/ 77 D 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 

 UWa'V 
 
 1898 
 
 \ PS 1770.A2 •--___^^^ ^^ 
 
 The 
 
 
 VtayS; 
 
 292 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924021 970292 
 
THE BRICK MOON 
 
^ 
 
 
 -^^ 
 
 
 ^x^ 
 
The Brick Moon 
 
 and 
 
 Other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE. BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
Copyrigbtf i86ip, BY Fields, Osgood, and Company ; 
 i8j3, BY James R. Osgood and Company ; 1874, 
 BY Proprietors of **Old and New;" ^8^^^ by Pro- 
 prietors or " OtD and New;" i8tj, by Harper and 
 Brothers ; 1880, by Roberts Brothers ; 1883— 1884^ by 
 Funk and Wagnalls ; 7590, by " The Independent " 
 
 Copyright, i8gg. 
 By Little, Brown, and Company 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 ■ ^ 
 
 ?SntijetsttB ^rtss 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
Preface 
 
 To read these stories again, thirty and more 
 years after they were written, is to recall 
 many memories, sad or glad, with which this 
 reader need not be interrupted. But I have to 
 make sure that they are intelligible to readers of 
 a generation later than that for which they were 
 written. 
 
 The story of The Brick Moon was begun in 
 my dear brother Nathan's working-room in Union 
 College, Schenectady, in the year 1870, when he 
 was professor of the English language there. 
 The account of the first plan of the moon is a 
 sketch, as accurate as was needed, of the old chat 
 and dreams, plans and jokes, of our college days, 
 before he left Cambridge in 1838. As I learned 
 almost everything I know through his care and 
 love and help, directly or indirectly, it is a pleas- 
 ure to say this here. The story was published in 
 the "Atlantic Monthly," in 1870 and 1871. It 
 was the last story I wrote for that magazine, 
 before assuming the charge of " Old and New," 
 a magazine which I edited from 1870 to 1876, and 
 
vi Preface 
 
 for which I wrote " Ten Times One is Ten," which 
 has been printed in the third volume of this series. 
 
 Among the kind references to " The Brick 
 Moon'' which I have received from sympathetic 
 friends, I now recall with the greatest pleasure 
 one sent me by Mr. Asaph Hall, the distinguished 
 astronomer of the National Observatory. In send- 
 ing me the ephemeris of the two moons of Mars, 
 which he revealed to this world of ours, he wrote, 
 " The smaller of these moons is the veritable Brick 
 Moon." That, in the moment of triumph for the 
 greatest astronomical discovery of a generation, 
 Dr. Hall should have time or thought to give to 
 my little parable, — this was praise indeed. 
 
 Writing in 1870, I said, as the reader will see 
 on page 66, that George Orcutt did not tell how 
 he used a magnifying power of 700. Nor did I 
 choose to tell then, hoping that in some fortunate 
 winter I might be able myself to repeat his pro- 
 cess, greatly to the convenience of astronomers 
 who have not Alvan Clark's resources at hand, or 
 who have to satisfy themselves with glass lenses 
 of fifteen inches, or even thirty, in diameter. But 
 no such winter has come round to me, and I will 
 now give Orcutt's invention to the world. He 
 had unlimited freezing power. So have we now, 
 as we had not then. With this power he made 
 an ice lens, ten feet in diameter, which was easily 
 rubbed, by the delicate hands of the careful women 
 
Preface 
 
 Vll 
 
 around him, to precisely the surface which he 
 needed. Let me hope that before next winter 
 passes some countryman or countrywoman of 
 mine will have equalled his success, and with an 
 ice lens will surpass all the successes of the 
 glasses of our time. 
 
 The plan of " Crusoe in New York " was made 
 when I was enjoying the princely hospitality of 
 Flenry Whitney Bellows in New York. The par- 
 sonage in that city commanded a view of a " lot " 
 not built on, which would have given for many 
 years a happy home to any disciple of Mayor 
 Pingree, if a somewhat complicated social order 
 had permitted. The story was first published in 
 Frank Leslie's illustrated paper. In reading it in 
 1899, I am afraid that the readers of a hard- 
 money generation may not know that " scrip " was 
 in the sixties the name for small change. 
 
 I regard a knowledge of every detail of the ori- 
 ginal Robinson Crusoe as well-nigh a necessity in 
 education. Girls may occasionally be excused, 
 but never boys. It ought to be unnecessary, 
 therefore, to say that some of the narrative pas- 
 sages of Crusoe in New York are taken, word for 
 word, from the text of Defoe. If I do state this 
 for the benefit of a few unfortunate ladies who 
 are not familiar with that text, it is because I 
 think no one among many courteous critics has 
 observed it. 
 
viii Preface 
 
 "The Survivor's Story" is one of eight short 
 stories which were published in the first Christmas 
 number of " Old and New." 
 
 Of the other stories I think no explanation is 
 needed, but such as was given at the time of their 
 publication and is reprinted with each of them 
 here. 
 
 Edward E. Hale. 
 
 RoxBURY, July 6, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME IV 
 
 Page 
 
 The Brick Moon 3 
 
 Crusoe in New York 103 
 
 Bread on the Waters 169 
 
 The Lost Palace 241 
 
 99 LiNwooD Street 267 
 
 Ideals 289 
 
 Thanksgiving at the Polls 327 
 
 The Survivor's Story 349 
 
THE BRICK MOON 
 
THE BRICK MOON 
 
 [From the papers of Captain Frederic Ingham;-] 
 
 I 
 
 PREPARATION 
 
 I HAVE no sort of objection now to telling the 
 whole story. The subscribers, of course, 
 have a right to know what became of their money. 
 The astronomers may as well know all about it, 
 before they announce any more asteroids with an 
 enormous movement in declination. And ex- 
 perimenters on the longitude may as well know, 
 so that they may act advisedly in attempting 
 another brick moon or in refusing to do so. 
 
 It all began more than thirty years ago, when 
 we were in college; as most good things begin. 
 We were jStudying in the book which has gray 
 sides and a green back, and is called " Cambridge 
 Astronomy" because it is translated from the 
 French. We came across this business of the 
 longitude, and, as we talked, in the gloom and 
 glamour of the old South Middle dining-hall, we 
 had going the usual number of students' stories 
 about rewards offered by the Board of Longitude 
 for discoveries in that matter, — stories, all of 
 which, so far as I know, are lies. Like all boys, 
 we had tried our hands at perpetual motion. For 
 
4 The Brick Moon 
 
 me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they 
 would give me chalk enough. But as to this 
 business of the longitude, it was reserved for Q.-* to 
 make the happy hit and to explain it to the rest 
 of us. 
 
 I wonder if I can explain it to an unlearned 
 world, which has not studied the book with gray 
 sides and a green cambric back. Let us try. 
 
 You know then, dear world, that when you 
 look at the North Star, it always appears to you at 
 just the same height above the horizon or what 
 is between you and the horizon : say the Dwight 
 School-house, or the houses in Concord Street; 
 or to me, just now, North College. You know 
 also that, if you were to travel to the North Pole, 
 the North Star would be just over your head. 
 And, if you were to travel to the equator, it would 
 be just on your horizon, if you could see it at all 
 through the red, dusty, hazy mist in the north, — 
 as you could not. If you were just half-way be- 
 tween pole and equator, on the line between us 
 and Canada, the North Star would be half-way up, 
 or 45° from the horizon. So you would know 
 there that you were 45° from the equator. Then 
 in Boston, you would find it was 42° 20' from the 
 horizon. So you know there that you are 42° 20' 
 from the equator. At Seattle again you would 
 find it was 47° 40' high, so our friends at Seattle 
 
 ' Wherever Q. is referred to in these pages my brother Nathan 
 is meant. One of his noms de plume was Gnat Q. Hale, because 
 G and Q may be silent letters. 
 
The Brick Moon 5 
 
 know that they are at 47° 40' from the equator. 
 The latitude of a place, in other words, is found 
 very easily by any observation which shows how 
 high the North Star is ; if you do not want to 
 measure the North Star, you may take any star 
 when it is just to north of you, and measure its 
 height; wait twelve hours, and if you can find it, 
 measure its height again. Split the difference, 
 and that is the altitude of the pole, or the latitude 
 of you, the observer. 
 
 " Of course we know this," says the graduating 
 world. " Do you suppose that is what we borrow 
 your book for, to have you spell out your miser- 
 able elementary astronomy?" At which rebuff I 
 should shrink distressed, but that a chorus of 
 voices an octave higher comes up with, " Dear Mr. 
 Ingham, we are ever so much obliged to you ; we 
 did not know it at all before, and you make it 
 perfectly clear." 
 
 Thank you, my dear, and you, and you. We 
 will not care what the others say. If you do 
 understand it, or do know it, it is more than Mr. 
 Charles Reade knew, or he would not have made 
 his two lovers on the island guess at their latitude, 
 as they did. If they had either of them been 
 educated at a respectable academy for the Middle 
 Classes, they would have fared better. 
 
 Now about the longitude. 
 
 The latitude, which you have found, measures 
 your distance north or south from the equator or 
 the pole. To find your longitude, you want to 
 
6 The Brick Moon 
 
 find your distance east or west from the meridian 
 of Greenwich. Now, if any one would build a 
 good tall tower at Greenwich, straight into the 
 sky, — say a hundred miles into the sky, — of 
 course if you and I were east or west of it, and 
 could see it, we could tell how far east or west we 
 were by measuring the apparent height of the 
 tower above our horizon. If we could see so far, 
 when the lantern with a Drummond's light, " ever 
 so bright," on the very top of the tower, appeared 
 to be on our horizon, we should know we were 
 eight hundred and seventy-three miles away from 
 it. The top of the tower would answer for us as 
 the North Star does when we are measuring the 
 latitude. If we were nearer, our horizon would 
 make a longer angle with the line from the top to 
 our place of vision. If we were farther away, we 
 should need a higher tower. 
 
 But nobody will build any such tower at Green- 
 wich, or elsewhere on that meridian, or on any 
 meridian. You see that to be of use to the half 
 the world nearest to it, it would have to be so high 
 that the diameter of the world would seem nothing 
 in proportion. And then, for the other half of the 
 world you would have to erect another tower as 
 high on the other side. It was this difficulty that 
 made Q. suggest the expedient of the Brick Moon. 
 
 For you see that if, by good luck, there were a 
 ring like Saturn's which stretched round the world, 
 above Greenwich and the meridian of Greenwich, 
 and if it would stay above Greenwich, turning with 
 
The Brick Moon 7 
 
 the world, any one who wanted to measure his 
 longitude or distance from Greenwich would look 
 out of window and see how high this ring was above 
 his horizon. At Greenwich it would be over his 
 head exactly. At New Orleans, which is quarter 
 round the world from Greenwich, it would be just 
 in his horizon. A little west of New Orleans you 
 would begin to look for the other half of the ring 
 on the west instead of the east ; and if you went a 
 little west of the Feejee Islands the ring would be 
 over your head again. So if we only had a ring 
 like that, not round the equator of the world, — as 
 Saturn's ring is around Saturn, — but vertical to 
 the plane of the equator, as the brass ring of an 
 artificial globe goes, only far higher in propor- 
 tion, — " from that ring," said Q., pensively, " we 
 could calculate the longitude." 
 
 Failing that, after various propositions, he sug- 
 gested the Brick Moon. The plan was this: If 
 from the surface of the earth, by a gigantic pea- 
 shooter, you could shoot a pea upward from 
 Greenwich, aimed northward as well as upward ; if 
 you drove it so fast and far that when its power of 
 ascent was exhausted, and it began to fall, it should 
 clear the earth, and pass outside the North Pole ; 
 if you had given it sufficient power to get it half 
 round the earth without touching, that pea would 
 clear the earth forever. It would continue to 
 rotate above the North Pole, above the Feejee 
 Island place, above the South Pole and Green- 
 wich, forever, with the impulse with which it had 
 
8 The Brick Moon 
 
 first cleared our atmosphere and attraction. If 
 only we could see that pea as it revolved in that 
 convenient orbit, then we could measure the lon- 
 gitude from that, as soon as we knew how high 
 the orbit was, as well as if it were the ring of 
 Saturn. 
 
 " But a pea is so small ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Q., "but we must make a large 
 pea." Then we fell to work on plans for making 
 the pea very large and very light. Large, — that 
 it might be seen far away by storm-tossed naviga- 
 tors : light, — that it might be the easier blown 
 four thousand and odd miles into the air ; lest it 
 should fall on the heads of the Greenlanders or the 
 Patagonians ; lest they should be injured and the 
 world lose its new moon. But, of course, all this 
 lath-and-plaster had to be given up. For the 
 motion through the air would set fire to this moon 
 just as it does to other aerolites, and all your lath- 
 and-plaster would gather into a few white drops, 
 which no Rosse telescope even could discern. 
 " No," said Q. bravely, " at the least it must be 
 very substantial. It must stand fire well, very 
 well. Iron will not answer. It must be brick ; we 
 must have a Brick Moon." 
 
 Then we had to calculate its size. You can see, 
 on the old moon, an edifice two hundred feet long 
 with any of the fine refractors of our day. But no 
 such refractors as those can be carried by the poor 
 little fishermen whom we wanted to befriend, the 
 bones of whose ships lie white on so many cliffs. 
 
The Brick Moon 9 
 
 their names unreported at any Lloyd's or by any 
 Ross, 
 
 Themselves the owners and their sons the crew. 
 
 On the other hand, we did not want our moon two 
 hundred and fifty thousand miles away, as the old 
 moon is, which I will call the Thornbush moon, for 
 distinction. We did not care how near it was, 
 indeed, if it were only far enough away to be seen, 
 in practice, from almost the whole world. There 
 must be a little strip where they could not see it 
 from the surface, unless we threw it infinitely high. 
 " But they need not look from the surface," said 
 Q. ; " they might climb to the mast-head. And if 
 they did not see it at all, they would know that 
 they were ninety degrees from the meridian." 
 
 This difficulty about what we call "the strip," 
 however, led to an improvement in the plan, which 
 made it better in every way. It was clear that 
 even if " the strip " were quite wide, the moon 
 would have to be a good way off, and, in propor- 
 tion, hard to see. If, however, we would satisfy 
 ourselves with a moon four thousand miles away, 
 that could be seen on the earth's surface for three 
 or four thousand miles on each side; and twice 
 three thousand, or six thousand, is one fourth of 
 the largest circumference of the earth. We did 
 not dare have it nearer than four thousand miles, 
 since even at that distance it would be eclipsed 
 three hours out of every night ; and we wanted it 
 bright and distinct, and not of that lurid, copper, 
 
I o The Brick Moon 
 
 eclipse color. But at four thousand miles' distance 
 the moon could be seen by a belt of observers six 
 or eight thousand miles in diameter. " Start, then, 
 two moons," — this was my contribution to the 
 plan. " Suppose one over the meridian of Green- 
 wich, and the other over that of New Orleans. 
 Take care that there is a little difference in the 
 radii of their orbits, lest they ' collide ' some foul 
 day. Then, in most places, one or other, perhaps 
 two will come in sight. So much the less risk of 
 clouds : and everywhere there may be one, except 
 when it is cloudy. Neither need be more than 
 four thousand miles off; so much the larger and 
 more beautiful will they be. If on the old Thorn- 
 bush moon old Herschel with his reflector could 
 see a town-house two hundred feet long, on the 
 Brick Moon young Herschel will be able to see a 
 dab of mortar a foot and a half long, if he wants 
 to. And people without the reflector, with their 
 opera-glasses, will be able to see sufficiently well." 
 And to this they agreed: that eventually there 
 must be two Brick Moons. Indeed, it were better 
 that there should be four, as each must be below 
 the horizon half the time. That is only as many 
 as Jupiter has. But it was also agreed that we 
 might begin with one. 
 
