandad! Why is Kirsty ringing two bells and oh, what is he saying?" Grandfather Carrick had come out of his cottage and stood in the small yard place that a young oak had nearly filled with a carpet of leaves. He was a medium-sized man with reddish hair streaked with white, and a spare reddish beard, rather ragged, bright blue eyes and a nose _retroussé_ at the best, but in moments of temper or disdain it turned almost upside down, as now. "What is he sayin'. Well, it's a dirty black lee! Lord Cornwallis isn't the man to give in to a rabble of tatterdemalions with not a shoe to their feet an' hardly a rag to their back! By the beard of St. Patrick they're all rags!" and he gave an insolent laugh! "It's a black lee, I tell you!" He turned and went in the door with a derisive snort. Daffodil stood irresolute. Kirsty was still ringing his two bells and now people were coming out to question. The street was a rather winding lane with the houses set any way, and very primitive they were, built of logs, some of them filled in with rude mortar and thatched with straw. Then Nelly Mullin came flying along, a bright, dark-haired, rosy-cheeked woman, with a shawl about her shoulders. She caught up the child and kissed her rapturously. "Oh, isn't it full grand!" she cried. "Cornwallis has surrendered to General Washington! Our folks caught him in a trap. An' now the men folks will come home, my man an' your father, Dilly. Thank the Saints there wasna a big battle. Rin tell your mither!" "But grandad said it was a--a lee!" and the child gave a questioning look. "Lie indeed!" she laughed merrily. "They wouldna be sending all over the country such blessed news if it was na true. Clear from Yorktown an' their Cornwallis was the biggest man England could send, a rale Lord beside. Rin honey, I must go to my sisters." The little girl walked rather slowly instead, much perturbed in her mind. The Duvernay place joined the Carrick place and at present they were mostly ranged round the Fort. That was much smaller, but better kept and there were even some late hardy flowers in bloom. "What's all the noise, Posy?" asked Grandfather Duvernay. He was an old, old man, a bright little Frenchman with snowy white hair, but bright dark eyes. He was a good deal wrinkled as became a great-grandfather, and he sat in a high-backed chair at one corner of the wide stone chimney that was all built in the room. There was a fine log fire and Grandmother Bradin was stirring a savory mass of herbs. The real grandfather was out in the barn, looking after the stock. "It was Kirsty ringing two bells. Cornwallis is taken." "No!" The little man sprang up and clasped his hands. "You are sure you heard straight! It wasn't Washington?" "I'm quite sure. And Nelly Mullin said 'run and tell your mother, your father'll be coming home.'" "Thank the good God." He dropped down in the chair again and closed his eyes, bent his head reverently and prayed. "Your mother's asleep now. She's had a pretty good night. Run out and tell gran." Grandfather Bradin kissed his little girl, though he was almost afraid to believe the good news. Three years Bernard Carrick had been following the fortunes of war and many a dark day had intervened. "Oh, that won't end the war. There's Charleston and New York. But Cornwallis! I must go out and find where the news came from." "Grandad don't believe it!" There was still a look of doubt in her eyes. Bradin laughed. "I d' know as he'd believe it if he saw the articles of peace signed. He'll stick to King George till he's laid in his coffin. There, I've finished mending the steps and I'll slip on my coat and go." "I couldn't go with you?" wistfully. "No, dear. I'll run all about and get the surest news. I s'pose it came to the Fort, but maybe by the South road." He took the child's hand and they went into the house. The streets were all astir. Grandfather stood by the window looking out, but he turned and smiled and suddenly broke out in his native French. His face then had the prettiness of enthusiastic old age. "We'll shake hands on it," said Bradin. "I'm going out to see. There couldn't be a better word." The autumnal air was chilly and he wrapped his old friese cloak around him. "Mother's awake now," said Mrs. Bradin. "You may go in and see her." The door was wide open now. It was as large as the living room, but divided by a curtain swung across, now pushed aside partly. There was a bed in each corner. A light stand by the head of the bed, a chest of drawers, a brass bound trunk and two chairs completed the furnishing of this part. The yellow walls gave it a sort of cheerful, almost sunshiny look, and the curtain at the window with its hand-made lace was snowy white. The painted floor had a rug through the centre that had come from some foreign loom. The bedstead had high slender carved posts, but was without a canopy. A woman still young and comely as to feature lay there. She was thin, which made the eyes seem larger and darker. The brown hair had a certain duskiness and was a curly fringe about the forehead. She smiled up at the little girl, who leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "You are better, mother dear," she said as she seated herself with a little spring on the side of the bed. "But you said so yesterday. When will it be real, so you can get up and go out?" and a touch of perplexity crossed the child's face. "Gra'mere thinks I may sit up a little while this afternoon. I had no fever yesterday nor last night." "Oh, mother, I was to tell you that Cornwallis has--it's a long word that has slipped out of my mind. Nelly Mullin said her husband would come home and my father. Kirsty Boyle rang two bells----" "Oh, what was it? Go and ask grandfather, child," and the mother half rose in her eagerness. "It was 'sur-ren-dered' with his army. Father has gone to see. And then the war will end." "Oh, thank heaven, the good God, and all the saints, for I think they must have interceded. They must be glad when dreadful wars come to an end." She laid her head back on the pillow and the tears fringed her dark lashes. The child was thinking, puzzling over something. Then she said suddenly, "What is my father like? I seem to remember just a little--that he carried me about in his arms and that we all cried a good deal." "It was three years and more ago. He loved us very much. But he felt the country needed him. And the good Allfather has kept him safe. He has never been wounded or taken prisoner, and if he comes back to us----" "But what is surrendered?" "Why, the British army has given up. And Lord Cornwallis is a great man. England, I believe, thought he could conquer the Colonies. Oh, Daffodil, you are too little to understand;" in a sort of helpless fashion. "He isn't like grandad then. Grandad wants England to beat." "No, he isn't much like grandad. And yet dear grandad has been very good to us. Of course he was desperately angry that your father should go for a soldier. Oh, if he comes home safe!" "Dilly," said gran'mere, pausing at the door with a piece of yellow pumpkin in her hand which she was peeling, "you must come away now. You have talked enough to your mother and she must rest." The child slipped down and kissed the pale cheek again, then came out in the living-room and looked around. The cat sat washing her face and at every dab the paw went nearer her ear. "You shan't, Judy! We don't want rain, do we, grandfather?" She caught up the cat in her arms, but not before pussy had washed over one ear. Grandfather laughed. "Well, it _does_ make it rain when she washes over her ear," the little girl said with a very positive air. "It did on Sunday." "And I guess pussy washes over her ear every day in the week." "It's saved up then for the big storms;" with a triumphant air. "Get the board and let's have a game. You're so smart I feel it in my bones that you will beat." She put Judy down very gently, but the cat switched her tail around and wondered why. She brought out the board that was marked like "Tit tat toe," and a box that she rattled laughingly. Pussy came when they had adjusted it on their knees and put two white paws on it, preparatory to a jump. "Oh, Judy, I can't have you now. Come round and sit by the fire." Judy went round to the back of Dilly's chair and washed over both ears in a very indignant manner. The play was Fox and Geese. There was one red grain of corn for the fox and all the geese were white. One block at the side was left vacant. If you could pen the fox in there without losing a goose or at the most two or three, you were the winner. But if once you let the fox out the geese had to fly for their lives. Grandfather often let the little girl beat. He was very fond of her, and he was a sweet-natured old man who liked to bestow what pleasure he could. Just now he was feeling impatient for the news and wanted to pass away the time. Dilly was quite shrewd, too, for a little girl not yet seven. She considered now and moved a far off goose, and the fox knew that was sour grapes. "Oh, you're a sharp one!" exclaimed grandfather. "I'll have to mind how I doze on this bout." But alas! On the next move she let him in a little way, then she fenced him out again, and lost one goose repairing her defences. But it wasn't a bad move. The great art was to keep one goose behind another for protection. He couldn't jump over but one at a time. She beat grandfather, who pretended to be quite put out about it and said she'd do for an army general. Grandmother was making a pumpkin pudding with milk and eggs and sugar and stick-cinnamon, which was quite a luxury. Then she poured it into an iron pan that stood upon little feet, drew out a bed of coal, and plumped it down. The cover had a rim around the top, and she placed some coals on the top of this. She baked her bread in it, too. Stoves were great luxuries and costly. Then she laid some potatoes in the hot ashes and hung a kettle of turnips on the crane. Grandfather and the little girl had another game and she was the fox this time and lost, getting penned up. "Grandfather," she said sagely, "if you know the good early moves and don't make any mistake, you're sure to win." "I believe that is so. You're getting a stock of wisdom, Dilly. Oh, won't your father be surprised when he comes home. You were a mere baby when he went away." She was an oddly pretty child. Her hair was really yellow, soft and curly, then her eyes were of so dark a blue that you often thought them black. The eyebrows and lashes were dark, the nose rather piquant, the mouth sweet and rosy, curved, with dimples in the corners. But in those days no one thought much about beauty in children. The door was flung open. "Ugh!" ejaculated Gran Bradin. "It's fairly wintry. Fire feels good! The news is just glorious! They headed off Cornwallis after having destroyed their fortifications and dismantled their cannon. The British works were so in ruins they tried escape. One section of troops crossed over to Glous'ter Point, but a storm set in and dispersed the boats. There was nothing left but surrender. So the great army and the great general who were to give us the finishing stroke, handed in their capitulation to General Washington. There are between seven and eight thousand prisoners and all the shipping in the harbor. Grandfather, you may be proud. We had, it is thought, seven thousand French troops, with Count De Rochambeau, and Count De Grasse." He reached over and wrung grandfather's slim white hand with its tracery of blue veins. Then he kissed his wife. "They've been good friends to us. We'll never forget that!" "And the war is over?" "Not exactly that. We've yet to dislodge them from various places. But they think now England will be willing to treat. And we'll have a country of our own! Well, it was three weeks ago." There were no telegraphs, and only the more important places had post roads. Pittsburg was quite out of the way. It had no dreams of grandeur in those days, and about its only claim to eminence was Braddock's defeat. "Lang brought some copies of the Philadelphia _Gazette_, but you couldn't get near one, they were rushed off so. But we'll hear it all in a few days. Too much good news might puff us up with vain glory. We may look for letters any day. Such a splendid victory!" Grandfather was wiping the tears from his eyes. Marc Bradin went in to comfort his daughter, though he could hardly forbear smiling with a sense of inward amusement as he thought of Sandy Carrick, who had as good as disowned his son for joining the Colonial army. He'd be glad enough to have him back again. Though he had been rather disgruntled at his marrying Barbe Bradin because she had French blood in her veins, as if the Irish Bradin could not in some degree counteract that! Sandy Carrick had been in the sore battle of Braddock's defeat. But after all the cowardly French had thought retreat the better part of valor and left the Fort that had been partly burned, left that section as well, and the government had erected the new Fort Pitt. He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi. Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. Colonel George Morgan had built a double-hewn log house of considerable dimensions, the first house in the settlement to have a shingle roof. Though the "Manor of Pittsburg" had been surveyed and Fort Pitt had been abandoned by the British under orders of General Gage and occupied by Virginia troops under Captain John Neville. There were some French residents, some Acadians as well, and a few Virginians who were mostly refugees. The houses were of very primitive construction, generally built of logs, but made comfortable on the inside. The emigrants had brought their industries with them. The women spun and knit, there were several rude looms, but they depended largely on Philadelphia for supplies. Pierre Duvernay had fled to Ireland in one of the Huguenot persecutions, but more fortunate than many, he had been able to take some of his worldly possessions. Here his only daughter had married Marc Bradin, his only son had died, and his wife had followed. Broken-hearted he had accompanied his daughter and son-in-law to the new Colonies. They had spent a few years in Virginia, then with some French friends had come to Pittsburg and bought a large holding, which seemed at the time a misadventure, and so they had built in nearer to the Fort. Here pretty Barbe Bradin had grown up and married Bernard Carrick, their neighbor's son, but they had not let the hospitable Bradin home. Here Daffodil had been born, and the French and Irish blended again. "What made you call me Daffodil?" the child said one day to her mother. "You were named after your mother and gran'mere after hers, and you should have called me Barbe." "It would have made no end of confusion. You see it does with great-grandfather. And when you were born it was lovely sunshiny weather and the daffodils were in bloom with their tender gold. Then you had such a funny fuzzy yellow head. I loved the Daffodils so. They come so early and look so cheerful, and you were such a cheerful baby, always ready to smile." "Do you suppose my hair will always stay yellow?" "Oh, no. It will grow darker." "Like yours?" "Well, perhaps not quite as dark. I like it. You are my spring. If I were in any sorrow, your brightness would comfort me." Then the sorrow came. The young husband felt it his duty to join the struggling army and fight for his country. It was in doubtful times. This queer, rural, primitive settlement knew little about the great causes. Since the new fort had been built and the French repulsed, absolutely driven out of their strongholds, there had been only the infrequent Indian encounters to rouse them. The stern resolves, the mighty enthusiasm of the Eastern Colonies had not inspired them. Even the Declaration of Independence, while it had stirred up their alien and contradictory blood, had not evoked the sturdy patriotism of the larger towns having so much more at stake. They added to their flocks and herds, they hunted game and wild animals, and on the whole enjoyed their rural life. Sandy Carrick had never known which side to affiliate with the most strongly. There was the brave old Scottish strain that his mother had handed down in many a romantic tale, there was the Irish of his father that had come down almost from royalty itself, from the famous Dukes that had once divided Ireland between them. Why the Carricks had espoused the English side he could not have told. He was glad to come to the new countries. And when, after being a widower for several years, he married pretty buxom widow Boyle, he was well satisfied with his place in life. He had been in the fateful encounter at Braddock's defeat at his first introduction to the country. The French were well enough in Canada, which seemed not very far from the North Pole, and a land of eternal snow, but when they came farther down with their forts and their claims it was time to drive them out, and nothing gave him greater satisfaction than to think they were mostly out. He took a great fancy to his next-door neighbor, Marc Bradin, but he fought shy of the old black-eyed Frenchman. Pierre Duvernay had passed through too many vicissitudes and experiences to believe that any one party had all the right; then, too, he was a sweet-natured old man, thinking often of the time when he should rejoin friends and relatives, not a few of whom had died for their faith. Sandy had not liked his son's marriage with Barbe Bradin, who certainly was more French than Irish, but she had a winsome brightness and vivacity, and indulged in many a laughing tilt with her father-in-law. Nora Boyle openly favored them all. They spun and knit and made lace and wove rugs of rags and compared cookery, and she and Mrs. Bradin were wildly happy over Daffodil. "If 't had been a boy now!" exclaimed Sandy. "A gal's good for naught when it comes to handin' down the name. Though if its hair'll turn out red, an 't looks so now, it may flout t'other blood," putting a strong expletive to it. "Don't now, Sandy!" said his wife's coaxing voice. "There's sorts and kinds in the world. The good Lord didn't mean us all to be alike or he'd made 'em so to start with." "Did make 'em so, woman. There was only two of 'em!" "Well, some others came from somewhere. And Cain went off an got himself a wife. An' when you think of the baby there's good three parts Irish to the one French. An' I'm sure no one keeps a tidier house, an' the little old man sittin' by the chimney corner hurts no one. And it's handy to have a neebur to play at cards." When there came an urgent call for men to join what seemed almost a lost cause Bernard Carrick went to Philadelphia with perhaps twenty other recruits, to the sorrow of his wife and the anger of his father. "For they can't win, the blunderin' fules! D'y spose King George's goin' to let a gran' country like this slip out of his fingers. Barbery, if you were half a woman you'd 'a' held onto him if y'd had to spit on yer han's to do it. You'll never see him agen, an' it comforts me for the loss of my son that you've lost your husband. Ye can git anither one, but I'll have no more sons to comfort me in my old age." Poor Barbe was wild with grief, yet somehow Bernard's sense of duty to his country _had_ inspired her, and then she had her little darling, her mother, and father, and grandfather, who had not outlived a certain heroic strain if his blood had come through French channels. The people of Pittsburg had no tea to throw overboard. The Stamp Act bore lightly on them. They could brew good beer, they could distil whiskey and make passable wine. Fish and game were in abundance, the fields laughed with riotous harvests, so what if a few did go to war? Sandy relented after a little and they took up the evenings of card-playing, with the cider or beer and doughnuts, or a brittle kind of spice cake that Mrs. Bradin could make in perfection. They had arguments, to be sure: Marc Bradin was on the side of the Colonies, and he had taken pains to keep informed of the causes of disaffection. It was going to be a big country and could govern itself since it must know better what was needed than a king thousands of miles away! Sandy held his spite against the French sufficiently in abeyance to learn to play piquet with great-grandfather. It interested him wonderfully, and since two could play a game the women could knit and sew and gossip. News came infrequently. Bradin often went to the Fort to hear. If there were reverses, he held his peace in a cheerful sort of way--if victories, there was rejoicing among themselves. For they tried not to ruffle Sandy Carrick unnecessarily. Daffodil went often to see grandad and Norry, as they called the merry-hearted second wife, who nearly always had some tidbit for her. And grandad took her on journeys sitting in front of him on an improvised pillion, teaching her to sit astride and buckling a strap around both bodies. "For you'll have to be my boy, Dilly. My other boy'll never come back to us." "Where will he go?" in her wondering tone. "The Lord only knows, child." CHAPTER II A JOYFUL RETURN "It is so good to get out among you all," Barbe Carrick said, as she was pillowed up in a big high-backed chair and wrapped in a soft gray blanket. Her hair was gathered in a pretty white cap with a ruffle of lace about the edge, framing in her rather thin face. "So good! And the good news! Why, I feel almost well." It had been a slow autumnal fever, never very serious, but wearing. Mrs. Bradin knew the use of many herbs and was considered as good as a doctor by most of the settlers. The room would have made a fine "Interior," if there had been a Dutch artist at hand. It was of good dimensions, or the great fireplace would have dwarfed it. Marc Bradin was a handy man, as not a few were in those days when new settlers could not encumber themselves with much furniture. There were some of the old French belongings, a sort of escritoire that had drawers below and shelves above and was in two pieces. But the tables and chairs and the corner cupboard were of his fashioning. There was china, really beautiful pewter ware, some pieces of hammered brass, candlesticks, and one curious lamp. The rafters were dark with age and smoke, but they were not ornamented with flitches of bacon, for there was a smoke-house out one side. The chairs would pass for modern Mission furniture. A few had rockers, notably that in which the little girl sat, with Judy on her lap, and the cat almost covered her. Grandfather was in his accustomed place. There was a small table beside him on which were his old French Bible, a book of devotion, and a volume or two of poems, and a tall candlestick with two branches. Gran'mere was doing some white embroidery, a frock for the little girl's next summer's wear. Mrs. Bradin had been settling her daughter and now stood undecided as to her next duty. "Has father gone out again?" Barbe asked. "Yes, to the Fort--to see if he can't get one of the papers." "It's wonderful news!" and the invalid drew a long breath of delight. "But it isn't real peace yet." "Oh, no, I do believe it is the beginning, though," said her mother. "I wish the sun would shine. It ought to;" and Barbe gave a wan half smile. "But it isn't going to," announced Daffodil confidently. "And it _is_ going to rain." Grandfather laughed. "Why, Dilly?" "Because." The child colored. "Oh, you will see." There was a tap at the door and then it opened. Norah Carrick dropped the shawl she had thrown over her head. A still pretty, heartsome-looking woman, with a merry face bright with roses, laughing blue eyes, and dark hair. "It's good for sore eyes to see you up, Barbe. I hope we'll have some fine weather to brace up one. An'--an' 'twas good news you heard the morn." Then she gave a funny, rippling laugh. "But he'll be glad to have Bernard come back," Barbe exclaimed resentfully. "Ah, that he will! Ye mustna mind him child, if he's cranky for a bit. He's been that set about England winning the game that you'd take him for wan of the high dukes that sit in state and tell what shall be done. I've been for the country all along. It runs in my mind that Ireland owes the king a gredge. She's been a cross-grained stepmother, say your best. An' why couldn't she let us go on an' prosper! We'd been willin' enough to work for her part of the time. An' it's not such an easy thing to lave your own bit of a home and come over here in these wilds, an' hew down trees for your houses and clear land for the corn, an' fight Indians. So I'm wishin' the country to win. But Sandy's carryin' the black cat round on his back to-day, an' it makes me laugh, too. He's that smart when he gets a little riled up, and he's husked corn to-day as if he was keepin' time with Nickey Nick's fiddle." "What makes the black cat stay on his back?" asked Daffodil, stroking her own pussy softly. "Ah, that's just a say so, Dilly darlin', for a spell of gettin' out of temper when there's no need. But he made a good dinner. I had just the stew he liked, an' a Donegal puddin' that come down from my great-grandmother. An', Barbe, you begin to look like crawlin' about again an' not so washed out. The good news should make a warm streak all through you." "Oh, I'm much better. If it will come off nice an' warm----" "We'll have a storm first. And is there any more news?" She had been taking some work out of a bag after she had nodded to gran'mere and shaken hands with great-grandfather. Now she settled herself and began to sew. She was never idle. Sandy Carrick had the smartest wife anywhere about and few women would have minded his queer quips so little. Then the door opened and Marc Bradin entered, thrusting out a newspaper. "I've been waiting my turn and have promised to have it back in half an hour, but I'll not count the coming and going," laughing. "And it's news worth waiting for. It's all true and more, too. And if we want a King or an Emperor, General Washington's the man. Now I'll read, since that's the cheapest way, as you can all hear at once." He dropped into a chair and threw his old cap on the floor. Bradin was an excellent reader. Yes, it was glorious news. A big battle averted and soldiers disabled by honor rather than wounds. A vivid description of what had led up to the surrender and the conditions, the enthusiasm and the predictions that at last victory was achieved for the Colonies. And although numerous points were still held by the English, it would be difficult to rouse enthusiasm after this crushing blow. "Time's up," said the reader. "But you have all the real gist of the matter. Norah, how's Sandy?" Norah gave a laugh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Oh, he'll come round. I can't see, with all the Scotch an' Irish in him, why he must be shoutin' for King George just because he happened to fight on that side years ago. An' it was under Washington, too, an' people do say if Braddock hadn't been so high an' mighty, and taken some of the young man's counsel, there wouldna have been such an awful defeat." "I'll come right back, jinky! It begins to rain." Dilly looked up in triumph. "I told you so," she said, "and you just laughed, grandfather. Now you see Judy knew." She gave Judy an extra hug and squeezed a faint mew out of her. "Judy is a wise cat," admitted grandfather. "And I must run home an' get a supper that'll be a soothin' poultice to the inside of the man," laughed Norah. "I'm glad I know about how things stand, so my heart will be light. An' we will have Bernard home safe and sound, never you fear, so, Barbe, get well to welcome him. I'm cooking chicken to-morrow an' I'll send over broth an' a bit of the breast. Run over to-morrow, little one. Grandad'll be all right." Barbe was tired and went to bed. Dilly moved over by grandfather and begged for a story. He and Norah had a packful of them. It grew darker and rained, with a sort of rushing wind. When Dilly grew older and began to understand what real living was, it seemed as if this was her actual induction into it. She had run about and played, listened to stories and songs, gravitated between the two houses, ridden with grandad, who was always a little jealous that most of her relatives should be on the French side. She could shut her eyes and hear Kirsty's raucous voice and the two bells he was ringing and see grandad's upturned nose and his derisive tone. She awoke to the fact that she really had a father. Grandad used to come over in the evening and play piquet with old grandfather. It was a game two could enjoy, and the women folk were no great hands at card-playing. Now and then, when Norah was not too busy, they had a friendly, social game. It rained two days and then cleared up in the glory of perfect autumn weather. Nothing came to counteract the good tidings. Grandad came for Daffodil to take a ride with him, and that evening he sauntered in and had a game of piquet and beat. It always delighted him. It was fighting the French over again. Barbe improved rapidly now. People were quite apt to have what was called a run of fever in the autumn at the change of the seasons, and there were some excellent home-brewed remedies and tonics that answered, if the case was not too severe. Dilly and her mother talked a great deal about the return of the husband and father. "Is he like grandad?" she inquired with a little contraction of the brows. "Oh, not much. He was called a handsome young fellow. Your eyes are like his, and he had such a brilliant color then," sighing a little and wondering if the hardships had made him old before his time. "And--and his nose?" hesitatingly. Barbe laughed. "It isn't short like grandad's. His mother was a handsome woman." "It's queer," said the child reflectively, "that you can have so many grand relatives and only one father. And only one gran'mere. For Norry isn't _real_, is she, since she isn't father's mother. And how many wives can one have?" "Only one at a time. It's quite a puzzle to little folks. It was to me." Daffodil looked at her mother with wondering eyes and said thoughtfully, "Were you truly little like me? And did you like grandad? Did he take you out on his big horse?" "We were living in Virginia then. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother were living there--she was alive then. And when she died gran'mere and gran came out here. I was about eight. And we didn't like it here. The children were so different." "It is all very queer," said Dilly. "You are little, and then you grow, and--and you get married. Will I be married? Must you find some one----" "Oh, Dilly, I think some one will find you;" and her mother laughed. "You will have to grow up and be--well, eighteen, I think, almost a dozen years before you need to think about it." "I'm very glad," she said soberly. She did not like things that puzzled her. The war was another. What had it been about? Grandad was sure the English were right, and great-grandfather was glad they were going to be beaten. She used to dream of her father, and watch out for him. For some of the companies were furloughed, his among them. And now he was Captain Carrick. Christmas came. There was not much made of it here, as there had been in Virginia, no gift-giving, but family dinners that often ended in a regular carouse, sometimes a fight. For Pittsburg had not reached any high point of refinement, and was such a conglomerate that they could hardly be expected to agree on all points. The little girl lost interest presently in watching for her father, and half believed he was not coming. She was very fond of grandad, and Norry, and the wonderful stories she heard about fairies and "little folk," who came to your house at night, and did wonderful things--sometimes spun the whole night long, and at others did bits of mischief. This was when you had offended them some way. She liked the Leprecawn so much. He was a fairy shoemaker, and when all was still in the night you sometimes heard him. "Tip tap, rip rap, Tick a tack too!" And the little Eily, who wished so for red shoes, but her folks were too poor to buy them. So she was to find six four-leaf clovers, and lay them on the doorstep, which she did. "What a queer noise there was in the night," said the mother. "It was like this, 'Tip tap, rip rap.'" "Sho!" said the father, "it was the swallows in the chimney." Eily held her peace, but she put four-leafed clovers again on the doorstep, and tried to keep awake, so she could hear the little shoemaker. "I'll clear them swallows out of the chimney, they disturb me so," declared the father, and he got a long pole and scraped down several nests. But the next night the sound came again, and the mother began to feel afeared. But when Eily went downstairs there was a pair of little red shoes standing in the corner, and Eily caught them up and kissed them, she was so full of joy. Then her mother said, "The Leprecawn has been here. And, Eily, you must never wear them out of doors at the full of the moon, or you'll be carried off." "Was she ever, do you think, Norry?" "Oh, her mother'd be very careful. For if you go to fairyland, you'll have to stay seven years." "I shouldn't like that," subjoined Dilly. "But I _would_ like the red shoes. And if I could find some four-leaf clovers----" "You can't in winter." "Well--next summer." "Maybe grandad can find you some red leather, and lame Pete can make them." "But I rather have the fairy shoemaker, with his 'tip tap, rip rap';" laughing. "Don't minch about him. Here's a nice chunk of cake." Dilly had cake enough to spoil a modern child's digestion. But no one understood hygiene in those days, and kept well. There were no schools for little girls to go to. But a queer old fellow, who lived by himself, taught the boys, and tried to thrash some knowledge in their brains. It was considered the best method. Dilly's mother taught her to read English, and great-grandfather inducted her into French. Gran'mere talked French to the old man. Every morning she brushed his hair and tied it in a queue with a black ribbon. He wore a ruffled shirt front, and lace ruffles at his wrist; knee breeches, silk stockings, and low shoes with great buckles. Dilly learned to sew a little as well. But early industry was not held in as high esteem as in the Eastern Colonies. There was plenty of spinning and knitting. Fashions did not change much in the way of dress, so you could go on with your clothes until they were worn out. The nicest goods were imported, but there was a kind of flannelly cloth for winter wear, that was dyed various colors, mostly blue and copperas, which made a kind of yellow. So the winter went on, and in February there came a great thaw. Oh, how the river swelled, and rushed on to the Ohio. It was very warm. And one day Daffodil sat on the great stone doorstep, holding the cat, and munching a piece of cake. Judy ate a few crumbs, but she did not care much for it. "There's a peddler," said Dilly to Judy. "He has a big pack on his back, and he walks with a cane, as if he was tired. And there's something hanging to his waist, and a queer cap. He seems looking--why, he's coming here. Gran'mere wants some thread, but he isn't our----Mother," she called. He was thin, and pale, and travel-stained, and had not the brisk, jaunty air of the peddlar. But he came up the little path, and looked at her so sharply she jumped up, hugging Judy tightly. "Some one, mother," she said, half frightened. Mrs. Carrick stepped to the door, and glanced. Then, with a cry, she went to her husband's arms. They both almost fell on the doorstep. "Oh," she cried, "you are tired to death! And----" "Never mind; I'm home. And I have all my limbs, and have never been ill. It has been a desperate struggle, but it's ending grandly. And everybody----" "They are all alive and well. Oh, we've been watching, and hoping--it doesn't matter now, you are here;" and she leaned down on his shoulder and cried. "Three years and four months. I couldn't get word very well, and thought I'd rather come on. You see, my horse gave out, and I've had a ten-mile walk. And--the baby?" "Oh, she's a big girl. She was sitting here----" "Not that child!" in surprise. "Daffodil," called her mother. The child came shyly, hesitatingly. "Dilly, it's father. We've talked of him so much, you know. And you have watched out for him many a time." Somehow he didn't seem the father of her imagination. He took her in his arms, and dragged her over in his lap. "Oh, I forgot you could grow," in a tone broken with emotion. "But her blue eyes, and her yellow hair. Oh, my little darling! We shall have to get acquainted over again;" and he kissed the reluctant lips. "Oh, it is all like a dream! Many and many a time I thought I should never see you again;" and he wiped the tears from his eyes. "If you are glad, what makes you cry?" asked the child, in a curious sort of way. Barbe put her arms around Dilly. Of course, no child could understand. "And the others," began Bernard Carrick. "Oh, let us go in." There was a tremble of joy in her voice. "Mother, grandfather, he has come!" Mrs. Bradin greeted her son-in-law with fond affection, and a great thanksgiving that he had been spared to return to them. They talked and cried, and Daffodil looked on wonderingly. Great-grandfather Duvernay, who had been taking his afternoon rest, came out of his room, and laid his hand tremblingly in the younger one, that had not lost its strength. Yes, he was here again, in the old home, amid them all, after many hardships. "Oh, sit down," said Mother Bradin. "You look fit to drop. And you must have something to eat, and a cup of tea. Or, will it be a man's tipple? There's some good home-brewed beer--or a sup of whiskey." "I'll take the tea. It's long since I've had any. And if I could wash some of the dust off--it must be an inch thick." Ah, that was something like the old smile, only there was a hollow in the cheek, that used to be so round and so pink. She took him into her room, and, filling a basin with warm water, set it on the cedar chest, spreading a cloth over it, that he might splash in comfort. "It's been a long journey," he said. "But the poor horse gave out first. Boyle, and Truart, and Lowy were with me, but not to come quite so far. Some of the young fellows remained, though the feeling is that there won't be much more fighting. The impression is that England's about as tired of the war as we." "But you wouldn't have to go back again?" Barbe protested, in a sort of terror. "Well--no;" yet the tone was not altogether reassuring. She took his coat out by the door and brushed it, but it was very shabby. Still, he looked much improved when he re-entered the room, where Mrs. Bradin had set a tempting lunch at the corner of the table. But he could hardly eat for talking. Barbe sat beside him--she could scarce believe he was there in the flesh. Daffodil went out in the sunshine again. She started to run over to grandad's. Norry would be so glad. Well, grandad too, she supposed. Had he really believed father would never come home? Somehow, it was different. In Norry's stories the soldiers were strong, and handsome, and glittering with gold lace, and full of laughter. She couldn't recall whether they had any little girls or not. And there was her mother hanging over the strange man--yes, he _was_ strange to her. And her mother would care for him, and stay beside him, and she somehow would be left out. Her little heart swelled. She did not understand about jealousy, she had had all the attention, and it was not pleasant to be pushed one side. Oh, how long he was eating, and drinking, and talking, and--yes, they laughed. Grandad was coming up to the house with a great two-handled basket--she knew it was full of ears of corn, and she did so like to see him shell it, and hear the rattle as it fell down in the tub. He sat on a board across the tub, and had a queer sort of affair, made by two blades, and as he drew the ears of corn through it, scraped off both sides. No, she wouldn't even go and see grandad, for he would say, "Well, yellow-top, your father hasna come home yet;" and, she--well, she could not tell a wrong story, and she would not tell the true one. Grandad wouldn't go back on her, but he could wait. "Oh, Dilly, here you are!" said her mother, coming out of the door, with her husband's arm around her. "We're going over to grandad's; come;" and she held out her hand. The soldier looked more attractive. His faded cap had been thrown aside, and his short dark hair was a mass of curls. He looked sharply at the little girl, and she turned away her face. Still, she took her mother's hand. Norry had been sitting by the window. Now she rushed out with a shriek of joy. "Oh, Barney! Barney! Sure, I've been afraid we'd never set eyes on you again! The saints be praised! Sandy!" Sandy Carrick came and put his arms around his son. Both were rather tall men. For some moments neither spoke. Then the father said, "Cross the threshold, Barney. An' here's a silver shilling--kiss it for good luck an' a long stay." Bernard did as his father bade him, and the two crossed the threshold together. "Now, you must have something to eat and drink," began hospitable Norah. "Deed an' true, the crows would hardly make a meal of you." "But I've been stuffed already," he protested. "No matter. There's always room intil you're laid on your back for the last time. An' you're that thin, 't would take two of you to make a shadow." She set out cold chicken, and boiled bacon, and bread that would tempt one on a fast day, with a great loaf of cake, and Bernard and Barbe sat down. Sandy brought out the whiskey bottle. No one thought of objecting in those days. "Oh, where's the colleen?" and Norah stepped to the door. "Has she gone back home? She takes it a little strange," said Barbe. "She can't remember well. But she'll come to it presently." Then Barbe raised her eyes and met her husband's, that were so full of adoration; she blushed like a girl. "And the war is over," declared Norah. "Did they all have leave to go home?" "Oh, no. We can't say it's over, though the thought is there'll be no more hard fighting. And we've some good friends on the other side to argue the case for us." "No, no," snorted Sandy. "It's not over by a long shot. An' then they'll get to fightin' atween theirselves, and split here an' there. Weel, Mr. Captain, are we to have a King or a great Emperor, like him of France, with a court an' all that?" Bernard laughed. "We'll have neither. We've gotten rid of kings for all time." "Don't do your skreeking until you're well out o' the woods. But I hope you'll be wise enough next time to let t'other fellow take his chance. An' it beats me to think a great Lord an' a great soldier, too, should be put about, and captured by a crowd of ignoramuses without training." "Oh, you learn a good deal in five or six years," said the son good-naturedly. "There have been the Indians and the French." "And I can't abide turn-coats. First we fight for th' old country, then turn around and fight forninst it. We lick the French, an' then ask their aid. A fine country we'll have, when no one knows his own mind!" "You'll see the sort of country we'll make when we get about it. And we have no end of brave fine men who'll plan it out for us. Here's to your health and luck. And now tell me what Pittsburg has been doing." He raised his glass and barely touched it to his lips. Sandy drained his. "There's not much doin'--how could there be, with no money?" he answered shortly. "But you've the place for a fine town. New York and Philadelphia may have the start, but it's up to us to come out fair in the race. You have the key to the great West. Some day we'll clear the French out of that." "Oh, don't talk war," interposed Norah. "Tell us if you're glad to get home. And should you have known Dilly? She'll be the one to set hearts aching with those eyes of hers, when she gets a bit grown up." "We must go back," said Barbe. "And, Bernard, you must be stiff with your long tramp. They rode mostly all night, and when the horses gave out, walked. You must go to bed with the chickens." Sandy gave a snort. "I'll be over in the morn, ready for a talk or a fight," laughed Bernard. "God be praised that He has cared for us all these years, and let us meet again." Sandy looked after his son, who had the fine air of a trained soldier. "An' when we get him fatted up," said Norah, "he will be main good-looking." Daffodil had sauntered slowly homeward. She looked for some one to call after her, but there was no sound. Oh, her mother did not care for her now, and Norry had not so much as coaxed her in and offered her a piece of cake. She entered the house rather sadly. Gran'mere was concocting some treat for supper. She just turned and said, "Were they glad to see your father?" "I don't know. I didn't go in." Then she crept up alongside of grandfather, and leaned her face down on his breast and cried softly. "Dear, what has hurt my little girl?" pushing aside the mop of hair. "Mother won't want me any more. Nor grandad, nor Norry, nor--nor any one;" and Daffodil seemed very lonesome in a great cold world, colder than any winter day. "Yes, I want you. Oh, they'll all want you after a day or two. And it's a great thing for your father to come home safe." "I don't believe I am going to like him. He isn't like what I thought." Grandfather smiled. "Wait and see what he is like to-morrow. It's almost night now, and things look different, cloudy-like. There, dear, don't cry when we are all full of joy." CHAPTER III WELCOME Neighbors kept dropping in, and the table was crowded at supper time. Hospitality was ungrudging in those days. Grandfather had the little girl close under his wing, but she had a curiously strange feeling, as if she was outside of it all. Then her mother said: "Wouldn't you rather go to bed, dear? The men will want to talk about battles, and things, not best for little girls to hear. When you are older they will interest you more." "Yes," she replied, and kissed grandfather. Then her mother undressed her and tucked her in her little pallet. "Oh, you _will_ always love me?" she cried, in a tremulous tone. "Always, always. And father, too." Even if other children should come, the years when Daffodil had been her all could never be dimmed. The mother shut the door softly. They were kindly enough, this conglomerate population, but rough, and the French strain in the Bradins had tended to refinement, as well as living somewhat to themselves. Daffodil cried a little, it seemed a comfort. But she was tired and soon fell asleep, never hearing a sound, and the company was rather noisy. When she woke, the door to the living room was partly open, and the yellow candlelight was shining through. Mornings were dark, for they had come to the shortest days. There was a curious rustling sound, and Dilly ran out in her little bare feet, though the carpet was thick and warm. Gran'mere was cooking, Barbe was washing dishes, Judy sat by the fire in a grave upright fashion. How white the windows were! "Oh, it's snow!" cried the little girl. "Are we snowed up, as grandad tells about? Why, we can't see out!" "Yes, it's a tremendous snow. Bring out your clothes, and let me dress you. Don't be noisy." The child seldom was noisy. She wondered at the request. And what had happened? She had a confused sense of something unusual in her mind. "Father is asleep. It was late when he went to bed last night, and he is so tired out that we shall let him sleep as long as he will. Get your clothes, and shut the door softly." She did as she was bidden, with a furtive glance at the mound under the blankets. Her mother soon had her dressed in a sort of brownish red flannel frock, and a blue and white checked apron. Then she brushed out her silky hair, and made three or four thick curls. "Oh, isn't it funny! Why, we can't see anything, not a house, or a tree, nor grandad's." They could see that in almost any storm. She went and patted Judy. Gran'mere was frying bacon, and when that was brown and crisp, she slipped some eggs in the pan. Grandfather kept his bed late winter mornings, and only wanted a bit of toast and a cup of coffee. That was generally made by roasting wheat grains, with a tiny bit of corn, and made very fair coffee. But it was necessity then, not any question of nerves or health. So they ate their breakfast and everything seemed quite as usual except the snow. So far there had been none to speak of. Gran'mere put out the candle, and the room was in a sort of whitey-gray light. There was queer, muffled banging outside, that came nearer, and finally touched the door, and a voice said "Hello! hello!" Barbe opened it. There was grandad, in his frieze coat and fur cap, a veritable Santa Claus. "Well, was there ever the beat of this! Stars out at twelve? The old woman's geese are gettin' plucked close to the skin. Why, it's furious! Dilly, come out and let me tumble you in the snow bank." She shrank back, laughing. "I'd have to dig you out again. How is the lad? Did we upset grandfather with the racket?" "Oh, no. He always sleeps late. Have a cup of hot coffee." "An' that's just what I will. Well, the lad's lucky that he was no' a day later, he'd been stumped for good. By the nose of St. Andrew, I never saw so much snow fall in a little time. An' it's dark as the chimney back." "The snow is white," interposed Daffodil. "Ah, ye're a cunnin' bairn. But put a lot of it together, and it turns the air. The coffee's fine, it warm the cockles of one's heart." "What are they?" "Oh, the little fellys that get hot, an' cold, an' keep the blood racin' round. And have delight bottled up to give out now and then when one is well treated." Daffodil nodded. She was not going to say she did not understand. "An' the b'y? He wants fat, sure. The country's made a poor shoat out of him. Well, I must go back, shovelin' for the path's about grown up. The boss out to the barn?" "Yes." "Well, I'll kem over agin, an' give him a hand." "Grandad has a good heart," said Mrs. Bradin. Mr. Bradin came in presently with a pail of milk. "This beats all for a storm," he said. "Now, I'll take a second breakfast. Dilly, come and sit here beside me, and take a taste of things. Not a livin' hen is up yet, just balls of feathers on the perch." "Couldn't you take me out to see them?" "If you get snowed under, we'll have to send for grandad. Well, they did have a roarin' time last night. He was plucky to take that long walk, though the poor fellows have had many a wearisome march." He wrapped Dilly in a blanket, and carried her out to the barn. There was Mooley munchin' her hay, there was the pen of sheep that was always safe-guarded at night, and the hens, funny balls of feathers, sure enough. But the head of the flock stretched up his long neck and crowed. The pigs grunted and squealed a request for breakfast. Mr. Bradin threw them a lot of corn. "Oh, let me walk back," she exclaimed. But the snow drifted in her eyes, and she tumbled over in the snow bank. He picked her up, and they both laughed. Grandfather was up now, looking as neat and trim as possible. He always read a chapter in his French Bible, and Daffodil sat on the broad arm of the chair and liked to listen. Then he had his breakfast on the little stand, and Dilly ate the crust of his toast. She liked so to crunch it in her teeth. Then she always wanted a story about France, that seemed heroic to her, though she hardly knew the meaning of the word. But Norah's stories were generally amusing, and grandfather did not believe in the "little people." It was noon when the soldier made his appearance. He really looked much refreshed, though his clothes were worn and shabby. And he kissed his little girl very fondly. Why, his blue eyes were very much like hers, and his smile won one to smile in return. And then the sun suddenly broke through the gray clouds, and a gust of wind began tearing them to tatters, and letting the blue through. Gran'mere opened the door, and the very air was warm. She drew long, reviving breaths. Grandad was coming over again, with a great dish of roasted apples Norah had sent. "I should be ungrateful if I didn't get fat by the minute," Bernard Carrick said. "But such a snow!" "I never saw so much business done in the same time, but it'll run off like a river. And the sun is fairly hot. But there's plenty of time for winter yet. How does it seem to be out of barracks, or tents, or whatever you had, or didn't have?" "There was a good deal of _not_ having. But no one hardly knows all the hardships, and the danger. The wonder to me is that so many come out of it alive. And home is a better thing for all a man has passed through. I'm anxious to see how the town has gone on." "H-u-g," with a sort of disdain. "It hasn't gone on. How could it, with the likeliest men thrashin' round the country worse than wild Indians. For we counted on their having a little more sense." Bernard laughed. His father had been very angry about his going, and