 Why we settled on two hundred feet of diame- 
 ter I hardly know. I think it was from the 
 statement of dear John Farrar's about the impos- 
 sibility of there being a state house two hundred 
 feet long not yet discovered, on the sunny side of 
 
The Brick Moon 1 1 
 
 old Thornbush. That, somehow, made two hun- 
 dred our fixed point. Besides, a moon of two 
 hundred feet diameter did not seem quite unman- 
 ageable. Yet it was evident that a smaller moon 
 would be of no use, unless we meant to have them 
 near the world, when there would be so many that 
 they would be confusing, and eclipsed most of the 
 time. And four thousand miles is a good way off 
 to see a moon even two hundred feet in diameter. 
 
 Small though we made them on paper, these 
 two-hundred-foot moons were still too much for 
 us. Of course we meant to build them hollow. 
 But even if hollow there must be some thickness, 
 and the quantity of brick would at best be enor- 
 mous. Then, to get them up ! The pea-shooter, 
 of course, was only an illustration. It was long 
 after that time that Rodman and other guns sent 
 iron balls five or six miles in distance, — say two 
 miles, more or less, in height. 
 
 Iron is much heavier than hollow brick, but you 
 can build no gun with a bore of two hundred feet 
 now, — far less could you then. No. 
 
 Q. again suggested the method of shooting oft 
 the moon. It was not to be by any of your sud- 
 den explosions. It was to be done as all great 
 things are done, — by the gradual and silent ac- 
 cumulation of power. You all know that a fly- 
 wheel — heavy, very heavy on the circumference, 
 light, very light within it — was made to save up 
 power, from the time when it was produced to 
 the time when it was wanted. Yes? Then, before 
 
1 2 The Brick Moon 
 
 we began even to build the moon, before we even 
 began to make the brick, we would build two 
 gigantic fly-wheels, the diameter of each should be 
 " ever so great," the circumference heavy beyond 
 all precedent, and thundering strong, so that no 
 temptation might burst it. They should revolve, 
 their edges nearly touching, in opposite directions, 
 for years, if it were necessary, to accumulate 
 power, driven by some waterfall now wasted to the 
 world. One should be a little heavier than the 
 other. When the Brick Moon was finished, and 
 all was ready, IT should be gently rolled down a 
 gigantic groove provided for it, till it lighted on 
 the edge of both wheels at the same instant. Of 
 course it would not rest there, not the ten- 
 thousandth part of a second. It would be snapped 
 upward, as a drop of water from a grindstone. 
 Upward and upward ; but the heavier wheel would 
 have deflected it a little from the vertical. Up- 
 ward and northward it would rise, therefore, till it 
 had passed the axis of the world. It would, of 
 course, feel the world's attraction all the time, 
 which would bend its flight gently, but still it 
 would leave the world more and more behind. 
 Upward still, but now southward, till it had trav- 
 ersed more than one hundred and eighty degrees 
 of a circle. Little resistance, indeed, after it had 
 cleared the forty or fifty miles of visible atmos- 
 phere. " Now let it fall," said Q., inspired with 
 the vision. " Let it fall, and the sooner the 
 better ! The curve it is now on will forever clear 
 
The Brick Moon 1 3 
 
 the world ; and over the meridian of that lonely 
 waterfall, — if only we have rightly adjusted the 
 gigantic flies, — will forever revolve, in its obedi- 
 ent orbit, the — 
 
 Brick Moon, 
 
 the blessing of all seamen, — as constant in all 
 change as its older sister has been fickle, and the 
 second cynosure of all lovers upon the waves, and 
 of all girls left behind them." " Amen," we cried, 
 and then we sat in silence till the clock struck ten ; 
 then shook each other gravely by the hand, and 
 left the South Middle dining-hall. 
 
 Of waterfalls there were plenty that we knew. 
 
 Fly-wheels could be built of oak and pine, and 
 hooped with iron. Fly-wheels did not discourage 
 us. 
 
 But brick? One brick is, say, sixty-four cubic 
 inches only. This moon, — though we made it 
 hollow, — see, — it must take twelve million brick. 
 
 The brick alone will cost sixty thousand dollars ! 
 
 The brick alone would cost sixty thousand dol- 
 lars. There the scheme of the Brick Moon hung, 
 an airy vision, for seventeen years, — the years 
 that changed us from young men into men. The 
 brick alone, sixty thousand dollars ! For, to boys 
 who have still left a few of their college bills un- 
 paid, who cannot think of buying that lovely little 
 Elzevir which Smith has for sale at auction, of 
 which Smith does not dream of the value, sixty 
 
14 The Brick Moon 
 
 thousand dollars seems as intangible as sixty 
 million sestertia. Clarke, second, how much are 
 sixty million sestertia stated in cowries? How 
 much in currency, gold being at 1-37 j^? Right; 
 go up. Stop, I forget myself! 
 
 So, to resume, the project of the Brick Moon 
 hung in the ideal, an airy vision, a vision as lovely 
 and as distant as the Brick Moon itself, at this 
 calm moment of midnight when I write, as it 
 poises itself over the shoulder of Orion, in my 
 southern horizon. Stop ! I anticipate. Let me 
 keep — as we say in Beadle's Dime Series — to 
 the even current of my story. 
 
 Seventeen years passed by, we were no longer 
 boys, though we felt so. For myself, to this hour, 
 I never enter board meeting, committee meeting, 
 or synod, without the queer question, what would 
 happen should any one discover that this bearded 
 man was only a big boy disguised? that the frock- 
 coat and the round hat are none of mine, and that, 
 if I should be spurned from the assembly, as an 
 interloper, a judicious public, learning all the facts, 
 would give a verdict, " Served him right." This 
 consideration helps me through many bored meet- 
 ings which would be else so dismal. What did my 
 old copy say? — 
 
 '■'Boards are made of wood, they are long and narrow.'" 
 But we do not get on ! 
 
 Seventeen years after, I say, or should have said, 
 dear Orcutt entered my room at Naguadavick 
 again. I had not seen him since the Commence- 
 
The Brick Moon 15 
 
 ment day when we parted at Cambridge, He 
 looked the same, and yet not the same. His smile 
 was the same, his voice, his tender look of sym- 
 pathy when 1 spoke to him of a great sorrow, his 
 childlike love of fun. His waistband was different, 
 his pantaloons were different, his smooth chin was 
 buried in a full beard, and he weighed two hundred 
 pounds if he weighed a gramme. O, the good 
 time we had, so like the times of old ! Those were 
 happy days for me in Naguadavick. At that mo- 
 ment my double was at work for me at a meeting 
 of the publishing committee of the Sandemanian 
 Review, so I called Orcutt up to my own snuggery, 
 and we talked over old times ; talked till tea was 
 ready. Polly came up through the orchard and 
 made tea for us herself there. We talked on and 
 on, till nine, ten at night, and then it was that dear 
 Orcutt asked me if I remembered the Brick Moon. 
 Remember it? of course I did. And without leav- 
 ing my chair I opened the drawer of my writ- 
 ing-desk, and handed him a portfolio full of 
 working-drawings on which I had engaged myself 
 for my " third " ^ all that winter. Orcutt was de- 
 lighted. He turned them over hastily but intelli- 
 gently, and said: "I am so glad. I could not 
 think you had forgotten. And I have seen Bran- 
 nan, and Brannan has not forgotten." " Now do 
 you know," said he, " in all this railroading of mine, 
 I have not forgotten. When I built the great tunnel 
 
 1 " Every man," says Dr. Peabody, " should have a vocation 
 and an avocation." To which I add, " A third." 
 
1 6 The Brick Moon 
 
 for the Cattawissa and Opelousas, by which we got 
 rid of the old inclined planes, there was never a 
 stone bigger than a peach-stone within two hun- 
 dred miles of us. I baked the brick of that tunnel 
 on the line with my own kilns. Ingham, I have 
 made more brick, I beheve, than any man living in 
 the world ! " 
 
 " You are the providential man," said I. 
 
 " Am I not, Fred ? More than that," said he ; 
 " I have succeeded in things the world counts 
 worth more than brick- I have made brick, and I 
 have made money ! " 
 
 "One of us make money?" asked I, amazed. 
 
 "Even so," said dear Orcutt; "one of us has 
 made money." And he proceeded to tell me how. 
 It was not in building tunnels, nor in making brick. 
 No ! It was by buying up the original stock of 
 the Cattawissa and Opelousas, at a moment when 
 that stock had hardly a nominal price in the 
 market. There were the first mortgage bonds, and 
 the second mortgage bonds, and the third, and I 
 know not how much floating debt ; and worse than 
 all, the reputation of the road lost, and deservedly 
 lost. Every locomotive it had was asthmatic. 
 Every car it had bore the marks of unprecedented 
 accidents, for which no one was to blame. Rival 
 lines, I know not how many, were cutting each 
 other's throats for its legitimate business. At this 
 juncture dear George invested all his earnings as 
 a contractor, in the despised original stock, — he 
 actually bought it for 3 ^ per cent, — good shares 
 
The Brick Moon 17 
 
 that had cost a round hundred to every wretch 
 who had subscribed. Six thousand eight hundred 
 dollars — every cent he had — did George thus 
 invest. Then he went himself to the trustees of 
 the first mortgage, to the trustees of the second, 
 and to the trustees of the third, and told them 
 what he had done. 
 
 Now it is personal presence that moves the 
 world. Dear Orcutt has found that out since, if 
 he did not know it before. The trustees who would 
 have sniffed had George written to them, turned 
 round from their desks, and begged him to take a 
 chair, when he came to talk with them. Had he 
 put every penny he was worth into that stock? 
 Then it was worth something which they did not 
 know of, for George Orcutt was no fool about 
 railroads. The man who bridged the Lower 
 Rapidan when a freshet was running was no fool. 
 
 "What were his plans? " 
 
 George did not tell — no, not to lordly trustees 
 — what his plans were. He had plans, but he 
 kept them to himself All he told them was that 
 he had plans. On those plans he had staked his 
 all. Now, would they or would they not agree to 
 put him in charge of the running of that road, for 
 twelve months, on a nominal salary ? The superin- 
 tendent they had had was a rascal. He had proved 
 that by running away. They knew that George 
 was not a rascal. He knew that he could make 
 this road pay expenses, pay bond-holders, and 
 pay a dividend, — a thing no one else had dreamed 
 
1 8 The Brick Moon 
 
 of for twenty years. Could they do better than 
 try him? 
 
 Of course they could not, and they knew they 
 could not. Of course they sniffed and talked, 
 and waited, and pretended they did not know, 
 and that they must consult, and so forth and so on. 
 But of course they all did try him, on his own 
 terms. He was put in charge of the running of 
 that road. 
 
 In one week he showed he should redeem it. 
 In three months he did redeem it ! 
 
 He advertised boldly the first day : " Infant 
 children at treble price." 
 
 The novelty attracted instant remark. And it 
 showed many things. First, it showed he was a 
 humane man, who wished to save human life. He 
 would leave these innocents in their cradles, where 
 they belonged. 
 
 Second, and chiefly, the world of travellers saw 
 that the Crichton, the Amadis, the perfect cheva- 
 lier of the future, had arisen, — a railroad manager 
 caring for the comfort of his passengers ! 
 
 The first week the number of the C. and O.'s 
 passengers was doubled: in a week or two more 
 freight began to come in, in driblets, on the line 
 which its owners had gone over. As soon as the 
 shops could turn them out, some cars were put 
 on, with arms on which travellers could rest their 
 elbows, with head-rests where they could take 
 naps if they were weary. These excited so much 
 curiosity that one was exhibited in the museum 
 
The Brick Moon ig 
 
 at Cattawissa and another at Opelousas. It may 
 not be generally known that the received car of 
 the American roads was devised to secure a 
 premium offered by the Pawtucket and Podunk 
 Company.. Their receipts were growing so large 
 that they feared they should forfeit their charter. 
 They advertised, therefore, for a car in which no 
 man could sleep at night or rest by day, — in 
 which the backs should be straight, the heads of 
 passengers unsupported, the feet entangled in a 
 vice, the elbows always knocked by the passing 
 conductor. The pattern was produced which im- 
 mediately came into use on all the American 
 roads. But on the Cattawissa and Opelousas this 
 time-honored pattern was set aside. 
 
 Of course you see the result. Men went hun- 
 dreds of miles out of their way to ride on the C 
 and O. The third mortgage was paid off; a 
 reserve fund was piled up for the second; the 
 trustees of the first lived in dread of being paid ; 
 and George's stock, which he bought at 3^, rose 
 to 147 before two years had gone by ! So was it 
 that, as we sat together in the snuggery, George was 
 worth wellnigh three hundred thousand dollars. 
 Some of his eggs were in the basket where they 
 were laid ; some he had taken out and placed in 
 other baskets ; some in nests where various hens 
 were brooding over them. Sound eggs they were, 
 wherever placed; and such was the victory of 
 which George had come to tell. 
 
 One of us had made money! 
 
20 The Brick Moon 
 
 On his way he had seen Brannan. Brannan, 
 the pure-minded, right-minded, shifty man of 
 tact, man of brain, man of heart, and man of word, 
 who held New Altona in the hollow of his hand. 
 Brannan had made no money. Not he, nor ever 
 will. But Brannan could do much what he pleased 
 in this world, without money. For whenever 
 Brannan studied the rights and the wrongs of 
 any enterprise, all men knew that what Brannan 
 decided about it was wellnigh the eternal truth; 
 and therefore all men of sense were accustomed 
 to place great confidence in his prophecies. But, 
 more than this, and better, Brannan was an un- 
 conscious dog, who believed in the people. So, 
 when he knew what was the right and what was 
 the wrong, he could stand up before two or three 
 thousand people and tell them what was right 
 and what was wrong, and tell them with the same 
 simplicity and freshness with which he would talk 
 to little Horace on his knee. Of the thousands 
 who heard him there would not be one in a hun- 
 dred who knew that this was eloquence. They 
 were fain to say, as they sat in their shops, talk- 
 ing, that Brannan was not eloquent. Nay, they 
 went so far as to regret that Brannan was not 
 eloquent ! If he were only as eloquent as Carker 
 was or as Barker was, how excellent he would be ! 
 But when, a month after, it was necessary for 
 them to do anything about the thing he had been 
 speaking of, they did what B!-annan had told them 
 to do; forgetting, most likely, that he had ever 
 
The Brick Moon 21 
 
 told them, and fancying that these were their own 
 ideas, which, in fact, had, from his liquid, ponder- 
 ous, transparent, and invisible common sense, dis- 
 tilled unconsciously into their being. I wonder 
 whether Brannan ever knew that he was eloquent. 
 What I knew, and what dear George knew, was, 
 that he was one of the leaders of men ! 
 