it was funny to see him try to be a little ungracious over his return, as he had been so sure he would never come back alive. "Suppose we go out and take a look at it?" "In all the snow!" so amazed he reverted to the ancient tongue. With the variety of people, and the admixture of English, the rugged points of dialect were being rubbed off. "I've seen some snow, and travelled through it. But this is rather queer. Such a glorious air, and fairly a May day sun. "Who dances barefoot in Janiveer will greet in March." "But they wouldn't go barefooted in the snow," exclaimed Daffodil, in surprise. "They wouldn't do it for choice, though I've seen them dance with their feet tied up in rags. Dance to keep themselves warm," said her father. "Yes. Let us go to the Fort. You'll be wanting to see the b'y's grown up now. An' the old folk." "You haven't grown much older;" looking his father over affectionately. "Bedad! It's not much beyant three years, and does a man get bowed over, an' knock-kneed, an' half-blind, an' bald-headed, an' walk with a stick in that little time. Havers! Did you expect to see me bed-ridden!" Bernard laughed. The same old contrarity that was not so much temper after all. "I can't say the same of you, more's the pity. You've given the country, a pack of men who'll never give you a thankee, your good looks, an' your flesh, an' at least ten years. Ye're a middle-aged man, Bernard Carrick!" Bernard laughed again. It was like old times, and, oh, how glad he was to be home again. "Come, then; and, Dilly, run down an' see Norah, an' have a good time." Sandy took his son's arm, and they went off together. Daffodil looked after them with long breaths that almost brought tears to her eyes. Grandad hadn't been glad when the news came; she could see just how he had turned with his nose in the air, and now he was claiming his son as if he had all the right. Gran'mere was concocting some mystery on the kitchen table, Barbe sat at the little wheel, spinning. And she was singing, too. A faint pink had come back to her cheek, and her eyes almost laughed with delight. "What's a' the steer, kimmer. What's a' the steer, Jamie has landed, and soon he will be here." She had a soft sweet voice. How long since she had sung with that gayety. True, she had been ill, and now she was well again, and Jamie had come home. But grandad had taken him off, and that somehow rankled in the child's heart. She stood by the window, uncertainly. There were only two small windows in the large room that were of glass, for glass was costly. Another much larger had board shutters, closed tightly, and a blanket hung over it to keep out the cold. They called it the summer window. One looked over to the other house and Daffodil was there. "I wouldn't go over if I were you," said her mother. "It is very wet. Grandad might have carried you, but he hardly knows whether he's on his head or his heels." "He'd look very funny on his head. What makes him so glad? He was angry about--if that great general hadn't--I can't say the long word, father couldn't have come home." She turned a very puzzled face to her mother. "There might have been a big battle;" and the mother shuddered. "Oh, grandad will be as glad as the rest of us presently that we have a country. Now we can begin to live." It was all very strange to her small mind. The sun was making rivulets through the snow, and the great white unbroken sheets sparkled with iridescent lights. Out beyond there was the Fort; she could see figures moving to and fro. Everything seemed so strange to her. And a country of one's own! Would the farms be larger, and, if England was beaten, what would become of it? Would they, our people, go over and take what they wanted? Would they drive the people away as they did the Indians? She was tired of so much thinking. She went over to grandfather, and seated herself on the arm of the chair. She did not want Norry's fairy stories. Leaning her head down on the dear old shoulder, she said, "Tell me about a great King, who beat the English." "Are you going mad about the English?" her mother asked laughingly. "We shall all be friends again. Quarrels are made up. And so many of us came from England." "We didn't," returned Dilly decisively. "Well--on the one side Scotch and Irish." "And on the other French, pure French, until your mother married a Bradin, and you----" "And Marc Bradin has been a good husband to me," said his wife, looking up from her preparations. Truly, he had, and a kind son to him as well, though he had not been in favor of the marriage at first. The story was about the grand old times in France. He never told of the religious persecutions to the little girl. He had a soft winsome sort of voice, and often lapsed into French idioms, but she was always charmed with it, even if she could not understand all he said. Presently she went fast asleep. Then the darkness began to fall. The candles were lighted, and that roused both sleepers. There was a savory smell of supper, even Judy went around sniffing. "We won't wait any longer," gran'mere said, with a little impatience. She had been cooking some messes that she remembered her son-in-law was very fond of, and she was disappointed that he was not here to enjoy it. After that grandfather went to bed. Dilly was wide awake and held her cat, telling her a wonderful tale of a beautiful woman who had been turned into a cat by an ugly witch, and all the adventures she could remember. Judy purred very loudly now and then. "Don't you want to go to bed?" asked Mrs. Carrick. "Oh, I'm not a bit sleepy." Then, after a pause, "Will father stay at grandad's?" "Oh, no. He is with the men at the Fort." "But grandad took him away." "Oh, they all want to see him." "Doesn't he belong to us?" "Yes, dear. But they always make a time when one comes home from the war." "What queer things there are in the flames," the child went on. "I think they fight, too. Look at that long blue streak. Just as soon as the little red ones come out, he swallows them up. Then he sits and waits for some more, just as Judy does for a mouse. It's funny!" "There, I've spun out all my flax. Now let us both come to bed." There was a sound of voices outside. Then the door was flung open, and Bernard Carrick entered, with a rather noisy greeting, catching his wife in his arms, and kissing her vehemently. Then he clasped his arms about Dilly, and threw her up, she was so small and light. She stretched out her hands to her mother. "Don't, Bernard; you frighten the child. We have been waiting for you to come home. And now Dilly must go to bed." She took her little girl by the hand. Bernard dropped in the big chair. Barbe seldom undressed her now, but she did this night. Presently Daffodil said in an imperious tone, "Do you like my father? I don't. I like grandfather, and gran, and grandad sometimes, but not always. And--father----" "Hush, dear. You will come to like him very much, I know, for I love him dearly. Now, say your little prayer and go to bed." Barbe went out, poked the fire a little, put on another log, and then sat down by her husband, who had fallen into a heavy sleep. Had he given the country something more than his service these three years--his manhood, the tender and upright qualities that dominated him when he went away? Sandy Carrick was of the old school, strong and stalwart, and not easily overcome, although he could not be called dissipated in any sense. But Bernard had never been of the roystering kind. She prayed from the depths of her heart that he might be made aware of the danger. The fire dropped down again, and she roused with a sudden shiver, rising and looking intently at him. The flush was gone, he was pale and thin again. Then he opened his eyes and saw her standing there. After a moment he held out both hands, and clasped hers. "Forgive me, Barbe," he said. "I ought not have come home to you like that, but they are a wild lot and I hadn't the strength to stand it after the months of privations. Zounds! what a head my father has! I haven't been indulging in such junkets. I wanted to come home alive to you and the little one. But I couldn't get away without offence and one goes farther than one can bear. Don't think I brought the detestable habit home with me, though many a poor fellow does yield to it and you can't blame them so much, either." "No," she answered softly, and kissed him on the forehead, much relieved at his frankness. Then as an afterthought--"I hope you didn't quarrel with anybody." "Oh, no. Party spirit runs high. A man who has never seen anything beyond an Indian skirmish thinks he could set the country on its feet by any wild plan. And here we have so many shades of opinion. Father's amuse me; I wonder how he and great-grandfather keep such amicable friends!" "Oh, he has no one nearby to play a game of piquet with him. And the Duvernay temper is much milder. But you must be tired. Let us fix the fire for the night." "Tell me when I have it right. I am not quite sure, though I have looked after many a camp fire. And now I am here to ease you up somewhat, and look out for you. Your father has been very good through these troublous times, and I will see that he need not be ashamed of his son." "Oh," she cried with deep emotion, "you make me very happy. So much of our lives are yet to come." There followed several pleasant days. The snow ran off and another came and vanished. There was little doing. Some people had looms in their houses and were weaving goods of various rather common kinds and many of the women were kept busy spinning thread and woolen yarns for cloth. Money was scarce, most of the trade was carried on by barter. "It has the making of a magnificent city," Bernard Carrick said, surveying its many fine points. "From here you will go straight over to the Mississippi. Some day we shall have both sides. What have the French been about to let such a splendid opportunity slip through their hands." "Don't stir up a hornet's nest at home," counseled the elder Carrick. "Oh, you mean great-grandfather! He sees the mistakes and shortsightedness, and while he would have been proud enough to live here under French rule, he understands some aspects at the old home better than we, the extravagance of the Court, the corruption of society, and," laughing, "he is hardly as hot for France as you are for England. After all, what so much has been done for you or Scotland or Ireland for that matter?" "This will be fought all over again. You will see. The country will be broken up into little provinces. Yankee and Virginian will never agree; Catholic and Puritan are bound to fight each other." "Hardly! They fought together for the great cause and they'll hardly turn their swords on each other. I've been from New York to Yorktown. And now the great work is for every man to improve his own holding, his own town." Pittsburg then had enjoyed or hated successive rulers. Great Britain, then France, Great Britain again, Virginia and Pennsylvania. It had been a strategic point worth holding, but no one then had dreamed of its later renown. Bernard Carrick did not seem to make much headway with his little daughter. She had been startled with his rudeness, though he was gentle enough now. But what with her mother, grandad, and Norah, who was the most charming of stepmothers, she felt he had enough care and attention. She was not going to sue for any favors. "Daffodil," he said one pleasant day when they had been rambling round the old Block House, not so very old then, though it could count on over twenty years, "Daffodil, why can't you love me as well as you love great-grandfather. I think you scarcely love me at all." She kicked some gravelly stones out of her path and looked over the river. It was all so beautiful then, no smoke to obscure it anywhere. "They all love you, they're always wanting you. Grandad doesn't care for me any more. And he wasn't a bit glad when the news came. He went in the house saying it was a 'lee' and Norry said the black cat was on his back. It wasn't a real cat, but like those in the stories. And he stayed there all day. And he wouldn't believe you were coming home or that the war was ended." "He hardly believes it yet;" laughing. "But he _was_ glad to have me come back. And are you not a little glad?" "You have all mother's gladness. And gran'mere's." She made a funny little movement with her dimpled chin, that if she had been older would have been coquettish. Her lashes were long and a sort of bronze brown, and her eyes made a glitter through them. Barbe had been a very pretty girl but the child was not much like her mother only in certain dainty ways. And her blue eyes came from him. He was rather glad of that. "Don't you want them to be glad that I am back?" "Why?"--she looked up perplexed. She was not old enough to define her emotions. "Of course I should want them to be glad." "Yet you are a little jealous." "Jealous!" she repeated. The word had no clearly definite meaning to her. "Maybe I have crowded you out a little. But you will find as you grow that there is a great deal of love that can be given and not make any one the poorer." "What is jealousy?" She had been following out her own thought and hardly minded his truism. "Why"--how could he define it to the child's limited understanding? "Jealousy is wanting _all_ of another's regard and not being willing that any other shall have a share. Not being willing that grandad shall care for me." "He wasn't glad at first." She could not forget that. "It wasn't a question of wanting or not wanting me that made him captious. He could not enjoy the English being beaten. I do not understand that in him since he means to spend all the rest of his life here, and has never wanted to go back. He was only a little boy, not older than you when he came here. And he fought in the battle of Braddock's defeat. Though the French gained the day it was no great victory for them, for they gave up their plan of taking possession of all the country here about. And he has not much faith in the rebels, as he used to call us, and didn't see what we wanted to fight for. And he _is_ glad to have me back. But he isn't going to love you any less." "Oh, yes he does," she returned quickly. "I used to ride with him and he never asks me now. And he takes you away--then they all come asking for you and if everybody likes you so much----" "And don't you like me a little?" He gave a soft, wholesome laugh and it teased her. She hung her head and returned rather doubtfully--"I don't know." "Oh, and you are my one little girl! I love you dearly. Are you not glad to have me come back and bring all my limbs? For some poor fellows have left an arm or a leg on the battlefield. Suppose I had to walk with a crutch like poor old Pete Nares?" She stopped short and viewed him from head to foot. "No, I shouldn't like it," she returned decisively. "But you would feel sorry for me?" "You couldn't dance then. And grandad tells of your dancing and that you and mother looked so pretty, that you could dance longer and better than any one. And he was quite sure you would come home all--all----" "All battered up. But I think he and Norry would have been very good to me. And mother and everybody. And now say you love me a little." "I was afraid of you," rather reluctantly. "You were not like--oh, you were so strange." What an elusive little thing she was! "But you are not afraid now. I think I never heard of a little girl who didn't love her father." "But you see the fathers stay home with them. There are the Mullin children and the Boyles. But I shouldn't like Mr. Boyle for a father." "Why?" with a touch of curiosity. "Oh, because----" "Andy Boyle seems very nice and jolly. We used to be great friends. And he gave me a warm welcome." "I can't like him;" emphatically. "He beat Teddy." "I suppose Teddy was bad. Children are not always good. What would you have done if you had been Teddy?" he asked with a half smile. "I would--I would have bitten his hand, the one that struck. And then I should have run away, out in the woods and frozen to death, maybe." "Why my father thrashed me and I know I deserved it. And you are not going to hate grandad for it?" She raised her lovely eyes and looked him all over. "Were you very little?" she asked. "Well--I think I wasn't very good as a boy." "Then I don't like grandad as well. I'm bigger than Judy, but do you suppose I would beat her?" "But if she went in the pantry and stole something?" "Can you steal things in your own house?" "Oh what a little casuist you are. But we haven't settled the other question--are you going to love me?" "I can't tell right away;" reluctantly. "Well, I am going to love you. You are all the little girl I have." "But you have all the other people." He laughed good-naturedly. She was very amusing in her unreason. And unlike most children he had seen she held her love rather high. "I shall get a horse," he said, "and you will ride with me. And when the spring fairly comes in we will take walks and find wild flowers and watch the birds as they go singing about. Maybe I can think up some stories to tell you. I am going to be very good to you for I want you to love me." She seemed to consider. Then she saw grandad, who had a little squirrel in his hands. Some of them were very tame, so she ran to look at it. "A queer little thing," said the father to himself. CHAPTER IV OLD PITTSBURG Spring came with a rush. Barbe Carrick glanced out of the south window one morning and called her little girl. "Look, Dilly, the daffodils are opening and they make the garden fairly joyous. They are like the sun." There was a long border of them. The green stalks stood up stiff like guards and the yellow heads nodded as if they were laughing. Wild hyacinths were showing color as well, but these were the first save a few snowdrops and violets one found in woody nooks. Birds were singing and flying to and fro in search of nesting places. Pittsburg was not much of a town then, but its surroundings were beautiful. The two rivers were rushing and foaming now in their wild haste to pour their overflow into the Ohio. The houses had begun to stretch out beyond the Fort. Colonel Campbell some years before had laid out several streets, the nucleus of the coming city. Then Thomas Hickory completed the plans and new houses were in the course of erection. Still the great business of the time was in the hands of the Indian traders that the French had found profitable. Beyond were farms, and the great tract, afterward to be Allegheny City, lay in fields and woods. A post road had been ordered by the government between Philadelphia and the town. And there were plans for a paper. For now most people were convinced that the war was at an end, and the Southern cities had been turned over to the Continental government. There was a brisk, stirring air pervading the place. Business projects were discussed. Iron had been discovered, in fact the whole land was rich in minerals. The traders were bringing down their furs. It had not been a specially cold winter and in this latitude the spring came earlier. "Oh, it's beautiful!" The child clapped her hands. "Can't I bring in some of them?" "Oh, yes. But pick only the largest ones. Leave the others on to grow." She came in with an apron full. "Some are for grandfather," she said. "Yes, fill this bowl and put it on his table." She had just finished when he came out. He was always immaculate, and his hair had the silvery tint. His daughter saw that it was always neatly brushed and the queue tied with a black ribbon. He was growing a trifle thinner and weaker. "Oh, little one," he cried, "did you get a posy for me? Is it your birthday?" and he stooped to kiss the golden hair, then the rosy lips. "Her birthday will not be until next week," said her mother. "I had forgotten. I am almost a hundred. And she is----" "Seven." "And when I get to be a hundred I'll have a little table like yours, and read out of the Bible, and we'll talk over things that happened when we were children." He laughed and patted her shoulder. "I shall not be here," he said slowly. "Oh, where are you going? I do not want you to go away," and she drew an apprehensive breath. "We do not always stay in one place. I came from France years and years ago. And I shall go to another country, heaven. It is always summer there." "Can't you take me?" with an eager, upward look. "Mother wants you. And you are to be a little old lady and sit in this chair." "And wear a cap like gran'mere? And have two little creases in my forehead, so?" She tried to make them but they were not much of a success, and the smile returned. "Now let us read." She took her seat on the arm of the chair. Gran'mere came in and busied herself about breakfast. The reading was from one of the minor prophets. Dilly did not understand it very well but she could converse in the language quite fluently. Her mother had taught her to spell and read English. Girls were not expected to have much education in those days; indeed, here they grew up mostly like the flowers of the field. While the little girls to the eastward were working samplers, sewing long overhand seams, hemming, and doing beautiful darning, these little girls ran about, romped, helped to take care of the next younger baby, grew up and married, no one could have told just how. After breakfast when the sun was warm and bright grandfather started for his walk. He always felt stronger in the morning. Sometimes Barbe went, often only Dilly. He liked the child's prattle. He liked, too, the way the denizens of the woods came to her, and the birds. True she always had some bread to crumble and she talked in her low sunny voice. Now and then a squirrel would run up her shoulder, watch her with beady eyes that almost laughed and whisk his feathery tail about. "It does seem as if they ought to talk," she often said. "They do in their language, only we can't understand them; at least we do in part. Doesn't he say in his fashion, 'I'm glad to see you? Have you any crumbs to-day.' And how one of them scolded when another ran off with that piece you dropped." "That was funny, wasn't it!" and she laughed. They were sitting on a fallen log in the warm sunshine. Bees were out also, buzzing and no doubt grumbling a little because there were not more sweet flowers in bloom. And the birds sang and whistled in great glee. They returned from their walk presently through the woods, where she gathered some curious wild flowers. Then they came out by the river, foaming and tumbling about as if it longed to overflow its banks. Now and then a rough kind of boat came down laden with stores of some kind, but there was no hurry visible anywhere. About sixteen years before the Indians had ceded all the lands about Pittsburg to the Colonies. The six nations assembled with their principal chiefs and warriors and gave the strongest assurance of treaty keeping, which after all were not well kept, as usual. But they had retreated to better hunting grounds and for some time had made little trouble, though many friendly Indians remained. The wanderers came out to the town proper. Streets were being surveyed, straightened, new ones laid out. There were about a hundred houses ranged round the Fort, but they had begun to spread outside. The disputes with the Pitt family, who had held the charter of Pennsylvania, had been mostly settled and grants of land given to many of the returned soldiers in lieu of the money the Colonial government could not pay. Pittsburg now belonged to the State, and a project had been broached to make it the county seat. Grandfather looked very tired and pale as he came in and went straight to his chair. His daughter took his hat and cane. "I did not mean to go so far. I wanted to look at the spot where I had buried my money;" with a little hollow laugh. "Did you bury some money?" asked Daffodil, with eager curiosity. "Can't you dig it up again?" "No, dear; it has to stay there for years. It may be dug up in your time, but I shall not need it." She looked puzzled. "You must have a cup of tea," said Mrs. Bradin, and immediately she set about it. Grandfather leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Dilly espied her mother in the adjoining room and went thither to exploit the splendid time with the squirrels and show the flowers she had gathered. Then she stood rather wistfully. "Well?" said her mother in a tone of inquiry. "Grandfather went to look at the money he had buried, but he couldn't find it. Do you suppose some one has taken it away?" "Buried?" She seemed mystified a moment, then smiled. "It wasn't as we bury things. A long time ago when the French held the Fort and seemed likely to keep a good part of the country grandfather bought a large tract of land. Then the French were driven out by the English and they in their turn by the Colonists. But the land is there and some day the money may come out of it. Grandad thinks he might as well have thrown it into the river. But he has never wanted for anything, and it would likely have been spent for something else. It's odd grandfather should have said that to-day. He seldom mentions it. He was quite troubled over it at first--when _I_ was a little girl." "Oh," returned Daffodil, relieved, though she did not understand the matter. "Go and put your flowers in water;" said her mother. Grandfather was soundly asleep and did not wake until dinner was on the table. Then he scarcely tasted it. "You must not take such long walks," his daughter said. "You cannot stand it any more." "No, I am getting old," rather sadly. "When your mother died I felt that I didn't want to live, and now I am content to go on in this lovely world until the Lord calls me home. I thought once I should round out the century. There have been many changes in the hundred years." And though he had been on exile for his faith's sake, though he had seen the blunders and sins of his country's rulers, he could not help reverting to the grand old dream of the magnificent empire of New France that would never come to pass now. How they had let all the advantages slip through their fingers that had grasped only at the wildest pleasures and dissipations. Barbe went out in the sunshine to garden a little. She was so fond of growing and blooming things. And they yielded such a beautiful return. She sang snatches of songs, sometimes in French, sometimes the gay or sad Scotch ditties. Dilly went over to see Norah, all the men were out now at the spring work. Norah was spinning on the big wheel, but she could raise her voice above its whir and to-day she was full of merry legends. Dilly had brought the cat and Judy never objected to being held. "I'm going to be seven years old," she said in a pause. "And when will I be almost a hundred like great-grandfather?" "Oh, you've gone only a little bit toward it," laughed Norah. "Why I'm not half way there myself. And I don't want to be. I'd like never to grow any older. But you shouldn't stop at seven. You haven't come to the cream of life. There's more fun at seventeen and that's ten years away. But you're big enough to have a party." "What is a party like?" "Oh, you little innocent! A party is a lot of people together who laugh and tell stories and have a good time and something to eat and drink. And you must have a cake with seven candles around it." "What are the candles for?" "To light your way;" laughing. "No, to tell how many years you have lived. I'll make the cake, and the candles too. They'll have to be dips for I haven't any small mould. Don't you remember how your mother and gran'mere made candles last fall? And I haven't a bit of wax myrtle. Oh, I can melt up two or three of mine. They are more fragrant than tallow. Yes, you shall have a party. I'll talk to your mother about it." Dilly was all interest and excitement. Her mother agreed at once. A modern little girl would have refused such a party. For there would be all grown people. Barbe Carrick had been a little exclusive with her child and she had not felt the need of playmates. Then they were rather out of the range of the Fort people as the somewhat crowded settlement was called. There were no schools nor Sunday-schools for little folks. Sunday was not very strictly kept. The schoolmaster read prayers, the litany, and a sermon from some volume on Sunday morning and the rest of the day was given over to social life. There were a few Friends who held their meeting in each other's houses; some of the Acadians had found their way thither, and now and then a priest came who took in the more devout of the Irish population. But there was a large liberty of opinion. Norah would have the house decorated with blossoming shrubs and she made a wreath for the little girl to wear, for a few neighbors were asked in. James Langdale had been in Bernard's company, and Mrs. Langdale and Barbe had exchanged many a fear and a few hopes. There were two Langdale boys, but of course they were not eligible for a girl's party. They had some idea of the fitness of things even then. Barbe and Bernard Carrick were at the head of the table with Daffodil on her mother's side and great-grandfather on the other. At the foot were grandfather and grandmother Bradin and on one side grandfather Carrick and Norah, fresh and smiling and full of gayety in the pretty lavender crêpe she had worn at her own wedding and that she saved now for high occasions, with her sapphire earrings and brooch that had come down to her through several generations and had been worn at Court and danced with royalty. It was what we would call a high tea, a bountiful spread, and there was much jesting and joking. I think they didn't mind the little girl very much. She was perched up higher than usual and wore a white robe that was kept as a sort of heirloom when she outgrew it, for it was lace and needlework of her mother's making. Jetty, a half Indian woman, waited on the table, and when the meats were taken out and the dessert brought in there was Daffodil's beautiful cake with the seven candles all alight. She thrilled with the pleasure. They passed around other cakes and home-made wine and drank great-grandfather's health and wished him many more years. Grandfather Carrick drank to Daffodil's future, wishing her long life and a happy marriage with great prosperity. Then her mother helped her up on her feet. She felt very bashful with everybody's eyes upon her and almost forgot the little speech Norah had taught her, but her mother prompted and she replied amid great applause. The toasting went all around, then her candles were put out and she had to cut the cake, which she did with a silver knife that had a Louis stamp upon it. The cake was declared excellent. "I'm going to take my piece home to the boys," declared Mrs. Langdale. "Husband, give me a taste of yours." After that there was more merriment. Then Jetty took off the things, the tables were pushed back, and Norah and grandfather Carrick danced a jig. And it _was_ dancing such as you seldom see nowadays. Norah could have made her fortune on a modern stage. After Daffodil's party broke up the men went over to grandfather Carrick's, where they made a night of it, as was the fashion of the times. But Dilly and great-grandfather wanted to go to bed. "A party is just beautiful!" declared Dilly. "Couldn't I have another sometime!" "Oh, you are getting spoiled," laughed her mother. "Let me see--when you are ten, maybe." So many new thoughts came to Daffodil that she was surprised at herself. Of course it was being seven years old. She began to sew a little and knit and make lace over a cushion. Very simple at first, and oh, the mistakes! Then there was gardening. How curious to plant a dainty little seed and have it poke a green head out of the ground. But funniest of all were the beans coming up with their shells on their heads; she was sure at first they must be upside down. The men were very busy about the new town and sometimes they almost quarreled over the improvements. It was taking on quite a changed aspect. They were giving names to the streets and building much better houses of hewn logs, making plaster walls. But glass was very dear and for a long while they could only put in a few windows. The rest were openings, closed by shutters at night or in a storm. The paper was a great source of interest, the Pittsburg _Gazette_. What they did without any telegraph and depending only on post horses puzzles us now. And the General Government had a hard task on its hands reconciling the different states and trying ways of getting money. "They'll see, an' a sorry time they'll have of it," predicted Sandy Carrick. "It's settin' up housekeeping for yourself on nothing. Th' ould country's paid our bills and sent us what we needed an' they'll be glad to go back, mark my words now." Bernard took his father's talk in good part. His knowledge was so much wider. There would be hard times, but there were brave men to meet it. Sometimes he wished they could go to a big city, but it would be cruel to tear Barbe away from the household when she was its light. Daffodil had another wonderful pleasure. The old English people kept up some of their customs and they had a gay time over the Maypole. It was like a grand picnic. They had a smooth grassy place at the edge of the woods and the pole was a young tree that was denuded of its limbs as it stood in just the right place. They could not get ribbon, but strips of dyed muslin answered for the streamers. There were two fiddlers, there were gay choruses. One song grandad sang with great gusto. Captious as he could be when people did not agree with him, he had a fund of Irish drollery. "Come, lasses and lads, get leave of your dads And away to the Maypole hie; For every fair has a sweetheart there, And the fiddlers standing by, Then trip it, trip it, up and down." And grandad did trip it merrily. It was fortunate for Norah that she was not jealous, but she enjoyed a bit of fun, and her arch smile, the merry flash of her eyes, with the color coming and going, made her very attractive. Dilly wished she was big enough to dance--her little feet kept patting the turf and keeping time with the fiddle. "You're Daffodil Carrick, aren't you?" said a boyish voice almost in her ear. She turned, startled, and her eyes were so lovely they fairly transfixed him, and she stared unconsciously. She did not speak but nodded. "I'm Ned Langdale. My mother was at your party and brought us home a piece of your birthday cake. She said you were seven and as pretty as a fairy, and I'm fourteen, just twice as old." "Oh," she said, "that's funny. And will you always be twice as old." "Why--no. You can never be that but just once in your life--I mean with that special person. And when you were twenty I wouldn't like to be forty." "Is that so very old? Great-grandfather is ninety-seven." "Whew! That is old! But you see now I am seven years older than you and that is the way it will be all our lives. Do you go to school? There's a lady in Water Street who takes little girls, though she's only just begun." "No; but I can spell, and read, and do little sums. And read in French." "Oh, that's great! I'm studying Latin, but it's awful tough. Isn't it gay here? Can you dance?" "I never tried with music." "I can, just a little. Oh, say, it's splendid! If I knew just how I'd ask you to try it with me. It seems so easy when you look at them. It's so and so----" moving his hands. "Yes, do try. You whirl round----" And without any real intention they started. It was like floating. Yes, she had done it when she thought of the little people dancing on the green. "Oh," with a soft laugh of protest, and all out of breath. "It's--delicious! I didn't think I could do it for fair. I sometimes make believe. I'll get Norry to teach me." "Norry? Who?" "Why----" she flushed daintily. "That's grandad's wife." "Then she's your grandmother." "Oh, no, she isn't. You see the other wife died; she was father's mother and he married Norah. We all call her Norry." "She doesn't look old enough to be any one's grandmother. And isn't she gay? She has such a merry face, pretty too." "And she sings such gay songs. She knows all about the fairies, too, and she's seen them at home, that's Ireland. Why don't they come to America?" "Maybe the witches drive them away. Witches are just awful! Come; let us try again." He placed his arm around her and they whirled off to the fascinating music. Is there anything like a fiddle to put the spirit of delight in one's feet? Other couples were floating round or doing jigs with fancy steps and laughter. Now and then a bright, mirthful young lad ran off with some girl and left the first partner in the lurch, at which there was a shout. "Oh, I wish you were my sister! Wouldn't we have fun! I have only one brother, Archie, and he's stupid as an owl--well, I mean he hasn't any fun in him, and he'd dance about like a cow. Oh, there's your--well, it would be queer to call her grandmother." They both laughed at that. "I wondered where you were, Daffodil. Isn't this Ned Langdale? I know your mother. Dilly, I think I had better take you home. I promised your mother I wouldn't keep you very long." "Oh, no; let me stay just a little while. It's all so gay and they dance so--so--isn't it like a fairy ring?" Norah laughed. "Well, I'll take another round, then we must go. You keep her just about here, then I shall know where to find you. Aren't you tired, though?" "Oh, not a bit." Her eyes shone like stars and there was a most delicious color in her cheeks like the dainty first ripeness of a peach. "There's a tree over there--go and sit down. I won't be long." The great tree had been cut down and there were no end of chips lying about. "Now, if I was home I'd get a basket and gather them up," said Ned. "Mother thinks they make such a splendid fire. It's odd that our fathers were out in the war together, and are real good friends. I mean to be a soldier." "But if there isn't any war?" "There'll be Indian wars until they are all cleared out. They're a treacherous lot and never keep their word. And governments need an army all the time." "But it's dreadful to fight and kill each other." "Still you have to. History is full of wars. And there were so many in the Bible times. The children of Israel had to fight so many people to get the land of Canaan that the Lord promised them. And we've been fighting for a country--that is, our fathers have--and now we've gained it. Oh, wasn't it splendid when Cornwallis surrendered. Did you hear Kirsty that morning? I thought the place was on fire." That brought grandad's face before her and she laughed. "I didn't know what it meant nor who Cornwallis was. I'm only a little girl----" "But you're awful smart to read French. Can you talk it?" "Oh, yes. Grandmother Bradin was French. They went to Ireland and then came to America, and since father has been away they have talked it a great deal more, so you see I know both." "Mother said your party was so nice. And the old grandfather was like a picture. When they drank your health you had to reply." Daffodil's face was scarlet. "I almost forgot. Norry made me say it over and over, but mother whispered and then I remembered." "Oh, I wish I could have seen you. And you are so little and pretty. I'd like to see your French grandfather. Could I come some time?" "Why, yes. And you'd like Norry so much." "Do they live with you?" "Oh, no; but it's only a little way off----" Norah came flying back. "Come," she said hurriedly. "Grandad's had a fit about you because I did not have you tucked under my wing. Why, I should have dropped you while I was dancing. Glad you've taken such good care of her;" and Norah nodded to him as she took the child by the hand. "Don't say a word about the lad, or grandad will show his claws and scratch all round." He was waiting where a path turned off. "Well, Yellow-top," he began, "so you're not lost. Had a good time?" "I was watching them dance. And they were so merry. Oh it was fine!" "No place for a little youngster like you. Norry was crazy to think of it." "I saw some other little children----" "Yes, rabble;" and the nose went up. "Grandad, don't be cross. I had such a nice time;" and she slipped her small hand in his. "You're 'most a witch, you cunning little thing;" and he gave her a squeeze. "Now, Norry, take her to her mother's arms before you let her go." They turned off, and grandad, who had not had his fun out, went back. "It was all splendid, Norry. I want you to show me how to dance and teach me some songs--some of those gay and pretty ones." "Well, well! you _are_ getting along. Daffodil Carrick, you'll break hearts some day;" and Norah laughed. She had so much to tell them at home and she spoke of Ned Langdale, but she did not quite like to tell about the dancing, wondering if there had been anything wrong in it, and she did not want to have Norah blamed. She liked the gayety so much. It was rather grave at home, with all grown people. And her mother was not _all_ hers now. Father was very fond of her. And she was coming to like him very much. He was pleased that she had such a nice time. He wondered if it would not be well to send her to this school for small children that had lately been opened. But her mother objected decidedly. Oh, how beautiful the summer was with its flowers, and then its fruits. One Sunday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Langdale came up with their son Edward, and Daffodil was glad to see him again. He was a nice, well-behaved lad, and very deferential to great-grandfather. The two soldiers talked over their battles and the state of the country. The preliminaries of peace were under way, but the settlement seemed to drag along. France still stood our friend. Daffodil took him out to see the squirrels that came at her call and inspected him with such curious, inquiring eyes that he laughed about it. "You see they are not used to boys," she explained. The quails were very much at their ease as well, and robins flew and fluttered. Judy never tried to catch them, though sometimes she hunted out in the woods. "Ned Langdale is a nice boy," said Dilly's father. "I don't wonder they are proud of him. His heart is set on being a soldier." "I'm glad he isn't my son if that is his bent," Barbe said. "And I hope we'll hear no more of war." CHAPTER V HOW THE WORLD WIDENED The summer passed rapidly. Daffodil found many things to entertain her, but grandfather demanded much of her time. He took his morning walk with her hand in his, but he did not go as far as formerly. Then, on his return, he had a nap in his chair. He lost his appetite during the latter part of the season. In the afternoon he took a long nap. Daffodil read to him now, and he did not appear to notice her blunders. "Father fails rapidly, I think," Mrs. Bradin said to her husband. He shook his head with a slow, sympathetic movement. "We shall miss him very much. And Dilly will feel it. I am sorry to have her know the mystery no child can understand." "We won't go for a walk this morning, Dilly," he said one day in later August. "The air is very close. We will wait until evening." "But you go to bed so early." "Yes, I'm getting old," with his faint, sweet smile. "But everybody says you must live to be a hundred. That's a whole century." "Sometimes I feel as if it were two centuries since I began. But it has been a pleasant journey toward the last. I'm glad to have had you, Dilly." "I'm glad, too," the child said with her bright smile. "Now you may sing to me a little." So she sang him to sleep. Then she went to wait on her grandmother. Her mother was sewing by the window in their sleeping-room. "Go and look at grandfather," she said presently. "He is still asleep. Mother, I wish you would show me that stitch I began yesterday." So she sat down at her work. Mrs. Bradin went to her father. His head had drooped a little forward. She placed her hand on his forehead, and drew a long quivering breath. The summons had come, peacefully, for him. She was still standing there when her husband entered, and at a glance he knew what had happened. "It is best so," he said. Barbe was startled beyond measure. Latterly her thoughts had been revolving much about herself, and though she had remarked the slow alteration, she had put off the assumption of the great change. Somewhere in the winter--maybe spring, and here it was with the ripening of summer. They carried him to his room and laid him tenderly on his bed. A long, well-used life it had been. To Daffodil it was a profound mystery. No child could comprehend it. This was the journey grandfather had spoken of, that she had imagined going back to France. "What is it, mother? How do people go to heaven?" she asked. "Some day we will talk it all over, when you can understand better. We must all go sometime. And we shall see each other there." "Then it isn't so bad as never seeing one again," and there was a great tremble in her voice. "No, dear. And God knows about the best times. We must trust to that." He looked so peaceful the day of the burial that Daffodil thought he must be simply asleep. She said good-by to him softly. There had been no tragedy about it, but a quiet, reverent passing away. Still, they missed him very much. Barbe wanted to set away the chair that had been so much to him. She could not bear to see it empty. "Oh, no, mother," pleaded Daffodil. "When I go and sit in it I can talk to him, and he seems to come back and answer me. It's so lovely where he is and there isn't any winter. Think of having flowers all the year round. And no one ever is ill. There are such beautiful walks, and woods full of birds, the like of which one never sees here. And I can put my head down on his shoulder, just as I used, and I can feel his hand holding mine. Oh, no, don't take it away, for then I should lose him." The child's eyes had a wonderful exalted light in them, and her voice had a tender, appealing sound, that went to the mother's heart. She was thankful, too, that Daffodil had no terror of death. She shrank from it as from some dread spectre standing in her way. The child missed him most in her walks. Norah liked neighbors to chaff and gossip with; rambles, with no special motive, did not appeal to her. Gran'mere was always busy, her mother was easily tired out. She rode, as of old, with grandad, but she could not use the pillion, her arms were too short to go around his stout body. Her father took her out with him when he could; he did a good deal of surveying. On Saturday Ned Langdale would hunt them up, and one day he brought Archie, who was three years younger, and not exactly stupid, either, but always wanting to examine the beginning of things, and how the Indians came to own the continent, and why the Africans were black and had woolly hair and in the country called Asia they were yellow? And if God created only two at first, how did they come to be so different? And how did Adam know what to name the animals? Were there people living in the stars? "Oh, do hush up," his mother would exclaim impatiently. "You are enough to turn one's brain upside down! And you can't say half the multiplication table. I don't believe you know how many black beans make five!" It had been a great puzzle to him. He sprung it on Daffodil one day. She considered. "Why, five would be five of anything, wouldn't it?" "Oh, how quick you are with a good reason, too. I couldn't see into it for ever so long. I'm awful dull." Then they both laughed. His face was such a good honest one, but not full of mirth, like Ned's. They were really nice boys, and her father felt he could trust her with them. But he wished there were some tolerably well trained girls for her to know. Then the winter came on again. Her father had to go to Philadelphia on some business, and there were stirring times in the brave old city. They missed him so much. Grandfather Bradin was promoted to the whole name now, as there was no chance of confusion, but the little girl as often endearingly called him "gran." Bernard Carrick brought home with him great-grandfather's will that had been made five years before, and intrusted to a legal friend, who was, like himself, a Huguenot refugee. To his wife Felix Duvernay had entrusted his strong box, with the gold pieces that were almost heirlooms, and various jewels, to do with whatever she chose. There were some deeds of property that he brought home with him, and the will. "I was amazed," he said to Barbe. "Why, there are acres and acres of ground that will be worth a mint of money some day. And it is all securely made over to Daffodil Carrick. Your father and I are appointed guardians, and this Mr. de Ronville is administrator. His father was exiled about the same time, but he came at once to America. It seems a little queer that great-grandfather shouldn't have made more of it." "I think, after the purchase he felt rather sore about it, as if it was a foolish bargain. But he thought then that the French would be the real rulers of America," said Mrs. Bradin. "Yet he never alluded to the will; and you know he was always very fond of Dilly, and that there was no other child." "Dear old man! When Dilly is grown up she will be an heiress. It can only be leased until she comes of age. I wish it was on this side of the river. Well, as my father says, 'it will neither eat nor drink,' except the rains of heaven. We won't proclaim it on the housetops." So matters went on just the same. No one gave much thought to "over the river" then. One morning Mrs. Carrick was not very well. Norah came over, and there was grave consulting. She took Dilly back with her, and in the afternoon grandad bundled her up and drove her over to the mill with him, and was very jolly. They did not return until dusk, and then Norry's supper had such a savory fragrance she decided to share it. Norry had been over to the other house, and "mother" had a bad headache, and Dilly was to stay all night. She had brought over her nightgown. "That's funny!" exclaimed Daffodil. "Mother seldom has a headache. Oh," with a sudden alarm, "you don't think mother will be ill for weeks and weeks, and grow pale and thin, as she did before father came home." "Oh, no;" and Norry threw up her head with a laugh. "She'll be up again in no time." Grandad was teaching the little girl to play checkers, and she was deeply interested. Norry was knitting a long woollen stocking for him, and sang bits of gay Irish songs. But by and by the little girl began to yawn, and made some bad plays. "You're sleepy," said grandad. "Yes, I can't get over to the king row;" and she smiled. "But you just wait until to-morrow, when I'm bright and fresh." So Norry put her to bed, and, leaving grandad to read the _Gazette_, she ran over to see how it fared with Barbe, and did not come home until morning. Grandad had a nice fire, and had made the coffee. "Oh, dear," began Daffodil, coming out in her trained nightgown, as they made garments for children to grow in, in those days, "isn't it funny? When I woke up I couldn't think where I was, and it came into my mind about little Bridget, that fairies took away for seven years. Then I would be fourteen." "That's some of Norry's nonsense. Get on your clothes, and come and have these grand griddle cakes and sausage, that'll make you sing in your sleep." "Why not when I am awake?" with laughing eyes. "Anybody can do that. But it takes something extra good to make you sing in your sleep." She thought they were quite good enough, and wondered how it would seem to sing in the night, and the dark, and if she could hear herself. Then her father came after her. Grandad wrung his hand and said, "Lad, I wish you joy and the best of luck." What did that mean? "Daffodil, something wonderful has happened to us, and I hope--you will like it. We are very happy over it. We have a little boy who came in the night. A little brother for you. And we want you to be glad." "Oh, was that what grandad meant?" she asked gravely. "Yes. You see, girls marry and give up their name. But a boy carries it on. And grandad hated to have the name die out. He will be very proud of the boy, but I think no one will be quite as dear to him as Daffodil." The child was revolving various thoughts in her mind, and made no comment. When they entered the house, Grandmother Bradin took off her hat and cloak, and kissed her very fondly. Her father watched the small serious face. Then he sat down in the big chair, and took her on his knee. "Dilly," he began in a pleading tone, "I hope you won't feel as if--as if you would be crowded out. We have had you the longest, and you were our first sweet joy. We can never love any other child quite like that. And nothing can ever change our love for you. So you must not feel jealous because we shall love him and be glad to have him----" "Oh, that was what you said a long time ago, when you first came home--that I was jealous. No, I didn't like mother to love you so much. And you were strange, and you can't love any one all at once;" incoherently. "But you are not jealous now?" "No. It didn't take her love from me, only a little while." "It did not take it away at all. And there were two people to love you, instead of one. Suppose I had felt hurt because you loved grandfather so much?" "Was it like that?" She raised her lovely eyes with an appealing light in them. "And was I very bad?" He stooped and kissed her. "It was very natural, and the only thing, the best thing, is to wait until the other one understands. You love me now?" She reached up and twined her arms about his neck. "I love you very much," she returned in an earnest tone. "And I am gladder than ever to have you love me, now that grandfather has gone away. But I don't want any one else to go." He clasped her more tightly. No, any other break in the circle would mean a more poignant grief. There was no one to spare. "And you will not mind if we love the little boy a good deal?" "No--since it is a little boy. I am glad it is not a girl, that you chose a boy," she made answer simply. "We all wanted the boy. Dilly, I am glad to have you love me, and I hope it will grow stronger as you grow older, and understand how sweet affection really is." Mr. Bradin called him away. He put Daffodil in the chair and she leaned her head down and whispered to grandfather that a little boy had come, and she was going to be glad, because they all wanted him. And then a curious thought flashed over her. Death and life are profound mysteries, even out of childhood. "Would you like to see the baby?" asked gran'mere Bradin. "Oh, yes." Her mother glanced up out of fond dark eyes. Why, she was as pale as in her long sickness, but not so thin. She said, "Kiss me, Daffodil." "Oh, mother!" "And here is little brother." Daffodil's first feeling was disappointment. She had thought of some angelic beauty. He was red and crumpled up, and there was a crown of thick black hair, and his mouth was puckered up. The mother patted his little face. "He will look better by and by," she said reassuringly. "Mother, I was thinking--it came to me in the chair--isn't it old grandfather come back to us again to live his life over? You know, everything begins little. The flowers die, but they spring up again, most of them in the same places." "Why, child, that is a pretty thought;" and the mother smiled. "And he will have his name, only Grandfather Carrick must have his in, so it will be Alexander Felix Duvernay." "I don't want him to be called Sandy." "I think he won't be. And, Daffodil, you won't mind--I mean, you won't feel jealous. We wanted him so much." There was a touch of anxiety in the mother's voice. "Oh, no. Father asked me that. No, you may love him ever so much, while you love me as well." "She takes it very calmly," said Gran'mere Bradin afterward. "Some children as old as she, and been the only one so long, would have made a great fuss. We have all spoiled her a little, but she has such a sweet temper. It is the Duvernay temper;" smiling. "I hope I have a good share of it," resumed Barbe. The baby was not small, and he grew by the hour. He had soft, large dark eyes. Grandad did not like so much French about him, but he was glad to have a grandson, even at that estate. He soon bleached out, though he was not fair like Daffodil. "I'll have to see about making a fortune for him," said grandad. "Though those acres of wood and farmland will not amount to much, and I don't see what a girl can do with a farm." But the acres lay smiling in the sunshine, perhaps dreaming of the time when they should be homes of beauty. Meanwhile events had been going on rapidly, if not harmoniously, for a stable government for the Colonies. And there must be some sort of a head. A government of the largest liberty it must be, the states forming a great federation for protection and advancement. Out of the discussion came the Federal Constitution, and a President, the man who had never lost faith in the possibility of a great nation. There were, of course, a few dissenting voices, and many fears. For the nation was only an infant. "What did I tell you," said grandad to his son. He had to argue, it was one of his satisfactions. "Four years, they say. In two years the silly things will make him a king, and in ten years you'll be fighting for liberty again. There's no money to be had--we shall be glad enough to run back to England, and beg to be taken in. The French will throw us over." "Don't look so far ahead." Bernard kept his temper under these onslaughts. But he did hate to have his father haranguing little crowds here and there over the spirits that were being so largely manufactured. "Oh, yes! And have them catch us unprepared. Where's the money coming from to build a navy, to pay new soldiers when the old ones are half starving, to keep your grand President. You see, he'll have a court and a style, while we common folks can kneel outside the gates." "We're going to look out for our own town, and let the men at the helm take care of the larger interests. We have everything for a fine city, and work for all, so we will take up the nearby business." People were straggling in; they are generally gregarious. And there was plenty of work. There was felling of trees, a sawmill, and rough log houses were meant for only temporary housing. Wharfs and docks sprung up by magic. Then the school was merged into the Pittsburg Academy, afterward to be the University of Pennsylvania. Smaller schools came into existence, yet they were a great working people, and in those years the three R's were esteemed the most necessary. Then, after a heated discussion, Pittsburg was established as the county seat, which enhanced its prestige. Some rigorous laws were passed, and a ducking stool was set up at the junction of the three rivers, much to the disgust of the better classes. At first there were crowds haunting the place, and jokes bandied about, but there was found small use for it. "It's a good thing," said Sandy Carrick. "It'll keep the women in check, anyhow." "Isn't it as well for the men?" asked Norah mischievously. "An', Sandy, you better look out, ye're scoldin' about the country 'cause you daren't try much of it on me. Don't I keep your house clean, mend your clothes, and knit you long stockings, so's you shan't get rheumatiz in your knees. An' if you know a woman who cooks a better meal of vittles, you had better go an' board with her." She was so pretty and saucy that Sandy turned on his heel and laughed. Then the _Mayflower_, with a lot of New England emigrants, passed Pittsburg for the shores of the Muskingum. "Them Eastern states must just have overflowed," was the verdict. "Goin' out to Ohio, an' spreadin' theirselves abroad as bait for the Indians, when there's civilized lands lyin' about." And as if Pittsburg was not large enough, they turned to consider Alleghany, and began to lay it out. It would make another fine city. Meanwhile matters went on prosperously, with the Carricks and the Bradins. Bernard added a room to his house for Daffodil, and placed a window so she could see her mother's garden of posies. The baby grew amazingly, was well and strong, and positively pretty, looking a little like his mother, getting teeth without any trouble, walking, saying all manner of crooked words, and then straightening them, being a jolly, healthy child, and Norah's heart was bound up in him. She borrowed him half her time. "I'd be a happier woman with a houseful of them," she said, "Sandy always insisted he didn't care, but I know he does. He's just ready to eat up little Sandy without a grain of salt." They _would_ call him that, while his home name was Felix. His father called him baby at first, then son. He liked everybody, but he adored his own father. Barbe stood a little in the background, not that she loved him less, but she gave a continual thanksgiving that he had met with such a warm welcome. Daffodil was amused at his pretty ways, and the cunning bits of mischief that she often kept from his mother. She was so certain of her father's affection now. She took a warm interest in his doings, she sided with him about the country, and listened delightedly to the stories of bravery and endurance, and absolutely quarrelled with grandad when he predicted the wretched times that would follow throwing off the protection of the mother country, and the surety that an appeal would be made again for her protection. "An' just look at what they are saying about your precious Washington! They'll turn him out before he's served his four years. No two of them think alike! And how's the money to be raised for expenses! You silly child, you don't know anything about it. An' your father's a gey fule!" "I'll never come in this house again, grandad!" with a dignity that made her pink cheeks red and her blue eyes black. "Then sure you'll never go out of it on such terms!" and grandad caught her and scrubbed her with his stubby beard, and hugged her so tight she was glad to promise she would come to-morrow. And likely she ran over that very evening. "He's not worth the minding," Norry would declare. "He don't believe the half of it, and says it to see you spurt up. He's half the time spilin' for a quarrel that has no more in it than an empty eggshell." Daffodil began to have some new interests in her life. She was growing rapidly, she went to school, and met children of her own age. Several chapels had been started, and there was a real clergyman, though they could not have him regularly, and then a reader took the service. The men had various outdoor diversions that had been brought from "the old country," and were never loath to join the women's frolics, at which there was dancing, and, it must be admitted, not a little drinking. Norah took her out occasionally, "for," she said to Barbe, "it isn't just right to make an old woman of her. They love the fun when they're young, and that's natural, an' it's a sin to crowd them out of it." Barbe was very domestic. Her house, her little boy, her sewing and spinning, filled up all her time. The child was a marvel to her. He was so bright and active, so pretty and merry, but altogether different from Daffodil. Once when they had talked over great-grandfather's bequest, Bernard had said, "It seems almost a pity that Dilly had not been the boy, with that great estate to come to him. A man can do so much more in a business way than a woman. Not but that the boy will be cared for, father's heart is set on him. And I shall see that he is well provided for if I live." Bernard Carrick was deeply interested in the welfare and advancement of the town, and found much work to do outside of the farm that his father-in-law attended to, indeed, had the greater interest in. Sandy Carrick had a great outlying tract. Grain of all kinds, especially wheat, grew for the mere planting in the virgin soil. And the staple product of the time was whiskey. Nearly every farmer had a still. The morality of drinking was not called in question, and the better class of people were temperate. It was the great thing they could exchange for their needs. They sent it over the mountains to Kentucky and Ohio. They built rough sort of tugs, and freighted it through the Ohio to the Mississippi, disposing of it anywhere along the route. The mouth of the great river was still in the hands of the Spanish. It must be confessed, since the birth of Felix, Barbe had shared her motherhood a good deal with Norah, who laid claim largely to Daffodil. They wandered through the woods together, for the child peopled them with the old stories that Norah's faith made so real. She stopped for her at school, and brought her home to supper. Grandad at times tried to tease her. Strangely enough she was never jealous, even of her father's love for the little brother. And she said to grandad: "You may love him all you like. He is a boy. Men ought to love boys. And he is named after you, though I don't like the name." "Oh, you don't! One grandfather is as good as the other, and I'm nearer of kin. It's a good old Scotch name, an' they're good as the French any day." "I don't like Sandy." "And I don't like Felix. But I put up with it. You won't make a Frenchman out of him. I'll see to that;" and he gave a funny wink out of his eye. "And if some day he should want to go to France?" "I'll see that he doesn't. This place will be big enough and good enough for him. There's fortunes to be made here. I'm going to leave him mine, an' I'll bet you a gallon of whiskey it'll be worth more than your wild land." "Well, I shan't care!" archly, and with laughing eyes. "I like the woods and the birds and the squirrels. Some day I'll have a house built, and I'll take Norah to live with me." "You will, hey? I'll have something to say about that. Do you suppose I'll stay here and starve?" He tried to look very angry, but she knew all about his face, and his tone, and said nonchalantly, "Oh, you can go over to the other house and get something to eat." "Well, we'll see, little Miss Madam. You'll be gravely mistook!" So they jested and pretended to bicker. Then grandad set up Norah with a pony and a sort of jaunting car, that would only hold two. For Daffodil could no longer keep her seat in the old fashion, neither would her arms reach around grandad. Sometimes Norah took out Barbe and the little boy. For Daffodil went to school quite regularly about eight months of the year. The remaining time most of the children were needed to help at home. Any other child would have been spoiled with the favoritism at school. The older ones helped her at her lessons, and in those days there were no easy kindergarten methods. They gave her tidbits of their luncheons, they piled her little basket with fruit, although she insisted there was so much at home. They brought her some strange flower they had found, they hovered about her as if there was some impelling sweetness, some charm. She had a way of dispensing her regard impartially, but with so tender a grace that no one was hurt. "I just wish we could go to the same school," Ned Langdale said in one of the Sunday rambles. He was always on the lookout for Norah and her. "But--the big boys go there." "Yes. Oh, you wouldn't like it a bit. Beside, you couldn't. And the lessons are just awful. And the thrashings----" "Don't. I can't hear about that;" shaking her pretty golden head. "No. Girls oughtn't. But they say it's good for children----" "For boys. Why, are boys worse than girls?" "Oh, they are not. I know some girls who are mean, and tricky, and don't tell the truth. All girls are not like you." "Maybe it's because everybody is so good to me. I couldn't be bad in return, you know." "Oh, I just wish you were my sister, and lived with us." "Well, you see that couldn't have been. God sent me to mother." "But a fellow can wish it." "It's queer, but there are a great many things wishing doesn't bring. I suppose it's because they _can't_ happen." He gave a sigh. She knew how to dance now; Norah had taught her, but it comes natural to most children, and it did to her. She used to dance by herself, and sometimes whirl little brother round, to the great amusement of her father. Ned used to stray over summer evenings to hear Mr. Carrick talk about the war, and the dangers he had escaped. He never told the hardest side of it, not even to Barbe. There were other boys who made various errands, and if she was not home, went over to Sandy's for her. "This thing must stop," grandad said angrily. "What are they running after such a child as that for? Oh, don't tell me it's some trumped-up errand. It's just to sit and look at her as if they never saw a girl before! She's pretty to look at, to be sure, but she's not going to have lovers in a long time yet." "Sandy, don't get your head fuddled with that kind of nonsense. It's a heap worse than whiskey." Sandy gave an indignant grunt. CHAPTER VI A NEW FRIEND "Oh, here's a letter for father. Grandad brought it. From Philadelphia. And here's a queer red something"--and Dilly peered over it. "Seal," said her mother. "And, why, it's from that friend of great-grandfather's," studying the French emblem. And an odd shiver ran over her, as she suddenly studied her child. Dilly laughed. "You look as if you were afraid he wanted me, as if he was some cruel old ogre, who might eat me up." Then Barbe laughed also, and stood the letter on the high shelf over the chimney, that she could just reach. It was from Monsieur de Ronville. He was coming to Pittsburg on some quite important business, for parties who had heard about the discovery of minerals, and that a blast furnace had been started; that Pittsburg was coming to be a point of connection with the west and south; and he would also like to see his ward and her possessions, that he might be able to advise in time to come. Would Mr. Carrick be kind enough to meet him and bespeak accommodations at some hotel for himself and his man, for all of which he would be extremely obliged. Bernard Carrick looked at his wife in sheer amazement. "Hotel! Well, there are only two or three taverns good enough for traders, and that ilk, who don't mind a roystering crew, gaming, and drinking. If it was government business, he might be taken in at the Fort. Why, what can we do? And a man. You see, he is used to the habits of civilized life, and we have had no time to fall into the traces. The Lindsays are in their new house, but I couldn't ask them to take in our guest." "And we;" Barbe hesitated, then said laughingly, "we shall have to enlarge our borders. Sometime the boy will want a room." Bernard dropped into grandfather's chair and considered. He had been about the world enough to know the place would look rather rough to a person from one of the chief cities. Somehow, they were a little different. There were pieces of fine old furniture that had come from France, then their ways were rather more refined. It would be the proper thing to take him in. And he would be here in about a week. Mrs. Bradin agreed on that point. Truth to tell, she was anxious to see this M. de Ronville, whose father had been her father's boyhood's companion. "Why, you could give him Dilly's room, and she could go over to Norry's," she said as they were discussing the next day what was to be done. "It is a good thing we brought down that old bedstead, though Dilly hated it so." Dilly had outgrown her little pallet, though at first she declared the high posts were the little brown men grown into giants, who would carry her away. But when grandmere exhumed some faded silk hangings where the roses were of a creamy pink, and cupids with wings were flying about, she was soon reconciled. Then Grandfather Bradin had made her a chest of drawers and two chairs that looked as though they might have been imported. "And I can fix a bed in the attic for the man, so we will have it all running smoothly." "You are a great comfort," said Bernard to his mother-in-law. The post now came every week. Even the busy folks went to meet it for the sake of the newspapers and the occasional letters, though those mostly went to the Fort. Sometimes a few emigrants had joined the train. For now there seemed to have broken out a fever for adventure, for founding new settlements, although in some places the Indians were still troublesome. Bernard Carrick went to meet his guest. He could have picked him from the group at once by his decidedly foreign air, the French aspect. He was past sixty, rather tall, and very erect, almost soldierly, with a beautiful white beard, though his hair was only half sprinkled with snow. Clear, rather soft dark eyes, and a high-bred air that gave a grave, yet kindly, expression to his countenance. He had his horse, as well as his servant, who was a rather small, shrewd-eyed Frenchman. Carrick introduced himself, and welcomed his guest cordially, explaining to him that they had not arrived at the dignity of hotels, and that the taverns were but poor affairs, so he would be pleased to offer him the hospitality of his own house. "Thank you," he returned. "You are the father of my ward, I presume." "Yes, she is my little girl;" with a smile. "An odd sort of charge. Though I suppose it was because I was of his country. Nations are clannish." "We shall get so mixed up that we shall hardly be able to trace our forbears. On her mother's side my little girl is mostly French." "A little girl!" He seemed surprised. "She will always be that to me. Only heaven knows my joy and gratitude at coming home from the long struggle, and finding her and her mother alive; indeed, the whole household. I have had a son born since." "Yes. You were in the war. You may be proud of that. It will be an honor to hand down to your son. But your town----" With a vague glance around, and an expression that was clearly not admiration. "It has not had your advantages, nor your people, and is much younger. It seems to me on the verge of civilization." Bernard Carrick laughed good humoredly. "That is true," he returned. "Except for the confluence of the rivers there seems no special advantage, though the land is thought to be rich in minerals. And the Fort being built here--the French planned a long chain of them." "It seems a just return to France for her indifference to her splendid Colonies. And I have lived long enough to see if there are no fatal mistakes made, that this will be a grand country. From the depths of my heart I pray for her welfare." "And I fought for it," was the younger man's proud reply. De Ronville had hardly expected to see such a house as this. The aspect was undeniably French, heightened by the old furniture that he had been used to in his boyhood. His room was delightful. Barbe had taken out most of the girl's fancy touches, and odd things her grandfather Bradin had made, and left a grave aspect. Outside, everything was a-bloom, and a rose climbed up a trellis at the side of the window, shaking its nodding fragrant blossoms against the window-pane, and, when it was open, showering in its sweet silky leaves. They made friends readily. Great-grandfather Duvernay was the link between, and the women were more French than of any other race. It was almost supper time when Daffodil came in, leading her little brother by the hand. In him again the mother's type predominated; he was a fine, robust child, with a fearless, upright expression, and a voice that had none of the rougher tones of so many of the early settlers. But Daffodil! He studied her with a little wonder. For her abundant hair had not yet shaken off its gold, and lay in loose thick curls about her neck. Her complexion was of that rare texture that neither sun nor wind roughened, and all the care it had was cleanliness and the big bonnets of those days. Her features were quite regular, the nose straight, rather defiant, but the beautiful mouth, full of the most tantalizing curves, fun, laughter, sweetness, and the something termed coquetry in older women, that is not always experience either. She was slender and full of grace, tall for her age, but most girls grew up quickly, though she had not left the fairyland of childhood. "I am glad to see the darling of my old friend," smiling as he took her soft, dimpled hand. "I have always thought of her as a very little girl, sitting on the arm of her grandfather's chair----" "Oh, did he tell you that!" in her bright, eager tone. "Yes, and we used to talk--he told me so much about France and--it was your father--was it not? I thought you must be quite young;" and a faint touch of surprise passed over her face. "We were both set back in memory, it seems. And even I am getting to be quite an old man." "But I like old men," she said, with charming frankness, and a tint of color deepened in her cheek. "They are all old except father, and the men who come in to play games are wrinkled up, and some of them have white hair. I've had such a lot of grandfathers, and only one grandmother." "How did you get more than two?" "It was great-grandfather Duvernay," explained Barbe, "that made the third." "And this is his chair. Mother wanted to take it away, but I could not bear to have it leave this corner. I could see him in it. Strange how you can see one who is not really there, or do they come back for a moment? Here is the arm where I sat, and I used to put my arm round his neck. I am going to let you sit in his chair. Father won't mind;" glancing inquiringly at her mother. "Dilly, you are too forward," and Barbe colored. Felix was climbing in her lap and almost upset her. "No, no; her prattle is the most cordial welcome. And I hope you will soon like me well enough to come and sit on the arm and hear my stories." "Oh, have you what Norry calls a bag of stories, that the little brown men carry about? They're queer, and they drop them over you while you are asleep, and that makes dreams, and you see people, and have good times with them." M. de Ronville laughed. Bernard came in; he had been settling the man, and the luggage, and now repeated his hearty welcome. When M. de Ronville settled himself in the corner and the chair you could almost fancy grandfather had come back. They had a strong likeness of race of the higher type, those who had been pure livers and held strongly to their religion. He was very tired with the journey and looked pale as he sat there, relaxed. Barbe and her mother spread the table. They had a sort of outdoor kitchen they used for cooking in the warm weather. Felix was asking questions of his sister, who answered them with a sort of teasing gayety. Why was this so and that, and did she ever see a panther. Jimmy Servy's father killed a wolf out by the Fort, and Jimmy said a wolf would eat you up. Would it truly? "Then when I am big enough to fire a gun I'll go out and shoot all I can find." The supper was most appetizing if it did not have the style of his own house. He was really pleased with the simplicity of the two women, and Mr. Bradin and his son-in-law certainly were intelligent if they had not the range of the greater world. Daffodil was quiet and well-mannered he observed. In truth he was agreeably surprised with these people who were not held in high esteem by the culture of the large city. Dilly came to him afterward. "I am going over to grandad's," she announced. "I stay all night with them sometimes. Oh, I hope you will like Norry. I love her dearly and you mustn't mind if grandad is a little queer." "No, I will not," amused at her frankness. "He is just a splendid old man!" she announced to Norah. "And he looks like great-grandfather. I'm going to like him ever so much, and I want you to." "Oh, yes, I'll like him," responded Norah readily. "I fancied he was one of the high and mighty dukes like that Colonel Leavitt, and I'm glad for your mother's sake that he's comfortable to get along with. It never would have done for him to go to a tavern." They talked a little at the other house and then retired for the night. And the next day was a busy one. Bernard Carrick took him about and they inspected the blast furnace on which high hopes were built, but the knowledge in those times was rather limited. It struggled along for some years and then better things came in its stead. The river front was quite a busy place. Yes, de Ronville admitted there was great promise of a thriving city. And over opposite might be another. He knew how the cities on the eastern coast had improved and grown in power. One had only to wait. And his ward was young. Though he wondered a little at the faith of his friend Duvernay. But the old man, not so old then, had in his mind the beautiful estates in the land of his birth, and this land commanding the river and what would sometime be a thriving town attracted his fancy. He had hoped so that Barbe's child would be a son, but he had loved Daffodil with the passion of declining years. Felix had come too late. M. de Ronville found much to interest him. The eastern shore would not be all of the country. Explorers were sending back glowing tales of western possibilities. Towns were springing up and this was the key to them all. There were large tracts of fertile lands that seemed to have been deserted by the Indians and that were of amazing fertility. After all Felix Duvernay had made no mistake. And Daffodil found her way to the guest's heart with very little effort. It might have been her beauty, that no one around seemed aware of, or her pretty, winsome manner. She accompanied him and her father on their rides about. She was a graceful and well-trained horsewoman. She had so many dainty legends of out-of-the-way nooks; most of them Norah had grafted on old country tales. And the evenings at home came to be quite a delight for them all, listening to the glories of his city and the strides it had made. Of the famous men, of the many incidents in the great struggle, its churches and various entertainments as well as the social aspect. Daffodil listened enchanted. They had come to be such friends that she sat on the broad arm of the chair, but he noted her wonderful delicacy in never dropping into familiarities, while they were so common with her father, and grandad was almost rough with her. True, Barbe had an innate refinement and it was the child's birth-right as well. She sat there one afternoon. Mother and grandmother were busy preserving fruit for winter use, it grew so plentifully, but they had not mastered the art of keeping some of the choicest through the winter uncooked. "Daffodil," he began gravely, "your parents have entertained me most delightfully. You have a charming home and I shall hate to leave it. But on Thursday there is a return post and I have overstayed the time I thought would be ample to transact the business I came about. And now I must return." "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I do not want you to go." What pleading, beautiful eyes she raised to him. Old as he was it thrilled through his pulses. "But, my child, I cannot live here. And I shall miss you so much. Why I have half a mind to run away with you. I wonder if you would like a visit to my beautiful city." "Oh, it would be splendid! But--is there any one----" "To take care of you? There is a housekeeper and a maid, and a jolly, good-natured black woman, who cooks in the kitchen. There are two carriages and horses, and there will be so much to see. It is so different from this." She seemed to consider. "Yes," rather irresolutely, "if I could go. They would miss me so much here." "And would you be homesick?" "Not in a good long while, with you;" she returned with a child's innocence. "And you would surely let me come back?" "Yes, my dear; even if it broke my heart to do it. I wish you were my little granddaughter." "Then I would have another grandfather," and she gave a soft, musical ripple. After an instant she caught his hand in hers so plump and warm, and exclaimed--"Oh, I should like to go." "Dilly; Dilly!" exclaimed the fresh boyish voice; "come and see what I have. Grandad and I have been fishing." There was a string of shining plump fish that as Felix said still wiggled in their freshness. "Oh, Dilly, if you only were a boy! Grandad says you are not worth a button at fishing." "They're fine, little brother. No, I don't love to fish. And baiting!" She shuddered as she spoke. "But you can eat them afterward." "I couldn't if I caught them myself." "I wanted a nice lot before the gentleman went away. And Katy and Peg Boyle were out and they are great. It was a fine afternoon for fishing I tell you!" She went through to the kitchen with him. He was a boy for all kinds of sport, but he abhorred school and was glad when it closed early in the summer, for the boys and girls were needed at home. Sandy Carrick inducted his grandson into all boyish pursuits. His heart was bound up in Felix. He began to prepare the fish for cooking. Dilly looked out over the wide expanse where trees were thick with leaves and laden with fruit. But she did not truly see anything for her eyes were following her thoughts. To go to a great and wonderful city where they had rung the first bell for independence, to see the splendid houses and the ladies in fine array and to hear beautiful music. But of course she could not go. They would miss her so much. Yet it seemed as if she did very little now. They had not the strenuous methods of to-day. If those old settlers of Pittsburg with their simple living could come back they would lose their senses at the luxury and striving for gain, the magnificence, the continual hurry and restlessness, the whirl of business undreamed of then. No one was striving to outshine his neighbor. House furnishing lasted through generations. Fashions in gowns and hats went on year after year, and it left time for many other things. Barbe Carrick found hours for lace-making; as was the custom of that time she was laying by in the old oaken chest articles and napery for the time when Daffodil would go to a home of her own. For then it was a great disappointment to the mother if a girl did not marry. In the old chair Gaspard de Ronville sat dreaming. He should have married long ago and had children and grandchildren. Would there have been one pretty, golden-haired girl among them with a sweet voice and such eyes as were sure to find the way to one's heart, such rosy, laughing lips, sweet for lovers to kiss when the time came? And then--oh, if it could be! That evening he laid his plan before the household. Might he take Daffodil for a few months' visit, and thereby return their cordial hospitality that had given him a most unexpected pleasure. She would be well taken care of, that he could assure them. And in event of her losing her natural protectors he as her trustee and guardian would be only too happy to take charge of her. He would have her best interests at heart always. And it might be well for her to see a little of the world. She might desire more education than the place could afford. They were all too much amazed to reply at once. "Pittsburg is good enough!" flung out grandad. "Her interests will be here. She'll marry here, she'll die and be buried here, and she'll know enough to get to heaven at the last without all the folderols of a great city, as those folks think it because they rung their bell when they cut loose from the mother country!" "Oh, we couldn't spare her," said the mother. "And, Dilly, you wouldn't want to go away among strangers." "Oh, no," returned the little girl, and she knew then she had two sides to her nature, and one was longing for the new and untried, and the other clung to what was familiar. There were tears in her eyes, but she could not have told which chord of her soul of all the many was touched. "I should just die without you!" protested Norah. "I couldn't love a colleen of my own better." Grandmere said but little. She saw there was an unquiet longing in the child's heart. She could not quite approve of trusting her to strangers, but she knew girls had come from the old world to Virginia and married men they had never seen before, and made good wives and mothers. Daffodil was too young to think of lovers, two years hence there might be danger. "I'd go!" declared Felix in his most manly fashion. "Why, Tim Byerly has been out to Ohio, which is a real country, not all a river. And Joe Avery went over to the Mes'sipy and down to New Orleans." "Mississippi," corrected his mother. "That's what Joe calls it. And men haven't time for such long names. Yes, I mean to go about when I'm big and have some money. Father 'n' I'll set out and discover some new state and take possession of it in the name of the President. Of course girls can't set out to discover things. And Philadelphia has been discovered already." They had not long to think about it. And as if to make it the more possible an old neighbor, Mrs. Craig, who was going to spend the winter in the distant city with a married daughter, offered to give her a mother's care on the journey. Girl friends came in and envied her the wonderful luck. Most of the neighbors took it for granted that she would go. As for the little girl she changed her mind about every hour. She had come to care a great deal about M. de Ronville. In youth one responds so readily to affection and he had learned to love her as he had never loved anything in his life. He was charmed with her frankness and simplicity, her utter unworldliness. She seemed to care no more for the great estate over the river than if it had been a mere garden patch. And he thought her too lovely to be wasted upon any of these rather rough, commonplace young men. She must be taught to know and appreciate her own value. It was only settled the night before. There was no need of much making ready, they could get what she wanted in the great city. And they must allow him the pleasure of providing for her. No one would be wronged by whatever he might do for her. Grandad had been very grumpy about it, and Norah cried and scolded and then admitted it was the most splendid thing, like a fairy story. Felix was full of delight. And the good-by's were so crowded at the last that her head was in a whirl. She felt as if she should come back that same night and talk over her day's journey. And so the little girl went out of Pittsburg with good wishes, and perhaps a little envy from those who would like to have been in her place. CHAPTER VII DAFFODIL'S NEW WORLD Their first stage was in the coach. There was really quite a caravan for the weather was very pleasant for such a trip. Mrs. Craig fussed a little in a motherly way, and M. de Ronville watched her attentively, fearful she might give way to tears. But she had a stunned, incredulous feeling. Two men in the coach were arguing about the feasibility of Philadelphia becoming the capital of the Nation. It should never have gone to New York, which, after all, had been a nest of Tories. One of the men recalled grandad to her mind and she could not forbear a vague little smile. It roused her to an amused interest and she asked M. de Ronville in a low tone which was right. "The stout man is right, but he might be less dogmatic about it. I wondered at its going so far North." Mrs. Craig was quite chatty and a very sensible body who saw several amusing things outside of the coach. All the passengers had brought luncheons along and they stopped by a wayside spring for a refreshing drink and to water the horses. Most of the travellers took a little walk around to rest their limbs. And then on again. The afternoon seemed long to Daffodil, though M. de Ronville entertained her with some reminiscences of the war and before that time, and how queer and unpromising the first beginnings were, and about William Penn, whose dream and desire had been "A fair roomy city with houses set in gardens of greenery," and Benjamin Franklin, who had done so much brave work for the country. The post road had been made very tolerable. The darkness dropped down and the woods seemed full of strange things that made her shiver. Then they stopped at an inn--taverns they were called in those days--and had a good supper. "Are you very tired?" asked M. de Ronville with much solicitude. "Not so much tired as stiff. I think I never sat still so long even at school," and she smiled. "It's a rather long journey, and I hope," he was going to say, "you will not be homesick," but checked himself and added, "that you will not get clear tired out. I will see if we cannot get some horses for to-morrow. That will make a change." "Oh, I shall like that," her face in a glow of pleasure. The supper was very good and she was healthily hungry. Mrs. Craig found some amusement to keep up the little girl's spirits, and she fared very well until she was safe in bed beside her kind companion. Then she turned her face to the wall and her mind went back to all the nights in her short life when she had been kissed and cuddled by mother or grandmere, or for the last ten days by Norry, and now she suddenly realized what the separation meant. The glamour was gone. She could not go back. Oh, why had she come! She wanted to fly to the dear ones. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress, and sighed very softly, but she need not have minded, for Mrs. Craig was gently snoring. The next morning was bright and clear, but she wondered where she was when Mrs. Craig spoke to her. What a little bit of a room and a tin basin to wash in! "I hope you slept well. And I never dreamed a word! What a shame, when your dreams in a strange place come true--but you wouldn't want a bad dream to come true." "No," in a very sober tone. There was noise enough, but it was not the familiar home tones and Felix bustling about. Daffodil made a great effort to restrain her feelings and laughed a little at some of the sallies. M. de Ronville was pacing up and down the hall, and he held out both hands, but his eyes wore an anxious expression. "My dear little girl, I could not help thinking last night that it was very selfish of me to want to take you away from your home and those who love you so dearly just for a bit of pleasure to myself. Did you go to sleep thinking hard thoughts of me?" She raised her lovely eyes, but the face was sweet and grave. "Oh, you know I need not have come unless I had wanted to. I didn't think it would be so--so hard," and there was a little quiver in her voice. "And are you sorry? Do you want to go back?" "No," she answered with a certain bravery. "I like you very much and you want to do the things that please those you care a great deal for. And I want to see the beautiful city and the wonderful places where things have happened. And I am going to be very happy, only I shall think of them all at home." "That is right. And I am going to do all I can to make you happy. The journey will be tiresome--I have seldom had to take any delicate person into consideration and I didn't think----" "Oh, I shall not get tired out," laughing with some of her olden spirit. He had been upbraiding himself during the night for his covetous desire of having her a little longer. Yes, he would have been glad if she was in reality his ward, if she were some friendless, homeless child that he could take to his heart for all time. There were many of them who would be glad and thankful for the shelter. But he wanted this one. The riding for awhile was a pleasant change, and they talked of themselves, of M. de Ronville's home, one of the early old houses where he had lived for years, alone with the servants. She had heard most of it before, but she liked to go over it again. "I wonder why you didn't marry and have children of your own," and there was a cadence of regret in her tone that touched him. "I supposed I would. But year after year passed by and then I grew settled in my ways, and satisfied. I was a great reader." "Oh, I wonder if I shall disturb you?" and there is a charm in her accent that warms his heart. "You must have seen that we live so altogether, that word just expresses it, as if all our interests were just the same. And they are. And I shall be--strange. Is the housekeeper nice?" "Well--a little formal and dignified perhaps. Mrs. Jarvis. And she is a widow without children. Then there is Jane, quite a young woman. Of course, Chloe belongs to the kitchen department. And there is a young man." There is no new accession of interest. She only says--"And is that all in a great big house?" "Oh, there are visitors at times. I've had General Lafayette and Count de Grasse and not a few of our own brave men. But they have largely dispersed now, and sometimes I have a rather lonely feeling. I suppose I am getting old." "Oh, I don't know how any one can live without folks, real folks of their very own," she said with emphasis. "Yet, the friends have ties and interests elsewhere, and you have no close claim on them. It is not a good thing. Suppose grandfather Duvernay had been all alone those later years." "Oh, I don't believe he could have lived. He was so fond of us all. And I loved him so. But I couldn't truly think he had gone away. I used to sit on the arm of the chair and talk to him. Do you know just where they go, and can't they come back for a little while? Oh, I know mother would. She couldn't stay away!" Her eyes had a beautiful expression, almost as if she had a vision of the other world. "Oh, he was to be envied," exclaimed de Ronville, with deep feeling. His own life looked lonelier than ever. By noon she was glad to go back to the coach. It had changed some of its passengers and there were two children that attracted Daffodil's interest and put her in a still more charming light. It was a long and tiresome journey with one wild storm and some cloudy days, but at last they reached the much desired city, and were driven out to the end of Broad Street. It was still the "greene country towne," although it had taken on city ways. This house stood then in the midst of greenery, having a garden on both sides, one devoted to choice fruit, the other to flowers and a sort of kitchen garden. It was a square brick house with green blinds, a wide doorway, and a hall running through the centre. Mrs. Jarvis answered the summons herself. "A hundred warm welcomes, my dear friend," she said most cordially. "We have missed you so much. I hope you are well?" "Quite worn with the journey. And this is my ward--Miss Daffodil Carrick." She held out her hand to the young girl and smiled at the attractive face. "Will you go upstairs at once? There will be time for a rest before supper. Oh, sir, you can hardly think how glad we are to get you back." The hall and stairs seemed to Daffodil as if they were carpeted with moss. Four rooms opened on the upper hall. Jules had his master's portmanteau as well as that of the girl, which he set down at the opposite door. Mrs. Jarvis led her in. "This is my room and you see there is a connecting doorway so you need not feel lonely. You must be tired with the dreadful journey. How people ever ventured before there was a post road I can't imagine. Yet there are families going out to Ohio and Kentucky, as if there was not land enough here to settle. Now I'll send up Jane with some warm water that will refresh you very much. And then you had better take a rest. Supper is at six. You have nearly two hours." Left to herself Daffodil took a survey of the room. It looked quite splendid to her untrained eyes with its soft carpet, its pretty chairs, its bedstead and bureau of light wood, its clock and tall candlesticks on the mantel, and the dressing mirror that stood on feet and in which you could see the whole figure. Then in a little nook curtained off was a washing stand with beautiful appointments in white and old blue. She glanced around in amazement and was still standing there when Jane entered. A quaint enough figure in a short, scant frock, short-waisted as was the fashion of the times, of home-dyed blue linen that would have been one of the new colors of to-day where we have gone through every conceivable shade and hue. The sleeves were short, but there were long-armed mitts for summer wear. The cape was of the same material and the straw gipsy hat had a bow on the top and the strings to tie under the chin when it was not too warm. "Oh, you look as if you did not mean to stay," cried Jane. "Let me take your hat and cape." Jane was nearer thirty than twenty, a comely, fresh-faced girl with an air of youthfulness, attired in a sort of Quaker gray gown, with a lace kerchief crossed over her bosom. Her hair was banded straight above her ears and gathered in a knot behind. "Oh, miss, you look fagged out. Mrs. Jarvis said when you'd had a good wash you must go to bed awhile. There's nothing freshens you up like that. It must have been an awful journey! My brother has gone out to Ohio. Do you live anywhere near that?" "Not so very far away. And the Ohio river runs by us." "I want to know now! The world's a funny sort of place, isn't it, Miss, with land here and water there and great lakes up North and a gulf at the South that they do say is part of the ocean. Now--shan't I unpack your portmanteau?" "Monsieur de Ronville wouldn't let mother pack up much, he said things could be bought here." "Yes, there's no end of them now that we are trading openly with France." "And I was growing so fast," she continued apologetically, for the two frocks looked but a meagre outfit. One was a delicate gingham made out of a skirt of her mother's when gowns were fuller, the other her best white one tucked up to the waist and with some rare embroidery. "Can I help you any?" "No," returned Daffodil in a soft tone and with a half smile. "I'm used to waiting on myself." "I'll come in and fasten your frock. You'll put on the white one;" and Jane withdrew. Oh, how good the fresh water and soap scented with rose and violet seemed! She loitered in her bathing, it was so refreshing. Then she did throw herself across the foot of the bed and in a few moments was soundly asleep, never stirring until some one said--"Miss; Miss!" "Oh! I had a lovely rest. You get so jolted in a stage coach that it seems as if your joints were all spinning out." "Oh, miss, what beautiful hair? It's just like threads of gold. And it curls in such a lovely fashion! And such dark lashes and eyebrows sets you off." Jane was such a fervent note of admiration that Daffodil blushed. She was very pretty in her frock that ended above the ankles, and her fine white linen home-knit stockings were clocked. True her shoes were rather clumsy, but her shoulders made amends for any shortcomings. Her skin was very fair; sometimes it burned a little, but it never tanned. "Oh, miss, if you had a ribbon to tie your curls up high! All the young ladies wear it so." "I'm not _quite_ a young lady," archly. M. de Ronville came out of the library to meet her. The little flush and the shy way of raising her eyes was enchanting. She seemed a part of the handsome surroundings, really more attractive than in the plainness of her own home. "You are a most excellent traveller," he began. "And I give you a warm and heartfelt welcome to my house. You should have been my granddaughter. What now?" seeing a grave look settled in her face. "I was thinking. I wish I might call you uncle. It's queer but I never had an uncle with all the other relations. They seem to run in one line," and she laughed. "Oh, if you will. I've wished there was some way of bringing us nearer together. Yes, you shall be my niece. You won't forget?" "Oh, no; I am so glad." She seemed to come a little closer, and he placed his arm around her. Oh why did he never know before how sweet love could be! Then he kisses down amid the golden hair. Even her cheek is sacred to him and her lips must be kept for some lover. There was a little musical string of bells that summoned them to supper. A young man of three- or four-and-twenty stood just inside the door. "For convenience sake Miss Carrick will be announced as my niece as she is my ward. Allow me to present Mr. Bartram." Daffodil flushed and bowed. M. de Ronville placed her chair for her. The table was round and very beautifully appointed. She and the young man were opposite. He was rather tall, well looking without being especially handsome. Mrs. Jarvis poured the tea. The two men talked a little business. "I shall lay the matter before the Wetherills to-morrow," de Ronville said. "I was surprised at the promise of the place and it has a most excellent location. At present it is rather wild, but after seething and settling down the real town comes to the surface. It will not be a bad investment if one can wait. And the Wetherills are not likely to lack descendants. "I am glad you were not disappointed," returned the young man. "We know so little about Pittsburg," said Mrs. Jarvis, "except the great defeat of Braddock in the old war. Your people are French, I believe," turning to Daffodil. "Yes, on the one side. The town seems to be made up of all nations, but they agree pretty well. And they have many queer ways and fashions." Daffodil did not feel as strange as she had been fearing for the last two or three days that she would. Mother and grandmere would stand a comparison with Mrs. Jarvis, who had the dignity and bearing of a lady. Some friends came in to congratulate M. de Ronville on his safe return. Mrs. Jarvis was much relieved at Daffodil's quiet manner. And she certainly was a pretty girl. They had quite a little talk by themselves when the guests were gone and Mrs. Jarvis was well pleased that she had come of a good family, as the town set much store by grandfathers and the French were in high repute. Before M. de Ronville went to business the next morning he made a call on Miss Betty Wharton, who was a person of consequence and had had a romance, a lover who had been lost at sea when he was coming to marry her and the wedding finery was all in order. She and her mother lived together, then the mother died and Betty went on in her small house with a man and a maid and a negro cook. They were in high favor at that time. She had been quite a belle and even now was in with the Franks and the