 Courage, my friends, we are steadily advancing 
 to the Brick Moon ! 
 
 For George had stopped, and seen Brannan ; 
 and Brannan had not forgotten. Seventeen years 
 Brannan had remembered, and not a ship had 
 been lost on a lee-shore because her longitude 
 was wrong, — not a baby had wailed its last as it 
 was ground between wrecked spar and cruel rock, 
 — not a swollen corpse unknown had been flung 
 up upon the sand and been buried with a nameless 
 epitaph, — but Brannan had recollected the Brick 
 Moon, and had, in the memory-chamber which 
 rejected nothing, stored away the story of the 
 horror. And now George was ready to consecrate 
 a round hundred thousand to the building of the 
 Moon ; and Brannan was ready, in the thousand 
 ways in which wise men move the people to and 
 fro, to persuade them to give to us a hundred 
 thousand more ; and George had come to ask me 
 if I were not ready to undertake with them the 
 final great effort, of which our old calculations 
 were the embryo. For this I was now to contrib- 
 ute the mathematical certainty and the lore bor- 
 rowed from naval science, which should blossom 
 
22 The Brick Moon 
 
 and bear fruit when the Brick Moon was snapped 
 like a cherry from the ways on which it was built, 
 was launched into the air by power gathered from 
 a thousand freshets, and, poised at last in its own 
 pre-calculated region of the ether, should begin 
 its course of eternal blessings in one unchanging 
 meridian ! 
 
 Vision of Beneficence and Wonder ! Of course 
 I consented. 
 
 Oh that you were not so eager for the end ! Oh 
 that I might tell you, what now you will never 
 know, — of the great campaign which we then 
 and there inaugurated ! How the horrible loss of 
 the Royal Martyr, whose longitude was three 
 degrees awry, startled the whole world, and gave 
 us a point to start from. How I explained to 
 George that he must not subscribe the one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars in a moment. It must 
 come in bits, when " the cause " needed a stimulus, 
 or the public needed encouragement. How we 
 caught neophyte editors, and explained to them 
 enough to make them think the Moon was well- 
 nigh their own invention and their own thunder. 
 How, beginning in Boston, we sent round to all 
 the men of science, all those of philanthropy, and 
 all those of commerce, three thousand circulars, 
 inviting them to a private meeting at George's 
 parlors at the Revere. How, besides ourselves, 
 and some nice, respectable-looking old gentlemen 
 Brannan had brought over from Podunk with him, 
 paying their fares both ways, there were present 
 
The Brick Moon 23 
 
 only three men, — all adventurers whose projects 
 had failed, — besides the representatives of the 
 press. How, of these representatives, some un- 
 derstood the whole, and some understood nothing. 
 How, the next day, all gave us " first-rate no- 
 tices." How, a few days after, in the lower 
 Horticultural Hall, we had our first public meet- 
 ing. How Haliburton brought us fifty people 
 who loved him, — his Bible class, most of them, — 
 to help fill up ; how, besides these, there were not 
 three persons whom we had not asked personally, 
 or one who could invent an excuse to stay away. 
 How we had hung the walls with intelligible and 
 unintelligible diagrams. How I opened the meet- 
 ing. Of that meeting, indeed, I must tell something. 
 First, I spoke. I did not pretend to unfold the 
 scheme. I did not attempt any rhetoric. But I 
 did not make any apologies. I told them simply 
 of the dangers of lee-shores. I told them when 
 they were most dangerous, — when seamen came 
 upon them unawares. I explained to them that, 
 though the costly chronometer, frequently ad- 
 justed, made a delusive guide to the voyager who 
 often made a harbor, still the adjustment was 
 treacherous, the instrument beyond the use of the 
 poor, and that, once astray, its error increased 
 forever. I said that we believed we had a method 
 which, if the means were supplied for the experi- 
 ment, would give the humblest fisherman the very 
 certainty of sunrise and of sunset in his calcula- 
 tions of his place upon the world. And I said 
 
24 The Brick Moon 
 
 that whenever a man knew his place in this world, 
 it was always likely all would go well. Then I 
 sat down. 
 
 Then dear George spoke, — simply, but very 
 briefly. He said he was a stranger to the Boston 
 people, and that those who knew him at all knew 
 he was not a talking man. He was a civil engi- 
 neer, and his business was to calculate and to build, 
 and not to talk. But he had come here to say 
 that he had studied this new plan for the longitude 
 from the Top to the Bottom, and that he believed 
 in it through and through. There was his opin- 
 ion, if that was worth anything to anybody. If 
 that meeting resolved to go forward with the en- 
 terprise, or if anybody proposed to, he should 
 offer his services in any capacity, and without any 
 pay, for its success. If he might only work as^ 
 bricklayer, he would work as a bricklayer. For 
 he believed, on his soul, that the success of this 
 enterprise promised more for mankind than any 
 enterprise which was ever likely to call for the 
 devotion of his life. " And to the good of man- 
 kind," he said, very simply, " my life is devoted." 
 Then he sat down. 
 
 Then Brannan got up. Up to this time, except- 
 ing that George had dropped this hint about 
 bricklaying, nobody had said a word about the 
 Moon, far less hinted what it was to be made of. 
 So Ben had the whole to open. He did it as if he 
 had been talking to a bright boy of ten years old. 
 He made those people think that he respected 
 
The Brick Moon 25 
 
 them as his equals. But, in fact, he chose every 
 word, as if not one of them knew anything. He 
 explained, as if it were rather more simple to ex- 
 plain than to take for granted. But he explained 
 as if, were they talking, they might be explaining 
 to him. He led them from point to point, — oh ! 
 so much more clearly than I have been leading 
 you, — till, as their mouths dropped a little open 
 in their eager interest, and their lids forgot to wink 
 in their gaze upon his face, and so their eyebrows 
 seemed a little lifted in curiosity, — till, I say, each 
 man felt as if he were himself the inventor, who 
 had bridged difficulty after difficulty ; as if, indeed, 
 the whole were too simple to be called difficult or 
 complicated. The only wonder was that the Board 
 of Longitude, or the Emperor Napoleon, or the 
 Smithsonian, or somebody, had not sent this little 
 planet on its voyage of blessing long before. Not 
 a syllable that you would have called rhetoric, not 
 a word that you would have thought prepared ; 
 and then Brannan sat down. 
 
 That was Ben Brannan's way. For my part, I 
 like it better than eloquence. 
 
 Then I got up again. We would answer any 
 questions, I said. We represented people who 
 were eager to go forward with this work. (Alas ! 
 except Q., all of those represented were on the 
 stage.) We could not go forward without the 
 general assistance of the community. It was not 
 an enterprise which the government could be 
 asked to favor. It was not an enterprise which 
 
26 The Brick Moon 
 
 would yield one penny of profit to any human 
 being. We had therefore, purely on the ground 
 of its benefit to mankind, brought it before an 
 assembly of Boston men and women. 
 
 Then there was a pause, and we could hear our 
 watches tick, and our hearts beat. Dear George 
 asked me in a whisper if he should say anything 
 more, but I thought not. The pause became pain- 
 ful, and then Tom Coram, prince of merchants, 
 rose. Had any calculation been made of the 
 probable cost of the experiment of one moon? 
 
 I said the calculations were on the table. The 
 brick alone would cost ;^6o,ooo. Mr. Orcutt had 
 computed that ^214,729 would complete two fly- 
 wheels and one moon. This made no allowance 
 for whitewashing the moon, which was not strictly 
 necessary. The fly-wheels and water-power would 
 be equally valuable for the succeeding moons, ii 
 any were attempted, and therefore the second 
 moon could be turned off, it was hoped, for 
 ^159.732. 
 
 Thomas Coram had been standing all the time I 
 spoke, and in an instant he said : " I am no mathe- 
 matician. But I have had a ship ground to pieces 
 under me on the Laccadives because our chro- 
 nometer was wrong. You need ;^25o,ooo to build 
 your first moon. I will be one of twenty men to 
 furnish the money; or I will pay j8io,ooo to- 
 morrow for this purpose, to any person who may 
 be named as treasurer, to be repaid to me if the 
 moon is not finished this day twenty years." 
 
The Brick Moon 27 
 
 That was as long a speech as Tom Coram ever 
 made. But it was pointed. The small audience 
 tapped applause. 
 
 Orcutt looked at me, and I nodded. " I will be 
 another of the twenty men," cried he. " And I 
 another," said an old bluff Englishman, whom no- 
 body had invited ; who proved to be a Mr. Robert 
 Boll, a Sheffield man, who came in from curiosity. 
 He stopped after the meeting ; said he should leave 
 the country the next week, and I have never seen 
 him since. But his bill of exchange came all the 
 same. 
 
 That was all the public subscribing. Enough 
 more than we had hoped for. We tried to make 
 Coram treasurer, but he refused. We had to make 
 Haliburton treasurer, though we should have liked 
 a man better known than he then was. Then we. 
 adjourned. Some nice ladies then came up, and 
 gave, one a dollar, and one five dollars, and one 
 fifty, and so on, — and some men who have stuck 
 by ever since. I always, in my own mind, call each 
 of those women Damaris, and each of those men 
 Dionysius. But those are not their real names. 
 
 How I am wasting time on an old story ! Then 
 some of these ladies came the next day and pro- 
 posed a fair ; and out of that, six months after, 
 grew the great Longitude Fair, that you will all 
 remember, if you went to it, I am sure. And the 
 papers the next day gave us first-rate reports ; and 
 then, two by two, with our subscription-books, we 
 went at it. But I must not tell the details of that 
 
28 The Brick Moon 
 
 subscription. There were two or three men who 
 subscribed $S,ooo each, because they were per- 
 fectly certain the amount would never be raised. 
 They wanted, for once, to get the credit of liberal- 
 ity for nothing. There were many men and many 
 women who subscribed from one dollar up to one 
 thousand, not because they cared a straw for the 
 longitude, nor because they believed in the least in 
 the project ; but because they believed in Brannan, 
 in Orcutt, in Q., or in me. Love goes far in this 
 world of ours. Some few men subscribed because 
 others had done it : it was the thing to do, and 
 they must not be out of fashion. And three or four, 
 at least, subscribed because each hour of their lives 
 there came up the memory of the day when the 
 
 news came that the was lost, George, or Harry, 
 
 or John, in the , and they knew that George, 
 
 or Harry, or John might have been at home, had 
 it been easier than it is to read the courses of the 
 stars ! 
 
 Fair, subscriptions, and Orcutt's reserve, — we 
 counted up ^162,000, or nearly so. There would 
 be a little more when all was paid in. 
 
 But we could not use a cent, except Orcutt's and 
 our own little subscriptions, till we had got the 
 whole. And at this point it seemed as if the whole 
 world was sick of us, and that we had gathered 
 every penny that was in store for us. The orange 
 was squeezed dry ! 
 
The Brick Moon 
 II 
 
 HOW WE BUILT IT 
 
 29 
 
 The orange was squeezed dry! And how little 
 any of us knew, — skilful George Orcutt, thought- 
 ful Ben Brannan, loyal Haliburton, ingenious Q., 
 or poor painstaking I, — how little we knew, or 
 any of us, where was another orange, or how we 
 could mix malic acid and tartaric acid, and citric 
 acid and auric acid and sugar and water so as to 
 imitate orange-juice, and fill up the bank-account 
 enough to draw in the conditioned subscriptions, 
 and so begin to build the MooN. How often, as I 
 lay awake at night, have I added up the different 
 subscriptions in some new order, as if that would 
 help the matter : and how steadily they have come 
 out one hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars, 
 or even less, when I must needs, in my sleepiness, 
 forget somebody's name ! So Haliburton put into 
 railroad stocks all the money he collected, and the 
 rest of us ground on at our mills, or flew up on our 
 own wings towards Heaven. Thus Orcutt built 
 more tunnels, Q. prepared for more commence- 
 ments, Haliburton calculated more policies, Ben 
 Brannan created more civilization, and I, as I 
 could, healed the hurt of my people of Naguada- 
 vick for the months there were left to me of my 
 stay in that thriving town. 
 
 None of us had the wit to see how the problem 
 was to be wrought out further. No. The best 
 things come to us when we have faithfully and well 
 
30 The Brick Moon 
 
 made all the preparation and done our best ; but 
 they come in some way that is none of ours. So 
 was it now, that to build the Brick Moon it was 
 necessary that I should be turned out of Naguada- 
 vick ignominiously, and that Jeff. Davis and some 
 seven or eight other bad men should create the 
 Great Rebellion. Hear how it happened. 
 
 Dennis Shea, my Double, — otherwise, indeed, 
 called by my name and legally so, — undid me, as 
 my friends supposed, one evening at a public 
 meeting called by poor Isaacs in Naguadavick. 
 Of that transaction I have no occasion here to tell 
 the story. But of that transaction one conse- 
 quence is that the BRICK MoON now moves in 
 ether. I stop writing, to rest my eye upon it, 
 through a little telescope of Alvan Clark's here, 
 which is always trained near it. It is moving on 
 as placidly as ever. 
 
 It came about thus. The morning after poor 
 Dennis, whom I have long since forgiven, made 
 his extraordinary speeches, without any authority 
 from me, in the Town Hall at Naguadavick, I 
 thought, and my wife agreed with me, that we 
 had better both leave town with the children. 
 Auchmuty, our dear friend, thought so too. We 
 left in the seven o'clock Accommodation for Skow- 
 hegan, and so came to Township No. 9 in the 3d 
 Range, and there for years we resided. That 
 whole range of townships was set off under a pro- 
 vision admirable in its character, that the first 
 settled minister in each town should receive one 
 
The Brick Moon 31 
 
 hundred acres of land as the " minister's grant," 
 and the first settled schoolmaster eighty. To No. 
 9, therefore, I came. I constituted a little Sande- 
 manian church. Auchmuty and Delafield came 
 up and installed me, and with these hands I built 
 the cabin in which, with Polly and the httle ones, 
 I have since spent many happy nights and days. 
 This is not the place for me to publish a map, 
 which I have by me, of No. 9, nor an account of 
 its many advantages for settlers. Should I ever 
 print my papers called " Stay-at-home Robinsons," 
 it will be easy with them to explain its topography 
 and geography. Suffice it now to say, that, with 
 Alice and Bertha and Polly, I took tramps up and 
 down through the lumbermen's roads, and soon 
 knew the general features of the lay of the land. 
 Nor was it long, of course, before we came out 
 one day upon the curious land-slides, which have 
 more than once averted the flow of the Little Car- 
 rotook River, where it has washed the rocks away 
 so far as to let down one section more of the over- 
 lying yielding yellow clay. 
 
 Think how my eyes flashed, and my wife's, as, 
 struggling though a wilderness of moosewood, we 
 came out one afternoon on this front of yellow 
 clay! Yellow clay of course, when properly 
 treated by fire, is brick! Here we were sur- 
 rounded by forests, only waiting to be burned; 
 yonder was clay, only waiting to be baked. Polly 
 looked at me, and I looked at her, and with one 
 voice, we cried out, " The MoON ! " 
 
32 The Brick Moon 
 
 For here was this shouting river at our feet, 
 whose power had been running to waste since the 
 day when the Laurentian hills first heaved them- 
 selves above the hot Atlantic ; and that day, I am 
 informed by Mr. Agassiz, was the first day in the 
 history of this solid world. Here was water-power 
 enough for forty fly-wheels, were it necessary to 
 send heavenward twenty moons. Here was solid 
 timber enough for a hundred dams, yet only one 
 was necessary to give motion to the fly-wheels. 
 Here was retirement, — freedom from criticism, an 
 escape from the journalists, who would not em- 
 barrass us by telling of every cracked brick which 
 had to be rejected from the structure. We had 
 lived in No. 9 now for six weeks, and not an " own 
 correspondent" of them all had yet told what 
 Rev. Mr. Ingham had for dinner. 
 
 Of course I wrote to George Orcutt at once of 
 our great discovery, and he came up at once to 
 examine the situation. On the whole, it pleased 
 him. He could not take the site I proposed for 
 the dam, because this very clay there made the 
 channel treacherous, and there was danger that 
 the stream would work out a new career. But 
 lower down we found a stony gorge with which 
 George was satisfied ; he traced out a line for a 
 railway by which, of their own weight, the brick- 
 cars could run to the centrings ; he showed us 
 where, with some excavations, the fly-wheels could 
 be placed exactly above the great mill-wheels, 
 that no power might be wasted, and explained to 
 
The Brick Moon 33 
 
 us how, when the gigantic structure was finished, 
 the Brick Moon would gently roll down its ways 
 upon the rapid wheels, to be launched instant 
 into the sky ! 
 
 Shall I ever forget that happy October day of 
 anticipation? 
 
 We spent many of those October days in tenta- 
 tive surveys. Alice and Bertha were our chain- 
 men, intelligent and obedient. I drove for George 
 his stakes, or I cut away his brush, or I raised and 
 lowered the shield at which he sighted ; and at 
 noon Polly appeared with her baskets, and we 
 would dine al fresco, on a pretty point which, not 
 many months after, was wholly covered by the 
 eastern end of the dam. When the field-work 
 was finished we retired to the cabin for days, and 
 calculated and drew, and drew and calculated. 
 Estimates for feeding Irishmen, estimates of hay 
 for mules, — George was sure he could work mules 
 better than oxen, — estimates for cement, esti- 
 mates for the preliminary saw-mills, estimates for 
 rail for the little brick-road, for wheels, for spikes, 
 and for cutting ties ; what did we not estimate for 
 — on a basis almost wholly new, you will observe. 
 For here the brick would cost us less than our 
 old conceptions, — our water-power cost us almost 
 nothing, — but our stores and our wages would 
 cost us much more. 
 
 These estimates are now to me very curious, — 
 a monument, indeed, to dear George's memory, 
 that in the result they proved so accurate. I 
 
 3 
 
34 The Brick Moon 
 
 would gladly print them here at length, with some 
 illustrative cuts, but that I know the impatience of 
 the public, and its indifference to detail. If we are 
 ever able to print a proper memorial of George, 
 that, perhaps, will be the fitter place for them. 
 Suffice it to say that with the subtractions thus 
 made from the original estimates, — even with 
 the additions forced upon us by working in a 
 wilderness, — George was satisfied that a money 
 charge of $197,327 would build and start THE 
 Moon. As soon as we had determined the site, 
 we marked off eighty acres, which contained all 
 the essential localities, up and down the little 
 Carrotook River, — I engaged George for the first 
 schoolmaster in No. 9, and he took these eighty 
 acres for the schoolmaster's reservation. Alice 
 and Bertha went to school to him the next day, 
 taking lessons in civil engineering ; and I wrote to 
 the Bingham trustees to notify them that I had 
 engaged a teacher, and that he had selected his 
 land. 
 
 Of course we remembered, still, that we were 
 near forty thousand dollars short of the new esti- 
 mates, and also that much of our money would 
 not be paid us but on condition that two hundred 
 and fifty thousand were raised. But George said 
 that his own subscription was wholly unhampered : 
 with that we would go to work on the preliminary 
 work of the dam, and on the flies. Then, if the 
 flies would hold together, — and they should hold 
 if mortise and iron could hold them, — they might 
 
The' Brick Moon 35 
 
 be at work summers and winters, days and nights, 
 storing up Power for us. This would encourage 
 the subscribers, it would encourage us ; and all this 
 preliminary work would be out of the way when 
 we were really ready to begin upon the Moon. 
 
 Brannan, Haliburton, and Q. readily agreed to 
 this when they were consulted. They were the 
 other trustees under an instrument which we had 
 got St. Leger^ to draw up. George gave' up, as 
 soon as he might, his other appointments; and 
 taught me, meanwhile, where and how I was to rig 
 a little saw-mill, to cut some necessary lumber. I 
 engaged a gang of men to cut the timber for the 
 dam, and to have it ready; and, with the next 
 spring, we were well at work on the dam and on 
 the flies ! These needed, of course, the most solid 
 foundation. The least irregularity of their move- 
 ment might send the MooN awry. 
 
 Ah me ! would I not gladly tell the history of 
 every bar of iron which was bent into the tires 
 of those flies, and of every log which was mortised 
 into its place in the dam, nay, of every curling 
 mass of foam which played in the eddies beneath, 
 when the dam was finished, and the waste water 
 ran so smoothly over? Alas! that one drop 
 should be wasted of water that might move a world, 
 although a small one ! I almost dare say that I 
 remember each and all these, — with such hope 
 and happiness did I lend myself, as I could, each 
 
 1 The St. Leger of these stories was Francis Brown Hayes, 
 H. C. 1839. 
 
36 The Brick Moon 
 
 day to the great enterprise;* lending to dear 
 George, who was here and there and everywhere, 
 and was this and that and everybody, — lending 
 to him, I say, such poor help as I could lend, in 
 whatever way. We waked, in the two cabins in 
 those happy days, just before the sun came up, 
 when the birds were in their loudest clamor of 
 morning joy. Wrapped each in a blanket, George 
 and I stepped out from our doors, each trying to 
 call the other, and often meeting on the grass be- 
 tween. We ran to the river and plunged in, — 
 oh, h9w cold it was ! — laughed and screamed like 
 boys, rubbed ourselves aglow, and ran home to 
 build Polly's fire beneath the open chimney which 
 stood beside my cabin. The bread had risen in 
 the night. The water soon boiled above the logs. 
 The children came laughing out upon the grass, 
 barefoot, and fearless of the dew. Then Polly 
 appeared with her gridiron and bear-steak, or with 
 her griddle and eggs, and, in fewer minutes than 
 this page has cost me, the breakfast was ready for 
 Alice to carry, dish by dish, to the white-clad 
 table on the piazza. Not Raphael and Adam 
 more enjoyed their watermelons, fox-grapes, and 
 late blueberries ! And, in the long croon of 
 the breakfast, we revenged ourselves for the haste 
 with which it had been prepared. 
 
 When we were well at table, a horn from the 
 cabins below sounded the reveille for the drowsier 
 workmen. Soon above the larches rose the blue 
 of their smokes; and when we were at last nod- 
 
The Brick Moon 37 
 
 ding to the children, to say that they might leave 
 the table, and Polly was folding her napkin as to 
 say she wished we were gone, we would see tall 
 Asaph Langdon, then foreman of the carpenters, 
 sauntering up the valley with a roll of paper, or an 
 adze, or a shingle with some calculations on it, — 
 with something on which he wanted Mr. Orcutt's 
 directions for the day. 
 
 An hour of nothings set the carnal machinery 
 of the day agoing. We fed the horses, the cows, 
 the pigs, and the hens. We collected the eggs 
 and cleaned the hen-houses and the barns. We 
 brought in wood enough for the day's fire, and 
 water enough for the day's cooking and cleanli- 
 ness. These heads describe what I and the children 
 did. Polly's life during that hour was more mys- 
 terious. That great first hour of the day is devoted 
 with women to the deepest arcana of the Eleusin- 
 ian mysteries of the divine science of housekeep- 
 ing. She who can meet the requisitions of that 
 hour wisely and bravely conquers in the Day's 
 Battle. But what she does in it, let no man 
 try to say ! It can be named, but not described, 
 in the comprehensive formula, "Just stepping 
 round." 
 
 That hour well given to chores and to digestion, 
 the children went to Mr. Orcutt's open-air school, 
 and I to my rustic study, — a separate cabin, with 
 a rough square table in it, and some book-boxes 
 equally rude. No man entered it, excepting George 
 and me. Here for two hours I worked undisturbed, 
 
38 The Brick Moon 
 
 — how happy the world, had it neither postman nor 
 door-bell ! — worked upon my Traces of Sande- 
 manianism in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries, 
 and then was ready to render such service to The 
 Cause and to George as the day might demand. 
 Thus I rode to Lincoln or to Foxcroft to order 
 supplies ; I took my gun and lay in wait on Chair- 
 back for a bear ; I transferred to the hewn lumber 
 the angles or bevels from the careful drawings : as 
 best I could, I filled an apostle's part, and became 
 all things to all these men around me. Happy 
 those days ! — and thus the dam was built ; in 
 such Arcadian simplicity was reared the mighty 
 wheel; thus grew on each side the towers which 
 were to support the flies; and thus, to our 
 delight not unmixed with wonder, at last w© 
 saw those mighty flies begin to turn. Not in one 
 day, nor in ten; but in a year or two of happy 
 life, — full of the joy of joys, — the "joy of event- 
 ful living." 
 
 Yet, for all this, $162,000 was not $197,000, far 
 less was it $250,000; and but for Jeff. Davis and 
 his crew the Brick Moon would not have been 
 born. 
 
 But at last Jeff. Davis was ready, " My prepa- 
 rations being completed," wrote General Beaure- 
 gard, " I opened fire on Fort Sumter." Little did 
 he know it, — but in that explosion the Brick 
 Moon also was lifted into the sky! 
 
 Little did we know it, when, four weeks after, 
 George came up from the settlements, all excited 
 
The Brick Moon 39 
 
 with the news ! The wheels had been turning now 
 for four days, faster of course and faster. George 
 had gone down for money to pay off the men, 
 and he brought us up the news that the Rebellion 
 had begun. 
 
 " The last of this happy life," he said ; "the last, 
 alas, of our dear MooN." How little he knew 
 and we ! 
 
 But he paid off the men, and they packed their 
 traps and disappeared, and, before two months 
 were over, were in the lines before the enemy. 
 George packed up, bade us sadly good-by, and 
 before a week had offered his service to Governor 
 Fenton in Albany. For us, it took rather longer ; 
 but we were soon packed ; Polly took the children 
 to her sister's, and I went on to the Department 
 to offer my service there. No sign of life left in 
 No. 9, but the two gigantic Fly-Wheels, moving 
 faster and faster by day and by night, and accu- 
 mulating Power till it was needed. If only they 
 would hold together till the moment came ! 
 
 So we all ground through the first slow year of 
 the war. George in his place, I in mine, Brannan 
 in his, — we lifted as we could. But how heavy 
 the weight seemed ! It was in the second year, 
 when the second large loan was placed, that Hali- 
 burton wrote to me, — I got the letter, I think, at 
 Hilton Head, — that he had sold out every penny 
 of our railroad stocks, at the high prices which 
 railroad stocks then bore, and had invested the 
 whole fifty-nine thousand in the new Governments. 
 
40 The Brick Moon 
 
 " I could not call a board meeting," said Halibur- 
 ton, " for I am here only on leave of absence, and 
 the rest are all away. But the case is clear 
 enough. If the government goes up, the Moon 
 will never go up ; and, for one, I do not look be- 
 yond the veil." So he wrote to us all, and of 
 course we all approved. 
 
 So it was that Jeff. Davis also served. Deep 
 must that man go into the Pit who does not serve, 
 though unconscious. For thus it was that, in the 
 fourth year of the war, when gold was at 290, 
 Haliburton was receiving on his fifty-nine thousand 
 dollars seventeen per cent interest in currency; 
 thus was it that, before the war was over, he had 
 piled up, compounding his interest, more than 
 fifty per cent addition to his capital; thus was it 
 that, as soon as peace came, all his stocks were at 
 a handsome percentage ; thus was it that, before I 
 returned from South America, he reported to all 
 the subscribers that the full quarter-million was 
 secured : thus was it that, when I returned after 
 that long cruise of mine in the Florida, I found 
 Polly and the children again at No. 9, George 
 there also, directing a working party of nearly 
 eighty bricklayers and hodmen, the lower cen- 
 trings wellnigh filled to their diameter, and the 
 Brick Moon, to the eye, seeming almost half 
 completed. 
 
 Here it is that I regret most of all that I cannot 
 print the working-drawings with this paper. If 
 you will cut open the seed-vessel of Spergularia 
 
The Brick Moon 41 
 
 Rubra, or any other carpel that has a free central 
 placenta, and observe how the circular seeds cling 
 around the circular centre, you will have some 
 idea of the arrangement of a transverse horizontal 
 section of the completed Moon. Lay three cro- 
 quet-balls on the piazza, and call one or two of 
 the children to help you poise seven in one plane 
 above the three; then let another child place 
 three more above the seven, and you have the 
 core of the MoON completely. If you want a 
 more poetical illustration, it was what Mr. Words- 
 worth calls a mass 
 
 "Of conglobated bubbles undissolved." 
 
 Any section through any diameter looked like 
 an immense rose-window, of six circles grouped 
 round a seventh. In truth, each of these sections 
 would reveal the existence of seven chambers in 
 the moon, — each a sphere itself, — whose arches 
 gave solidity to the whole ; while yet, of the whole 
 moon, the greater part was air. In all there were 
 thirteen of these moonlets, if I am so to call them ; 
 though no one section, of course, would reveal so 
 many. Sustained on each side by their groined 
 arches, the surface of the whole moon was built 
 over them and under them, — simply two domes 
 connected at the bases. The chambers them- 
 selves were made lighter by leaving large, round 
 windows or open circles in the parts of their vaults 
 farthest from their points of contact, so that each 
 of them looked not unlike the outer sphere of a 
 
42 The Brick Moon 
 
 Japanese ivory nest of concentric balls. You see 
 the object was to make a moon, which, when left 
 to its own gravity, should be fitly supported or 
 braced within. Dear George was sure that, by 
 this constant repetition of arches, we should with 
 the least weight unite the greatest strength. I 
 believe it still, and experience has proved that 
 there is strength enough. 
 
 When I went up to No. 9, on my return from 
 South America, I found the lower centring up, 
 and half full of the working-bees, — who were 
 really Keltic laborers, — all busy in bringing up 
 the lower half-dome of the shell. This lower cen- 
 tring was of wood, in form exactly like a Roman 
 amphitheatre if the seats of it be circular; on this 
 the lower or inverted brick dome was laid. The 
 whole fabric was on one of the terraces which 
 were heaved up in some old geological cataclysm, 
 when some lake gave way, and the Carrotook 
 River was born. The level was higher than that 
 of the top of the fly-wheels, which, with an awful 
 velocity now, were circling in their wild career in 
 the ravine below. Three of the lowest moonlets, 
 as I have called them, — separate croquet-balls, 
 if you take my other illustration, — had been com- 
 pleted ; their centrings had been taken to pieces 
 and drawn out through the holes, and were now 
 set up again with other new centrings for the 
 second story of cells. 
 