Shippens and the Henrys, and through the war her house had been quite a rendezvous for the patriots. She was an excellent card player, good humored and full of spirits, helpful in many society ways. She could have married, that all her friends knew; indeed two or three elderly beaux were still dangling after her. "I am come to ask a favor," he said after the talk of his journey was over. "I have brought back with me a young girl, my ward, who will some day have a big and valuable estate as the country improves. Mrs. Jarvis hardly feels capable of shopping for her, and of course does not go about much. She is a charming girl and my father and her great-grandfather were the dearest of friends. M. Duvernay almost rounded out his hundred years. I call her my niece as the French blood makes us kin. Could you oblige me by taking her in hand, seeing that she has the proper attire and showing her through the paths of pleasure? You will find her a beautiful and attractive young girl." "Why--really!" and her tone as well as her smile bespoke amusement. "French! Where did you unearth this paragon? And is she to have a lover and be married off? Has she a fortune or is she to look for one?" He would not yield to annoyance at the bantering tone. "Why, she is a mere child, and has no thought of lovers. She will have fortune enough if times go well with us, and need not think of that until her time of loving comes. She has been brought up very simply. There is a brother much younger. Her father was in the war the last three years. She is not ignorant nor unrefined, though Pittsburg does not aim at intellectuality." "Pittsburg! Isn't it a sort of Indian settlement, and--well I really do not know much about it except that it is on the western borders." "Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals." "And the girl _is_ presentable?" "Oh, she is not old enough for society. I did not mean that. But to go about a little and perhaps to a play, and places where it would look odd for me to take her without some womenkind. We French have rather strict ideas about our girls. Come to supper to-night and see her." "Why, I'll come gladly. I like your young man, too. He has not been spoiled by the flirting young women. It is a shame I did not marry and have such a son to lean on in my old age;" and she laughed gayly. "Then you can see for yourself. And if you do not like Miss Carrick we will let the matter drop through." "Yes, I will be happy to come." M. de Ronville went on to his office. Already there began to be business streets in the Quaker City that was rapidly losing its plainer appearance. This was rather old-fashioned and wore a quiet aspect. One clerk sat on a high stool transcribing a lengthy deed, and young Bartram had just deposited another pile of letters on his employer's desk which was at the far end of the place and could be shut off. "I think these are not worth your first consideration," he said in a quiet tone. "And here is a list of people anxious to see you to-day. And--if you can spare me a little while--I am due at the Surrogate's office." "Yes," nodding politely. Then he watched the young man as he walked away with a light, firm tread. There had always been a certain manliness in Aldis Bartram since the time he had attracted his employer's favor and been taken in as a clerk. Then he had an invalid mother to whom he had been devoted, that had been another passport to the elder's favor. On her death M. de Ronville had offered him a home and he was now confidential clerk and might one day be taken in the business which had been made a most excellent one from the Frenchman's uprightness and probity as well as his knowledge and judgment. Many a time he had settled a dispute and made friends between two hot-headed litigants. He did not read his letters at first but dropped into a peculiar train of thought. He was in good health and vigor, his mind was clear and alert. But he was growing old. And if Betty Wharton in the prime of a delightful life thought a son would conduce to the pleasure and security of her old age, why not to his? Could he have a better son than Aldis Bartram? But he wanted the feminine contingent and he was past marrying. He wanted some one young and bright, and, yes, charming to look at, tender of heart. And here were these two in the very blossom time of life. Why they might fancy each other and in the course of time have it ripen to a real and lasting regard. Oh, the old house would be a Paradise. And if there were children---- He had to rouse himself from the dream with an effort and look over the accumulation. For perhaps the first time business seemed irksome to him, and he had always been fond of it, too fond perhaps. Men nearly always went home to a noon dinner. He found Mrs. Jarvis and Daffodil in a comfortable state of friendliness, but the girl's eyes lighted with pleasure at the sight of him and her voice was full of gay gladness. No, she was not homesick; she had been in the garden and there were so many flowers she had never seen before and the ripe luscious fruit. There had been so many things to look at that she had not finished her letter, but she would do that this afternoon. She is a gleam of the most enchanting sunshine in the old house, and her voice soft and merry, the tiredness and discomfort of travelling gone out of it is sweetest music to him and warms his heart. The eyes are very blue to-day, not so much brilliant as gladsome and her rosy lips curve and smile and dimple and every change seems more fascinating than the previous one. There is no young man in the room, it is the outcome of her own delightful golden heart. Oh, any young man might fall in love on the spot. "Miss Wharton will be in to supper," M. de Ronville remarked casually. "She is not a young girl," seeing the look of interest in Daffodil's face; "but you will find her a very agreeable companion." "It's queer, but I don't know many young girls. Some of the older ones were married in the spring, and I have been so much with mother and grandmere and Norah that I'm a little girl, a big little girl, I've grown so much." Her laugh was a gay ripple of sound. He took it with him to the office and her golden head seemed dancing about everywhere, just as it had at home. "Of course," Miss Wharton said to herself as she lifted the brass knocker, "de Ronville never could be so foolish as to fall in love with a chit of a thing, though I have heard of men training a young girl just to their fancy. He has always been so discreet and punctilious. French _are_ a little different." No, he had not overpraised her beauty. Betty Wharton admitted that at once. And her manners had a natural grace, it ran in the French blood. Why it would be a pleasure to take her about and have men stare at her as they would be sure to do. She and Mrs. Jarvis found enough to talk about, and while the housekeeper had gone to look after the tea she turned her attention to Daffodil. "Oh, I can't help liking the place," the child said with charming eagerness. "Mrs. Jarvis has been telling me about the stores and the gardens a dozen times prettier than this, though I don't see how that can be. They don't seem to care much about gardens at home, they have a few posy beds, but you can go out and gather basketsful in the woods, only they are not grand like these. And there are no such beautiful houses. Oh, there are lots of log huts, really, the older ones, and people are not--I don't just know what to call it, but they do not seem to care." "All towns improve after a while. The people in New York think they are much finer than we, and then there is Boston--where the people are starched so stiff with the essence of fine breeding that they can hardly curtsey to one another. I like my town the best, having seen them all." "Oh, how splendid it must be to go about to strange, beautiful places," the child said wistfully, with glowing eyes. "But I have not been to France;" laughingly. "Neither have I. But great-grandfather came from there when he was a young man. And he had been to Paris, but he did not live there. And he and grandmother, whom I never saw, had to fly for their lives because they worshipped God in a different fashion from Royalty. And I can talk quite a good deal in French, but I like English better. It seems to mean more." Miss Wharton laughed at that. They had a very delightful meal and Betty, by a well known society art, brought out the brightness of the little girl, that made her very charming without any overboldness. "Why you have unearthed quite a prize," Miss Wharton said to her host later in the evening. "Has Pittsburg many such girls? If so I am afraid our young men will be running after them. You may command me for any service, only I must have her as my guest now and then." "A thousand thanks. Will you see about her wardrobe to-morrow? There is no need to stint." "I shall be very glad to oblige you. I suppose you do not mean to turn her into a young lady?" "No--o," rather hesitatingly. "Then it shall be simple prettiness." After that Miss Wharton played on the spinet and sang several old songs. Daffodil wished grandad could hear two that were his favorites, and she was quite sure Norry could not have resisted jumping up and dancing at the sound of "The Campbells Are Coming." Mr. Bartram turned over the leaves of the music, while Daffodil snuggled in the corner of the sofa beside her guardian. And when she went to bed her head was full of Norah's fairy stories come true. CHAPTER VIII IN SILK ATTIRE The shopping the next day was something wonderful. Daffodil was quite sure the fairies must have had a hand in it. And such beautiful things, she fairly held her breath over them. "But, madam, when am I to wear these lovely garments? For mother says I grow so fast, and there is no one to take them afterward." Betty Wharton laughed many times at the fascinating simplicity of the child. Then she took her to the mantua-makers, where she was measured, and where she hardly understood a word of what they were saying, but between whiles played with a beautiful yellow cat, who sat on a silken cushion and purred his delight at the touch of the gentle hands. "Now, you are to come home to dinner with me." "Did uncle say I might? For mother told me to do nothing without his permission." "Oh, you darling infant!" She squeezed the slim little body that, after all, was plump enough. It was shocking for a young person to be fat in those days. "I will make it all right with him." Miss Wharton's house was much smaller. A square sort of hall, with oddly pretty furnishing, a parlor and a dining-room off it, and all were filled with curiosities that were family heirlooms, beautiful things, for Miss Wharton abhorred ugliness and despised horrid Chinese idols. The dinner was very dainty, and Daffodil wondered how she could feel so much at home. "And to-morrow we will go out again, but we will drive around, and you shall see the city. What means that sober look?" "Oh, madam, I shall feel so spoiled with beauty, that I don't know how I shall content myself to go back to Pittsburg;" and her eyes swam in a soft lustre that was almost tears. "Perhaps we shall not let you go back;" laughingly. Jane came around for her in the afternoon, and she said, "We missed you so much at dinner time. And ever so many bundles have come for you." "And I've been so full of pleasure, that any more would run over. Oh, madam, how can I thank you!" "By coming again. I'll call for you to-morrow." They walked home, past pretty gardens all a-bloom with summer richness. Daffodil was so full of delight she wanted to dance. In her room was one large box--that was the new hat. A rather fancy straw, and she had not seen it trimmed. It had a wreath of fine roses inside, and larger ones on the outside, and beautiful wide strings of some gauzy stuff, that in warm weather were to float around, but in a high wind they were tied under the chin. And there was a dainty pair of red slippers, laced across the top, with a red cord fastened diamond-wise, and a pair of black shoes. They were not "boots" then. These came up almost to the ankles, and were laced across with ribbon and tied in a bow. There were some imported stockings, but Mrs. Jarvis declared she had never seen such pretty home-knit ones as the little girl wore, that looked quite as if they were of silk, and the clocks were perfect. In another package was a beautiful scarf, with threads of gold in the border, and some fine handkerchiefs. "Mother has some at home, two that have wide borders of beautiful lace, that she made herself. And bibs that you wear over the neck of your frocks. And she is making a lovely skirt for me, that is lace and needlework, and I am to have it when I am quite grown up and go out to tea." Barbe Carrick had begun to think of her daughter's marriage, and as there was but little ready money, outfits were made at home, and packed away against the time. For most mothers counted on it, even thought of grandchildren. Daffodil had enough to talk about that evening. Mr. Bartram went out, and for an hour Dilly had her guardian quite to herself. Then two gentlemen came in, and the tired little girl went to bed. About ten the next morning a pony chaise stopped at the door. Jules came out and took the reins, and Miss Wharton stepped lightly down and was greeted by Mrs. Jarvis. "I have come for the little girl," she said, "having her guardian's permission. I am going to show her the sights, and make her sick of Pittsburg. We want her here. Why, I never supposed I had such a motherly streak in my nature, or I would have wedded and had a houseful. Or else the child has some bewitchment about her. Jane, put on her new hat and the scarf. The frocks will be here in a day or two." Daffodil did look bewitching as she stepped into the chaise. Miss Wharton was quite used to driving. They went along Chestnut Street first, past the stores, then looked at some of the old places that were to be historical. Mistress Betty told over many of the war adventures and the coming of the good news. "And I remember that," said Daffodil. "Grandad was angry about it. He still believes England will get us back sometime." "Yet your father went to war. How did he take that?" "I was so little then. I think I didn't know much about him until we heard he would come home. Then I really began to remember. I didn't like him so much at first, and I went to great-grandfather for comfort. Oh, madam, he was so sweet and dear. And when M. de Ronville came, and I put him in the old chair, it seemed almost as if grandfather had come back. And I liked him at once. Now he is to be my uncle, we have settled that." Then they went out on the beautiful road, where the Shippens and several of the old families had their capacious estates, and their large old mansions. Oh, how lovely and orderly everything looked, the picture of peace and plenty. "Some day we will go over to Valley Forge. But it is nearing noon, and I must not starve you. I know of a nice place, where ladies often go at noon, and you do not need to have a man tagging after you. Start up, Dolly!" to the pony. They came back to busy streets. There were Quakers at Pittsburg, but they did not seem so pronounced as here. And there were such fine-looking men, in their drab suits, widebrimmed hats, and they wore knee-breeches and silk stockings, quite like the world's people. Here and there one nodded to Miss Wharton. The elegance and harmony appealed to the child, without her understanding why. They paused at a house set back a little from the street, with a courtyard of blooming flowers. There was a wide covered porch and a trellis work wreathed with vines. A wide door opened into a spacious hall. A young colored boy came out to them. "Pomp," Miss Wharton said, "take the pony and give him a little feed and water, not too much, mind now. He wants a little rest, so do we." Pompey assisted them out with a flourish, and led the pony up a side way. They walked to the porch, raised by three steps, and Miss Wharton was greeted warmly by several parties. "Here is a table," said Mrs. Mason. "My dear creature, I haven't seen you in an age. Have you been getting married, and is this _his_ daughter? Did you take him for the sake of the child?" "Alas! I have not been so fortunate! The child has both parents. And she has just come from Pittsburg. You know, M. de Ronville went out there and brought back--well, it is his grandniece, I suppose--Miss Daffodil Carrick." The waiter, another colored servant--they were quite favorites in the city for their obsequious politeness--placed chairs for them. "Pittsburg! Why, that's way at the West in the Indian countries, on the way to Ohio, I believe. What a long journey. And how is M. de Ronville?" "Rather improved by his journey, I think. Now, Daffodil, what will you have? You ought to be hungry." "You choose for me, madam;" in a low tone, and with a tint of exquisite coloring. It kept wavering over the sweet face, for she felt somehow that she was being observed. She wished she had on one of the pretty frocks, but Jane had ironed out this white one, and Mrs. Jarvis had found her a sash. But she was not accustomed to much consideration of herself, and she was hungry. The ladies were prettily dressed, some of them in rather quakerish colors and they had beautiful fans and parasols. It was quite a meeting-place, where they exchanged bits of news, a little gossip, and had most excellent tea. "Carrick isn't a French name," said Madam Neville, rather critically. "No. She is French on the mother's side. M. de Ronville's father and her grandfather were Huguenot exiles in the old times. He is her guardian now, and there is some property, enough for a town, I believe. And you know the French once had possession of most of that country." Betty Wharton knew that would settle her status at once, more decisively than her beauty. Then some other ladies, having finished their tea, came over for a little chat. Had she been to see the new play? For "The Academy of Polite Science" seemed rather above an ordinary theatre, and Philadelphia had swung back to amusements. Was she going to Mrs. Chew's card party this evening? "Oh, yes. She wouldn't miss it for anything." "What a beautiful child!" whispered another. "Will she live here in town?" "Oh, she is only on a visit now." "She's too nice to be wasted on such an outlandish place as Pittsburg, where they do nothing but make whiskey." The pony came round, and the ladies said their good-bys. Since the closing of the war, indeed, in gratitude for French assistance, much honor had been paid to our noble allies. That evening M. de Ronville went to his card club. But Daffodil had Mrs. Jarvis for audience, and in return heard many wonderful things about the great city. If Daffodil had not been so utterly simple-hearted and had so little self-consciousness, it might have proved a rather dangerous ordeal for her. In a few days she certainly was the light of the house. Even Mr. Bartram yielded to her charm, though he fancied girls of that age were seldom interesting: either painfully shy, or overbold. She was neither. She seemed to radiate a pervasive atmosphere of happiness, her smile was so full of light and joy; and her sweet voice touched the springs of one's heart. M. de Ronville had never met with any such experience. A shy young man, he had kept much to his own compatriots. Then he had devoted himself to business, with a vague idea that when he had made a fortune he would go back to France, that had grown much more liberal in matters of religion. But he had become warmly interested in the new country, and especially the city. He had been pleased with the household at Pittsburg, the plain sensible soldier, who was making an excellent citizen, but the two ladies he found most interesting. It was golden-crowned Daffodil that stirred his heart in a new fashion, and made him feel how much had been lost out of his life. And now he had her. A sweet, dazzling, bird-like creature, that gave the house an altogether new aspect. She went with Jane to call on Mrs. Craig. The daughter was well married, and had four small children, though their house was rather simple. "And have you cried yourself to sleep with homesickness?" asked Mrs. Craig. "I've heard it is rather quiet in the big house where you are, with only a few grown people. True, Mr. de Ronville is like a father or, perhaps, a grandfather would be nearer, and you have been used to elderly men." "Oh, madam, it is delightful. I like him so much. I did at home, or I never could have come. And Mrs. Jarvis is nice and pleasant, and tells me what is good manners for little girls, and Jane spoils me by waiting on me." "Madam, indeed!" laughed Mrs. Craig. "Why, you make me feel as if I belonged to the quality!" "They call the grown-up ladies that, the elder ones I mean. And there is one who has been so good to me, Miss Wharton, who bought my new clothes, and tells me what to wear, and things to say that are the fashion here. I think we have not much fashion at home. She takes me out, and, oh, there are so many things to see. And now uncle has hired a pony, and I ride with him in the morning, and we all went to a play, where the people made believe they were part of a story, and I was charmed, for it seemed so real. And there was a fine concert, I never heard so many instruments. And going to church is quite grand. I wish we had a lovely church at home. Oh, I hardly have a moment, but I do think of them all, and how wild Felix will be over all I shall have to tell him." "I'm afraid you won't want to go back." "Not go back to mother and all the others? Why, every day makes it one day nearer;" and the lovely light in her face showed she was not forgetting them. "I am going before real cold weather. It would be too hard a journey to take in winter. But I find it very pleasant, too." "And the stores are so full of beautiful things. People must be very rich, they spend so much money." "It is a big town, and there are many people." "And one can't help being joyous and happy." She looked as if she could dance or fly. "And uncle likes me best to be gay, and I should be ungrateful to mope when so much is being done for me." "Yes, that is true." "And next week Miss Wharton is going to take me to a grand out-of-door party of young people. Mrs. Pemberton came and gave uncle the invitation for me, and he has promised to come in the evening to see us, and to fetch me home." "Oh, but they're on the Schuylkill! Well, you are going among the quality. You'll never do for Pittsburg again." "But I shall do for father and mother, and I shall have such fun hearing grandad scold about all the doings, and say that I am spoiled, and not worth a pewter platter. And then he will hug me so tightly that it will almost squeeze the breath out of me." She laughed so merrily and her face was in a glow of mirth and mischief. Then Jane came for her, though she was quick about learning the city streets. But M. de Ronville thought her too precious to be trusted out alone, though now the town was safe enough. CHAPTER IX WITH THE EYES OF YOUTH The place was like a picture by some fine artist, and the midsummer coloring, the shade of the tall trees, the great beds of flowers made it lovely, indeed. There was a space of greensward that ran down to the river, then a series of steps up the terrace, where a large level lawn with another row of steps led and a wide porch, with fluted columns. The house was large, and hospitable of aspect. Now it was filled with graceful figures, flitting to and fro, of all ages, it seemed. For it was quite a notable occasion. There were two Pemberton sons, one married; then Miss Bessy, who was eighteen; Mary of sixteen, and Belinda, a growing girl, whose birthday was the same as Bessy's, though there was five years between them. This is why young people are asked to the birthday party. And the mothers of the girls, the brothers, and other young men. The tables will be set out on the lawn, three of them. Bessy was to be married early in the autumn, and lovers in those days were in no wise abashed by their engagement. Mr. Morris hovered about his betrothed, young Mr. and Mrs. Pemberton had not outlived their honeymoon. There were other engaged couples, and quite a merry crowd of children. Betty Wharton glanced over the group, as they ascended the steps. Not a girl was as handsome as her _protégée_. They had come in a coach, and the child had just a light scarf thrown over her shoulders. Her frock was of some white crapy stuff, the bodice cut square in the neck after the fashion of the day, and edged with a bit of lace; the short waist defined with a soft blue silk sash. Her curls were caught up high on her head, with a blue bow, and every movement seemed to shake off a shower of gold. Where the chin melted in her neck, and the neck sloped to her shoulder, there were exquisite lines. "That's the little girl from Pittsburg," exclaimed Anton Wetherell. "I didn't suppose they could raise anything like that. She's not so little, either; why, she must be well on to fifteen. Some connection of that old French lawyer, de Ronville. I wonder if he means to make her his heir? I fancy there's a good deal of money." "Miss Wharton has been making much of her, it seems, and she isn't the one to fall into a mistake." The elder ladies greeted her cordially. There was such a charming simplicity about her and her enjoyment of everything was infectious. She gravitated to the younger girls, and Belinda was really fascinated with her. They played some games, and she was so ready to assent to what they proposed, so frank to admit her ignorance of some things, that they were all ready to help her and explain. Presently they sat on the grass in a little ring, and asked her about Pittsburg. Was it a great city? "Oh, you would think it very queer," she said laughingly. "Only the rivers are beautiful, and the hills, and the woods over opposite. But the people"--then she flushed a little, but she was too honest to embellish--"well, they are Scotch, and Irish, and English, and a few from the East, but now those folks are going out to Ohio. And----" "But you're French," said one of the girls. "Though I thought all French people were dark." "Mother and grandmere have beautiful dark eyes and hair. So has my little brother Felix. But my father has blue eyes, and I don't know where the yellow hair came from. That was why my mother called me Daffodil." "What an odd, pretty name. And your hair is beautiful, like silk. Does it curl that way without----" For little girls and big ones, too, had their hair put up in curl papers, or the hairdresser used tongs. "Oh, yes, it curls naturally, and tangles, too. When I was little I wanted it cut off, there were such awful pulls. But mother wouldn't, because father was away soldiering, and when he came home he wouldn't hear to it. One grandfather used to call me Yellowtop." The nearest girl was petting one of the soft, silky curls. Another said, "Can you talk French? I'm studying it at school. It's awful hard and queer." "Oh, yes. You see, I learned to talk in both languages. Then I had a lovely great-grandfather, who lived to be almost a hundred, and he taught me to read quite well. There are some French Acadians, who come in to see us now and then. But their speech has been mixed up so much. I've been reading a little with uncle. After grandfather died, I almost forgot." "And are there fine stores and churches, and do you have plays, and entertainments, and parties?" "Oh, no. It's queer and plain, quite rough, though now they are making nice streets, and people are spinning and weaving. Some of the women make beautiful lace. There's always a May party and a dance; and then a time when the new year begins, and tea drinkings, and some birthdays are kept. No, you wouldn't like it, after such a beautiful city." "Oh, you won't want to go back!" "Mother and all my people are there," she answered simply. "But if I had always lived in a beautiful city like this, I wouldn't want to." By this time the tables were arranged, and they were summoned to the repast. Several young lads had joined the company, and Mary took the head of the children's table. The lawn was a picturesque sight. Afterward some lanterns were strung about, but it was clear and moonlight, which added to the beauty of the scene, and presently dancing began. There was much rambling around. Miss Wharton found her, and asked if she was having a good time. She had been dancing with two of the boys. "And Mr. Wetherell wants the pleasure of dancing with the young lady from Pittsburg;" laughing. "But I am not a real young lady. And I don't know all the dances;" in a hesitating tone. "You do it at your own risk, Anton," Betty said to the young man. "You have been warned." "I'll take the risk." He piloted her through very skilfully. Then young Mr. Pemberton asked her. She met Mr. Bartram in this quadrille, and he talked to her afterward. She wished he would ask her to dance, but he seemed very much occupied with the older girls. And presently she spied out uncle de Ronville, and went over to the step of the porch, where he was sitting in a chair. He felt very proud of her. She was so full of enjoyment she fairly bubbled over with delight, as she detailed the pleasures. "And we must be thinking of going home. That is one of the penalties of old age." "Oh," with a kind of _riant_ sweetness in her voice, "if you could go back halfway, and I could come on halfway, wouldn't it be delightful! But I get sleepy often in the evening, not like to-night;" as an afterthought. "I suppose that comes of living in a country place, where people go to bed at nine! But you sometimes go to bed quite late." Yes, if they could meet halfway! Oh, what a foolish old man! It has been a delightful evening, and Miss Wharton joins them. "Daffodil, you have had honors enough to turn your head. M. de Ronville, are we spoiling her?" He gave her a fatherly look, and taking her soft little hand in his, they rose together. "Will you go home in our coach?" he asked of Miss Wharton. "Very glad, indeed, my dear sir, I am rather tired. Our party began early." There were a good many adieus to make, and some very flattering invitations for Daffodil. They put Mistress Betty down at her own door, and when they reached home M. de Ronville gave her a tender good-night. "It was splendid, Jane," she said as the finery was being removed. "And I danced with several of the young men. I didn't quite know how, but I thought of Norry's stories about the fairy dances in the moonlight, and I guess the real moonlight helped." "I don't believe there was as pretty a girl among them all," declared Jane admiringly. It was late when Mr. Bartram came in, and he had enjoyed himself as well. But it was not all dissipation. There were evenings when Daffodil read French to her host, and he corrected any faulty pronunciation. At other times it was the newspaper. She had such a clear young voice, and she did everything with such charming cheerfulness. The rides with him in the morning were a delight. And though her figure had not rounded out, there was something exquisite in the virginal lines. She did not realize herself that she was a big girl now, so gradual was the change, and she had been a little girl all her life to those at home. He thought it was the French blood, as he could recall the girls of his youth, with their pretty deference, but it is the little admixture of Irish that makes her so winsome and frank. Yet there were times when Daffodil was surprised at herself, and the strange feelings and stronger emotions that would flash across her. Was it the wider life, the variety of people and incident, the deeper and more comprehensive tone of the talk, and the new pleasures of the higher type? There was no special dividing line in those days. Little girls wore ankle-length frocks, so the tucks were let out as they grew taller. After a little the hair was put up high with a pretty comb discarded by an older sister. When she had a lover, the next younger girl came to the fore. "If the child was two years older I might make an excellent match for her," thought Betty Wharton. "But she isn't thinking about lovers or admiration. She will be very lovely presently, when she knows how to use those heart-breaking eyes and that dangerous smile. When she comes again--of course, it would be a sin to bury such a girl alive in that dozy, drowsy old Pittsburg!" The days flew by so rapidly. Letters did not come frequently, postage was high, and there was a sort of secret faith in most people that things were going on well, according to the old adage that "no news was good news." But when a rare letter came, she cried over it secretly for two or three days, and was rather grave, but she thought it ungracious not to be bright and happy when so much was being done for her. Mrs. Craig was planning to go before the autumnal rains set in, and she took it for granted that it was her place to return Daffodil. The child had been talking this over one afternoon, and a flood of home love had overwhelmed her. Mrs. Jarvis had an old friend to supper and to spend the evening, Jane had gone out, and M. de Ronville had gone to a sort of sociable dinner, with some of the citizens who were interested in the library project. It had proved a rather lonesome evening, and she had really longed for home. She wandered about aimlessly, and presently settled herself in the corner of the vine-covered porch, and yielded to the beauty and fragrance of the night. Everything had a richer aspect and meaning to her. It was moonlight again. The tall trees seemed outlined in silver, and the flower-beds were transformed into fairy haunts. Only a few stars were out, they were larger and more golden than usual. She drank in the honeyed fragrance all about her, and it seemed a land of enchantment. Some one came into the library, but did not make a light. She heard M. de Ronville's low, but clear-toned, voice. "I have wanted to talk this matter over with you. There need be no hurry, one or two years here will answer. You see, I am getting to be an old man. Latterly I have come to long for some one of my own, that I could go down the valley of life with, and who would care to make the journey more cheerful. You have been almost like a son to me. I should like you to be that, indeed. And this child has grown very dear to me. To think of you both going on here in the old house when I have left it, would give me my heart's desire. She is lovely, she is sweet, and has a most admirable temper. Then those people are in comfortable circumstances, and of the better class. You know it is a trait of our nation to be deeply interested in the marriage of our children, to advise, often to choose for them, with our wider experience." "But she is such a child, eager, unformed, and I have thought of some one, companionable, with a wider education----" That was Mr. Bartram's voice. "We can remedy all that. I could have her here, and I think she is an apt scholar. She is well up in French, and that is quite in demand now. She could be trained in music, she has a sweet voice. And she is very graceful. If you could see the indifferent manners of most people in that queer, backward town, you would wonder at her refinement, her nice adjustment. Her mother, the Duvernay people, are high-bred, yet in no wise pretentious." There was a brief silence, then the young man began. "Mr. de Ronville, you have been the best and kindest friend a young man could have. I owe you a great deal. But I would not like to bind myself by any such promise. I have an old-fashioned notion that one must or should choose for one's self, and another perhaps foolish one, that I should like to win the woman I marry, not have her take me because some one else desired it. She would naturally be impressionable----" All this talk was about her. She just realized it. She had listened as if some one was reading out of a book. She started now, and light and fleet as a deer flashed across the porch and up to her own room, in a queer, frightened state, hardly knowing what it meant, and yet vaguely suspicious. She had not been especially drawn to Mr. Bartram. He treated her quite as a child, sometimes teased, and evoked quick, mirthful replies, at others passed her by indifferently. All her experience had been with boys, and men of middle age, and she had no idea of lovers. Did uncle de Ronville mean that she should come here and love, and then be married to Mr. Bartram! She was suddenly and unreasonably homesick for ugly old Pittsburg. The shops and the drives, the gayeties and delights, had lost their charm. If she could fly home to her mother's arms! If she could sit on her father's knee and have him hug her to his heart, or even grandad's rough love. And Norah, and Felix, and grandfather Bradin, who took her out in his boat, and sang funny sea-going songs. No, she couldn't come here to live! Yet it was curious the next morning. Everything seemed exactly the same. Uncle said, "Will you get ready for your ride?" in that gentle, courtly manner, and they went off together. Mr. Bartram had been very quiet, she had hardly ventured to raise her eyes to him. Oh, maybe she had fallen asleep and dreamed it. Mary Pemberton came over early. A host of girls were going to have a picnic up the river, and Belinda wanted her. They would bring her back by five in the afternoon. It was to be just a girls' party, only her brother would be there to see that Darius, the black servitor, attended to them properly. It was a bright, jolly day, with swinging, and a gipsy campfire, playing tag and telling riddles, and even running races. And she was so joyous talking it all over that evening, M. de Ronville felt he could never let her go. Could he persuade her to stay? Young people were fond of pleasure, and after this Pittsburg would be dull. All the week the desire in Daffodil's heart had grown into absolute longing to go home. Yet she cares so much for them here: Uncle, Mrs. Jarvis, Miss Wharton, and a number of other people. But how could the return be planned. No one had suggested such a thing. Providence comes to her assistance, opening the way in the shape of Mrs. Craig, who stays to supper, as she has a matter to lay before M. de Ronville. And that is, that she has finished her visit, and desires to return before the autumnal rains set in, while the going is still good. And she will take Daffodil. "I am afraid we can't spare her," returned M. de Ronville. "She has become such a part of our household." "But I must go home sometime," said the child with a quick gasp in her breath. "Are you tired of us?" "Tired!" She came and placed her arm caressingly over his shoulder. "Oh, I have never been tired, but there is mother and--the rest," with a tremble in her voice, while her eyes had the softness of coming tears. "Think how long I have been away!" "And they've had many a heartache, I dare say. I don't know how they could spare you long. Of course, where your daughters marry it is a different thing. You resign yourself to that," said Mrs. Craig. "When did you think of starting?" "Well, so as to miss the equinoctial." People pinned their faith to its coming regularly in those days. "And perhaps no one would care to take such a journey if they had no need, and she couldn't come alone." "No;" in a grave, slow tone. "We must talk it over. I've thought of her staying in the winter and going to school, perhaps. And you might study music," glancing at her. "Oh, you are very good. But--I ought to go." "Yes. You've had a nice long time, and lots of going about, I've heard. I hope you have not been spoiled. And you are the only girl your mother has. Then she had you so long before Felix came and while your father was away, and I know she's missed you sorely." The tears did come into Daffodil's eyes then. After Mrs. Craig had gone, her guardian drew her down on the sofa beside him. "Daffodil," he began, "I have come to love you very dearly. There has been no one in my life to call forth any special affection. There might have been, I see now that there should have been. It is along the last of life that we feel most of the need of these ties. And if you could give me a little----" "Oh, I do love you. You have been so kind, and given me so many pleasures. But not altogether for that. I liked you when you first came, you know. There was something--I can't quite express it--even if I had not come to Philadelphia, I should have thought of you so often. And it has been such a delightful visit. But I know mother has missed me very much, and she has the first claim. And oh, I want to see her." The longing and piteousness in her tone touched him. She was not all lightness and pleasure-loving. "My dear, it is hard to give you up. Child, why can you not divide some time between us, and let me do for you as a father would. They have Felix--and each other. They have parents as well. And I am all alone. It would be a joy to my latter years to have some one to care for, to share my almost useless fortune, and my home." She leaned her golden head down on his shoulder, and he knew she was crying. "Oh," she sobbed, "it is very hard. I do love you. But, you see, they have the best right, and I love them. I am torn in two." Yes, it was selfish to try her this way. He had dreamed of what might happen if he could keep her here, a girl sweet and lovely enough to charm any one. But it was wrong thus to covet, to make it harder for her. "My child, it shall be as you wish. Sometime you may like to come again. My home and heart will always be open to you, and I shall study your best interests. When you want any favor do not hesitate to ask me. I shall be only too glad to do anything." "Oh, do not think me ungrateful for all this love and kindness. Every day I shall think of you. Yes," and the brightness in her tone thrilled him. "I may come again if you want me----" "I shall always want you, remember that." M. de Ronville was not the only one who made an outcry. Miss Wharton took her to task. "Daffodil, you are not old enough to realize what a foolish girl you are, and so we must not be too severe. Mr. de Ronville is a rich man, a fine and noble one as well. I have no doubt but that he would leave you a handsome portion, for he loves you sincerely. And think of the advantages of a city like this. But when you go back to Pittsburg, you will see a great difference. If all is true, there is no society, no interest for such a woman as you may become with proper training, such as you would get here. You are--yes, I will say it, too lovely to be wasted on a place like that. I am really vexed with you." The tears stood in her beautiful eyes. "Oh, one can't be angry with you, you are so sweet! A year or two hence you could have no end of admirers at your feet, and take your pick of them. I hate to give you up. I want to see you a queen in society, you lovely, winsome, short-sighted thing! I don't believe you have a bit of vanity, and they say no girl child was ever born without it. I shall make your uncle, as you call him, keep track of you, for I shall want to know where you throw away your sweetness. I believe if I was Mr. de Ronville I would offer to buy you from your father." "Oh, he couldn't." It sounded as if she said it exultantly. Jane bemoaned the proposed departure as well. "The house will feel just like a funeral when you have gone out of it, Miss Daffodil. You've been like the sunshine floating up and down. We never missed it on the rainiest day, for there was your flashing golden head. And, oh, I wish you could stay and, grow up a young woman, and go to parties, and then have a splendid lover. Oh, dear!" and then Jane broke down crying. Poor Daffodil's heart was torn by the regrets. It seemed as if uncle was the only one who was like to help her bear the parting, and he was so tender that at times she almost relented. Mr. Bartram did not count. He was polite, and to a degree sympathetic. He did not tease her, nor laugh about Pittsburg, that would have made her indignant now. She had come with such a little parcel, now there was a trunk to be packed. M. de Ronville slipped in some dainty little boxes that were not to be opened until she reached home. And at last the day came, and there were sad enough good-by's. There was a new Post coach in its shining paint, and four stout horses. Mr. de Ronville pressed Daffodil's hand the last one, but he turned his eyes away. Yes, the light of his house had gone. But he could not give up all hope. CHAPTER X THE PASSING OF THE OLD Oh, how queer it looked at Old Pittsburg, after the fine city she had left. Daffodil almost shrank from the sight of the old dilapidated log houses, the streets that were still lanes. But there were the two households to greet her, with not a change in them. Oh, how dear they were! The familiar room, the chair so endeared to her, the high shelf, with its brass candlestick, and there in the corner her mother's little flax wheel. "We were so afraid they'd keep you," said Felix. "Didn't they want you to stay?" "Ah, yes," and the tears came to her eyes. "And you look queer, changed somehow. Your voice has a funny sound. And I want you to tell me all about Philadelphia. Did you see that Mr. Benjamin Franklin, and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence?" "Mr. Franklin was abroad. And they don't all live there. I believe I saw only three of them. But there was Governor Mifflin. And they hope sometime to have the Capitol there." "Felix, let your sister have a little rest. There will be days and days to talk. Dilly, are you not tired to death? Such a long journey as it is. I don't see how Mrs. Craig stood it." "Yes, I am tired," she answered. How plain her room looked, though it had been put in nice order with the best knitted white quilt on her bed, and a bowl of flowers on a pretty new stand grandfather Bradin had made. She hung her coat in the closet, and took off the frock she was so tired of, glad to change it for a fresher one. "Now you look natural," declared grandmere. "We have our little girl back, but it does seem as if you had grown. And, oh, how glad we are to have her!" There certainly was some mysterious change. Her mother studied it as well. It seemed as if the little girl had vanished, one could almost imagine the seven years had come and gone, and she had been to fairyland. But she put her face down on her mother's shoulder and cried. "Dear, are you glad to see us all again, to come back to us? For I have had a heart-breaking fear that I know it must have been delightful there, and Mr. de Ronville had a great love for you. Oh, I really wonder that he let you come." "He wanted me to stay--yes. To stay and be educated in music and many things. It is so different there. I don't know that I can make you understand." "Dear," subjoined her mother, "he wrote to us. It was the kindliest letter. If he had persuaded you----" They clung more closely together, each answering with the pressure. But she made no mention of Mr. Bartram. The talk had not been meant for her ears, indeed, she did not rightly understand the real desire that underlay it. "Now you must rest awhile," said her mother. "There will be a crowd in to supper." Felix had been denied the pleasure of a half holiday. "You will have time enough to see your sister," Barbe said to the importunate boy. "She is going to stay at home now." Daffodil did have a nap and awoke refreshed, though she still looked tired and pale. "Put on one of your pretty frocks," said her mother, with a touch of pride. Indeed, much as she had missed her darling she had enjoyed the honor. Not every girl could have such an opportunity to see the great city where so many notable events had happened. There were few formal invitations in those early days. Evenings were generally given over to pleasure, for the day was devoted to work. You were sure of a welcome unless somewhere there was a family feud and even that was often overlooked after a few glasses of whiskey. So there were guests in--to supper. Daffodil was inspected, questioned, commented upon in a friendly fashion. They drank to her health, to the fact of her return safe and sound, for, after all, was not a big city where they had all sorts of dissipations dangerous. But all that was nothing to the evening. Then there was a crowd. Grandad did get very merry and dance a jig, the laughter grew uproarious. Dilly shrank with a fear that was half disgust. Barbe caught Norah's arm presently. "Ask them over to finish their merriment," she said persuasively. "Daffodil is very tired and must go to bed." She looked like a little ghost now and her eyes were heavy. "Yes, yes; we ought to have a little thought," and Norah rapped on the table and gave her invitation, which was cordially accepted. "Dear little daughter," began her father. "It's rather wild and rough, but it is their idea of a good, hearty welcome. And you must pardon grandad. He has a warm, loving heart." "Oh, yes; I know all that. But I _am_ tired." And her voice was full of tears. "Oh, child, it would be hard to have you outgrow us. And I love you so! I had such hard work to win your love in the beginning. But you don't remember." "Oh, yes, I do. Was I dreadful? I think I couldn't love any one all at once. And I didn't like mother to care so, when she had loved me best. But I know better now. Her love for me is different from her love for Felix and her love for you. Oh, I am glad to be back." And she clung to him convulsively. He hoped in his heart she would never go away again. There were some promising beaux in the town. Of course she would marry. He wouldn't want his little girl to be an "old maid." She said a long prayer that night, it seemed as if there had never been so many things to pray for. Then she crawled into bed and cried softly, she did not know why. Did she wish herself back? Was it that the place had changed so much or was it all in her. Felix seemed such a big boy, good looking too, with beautiful dark eyes and a very rosy face much sunburned. His dark hair was a mass of clustering curls, they inherited that from their mother. But he talked with his mouth full, he clattered his knife and fork, dropped them occasionally, and asked more questions than one could answer in an hour. She looked up at her father and smiled her approval. He understood it was that. He had some gentlemanly ways and she was very glad that M. de Ronville had not been shocked by the rude manners that obtained largely in the town. Grandmere waited on the table for there was generally a second cooking. People had stout appetites in those days. It seemed to her the trees had grown, they were longer armed. And here was the pretty flower garden a-bloom now with marigolds, which were not field flowers. There were large balls of pale yellow and deep orange, bronze ones with a pile as if made of velvet. How beautiful they were. Not a weed was to be seen. It was a half-cloudy day, not dark or sullen, but with friendly gray under roof. She put on her sun-bonnet, her mother had it starched and ironed for her. Up at the back of the house it was still wild land, a sloping hill, a tangle of summer growth rhododendrons half smothered with it. She threaded her way up, then there was a long level of stubble turning brown. Far to the north vaster bulks loomed up. There was a great world beyond. What if some day it should be cities like Philadelphia. And--people, men and women living in pretty houses and having nice times. It was a beautiful world, too. There was the fragrance of wild grapes in the air, the sweetness of dying clover blooms and the rich autumnal smells. She drew long breaths and broke into song with the birds. Then she started and ran. How little the houses looked down there! "Oh," she cried in dismay as she ran through the open doorway, "is it dinner time. I've been up in the woods. It _is_ beautiful." Her mother looked up smilingly. She had been paring apples to dry and had a great tubful. They strung them on a cord and hung them out in the sunshine to dry. Grandmere had the dinner ready to dish up. "Oh, I could have been stringing the apples!" she said remorsefully. "And I've been way up the hill. I wondered if it would look so lovely to me. For the Schuylkill is like a dream, but our rivers are finer than the Delaware." "Don't worry about work so soon. You must get used to it by degrees. And get rested over the journey. Janie and Kate Byerly were in. They want you to come to supper to-morrow night. Janie has a lover and she's promised. 