 I was received with wonder and delight. I had 
 telegraphed my arrival, but the despatches had 
 
The Brick Moon 43 
 
 never been forwarded from Skowhegan. Of course, 
 we all had a deal to tell ; and, for me, there was no 
 end to inquiries which I had to make in turn. I 
 was never tired of exploring the various spheres, 
 and the nameless spaces between them. I was 
 never tired of talking with the laborers. All of 
 us, indeed, became skilful bricklayers ; and on a 
 pleasant afternoon you might see Alice and Bertha, 
 and George and me, all laying brick together, — 
 Polly sitting in the shade of some wall which had 
 been built high enough, and reading to us from 
 Jean Ingelow or Monte-Cristo or Jane Austen, 
 while little Clara brought to us our mortar. Hap- 
 pily and lightly went by that summer. Haliburton 
 and his wife made us a visit; Ben Brannan brought 
 up his wife and children ; Mrs. Haliburton herself 
 put in the keystone to the central chamber, which 
 had always been named G on the plans; and at 
 her suggestion, it was named Grace now, because 
 her mother's name was Hannah. Before winter we 
 had passed the diameter of I, J, and K, the three 
 uppermost cells of all ; and the surrounding shell 
 was closing in upon them. On the whole, the 
 funds had held out amazingly well. The wages 
 had been rather higher than we meant ; but the 
 men had no chances at liquor or dissipation, and 
 had worked faster than we expected; and, with 
 our new brick-machines, we made brick incon- 
 ceivably fast, while their quality was so good that 
 dear George said there was never so little waste. 
 We celebrated Thanksgiving of that year together, 
 
44 The Brick Moon 
 
 — my family and his family. We had paid off all 
 the laborers ; and there were left, of that busy vil- 
 lage, only Asaph Langdon and his family, Levi 
 Jordan and Levi Ross, Horace Leonard and Seth 
 Whitman with theirs. " Theirs," I say, but Ross 
 had no family. He was a nice young fellow who 
 was there as Haliburton's representative, to take 
 care of the accounts and the pay-roll ; Jordan was 
 the head of the brick-kilns ; Leonard, of the car- 
 penters ; and Whitman, of the commissariat, — and 
 a good commissary Whitman was. 
 
 We celebrated Thanksgiving together ! Ah me ! 
 what a cheerful, pleasant time we had ; how happy 
 the children were together ! Polly and I and our 
 bairns were to go to Boston the next day. I was 
 to spend the winter in one final effort to get 
 twenty-five thousand dollars more if I could, with 
 which we might paint the MooN, or put on some 
 ground felspathic granite dust, in a sort of paste, 
 which in its hot flight through the air might fuse 
 into a white enamel. All of us who saw the MoON 
 were so delighted with its success that we felt sure 
 " the friends " would not pause about this trifle. 
 The rest of them were to stay there to watch the 
 winter, and to be ready to begin work the moment 
 the snow had gone. Thanksgiving afternoon, — 
 how well I remember it, — that good fellow, Whit- 
 man, came and asked Polly and me to visit his 
 family in their new quarters. They had moved 
 for the winter into cells B and E, so lofty, spacious, 
 and warm, and so much drier than their log cabins. 
 
The Brick Moon 45 
 
 Mrs. Whitman, I remember, was very cheerful and 
 jolly; made my children eat another piece of pie, 
 and stuffed their pockets with raisins; and then 
 with great ceremony and fun we christened room B 
 by the name of Bertha, and E, Ellen, which was 
 Mrs. Whitman's name. And the next day we bade 
 them all good-by, little thinking what we said, and 
 with endless promises of what we would send and 
 bring them in the spring. 
 
 Here are the scraps of letters from Orcutt, dear 
 fellow, which tell what more there is left to tell : — 
 
 " December loth. 
 
 "... After you left we were a little blue, and hung 
 round loose for a day or two. Sunday we missed you 
 especially, but Asaph made a good substitute, and Mrs. 
 Leonard led the singing. The next day we moved the 
 Leonards into L and M, which we christened Leonard 
 and Mary (Mary is for your wife). They are pretty 
 dark, but very dry. Leonard has swung hammocks, as 
 Whitman did. 
 
 " Asaph came, to me Tuesday and said he thought 
 they had better turn to and put a shed over the unfin- 
 ished circle, and so take occasion of warm days for dry 
 work there. This we have done, and the occupation is 
 good for us. ..." 
 
 " December 25tli. 
 
 " I have had no chance to write for a fortnight The 
 truth is, that the weather has been so open that I let 
 Asaph go down to No. 7 and to Wilder's, and engage 
 five-and-twenty of the best of the men, who, we knew. 
 
46 The Brick Moon 
 
 were hanging round there. We have all been at work 
 most of the time since, with very good success. H is 
 now wholly covered in, and the centring is out. The 
 men have named it Haliburton. I is well advanced. 
 J is as you left it. The work has been good for us all, 
 morally." 
 
 "February nth. 
 
 "... We got your mail unexpectedly by some 
 lumbermen on their way to the 9th Range. One of 
 them has cut himself, and takes this down. 
 
 " You will be amazed to hear that I and K are both 
 done. We have had splendid weather, and have worked 
 half the time. We had a great jollification when K 
 was closed in, — called it Kilpatrick, for Seth's old 
 general. I wish you could just run up and see us. 
 You must be quick, if you want to put in any of the last 
 licks. . . ." 
 
 "March 12th. 
 
 " Dear Fred, — I have but an instant. By all 
 means make your preparations to be here by the end 
 of the month or early in next month. The weather has 
 been faultless, you know. Asaph got in a dozen more 
 men, and we have brought up the surface farther than 
 you could dream. The ways are well forward, and I 
 cannot see why, if the freshet hold off a little, we should 
 not launch her by the loth or 12 th. I do not think it 
 worth while to wait for paint or enamel. Telegraph 
 Brannan that he must be here. You will be amused by 
 our quarters. We, who were the last outsiders, move 
 into A and D to-morrow, for a few weeks. It is much 
 warmer there. 
 
 " Ever yours, G. O." 
 
The Brick Moon 47 
 
 I telegraphed Brannan, and in reply he came 
 with his wife and his children to Boston. I told 
 him that he could not possibly get up there, as 
 the roads then were ; but Ben said he would go 
 to Skowhegan, and take his chance there. He 
 would, of course, communicate with me as soon 
 as he got there. Accordingly I got a note from 
 him at Skowhegan, saying he had hired a sleigh 
 to go over to No, 9 ; and in four days more I got 
 this letter : — 
 
 March 27th. 
 
 Dear Fred, — I am most glad I came, and I beg 
 you to bring your wife as soon as possible. The river 
 is very full, the wheels, to which Leonard has added 
 two auxiliaries, are moving as if they could not hold out 
 long, the ways are all but ready, and we think we must 
 not wait. Start with all hands as soon as you can. I 
 had no difficulty in coming over from Skowhegan. We 
 did it in two days. 
 
 This note I sent at once to Haliburton ; and we 
 got all the children ready for a winter journey, as 
 the spectacle of the launch of the MoON was one 
 to be remembered their life long. But it was 
 clearly impossible to attempt, at that season, to 
 get the subscribers together. Just as we started, 
 this despatch from Skowhegan was brought me, 
 — the last word I got from them : — 
 
 Stop for nothing. There is a jam below us in the 
 
 stream, and we fear back-water. 
 
 Orcutt. 
 
48 The Brick Moon 
 
 Of course we could not go faster than we could. 
 We missed no connection. At Skowhegan, Hali- 
 burton and I took a cutter, leaving the ladies and 
 children to follow at once in larger sleighs. We 
 drove all night, changed horses at Prospect, and 
 kept on all the next day. At No. 7 we had to 
 wait over night. We started early in the morning, 
 and came down the Spoonwood Hill at four in 
 the afternoon, in full sight of our little village. 
 
 It was quiet as the grave ! Not a smoke, not a 
 man, not an adze-blow, nor the tick of a trowel. 
 Only the gigantic fly-wheels were whirling as I 
 saw them last. 
 
 There was the lower Coliseum-like centring, 
 somewhat as I first saw it. 
 
 But where was the Brick Dome of the MoON? 
 
 "Good Heavens! has it fallen on them all?" 
 cried I. 
 
 Haliburton lashed the beast till he fairly ran 
 down that steep hill. We turned a little point, 
 and came out in front of the centring. There was 
 no Moon there ! An empty amphitheatre, with 
 not a brick nor a splinter within ! 
 
 We were speechless. We left the cutter. We 
 ran up the stairways to the terrace. We ran by the 
 familiar paths into the centring. We came out upon 
 the ways, which we had never seen before. These 
 told the story too well ! The ground and crushed 
 surface of the timbers, scorched by the rapidity 
 with which the MoON had slid down, told that 
 they had done the duty for which they were built. 
 
The Brick Moon 49 
 
 It was too clear that in some wild rush of the 
 waters the ground had yielded a trifle. We could 
 not find that the foundations had sunk more than 
 six inches, but that was enough. In that fatal six 
 inches' decline of the centring, the MoON had 
 been launched upon the ways just as George had 
 intended that it should be when he was ready. 
 But it had slid, not rolled, down upon these angry 
 fly-wheels, and in an instant, with all our friends, 
 it had been hurled into the sky ! 
 
 " They have gone up ! " said Haliburton ; " She 
 has gone up ! " said I ; — both in one breath. And 
 with a common instinct, we looked up into the blue. 
 
 But of course she was not there. 
 
 Not a shred of letter or any other tidings could 
 we find in any of the shanties. It was indeed six 
 weeks since George and Fanny and their children 
 had moved into Annie and Diamond, — two un- 
 occupied cells of the MoON, — so much more 
 comfortable had the cells proved than the cabins, 
 for winter life. Returning to No. 7, we found 
 there many of the laborers, who were astonished 
 at what we told them. They had been paid off 
 on the 30th, and told to come up again on the 
 iSth of April, to see the launch. One of them, a 
 man named Rob Shea, told me that George kept 
 his cousin Peter to help him move back into his 
 house the beginning of the next week. 
 
 And that was the last I knew of any of them for 
 4 
 
50 The Brick Moon 
 
 more than a year. At first I expected, each hour, 
 to hear that they had fallen somewhere. But 
 time passed by, and of such a fall, where man 
 knows the world's surface, there was no tale. I 
 answered, as best I could, the letters of their 
 friends, by saying I did not know where they 
 were, and had not heard from them. My real 
 thought was, that if this fatal MoON did indeed 
 pass our atmosphere, all in it must have been 
 burned to death in the transit. But this I whis- 
 pered to no one save to Polly and Annie and 
 Haliburton. In this terrible doubt I remained, till 
 I noticed one day in the " Astronomical Record " 
 the memorandum, which you perhaps remember, 
 of the observation, by Dr. Zitta, of a new asteroid, 
 with an enormous movement in declination. 
 
 Ill 
 
 FULFILMENT 
 
 Looking back upon it now, it seems inconceivable 
 that we said as little to each other as we did, of 
 this horrible catastrophe. That night we did not 
 pretend to sleep. We sat in one of the deserted 
 cabins, now talking fast, now sitting and brooding, 
 without speaking, perhaps, for hours. Riding 
 back the next day to meet the women and chil- 
 dren, we still brooded, or we discussed this " if," 
 that " if," and yet others. But after we had once 
 opened it all to them, — and when we had once 
 
The Brick Moon 51 
 
 answered the children's horribly na'fve questions 
 as best we could, — we very seldom spoke to each 
 other of it again. It was too hateful, all of it, to 
 talk about. I went round to Tom Coram's office 
 one day, and told him all I knew. He saw it was 
 dreadful to me, and, with his eyes full, just squeezed 
 my hand, and never said one word more. We lay 
 awake nights, pondering and wondering, but hardly 
 ever did I to Haliburton or he to me explain our 
 respective notions as they came and went. I 
 believe my general impression was that of which 
 I have spoken, that they were all burned to death 
 on the instant, as the little aerolite fused in its 
 passage through our atmosphere. I believe Hali- 
 burton's thought more often was that they were 
 conscious of what had happened, and gasped out 
 their lives in one or two breathless minutes, — so 
 horribly long ! — as they shot outside of our at- 
 mosphere. But it was all too terrible for words. 
 And that which we could not but think upon, in 
 those dreadful waking nights, we scarcely whis- 
 pered even to our wives. 
 
 Of course I looked and he looked for the miser- 
 able thing. But we looked in vain. I returned 
 to the few subscribers the money which I had 
 scraped together towards whitewashing the moon, 
 — " shrouding its guilty face with innocent white " 
 indeed! But we agreed to spend the wretched 
 trifle of the other money, left in the treasury after 
 paying the last bills, for the largest Alvan Clark 
 telescope that we could buy ; and we were fortu- 
 
52 The Brick Moon 
 
 nate in obtaining cheap a second-hand one which 
 came to the hammer when the property of the 
 Shubael Academy was sold by the mortgagees. 
 But we had, of course, scarce a hint whatever as 
 to where the miserable object was to be found. 
 All we could do was to carry the glass to No. 9, 
 to train it there on the meridian of No. 9, and 
 take turns every night in watching the field, in the 
 hope that this child of sorrow might drift across it 
 in its path of ruin. But, though everything else 
 seemed to drift by, from east to west, nothing 
 came from south to north, as we expected. For 
 a whole month of spring, another of autumn, 
 another of summer, and another of winter, did 
 Haliburton and his wife and Polly and I glue our 
 eyes to that eye-glass, from the twilight of evening 
 to the twilight of morning, and the dead hulk 
 never hove in sight. Wherever else it was, it 
 seemed not to be on that meridian, which was 
 where it ought to be and was made to be ! Had 
 ever any dead mass of matter wrought such ruin 
 to its makers, and, of its own stupid inertia, so 
 falsified all the prophecies of its birth ! Oh, the 
 total depravity of things ! 
 
 It was more than a year after the fatal night, — 
 if it all happened in the night, as I suppose, — 
 that, as I dreamily read through the "Astronomi- 
 cal Record " in the new reading-room of the College 
 Library at Cambridge, I lighted on this scrap : — 
 
 " Professor Karl Zitta of Breslau writes to the 
 Astronomische Nachrichten to claim the discovery 
 
The Brick Moon 53 
 
 of a new asteroid observed by him on the night of 
 March 31st. 
 
 
 
 (92) 
 
 
 
 
 
 App. A. R. 
 
 App. Decl. 
 
 
 Bresl. M. T. 
 
 h. m. s. 
 
 h. m. a. 
 
 t n 
 
 Size. 
 
 March 31 
 
 12 S3 SI.9 
 
 IS 39 S2.32 
 
 —23 50 26.1 
 
 12.9 
 
 April I 
 
 I 3 2.1 
 
 IS 39 52-32 
 
 —23 9 1.9 
 
 12.9 
 
 He proposes for the asteroid the name of Phcebe. 
 Dr. Zitta states that in the short period which he 
 had for observing Phoebe, for an hour after mid- 
 night, her motion in R. A. seemed sh'ght and her 
 motion in declination very rapid." 
 
 After this, however, for months, nay even to this 
 moment, nothing more was heard of Dr. Zitta of 
 Breslau. 
 
 But, one morning, before I was up, Hahburton 
 came banging at my door on D Street. The mood 
 had taken him, as he returned from some private 
 theatricals at Cambridge, to take the comfort of 
 the new reading-room at night, and thus express 
 in practice his gratitude to the overseers of the 
 college for keeping it open through all the twenty- 
 four hours. Poor Hahburton, he did not sleep 
 well in those times ! Well, as he read away on 
 the Astronomiscke Nachrichten itself, what should 
 he find but this in German, which he copied for 
 me, and then, all on foot in the rain and darkness, 
 tramped over with, to South Boston : — 
 
 " The most enlightened head professor Dr. 
 Gmelin writes to the director of the Porpol As- 
 
54 The Brick Moon 
 
 tronomik at St. Petersburg, to claim the discovery 
 of an asteroid in a very high southern latitude, of 
 a wider inclination of the orbit, as will be noticed, 
 than any asteroid yet observed. 
 
 "Planet's apparent a ai""- 20'°' 5i^-.40. Planet's 
 apparent S — 39° 31' ii".9. Comparison star a. 
 
 " Dr. Gmelin publishes no separate second ob- 
 servation, but is confident that the declination is 
 diminishing. Dr. Gmelin suggests for the name 
 of this extra-zodiacal planet ' lo,' as appropriate 
 to its wanderings from the accustomed ways of 
 planetary life, and trusts that the very distin- 
 guished Herr Peters, the godfather of so many 
 planets, will relinquish this name, already claimed 
 for the asteroid (85) observed by him, September 
 IS, 1865." 
 
 I had run down stairs almost as I was, slippers 
 and dressing-gown being the only claims I had on 
 society. But to me, as to Haliburton, this stuff 
 about " extra-zodiacal wandering " blazed out upon 
 the page, and though there was no evidence that 
 the " most enhghtened " Gmelin found anything 
 the next night, yet, if his " diminishing " meant 
 anything, there was, with Zitta's observation, — 
 whoever Zitta might be, — something to start 
 upon. We rushed upon some old bound volumes 
 of the Record and spotted the " enlightened 
 Gmelin." He was chief of a college at Taganrog, 
 where perhaps they had a spyglass. This gave 
 us the parallax of his observation. Breslau, of 
 course, we knew, and so we could place Zitta's, 
 
The Brick Moon 55 
 
 and with these poor data I went to work to con- 
 struct, if I could, an orbit for this lo-Phoebe mass 
 of brick and mortar. Haliburton, not strong in 
 spherical trigonometry, looked out logarithms for 
 me till breakfast, and, as soon as it would do, went 
 over to Mrs. Bowdoin, to borrow her telescope, 
 ours being left at No. 9. 
 
 Mrs. Bowdoin was kind, as she always was, and 
 at noon Haliburton appeared in triumph with the 
 boxes on P. Nolan's job-wagon. We always em- 
 ploy P., in memory of dear old Phil. We got the 
 telescope rigged, and waited for night, only, alas ! 
 to be disappointed again. lo had wandered some- 
 where else, and, with all our sweeping back and 
 forth on the tentative curve I had laid out, lo 
 would not appear. We spent that night in vain. 
 
 But we were not going to give it up so. Phoebe 
 might have gone round the world twice before she 
 became lo; might have gone three times, four, 
 five, six, — nay, six hundred, — who knew .' Nay, 
 who knew how far off Phceb-Io was or lo-Phcebe ? 
 We sent over for Annie, and she and Polly and 
 George and I went to work again. We calculated 
 in the next week sixty-seven orbits on the sup- 
 position of so many different distances from our 
 surface. I laid out on a paper, which we stuck 
 up on the wall opposite, the formula, and then 
 one woman and one man attacked each set of 
 elements, each having the Logarithmic Tables, 
 and so in a week's working-time the sixty-seven 
 orbits were completed. Seventy-seven possible 
 
56 The Brick Moon 
 
 places for lo-Phcebe to be in on the forthcoming 
 Friday evening. Of these sixty-seven, forty-one 
 were observable above our horizon that night. 
 
 She was not in one of the forty-one, nor near it. 
 
 But Despair, if Giotto be correct, is the chief of 
 sins. So has he depicted her in the fresco of the 
 Arena in Padua. No sin, that, of ours ! After 
 searching all that Friday night, we slept all Satur- 
 day (sleeping after sweeping). We all came to 
 the Chapel, Sunday, kept awake there, and taught 
 our Sunday classes special lessons on Persever- 
 ance. On Monday we began again, and that 
 week we calculated sixty-seven more orbits. I 
 am sure I do not know why we stopped at sixty- 
 seven. All of these were on the supposition that 
 the revolution of the Brick Moon, or lo-Phcebe, 
 was so fast that it would require either fifteen days 
 to complete its orbit, or sixteen days, or seven- 
 teen days, and so on up to eighty-one days. And, 
 with these orbits, on the next Friday we waited 
 for the darkness. As we sat at tea, I asked if I 
 should begin observing at the smallest or at the 
 largest orbit. And there was a great clamor of 
 diverse opinions. But little Bertha said, " Begin 
 in the middle." 
 
 " And what is the middle ? " said George, chaff- 
 ing the little girl. 
 
 But she was not to be dismayed. She had been 
 in and out all the week, and knew that the first 
 orbit was of fifteen days and the last of eighty-one ; 
 and, with true Lincoln School precision, she said, 
 
The Brick Moon 57 
 
 " The mean of the smallest orbit and the largest 
 orbit is forty-eight days." 
 
 " Amen ! " said I, as we all laughed. " On forty- 
 eight days we will begin." 
 
 Alice ran to the sheets, turned up that number, 
 and read, "R. A. 27° 11'. South declination 
 
 34° 49'." 
 
 " Convenient place," said George ; " good omen, 
 Bertha, my darling! If we find her there, Alice 
 and Bertha and Clara shall all have new dolls." 
 
 It was the first word of pleasantry that had been 
 spoken about the horrid thing since Spoonwood 
 Hill! 
 
 Night came at last. We trained the glass on the 
 fated spot. I bade Polly take the eye-glass. 
 She did so, shook her head uneasily, screwed the 
 tube northward herself a moment, and then 
 screamed, " It is there ! it is there, — a clear 
 disk, — gibbous shape, — and very sharp on the 
 upper edge. Look ! look ! as big again as 
 Jupiter ! " 
 
 Polly was right ! The Brick Moon was found ! 
 
 Now we had found it, we never lost it. Zitta 
 and Gmelin, I suppose, had had foggy nights and 
 stormy weather often. But we had some one at 
 the eye-glass all that night, and before morning 
 had very respectable elements, good measurements 
 of angular distance when we got one, from another 
 star in the field of our lowest power. For we could 
 see her even with a good French opera-glass I had, 
 and with a night-glass which I used to carry on 
 
58 The Brick Moon 
 
 the South Atlantic Station. It certainly was an 
 extraordinary illustration of Orcutt's engineering 
 ability, that, flying off as she did, without leave or 
 license, she should have gained so nearly the orbit 
 of our original plan, — nine thousand miles from 
 the earth's centre, five thousand from the surface. 
 He had always stuck to the hope of this, and on 
 his very last tests of the Flies he had said they 
 were almost up to it. But for this accuracy of his, 
 I can hardly suppose we should have found her to 
 this hour, since she had failed, by what cause I 
 then did not know, to take her intended place on 
 the meridian of No. 9. At five thousand miles the 
 Moon appeared as large as the largest satellite of 
 Jupiter appears. And Polly was right in that first 
 observation, when she said she got a good disk with 
 that admirable glass of Mrs. Bowdoin. 
 
 The orbit was not on the meridian of No. 9, nor 
 did it remain on any meridian. But it was very 
 nearly South and North, — an enormous motion in 
 declination with a very slight retrograde motion in 
 Right Ascension. At five thousand miles the 
 Moon showed as large as a circle two miles and a 
 third in diameter would have shown on old Thorn- 
 bush, as we always called her older sister. We 
 longed for an eclipse of Thornbush by B. M., but 
 no such lucky chance is on the cards in any place 
 accessible to us for many years. Of course, with 
 a Moon so near us the terrestrial parallax is 
 enormous. 
 
 Now, you know, dear reader, that the gigantic 
 
The Brick Moon 59 
 
 reflector of Lord Rosse, and the exquisite fifteen- 
 inch refractors of the modern observatories, elimi- 
 nate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface 
 of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such 
 a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. 
 Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, 
 you have those details fresh in your memory. As 
 John Farrar taught us when all this began, — and 
 as I have said already, — if there were a State 
 House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the 
 first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying 
 power was 6450; that would have brought this 
 deaf and dumb State House within some forty 
 miles. Go up on Mt. Washington and see white 
 sails eighty miles away, beyond Portland, with 
 your naked eye, and you will find how well he 
 would have seen that State House with his reflec- 
 tor. Lord Rosse's statement is, that with his 
 reflector he can see objects on old Thornbush two 
 hundred and fifty-two feet long. If he can do that 
 he can see on our B. M. objects which are five 
 feet long; and, of course, we were beside ourselves 
 to get control of some instrument which had some 
 approach to such power. Haliburton was for at once 
 building a reflector at No. 9 ; and perhaps he will 
 do it yet, for Haliburton has been successful in his 
 paper-making and lumbering. But I went to work 
 more promptly. 
 
 I remembered, not an apothecary, but an obser- 
 vatory, which had been dormant, as we say of 
 volcanoes, now for ten or a dozen years, — no 
 
6o The Brick Moon 
 
 matter why ! The trustees had quarrelled with the 
 director, or the funds had given out, or the director 
 had been shot at the head of his division, — one of 
 those accidents had happened which will happen 
 even in observatories which have fifteen-inch equa- 
 torials; and so the equatorial here had been left 
 as useless as a cannon whose metal has been 
 strained or its reputation stained in an experiment. 
 The observatory at Tamworth, dedicated with such 
 enthusiasm, — " another light-house in the skies," — 
 had been, so long as I have said, worthless to the 
 world. To Tamworth, therefore, I travelled. In 
 the neighborhood of the observatory I took lodg- 
 ings. To the church where worshipped the family 
 which lived in the observatory buildings I repaired ; 
 after two Sundays I established acquaintance with 
 John Donald, the head of this family. On the 
 evening of the third, I made acquaintance with his 
 wife in a visit to them. Before three Sundays 
 more he had recommended me to the surviving 
 trustees as his successor as janitor to the buildings. 
 He himself had accepted promotion, and gone, 
 with his household, to keep a store for Haliburton 
 in North Ovid. I sent for Polly and the children, 
 to establish them in the janitor's rooms ; and, after 
 writing to her, with trembling eye I waited for the 
 Brick Moon to pass^ over the field of the fifteen- 
 inch equatorial. 
 
 Night came. I was " sole alone " ! B. M. came, 
 more than filled the field of vision, of course ! but 
 for that I was ready. Heavens! how changed. 
 
The Brick Moon 6i 
 
 Red no longer, but green as a meadow in the 
 spring. Still I could see — black on the green — 
 the large twenty-foot circles which I remembered 
 so well, which broke the concave of the dome; 
 and, on the upper edge — were these palm-trees ? 
 They were. No, they were hemlocks, by their 
 shape, and among them were moving to and fro 
 
 ^^ flies? Of course, I cannot see 
 
 flies ! But something is moving, — coming, go- 
 ing. One, two, three, ten; there are more than 
 thirty in all ! They are men and women and their 
 children ! 
 
 Could it be possible ? It was possible ! Orcutt 
 and Brannan and the rest of them had survived 
 that giddy flight through the ether, and were 
 going and coming on the surface of their own little 
 world, bound to it by its own attraction and living 
 by its own laws ! 
 
 As I watched, I saw one of them leap from that 
 surface. He passed wholly out of my field of 
 vision, but in a minute, more or less, returned. 
 Why not ! Of course, the attraction of his world 
 must be very small, while he retained the same 
 power of muscle he had when he was here. They 
 must be horribly crowded, I thought. No. They 
 had three acres of surface, and there were but 
 thirty-seven of them. Not so much crowded as 
 people are in Roxbury, not nearly so much as in 
 Boston; and, besides, these people are living 
 underground, and have the whole of their surface 
 for their exercise. 
 
62 The Brick Moon 
 
 I watched their every movement as they ap- 
 proached the edge and as they left it. Often they 
 passed beyond it, so that I could see them no 
 more. Often they sheltered themselves from that 
 tropical sun beneath the trees. Think of living on 
 a world where from the vertical heat of the hottest 
 noon of the equator to the twilight of the poles is 
 a walk of only fifty paces ! What atmosphere 
 they had, to temper and diffuse those rays, I could 
 not then conjecture. 
 
 I knew that at half-past ten they would pass into 
 the inevitable eclipse which struck them every night 
 at this period of their orbit, and must, I thought, 
 be a luxury to them, as recalling old memories of 
 night when they were on this world. As they 
 approached the line of shadow, some fifteen minutes 
 before it was due, I counted on the edge thirty- 
 seven specks arranged evidently in order; and, 
 at one moment, as by one signal, all thirty-seven 
 Jumped into the air, — high jumps. Again they 
 did it, and again. Then a low jump ; then a high 
 one. I caught the idea in a moment. They were 
 telegraphing to our world, in the hope of an ob- 
 server. Long leaps and short leaps, — the long 
 and short of Morse's Telegraph Alphabet, — were 
 communicating ideas. My paper and pencil had 
 been of course before me. I jotted down the 
 despatch, whose language I knew perfectly : — 
 " Show 'I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 " Show • I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 " Show ' I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 
The Brick Moon 63 
 
 By " I understand " they meant the responsive 
 signal given, in all telegraphy, by an operator who 
 has received and understood a message. 
 
 As soon as this exercise had been three times 
 repeated, they proceeded in a solid body — much 
 the most apparent object I had had until now — to 
 Circle No. 3, and then evidently descended into 
 the Moon. 
 
 The eclipse soon began, but I knew the Moon's 
 path now, and followed the dusky, coppery spot 
 without difficulty. At 1.33 it emerged, and in a 
 very few moments I saw the solid column pass 
 from Circle No. 3 again, deploy on the edge again, 
 and repeat three times the signal : — 
 ■ " Show ' I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 " Show ' I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 " Show ' I understand ' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 It was clear that Orcutt had known that the 
 edge of his little world would be most easy of 
 observation, and that he had guessed that the 
 moments of obscuration and of emersion were the 
 moments when observers would be most careful. 
 After this signal they broke up again, and I could 
 not follow them. With dayhght I sent off a de- 
 spatch to Haliburton, and, grateful and happy in 
 comparison, sank into the first sleep not haunted 
 by horrid dreams, which I had known for years. 
 