'Tisn't a good sign when the youngest goes off first." "Why, Janie isn't----" in surprise. "She was fifteen a month ago;" said grandmere. "Would you want me to get married?" she asked soberly, recalling the talk she could not confess for honor's sake. "We are in no hurry," said grandmere. "Though I approve of early marriages. You settle to one another more easily. And women are happier in their own homes." "I'll get father to put up an addition and bring my husband here;" she rejoined with a kind of reckless gayety. "I couldn't go very far away from you." Her mother glanced up with fond eyes. And just then her father entered. Most people at that time were little given to caressing ways. But his own had been much dearer to Bernard Carrick after his three years' absence, and now he kissed his daughter, taking her sweet face in both hands. "Why, you look fresh as a rose. I half expected to find you in bed. Are you equal to a ride this afternoon?" "Oh, yes; only--mother----" glancing at her. "Can't mother spare you?" "Yes, yes. There will be time enough to work, child." Her mother was made very happy at the deference. Felix did not always come home at noon. "They were pretty gay last night," he began apologetically. "Seen grandad this morning?" "No, I went up in the woods. I wondered how it would look to me. It was beautiful. And it was a shame not to run over there first." "Well, you may go a bit before we start. I have some papers to look over. We're in a great wrastle about some whiskey business. And now a man has to hold his tongue sharp if he isn't on the right side." "You are on the right side?" She looked at him with laughing, trusting eyes. "I wouldn't dare go agin grandad," he laughed back. It was the old time to her. The cloth was coarse homespun partly bleached; they had some fine ones laid away for the little girl's outfit; the dishes were a motley lot, some pewter plates among them. The pretty accessories that she had become so accustomed to were missing. Was it this way when M. de Ronville was here? She colored vividly. "I'll get up, Doll," her father said, "and stop for you." So she ran down to the other house. Norah kissed her effusively. "I'm glad you weren't in this morning. I was on thorns an' briars all the time for fear. The men were in howling an' shouting until you'd thought they'd upset the government. An' they will, too. We're not going to pay tax on our very bread. Why they're coming the old game that they fit about for seven years. And grandad's fierce. He'd turn us all back to England to-morrer." "I don't know----" Daffodil looked up confused. "No, I s'pose not. Women has husbands to think for them an' gals needn't think about anything but beaux. Did you have any over there?" nodding her head. "Body o' me! but you've grown tall. You ain't a little girl any more. And we'll have to look you up a nice beau." "Must everybody be married?" Norah put both hands on her lips and laughed. "Well, I don't know as there's a _must_, only old maids ain't of much account an' get sticks poked at 'em pretty often. I wouldn't be one for any money. I'd go out in the woods and ask the first man I met to marry me." "How old must you be?" asked Daffodil soberly, thinking of Miss Wharton. "Well, if you ain't married by twenty, lovers ain't so plenty, and at twenty-four you're pushed out of the door and at thirty you might as well go down. But you're not likely to have to ring the bell for them. My! but you're pretty, only I wish your cheeks were redder. I guess you've been housed up too much. I want to hear all about the sort of time you had! Wasn't the old gentleman a little stiff?" "Oh, no. He seemed so much like great-grandfather to me. I loved him a great deal. And there was a splendid housekeeper. The maid was sweet and she cried when I came away." "Little Girl," called her father. "Oh, are you going to ride away? Come over to-night. Grandad is going to the meeting where they will spout like a leaky gargoyle. Or stay, your father will go too. I'll come over instead." Daffodil mounted Dolly, who certainly had not grown fat in her absence. Felix had attended to that. "Dear old Dolly!" patting her neck, and the mare whinnied as if overjoyed. "You haven't forgotten, dear old Dolly;" and Daffodil was minded to lean over and give her a hug as she had times before. "We'll go down town. We are stretching out our borders. Here is the new dock. We are building boats for the western trade, and here is the shipyard." It had doubled itself since spring. Everybody seemed hurrying to and fro. Brawny, sunburned men with shirt sleeves rolled nearly to the shoulders, jesting, whistling, sometimes swearing, the younger ones pausing now and then to indulge in a few jig steps. There were boats loading with a variety of freight, but largely whiskey. Carrick took some drawings out of his memorandum book. "Look them over sharp, Cap'n Boyle, though I think you'll find them all right." There was the long point, the two rivers flowing into the Ohio, the murmur like the undertone of the sea. And over beyond, far beyond an endless stretch. There were some Indian wigwams, there were long reaches of cornfields yet uncut, a few stacked; apples ripening in the mellow sunshine, a wild kind of fruit, great tangles of grapevine enough to smother any tree. "It is beautiful," she said with deep feeling. "Oh, do you suppose there'll ever be anything--over there--like a town, houses and such?" She nodded upward. That was her portion. "If we go on this way. There's a line for trade between this and Cincinnati all planned out, boats being built, there's coal and iron to supply places around, and they're talking about glass even. We shall be the head centre. Oh, land doesn't cost much since taxes are so light. Yes, some likely young fellow will take it in hand and evolve a fortune for you. Daffodil, you will not go back to de Ronville?" "To live? Oh, no." "I couldn't spare my little girl. I want you to marry and settle here." She seemed to shrink from the thought. Down here they were working streets. New houses were going up. Store-houses were being built. Carrick had to stop and discuss several openings. And no matter what subject was in hand it came round to the whiskey. "What is it all about, father?" she asked, raising her perplexed face to his. "I don't know that you can understand. We were all served with a summons in the summer to appear at court over the other side of the mountains. Crops were just at the point where they would be ruined if left. The distillers were very angry, the farmers, too. They held meetings and decided they wouldn't go. It's a matter of the general government. The country is behind in everything and is striving to meet its expenses. It could not be otherwise after such a war as we have had. The tax is four pence per gallon--it seems a big figure on hundreds of gallons, still they can recoup themselves on the other end." "And who is right?" Bernard Carrick laughed. "There is but one side to be on just now. Grandad is among the distillers and Norah is as hotheaded as he. But women ought to stay out of it. Take pattern by mother and grandmere and have no opinions. You can't help hearing it talked about. I'm glad it wasn't one of M. de Ronville's interests or you might have heard hard things said about us. There now, business is done, let us have a fine gallop over this road." Dolly went very well for a while then said plainly she could not keep it up. "You are a good rider, Dilly. I'm glad you did not get out of practice. Your guardian must have been indulgent." "We had a ride every fine morning. He was very fond of it." He was glad to have her talk about her visit. The life would be very different here. Not only were all his interests here, and he was getting to be one of the rising men of the town, but the Bradins held the house they lived in and he was as a son to them. Barbe had never been parted from her mother. And though he had gone to his country's call with their consent he knew his own father would never forgive a second defection. No, he must stay here, and his daughter must marry here. Felix begged her to come out with him and see the great bee tree where father was going to take up the honey some night, but she was tired and curled herself up in the grandfather chair. Her thoughts wandered a little. "I don't believe you are paying a bit of attention to me!" the boy flung out angrily. "I wish you hadn't gone to that old city. You were twice as good fun before. And I s'pose you won't climb trees or run races or--or do any of the things that used to be such good fun. What in the world _did_ you do there?" "Oh, I'll try them with you again. But I've been out with father all the afternoon----" "And now he'll be so taken up with you he won't want me. Girls haven't any call to be out so much with men." "Not when they are our own fathers?" smiling. "Well--there's knitting, and spinning, and sewing, and darning stockings----" "I thought you were begging me to go out and have a good romp with you?" "Oh, that's different." She laughed. Then father came in and they had supper. After that until he went out he had to help Felix with sums, then the boy was sleepy, and went to bed. Daffodil had to talk about her visit. She had been to the theatre twice and to some fine out-of-doors concerts. Then the afternoon at the Pembertons, where the ladies had been so beautifully dressed, and the dance and the tea on the lawn. She had been sent to a dancing class and knew the modern steps. "And I just don't believe any one can beat grandad;" said Norah with pride. "And stout as he is, he's as light on his feet as a young girl. And about this Miss Wharton and her living alone with servants just as if she was a widow, and she must be an old maid. It's queer they should make so much of her." "But she's so nice and sweet. Everybody likes her. And her house is so full of pretty things. The gentlemen are always wanting to dance with her and come to tea." "Well, it's very queer except for a queen. There was a great queen once who didn't and wouldn't get married." "That was Queen Elizabeth and Virginia was named in her honor." "Well, I hope you won't get sick of us after a little. But blood's thicker than water;" and Norah nodded confidently to Daffodil's mother. Then it seemed really strange to go over to the Byerly's to tea. They had been older girls in school. Now they were busy all day spinning and Kate wove on a hand loom. Girls worked through the day and frolicked in the evening. They all seemed so large to Daffodil. They joked one another about beaux. Half a dozen young men were invited. Kitchen and dining-room was all one, and the two tables were put together, and would have groaned with their burden if they had not been strong. "I want Daffodil Carrick," said Ned Langdale rather peremptorily. "I went to her first party and she came to mine." "That's whether she wants you," said Janie saucily. "Do you, Daffodil?" "Do I--what?" "Want Ned to take you in to supper. We're pairing off. By right you ought to take Kate," to Ned. "She can have some of the younger boys." Daffodil was rather startled at Ned. He had grown so tall and looked so manly. "I'll take Archie," she said a little timidly. Archie smiled and came over to her, clasping her hand. "I'm so glad," he said in a half whisper. "Oh, Daffodil, you're so pretty, like some of the sweet pictures in a book mother has. Yes, I'm so glad." Did Daffodil go to school with most of these girls? She felt curiously strange. After the first greeting and the question about her visit, that she was getting rather tired of, there was a new diversion at the entrance of Mr. Josephus Sanders, who was announced to the company by his betrothed. He was a great, rather coarse-looking fellow, with a red face burned by wind and water, and reddish hair that seemed to stand up all over his head. Even at the back it hardly lay down. He was a boatman, had made two trips to New Orleans, and now was going regular between Pittsburg and Cincinnati with a share in the boat which he meant to own by and by. He had a loud voice and took the jesting in good part, giving back replies of coarse wit and much laughter. Mrs. Byerly waited on the guests, though the viands were so arranged that there was a dish for every three or four. Cold chicken, cold ham, cold roast pork temptingly sliced. White bread and brown, fried nuts as they called them, the old Dutch doughnuts and spiced cakes, beside the great round one cut in generous slices. And after that luscious fruits of all kinds. "Yes, I am so glad to see you. And you have been off among the quality. But I hope you have not forgotten--" and he raised his eyes, then colored and added, "but you weren't so much with the boys. I do suppose girls' schools are different. Still there were Saturdays." "I don't know why I lagged behind," and she gave a soft laugh that was delicious. "Maybe it was because some of them were older. Even now I feel like a little girl and I don't mean to be married in a long time. Oh, yes, I remember the May day fun and the races and tag----" pausing. "And the tree climbing and the big jumps and prisoner's base, and 'open the gates' and 'tug of war.' Ned was famous in them. I liked often to go off by myself and read, but once in a while it was fun." "Oh, you should go to Philadelphia. There are so many fine books. And many of the people have libraries of their own. My guardian had. And pictures." He bent his head quite low. "I'm going some day. That's my secret. I mean to be a doctor." "Oh!" The eyes she turned upon him thrilled him to the heart. Oh, she was the prettiest and sweetest girl in the room. But she wasn't glowing and red-cheeked and black-eyed. Then yellow hair wasn't particularly in favor. The table was cleared and the dessert was grapes and melons, yellow-hearted cantelopes and rosy watermelons, and they snapped seeds at one another, a rather rude play, which made a great deal of dodging. Afterward they went to the best room and had some more refined plays. They "picked cherries," they had to call their sweetheart and stand with him in the middle of the room. Ned chose Daffodil Carrick and he kissed her of course, that made her blush like a peony. And she chose Archie. But, alas! Archie had to choose some one else. He said afterward--"I had a great mind to choose you again, but I knew they'd laugh and say it wasn't fair. But I didn't care at all for Emma Watkins." They wound up with "Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grows." Then Janie Byerly took her betrothed's hand and stood in the middle of the room. "Joe and I are to be married in October somewhere about the middle. We haven't set the day yet, but you'll all know it and I want a great crowd to come and see the knot tied. Then we're going to Cincinnati on Joe's boat to visit his folks, and if I like it first-class we may settle there. I hope you have all had a good time." They said they had in a shout. "I'm coming over to see your pretty frocks," Janie whispered to Daffodil. "My, I shall be so busy that my head will spin." Of course Archie had to see her home, but as Ned's girl was already home, he walked with them and did most of the talking, to Archie's chagrin. And he ended with--"I've so much to tell you. I'm coming over right soon." CHAPTER XI THE WOOF OF DAILY THINGS "Dilly, you're not worth shucks since you came back!" exclaimed the boy in a severely upbraiding tone. "You don't do nothin' as you used, you just sit and moon. Do you want to go back to that old man? I sh'd think you'd been awful dull." "Do you talk that way at school?" "Oh, well, a fellow needn't be so fussy at home." "What would you like me to do? You are off with the boys----" "That's because you're no good. You don't run races nor climb trees nor wade in the brook to catch frogs, nor jump--I'll bet you don't know how to jump any more. And you were a staver!" "Girls leave off those things. And you are a good deal younger, and ought to have a boy's good times. I must sew and spin and help keep house and work in the garden to take care of the flowers and learn to cook." "My! I wouldn't be a girl for anything! Dilly, who will you marry?" Her face was scarlet. Must a girl marry? She understood now the drift of the talk she had unwittingly overheard. And her cheek burned thinking that she had been offered and declined. "I'm not going to marry any one in a good while," she returned gravely. "Tim Garvin asked me----" he looked at her hesitatingly. "Well?" "If he might come round. He thinks you sing like a mocking bird. And he says he likes yellow hair. I don't. I wish yours was black and that you had red cheeks and that you'd laugh real loud, and want to play games." "There are plenty of little girls, Felix, who are ready for any sort of fun." He spun round on his heel and went off. It had been one of the resplendent early autumn days with a breath of summer in the air and the richness of all ripening things. The call of the wood thrush came softly through the trees with a lingering delicious tenderness. She sat on a large boulder nearly at the foot of a great sycamore tree. She used to have a play-house here. What had changed her so? She did not want to go back to Philadelphia. She would never want to see Mr. Bartram again. In a way she was content. Her father loved her very much, it was a stronger love in one way, a man's love, though her mother was tender and planning a nice future for her. She did not understand that it was the dawning of womanhood, the opening of a new, strange life different from what had gone before. There was a sort of delicious mystery about it and she stood in tremulous awe. It was going to bring her something that she half dreaded, half desired. She had gone down by the schoolhouse one afternoon. They had built a new one, really quite smart, and now they had taken off an hour of the last session. The children were out at play, racing, screaming, wrestling, here playing ring around a rosy, here London bridge is falling down, here a boy chasing a girl and kissing her roughly, she slapping his face and being kissed half a dozen times more. Had she ever been one of this boisterous, romping group? The French blood had brought in more refinement, like the Quaker element. And she had been rather diffident. At home they were more delicate, while they had too much good breeding and kindliness to hold themselves much above their neighbors. The marriage of Janie Byerly was quite an event. It took place at ten in the morning and there was a great wedding cake with slices for the girls to dream on. Then they went down to the boat in a procession and there was a merry time as the boat made ready to push out. Rice had not come in yet, but old shoes were there in abundance. There were other marriages and the little girl went to them because she did not want to slight her old companions. Some of the couples set up housekeeping in a two-roomed cabin and the new wife went on with her spinning or weaving and some of them were quite expert at tailoring. There was plenty of work getting ready for winter. Tim Garvin had been as good as his word and came on Sunday evening. Daffodil sheltered herself behind her father's protecting wing. They talked of the whiskey question, of the Ohio trade, and then there was a lagging, rather embarrassing time. Four elderly people sat around--they generally retired and gave the young folks a chance, but it was Daffodil who disappeared first. And Tim did not make a second attempt. The Langdale boys had better luck in establishing friendliness. Ned came over in high feather one afternoon. Daffodil was practising a rather intricate piece of lace making. He looked manly and proud. He was tall and well filled out, very well looking. "I hope you'll all congratulate me," he began in a buoyant tone. "I've enlisted. I'm going to live up at the Fort and begin soldier life in earnest." "And I do most heartily wish you success," declared grandmere, her eyes lighting up with a kind of admiration at the manly face in the pride of youth. "We shall need soldiers many a day yet, though I hope the worst is over. Still the Indians are treacherous and stubborn." "And we may have another fight on our hands;" laughing. "For we are not going to be ridden over rough shod." "But you must belong to the government side now." "I suppose so;" flushing. The delinquent distillers had been summoned to Philadelphia and had refused to go. "This is our very living," declared grandad, who was one of the most fiery insurgents. "Then they will tax our grain, our crops of all kinds. A king could do no worse! What did I tell you about these men! Why, we'll have to emigrate t'other side of the Mississippi and start a new town. That's all we get for our labor and hard work." "I ought to have waited until this thing was settled," Ned said rather ruefully, studying Daffodil's face. "But I had hard work to coax father, and when he consented I rushed off at once. He thinks there's going to be fortunes in this iron business, and Archie won't be worth shucks at it. He hates it as much as I do, but he's all for books, and getting his living by his brains. Maybe he'll be a lawyer." Daffodil flushed. She held Archie's secret. "You don't like it," Ned began when he had persuaded her to walk a little way with him. "You said once you didn't like soldiering. Yet it is a noble profession, and I'm not going to stay down at the bottom of the line." "No," with a sweet reluctance as if she was sorry to admit it. "It seems cruel to me, why men should like to kill each other." "They don't like it in the way of enjoyment, but do their duty. And they are for the protection of the homes, the women and children. We may have another Indian raid; we have some"--then he paused, he was going to say, "some French to clear out," but refrained. The French still held some desirable western points. "Father talks of the war occasionally, and mother shivers and says--'My heart would have broken if I had known that!' And to be away three years or more, never knowing if one was alive!" No, she wouldn't do for a soldier's wife. And Archie had prefigured himself a bachelor; he really had nothing to fear there, only would she not take more interest in his brother? There were other young fellows in the town, but not many of her kind. Well, he would wait--she seemed quite like a child yet. Somehow she had not made the same impression as she had in Philadelphia. No one praised her hair or her beautiful complexion or her grace in dancing. It did not hurt her exactly, but she felt sorry she could not please as readily. Only--she did not care for that kind of florid approbation. Grandmere looked up from her work when they had gone out. "He is a fine lad," she commented. "And they are of a good family. Daffodil is nearing sixteen. Though there doesn't seem much need of soldiers--it is a noble profession. It seems just the thing for him." "She is such a child yet. I don't know how we could spare her. And her father is so fond of her." Mrs. Bradin had a rather coveting regard for the young man. And a pretty girl like Daffodil should not hang on hand. Ned Langdale made friends easily at the Fort. And during the second month, on account of a little misbehavior in the ranks, he was advanced to the sergeantship. Meanwhile feeling ran higher and higher. Those who understood that the power of the general government must be the law of the land were compelled to keep silence lest they should make matters worse. Even the clergy were forced to hold their peace. Processes were served and thrown into the fire or torn to bits. Then the government interfered and troops were ordered out. Bernard Carrick had tried to keep his father within bounds. It did not do to protest openly, but he felt the government should be obeyed, or Pittsburg would be the loser. Bradford and several others ordered the troops to march to Braddock's field, and then to Pittsburg. The town was all astir and in deadly terror lest if the insurgents could not rule they would ruin. But after all it was a bloodless revolution. Governor Mifflin, after a temperate explanation, softening some of the apparently arbitrary points, commanded the insurgents to disperse. Breckenridge thought it safest to give good words rather than powder and balls. So they marched through the town in excellent order and came out on the plains of the Monogahela where the talking was softened with libations of whiskey, and a better understanding prevailed, the large distillers giving in to the majesty of the law. Some of the still disgruntled insurgents set fire to several barns, but no special damage was done. And thus ended the year's turmoil and business went on with renewed vigor. There was also an influx of people, some to settle, others from curiosity. But the West was awakening a new interest and calling for immigrants. Mrs. Janie Sanders came back with glowing accounts of the town on the Ohio. And now trade was fairly established by the line of boats. And from there down to New Orleans continual traffic was established. The older log houses were disappearing or turned into kitchens with a finer exterior in front. People began to laugh at the old times when there was much less than a thousand inhabitants. And though Bernard Carrick still called his daughter "Little Girl," she was quite grown up with a slim lissome figure and her golden hair was scarcely a shade darker. She was past sixteen, and yet she had never had a lover. Young men dropped in of a Sunday afternoon or evening, but she seemed to act as if they were her father's guests. After two or three attempts they dropped out again. Archie had gone to Philadelphia for a year at a preparatory school, then was to enter college. Ned now was first lieutenant, having been promoted for bravery and foresight in warding off an Indian sortie that might have been a rather serious matter. The little girl had vanished with the old Pittsburg. She hardly knew herself in these days. Something seemed to touch her with a magic wand. She was full of joy with all things of the outside world, and the spring and the early summer, nature seemed to speak in all manner of wooing tongues and she answered. She took long walks in the woods and came home with strange new flowers. There was not much to read, it was not a season of intellectuality but a busy, thrifty time laying the foundation for the great city of industry and prosperity that was to be. Barbe Carrick made pretty garments with fine needlework and lace and laid them by in an old oaken chest. Grandmere was sometimes a little impatient over the dreaming child. Another year was going and she had counted on Daffodil being married before the next generation of girls came to the fore. Plain ones, loud, awkward ones were married and had a jollification. Some of them at twenty had three or four children. She was very sweet, charming and helpful. Grandad had taken the "knuckling down," as he called it, rather hard, but it seemed as if the tax and more came back in increased sales. He was very fond of small Sandy, now a fast-growing boy, but there was a different love for Daffodil, who looked over his accounts, read the paper to him, and listened to his stories as well as his complaints. "I wish it wasn't so much the fashion for girls to marry," he said one day to Norah. "I don't know how we could spare Dilly." "And keep her an old maid!" with scorn in her voice. "But it's queer! One would think lovers would buzz about her like bees." Now and then there came a letter from Philadelphia that she answered with a good long one, yet she wondered afterward what she found to say. That visit seemed such a long, long while ago, almost in another life. And Mistress Betty Wharton had married and gone to Paris, as her husband was connected with the embassy. There were many questions yet to settle. "Don't you want to go over to the Fort with me, Daffodil?" her father asked one afternoon. He had a fondness for Lieutenant Langdale, and not the slightest objection to him as a future son-in-law. "Oh, yes," eagerly, and joined him, smiling under the great hat with its flaring front filled in with gathered silk, her white frock short enough to show the trim ankles and dainty feet, and her green silk parasol that had come from Philadelphia that very spring. She generally wore her hair in curls, though it was cut much shorter in the front and arranged not unlike more modern finger puffs. A very pretty girl of the refined type. Fort Pitt was then in all its glory though the old block house of Colonel Bouquet was still standing, up Duquesne way, and there were soldiers strolling about and a few officers in uniform. Langdale was on duty somewhere. Captain Forbes came to greet them. "You'll find the general in his office, Mr. Carrick. May I take charge of Miss Carrick, meanwhile?" "Yes, I shall be glad to have you." Captain Forbes was a Philadelphian, so they were not at loss for conversation. Here two or three men were in earnest discussion, there one deeply interested in a book, who touched his cap without looking up. In a shady corner two men were playing chess, one a civilian, the other a young private. "Well, Hugh, how goes it?" asked the captain. "Why, I am not discouraged;" laughing and bowing to Daffodil. "He is going to make a good, careful player, and I think a fine soldier." "Allow me--Mr. Andsdell, Miss Carrick." There had come with General Lee and his body of soldiers sent to quell the insurgents, a number of citizens out of curiosity to see the place. Among them a young Englishman, who had been in the country several years seeking his fortune and having various successes. He had tried the stage at Williamsburg, Virginia, and won not a little applause. He was an agreeable well-mannered person and always had excellent luck at cards without being a regular gamester. He made no secret of belonging to a titled family, but being a younger son with four lives between him and the succession he had come to America to try his fortune. Yet even in this new world fortunes were not so easily found or made. Daffodil watched them with interest. M. de Ronville had played it with an elderly friend. "You have seen it before?" Andsdell asked, raising his eyes and meeting the interested ones. "Oh, yes; in Philadelphia. I spent a few months there." Her voice had a charm. She seemed indeed not an ordinary girl. "I have been there part of the last year. I was much interested." He kept a wary eye on the young fellow's moves. Once he said--"No, don't do that; think." The other thought to some purpose and smiled. "You are improving." A flush of pleasure lighted the boyish face. "Check," said Andsdell presently. "I had half a mind to let you win, but you made two wrong moves." The young man glanced at his watch. "Now I must go and drill," he exclaimed. "Can we say to-morrow afternoon again?" "With pleasure;" smiling readily. He bowed himself away. Andsdell rose. "I wonder if I might join your walk? I have met a Mr. Carrick----" "That was my father likely. Grandfather is quite an old man." "And figured in the--what shall we call it--_émeute_?" Captain Forbes laughed. "That was about it. Yet at one time I was a good deal afraid there would be a fierce struggle. Better counsels prevailed, however. When the army arrived those who had not really dared to say the government was right so far as obedience was concerned came out on the right side. A thousand or so soldiers carried weight," with a half sarcastic laugh. Andsdell stole furtive glances at the girl the other side of Forbes. What a graceful, spirited walk she had; just what one would expect with that well poised figure. Then she stopped suddenly and the captain paused in his talk as she half turned. "There's father," she exclaimed with a smile that Andsdell thought enchanting. He had met the Englishman before and greeted him politely. After a little talk he slipped his daughter's arm through his and said mostly to her--"I am ready now." She made her adieu with a kind of nonchalant grace in which there was not a particle of coquetry. He followed her with his eyes until they had turned the corner of the bastion. Then again he saw her as they were going out. "I should think that girl would have half the men in the town at her feet," he said. "Oh, Miss Carrick?" as if he was not quite certain. Then with a half smile--"Do you think so? Well, she hasn't." "She is very lovely." "In a certain way, yes. I believe our people like more color, more dash and spirit. We are not up on a very high round, pioneers seldom are. It takes a generation or so to do the hard work, then comes the embellishment. They are rather dignified and have some French ways. An old grandfather, the fourth generation back, might have stood for a portrait of the grand Marquis. It is on the mother's side." "She doesn't favor the French." "No, but the boy does, a bright, handsome fellow, wild as a deer and full of pranks. It will be hard to tell what race we do favor most. A hundred years hence we will be going back with a sort of pride, hunting up ancestors. At present there is too much to do." Andsdell went his way presently. He was comfortably well lodged. He had a bountiful supper and then he went out for a walk. There was a young moon over in the west just light enough to bring out the silvery beech trunks and touch the tips of the grasses. The woodthrush still gave his long sweet call at intervals. This path led into the town. He would not go that way. He wished he knew just where these Carricks lived. He fancied her sitting on the porch drinking in the loveliness of the evening. How absurd! He had seen pretty girls before, danced with them, flirted with them. There were the imperious belles of Virginia, who bewitched a man's fancy in one evening. There were the fair seductive maids of Philadelphia, and so far he had not been specially impressed with the girls of this town. A crowd were coming this way--he heard the strident laughter and loud voices, so he stepped aside. Dilly was not sitting out in the fragrant air, but trying to explain a lesson to Felix. Neither did she give one thought to the young Englishman. She was glad in her inmost heart that Ned Langdale had been engaged elsewhere. Something in his eyes troubled her. She did not want to make him unhappy. She hated to be cold and distant to her friend, yet when she warmed a little he seemed to take so much for granted that she did not feel inclined to grant. Why couldn't one be satisfied with friendship? Occasionally she heard from Archie. They were eager, ambitious letters and she always read them aloud. But if there could come any warmer interest Archie never would be content with this busy, bustling, working town, and then they would lose her. Every day she grew dearer to the mother. Geoffrey Andsdell decided he did not like the place very well either. He could not be winning money all the time from the garrison, and no business opening had been really thrust upon him, though he felt it was high time he turned his attention to the fact of making an honest living. He had wasted four years since he left England. It would be folly to return, and when that thought crossed his mind he bit his lip and an ugly look settled in his eyes. He had come to the New World to forget all that. Yes, he would go back to Philadelphia. There were genteel opportunities there, and he was not a dullard if he had not been business bred. He was asking a little advice of Mrs. Forbes as they had been sauntering about the hills that were showing bits of autumnal scenery and scattering the fragrance of all ripening things on the air. The jocund song of the birds had settled into a sort of leisurely sweetness, their summer work was done, nest building and caring for the young was over with for the season, and they could review their losses and gains. Somewhere along the stream that wound in and out a great frog boomed hoarsely and the younger ones had lost their fine soprano in trying to emulate him. Insects of all kinds were shrilling and whirring, yet underneath it all there was a curious stillness. Then a human voice broke on their ear singing a merry Irish lilt. "Oh, that's Daffodil Carrick. I could tell her voice from fifty others. It is never loud but it carries so distinctly. Let's see where she is." They turned into the wider path zigzagging through the woods. Yes, there she sat on the limb of a tree she had bent down and was gently swaying to and fro. Her sun-bonnet was held by the strings serving to drive troublesome insects away. Her golden hair clustered about her temples in rings and then floated off by the motion of the swinging, a lovely bewildering cloud. She did not notice them at first; then she sprang up, her face a delicate rosy tint. "Oh, Mrs. Forbes! And--Mr. Andsdell!" She looked a startled woodland nymph. He thought he had never seen a more lovely picture. "Are you having a nice time to yourself in your parlor among the hills? Can't we sit down and share it with you? I am tired. We have been rambling up hill and down dale." A great hollow tree had fallen some time and Mrs. Forbes seated herself waving her hand to Mr. Andsdell, who looked a little uncertain. "Oh, yes," Daffodil said. "I have been roaming around also. It is just the day for it. Now the sun comes out and tints everything, then it is shade and a beautiful gray green." "You were singing," he said, thinking what compliment would not be too ornate. Out here in the woods with nature and truth one could not use flattery. "Yes." She laughed softly a sound that was enchanting. "When I was little I was a devout believer in fairies. Grandfather Carrick's second wife came from Ireland when she was fifteen, and she knew the most charming stories. You know there are stories that seem true and hers did. I used to feel sure they would come and dance in the grass. That was the song little Eileen sang, and they carried her off, but they couldn't keep her because she wore a cross that had been put round her neck when she was christened." "And did you want to be carried off?" he asked. "Yes, I think I did. But I had a cross that I made of beads and named them after the saints. We are not Catholics, but Huguenots. I took my cross out in the woods with me, but the fairies never came." "There is a great deal of really beautiful faith about those things," said Mrs. Forbes. "And some of the Indian legends as well. Old Watersee has stores of them. Some one ought to collect the best of them. Fairy stories go all over the world, I think, in different guise. They are the delight of our early lives. It's sad to lose that childhood faith." "Oh, I don't want to lose it all," Daffodil said earnestly. "I just say to myself it might have been true somewhere." Then they branched off into other matters. The sky grew grayer and the wind moaned through the trees, shaking down a cloud of ripe leaves. "Is it going to rain?" asked Andsdell. "I think it will storm by to-morrow, but not now. You see, evening is coming on. We might go down;" tentatively, not sure she was the one to propose it. The path was beautiful, winding in and out, sometimes over the pile of richest moss, then stirring up the fragrance of pennyroyal. But the streets and houses began to appear. Barbe Carrick sat on the porch waiting for her daughter, always feeling a little anxious if she loitered, though these woods were free from stragglers. She came to meet them now, she knew Mrs. Forbes and invited them to rest awhile, and they cheerfully accepted. Then she went for some cake and grapes and brought some foaming spruce beer. Even grandmere came out to meet the guests. Andsdell was delighted and praised everything and Mrs. Bradin said with her fine French courtesy--"You must come again." "I shall be most happy to," he replied. They finished their walk almost in silence. Andsdell was recalling the many charms of the young girl. Mrs. Forbes was looking upon him in the light of a lover. She could understand that the ordinary young man of the town could not make much headway with Daffodil Carrick. There were some nice men in the garrison, but after all----And it was high time Daffodil had a lover. All women are matchmakers by instinct and delight in pairing off young folks. She was a happy wife herself, but she recalled the fact that the girl was not in love with soldiers. CHAPTER XII SPINNING WITH VARIOUS THREADS "Richard," Mrs. Forbes began, looking up from the beaded purse she was knitting, "do you know anything about that Englishman, Andsdell?" He had been reading, and smoking his pipe. He laid down both. "A sort of goodish, well-informed fellow, who doesn't drink to excess, and is always a gentleman. He plays a good deal, and wins oftener than he loses, but that's luck and knowledge. Like so many young men, he came over to seek his fortune. He was in Virginia, was some general's aide, I believe. Why are you so eager to know his record?" "Why?" laughing softly. "I think he is very much smitten with Daffodil Carrick. She is pretty and sweet, a most admirable daughter, but, somehow, the beaux do not flock about her. She will make some one a lovely wife." "Young Langdale has a fancy for her." "And she is not at all charmed with military glory. Her father was a good, brave soldier, and went at the darkest of times, because his country needed him, not for fame or enthusiasm. She has heard too much of the dangers and struggles. Edward Langdale is full of soldierly ardor. They have had opportunities enough to be in love, and she rather shrinks from him. No, her husband, whoever he is, must be a civilian." "Why, I think I can learn about him. The Harrisons are at Williamsburg, you know. And there is a slight relationship between us. Yes, it would be well to learn before you dream of wedding rings and all that." Still she could not resist asking Daffodil in to tea to meet some friends. There were Mrs. Trent, the wife of the first lieutenant, and Bessy Lowy, young Langdale, and the Englishman. Bessy was a charming, dark-eyed coquette, ready of wit, and she did admire Ned. Andsdell was almost a stranger to her, and in the prettiest, most winsome fashion she relegated him to Miss Carrick. They had a gay time, for Mrs. Trent was very bright and chatty, and her husband had a fund of small-talk. Afterward they played cards, the amusement of the times. In two of the games Ned had Daffodil for a partner, but she was not an enthusiastic player. And she had accepted Andsdell's escort home, much to Ned's chagrin. "I did not know whether you would be at liberty," she said simply. "I'll have an afternoon off Thursday. Will you go for a walk?" She hesitated, and he remarked it. "I see so little of you now. And you always seem--different." "But you know I am quite grown up. We are no longer children. And that makes a change in every one." "But that need not break friendship." "I think it doesn't break friendship always," she returned thoughtfully. "Daffodil, you are the loveliest and sweetest girl I have ever known." "But not in the whole world," she rejoined archly. "In my world. That is enough for me. Good-night;" and he longed to kiss her hand. She and Andsdell came down from the Fort, crossed several streets, and then turned to the east. Philadelphia was their theme of conversation. "I was such a little girl then," she said, with almost childish eagerness. "Everything was so different. I felt as if I was in a palace, and the maid dressed me with so much care, and went out to walk with me, and Miss Wharton was so charming. And now she is in France." "Would you like to go to France--Paris?" "Oh, I don't know. You have been there?" "Yes, for a short stay." "And London, and ever so many places?" "Yes. But I never want to see it again." Something in his tone jarred a little. "I am glad you like America." Then they met her father, who was coming for her, but Mr. Andsdell went on with them to the very door. "Did you have a fine time?" asked her mother. "Oh, yes, delightful. Mrs. Trent was so amusing, and Bessy Lowy was like some one in a play. I wish my eyes were dark, like yours. I think they are prettier." Her mother smiled and kissed her. All the next morning Dilly sat and spun on the little wheel, and sang merry snatches from old ballads. She wished she were not going to walk with Lieutenant Langdale. "Is there any wrong in it, mother?" she asked, turning her perplexed face to Barbe. "Why, not as I see. You have been friends for so long. And it is seldom that he gets out now." The Post brought a letter from Archie. It was really very joyous. He had won a prize for a fine treatise, and had joined a club, not for pleasure or card playing, but debating and improvement of the mind. She was very glad they would have this to talk about. And when Ned saw her joyous face, and had her gay greeting, his heart gave a great bound. They went off together in a merry fashion. "Oh, you cannot think"--then pausing suddenly--"Did you have word from Archie in the post?" "No, but a letter came for mother." "You hurried me so, or I should have remembered to bring it. Father thought it so fine. He has won a prize, twenty-five pounds. And he thinks another year he may pass all the examinations. Oh, won't your mother be glad?" There was such a sweet, joyous satisfaction in her tone, such a lovely light in her eyes, that his heart made a protest. "You care a great deal about his success?" he said jealously. "Yes, why not?" in surprise. "And none about mine?" "Why--it is so different;" faltering a little. "And you know I never was overfond of soldiering." "Where would the country have been but for the brave men who fought and gained her liberty? Look at General Washington, and that brave noble-hearted Lafayette. And there was General Steuben that winter at Valley Forge, sharing hardship when he might have lived at ease. It stirs my blood when I think of the hundreds of brave men, and I am proud to be a soldier." He stood up very straight, and there was a world of resolution in his eyes, a flush on his cheek. "But you are glad of his success?" "And why should you not be as glad of mine?" not answering her question. "Why--I am. But you see that appeals to me the more. Yet I shall be glad for you to rise in your profession, and win honors, only--fighting shocks me all through. I am a coward." "And he will come back a doctor, and you will rejoice with him. I shouldn't mind that so much, but you will marry him----" "Marry him! Ned, what are you thinking of!" There was a curious protest in her face almost strong enough for horror. Even her lips lost their rosy tint. "What I am thinking of is this," and there was a fierce desperation in his tone. "I love you! love you! and I cannot bear to think of you going to any other man, of any person calling you wife. I've always loved you, and it has grown with my manhood's strength. Archie will always be lost in his books, and his care for others. A doctor ought never to marry, he belongs to the world at large. And I want you in my very life;" then his arms were about her, and clasped her so tightly that for an instant she could make no protest. She pushed away and dropped on a great stone, beginning to cry. "Oh, Daffodil, what have I done! It is my wild love. It is like some plant that grows and grows, and suddenly bursts into bloom. I almost hated Bessy Lowy taking possession of me in that fashion. I wanted to talk to you, to be near you, to touch your dear hand. All last night I lay awake thinking of you. It was so sweet that I did not want to sleep." "Oh, hush," she entreated, "hush," making as if she would put him away with her slim hands. "You must not talk so to me. It is a language I do not understand, do not like. I think I am not meant for lovers and marriage. I will be friends always, and rejoice in your success. And it is the same with Archie. Oh, let me live my own quiet life with father and mother----" "And never marry?" "Not for years to come, perhaps never. I am not afraid of being called an old maid. For Miss Wharton was delightful and merry, and like a mother to me, though I shall not be as gay and fond of good times. I like quiet and my own pretty dreams, and to talk with the birds and squirrels in the woods, and the lambs in the fields, and sometimes great-grandfather comes back." Her face was partly turned away, and had a rapt expression. He was walking moodily up and down. Why was she so different from most girls? And yet he loved her. She might outgrow this--was it childishness? "Well," with a long sigh, "I will wait. If it is not Archie----" "It is no one. And when some nice girl loves you--oh, Ned, you should find some nice sweet girl, who will be glad of your love. I think girls are when they meet with the right one. And do not think of me in that way." "I shall think of you in that way all the rest of my life. And if you do not marry, I shall not marry either." Then there was a long silence. "Shall we go on?" she asked timidly. "The walk is spoiled. It doesn't matter now;" moodily. "Oh, Ned, let us be friends again. I cannot bear to have any one angry with me. No one ever is but grandad, when we talk about the country or the whiskey tax," and she laughed, but it was half-heartedly. What a child she was, after all. For a moment or two he fancied he did not care so much, but her sweet face, her lovely eyes, the dainty hands hanging listlessly at her side, brought him back to his allegiance. They walked on, but the glory had gone out of the day, the hope in his heart, the simple gladness of hers. Then the wind began to blow up chilly, and dark clouds were drifting about. She shivered. "Are you cold? Perhaps we had better go back?" "Well"--in a sort of resigned tone. Then, after a pause--"Are you very angry with me?" "Perhaps not angry--disappointed. I had meant to have such a nice time." "I am sorry. If I could have guessed, I would not have agreed to come." They paused at the gate. No, he would not come in. The fine face betrayed disappointment. "But you will come sometime, when you have quite forgiven me," and the adorable tenderness in her tone reawakened hope. After all, Archie was not looking forward to marriage. Jeffrey Andsdell had not even entered his mind. She went in, and threw aside her hat. "Did you have a nice walk? You came back soon." "No, I did not. Ned neither." She went and stood straight before her mother, pale, yet with a certain dignity. "You did not quarrel, I hope. Is it true he is charmed by Bessy?" "He asked me to love him. He wants to marry me;" in a tone that was almost a cry. "Well?" subjoined her mother. The young lieutenant was a favorite with her, worth any girl's acceptance, in her estimation. "I--I don't understand about love. To give away your whole life, years and years;" and she shivered. "But if you loved him, if you were glad to do it;" and the mother's tone was encouraging. "Ah. I think one ought to be glad. And I wasn't glad when he kissed me." Her face was scarlet now, her bosom heaving with indignation, her eyes full of protest. "He will make a nice husband. His father is devoted to his mother. He has learned what a true and tender love really is." "Mother, would you like me to marry?" She knelt down at her mother's knee. "Oh, my dear, not until you love some one;" and she kissed her fondly. "Do you think there was ever a girl who could not love in that way?" "I should be sorry for her; love is the sweetest thing in life, the best gift of the good Lord is a good husband." Autumn was coming on slowly. Housewives were making preparations for winter. Daffodil was cheery and helpful. Grandmere was not as well as usual. She said she was growing old. There was a great deal of outside business for the men. Pittsburg was a borough town, and its citizens were considering various industries. Every day almost, new things came to the fore, and now they were trying some experiments in making glass. The country round was rich in minerals. Boat-building required larger accommodations. The post road had been improved, straightened, the distance shortened. There were sundry alterations in looms, and homespun cloth was made of a better quality. Daffodil Carrick watched some of the lovers, who came under her notice. She met Lieutenant Langdale occasionally, and they were outwardly friends. They even danced together, but her very frankness and honesty kept up the barrier between them. He tried to make her jealous, but it never quickened a pulse within her. Yet in a curious way she was speculating on the master passion. There were not many books to distract her attention, but one day there came a package from her guardian that contained a few of the old rather stilted novels, and some volumes of poems by the older English poets, dainty little songs that her mother sung, and love verses to this one or that one, names as odd as hers. And how they seemed to love Daisies and Daffodils. She took them out with her on her walks, and read them aloud to the woods, and the birds, or sometimes sang them. Jeffrey Andsdell found a wood nymph one day and listened. He had met her twice since the evening at Mrs. Forbes'. And he wondered now whether he should surprise her or go his way. She rose presently, and by a sudden turn surprised him. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I have been listening, enchanted. First I could not imagine whether it was some wandering fay or wood nymph wild." "Oh, do I look very wild?" with a most charming smile. "Why"--he colored a little--"perhaps the word may have more than one meaning. Oh, you look as if you were part of the forest, a sprite or fairy being." "Oh, do you believe in them? I sit here sometimes and call them up. There was an odd volume sent me awhile ago, a play by Shakespere, 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and it is full of those little mischievous elves and dainty darlings." "That is not it?" coming nearer and looking at her book. "Oh, it is verses by one Mr. Herrick. Some of them almost sing themselves, and I put tunes to them." "And sing to the woods and waters. You should have a more appreciative audience." "Oh, I couldn't sing to real people," and she flushed. "I wonder if"--and there came a far-away look in her eyes that passed him, and yet he saw it. "What is the wonder?" "That if you could write verses, songs." She asked it in all simplicity. "No, I couldn't;" in the frankest of tones. "One must know a good deal." "And be a genius beside." "What queer names they give the girls. Chloe, that isn't a bit pretty, and Phyllis, that is a slave name. And Lesbia, that isn't so bad." "I think I have found Daffodil among them. And that is beautiful." "Do you think so?" She could not tell why she was glad, but he saw it in her face, and what a sweet face it was! He wondered then how such a fascinating bit of sweetness and innocence could have kept its charm in this rather rough soil. Her frankness was fascinating. "Do you come here often?" he asked presently. "Oh, yes, in the summer." "That was when I first met you. I was with Mrs. Forbes. And her little tea was very nice and social. I've not seen you since. Don't you go to the Fort only on special invitation? There are quite a number of visitors. Strangers always come." "I am quite busy," she replied. "Grandmere has not been well, and I help mother. There is a great deal to do in the fall." Such a pretty housewifely look settled in her face. How lovely it was, with the purity of girlhood. The wind swayed the wooded expanse, and sent showers of scarlet and golden maple leaves down upon them. The hickory was a blaze of yellow, some oaks were turning coppery. Acorns fell now and then, squirrels ran about and disputed over them. He reached over and took her book, seating himself on the fallen log, and began reading to her. The sound of his voice and the melody of the poems took her into another land, the land of her fancy. If one could live in it always! The sun dropped down, and it seemed evening, though it was more the darkness of the woods. She rose. They walked down together, there was no third person, and he helped her with the gentlest touch over some hillocks made by the rain-washed roots of the trees. Then she slipped on some dead pine needles, and his arm was around her for several paces, and quietly withdrawn. Daffodil laughed and raised her face to his. "Once I slipped this way, it was over on the other path, where it is steeper, and slid down some distance, but caught a tree and saved myself, for there was a big rock I was afraid I should hit. And I was pretty well scratched. Now I catch the first thing handy. That rock is a splendid big thing. You ought to see it." "You must pilot me some day." They emerged into the light. The rivers were still gleaming with the sunset fire, but over eastward it was twilight gray. "Good-night;" as they reached her house. "I am glad I found you there in the woods. I have had a most enjoyable time." "Good-night," she said in return. A neighbor was sitting by the candle her mother had just lighted. "Dilly, you come over here and write these recipes. My eyes ain't what they used to be. And your mother does make some of that peppery sauce that my man thinks the best in Pittsburg. And that grape jam is hard to beat. Your fingers are young and spry, they hain't washed, and scrubbed, and kneaded bread, 'n' all that for forty year." Daffodil complied readily. Mrs. Carrick told the processes as well. "For there's so much in the doin'," said Mrs. Moss. "That's the real luck of it." Felix went down to the shipyard after school, and came home with his father. To go to New Orleans now was his great aim. "Grandad wants you to come over there," Mrs. Carrick said to her daughter. "Then I'll have to read my paper myself," Mr. Carrick complained. Grandad wanted her to go over some papers. They were all right, he knew, but two heads were better than one, if one was a pin's head. Then she must gossip awhile with Norah, while grandad leaned back in his chair and snored. Her father came for her, and she went to bed to the music of the dainty poems read in an impressive voice. And when she awoke in the morning there seemed a strange music surging in her ears, and in her heart, and she listened to it like one entranced. But she had gone past the days of fairy lore, she was no longer a little girl to build wonderful magic haunts, and people them. Yet what was it, this new anticipation of something to come that would exceed all that had gone before? It came on to rain at noon, a sort of sullen autumn storm, with not much wind at first, but it would gain power at nightfall. Daffodil and her mother were sewing on some clothes for the boy, women had learned to make almost everything. It took time, too. There were no magic sewing machines. Grandmere was spinning on the big wheel the other side of the room, running to and fro, and pulling out the wool into yarn. "Why so grave, child? Is it a thought of pity for the lieutenant?" and Mrs. Carrick gave a faint smile that would have invited confidence if there had been any to give. She could hardly relinquish the idea that her daughter might relent. "Oh, no. One can hardly fix the fleeting thoughts that wander idly through one's brain. The loneliness of the woods when the squirrels hide in their holes, and no bird voices make merry. And bits of verses and remembrance of half-forgotten things. Is any one's mind altogether set upon work? There are two lives going on within us." Barbe Carrick had never lived but the one life, except when her husband was with the army, and she was glad enough to lay down the other. Had it been wise for Daffodil to spend those months in Philadelphia? Yet she had accepted her old home cheerfully. And all unconsciously she had worked changes in it to her grandmother's delight. Now her father was prospering. They would be among the "best people" as time went on. The storm lasted three days. There had been some hours of wild fury in it, when the trees groaned and split, and the rivers lashed themselves into fury. Then it cleared up with a soft May air, and some things took a second growth. There was a sort of wild pear tree at the corner of the garden, and it budded. Daffodil did not take her accustomed walk up in the woods. Something held her back, but she would not allow to herself it was that. Instead, she took rides on Dolly in different directions. One day she went down to the shipyard with a message for her father. Mr. Andsdell stood talking with him. Her pulses suddenly quickened. "Well, you've started at the right end," Bernard Carrick was saying. "This place has a big future before it. If it was a good place for a fort, it's a splendid place for a town. Philadelphia can't hold a candle to it, if she did have more than a hundred years the start. Why they should have gone way up the Delaware River beats me. Yes, come up to the house, and we'll talk it over." Then they both turned to the young girl. There was a pleasurable light in Andsdell's eyes. Afterward he walked some distance beside her horse. The storm, the beautiful weather since, the busy aspect of the town, the nothings that are so convenient when it is best to leave some things in abeyance. Then he said adieu and turned to his own street, where he had lodgings. She went on with a curiously light heart. Her father had said, "Come up to the house," and she was glad she had not gone to the woods in the hope of meeting him. She slipped off Dolly and ran to the garden. "Oh, Norry, what are you doing?" she cried with a sound of anger in her voice. "My beautiful pear blossoms! I've been watching them every day." They lay on the ground. Norry even sprang up for the last one. "They're bad luck, child! Blossoms or fruit out of season is trouble without reason. I hadn't spied them before, or I wouldn't have let them come to light. That's as true as true can be. There, don't cry, child. I hope I haven't been too late." "Yes. I've heard the adage," said her mother. "Norry is superstitious." CHAPTER XIII THE SWEETNESS OF LOVE "Still, I'm glad you inquired," Mrs. Forbes said to her husband. "And that there's nothing derogatory to the young man. He's likely now to settle down, and he will have a fine chance with Mr. Carrick, who certainly is taking fortune at the flood tide. And one can guess what will happen." "A woman generally guesses that. I hoped it would be Langdale. He is a fine fellow, and will make his mark," was the reply. "Daffodil isn't in love with military life. Most girls are;" laughing. "Why, I never had two thoughts about the matter. I must give them a little tea again." "Ask Jack Remsen and Peggy Ray, and make them happy, but leave out the lieutenant. Something surely happened between them." Andsdell came to the Carricks according to agreement. How cosy the place looked, with the great blaze of the logs in the fireplace, that shed a radiance around. He was formally presented to Mrs. Carrick and the Bradins. Daffodil and her mother sat in the far corner, with two candles burning on the light stand. The girl was knitting some fine thread stockings, with a new pattern of clocks, that Jane had sent her from Philadelphia. Felix had a cold, and had gone to bed immediately after supper, and they were all relieved at that. Jeffrey Andsdell had stated his case. He was tired of desultory wandering, and seven-and-twenty was high time to take up some life work. He was the fourth son of a titled family, with no especial longing for the army or the church, therefore he, like other young men without prospects, had emigrated. The heir to the title and estates, the elder brother, was married and had two sons, the next one was married also, but so far had only girls, and the entail was in the male line. The brother next older than Jeffrey had been a sort of imbecile, and died. But there was no chance of his succeeding, so he must make his own way. He had spent two years at Richmond and Williamsburg, then at Philadelphia. At Williamsburg he had taken quite a fancy to the stage, and achieved some success, but the company had disbanded. It was a rather precarious profession at best, though he had tried a little of it in London. The straightforward story tallied with Captain Forbes' information. True, there was one episode he had not dwelt upon, it would never come up in this new life. How he had been crazy enough to take such a step he could not now imagine. But it was over, and done with, and henceforward life should be an honorable success. Daffodil listened between counting her stitches. She stole shy glances now and then, he sat so the firelight threw up his face in strong relief. The brown hair had a little tumbled look, the remnant of some boyish curls. The features were good, rather of the aquiline order, the eyes well opened, of a sort of nondescript hazel, the brown beard worn in the pointed style, with a very narrow moustache, for the upper lip was short and the smiling aspect not quite hidden. When he rose to go the ladies rose also. He shook hands, and held Daffodil's a moment with a pressure that brought a faint color to her soft cheek. "He is very much of a gentleman," commented Mrs. Bradin. "And, taking up a steady occupation is greatly to his credit. Though it seems as if a soldier's life would have been more to his taste." "I am glad he did not fight against us," said Barbe. "Some have, and have repented," added her husband, with a touch of humor in his tone. "And we are large-minded enough to forgive them." Daffodil did not see him until she went over to the Fort. Langdale dropped in to see her, but there was no cordial invitation to remain. He knew later on that Andsdell was there, and in his heart he felt it was not Archie who would be his strongest rival. If there was something that could be unearthed against the Englishman! The Remsens, mother and son, were very agreeable people, quite singers, but there was no piano for accompaniment, though there were flutes and violins at the Fort. Andsdell, after some pressing, sang also, and his voice showed training. Then he repeated a scene from "The Tempest" that enchanted his hearers. Daffodil was curiously proud of him. "You did not haunt the woods much," he began on the way home. "I looked for you." "Did you?" Her heart beat with delicious pleasure. "But I did not promise to come." "No. But I looked all the same, day after day. What were you so busy about?" "Oh, I don't know. I thought--that perhaps it wasn't quite--right;" hesitatingly. "It will be right now." He pressed the arm closer that had been slipped in his. Then they were silent, but both understood. There was something so sweet and true about her, so delicate, yet wise, that needed no blurting out of any fact, for both to take it into their lives. "And who was there to-night?" asked her mother, with a little fear. For Mrs. Forbes would hardly know how matters stood between her and Lieutenant Langdale. "The Remsens only. And they sing beautifully together. Oh, it was really charming. Mrs. Remsen asked me to visit her. It's odd, mother, but do you know my friends have mostly fallen out! So many of the girls have married, and I seem older than the others. Does a year or two change one so? I sometimes wonder if I was the eager little girl who went to Philadelphia, and to whom everything was a delight." "You are no longer a little girl." "And at the nutting the other day, I went to please Felix, you know. But the boys seemed so rough. And though I climbed a tree when they all insisted, I--I was ashamed;" and her face was scarlet. Yes, the Little Girl was gone forever. Her mother kissed her, and she felt now that her child would need no one to tell her what love was like. For it took root in one's heart, and sprang up to its hallowed blooming. It was too soon for confidences. Dilly did not know that she had any that could be put into words. Only the world looked beautiful and bright, as if it was spring, instead of winter. "You've changed again," Felix said observantly. "You're very sweet, Dilly. Maybe as girls grow older they grow sweeter. I shan't mind your being an old maid if you stay like this. Dilly, didn't you ever have a beau? It seems to me no one has come----" "Oh, you silly child!" She laughed and blushed. There were sleighing parties and dances. It is odd that in some communities a girl is so soon dropped out. The dancing parties, rather rough frolics they were, took in the girls from twelve to sixteen, and each one strove boldly for a beau. She was not going to be left behind in the running. But Daffodil Carrick was already left behind, they thought, though she was asked to the big houses, and the dinners, and teas at the Fort. Andsdell dropped in now and then ostensibly to consult Mr. Carrick. Then he was invited to tea on Sunday night, and to dinner at the holidays, when he summoned courage to ask Bernard Carrick for his daughter. For he had begun a new life truly. The past was buried, and never would be exhumed. And why should a man's whole life be blighted by a moment of folly! They grew brave enough to look at one another in the glowing firelight, even if the family were about. One evening she stepped out in the moonlight with him. There was a soft snow on the ground, and some of the branches were yet jewelled with it. Half the lovers in the town would have caught a handful of it and rubbed crimson roses on her cheeks. He said, "Daffodil," and drew her closely in his arms, kissed the lips that throbbed with bashful joy and tremulous sweetness. "Dear, I love you. And you--you are mine." There was a long delicious breath. The story of love is easily told when both understand the divine language. She came in glowing, with eyes like stars, and went straight to her mother, who was sitting alone. Both of the men had gone to some borough business. She kissed her joyous secret into the waiting heart. "You love him. You know now what love is? That is the way I loved your father." "It is wonderful, isn't it? You grow into it, hardly knowing, and then it is told without words, though the words come afterward. Oh, did you think----" "Foolish child, we all saw. He carried the story in his eyes. Your father knew. He has been very honest and upright. Oh, my dear, I am so glad for you. Marriage is the crown of womanhood." Her mother drew her down in her lap. Daffodil's arms were around her neck, and they were heart to heart, a happy mother and a happy child. "You will not mind if I go to bed? I--I want to be alone." "No, dear. Happy dreams, whether you wake or sleep." She lay in a delicious tremor. There was a radiant light all about her, though the room was dark. This was what it was to be loved and to love, and she could not tell which was best. Then at home he was her acknowledged lover. He came on Wednesday night and Sunday to tea. But Norry soon found it out, and was glad for her. Grandad teased her a little. "And you needn't think I'm going to leave you any fortune," he said, almost grumblingly. "The blamed whiskey tax is eating it up every year, and the little left will go to Felix. You have all that land over there that you don't need more than a dog needs two tails. Well, I think there are times when a dog would be glad to wag both, if he had 'em. That will be enough for you and your children. But I'll dance at the wedding." Barbe Carrick looked over the chest of treasures that she had been adding to year after year. There was _her_ wedding gown, and it had been her mother's before her. The lace was exquisite, and no one could do such needlework nowadays. What if it had grown creamy by age, that only enhanced it. Here were the other things she had accumulated, sometimes with a pang lest they should not be needed. Laid away in rose leaves and lavender blooms. Oh, how daintily sweet they were, but not sweeter than the girl who was to have them. And here were some jewels that had been great-grandmother Duvernay's. She would have no mean outfit to hand down again to posterity. Barbe was doubly glad that she would live here. She could not bear the thought of her going away, and a soldier's wife was never quite sure where he might be called, or into what danger. There would be a nice home not very far away, there would be sweet, dainty grandchildren. It was worth waiting for. Jeffrey Andsdell was minded not to wait very long. Love was growing by what it fed upon, but he wanted the feast daily. They could stay at home until their new house was built. "We ought to go over across the river," she said, "and be pioneers in the wilderness. And, oh, there is one thing that perhaps you won't like. Whoever married me was to take the name of Duvernay, go back to the French line." "Why, yes, I like that immensely." That would sever the last link. He would be free of all the old life. "It isn't as pretty as yours." "Oh, do you think so? Now, I am of the other opinion;" laughing into her lovely eyes. She grew sweeter day by day, even her mother could see that. Yes, love was the atmosphere in which a woman throve. Barbe settled the wedding time. "When the Daffodils are in bloom," she said, and the lover agreed. Archie Langdale wrote her a brotherly letter, but said, "If you could put it off until my vacation. I'm coming back to take another year, there have been so many new discoveries, and I want to get to the very top. Dilly--that was the child's name, I used to have a little dream about you. You know I was a dull sort of fellow, always stuffing my head with books, and you were sweet and never flouted me. I loved you very much. I thought you would marry Ned, and then you would be my sister, you could understand things that other girls didn't. I am quite sure he loved you, too. But your happiness is the first thing to be considered, and I hope you will be very happy." The engagement was suspected before it was really admitted. There were various comments, of course. Daffodil Carrick had been waiting for something fine, and she could afford to marry a poor man with her possible fortune, and her father's prosperity. And some day a girl would be in luck to get young Sandy Carrick. Lieutenant Langdale took it pretty hard. He had somehow hoped against hope, for he believed the Carricks would refuse a man who had come a stranger in the place. If he could call him out and shoot him down in a duel! He shut himself up in his room, and drank madly for two days before he came to his senses. March came in like the lion and then dropped down with radiant suns that set all nature aglow. There were freshets, but they did little damage. Trees budded and birds came and built in the branches. Bees flew out in the sunshine, squirrels chattered, and the whole world was gay and glad. One day the lovers went up the winding path to the old hill-top, where Jeffrey insisted he had first lost his heart to her. They sat on the same tree trunk, and he said verses to her, but instead of Clorinda it was Daffodil. And they talked sweet nonsense, such as never goes out of date between lovers. And when they came down they looked at the daffodil bed. The buds had swollen, some were showing yellow. "Why, it can be next week!" cried the lover joyously. "Yes," said the mother, with limpid eyes, remembering when the child was born. There was not much to make ready. The cake had been laid away to season, so that it would cut nicely. There was a pretty new church now, and the marriage would be solemnized there, with a wedding feast at home, and then a round of parties for several evenings at different houses. The Trents had just finished their house, which was considered quite a mansion, and the carpets had come from France. They would give the first entertainment. She had written to her guardian, who sent her a kindly letter, wishing her all happiness. The winter had been a rather hard one for him, for an old enemy that had been held in abeyance for several years, rheumatism, had returned, and though it was routed now, it had left him rather enfeebled, otherwise he would have taken the journey to see his ward, the little girl grown up, whose visit he had enjoyed so much, and whom he hoped to welcome in his home some time again. And with it came a beautiful watch and chain. Presents were not much in vogue in those days, and their rarity made them all the more precious. They dressed the house with daffodils, but the bride-to-be was all in white, the veil the great-grandmother had worn in Paris, fastened with a diamond circlet just as she had had it. "Oh!" Daffodil exclaimed, "if great-grandfather could see me!" Jeffrey Andsdell took her in his arms and kissed her. This was, indeed, a true marriage, and could there ever be a sweeter bride? She was smiling and happy, for every one was pleased, so why should she not be! She even forgot the young man pacing about the Fort wishing--ah, what could he wish except that he was in Andsdell's place? For surely he was not mean enough to grudge _her_ any happiness. She walked up the church aisle on her lover's arm and next came her parents. Once Andsdell's lips compressed themselves, and a strange pallor and shudder came over him. Her father gave her away. The clergyman pronounced them man and wife. Then friends thronged around. They were privileged to kiss the bride in those days. "My wife," was what Jeffrey Andsdell said in a breathless, quivering tone. They could not rush out in modern fashion. She cast her smiles on every side, she was so happy and light-hearted. They reached the porch just as a coach drove up at furious speed. A woman sprang out, a tall, imperious-looking person, dressed in grand style. Her cheeks were painted, her black eyes snapped defiance. One and another fell back and stared as she cried in an imperious tone, looking fiercely at the bride, "Am I too late? Have you married him? But you cannot be his wife. I am his lawful, legal wife, and the mother of his son, who is the future heir of Hurst Abbey. I have come from England to claim him. His father, the Earl of Wrexham, sends for him, to have him restored to his ancestral home." She had uttered this almost in a breath. Daffodil, with the utmost incredulity, turned to her husband and smiled, but the lines almost froze in her face. For his was deadly white and his eyes were fixed on the woman with absolute terror. "It is God's own truth," she continued. "I have your father's letter, and you will hardly disown his signature. Your son is at Hurst Abbey----" "Woman!" he thundered, "it is a base trumped-up lie! There are four lives between me and the succession, and there may be more." "There _were_, but last autumn they were all swept suddenly out of existence. The Earl was crazed with grief. I went to him and took his grandson, a beautiful child, that would appeal to any heart. And at his desire I have come to America for you." Jeffrey Andsdell placed his wife in her father's arms. "Take her home," he said hoarsely, "I will follow and disprove this wild, baseless tale." Then he pressed her to his heart. "Whatever happens, you are the only woman I have ever loved, remember that;" and taking the woman's arm, entered her coach with her. The small group dispersed without a word. What could be said! There was consternation on all faces. Bernard Carrick took his daughter home. Once her mother kissed the pallid cheek, and essayed some word of comfort. "Oh, don't!" she cried piteously. "Let me be still. I must wait and bear it until----" She did not cry or faint, but seemed turning to stone. And when they reached the house she went straight through the room where the feast was spread, to her own, and threw herself on the bed. "Oh, acushla darlin'," cried Norah, "sure we had the warning when the pear tree bloomed. I said it was trouble without reason, and though I broke them all off it couldn't save you." "Oh, my darlin', God help us all." CHAPTER XIV SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW "Whatever happens!" The words rang through Daffodil's brain like a knell. There was something to happen. She had been so happy, so serenely, so trustingly happy. For her youthful inexperience had not taught her doubt. The cup of love had been held to her lips and she had drank the divine draught fearlessly, with no thought of bitter dregs at the bottom. Grandmere came and unpinned the veil; it was too fine and precious an article to be tumbled about. "Let the rest be," she said. "He is coming and I want to be as I was then." Then they left her lying there on the bed, the gold of her young life turning slowly to dross. Some curious prescience told her how it would be. She heard the low voices in the other room. There was crying too. That was her mother. Felix asked questions and was hushed. Was it hours or half a lifetime! All in her brain was chaos, the chaos of belief striving with disbelief that was somehow illumined but not with hope. He came at last. She heard his step striding through the room and no one seemed to speak to him. He came straight to her, knelt at the bed's side, and took her cold hands in his that were at fever heat. "My poor darling!" he said brokenly. "I should not have learned to love you so well, I should not have asked for your love. But in this new country and beginning a new life it seemed as if I might bury the old past. And you were the centre, the star of the new. Perhaps if I had told you the story----" "Tell it now," she made answer, but it did not sound like her voice. She made no effort to release her hands though his seemed to scorch them. "You can hardly understand that old life in London. There is nothing like it here. I was with a lot of gay companions, and all we thought of was amusement. I had a gift for acting and was persuaded to take part in a play. It was a success. I was flattered and fêted. Women made much of me. I was only a boy after all. And the leading lady, some seven years my senior, fascinated me by her attention and her flatteries. It did turn my head. I was her devoted admirer, yet it was not the sort of love that a man knows later on. How it came about, why she should have done such a thing I cannot divine even now, for at that time I was only a poor, younger son, loaded with debts, though most of my compeers were in the same case. But she married me with really nothing to gain. She kept to the stage. I was tired of it and gave it up, which led to our first dissension. She fancied she saw in me some of the qualities that might make a name. And then--she was angry about the child. We bickered continually. She was very fond of admiration and men went down to her. After a little I ceased to be jealous. I suppose it was because I ceased to care and could only think of the wretched blunder I had made and how I could undo it. We had kept the marriage a secret except from her aunt and a few friends. She would have it so. The child was put out to nurse and the company was going to try their fortunes elsewhere. I would not go with her. In a certain way I had been useful to her and we had a little scene. I went to my father and asked him for money enough to take me to America, where I could cut loose from old associates and begin a new life. He did more. He paid my debts, but told me that henceforward I must look out for myself as this was the last he should do for me." "And now he asks you to return?" There was a certainty in her voice and she was as unemotional as if they were talking of some one else. "It is true that now I am his only living son. Late last autumn Lord Veron, his wife and two sons, with my next brother, Archibald, were out for an afternoon's pleasure in a sailboat when there came up an awful blow and a sudden dash of rain. They were about in the middle of the lake. The wind twisted them around, the mast snapped, they found afterward that it was not seaworthy. There was no help at hand. They battled for awhile, then the boat turned over. Lady Veron never rose, the others swam for some time, but Archibald was the only one who came in to shore and he was so spent that he died two days later. I wonder the awful blow did not kill poor father. He was ill for a long while. My wife went to him then and took the child and had sufficient proof to establish the fact of the marriage, and her aunt had always been a foster mother to the boy. There must be some curious fascination about her, though I do not wonder father felt drawn to his only remaining son. Archibald's two children are girls and so are not in the entail. Hurst Abbey would go to some distant cousins. And she offered to come to America and find me. She has succeeded," he ended bitterly. There was a long pause. He raised his head, but her face was turned away. Did she really care for him? She was taking it all so calmly. "You will go," she said presently. "Oh, how can I leave you? For now I know what real love is like. And this is a new country. I have begun a new life, Daffodil----" "But I cannot be your wife, you see that. Would you give up your father's love, the position awaiting you for a tie that could never be sanctified? You must return." "There is my son, you know. I shall not matter so much to them. It shall be as you say, my darling. And we need not stay here. It is a big and prospering country and I know now that I can make my way----" It was not the tone of ardent desire. How she could tell she did not know, but the words dropped on her heart like a knell. Apart from the sacrifice he seemed ready to make for her there was the cruel fact that would mar her whole life, and an intangible knowledge that he would regret it. "You must go." Her voice was firm. Did she love so deeply? He expected passionate upbraiding and then despairing love, clinging tenderness. One moment he was wild to have the frank, innocent sweetness of their courtship; he was minded to take her in his arms and press bewildering kisses on the sweet mouth, the fair brow, the delicately tinted cheek, as if he could not give her up. Then Hurst Abbey rose before him, his father bowed with the weight of sorrow ready to welcome him, the fine position he could fill, and after all would the wife be such a drawback? There were many marriages without overwhelming love. If his father accepted her--and from his letter he seemed to unreservedly. He rose from his kneeling posture and leaned over her. She looked in her quaint wedding dress and marble paleness as if it was death rather than life. "You can never forgive me." His voice was broken with emotion, though he did not realize all the havoc he had made. "But I shall dream of you and go on loving----" "No! no!" raising her hand. "We must both forget. You have other duties and I must rouse myself and overlive the vision of a life that would have been complete, perhaps too exquisite for daily wear. It may all be a dream, a youthful fancy. Others have had it vanish after marriage. Now, go." He bent over to kiss her. She put up her hand. Was it really more anger than love? "I wish you all success for your poor father's sake." She was going to add--"And try to love your wife," but her whole soul protested. He went slowly out of the room. She did not turn or make the slightest motion. She heard the low sound of voices in the other room, his among them, and then all was silence. He had gone away out of her life. Her mother entered quietly, came near, and took her in her arms. "Oh, my darling, how could the good All Father, who cares for his children, let such a cruel thing happen? If that woman had come a month ago! And he fancied being here, marrying, never to go back, made him in a sense free. But he should not have hidden the fact. I can never forgive him. Yet one feels sorry as well that he should have misspent so much of his life." "Help me take off my gown, mother. No one must ever wear it again. And we will try not to talk it over, but put it out of our minds. I am very tired. You won't mind if I lie here and see no one except you who are so dear to me." It was too soon for any comfort, that the mother felt as she moved about with lightest tread. Then she kissed her and left her to her sorrow. Mr. Carrick had been very much incensed and blamed the suitor severely. Andsdell had taken it with such real concern and regret and apparent heart-break that the father felt some lenity might be allowed in thought, at least. Grandad was very bitter and thought condign punishment should overtake him. "And instead," said warm-hearted Norah indignantly, "he turns into a great lord and has everything to his hand. I could wish his wife was ten times worse and I hope she'll lead him such a life that he'll never see a happy day nor hour, the mean, despicable wretch." In the night tears came to Daffodil's relief, yet she felt the exposure had come none too soon. With her sorrow there was a sense of deception to counteract it. He had not been honest in spite of apparent frankness, and it hurt her to think he had accepted her verdict so readily. Hard as it would have been to combat his protestations in her moment of longing and despair, any woman would rather have remembered them afterward. Daffodil kept her bed for several days. She felt weak and distraught. Yet she had her own consciousness of rectitude. She had not been so easily won, and she had been firm and upright at the last. There was no weak kiss of longing to remember. The one he had given her in the church could be recalled without shame. For a few moments she had been in a trance of happiness as his wife. And putting him away she must also bury out of sight all that had gone before. She took her olden place in the household, she went to church after a week or two and began to see friends again, who all seemed to stand in a little awe of her. The weather was lovely. She was out in the garden with her mother. She rode about with her father. But she felt as if years had passed over her and she was no longer the lightsome girl. It made her smile too, to think how everything else was changing. The old log houses were disappearing. Alleyways were transformed into streets and quite noteworthy residences were going up. General O'Hara and Mayor Craig enlarged their glass house and improved the quality of glass. She remembered when her father had tacked some fine cloth over the window-casing and oiled it to give it a sort of transparency so that they could have a little light until it was cold enough to shut the wooden shutters all the time, for glass was so dear it could not be put in all the windows. Not that it was cheap now, the processes were cumbersome and slow, but most of the material was at hand. Mrs. Forbes was a warm and trusty friend through this time of sorrow. She would not let Daffodil blame herself. "We all liked Mr. Andsdell very much, I am sure. I can count up half a dozen girls who were eager enough to meet him and who were sending him invitations. He really was superior to most of our young men in the way of education and manners. And, my dear, I rather picked him out for you, and when I saw he was attracted I made the captain write to a friend of his at Williamsburg and learn if there was anything serious against him, and everything came back in his favor. Of course none of us suspected a marriage. He talked frankly about his family when there was need, but not in any boastful way. And this is not as disgraceful as some young men who have really had to leave their country for their country's good. But, my dear, if it had not been for this horrid marriage you would have gone off in style and been my lady." "But maybe none of it would have happened then;" with a rather wan smile. "True enough! But you're not going to settle down in sober ways and wear hodden gray. And it's not as if you had been jilted by some gay gallant who had married another girl before your eyes as Christy Speers' lover did. And she found a much better man without any long waiting, for Everlom has never succeeded in anything and now he has taken to drink. Don't you suppose Christy is glad she missed her chance with him!" "It won't be that way, though. I think now he will make a fine man and we shall hear nothing disgraceful about him, if we ever hear at all, which I pray may never come to pass. For I want to put it out of my mind like a story I have read with a bad ending." "You are a brave girl, Daffodil." "I don't know why I should be really unhappy. I have so many to love me. And it doesn't matter if I should never marry." Mrs. Forbes laughed at that, but made no reply. Here was the young lieutenant, who was taking heart of grace again, though he did not push himself forward. On the whole it was not an unhappy summer for Daffodil. She found a great interest in helping Felix though he was not a booky boy. Always his mind seemed running on some kind of machinery, something that would save time and labor. "Now, if you were to do so," he would say to his father, "you see it would bring about this result and save a good deal of time. Why doesn't some one see----" "You get through with your books and try it yourself. There's plenty of space in the world for real improvements." Daffodil went up to the old trysting place one day. How still and lonesome it seemed. Had the squirrels forgotten her? They no longer ran up her arm and peered into her eyes. He was at Hurst Abbey and that arrogant, imperious woman was queening it as my lady. Was all this satisfying him? It was the right thing to do even if his motives were not of the highest. To comfort his father in the deep sorrow, and there was his little son. "No," she said to herself, "I should not want to come here often. The old remembrances had better die out." She had written to her guardian explaining the broken marriage, and he wondered a little at the high courage with which she had accepted all the events. He had sent her a most kindly answer. And now came another letter from him. There had been inquiries about leasing some property at Allegheny. Also there were several improvements to be made in view of establishing a future city. His health would not admit of the journey and the necessary going about, so he had decided to send his partner, Mr. Bartram, whom she must remember, and whom he could trust to study the interests of his ward. And what he wanted to ask now was another visit from her, though he was well aware she was no longer the little girl he had known and whose brightness he had enjoyed so much. He was not exactly an invalid, but now he had to be careful in the winter and stay in the house a good deal. Sometimes the days were long and lonesome and he wondered if out of the goodness of her heart she could spare him a few months and if her parents would spare her. Philadelphia had improved greatly and was now the Capitol of the country, though it was still staid and had not lost all of its old nice formality. Couldn't she take pity on him and come and read to him, talk over books and happenings, drive out now and then and be like a granddaughter as she was to his friend Duvernay? "Oh, mother, read it," and she laid the letter in her mother's lap. Did she want to go? She had been so undecided before. Bernard Carrick had received a letter also. Mr. Bartram was to start in a short time, as it seemed necessary that some one should look after Daffodil's estate and he wished to make her father co-trustee if at any time he should be disabled, or pass out of life. He could depend upon the uprightness and good judgment of Mr. Bartram in every respect. And he put in a very earnest plea for the loan of his daughter awhile in the winter. "Oh, I should let her go by all means," declared Mrs. Forbes. "You see that unlucky marriage service has put her rather out of gear with gayeties and when she comes back she will be something fresh and they will all be eager to have her and hear about the President and Lady Washington. And it will cheer her up immensely. She must not grow old too fast." Daffodil went to tea at Mrs. Ramsen's and there was to be a card party with some of the young men from the Fort. Mrs. Forbes and the captain were at tea and the Major's wife. They talked over the great rush of everything, the treasures that were turning up from the earth, the boats going to and fro. Booms had not come in as a word applicable to this ferment, but certainly Pittsburg had a boom and her people would have been struck dumb if the vision of fifty or a hundred years had been unrolled. Lieutenant Langdale came in to the card playing. They really were very merry, and he thought Daffodil was not so much changed after all, nor heartbroken. He was very glad. And then he asked and was granted permission to see her home. He wanted to say something sympathetic and friendly without seeming officious, yet he did not know how to begin. They talked of his mother, of Archie and how well he was doing. "And at times I wish I had not enlisted," he remarked in a rather dissatisfied tone. "Not that the feeling of heroism has died out--it is a grand thing to know you stand ready at any call for your country's defence, but now we are dropping into humdrum ways except for the Indian skirmishes. And it gets monotonous. Then there's no chance of making money. I didn't think much of that, it seemed to me rather ignoble, but now when I see some of those stupid fellows turning their money over and over,--and there's that Joe Sanders; do you remember the wedding feast and his going off to Cincinnati with his new wife, who was a very ordinary girl?" and Ned gave an almost bitter laugh. "Now he owns his boat and is captain of it and trades all the way to New Orleans." "Oh, yes." She gave a soft little laugh as the vision rose before her. "I remember how sweet you looked that night. And I had to be dancing attendance on her sister. How many changes there have been." "Yes; I suppose that is life. The older people say so. Otherwise existence would be monotonous as you said. But you did admire military life." "Well, I like it still, only there seem so few chances of advancement." "But you wouldn't want real war?" "I'd like an opportunity to do something worth while, or else go back to business." If she had expressed a little enthusiasm about that he would have taken it as an interest in his future, but she said-- "You have a very warm friend in Captain Forbes." "Oh, yes;" rather languidly. Then they talked of the improvements her father had made in the house. There had been two rooms added before the wedding. And the trees had grown so, the garden was bright with flowering shrubs. "I wonder if I might drop in and see you occasionally," he said rather awkwardly, as they paused at the gate. "We used to be such friends." "Why, yes;" with girlish frankness. "Father takes a warm interest in you two boys." Her mother sat knitting. Barbe Carrick hated to be idle. Her father was dozing in his chair. "Did you have a nice time, little one?" "Oh, yes. But I am not an enthusiastic card player. I like the bright bits of talk and that leads to carelessness;" laughing. "Mrs. Remsen is charming." Then she kissed them both and went her way. "She is getting over her sorrow," admitted her father. "Still I think a change will be good for her, only we shall miss her very much." "She has been a brave girl. But it was the thought of his insincerity, his holding back the fact that would have rendered him only the merest acquaintance. She has the old French love of honor and truth." "And the Scotch are not far behind." Lieutenant Langdale tried his luck one evening. Mr. Carrick welcomed him cordially, and Felix was very insistent that he should share the conversation. He wanted to know about the Fort and old Fort Duquesne, and why the French were driven out. Didn't they have as good right as any other nation to settle in America? And hadn't France been a splendid friend to us? And why should the French and English be continually at war? "It would take a whole history to answer you and that hasn't been written yet," subjoined his father. Ned had stolen glances at the fair girl, who was sitting under grandmother Bradin's wing, knitting a purse that was beaded, and she had to look down frequently to count the beads. Yes, she had grown prettier. There was a fine sweetness in her face that gave poise to her character. Had she really loved that detestable Englishman? They made ready for Mr. Bartram. Not but what there were tolerable inns now, but taking him in as a friend seemed so much more hospitable. Daffodil wondered a little. He had not made much of an impression on her as a girl. Sometimes he had fallen into good-natured teasing ways, at others barely noticed her. Of course she was such a child. And when the talk that had alarmed her so much and inflamed her childish temper recurred to her she laughed with a sense of wholesome amusement. She knew now a man must have some preference. The old French people betrothed their children without a demur on their part, but here each one had a right to his or her own most sacred feelings. Mr. Bartram was nearing thirty at this period. Daffodil felt that she really had forgotten how he looked. He had grown stouter and now had a firm, compact figure, a fine dignified face that was gentle and kindly as well, and the sort of manliness that would lead one to depend upon him whether in an emergency or not. Her father brought him home and they all gave him a cordial welcome for M. de Ronville's sake first, and then for his own. He had the refined and easy adaptiveness that marked the true gentleman. They talked of the journey. So many improvements had been made and towns had sprung up along the route that afforded comfortable accommodations. Harrisburg had grown to be a thriving town and was the seat of government. He had spent two very entertaining days within its borders. "Yes, M. de Ronville was in failing health, but his mind was clear and bright and had gone back to the delights and entertainments of his early youth. He had a fine library which was to go largely to that started in the city for the general public. He kept a great deal of interest in and ambition for the city that had been a real home. Through the summer he took many outside pleasures, but now the winters confined him largely to the house. "I do what I can in the way of entertainment, but now that I have all the business matters to attend to, I can only devote evenings to him and not always those, but friends drop in frequently. He has been like a father to me and I ought to pay him a son's devotion and regard, which it is not only my duty, but my pleasure as well. But he has a warm remembrance of the little girl he found so entertaining." "Was I entertaining?" Daffodil glanced at him with a charming laugh. "Everybody, it seems, was devoted to me, and my pleasure was being consulted all the time. Mrs. Jarvis was so good and kindly. And Jane! Why, it appears now as if I must have been a spoiled child, and spoiled children I have heard are disagreeable." "I do not recall anything of that. And Jane is married to a sober-going Quaker and wears gray with great complacency, but she stumbles over the thees and thous. Our new maid is very nice, however." "Oh, that is funny. And Jane was so fond of gay attire and bows in my hair and shoulder knots and buckles on slippers. Why, it is all like a happy dream, a fairy story," and her eyes shone as she recalled her visit. They still kept to the old living room, but now there was an outside kitchen for cooking. And some logs were piled up in the wide fire-place to be handy for the first cold evening. "M. de Ronville talked about an old chair that came from France," Mr. Bartram said as he rose from the table. "His old friend used to sit in it----" "It's this," and Daffodil placed her hand on the high back. "Won't you take it? Yes, great-grandfather used it always and after he was gone I used to creep up in it and shut my eyes and talk to him. What curious things you can see with eyes shut! And I often sat here on the arm while he taught me French." "I suppose it is sacred now?" He looked at it rather wistfully. "Oh, you may try it," with her gay smile. "Father has quite fallen heir to it. Grandfather Bradin insists it is too big for him." "I'm always wanting a chair by the light stand so that I can see to read or make fish-nets," said that grandfather. The room was put in order presently and the ladies brought out their work. Daffodil saw with a smile how comfortably the guest adapted himself to the old chair while her father talked to him about the town and its prospects, and Allegheny across the river that was coming rapidly to the attention of business men. What a picture it made, Aldis Bartram thought, and, the pretty golden-haired girl glancing up now and then with smiling eyes. CHAPTER XV ANOTHER FLITTING Mr. Carrick convoyed his guest around Pittsburg the next day, through the Fort and the historical point of Braddock's defeat, that still rankled in men's minds. A survey of the three rivers that would always make it commercially attractive, and the land over opposite. Then they looked up the parties who were quite impatient for the lease which was to comprise a tract of the water front. And by that time it was too late to go over. "Well, you certainly have a fair prospect. And the iron mines are enough to make the fortune of a town. But the other is a fine patrimony for a girl." "There was no boy then," said Bernard Carrick. "And she was the idol of great-grandfather. She does not come in possession of it until she is twenty-five and that is quite a long while yet." They discussed it during the evening and the next day went over the river with a surveyor, and Bartram was astonished at its possibilities. There were many points to be considered for a ten years' lease, which was the utmost M. de Ronville would consent to. Meanwhile Aldis Bartram became very much interested in the family life, which was extremely simple without being coarse or common. Yet it had changed somewhat since M. de Ronville's visit. "And enlarged its borders," explained Daffodil. "There are three more rooms. And now we have all windows of real glass. You see there were board shutters to fasten tight as soon as cold weather came, and thick blankets were hung on the inside. And now we have a chimney in the best room and keep fire in the winter, and another small one in the kitchen." "It is this room I know best. It seems as if I must have been here and seen your great-grandfather sitting here and you on the arm of his chair. I suppose it was because you talked about it so much." "Oh, did I?" she interrupted, and her face was scarlet, her down-dropped eyelids quivered. "Please do not misunderstand me. M. de Ronville was very fond of your home descriptions