 Haliburton knew that George Orcutt had taken 
 with him a good DoUand's refractor, which he had 
 bought in London, of a two-inch glass. He knew 
 
64 The Brick Moon 
 
 that this would give Orcutt a very considerable 
 power, if he could onlj. adjust it accurately enough 
 to find No. 9 in the 3d Range. Orcutt had chosen 
 well in selecting the " Saw-Mill Flat," a large 
 meadow, easily distinguished by the peculiar shape 
 of the mill-pond which we had made. Eager 
 though Haliburton was to join me, he loyally 
 took moneys, caught the first train to Skowhegan, 
 and, travelling thence, in thirty-six hours more was 
 again descending Spoonwood Hill, for the first 
 time since our futile observations. The snow lay 
 white upon the Flat. With Rob. Shea's help, he 
 rapidly unrolled a piece of black cambric twenty 
 yards long, and pinned it to the crust upon the 
 snow; another by its side, and another. Much 
 cambric had he left. They had carried down with 
 them enough for the funerals of two Presidents. 
 Haliburton showed the symbols for " I under- 
 stand," but he could not resist also display- 
 ing . . — . — , which are the dots and lines to 
 represent O. K., which, he says, is the shortest 
 message of comfort. And not having exhausted 
 the space on the Flat, he and Robert, before night 
 closed in, made a gigantic O. K., fifteen yards 
 from top to bottom, and in marks that were fifteen 
 feet through. 
 
 I had telegraphed my great news to Haliburton 
 on Monday night. Tuesday night he was at 
 Skowhegan. Thursday night he was at No. 9. 
 Friday he and Rob. stretched their cambric. 
 Meanwhile, every day I slept. Every night I was 
 
The Brick Moon 65 
 
 glued to the eye-piece. Fifteen minutes before 
 the eclipse every night this weird dance of leaps 
 two hundred feet high, followed by hops of twenty 
 feet high, mingled always in the steady order I 
 have described, spelt out the ghastly message : — 
 
 "Show ' I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 
 And every morning, as the eclipse ended, I 
 saw the column creep along to the horizon, and 
 again, as the duty of opening day, spell out the 
 same : — 
 
 "Show ' I understand' on the Saw-Mill Flat." 
 
 They had done this twice in every twenty-four 
 hours for nearly two years. For three nights 
 steadily I read these signals twice each night; 
 only these, and nothing more. 
 
 But Friday night all was changed. After 
 "Attention," that dreadful "Show" did not 
 come, but this cheerful signal : — 
 
 " Hurrah. All well. Air, food, and friends ! 
 what more can man require.' Hurrah." 
 
 How like George ! How like Ben Brannan ! 
 How like George's wife ! How like them all ! 
 And they were all well ! Yet poor I could not 
 answer. Nay, I could only guess what Haliburton 
 had done. But I have never, I believe, been so 
 grateful since I was born. 
 
 After a pause, the united line of leapers re- 
 sumed their jumps and hops. Long and short 
 spelled out : — 
 
 "Your O. K. is twice as large as it need 
 be." 
 
 5 
 
66 The Brick Moon 
 
 Of the meaning of this, lonely / had, of course, 
 no idea. 
 
 "I have a power of seven hundred," continued 
 George. How did he get that.' He has never 
 told us. But this I can see, that all our analogies 
 deceive us, — of views of the sea from Mt. Wash- 
 ington, or of the Boston State House from 
 Wachusett. For in these views we look through 
 forty or eighty miles of dense terrestrial atmos- 
 phere. But Orcutt was looking nearly vertically 
 through an atmosphere which was, most of it, 
 rare indeed, and pure indeed, compared with its 
 lowest stratum. 
 
 In the record-book of my observations these 
 despatches are entered as 12 and 13. Of course 
 it was impossible for me to reply. All I could 
 do was to telegraph these in the morning to 
 Skowhegan, sending them to the care of the 
 Moores, that they might forward them. But 
 the next night showed that this had not been 
 necessary. 
 
 Friday night George and the others went on 
 for a quarter of an hour. Then they would rest, 
 saying, "two," "three," or whatever their next 
 signal time would be. Before morning I had 
 these despatches : ■ — 
 
 14. " Write to all hands that we are doing well. 
 Langdon's baby is named lo, and Leonard's is 
 named Phoebe." 
 
 How queer that was ! What a coincidence ! 
 And they had some humor there. 
 
The Brick Moon 67 
 
 15 was: "Our atmosphere stuck to us. It 
 weighs three tenths of an inch — our weight." 
 
 16. " Our rain-fall is regular as the clock. We 
 have made a cistern of Kilpatrick." 
 
 This meant the spherical chamber of that name. 
 
 17. "Write to Darwin that he is all right. 
 We began with lichens and have come as far as 
 palms and hemlocks." 
 
 These were the first night's messages. I had 
 scarcely covered the eye-glasses and adjusted the 
 equatorial for the day, when the bell announced 
 the carriage in which Polly and the children 
 came from the station to relieve me in my solitary 
 service as janitor. I had the joy of showing her 
 the good news. This night's work seemed to fill 
 our cup. For all the day before, when I was 
 awake, I had been haunted by the fear of famine 
 for them. True, I knew that they had stored 
 away in chambers H, I, and J the pork and flour 
 which we had sent up for the workmen through 
 the summer, and the corn and oats for the horses. 
 But this could not last forever. 
 
 Now, however, that it proved that in a tropical 
 climate they were forming their own soil, devel- 
 oping their own palms, and eventually even their 
 bread-fruit and bananas, planting their own oats 
 and maize, and developing rice, wheat, and all 
 other cereals, harvesting these six, eight, or ten 
 times — for aught I could see — in one of our 
 years, — why, then, there was no danger of famine 
 for them. If, as I thought, they carried up with 
 
68 The Brick Moon 
 
 them heavy drifts of ice and snow in the two 
 chambers which were not covered in when they 
 started, why, they had waters in their firmament 
 quite sufficient for all purposes of thirst and of 
 ablution. And what I had seen of their exercise 
 showed that they were in strength sufficient for 
 the proper development of their little world. 
 
 Polly had the messages by heart before an hour 
 was over, and the little girls, of course, knew 
 them sooner than she. 
 
 Haliburton, meanwhile, had brought out the 
 Shubael refractor (Alvan Clark), and by night of 
 Friday was in readiness to see what he could see. 
 Shubael of course gave him no such luxury of 
 detail as did my fifteen-inch equatorial. But 
 still he had no difficulty in making out groves of 
 hemlock, and the circular openings. And al- 
 though he could not make out my thirty-seven 
 flies, still when 10.15 came he saw distinctly the 
 black square crossing from hole Mary to the edge, 
 and beginning its Dervish dances. They were on 
 his edge more precisely than on mine. For Orcutt 
 knew nothing of Tamworth, and had thought his 
 best chance was to display for No. 9. So was it 
 that, at the same moment with me, Haliburton 
 also was spelling out Orcutt &: Co.'s joyous 
 " Hurrah ! " 
 " Thtephen," lisps Celia, " promith that you will 
 look at yon moon [old Thornbush] at the inthtant 
 I do. " So was it with me and Haliburton. 
 
The Brick Moon 69 
 
 He was of course informed long before the 
 Moores' messenger came, that, in Orcutt's judg- 
 ment, twenty feet of length were sufficient for 
 his signals. Orcutt's atmosphere, of course, 
 must be exquisitely clear. 
 
 So, on Saturday, Rob. and Haliburton pulled 
 up all their cambric and arranged it on the Flat 
 again, in letters of twenty feet, in this legend: — 
 
 RAH, Ali WEIi. 
 
 Haliburton said he could not waste flat or cambric 
 on spelling. 
 
 He had had all night since half-past ten to 
 consider what next was most important for them 
 to know ; and a very difficult question it was, you 
 will observe. They had been gone nearly two 
 years, and much had happened. Which thing 
 was, on the whole, the most interesting and 
 important ? He had said we were all well. What 
 then ? 
 
 Did you never find yourself in the same diffi- 
 culty ? When your husband had come home from 
 sea, and kissed you and the children, and won- 
 dered at their size, did you never sit silent and 
 have to think what you should say .' Were you 
 never fairly relieved when little Phil said, blus- 
 tering, " I got three eggs to-day. " The truth is, 
 that silence is very satisfactory intercourse, if we 
 only know all is well. When De Sauty got his 
 original cable going, he had not much to tell 
 after all; only that consols were a quarter per 
 
JO The Brick Moon 
 
 cent higher than they were the day before. 
 "Send me news," lisped he — poor lonely myth! 
 — from Bull's Bay to Valentia, — " send me news ; 
 they are mad for news." But how if there be no 
 news worth sending.' What do I read in my 
 cable despatch to-day.' Only that the Harvard 
 crew pulled at Putney yesterday, which I knew 
 before I opened the paper, and that there had 
 been a riot in Spain, which I also knew. Here is 
 a letter just brought me by the mail from Moreau, 
 Tazewell County, Iowa. It is written by Fol- 
 lansbee, in a good cheerful hand. How glad I 
 am to hear from Follansbee ! Yes ; but do I care 
 one straw whether Follansbee planted spring 
 wheat or winter wheat ? Not I. All I care for 
 is Follansbee's way of telling it. All these are 
 the remarks by which Haliburton explains the 
 character of the messages he sent in reply to 
 George Orcutt's autographs, which were so thor- 
 oughly satisfactory. 
 
 Should he say Mr. Borie had left the Navy 
 Department and Mr. Robeson come in .' Should 
 he say the Lords had backed down on the Dis- 
 endowment Bill? Should he say the telegraph 
 had been landed at Duxbury? Should he say 
 Ingham had removed to Tamworth.' What did 
 they care for this.' What does anybody ever 
 care for facts? Should he say that the State 
 Constable was enforcing the liquor law on 
 whiskey, but was winking at lager? All this 
 would take him a week, in the most severe con- 
 
The Brick Moon 71 
 
 densation, — and for what good? as Haliburton 
 asked. Yet these were the things that the news- 
 papers told, and they told nothing else. There 
 was a nice little poem of Jean Ingelow's in a 
 Transcript Haliburton had with him. He said 
 he was really tempted to spell that out. It was 
 better worth it than all the rest of the newspaper 
 stuff, and would be remembered a thousand years 
 after that was forgotten. "What they wanted," 
 says Haliburton, "was sentiment. That is all 
 that survives and is eternal." So he and Rob. 
 laid out their cambric thus : — 
 
 RAH. AL WEL. SO GLAD. 
 
 Haliburton hesitated whether he would not add, 
 "Power 5000," to indicate the full power I was 
 using at Tamworth. But he determined not to, 
 and, I think, wisely. The convenience was so 
 great, of receiving the signal at the spot where 
 it could be answered, that for the present he 
 thought it best that they should go on as they 
 did. That night, however, to his dismay, clouds 
 gathered and a grim snow-storm began. He got 
 no observations; and the next day it stormed so 
 heavily that he could not lay his signals out. 
 For me at Tamworth, I had a heavy storm all 
 day, but at midnight it was clear; and as soon as 
 the regular eclipse was past, George began with 
 what we saw was an account of the great anaclysm 
 which sent them there. You observe that Orcutt 
 had far greater power of communicating with us 
 
72 The Brick Moon 
 
 than we had with him. He knew this. And it 
 was fortunate he had. For he had, on his little 
 world, much more of interest to tell than we had 
 on our large one. 
 
 i8. "It stormed hard. We were all asleep, 
 and knew nothing till morning; the hammocks 
 turned so slowly." 
 
 Here was another revelation and relief. I had 
 always supposed that if they knew anything 
 before they were roasted to death, they had had 
 one wild moment of horror. Instead of this, the 
 gentle slide of the Moon had not wakened them, 
 the flight upward had been as easy as it was 
 rapid, the change from one centre of gravity to 
 another had of course been slow, — and they had 
 actually slept through the whole. After the 
 dancers had rested once, Orcutt continued : — 
 
 19. "We cleared E. A. in two seconds, I 
 think. Our outer surface fused and cracked some- 
 what. So much the better for us. " 
 
 They moved so fast that the heat of their friction 
 through the air could not propagate itself through 
 the whole brick surface. Indeed, there could 
 have been but little friction after the first five 
 or ten miles. By E. A. he means earth's 
 atmosphere. 
 
 His 20th despatch is: "I have no observations 
 of ascent. But by theory our positive ascent 
 ceased in two minutes five seconds, when we fell 
 into our proper orbit, which, as I calculate, is 
 5,109 miles from your mean surface." 
 
The Brick Moon 73 
 
 In all this, observe, George dropped no word 
 of regret through these five thousand miles. 
 
 His 2 1st despatch is: "Our rotation on our 
 axis is made once in seven hours, our axis being 
 exactly vertical to the plane of our own orbit. 
 But in each of your daily rotations we get sunned 
 all round." 
 
 Of course, they never had lost their identity 
 with us, so far as our rotation and revolution 
 went: our inertia was theirs; all the fatal Fly- 
 wheels had given them was an additional motion 
 in space of their own. 
 
 This was the last despatch before daylight of 
 Sunday morning; and the terrible snow-storm of 
 March, sweeping our hemisphere, cut off our 
 communication with them, both at Tamwprth and 
 No. 9, for several days. - 
 
 But here was ample food for reflection. Our 
 friends were in a world of their own, all thirty- 
 seven of them well, and it seemed they had two 
 more little girls added to their number since they 
 started. They had plenty of vegetables to eat, 
 with prospect of new tropical varieties according 
 to Dr. Darwin. Rob. Shea was sure that they 
 carried up hens ; he said he knew Mrs. Whitman 
 had several Middlesexes and Mrs. Leonard two 
 or three Black Spanish fowls, which had been 
 given her by some friends in Foxcroft. Even if 
 they had not yet had time enough for these to 
 develop into Alderneys and venison, they would 
 not be without animal food. 
 
74 The Brick Moon 
 
 When at last it cleared off, Haliburton had to 
 telegraph: "Repeat from 2i"; and this took all 
 his cambric, though he had doubled his stock. 
 Orcutt replied the next night : — ■ 
 
 22. " I can see your storms. We have none. 
 When we want to change climate we can walk in 
 less than a minute from midsummer to the depth 
 of winter. But in the inside we have eleven 
 different temperatures, which do not change." 
 
 On the whole there is a certain convenience 
 in such an arrangement. With No. 23 he went 
 back to his story: — 
 
 It took us many days, one or two of our months, 
 to adjust ourselves to our new condition. Our 
 greatest grief is that we are not on the meridian. 
 Do you know why.' " 
 
 Loyal George ! He was willing to exile him- 
 self and his race from the most of mankind, if 
 only the great purpose of his life could be ful- 
 filled. But his great regret was that it was not 
 fulfilled. He was not on the meridian. I did 
 not know why. But Haliburton, with infinite 
 labor, spelt out on the Flat, 
 
 CYC. PROJECT. AD FIN., 
 
 by which he meant, " See article Projectiles in 
 the Cyclopaedia at the end " ; and there indeed is 
 the only explanation to be given. When you fire 
 a shot, why does it ever go to the right or left of 
 the plane in which it is projected ? Dr. Hutton 
 ascribes it to a whirling motion acquired by the 
 
The Brick Moon y^ 
 
 bullet by friction with the gun. Euler thinks it 
 due chiefly to the irregularity of the shape of the 
 ball. In our case the B. M. was regular enough. 
 But on one side, being wholly unprepared for 
 flight, she was heavily stored with pork and corn, 
 while her other chambers had in some of them 
 heavy drifts of snow, and some only a few men 
 and women and hens. 
 