and brought them out by his questions. And you were such an eager enthusiastic child when you chose, and at others prim and stiff as a Quaker. Those moods amused me. I think I used to tease you." "You did;" resentfully, then forgiving it. "Well, I beg your pardon now for all my naughty ways;" smiling a little. "What was I saying? Oh, you know he brought home so many reminiscences. And he loves to talk them over." "And bore you with them?" "No; they gave me a feeling of going through a picture gallery and examining interiors. When I see one with a delicate white-haired old man, it suggests Mr. Felix Duvernay. I had a brief journey over to Paris and found one of these that I brought home to my best friend and I can not tell you how delighted he was. And because we have talked it over so much, this room had no surprises for me. I am glad to find it so little changed." "We are--what the papers call, primitive people. It seemed queer and funny to me when I came back. But the ones I love were here." She paused suddenly and blushed with what seemed to him uncalled for vividness. She thought how she had been offered to him and he had declined her. It was like a sharp, sudden sting. "I'm glad you don't----" Then she stopped short again with drooping eyes. The brown lashes were like a fringe of finest silk. How beautiful the lids were! "Don't what?" It was a curious tone, quite as if he meant to be answered. "Why--why--not despise us exactly, but think we are ignorant and unformed;" and she winked hard as if tears were not far off. "My child--pardon me, you brought back the little girl that came to visit us. I do not think anything derogatory. I admire your father and he is a man that would be appreciated anywhere. And your grandparents. Your mother is a well-bred lady. I can find queer and _outré_ people not far from us at home, all towns have them, but I should not class the Carricks nor the Bradins with them." "Grandad is queer," she admitted. "He is Scotch-Irish. And Norry is Irish altogether, but she's the dearest, kindliest, most generous and helpful body I know. Oh, she made my childhood just one delightful fairy story with her legends and her fun, and she taught me to dance, to sing. I should want to strike any one who laughed at her!" "Do you remember Mistress Betty Wharton?" His tone was quite serious now. "She was one of the favorites of our town. And she was charmed with you. If you hadn't been worthy of taking about, do you suppose she would have presented you among her friends and paid you so much attention? She considered you a very charming little girl. Oh, don't think any one could despise you or yours. And if you could understand how M. de Ronville longs for you, and how much pleasure another visit from you would give him, I do not think you would be hard to persuade." He had laid the matter before her mother, who had said as before that the choice must be left with her. He and Felix had become great friends. The boy's insatiable curiosity was devoted to really knowledgeable subjects, and was never pert or pretentious. When he decided, since he was so near, to visit Cincinnati, Felix said-- "When I get to be a man like you, I mean to travel about and see what people are doing and bring home new ideas if they are any better than ours." "That is the way to do. And the best citizen is he who desires to improve his own town, not he who believes it better than any other. Now, do you suppose your father would trust you with me for the journey? I should like to have you for a companion." "Would you, really?" and the boy's face flushed with delight. "Oh, I am almost sure he would. That's awful good of you." "We'll see, my boy." "If you won't find him too troublesome. I meant to take him on the journey some time when urgent business called me thither. You are very kind," said Bernard Carrick. "You see you're not going to have it all," Felix said to Daffodil. "I just wish you had been a boy, we would have such fun. For another boy isn't quite like some one belonging to you." The child was in such a fever of delight that he could hardly contain himself. His mother gave him many cautions about obeying Mr. Bartram and not making trouble. "Oh, you will hear a good account of me;" with a resolute nod. Meanwhile the business went on and papers were ready to sign when the two enthusiastic travellers returned. Mr. Carrick was to be joint trustee with Mr. Bartram in Daffodil's affairs. "It is a pity we cannot take in Felix as well," Mr. Bartram said. "He will make a very earnest business man, and I look to see him an inventor of some kind." Felix had been wonderfully interested in the model of William Ramsey's boat forty years before of a wheel enclosed in a box to be worked by one man sitting in the end, treading on treadles with his feet that set the wheel going and worked two paddles, saving the labor of one or two men. It was to be brought to perfection later on. Meanwhile Daffodil and her mother discussed the plan for her visit. It would last all winter. Could they spare her? Did she want to stay that long? Yet she felt she would like the change to her life. There was another happening that disturbed her not a little. This was Lieutenant Langdale's visit. When he came in the evening the whole family were around and each one did a share of the entertaining. And if she took a pleasure walk she always asked some friend to accompany her. Mrs. Carrick was not averse to a serious ending. Daffodil had reached a stage of content, was even happy, but the unfortunate circumstance was rarely touched upon between them. It seemed as if she had quite resolved to have no real lovers. What if an untoward fate should send the man back again. The thought haunted the mother, though there was no possible likelihood of it. And her sympathies went out to the lieutenant. If she went away, he would realize that there was no hope of rekindling love out of an old friendship. It would pain her very much to deny him. They spoke of her going one evening, quite to his surprise. "Oh," he said regretfully, "can you not be content here? I am sure they all need you, we all do. Mrs. Forbes will be lost without you. You are quite a star in the Fort society." "In spite of my poor card-playing," she laughed. "But you dance. That's more real pleasure than the cards. And we will try to have a gay winter for you. But after all we cannot compete with Philadelphia. I believe I shall try to get transferred from this dull little hole." "I do not expect to be gay. The great friend I made before married and went to Paris. And M. de Ronville is an invalid, confined mostly to the house during the winter. I am going to be a sort of companion to him. He begs so to have me come." Archie would be there. A sudden unreasoning anger flamed up in his heart and then dropped down to the white ashes of despair. Was there any use caring for a woman who would not or could not care for you? There were other girls---- "You have really decided to go?" her mother said afterward. "Oh, I hate to leave you." Her arms were about her mother's neck. "Yet for some things it seems best. And the old story will be the more easily forgotten. I may make it appear of less importance to myself. It has grown quite dreamlike to me." "Yes," answered the mother under her breath. So the fact was accepted. "You will never regret giving a few months to an old man near his journey's end," said Mr. Bartram. "And I am very glad for his sake." Then preparations were made for the journey. "You must not want for anything, nor be dependent on your good friend," said her father. "And have all the pleasures you can. Youth is the time to enjoy them." It gave them a heartache to let her go. Mrs. Craig wished she could be her companion again, but she was too old to take such a journey. And now travelling was a more usual occurrence, and she found two ladies who were going to Harrisburg, and who had travelled a great deal, even been to Paris. Aldis Bartram was much relieved, for he hardly knew how to entertain a being who was one hour a child and the next a serious woman. The last two years he had sought mostly the society of men. There were many grave questions to discuss, for the affairs of the country were by no means settled. It was a very pleasant journey in the early autumn. She enjoyed everything with so much spirit and delight, but she was never tiresomely effusive. The ladies had come from New Orleans and were full of amazement at the rapid strides the country was making, and the towns that were growing up along the route. Their stay in Pittsburg had been brief and they were much amused at some of the descriptions of the earlier days the little girl could recall, the memories of the French great-grandfather, who had lived almost a hundred years, and grandad, who in his earlier years had been what we should call an athlete and was a master hand at games of all sorts. They were much in vogue yet, since there were no play-houses to draw people together for social enjoyment. Mr. Bartram used to watch her with growing interest. Yes, she would be invaluable to M. de Ronville, and a great relief to him this winter. How had she so easily overlived the great blow of her wedding day! She was a very child then, and truly knew nothing about love. "We shall be in Philadelphia sometime before Christmas," explained Mrs. Danvers, who was a widow. "We are thinking of settling ourselves there, or in New York, and we shall be glad to take up the acquaintance again. We have enjoyed your society very much, and truly we are indebted to Mr. Bartram for many favors that a maid is apt to blunder over. Women never get quite used to the rougher ways of the world." "And I shall be glad to see you again," the girl said with unaffected pleasure. "I have enjoyed the journey with you very much." How did she know just what to say without awkwardness, Mr. Bartram wondered. The quiet street and the old house seemed to give her a cordial and familiar greeting. Mrs. Jarvis herself came to the door. "Oh, my dear, we are so glad to have you back again," she cried with emotion. "But how tall you are! You are no longer a little girl." "I have the same heart after all that has happened;" and though she smiled there were tears in her eyes. A slow step came through the hall, and then she was held close to the heart of her guardian, who had longed for her as one longs for a child. Yes, he was quite an old man. Pale now, with snowy hair and beard, and a complexion full of fine wrinkles, but his eyes were soft and tender, and had the glow of life in them. "Oh," he exclaimed, "you still have the golden hair, and the peachy cheeks, and smiling mouth. I was almost afraid you had changed and grown grave. And your voice has the same ring. I am so thankful to your parents for sparing you again. And, Aldis, you must not mind me, for the business has fallen so behind that I shall not feel neglected if you go to the office at once. We will devote the evening to talk. Are you very tired with your journey?" That to Daffodil. "No, it was so pleasant and entertaining, and some of it beautiful. Then I do not tire easily." M. de Ronville held her hand as if he was afraid she might escape, and his longing eyes touched her very heart. But Mrs. Jarvis stepped up on the stairs, and giving him a tender smile, she followed. Nothing had been changed. Why, she might have left it only yesterday. As if Mrs. Jarvis had a similar thought about her she said, "My dear, you are just the same, only grown up." "And everything here is the same. I am very glad; it is like home." There was the pretty dark blue-and-white toilette set, where the blue looked as if somehow it had melted a little and run over the white. She smiled, thinking how she used to wonder about it. "This is Susan, our new maid. Mr. Bartram may have told you that Jane was married. She has a good husband and a nice home. But Susan fills the place very well, and now she will wait upon you with pleasure," announced Mrs. Jarvis. Susan courtesied and smiled. She was younger than Jane, a fresh, fair-looking girl, who had the appearance of having been scrubbed from top to toe. "And now, when you are ready, come down to the library and have a cup of tea. Oh, I remember, you didn't care for tea, that's an old ladies' comfort. Well, there are other refreshing things that will stay you until supper. We have our dinner now in the middle of the day. M. de Ronville likes it better. Feel thoroughly at home, child." Susan unpacked her belongings and put them in drawers and the spacious closet, where Daffodil thought they must feel lonesome. She went downstairs presently, fresh and bright, having chosen her simplest frock, and tied her curls in a bunch behind, instead of putting them high on her head with a comb. On her pretty neck she wore the chain and pendant M. de Ronville had given her. She looked very sweet and youthful. He motioned her to the sofa beside him. "I understand how it is, that children and grandchildren keep one young," he began. "It is the new flow of life that vivifies the old pulses. And I advise all young men to marry;" smiling a little. "After awhile business loses its keen interest, and when you have made enough, why should you go on toiling and moiling? Then comes the time you want to take an interest in younger lives. And now tell me about your mother and father, who is prospering greatly, Aldis has written. And the little brother." She was in full flow of eager talk when Susan brought in the tray with some tea and dainty biscuits, and golden-hearted cake, and Mrs. Jarvis followed her and drew up the little table. "You see, I am quite pampered. I like a cup of tea at mid-afternoon, for the reason that it makes a break in a rather lonely time. I go out in the morning, when I can, but I take the garden and the porch in the afternoon, and in the evening friends drop in." Daffodil had a glass of milk. There were some delightful sandwiches, and she was really hungry, as they had not stopped for much dinner at noon. And as she glanced around she saw more cases had been added, and were filled with books, and two or three paintings and beautiful vases. The room did have a cosy aspect, with some easy chairs that were just coming in for elderly people. Young people were expected to sit up straight. Afterward they walked in the garden. There were choice late roses in bloom, and flowers she had never seen before. Smooth paths of sand beaten hard, here a way of fine white gravel that looked like a snowy ribbon between the green. How beautiful it was! This was what money and education and taste could do. Pittsburg was beginning to have the money, to prosper and boast, but all things seemed in a muddle, compared to this. She was merry and sweet, and yet it did not seem to her as if it came from a true heart. Was she sorry she had come. Was not her place back there! Was it not her duty _not_ to outgrow Pittsburg, for there she must live her life out. And when she was an old lady there would be Felix, who would marry and have children growing up, true Duvernays, for he would take the name, not her husband. When they went in the paper had come, and she read that to him. She had stepped so naturally into the old place. Susan began to arrange the table, Mr. Bartram came in looking really fagged out, but cordially attentive and chatty with the happenings. It was a sort of high tea, and there was an air about everything different from their simplicity at home, but Mr. Bartram had adapted himself so readily to that. Was it out of kindly consideration? "Now, I am going to dismiss you, my little dear," exclaimed the old man gently, "for I want to hear what Aldis has to say. And you have been very sweet and patient. Promise that you will not disappear in the night." "Oh, I promise. I am not a bird that I could fly back in the night, and then I think only evil birds fly at that period." He kissed her on the forehead. She sat on the porch awhile with Mrs. Jarvis, and then went to bed in the room that was sweet with rose and lavender. Well, so was her pillow at home. But it was so still here. Even the insects seemed to have modulated their shrillness. She buried her face in the softness and cried. Was she regretting the change? Was some gladness, some hope, lost out of her life, that could never come again? It was bright morning when she woke. Even the very sun seemed to shine in gladness. Susan came, bringing her some water, and wished her good-morning. Yes, it should be a good morning and a good day. They went to drive when the mists of the night had blown away. Oh, how gay everything looked! Stores had increased, beautiful buildings had gone up, and there was the President's residence. Lady Washington, as many people still called her, came out with her maid and her black servant, with a huge basket. There were others doing the same thing, for it was quite a fashion of the day, though some people were beginning to be waited on by the market men. Ladies in carriages and men walking or riding bowed to M. de Ronville, and wondered who the pretty girl beside him could be. He quite enjoyed the surprised look they gave her. Then he took a rest on the sofa, and begged her to tell him of the changes they had made in the house, and the boats her father was building, and what new industries had been started. And was grandad as bright and merry as ever? And the ignoble whiskey insurrection; the soldiers at the Fort! Everything had so much interest for him, and the time passed so rapidly, that Mr. Bartram came home before they hardly thought of dinner. He asked with a smile if she was homesick yet, and although she shook her head with vague amusement, she wondered why she had cried last night? They had some bright talk and then M. de Ronville asked her if she did not want to go shopping with Mrs. Jarvis, who would like very much to have her. Mr. Bartram had brought some papers that must be looked over and signed. But she must not stay out too late for his cup of afternoon tea. The shopping was really a great diversion. They met several people, who remembered her. And how funny it seemed to pay away so much money for an article, but then there seemed plenty of paper money. Chestnut Street was gay with riders, both men and women, and some of the latter looked fine in their dark-green habits and gilt buttons. There were many promenading, dressed in the quaint style of the day, and not a few Friends in silvery-gray, with the close-fitting scuttle-shaped bonnets. "I am so glad you have come," was Susan's greeting. "There are two ladies waiting to see you, Miss Daffodil, and M. de Ronville would make me bring in the tea for them." "Oh, what are their names?" cried the girl eagerly. "I was not to tell you;" and a smile lurked behind Susan's lips. She ran upstairs and took off her hat and mantle, and came into the library wondering. "Oh;" pausing to think for a moment. "It's Miss Pemberton, and--is it Belinda?" "Oh, you haven't changed a bit, except to grow tall;" and Belinda almost hugged her. "But Mary is Mrs. Hassel, and has the darlingest little boy you ever saw. Oh, do you remember our party out on the lawn, and our picnic? I'm so glad you have come again. I'm the only girl home now;" and then Belinda blushed deeply. "And Mr. de Ronville would have us share his tea. I've heard it's a kind of English fashion, which he ought not countenance, since he is French, I tell him," said Mrs. Hassel jestingly. "But it is delightful. I think I'll start it. A cup of tea seems to loosen one's tongue." "Do women really need the lubrication?" asked M. de Ronville with a smile. "Yes, they do. Think of three or four different women hardly knowing what to say to each other, and after a few sips of tea they are as chatty as you please. But I must say I was so delighted with his charming news that I would have waited until dark for the chance of seeing you." "Oh, thank you;" and Daffodil blushed prettily. "And we know a friend of yours, at least Jack does, a young doctor, who is going to be great some day, and who is from Pittsburg, Dr. Langdale." "Oh, yes, I knew he was studying here." "And he has made one or two remarkable discoveries about something or other. Dr. Rush considers him one of the coming men." "I am very glad to hear that. Oh, we all seemed children together. And his older brother is a lieutenant at Fort Pitt." "Can't he get a furlough? I'd like to see him," said Belinda gayly. "He's tired of dull Fort Pitt, and was talking of getting exchanged. That isn't quite right, I believe; it sounds as if he was a prisoner." "We must go," insisted Mrs. Hassel. "We will hardly have time for another call. M. de Ronville has been so fascinating." "Oh, did I hold out a fascination?" mischievously. "It was both," admitted Belinda. "And now we want to see ever so much of you. Mary, give us a regular tea party; she only lives round in Arch Street. And you will want to see the baby." "Of course I will," said the young girl. Then they made their adieus. Susan took away the tea-things. "Was the shopping nice?" enquired her guardian. "Oh, there are so many lovely things! I didn't mean to buy anything, you know, but we looked at such an elegant pelisse. Only everything costs so much!" "Oh, economical little girl!" "And the shopwoman would try on such a splendid white beaver that had just come in with a beautiful long plume and a white satin bow on top. Why, I felt as if I had just arrived from Paris!" M. de Ronville leaned back and laughed. She looked so pretty and spirited, standing here. He could imagine her in the white beaver and handsome pelisse. "How about the French?" he asked. "Have you forgotten it all?" "Oh, no. Grandmere and I talk sometimes." "We must have a little reading. Why, _we_ could talk as well. I sometimes get rusty." "It was very nice of the Pembertons to remember me," she said reflectively. "I had said you were likely to come, and they heard Mr. Bartram had returned. So they came at once." She could see he was proud of the compliment paid her. "Now, you are tired," he said. "I'll read the paper for myself." "No, no." She took it away playfully. "When my voice gets shaky, you may ask me to stop;" and the mirth in her tone was good to hear. How delightful it was to lean back comfortably and listen to the pleasant voice, with its subtle variations. Ah, if Aldis Bartram could have made sure of her in that other time, before she had learned to love and had her sorrow. And now he seemed to be settled in bachelor ways, and resolved to miss the sweetness of love and life. "Aldis," he said, at the tea table, "do you know young Dr. Langdale?" "In a way. He is not in my line, you know. A very promising young fellow. Were you thinking of trying him?" "Oh, no. But he is from Pittsburg. The Hassels and Miss Pemberton seem to know him quite well. And he is a friend of Daffodil's." "Oh, and is that lieutenant his brother?" Daffodil blushed, though why, she could not have told, and she merely nodded. "Mrs. Hassel seems to think very highly of him." "He's made some sort of discovery--they had him at Dr. Rush's, and he is in a fair way to success. Score one for Pittsburg." "But he has been studying here," rejoined Daffodil frankly. The next day it rained, and rainy days seemed to affect M. de Ronville, but he hardly noted it. They read and talked French, and had a rather laughable time. And in the afternoon an old friend, Colonel Plumsted, came in to play chess, and Daffodil watched, much interested. Aldis was surprised to find his host in such good spirits when he returned. Mrs. Hassel gave her tea party soon after. Daffodil met several old friends, who remembered the little girl. Belinda found time to impart the secret that she and Jack Willing were engaged, though she meant to have one good winter of fun before she was married. Jack seemed to be a nice, jolly fellow. And there was Anton Wetherell and Arthur Pemberton, and Arthur was asked to take her out to the supper table. "Why, it's quite like old times to have you here again! Truly, I never thought of your growing up. You were always in my mind as a little golden-haired fairy that flashes about and then--do they return to the 'little folk'?" "I haven't, you see. But I was not quite a fairy. And one grandfather used to call me Yellowtop." She laughed musically. "One? How many grandfathers did you have?" "I had three at one time, one in every generation. But the oldest one went away, and now there are only two." "And I danced with you, I remember. I hope you haven't forgotten how. We have dancing parties, as well as tea parties. We are considered quite staid and sober-going people, but we young folks put in a good deal of fun. Bel's engaged, I dare say she told you, and I am the only solitary--shall I call myself a blossom? left on the parent stalk." They both laughed at that. It takes so little to amuse young people. "You'll have to go to one of Lady Washington's receptions, though in the whisper of confidence be it said they are rather stiff. There's the Norris house, that's the place for fun. The Norris girls find so many bright people, and they're not the jealous kind, but they make everybody shine." Then Bel took her off to meet Miss Plumsted. "I'm very glad to see you;" and Miss Plumsted's voice was honestly sweet. "Grandfather goes to play chess with M. de Ronville. He is your guardian, I believe. And now, are you going to live here?" "Oh, no. I am here only on a visit. My parents and all my folks live at Pittsburg." "Oh, that seems way out West. The Ohio River is there, and they go out to St. Louis and down to New Orleans. Is it a real city?" "Not yet, but they are talking about it." Then some one else came. Two or three of the young men dropped in during the evening, and there was some music on a flute and a violin. Altogether it was a very pleasant time, and Arthur Pemberton took her home and asked if he might not have the pleasure of calling occasionally. She hardly knew what was proper. It seemed ungracious to say "no," so she answered that he might. CHAPTER XVI SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER One of the quiet evenings, the two men were playing chess and Daffodil was watching them; Susan came in and said in her most respectful manner: "A gentleman wishes to see Miss Carrick. Here is his card." Daffodil took it and read, "Archibald Langdale, M.D." "Oh," in a glad, girlish tone, "it's my old friend, Archie, that I haven't seen in ever so long. Dr. Langdale;" with a pretty assumption of dignity. "Yes." "And, uncle, you must see him. Not that I want you to accept him for a family physician, for really I don't know what he is like. He may be the veriest prig;" and she gave a dainty half laugh. "If he is spoiled it will be the fault of your city, he was very nice at Pittsburg. And you, too, Mr. Bartram." "I have met the young man. I didn't see that he was much puffed up with his honors." "Thank you." She made a fascinating courtesy. How pleased she was, he could see that. "We will soon be through with the game. Yes, I'll come," said M. de Ronville. She would hardly have known Archie. He stood up straight and he was quite as tall as Ned. He had filled out somewhat, though he was still rather thin, but his face had lost that deprecating expression, and had a clear notion not only of truth and honor, but of his own power as well. It was a tender face also, with the light in it that draws one unconsciously. The eyes seemed to have grown darker, but the hair was light as in boyhood. "I am so glad to see you again;" and he took both hands in a warm clasp. "I couldn't wait until some accidental meeting, where you might kindly invite me for old friendship's sake." "That would not have been worth while. I have heard about you, and I wondered if you had outgrown childish remembrances." "You would bring them all back if I had. How little you have changed, except to grow tall. And now tell me about yours and mine. Once in a great while Ned writes, and mother doesn't seem to have the gift of chatty letters. Hers are mostly about my humble self, _her_ son rather, and how he must avoid certain things and do other certain things, and not grow hard-hearted and irreligious and careless of his health;" smiling with a touch of tenderness. "So, you see, I do not hear much about the real Pittsburg." "Oh, you would hardly know it now, there are so many changes, and so much business. New streets, instead of the old lanes, and the old log houses are fast disappearing. We are making real glass, you know, and there is talk of a paper mill. And nearly all the girls are married; the older ones, I mean. Families are coming in from the country, others go out to Ohio and Kentucky. Why, it is a whirl all the time." "I'd like to see it and mother. I've planned to go several times, but some study or lectures that I couldn't miss would crop up. And it takes so much time. Why doesn't some one invent a quicker way of travelling? Now, if we could fly." "Oh, that would be just splendid!" eagerly. "I used to watch the birds when I was a boy, and flying seemed so easy for them. Now, why can't some one think up a pair of wings that you could slip on like a jacket and work them with some sort of springs, and go sailing off? I'm learning to put people together, but I never was any hand for machinery." "Oh, think of it! A winged jacket;" and they both laughed gleefully. Then M. de Ronville entered and expressed his pleasure at meeting the young man, who was already distinguishing himself, and who was an old friend of Miss Carrick. "Not that either of you are very old," he commented smilingly. Mr. Bartram he recalled. And certainly the generally quiet student talked his best. Was Daffodil a sort of inspiration? Was that one of the graces of early friendship? He apologized presently for his long stay. He so seldom made calls, that he must plead ignorance of the correct length, but he had enjoyed himself very much. And then M. de Ronville invited him to drop in to tea. He would like to discuss some new medical methods with him. "A very intelligent, well-balanced young man," the host remarked. "If the other one is as sensible, they are sons to be proud of." "Their mother _is_ proud of them, but their father would rather have had them in business," said Daffodil. Belinda Pemberton was quite fascinated with Daffodil. "You are such a sweet, quaint, honest little thing," she said, "and you do make such delightfully naïve remarks. And Arthur declares you must have learned to dance in fairyland." "I think I did," she returned gayly. "And I do love it so." Then the little circle, and the wider one, had a fine surprise. Betty Wharton, now Madame Clerval, returned quite unexpectedly, as her husband had resigned his position. "I had quite enough of Paris," she said to a friend. "One wants an immense fortune to truly enjoy it. And somehow things seem shaky. Then, too, one does have a longing for home when one gets past youth." So she opened her house and set up a carriage. Monsieur Clerval found himself quite in demand by the government, as the country needed a multitude of counsellors. She came in to see M. de Ronville, who gallantly said she had renewed her youth, and begged for the secret. "It is simply to keep young, to resolve _not_ to grow old;" with a gay emphasis. "But time passes, my dear lady." "And where is that pretty, golden-haired Daffodil?" she enquired. The girl was summoned. Yes, she had outgrown childhood, but there was a delightful charm in her young womanhood. "We were such friends--if you can remember so far back." "And you were so good to me, and made everything so enjoyable. Wasn't I very ignorant?" "You were very frank, and honest, and adaptable. So we must take up the old intimacy again. M. de Ronville, I shall drop in often and say, 'Lend me your daughter for this or that occasion.' Or is it your niece? And if some one falls in love with her you must not scold me. Young men have eyes, and really, I am too kindly-hearted to throw dust in them." Daffodil turned scarlet. "Is it quite right to go about so much?" she said to M. de Ronville afterward, and the tone had a great uncertainty in it, while the curves of her pretty mouth quivered. "For you know----" He drew her down beside him on the sofa. "I thought some time we would talk it over--your unfortunate marriage, I suppose, comes up now and then to haunt you. Yet, it was fortunate, too, that the explanation came just as it did. I honestly believe it was an ignorant child's fancy. You were not old enough to understand real love. I think he could hardly have been a thorough villain, but an incident like this has happened more than once. And I truly believe you have overlived it." She shuddered, and her eyes were limpid with tears. It was good to feel his friendly arm about her. "It is like a dream to me, most of the time. And I think now, if he had made a passionate, despairing protest, it would have gone much harder with me. But it was right for him to go away when his father sent, and he was the next in succession to Hurst Abbey. And there was his child, his boy. I could never have been his true wife, but it hurt to be given up so readily, yet it was best. It gave me courage. And what if he had tired of me later on? They all helped me to bear it. And there was the deception. For if he had told the truth, there might have been pity, but no love." "It was a sad thing to happen. My heart ached for you. But you know, Daffodil, you never were a wife in the true sense of the word. You are quite free, you have always been free. And you must feel so. You must not carry about with you any uncertainty. It is something buried fathoms deep, that you need never draw up to the surface, unless in time to come you tell the story to the man you marry." "I shall never marry," she returned gravely. "I have it all planned. Felix shall have the fortune, for what could a woman do with it in her own hands? And he has the name, he has only to leave off the Carrick. And it shall be my business to make every one as happy as I can. And if it is not wrong to take pleasure for myself--I do love joy and happiness, and I could not grieve forever, when I knew the thing I would grieve for was wrong." There were tears dropping off the bronze lashes, but she was not really crying. He pressed her closer. There was an exquisite depth to her that did not often come to the surface. "So you have it all planned for the years to come," he returned after a moment or two. "That is quite far off. Meanwhile you must have a good time with other young people. That will make me the happiest, if you care for me." "Oh, indeed I do, indeed I do," she cried earnestly. Then, after quite a pause, she continued-- "I almost lost sight of what I wanted to ask. It was whether I ought to explain anything, whether it would be sailing under false colors when no one knew;" and she gave a tangled sort of breath that she would not allow to break into a sob. "My dear child, there would be no use in explaining what could only be a matter of gossip. I think, nay, I am certain, Aldis and myself are the only ones who know, and if there had been any trouble I should have sent him to your assistance. I dare say, some of your friends and neighbors at home have wellnigh forgotten about it. And now, do not let it disturb you, but be as happy as God meant you should be, when He snatched you from the peril." "Oh, thank you," she rejoined with a grateful emotion that he felt quiver through her slender body. She wondered if she was too light-minded, too easily pleased. For every joyous thing seemed to come her way. The girls sought her out, the young men wanted to dance with her, and were willing to bore themselves going out to supper, if they knew she would be there. It was not because she was brighter or wittier than the others, or could think of more entertaining plays, but just that she seemed to radiate an atmosphere of happiness. She did not give up all her time to pleasure. She drove with her guardian on pleasant days; he had left off riding now, but he sent her out occasionally with Mr. Bartram, lest she should get out of practice, he said. Then she read to him, or they took up French. She made merry over her blunders. The autumn was long and warm. They sat in the garden in the sunshine, or walked up and down. Now and then he went to the office, when there were some important matters on hand. Madame Clerval gave a dance after she had her house set in order. It might have been called a ball. It was mostly for the young people; she was just as fond of them as ever, and secretly admitted that she didn't enjoy prosy old people, who could talk of nothing but their pains and aches, and how fast the country was going to ruin. "Do you think Mr. Bartram would consider it a nuisance to come for me?" she asked of her guardian, with a face like a peony. "Why, no, child. Madame made quite a point of his coming. He is growing old too fast." "Why, he isn't old," she said rather indignantly. "And you see--it's hard sometimes not to offend this one or that one, and if he is really coming, will you ask him to bring me home? Wouldn't _you_ prefer it?" "I think I would;" very gravely, though he wanted to smile. Wetherell and Arthur Pemberton were pushing each other for her favors, and she tried to distribute them impartially. The dance was a splendid success, and the dainty supper had a French air. Mr. Bartram came in just before that. Daffodil was engaged, of course. Madame provided him with a charming partner. There was only a galop afterward. At private affairs it was not considered good taste to stay after midnight. Mr. Bartram made his way to Daffodil, and asked her if she was ready to go, and she nodded gracefully. She looked so pretty as she came down the stairs, wrapped in something white and fleecy, smiling on this side and that. "It was very enjoyable," he said, "at least to you young people. I'm not much of a dancer nowadays, so I didn't come early." "It was just full of pleasure. Madame Clerval always plans admirably." He smiled to himself. Most girls would have protested about his being late, even if they had not specially cared. The young people took up the habit of calling in the evening, three or four of them, sometimes half a dozen. Mrs. Jarvis would send in some cake and nice home-made wine, which was quite a fashion then. They made merry, of course. "Dear uncle," she said one morning, it was raining so they couldn't go out, "didn't we disturb you last evening with our noise and laughter? I don't know why they are so eager to come here, and think they have a good time, for I am not as full of bright sayings as some of the girls. And if it annoys you----" "My child, no. I lay on the sofa and listened to it, and it almost made me young again. I had no merry youth like that. Oh, am I coming to second childhood?" His eyes were bright, and she thought she had never seen them so merry, save at first, when he had laughed at some of Felix's pranks. And his complexion was less pallid, his lips were red. "Then second childhood is lovely. And you have grown so interested in everything. You don't get tired as you used. Are you real happy, or are you doing it just to make me happy?" She gave him such a sweet, enquiring look, that he was touched at her solicitude. "It is both, I fancy. You see, last winter I was ill and alone a great deal. I missed Betty Wharton, who was always flying in with some fun, or a bright story that had been told. Aldis had all the business to attend to, and sometimes wrote in the evenings. Time hung very heavy on my hands, and I began to think it was time for me to go hence. And by spring I had quite lost heart, though I began to crawl about a little. And I kept thinking how I should live through another dreary winter, and be half sick. It kept looming up before me. Then I thought I ought to settle something about your business when your father wrote concerning the lease. You came into my mind. I thought how brave you had been through that unfortunate time, and wondered if you would not like a change. I wanted some one to bring in the sunshine of youth, and you had spent so many of your years with elderly people, I thought you must have some art. I could make it pleasant for you, and the reflected light would brighten me. So I begged a little of your sweet young life." "I am glad if it has made you happy," she said, much moved. "It has given me new zest, it has made me almost well. True, I have had some twinges of my old enemy, rheumatism, but they have not been severe. I have not been lonely. There was some pleasure within my reach all the time. Oh, old people do want a little of the sun of youth to shine on them. And if you had no dear ones at home, I should keep you always, golden-haired Daffodil." She took his hand in hers, so full of fresh young life. "And I should stay," she said. "So, do not think your little merry-makings annoy me at all. I am glad for you to have them, and next day it is like reading a page out of a book, a human book that we are apt to pass by, and say we have no pleasure in it, but it is what we need, and what we want, down in our very heart of hearts, but often we are ashamed to ask for it." It was true, he was much better. The house was losing its grave aspect. Jane had been used to flinging about wise old saws, and comparisons, and finding things to enjoy; Susan was quiet, falling into routine, and staying there until some new duty fairly pushed her out in another direction. She had no sense of humor or enthusiasm, yet she performed all the requirements of her place with ease and industry. Mrs. Jarvis was just as kindly solicitous as ever, but intellectually there was a great gulf between her and M. de Ronville. She entertained whatever guests came with an air of precision, never forgetting she was a higher sort of housekeeper. She enjoyed the quiet of her own room, where she sewed a little, and read a good deal, the old-fashioned English novels, such as "Children of the Abbey," "Mysterious Marriage," "The Cottage on the Cliff," and stories of the latter half of the century. She thought it no part of a woman's business to concern herself with politics, she would have preferred living under a real King and nobility, but she accepted the powers that ruled, and stayed in her own little world, though she, as well as M. de Ronville, enjoyed the stir and interest that Daffodil brought about. After Madame Clerval came, there was more variety and gayety in Daffodil's life, and she helped to rouse M. de Ronville as well. Then came a reception at the Presidential mansion. "Of course, you will go," Madame said to him, in her persuasive, yet imperious, manner. "We must not be a whit behind those New York people in the attention we pay our President. And one need not stay the whole evening through, you know. You will meet so many old friends. Come, I cannot have you getting old before your time." "But I am an old man," he protested. "In our new country we must not get old. It is to be the land of perennial youth," she answered gayly. Aldis Bartram joined his persuasions as well, and M. de Ronville went almost in spite of himself. He had kept his delicate, high-bred air and French atmosphere, and looked well in the attire of that day, with his flowered waistcoat, his black velvet suit and silk stockings, with a jewelled buckle on his low shoes. His beautiful white hair was just tied in a queue, with a black ribbon. There was something dignified and gracious about him, and friends thronged around to congratulate him. And though he had seen Washington in many different phases of his eventful life, he had not as yet met him as President of the nation he had fought for and cemented together. There were handsomer girls than Daffodil; indeed, the fame of the beauties of Philadelphia in that day has been the theme of many a song and story. But she was very pretty in her simple white frock that in the fashion of the day showed her exquisite neck and shoulders, though the golden curls, tied high on her head, shaded and dazzled about it in a most bewitching manner. Madame Clerval was wise, she was not trying to outshine any of the belles, yet there was a bevy of young men about her constantly, and most devoted to her and to M. de Ronville, was Dr. Langdale. In fact, he was really the favorite visitor at the house. He ran in now and then with news of some new book, or some old translation, and a talk of the progress of the library and the trend of general education. Why should Boston have it all? Or a new medical discovery, though he was in no sense M. de Ronville's physician. Was it strange that both these young people, having passed their childhood in Pittsburg, should come to a nearer and dearer understanding? Aldis Bartram watched them with the sense of a new revelation. Yet he could not subscribe to it cordially. The medical enthusiast was hardly the one he would choose for a girl like Daffodil. Arthur Pemberton would do better, yet he was not quite up to her mark. She was a simple seeming girl, yet he was learning that she had a great deal of character and sweetness. Somehow she kept herself curiously enfranchised from lovers. Her friendly frankness gave them a status it was difficult to overcome. "I never expected to enjoy myself so much again," said M. de Ronville, when they were in the carriage. "It is an excellent thing to go on moving with the world, to keep in touch with the things that make up the sum of life, instead of feeling they belong to the gone-by time, and you have no interest in them." How much like his olden self he was, Aldis Bartram thought. He wondered if he had been at fault in letting him drop down. There was much perplexing business, and he had hated to bother the elder man with it. Sometimes it seemed tedious to explain. Had he grown selfish in certain ways, preferring to take the burthen, rather than the trouble of sharing it with another? He had much personal ambition, he was in full earnest of a man's aims and life purposes. Yet it was this man who had helped him to the place whereon he stood, and it was not honorable to crowd him out under the plea that his best days were over. It seemed, indeed, as if days fairly flew by, there was so much crowded in them. When the morning was fine, Daffodil insisted they should drive out. It was delightful to keep bowing and smiling to friends, with this attractive girl beside him. He went to some meetings of the Philosophical Society, and he took a new interest in the Library plans. "You certainly have worked a transformation," Bartram said to Daffodil, when M. de Ronville consented to go to a concert with them, to hear two remarkable singers, who had come from abroad. "You will have to stay. Didn't I hear you discussing Pittsburg with Mrs. Jarvis?" "Oh, they are longing for me to return. And in two days March will come in, that will be spring. And I was only to stay through the winter." "But March is a cruel and deceitful travesty on spring. February has been too short." "But they want me. And, yes, I want to see them all, and the garden, and the woods, and what new things have happened to Pittsburg. For there is something new coming in all the time." Her face was so eager and full of happy interest. "Well--I don't know what we shall do without you"; and the inflection of his voice was disconsolate. "I am afraid we shall fall back to the old routine. I am a busy man, you know, and have to shoulder a great many cares not really my own. Perhaps, too, I haven't the divine art of making a house bright, a woman's province." "Oh, Mr. Bartram, I will tell you;" in a clear, earnest tone. "Why do you not marry, and bring some one here to do it? There are so many charming girls, sometimes I feel quite unimportant and ignorant beside them." She uttered it in the same manner she might have asked why he did not bring home some flowers to grace the study table. Her lovely eyes were raised to his in the utmost innocence, and not a tint of color wavered on her cheek. His flushed with sudden surprise. "Perhaps the charming young girl would consider it a dull house for life, and then elderly people have whims and fancies--well, younger men do. I have myself. And it would be asking a good deal." "I think uncle hasn't many whims, and he does keep them in the background. You almost have to watch for them. Why, think of grandad!" and she laughed with a soft musical sound. "What he liked yesterday he may not like at all to-day, so Norry does the new thing, and says nothing about the other. And he often disputes with father as to whether there was any real need for the war, and that we would be better off under King George. But uncle is so large-minded, and then he has so many refined and delightful tastes. But you would get lonesome if you were not very well, and no one came to cheer you up, or bring you new thoughts and bright bits of things, that were going on in the world outside." She paused suddenly, and flushed like a culprit, looking more beguiling than ever, with her downcast eyes. "I suppose I oughtn't have said it, but it seems true to me, only I'm not blaming you. You have a great many things to attend to, and you must do them in a man's way, devote your whole mind to them, and you can't be frivolous, or other people's business would suffer. If I hadn't any one I would come and stay, but--I love them, and sometimes, in spite of the pleasure, my heart is almost torn in two with the longing. I said I would come back in the spring, and I must go. Then it will not be quite so bad, for Madame Clerval will be in and out, and he is so much better. And you'll let him take an interest in business, when he feels like it--oh, I seem to be giving you advice, and I sincerely beg your pardon. After all, I am not much more than a little girl, and I am talking as if I was old and wise;" and a sudden shame flamed her cheeks with scarlet. "I think you have been wise, and sweet, and patient, without growing old. You have done a great deal for your guardian this winter--I really was afraid we should not have him with us for very long, and he did seem to wish for you so. Perhaps we were selfish, he and I." "Oh, I was ready to come, too. It has been a delightful winter, and everybody has been so good to me, I've been just full of pleasure. But when you love those you have left behind, you sometimes feel as if you could fly." She winked very fast, then made a sudden dab at her eyes, and half laughed, too. "I think I understand. I have had no one to love dearly since I was a little lad, and all I remember about my mother is that she was pale, and ill, and could not endure a noise. Then I was put in school, and my father went away and died. When I was eighteen I went in M. de Ronville's office, and finished my studies. He has been my best friend, really like a father to me. I ought to make all the return in my power." "Oh;" and there was a bewildering sweetness in her tone. "I have been so happy most of my life, and had so many to love me." Then that unfortunate episode had not cost her any deep-seated grief. Had she loved at all, or was it only a childish fancy? He hoped it was, for the sake of her future. He turned then and went out of the room. M. de Ronville had been up in his dressing-room, with his valet, and now he went to the library, and she followed him. There were some reports to look over, then the carriage came for them. It was sunny, with very little wind, and they had plenty of wraps. Aldis Bartram went his way to the office. The two clerks were there and busy. He opened his letters, and answered several, the others had need of some legal opinions to be looked up. Then he took up a rather complicated case, but he soon lost the thread of it, for Daffodil's almost upbraiding voice haunted him. He had been outwardly patient many a time when all was irritation within, for he was too manly and too really grateful to show impatience. Had Daffodil's being there this winter proved the source of the reaction in M. de Ronville's health? Had loneliness intensified the disease and discomfort? Perhaps. And now two or three young men dropped in, and had entertaining talks with him. Or was it because they liked the byplay of the pretty, vivacious girl, who never made herself the first attraction. "Marry some pretty, charming young girl!" Where would he find one to M. de Ronville's liking? CHAPTER XVII OH, WHICH IS LOVE? March opened cold and stormy. Rheumatism made a clutch at M. de Ronville. For several days he did not come downstairs, but insisted that some of the guests must come to him. Dr. Langdale skipped away from a lecture he really desired to hear, and spent an hour comforting the invalid. Madame Clerval came in with a budget of news and friendly gossip, and Daffodil talked of her little girlhood, and old Pittsburg, as they had begun to call it, and sitting on the arm of great-grandfather's chair, and listening to tales of a still older time. He did not wonder that his friend Duvernay had lived to be almost a hundred, with all that affection to make the way pleasant. Then he improved and came downstairs, took up chess-playing, and little promenades on the porch when the sun shone. And then the talk veered round to Daffodil's departure. He would not hear anything about it at first. "Yet we have no right to keep her away from her own household, when she has been brave enough to give up all the winter to us," Mr. Bartram said. "Oh, no, I suppose not. If I was younger, or in assured health, I should go and spend the summer with them. Oh, don't look so startled. I know it wouldn't do, with my uncertain health." Aldis smiled. "If the summer is fine, and you keep pretty well, we might both take a trip. I would hardly trust you to go alone." "So we might." The elder was gratified with the consideration. "Aldis?" presently, in a half-enquiring tone. "Well?" glancing up. "Do you think--that Dr. Langdale--that there is anything between him and Daffodil?" "There has been some talk. But young Pemberton is devoted to her as well." "With either she would have to come back here to live. I like the doctor. He is such a fine, large-hearted, sympathetic young fellow, with so much real charity for suffering. I seem to be envying other people's sons and daughters;" ending with a longing sound. "Yes, if she were in love with him." Aldis Bartram experienced a feeling of protest. Yet, why should he object? They were both young, they had been friends from childhood, and he was certainly worthy of her. That very evening he dropped in. There had been a wonderful surgical operation on a poor fellow, who had been mashed and broken by a bad fall. There had been a dispute at first, whether they could save him intact, but after hours of the most careful work there was a good chance. Dr. Langdale was so proud and enthusiastic, giving every one his due with no narrowness. Then he said, "Oh, Daffodil, are you really going home?" "They have sent for me. The winter has gone!" and there was a piquant smile hovering about her face. "It has been such a short winter I have not done half the things I planned to do. But I am resolved to run away some time in the summer. It is ungrateful not to visit mother. And I do want to see the town, and all the old friends." "Oh, do come!" There was a joyous light in her eyes, and a sweetness played about her lips. Yes, he surely thought he would. Then they went on about other matters. Bartram was not much versed in love indications, but something rose within him--as if there should be a higher, stronger, more overwhelming love for _her_. She would make them talk cheerfully about her going. She said sagely there was such a thing as wearing out one's welcome, and that now she should feel free to come again. "Next winter," said her guardian. "I think I can get along through the summer with this thought to sustain me, but I shall be a year older, and perhaps more feeble." "I strictly forbid either of the consequences;" she laughed with adorable gayety, her eyes alight with fun. "One would think I was of great consequence," she exclaimed a few days later, "by the lamentations my friends make. Or is it a fashion? It will make it harder for me to go. If we could move Pittsburg over! But there are the splendid rivers, and the hills covered with rhododendrons. And, you see, I shall miss the daffodils." "If it is such sorrow to part with one, I hardly know how you can endure losing so many," said Aldis Bartram gravely. She looked at him enquiringly. He seldom paid compliments to any one but Madame Clerval. There were bloom and beauty enough in the grand old town, where every point was romantic. Every day Daffodil and her guardian were out driving, until it seemed to her she could have found her way about in the dark. And in his office Aldis Bartram sat thinking how lonely the house would be without the sunshine of her golden head, and the sound of her sweet, merry voice, her small, thoughtful ways, and the ease with which she could change from one mode of action that she saw was not bringing about a desirable result. At first he considered this a sort of frivolity, but he understood presently that she not infrequently gave up her own pleasure or method for something that suited M. de Ronville better. He was ambitious, and he had marked out a career for himself. He meant to be rich and respected, his instincts were all honorable, and this had commended him to his employer, who detested anything bordering on double dealing. So, from one position he had been advanced to another, and by persistent study had taken his degree with honor. He enjoyed the life of the class with which he was in keen touch, and he found he could maintain a degree of mental superiority that satisfied his ambition. There had been a partnership; he was junior counsel, and some of the clients preferred the young, broad-minded man. Then had come the proffer of a home that really surprised him. There were no relatives to be jealous; why, then, should he not be as a son to this man, who no longer felt equal to the burthen and heat of the new day that had dawned on the country, and was calling forth the highest aims and energies of the men of the time? There had been one intense fascination in his life that had turned to the ashes of bitterness. And now, while he was affable and enjoyed the society of women, he considered himself proof against their blandishments. He had heard of Daffodil's interrupted marriage, and gave her a very sincere sympathy. But he had not been warmly in favor of her visit. Still, it seemed cruel and selfish not to agree to the longing of the invalid, who had an obstinate idea that his days were numbered. A pet and play-thing was perhaps what he needed, for sometimes the devotion exacted bored him and seemed a painful waste of time and energy. Then M. de Ronville saw the necessity of arranging his guardianship of Daffodil Carrick on a different basis, so that there might be no trouble at his death. Her father might not understand all the fine points, and need some legal aid. This had brought about the visit to Pittsburg, and he had joined his solicitation to that of the guardian, truly believing M. de Ronville's days were numbered, and he did fervently desire to give him whatever happiness and comfort was possible. But Daffodil was different from the vague idea he had formed of her. She was not a sentimental girl, even if she had been caught by a specious love, and though gay and eager, had a tender, truthful, and noble side to her nature. They were all of a higher class than he had thought possible, and Felix he considered quite an unusual boy. Mr. Carrick had made one brief explanation of the marriage, none of the others alluded to it. "But you know that the law holds her as an unmarried woman. There was nothing binding in the vows on her side, and pure fraud on his," said Bartram decisively. "Yes, we are aware of that, but young as she is, it has changed her in some respects. But she is dearer than ever to us. I deprecate this fashion of such youthful marriages, though mine has been very happy," returned the father. Dr. Langdale came in one morning with a face full of the highest satisfaction. Bartram had been lingering about, discussing the journey. Madame Clerval had offered one of her French maids, but she knew so little of American ways. "Daffodil," the doctor exclaimed, "will you take me for an escort? I find there is nothing very important for the next few weeks. I have but one more lecture in my course. And I do want to see mother. So, if you have no objection----" "Why, I should be delighted, though I begin to feel quite like a wise and travelled body. And think how women are coming from abroad and from Canada, and going West, and all over, and reach their destination safely. But I shall be very glad all the same, and your mother will be wild with joy." "I am afraid we do not think of the pleasure we can give our elders, who, in the nature of things, have less time for the enjoyment of their children. And I feel ashamed that I have allowed the time to slip by, content with a hurried letter. I mean to do better in the future." "And I applaud your decision," exclaimed M. de Ronville. "Oh, I think you young people really do not know how much happiness you can give us elders just by the sight of your happy faces, and a little cordial attention." Daffodil glanced at Dr. Langdale with a smile that seemed almost a caress, it was so approving, enchanting. Aldis Bartram caught it and turned away, saying-- "I must leave you to perfect arrangements. I am late now, so I must wish you good-morning," bowing himself out of the room. He was very busy, and did not go home to dinner, as he had been doing of late. And it was not until he was walking home in the late afternoon that he allowed himself to think of Daffodil's departure. "She will marry Dr. Langdale and come back here to live, which will be a great pleasure to M. de Ronville," he said to himself, remembering it had his friend's approval. And why should it not have his? Yet he felt as if he did not cordially assent. And if she returned next winter--he lost a sudden interest in the plan. They would be lovers and there would be their joy and satisfaction flaunted in everybody's face. How could Daffodil keep so bright and cheerful? Had she any real depth? Did not every change, every new plan appeal to her just the same? But if he had seen her with her arms about Mrs. Jarvis' neck, and the tears in her eyes, he would not have made the comment to himself. And the tender, beseeching tone in which she was saying-- "Oh, you will not let him miss me too much. And when it is pleasant, won't you walk about the garden with him and praise his roses and the flowers he cares for? And keep him thinking that he is better, and has years yet to live, and if Mr. Bartram will go on being devoted to him." "Mr. Bartram seems to have grown more tenderly thoughtful. Of course, he has a great deal on his mind, and now there are so many perplexing questions about the country, and when one is tired out with the day's work it is hard to rehearse it all over. Oh, my dear, I think you have worked a change in us all with your sweet, generous ways, and your lovely outflowing youth. I am afraid I was beginning to think too much of my own comfort." Dr. Langdale proved himself most solicitous. Bartram found the planning was taken quite out of his hands, and he chafed a little. Madame Clerval declared herself inconsolable, but she had the fine grace that speeds the parting guest when the going is inevitable. There was only one day more. M. de Ronville had his breakfast sent upstairs. Daffodil went to find some papers her guardian was going over, and turning, she met Aldis Bartram entering the library. "I was afraid you might forget them," she said, handing the packet to him. "Thank you." How often she had charged her mind with these little things. "I suppose," he began in a wandering sort of tone, as if his mind had strayed to something else, "that it will not really be out of order to congratulate you, since it will be a long while before I shall see you again." "Oh, about going home? But I shall often think of you all here, and wish the old fairy stories were true, where you could be transported elsewhere in a moment. I think I did truly believe in them once." How charming she was in that absolute simplicity, the exquisite, innocent, glowing face too frank for concealment. He had no business to probe her secret, and yet he must know. "Oh, I meant, you will not come back to us the same. You will have learned the lesson of love, and I hope--you will be very happy." "I don't understand"--a puzzled line settling in her fair brow. "Oh!" suddenly relieved, and then half smiling, "did you think," and then her face crimsoned to its utmost capacity, "that I, that Dr. Langdale--it is a mistake. We were dear friends in childhood, we are warm friends now. For, you see, he has been like a little bit of Pittsburg to me, and sometimes, when I was longing for the dear ones at home, it was comforting to talk them over. And he has no thought of marrying in a long, long while. He means to do so much first." Was she a finished coquette by the grace of nature? Young men were not given to consideration of this or that when the bewildering passion seized them. But coquette or not, a sharp, overmastering knowledge seized him. Once she had advised him to marry and bring in the household a charming girl. She recognized that his duty would be to M. de Ronville while he lived. He knew that, too, if he would not prove himself an ingrate. And here was the charming girl. He looked at her so long and steadily that there came faint colors in her face, growing deeper, the lines about her mouth showed tremors, the bronze-fringed lids drooped over her eyes, and she turned away. But the delicious half-bashful movement set his pulses aflame. "Daffodil," and he caught her hand, "if there is no other among these young men, or even at home, may I not sue for a little favor? I know it surprises you; then perhaps I am too old to win a young girl's regard, love I mean----" "Oh, you must not," she interrupted. "For I think you hardly like me--you did not at first. And then, I--well--I do not mean to marry. You know there was the----" "Which simply has no weight in your life." "But you see, I thought I loved him. Oh, I _did_ love him. And I was so happy. Why, I would have gone to the end of the world with him! Only when one deceives you, when one dares not tell the whole truth, and when one cannot, does not want to give up wealth and station, what was love is some way crushed out. But how could I tell if any new love was the right thing? I might be mistaken again. And there are fickle women in the world I have heard, who can love many times. I don't desire to be one of them. Maybe it is only friendship I am fitted for." She was trembling in every pulse, though she had made such a brave defence. And she seemed to him a hundred times sweeter than she ever had before. He had much ado not to clasp her to his heart. "My dear little Daffodil," he said with passionate tenderness, "though you have been wooed and said marriage vows, you know nothing about a true and fervent love. That was not much beyond a child's fancy, and you have overlived it, or you could not be so light-hearted. It is only a dream in your life. And I will wait until the woman's soul in you wakes. But I shall not let you go from my influence, I shall keep watch and ward, and try to win you." "No, no, I am not worth all that trouble. No, do not try," she pleaded. "I shall take your earlier advice. You said I must marry some charming girl and bring her here. No other girl or woman could satisfy M. de Ronville as well." "Did I advise you to do that?" and she blushed daintily. "Well," and there was a glint of mischief in her eyes, soft as they were, "once I was offered to you, and you declined." "Offered to me?" in surprise. "When I was here before. It was in this very library. I was outside, and when I knew who was meant I ran away." "Oh, you were such a child then! And I was doing something that I have always despised myself for. I knew a beautiful and fascinating woman, who led me to believe she cared a great deal for me. And then she laughed at my folly. I deserved it for my blindness. So you see, I too had a rude awakening, and found that it was not love, but a mere sham. I believe for a month or so I have been trying _not_ to love you, shutting my eyes to a longing that stirred all my nature. And now that I have admitted it, it has taken a giant's growth in a few hours. I will wait until you can give me the true, sincere regard of your soul. But I could not let you go until I had settled whether I had any ground for hope. Shall we be friends, dear and fond friends, until that time? But I want to be loved sincerely, deeply." She stood like a lovely culprit before him, and then he did enfold her in his arms, and pressed his lips against her blushing cheek. "Oh, I cannot tell--yes, I like you--and you will be good to _him_ while I am gone. But it is new and strange to me, and I cannot promise." "But there is no one else--tell me that." "There is no one else. But whether--I can love again;" and there was a great tremble in her voice, "whether it would be right." "Oh, little innocent, you will find the right and the truth some day, I feel assured of that. I can trust you to tell me by word or sign when that day comes, for I know you will be honest. And now I must go, but I take with me a joy that will make glad the days and weeks of separation. Oh, my little darling!" He went out of the house with a proud tread. He would never pause until he had won her. His soul was startled and roused by the sudden revelation of himself. He had supposed he should marry sometime, after his duty was done here, for he could not imagine a woman broad enough to share it with him. And here an angel had touched him with her fine beneficence, and shown him the duty in a stronger, truer light. There was not much time for the ardent side of love, though Aldis Bartram had to fight with himself for a show of mere friendliness. She was to go at ten the next morning, and friends came to escort her. "And I shall stay and help our good friend to bear the trial of parting," declared Madame Clerval. "We will talk over your virtues and your shortcomings, the lovers you might have had if you had been an astute young woman, and try to shed some sunshine on the doleful days until next winter." There was the maid with some budgets, there was Dr. Langdale, proud and serene enough for a lover, and it did rouse a spasm of jealousy in the soul of Aldis Bartram. But he knew she was truth itself, and he could depend upon her. CHAPTER XVIII A REVELATION It was a lovely journey if the term could be applied to the old-fashioned stagecoach. But the season of the year, the bloom and beauty everywhere, and the pleasant companionship lightened the few discomforts for Daffodil. There are natures that refrain from spoiling anticipations by cares or perplexities left behind, and hers was one. Indeed, hers was not complex, and people, women especially, had not learned to crowd so many interests, and fears, and hopes together. She would see those she loved the best, yes, she did love them the best of all now. How glad they were to get her back! Yes, there were changes and changes. New business plans and firms, old ones enlarged, discoveries of coal and iron all about, materials for glass-making, a paper mill under consideration. But the war was not yet over. The advisers of the King had begun to adopt a tone of insolence toward the young Republic; indeed, in spite of peace being signed, there was still an endeavor to stir up the Indians on the outskirts of many of the towns. The Indian villages along the Maumee received supplies of arms and ammunition, and were fortifying their own forts. The alarm spread down the Ohio. The British had not yet given up all the forts they had held in the preceding war, in spite of the agreements. Tired of inaction, Lieutenant Langdale had, with several others, offered his services to General Anthony Wayne, as there was great need of trained officers. So Mrs. Langdale was doubly delighted with this visit of her son, of whom she was quite as proud as of her soldier. "And I hope you have made good your chance with Daffodil Carrick," she said to him a few days after his return. "She'll be quite worth the winning, even if the father's money should all go to the son, who is a very promising lad, I hear. But they count on having a big place over the river, and that is all her share. One of you boys ought to win her. I thought it would be Ned. And you have had a chance all winter." Archibald smiled, but there was no disappointment in it. "She was a great favorite all through the winter, and she can marry any time she likes. But I have too much to do to take upon myself family cares, and I think she isn't the sort of girl to be in a hurry. We are just fine, sincere friends." "But I want you to marry. And I've counted on grandchildren. I wish I had you both settled just around me. I shall be a lonesome old woman." "Then when I am rich enough to set up a house, you shall come and live with me." "Do you think Dilly's going to let that miserable mess of a marriage spoil all her life?" "Oh, she is very happy, mother; girls don't marry as young as they did, and it is a good thing, too. They have some years of bright, gay girlhood, and won't get worn out so soon. Daffodil is a charming girl." "But she's getting quite along, and it isn't like being a widow either," said the mother, who thought every girl ought to marry. Daffodil watched mother and grandmere with longing eyes. Yes, grandmere _was_ getting old. Her mother was losing the pretty girlishness, but she was very happy in her husband, and her son, who was tall and very good-looking, quite toned down in manner. The house had no more changes. Here was her pretty room. Oh, yes, there was a new bright rag carpet on the floor. She went around with a tender touch on everything, patting the white pillow-slips, straightening a picture or two, and wondering in a curious fashion if sometime her brother's wife would be here and a group of merry children--she hoped there would be a houseful of them. And gran would be a great-grandfather, and sit in the big chair at the corner of the fireplace, that he had covered over with buckskin of his own tanning. Where she would be she did not plan. Only she would not mind being an old maid, she thought. Everybody in the little circle supposed she would marry Dr. Langdale, and were surprised when his mother sorrowfully admitted it was not to be. "There's them that goes through the woods, and picks up a crooked stick at the last;" and Norah shook her head resentfully. "My stick won't be crooked, I promise you," laughed the girl. "You may have no stick at all and go limping afoot and alone," was the curt rejoinder. She was very happy, why she could hardly tell, for she felt she ought not to be. There came a letter with the stamp of the office on it and it had two enclosures. Her guardian's was most pleasant and fatherly. They missed her very much, but Mrs. Jarvis had taken on a new phase of kindliness so that he should not long too much for Daffodil, and Aldis was like a son. They went out driving together. And Aldis had grown so fond of the garden that he had not used to care much about. The weather was fine and he really was quite well for an old gentleman. She almost dreaded to open the other. A blinding sort of consciousness pervaded her as if she were a prisoner, as if there was asked of her a curious, undefined surrender that she could hardly understand. Before, she had gone on simply and been overtaken, as it were, given without knowing just what she gave. Was it because she was older, wiser? She had still to learn that there were many mysteries in love that only a lifetime could explain. She let her eyes wander over it in a vague sort of fashion. Did she really belong to him? He seemed to take possession of her in a way that she could not gainsay, could not even refuse. But did she want to refuse? She went out to the keeping room after awhile. Her mother sat alone, sewing some trifle. She came and laid both letters in her lap, then went and sat on the door sill where a great maple threw its green arms about in the soft breeze. There was a cuckoo somewhere, a yellow-hammer searching for half-hidden food, and a thrush with his long, sweet note. "Yes," her mother remarked, as if in answer to a question. "He laid the matter before your father a month ago in the letter that came with you." "Oh!" Then after a long while--"Mother, it is nothing like it was before. Then I did not doubt myself, now I wonder. He is so wise in many ways, I feel as if I had to reach up and up and I am a little afraid. I have seen so many fine girls in the city. And beautiful women." "The woman a man chooses is the best to him always." She did not torment herself with the thought that he was doing this for her guardian's sake. She felt that he was not the kind of man to take the mere crumbs of love while some one else feasted on the heart of love divine. What troubled her was whether she could love enough. And she hated to think there had been any previous regard. But did he not say, too, that he had been fascinated by an unworthy liking? The summer seemed to check the wave of prosperity and men looked at each other in half affright. For no one knew just how the tide might turn. When the Indians made their sortie on Fort Recovery word came that the garrison had been massacred, but Captain Gibson bravely held it in spite of an all-day attack, and at night the enemy retreated. General Wayne was in command of all the forces and the Indians made various feints, hoping to be joined by the British, who were urging them on, but there was no big regular battle until that of Fallen Timbers, where a tornado had swept through the woods some time before. A few miles below was a British fort, the meeting place of the western fur traders. It was a hard fought field, but the victory for the Americans was such a signal one that it ended the terror of a frontier war that had hung over the border so long. No town rejoiced more than Pittsburg, which lost some men and was proud of heroes who had come through the conflict unscathed. Among these was Lieutenant Langdale, whose bravery and foresight gained him a captaincy. "He's a brave fellow!" declared grandad, and Daffodil was glad he had won some of the fame and glory for which he had longed. "It's fine to be a soldier when you can fight and have nothing happen to you," declared Felix. "But I wouldn't want to be among the killed. There's so many splendid things in life. I hope I will live to be a hundred." There were many matters to share Daffodil's attention, though she did miss the bright society and the knowledge branching out on every side. Yet these girls who had married half a dozen years ago and had grown common and careless with their little ones about them seemed very happy. It certainly was an industrious community, but they played as they worked. There were games that would have been no discredit to modern scores, there was dancing and merriment and happiness as well. Was Daffodil learning her lesson? Aldis Bartram thought very slowly. But he was a man who prized hard won contests. And if with the attractive young men about her through the winter she had not been won, then she was not an easy prize. He smiled at times over her careful and futile reasoning. At least they would have the winter to go over the ground. And though he was becoming an ardent lover he was not an impatient one. There are some events and decisions in life that are precipitated by a shock, the film that held one in thrall, veiling the clear sight, is suddenly disrupted. And this happened to Daffodil Carrick. Her father put an English paper in her hand one evening as he came up the path where roses were still blooming. It had been remailed in Philadelphia. "From Madame Clerval," she said with a smile. "Some gay doings, I fancy. She has friends in London." She glanced it over carelessly. The summer struggles had made her more of a patriot, and brought to her mind vividly the morning she had run out to know the cause of Kirsty Boyle's call and the ringing of his bell. A very little girl. She was always glad she had heard it. She turned the paper to and fro rather impatiently. Oh, what was here with the black insignia of death: "_Died, at Hurst Abbey, of a malignant fever. Margaretta, wife of Jeffrey, Lord Andsdell, only remaining son of the Earl of Wrenham._" She was not interested in the beauty of the bride, who had been a great belle in her day and won no little fame on the stage, nor the terrible accident that had deprived the Earl of two older sons and two grandsons, paving the way for the succession of Lord Andsdell. She shuddered and turned ghostly pale, and was terrified with a strange presentiment. But she could not talk of it just yet and was glad Norry and grandad came in to spend the evening with them. The next morning she gave her father a little note with "important" written on the corner of the folded paper. "What now?" enquired her father laughingly, "Did you forget your postscript?" She assented with a nod. Then she went about her daily duties, but a great terror surged at her heart. She was to remember through everything that she was the only woman Jeffrey Andsdell loved. Long ago she had cast it out. No doubt he had been happy in his ancestral home, at least, he had chosen that, well, wisely, too. But to ask that the woman he wronged should cling to her burthen! How slowly the days passed. Aldis Bartram might have been away when the note came--he had been to Baltimore on some troublesome business--but waiting seemed very hard. And when it drew near to the time, she used to take different paths down by the square where the stage came in, just far enough away to see, but not be seen, and stand with a blushing face and a strange trembling at her heart. One day she was rewarded. There was the manly figure, the erect head, the firm, yet elastic step. A sudden pride leaped up in her heart. She waylaid him in a bypath. "Daffodil!" he cried in surprise. "What has happened? "Nothing, nothing; I wanted to see you," but her voice trembled. "Come this way." "How mysterious you are!" If she meant to give him his _congé_ she could have done it better by letter. And the clasp of her hand on his arm had a clinging force. "There is something for you to see. Let us turn here." After a space through intervening trees they came to the open, where she paused and unfolded a paper she had held in her hand. "Read this," she said, and he stared a moment silently. One moment, another moment. How still it was, every bird had hushed its singing, even the crickets were not chirping. "He will come back to America. He will come back for you now that he is free," Bartram subjoined hoarsely. Should he hold her or let her go? Was the old love---- She faced him and slipped both hands over his shoulders, clasped them at the back of his neck. It seemed to him he had never seen such an entrancing light in her eyes. "Aldis," she began, with tremulous sweetness, "I would rather be your wife than the greatest duchess of them all." And then she hid her blushing face on his breast. It would not be raised, but he kissed the brow, the eyelids, and said in a shaken voice: "Were you afraid----" Then she raised the sweet face where he saw tears and the quick rifts of color, but there were high lights of resolve in the beautiful eyes. "Not afraid anything could rekindle the glamor of that mistake, nor any repentance on his part mend the deception. I was a child then. I did not understand the depths that go to the making of a true love. All summer I have been learning----" Then she paused and hid her face again. "And there is a great deal more to learn, sweetheart. We shall go on studying the delightful lesson all our lives, I trust, and never reach the bottom of the cup of joy. Daffodil, you have already roused me to a wider, higher life. A year ago I would not have been worthy of you. Yes, I was blind and self-engrossed then. We will study the sweet lesson together." Then they paused at a fallen log, not the old place that she never cared to see again. A little stream came trickling down the high hill and there were tender bird voices as accompaniments to the delicious confession. It had grown slowly, she was so afraid of another mistake, but he would never need to doubt its truth, its duration, its comprehensiveness. It seemed minutes only and yet held the mysterious sweetness of hours. Then she heard a voice calling. "Why--see! It is almost night! And that is Felix's voice. Oh, what have I been doing?" and she rose in a startled manner. "We will explain our iniquity," he said laughingly. They met Felix. "Oh!" he exclaimed in surprise. "We couldn't think! And we had supper." Then mother said, "Why, did you come in the stage? That was here hours ago," to Mr. Bartram, in a wondering tone. "Yes; but we had a good deal of business to settle. I hope you didn't eat up all the supper?" He studied them both curiously. Daffodil's face was scarlet. "Mr. Bartram, are you going to marry her?" he asked with a boy's frank eagerness. "I hope to. Are you going to object?" "No," rather reluctantly. "Only I wish you were going to live here." Bernard Carrick had gone downtown. It showed the strides Pittsburg had made when there was already a downtown. Barbe stood in the doorway watching, for now the sky was growing gray with coming evening. But before Mr. Bartram spoke, she knew. One of the delights of the other engagement had been the certainty of keeping her daughter, now the pang of separation pierced her to the quick. "Mrs. Carrick," he said in an appealing tone, "will you take me for a son?" but Daffodil kissed her. They did not want much supper, but the others returned to the table and talked. He had only come for a few days, but he begged that they might have a wedding in the early fall, just as soon as possible indeed, for the journey was so long they could not afford to waste much time in courtship. They must be lovers afterward. So, after much discussion to shorten the time, mid-September was settled upon. "Oh," Daffodil said in her most adorable tone, "I shall pray daily that nothing will befall you, that God will send you back safely to me." "And I shall be praying for you. Love surely opens one's heart to God." There was not much to be made ready. The girl laid aside this and that for the son's wife when he should take one, "for," said she, "there is so much in my new house already. And Felix must marry young, so you will have a new daughter in my place." She would not be married in church nor wear the olden wedding gown. "Let it skip a generation," she said, "and that may change the luck." So the time came and the lover so full of impatience. She would have the ceremony in the old room that had been so interwoven with her life, and she fancied the spirit of great-grandfather was sitting there in the old chair and she went for his blessing. The little girl passed out of Old Pittsburg and left behind lonely hearts. Grandad could not be reconciled, there were some fine young fellows in the town that would make good husbands. But Norah gave her a blessing and the best of wishes. So Daffodil Bartram went out to her new life, wondering how one could be so glad and happy when they were leaving behind so much love. Old Pittsburg did not vanish with the little girl, however. But she went on her way steadily, industriously. The new century came in with great acclaim. Shipbuilding prospered. Iron foundries sprang up. The glass works went from the eight pots and the capacity of three boxes at a blowing to double that number, then doubled it again. The primitive structure erected by George Anshuts before the century ended was the progenitor of many others sending their smoke defiantly up in the clear sky. And all along the Monogahela valley as well as in other places the earth gave up its stores of coal as it had given up its stores of iron. And in 1816 Pittsburg was incorporated as a city and had a mayor and aldermen and her own bank. It was a new Pittsburg then, a hive of human industry, where one business after another gathered and where fortunes were evolved from real work, and labor reaps a rich reward. There are not many of the old things left. The block house built in 1764 by Colonel Bouquet still stands. A great depot covers the site of the ancient Fort, and the spot of Braddock's defeat. But there are Duquesne Heights, all her hills have not been levelled, if most of the old things have passed away. She is the workshop of the world now, one writer calls her "the most unique city in the world." And she has not neglected the finer arts of beautifying. She has magnificent buildings, fine libraries, and cultivated people, musical societies, and half a hundred benevolent institutions. And we must not forget that in six days after the firing on Fort Sumter a company of Pittsburgers marched to Washington and offered their services to the secretary of war. If the little girl had vanished, Daffodil Bartram found much happiness in the new home. M. de Ronville was not only delighted, but grateful over his two children who were not of kindred blood, but of the finer and higher kin of love. There came children to the household, three boys and one golden-haired girl, but he did not quite reach the years of his friend Duvernay. And when the two older sons were grown they cast their lot with Allegheny City, which in the course of time grew into a lovely residential city, free from smoke and dust and noise, and theirs proved a noble patrimony. The Bartrams still had a son and daughter, and the journey to Pittsburg no longer had to be made in a stage coach. Felix Duvernay Carrick made one of the notable citizens of the town, the author of several useful inventions and a most thriving business man, not needing any of his sister's fortune, for grandad left him one, beside the one he was making with his brains and industry. And Barbe was a happy grandmother to a merry flock, but she would never leave the old house, though the farm was cut up by streets and houses crowded in upon them. And she kept her bed of daffodils to the very last. If there was not so much romance, it was the old story of the Rhinegelt of the land and the rivers yielding up such treasures as few cities possess, but without the tragedy of their legend. Work and thrift and the ingenuity of man have reared a magnificent city. [Illustration] THE LITTLE GIRL SERIES By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING PRICE, 60 CENTS A series of stories for girls by that popular author, Amanda M. Douglas, in which are described something of the life and times of the early days of the places wherein the stories are located. Now for the first time published in a cheap edition. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK This is a pretty story of life in New York 60 years ago. The story is charmingly told. The book is full of vivacious narrative, describing the amusements, employments and the social and domestic life of Old New York. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BOSTON The story deals with the bringing up of little Doris by these Boston people, who were her nearest relatives. It is a series of pictures of life in Boston ninety years ago. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BALTIMORE This tells the story of how a little girl grew up in a Southern city a hundred years ago. A host of characters of all sorts--women, children, slaves, rich people and poor people, fill the pages. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD PITTSBURG An interesting picture is given of the pioneer settlement and its people; while the heroine, Daffodil, is a winsome lass who develops into a charming woman. A LITTLE GIRL OF LONG AGO This story is a sequel to A Little Girl in Old New York. This is a book for girls and boys of the present age, who will enjoy going back to the old times. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD CHICAGO Ruth Gaynor comes to Chicago with her father when she is but eight or nine years old. Ruth is a keen observer and makes a capital heroine. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW ORLEANS The story gives a very picturesque account of the life in the old Creole city. It is a well told and interesting story with a historical background. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SAN FRANCISCO This is the story of the little Maine girl who went to live in the strange new city of the Golden Gate; she grows up a bright and charming girl. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD WASHINGTON This story carries one back to Washington, a city then in its infancy. The story throws a strong light on the early customs and life of the people. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD PHILADELPHIA Little Primrose was the child of Friends, or Quakers. The author tells Primrose's experiences among very strict Quakers, and then among worldly people. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD QUEBEC The heroine is called "The Rose of Quebec." The picturesque life of this old French city, as seen through the eyes of the little girl, is here pictured. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SALEM Cynthia Leveritt lived in old Salem about one hundred years ago. Cynthia grows up, and so dear a girl could scarce have failed to have a romance develop. The book will be enjoyed by all girls. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD ST. LOUIS This story will give a delightful treat to any girl who reads it. The early days of this historical old city are depicted in a manner at once true and picturesque. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT The stirring times in which the little girl lived, and the social life of a bygone age are depicted very happily. The heroine is a charming girl. The Girl Comrade's Series ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS. ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES. A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING. PRICE, 60 CENTS. =A BACHELOR MAID AND HER BROTHER.= By I. T. Thurston. =ALL ABOARD. A Story For Girls.= By Fanny E. Newberry. =ALMOST A GENIUS. A Story For Girls.= By Adelaide L. Rouse. =ANNICE WYNKOOP, Artist. Story of a Country Girl.= By Adelaide L. Rouse. =BUBBLES. A Girl's Story.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =COMRADES.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =DEANE GIRLS, THE. A Home Story.= By Adelaide L. Rouse. =HELEN BEATON, COLLEGE WOMAN.= By Adelaide L. Rouse. =JOYCE'S INVESTMENTS. A Story For Girls.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =MELLICENT RAYMOND. A Story For Girls.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =MISS ASHTON'S NEW PUPIL. A School Girl's Story.= By Mrs. S. S. Robbins. =NOT FOR PROFIT. A Story For Girls.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =ODD ONE, THE. A Story For Girls.= By Fannie E. Newberry. =SARA, A PRINCESS. A Story For Girls.= By Fannie E. Newberry. The Girl Chum's Series ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS. ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES. A carefully selected series of books for girls, written by popular authors. These are charming stories for young girls, well told and full of interest. Their simplicity, tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, vigorous action, and character painting will please all girl readers. HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING. PRICE, 60 CENTS. =BENHURST, CLUB, THE.= By Howe Benning. =BERTHA'S SUMMER BOARDERS.= By Linnie S. Harris. =BILLOW PRAIRIE. A Story of Life in the Great West.= By Joy Allison. =DUXBERRY DOINGS. A New England Story.= By Caroline B. Le Row. =FUSSBUDGET'S FOLKS. A Story For Young Girls.= By Anna F. Burnham. =HAPPY DISCIPLINE, A.= By Elizabeth Cummings. =JOLLY TEN, THE; and Their Year of Stories.= By Agnes Carr Sage. =KATIE ROBERTSON. A Girl's Story of Factory Life.= By M. E. Winslow. =LONELY HILL. A Story For Girls.= By M. L. Thornton-Wilder. =MAJORIBANKS. A Girl's Story.= By Elvirton Wright. =MISS CHARITY'S HOUSE.= By Howe Benning. =MISS ELLIOT'S GIRLS. A Story For Young Girls.= By Mary Spring Corning. =MISS MALCOLM'S TEN. A Story For Girls.= By Margaret E. Winslow. =ONE GIRL'S WAY OUT.= By Howe Benning. =PEN'S VENTURE.= By Elvirton Wright. =RUTH PRENTICE. A Story For Girls.= By Marion Thorne. =THREE YEARS AT GLENWOOD. A Story of School Life.= By M. E. Winslow. The Boy Spies Series These stories are based on important historical events, scenes wherein boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of history, vigorously told, with careful fidelity to picturing the home life and accurate in every particular wherein mention is made of movement of troops, or the doings of noted persons. THE BOY SPIES WITH LAFAYETTE. The story of how two boys joined the Continental Army. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES ON CHESAPEAKE BAY. The story of two young spies under Commodore Barney. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES WITH THE REGULATORS. The story of how the boys assisted the Carolina Patriots to drive the British from that State. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES WITH THE SWAMP FOX. The story of General Marion and his young spies. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES AT YORKTOWN. The story of how the spies helped General Lafayette in the Siege of Yorktown. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES OF PHILADELPHIA. The story of how the young spies helped the Continental Army at Valley Forge. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES AT FORT GRISWOLD. The story of the part they took in its brave defense. By William P. Chipman. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE BOY SPIES OF OLD NEW YORK. The story of how the young spies prevented the capture of General Washington. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. The Navy Boys Series These stories are based on important historical naval events, scenes wherein boys are prominent characters being selected. They are the romance of history, vigorously told, with careful fidelity to picturing the life on ship-board, and accurate in every particular wherein mention is made of movement of vessels or the doings of noted persons. THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE WITH PAUL JONES. A boys' story of a cruise with the Great Commodore in 1776. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS ON LAKE ONTARIO. The story of two boys and their adventures in the war of 1812. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE ON THE PICKERING. A boy's story of privateering in 1780. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS IN NEW YORK BAY. A story of three boys who took command of the schooner "The Laughing Mary," the first vessel of the American Navy. By James Otis. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS IN THE TRACK OF THE ENEMY. The story of a remarkable cruise with the Sloop of War "Providence" and the Frigate "Alfred." By William P. Chipman. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS' DARING CAPTURE. The story of how the navy boys helped to capture the British Cutter "Margaretta," in 1775. By William P. Chipman. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS. The adventures of two Yankee Middies with the first cruise of an American Squadron in 1775. By William P. Chipman. Cloth. Price 60 cents. THE NAVY BOYS' CRUISE WITH COLUMBUS. The adventures of two boys who sailed with the great Admiral in his discovery of America. By Frederick A. Ober. Cloth. Price 60 cents. The Boy Chums Series By WILMER M. ELY Handsome Cloth Binding. Price, 60 Cents Per Volume. In this series of remarkable stories by Wilmer M. Ely are described the adventures of two boy chums--Charley West and Walter Hazard--in the great swamps of interior Florida and among the cays off the Florida Coast, and through the Bahama Islands. These are real, live boys, and their experiences are well worth following. If you read one book you will surely be anxious for those that are to follow. THE BOY CHUMS ON INDIAN RIVER, or The Boy Partners of the Schooner "Orphan." In this story Charley West and Walter Hazard meet deadly rattlesnakes; have a battle with a wild panther; are attacked by outlaws; their boat is towed by a swordfish; they are shipwrecked by a monster manatee fish, and pass safely through many exciting scenes of danger. THE BOY CHUMS ON HAUNTED ISLAND, or Hunting for Pearls in the Bahama Islands. This book tells the story of the boy chums, Charley West and Walter Hazard, whose adventures on the schooner "Eager Quest," hunting for pearls among the Bahama Islands, are fully recorded. Their hairbreadth escapes from the treacherous quicksands and dangerous water spouts; how they lost their vessel and were cast away on a lonely island, and their escape therefrom are fully told. THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FOREST, or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades. The story of the boy chums hunting the blue herons and the pink and white egrets for their plumes in the forests of Florida is full of danger and excitement. How the chums encountered the Indians; their battles with the escaped convicts; their fight with the wild boars and alligators are fully told. THE BOY CHUMS' PERILOUS CRUISE, or Searching for Wreckage on the Florida Coast. This story of the boy chums' adventures on and off the Florida Coast describes many scenes of daring and adventure, in hunting for ships stranded and cargoes washed ashore. The boy chums passed through many exciting scenes, on shore and island; and the loss of their vessel, the "Eager Quest," they will long remember. THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO, or a Dangerous Cruise with the Greek Spongers. This story of the boy chums, Charley West and Walter Hazard, hunting for sponges, is filled with many adventures. The dangers of gathering sponges are fully described; the chums meet with sharks and alligators; and they are cast away on a desert island. Their rescue and arrival home make a most interesting story. The Boy Scout Series By HERBERT CARTER New stories of Camp Life, telling the wonderful and thrilling adventures of the Boys of the Silver Fox Patrol. HANDSOME CLOTH BINDINGS. PRICE, 60 CENTS PER VOLUME THE BOY SCOUTS FIRST CAMP FIRE; or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol. This book, every up-to-date Boy Scout will want to read. It is brimming over with thrilling adventure, woods lore and the story of the wonderful experiences that befel the Cranford troop of Boy Scouts when spending a part of their vacation in the wilderness. The story is clean and wholesome in tone, yet with not a dull line from cover to cover. THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE BLUE RIDGE; or, Marooned Among the Moonshiners. Those lads who have read The Boy Scouts First Camp Fire and followed the fortunes of Thad Brewster, the Young Patrol leader, will be delighted to read this story. It tells of the strange and mysterious adventures that happened to the Patrol in their trip through the "mountains of the sky" in the Moonshiners' Paradise of the old Tar Heel State, North Carolina. When you start to read you will not lay the book down until the last word has been reached. THE BOY SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL; or, Scouting through the Big Game Country. In this story the Boy Scouts once more find themselves in camp and following the trail. The story recites the many adventures that befel the members of the Silver Fox Patrol with wild animals of the forest trails, as well as the desperate men who had sought a refuge in this lonely country, making most delightful reading for every lad who has red blood in his veins. This is a story which every boy will be glad to read and recommend to his chums. THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or, The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol. In the rough field of experience the tenderfoots and greenhorns of the Silver Fox Patrol are fast learning to take care of themselves when abroad. Many of the secrets of the woods, usually known only to old hunters and trappers, are laid bare to the eyes of the reader. Thad and his chums have a wonderful experience when they are employed by the State of Maine to act as Fire Wardens, since every year terrible conflagrations sweep through the pine forests, doing great damage. THE BOY SCOUTS THROUGH THE BIG TIMBER; or, The Search for the Lost Tenderfoot. A serious calamity threatens the Silver Fox Patrol when on one of their vacation trips to the wonderland of the great Northwest. How apparent disaster is bravely met and overcome by Thad and his friends, forms the main theme of the story, which abounds in plenty of humor, rollicking situations, hairbreadth escapes and thrilling adventures, such as all boys like to read about. If you ever dream of camping out in the woods, here you may learn how to do it. THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The Secret of The Hidden Silver Mine. By this time the boys of the Silver Fox Patrol have learned through experience how to rough it upon a long hike. Their last tour takes them into the wildest region of the great Rocky Mountains, and here they meet with many strange adventures that severely test their grit, as well as their ability to grapple with emergencies. This is one of the most interesting of the stories in the Boy Scout Series,--the experiences of Thad Brewster and his Cranford troop abounds in plenty of humor, and hairbreadth escapes. For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 52-58 Duane Street, New York