 Before Orcutt saw Haliburton's advice, he had 
 sent us 24 and 25. 
 
 24. " We have established a Sandemanian 
 church, and Brannan preaches. My son Edward 
 and Alice Whitman are to be married this 
 evening." 
 
 This despatch unfortunately did not reach 
 Haliburton, though I got it. So, all the happy 
 pair received for our wedding-present was the 
 advice to look in the Cyclopaedia at article Pro- 
 jectiles near the end. 
 
 25 was: — 
 
 " We shall act ' As You Like It ' after the wed- 
 ding. Dead-head tickets for all of the old set 
 who will come." 
 
 Actually, in one week's reunion we had come 
 to joking. 
 
 The next night we got 26 : — 
 
 " Alice says she will not read the Cyclopaedia 
 in the honeymoon, but is much obliged to Mr. 
 Haliburton for his advice." 
 
 " How did she ever know it was I .' " wrote 
 the matter-of-fact Haliburton to me. 
 
•jd The Brick Moon 
 
 27. "Alice wants to know if Mr. Haliburton 
 will not send here for some rags ; says we have 
 plenty, with little need for clothes." 
 
 And then despatches began to be more serious 
 again. Brannan and Orcutt had failed in the 
 great scheme for the longitude, to which they 
 had sacrificed their lives, — if, indeed, it were a 
 sacrifice to retire with those they love best to a 
 world of their own. But none the less did they 
 devote themselves, with the rare power of obser- 
 vation they had, to the benefit of our world. 
 Thus, in 28 : — 
 
 "Your North Pole is an open ocean. It was 
 black, which we think means water, from August 
 1st to September 29th. Your South Pole is on 
 an island bigger than New Holland. Your 
 Antarctic Continent is a great cluster of islands." 
 
 29. "Your Nyanzas are only two of a large 
 group of African lakes. The green of Africa, 
 where there is no water, is wonderful at our 
 distance." 
 
 30. " We have not the last numbers of ' Foul 
 Play. ' Tell us, in a word or two, how they got 
 home. We can see what we suppose their island 
 was. " 
 
 31. "We should like to know who proved 
 Right in ' He Knew He was Right. ' " 
 
 This was a good night's work, as they were 
 then telegraphing. As soon as it cleared, Hali- 
 burton displayed, — 
 
 BEST HOPES. CARRIER DUCKS. 
 
The Brick Moon 'j'j 
 
 This was Haliburton's masterpiece. He had 
 no room for more, however, and was obliged to 
 reserve for the next day his answer to No. 31, 
 which was simply, 
 
 SHE. 
 
 A real equinoctial now parted us for nearly a 
 week, and at the end of that time they were so 
 low in our northern horizon that we could not 
 make out their signals; we and they were obliged 
 to wait till they had passed through two-thirds of 
 their month before we could communicate again. 
 I used the time in speeding to No. 9. We got a 
 few carpenters together, and arranged on the Flat 
 two long movable black platforms, which ran in 
 and out on railroad-wheels on tracks, from under 
 green platforms ; so that we could display one or 
 both as we chose, and then withdraw them. With 
 this apparatus we could give forty-five signals in 
 a minute, corresponding to the line and dot of 
 the telegraph; and thus could compass some 
 twenty letters in that time, and make out perhaps 
 two hundred and fifty words in an hour. Hali- 
 burton thought that, with some improvements, he 
 could send one of Mr. Buchanan's messages up 
 in thirty-seven working-nights. 
 
78 The Brick Moon 
 
 IV 
 
 INDEPENDENCE 
 
 I OWN to a certain mortification in confessing 
 that after this interregnum, forced upon us by so 
 long a period of non-intercourse, we never re- 
 sumed precisely the same constancy of communi- 
 cation as that which I have tried to describe at 
 the beginning. The apology for this benumb- 
 ment, if I may so call it, will suggest itself to 
 the thoughtful reader. 
 
 It is indeed astonishing to think that we so 
 readily accept a position when we once understand 
 it. You buy a new house. You are fool enough, 
 to take out a staircase that you may put in a 
 bathing-room. This will be done in a fortnight, 
 everybody tells you, and then everybody begins. 
 Plumbers, masons, carpenters, plasterers, skim- 
 mers, bell-hangers, speaking-tube men, men who 
 make furnace-pipe, paper-hangers, men who scrape 
 off the old paper, and other men who take off the 
 old paint with alkali, gas men, city-water men, 
 and painters begin. To them are joined a con- 
 siderable number of furnace-men's assistants, 
 stovepipe-men's assistants, mason's assistants, 
 and hodmen who assist the assistants of the 
 masons, the furnace-men, and the pipe-men. 
 For a day or two these all take possession of the 
 house and reduce it to chjios. In the language 
 
The Brick Moon 79 
 
 of Scripture, they enter in and dwell there. 
 Compare, for the details, Matt. xii. 45. Then 
 you revisit it at the end of the fortnight, and find 
 it in chaos, with the woman whom you employed 
 to wash the attics the only person on the scene. 
 You ask her where the paper-hanger is ; and she 
 says he can do nothing because the plaster is not 
 dry. You ask why the plaster is not dry, and are 
 told it is because the furnace-man has not come. 
 You send for him, and he says he did come, but 
 the stove-pipe man was away. You send for him, 
 and he says he lost a day in coming, but that the 
 mason had not cut the right hole in the chimney. 
 You go and find the mason, and he says they are 
 all fools, and that there is nothing in the house 
 that need take two days to finish. 
 
 Then you curse, not the day in which you were 
 born, but the day in which bath-rooms were in- 
 vented. You say, truly, that your father and 
 mother, from whom you inherit every moral and 
 physical faculty you prize, never had a bath-room 
 till they were past sixty, yet they thrived, and 
 their children. You sneak through back streets, 
 fearful lest your friends shall ask you when your 
 house will be finished. You are sunk in wretched- 
 ness, unable even to read your proofs accurately, 
 far less able to attend the primary meetings of 
 the party with which you vote, or to discharge 
 any of the duties of a good citizen. Life is 
 wholly embittered to you. 
 
 Yet, six weeks after, you sit before a soft-coal 
 
8o' The Brick Moon 
 
 fire in your new house, with the feeling that you 
 have always lived there. You are not even grate- 
 ful that you are there. You have forgotten the 
 plumber's namej and if you met in the street 
 that nice carpenter that drove things through, 
 you would just nod to him, and would not think 
 of kissing him or embracing him. 
 
 Thus completely have you accepted the sit- 
 uation. 
 
 Let me confess that the same experience is that 
 with which, at this writing, I regard the Brick 
 Moon. It is there in ether. I cannot keep it. 
 I cannot get it down. I cannot well go to it, — 
 though possibly that might be done, as you will 
 see. They are all very happy there, — much 
 happier, as far as I can see, than if they lived in 
 sixth floors in Paris, in lodgings in London, or 
 even in tenement-houses in Phoenix Place, Boston. 
 There are disadvantages attached to their posi- 
 tion; but there are also advantages. And what 
 most of all tends to our accepting the situation 
 is, that there is " nothing that we can do about 
 it," as Q. says, but to keep up our correspondence 
 with them, and to express our sympathies. 
 
 For them, their responsibilities are reduced in 
 somewhat the same proportion as the gravitation 
 which binds them down, — I had almost said to 
 earth, — which binds them down to brick, I mean. 
 This decrease of responsibility must make them 
 as light-hearted as the loss of gravitation makes 
 them light -bodied. 
 
The Brick Moon 8 1 
 
 On which point I ask for a moment's attention. 
 And as these sheets leave my hand, an illustra- 
 tion turns up which well serves me. It is the 
 23d of October. Yesterday morning all wakeful 
 women in New England were sure there was some 
 one under the bed. This is a certain sign of an 
 earthquake. And when we read the evening 
 newspapers, we were made sure there had been 
 an earthquake. What blessings the newspapers 
 are, — and how much information they give us ! 
 Well, they said it was not very severe, here, but 
 perhaps it was more severe elsewhere; hopes 
 really arising in the editorial mind that in some 
 Caraccas or Lisbon all churches and the cathedral 
 might have fallen. I did not hope for that. But 
 I did have just the faintest feeling that if — if — 
 if — it should prove that the world had blown up 
 into six or eight pieces, and they had gone off 
 into separate orbits, life would be vastly easier for 
 all of us, on whichever bit we happened to be. 
 
 That thing has happened, they say, once. 
 Whenever the big planet between Mars and 
 Jupiter blew up, and divided himself into one 
 hundred and two or more asteroids, the people on 
 each one only knew there had been an earthquake 
 when and after they read their morning journals. 
 And then, all that they knew at first was that 
 telegraphic communication had ceased beyond — 
 say two hundred miles. Gradually people and 
 despatches came in, who said that they had 
 parted company with some of the other islands 
 
82 The Brick Moon 
 
 and continents. But, as I say, on each piece the 
 people not only weighed much less, but were 
 much lighter-hearted, had less responsibility. 
 
 Now will you imagine the enthusiasm here, at 
 Miss Hale's school, when it should be announced 
 that geography, in future, would be confined to 
 the study of the region east of the Mississippi 
 and west of the Atlantic, — the earth having 
 parted at the seams so named. No more study 
 of Italian, German, French, or Sclavonic, — the 
 people speaking those languages being now in 
 different orbits or other worlds. Imagine also 
 the superior ease of the office-work of the 
 A. B. C. F. M. and kindred societies, the duties 
 of instruction and civilizing, of evangelizing in 
 general, being reduced within so much narrower 
 bounds. For you and me also, who cannot decide 
 what Mr. Gladstone ought to do with the land 
 tenure in Ireland, and who distress ourselves so 
 much about it in conversation, what a satisfaction 
 to know that Great Britain is flung off with one 
 rate of movement, Ireland with another, and the 
 Isle of Man with another, into space, with no 
 more chance of meeting again than there is that 
 you shall have the same hand at whist to-night 
 that you had last night! Even Victoria would 
 sleep easier, and I am sure Mr. Gladstone would. 
 
 Thus, I say, were Orcutt's and Brannan's 
 responsibilities so diminished, that after the first 
 I began to see that their contracted position had 
 its decided compensating ameliorations. 
 
The Brick Moon 83 
 
 In these views, I need not say, the women of 
 our little circle never shared. After we got the 
 new telegraph arrangement in good running-order, 
 I observed that Polly and Annie Haliburton had 
 many private conversations, and the secret came 
 out one morning, when, rising early in the cabins, 
 we men found they had deserted us; and then, 
 going in search of them, found them running the 
 signal boards in and out as rapidly as they could, 
 to tell Mrs. Brannan and the bride, Alice Orcutt, 
 that flounces were worn an inch and a half deeper, 
 and that people trimmed now with harmonizing 
 colors and not with contrasts. I did not say that 
 I believed they wore fig-leaves in B. M., but that 
 was my private impression. 
 
 After all, it was hard to laugh at the girls, as 
 these ladies will be called, should they live to be 
 as old as Helen was when she charmed the Trojan 
 senate (that was ninety-three, if Heyne be right 
 in his calculations). It was hard to laugh at them 
 because this was simple benevolence, and the same 
 benevolence led to a much more practical sugges- 
 tion when Polly came to me and told me she had 
 been putting up some baby things for little lo and 
 Phoebe, and some playthings for the older children, 
 and she thought we might "send up a bundle." 
 
 Of course we could. There were the Flies 
 still moving! or we might go ourselves! 
 
 [And here the reader must indulge me in a long 
 parenthesis. I beg him to bear me witness that I never 
 made one before. This parenthesis is on the tense that 
 
84 The Brick Moon 
 
 I am obliged to use in sending to the press these min- 
 utes. The reader observes that the last transactions 
 mentioned happen in April and May, 1871. Those to 
 be narrated are the sequence of those already told. 
 Speaking of them in 1870 with the coarse tenses of the 
 English language is very difficult. One needs, for accu- 
 racy, a sure future, a second future, a paulo-post future, 
 and a paulum-ante future, none of which does this lan- 
 guage have. Failing this, one would be glad of an 
 a-orist, — tense without time, — if the grammarians will 
 not swoon at hearing such language. But the English 
 tongue hath not that, either. Doth the learned reader 
 remember that the Hebrew — language of history and 
 prophecy — hath only a past and a future tense, but 
 hath no present? Yet that language succeeded toler- 
 ably in expressing the present griefs or joys of David 
 and of Solomon. Bear with me, then, O critic ! if even 
 in 1870 I use the so-called past tenses in narrating what 
 remaineth of this history up to the summer of 1872. 
 End of the parenthesis.] 
 
 On careful consideration, however, no one 
 volunteers to go. To go, if you observe, would 
 require that a man envelop himself thickly in 
 asbestos or some similar non-conducting sub- 
 stance, leap boldly on the rapid Flies, and so 
 be shot through the earth's atmosphere in two 
 seconds and a fraction, carrying with him all the 
 time in a non-conducting receiver the condensed 
 air he needed, and landing quietly on B. M. by a 
 precalculated orbit. At the bottom of our hearts 
 I think we were all afraid. Some of us confessed 
 
The Brick Moon 85 
 
 to fear; others said, and said truly, that the popu- 
 lation of the Moon was already dense, and that it 
 did not seem reasonable or worth while, on any 
 account, to make it denser. Nor has any move- 
 ment been renewed for going. But the plan of 
 the bundle of " things " seemed more feasible, as 
 the things would not require oxygen. The only 
 precaution seemed to be that which was necessary 
 for protecting the parcel against combustion as it 
 shot through the earth's atmosphere. We had 
 not asbestos enough. It was at first proposed to 
 pack them all in one of Professor Horsford's 
 safes. But when I telegraphed this plan to 
 Orcutt, he demurred. Their atmosphere was but 
 shallow, and with a little too much force the 
 corner of the safe might knock a very bad hole in 
 the surface of his world. He said if we would 
 send up first a collection of things of no great 
 weight, but of considerable bulk, he would risk 
 that, but he would rather have no compact metals. 
 I satisfied myself, therefore, with a plan which 
 I still think good. Making the parcel up in 
 heavy old woollen carpets, and cording it with 
 worsted cords, we would case it in a carpet-bag, 
 larger than itself and fill in the interstice with 
 dry sand, as our best non-conductor; cording this 
 tightly again, we would renew the same casing 
 with more sand ; and so continually offer surfaces 
 of sand and woollen, till we had five separate 
 layers between the parcel and the air. Our cal- 
 culation was that a perceptible time would be 
 
86 The Brick Moon 
 
 necessary for the burning and disintegrating of 
 each sand-bag. If each one, on the average, 
 would stand two-fifths of a second, the inner 
 parcel would get through the earth's atmosphere 
 unconsumed. If, on the other hand, they lasted 
 a little longer, the bag, as it fell on B. M. , would 
 not be unduly heavy. Of course we could take 
 their night for the experiment, so that we might 
 be sure they should all be in bed and out of the 
 way. 
 
 We had very funny and very merry times in 
 selecting things important enough and at the 
 same time bulky and light enough to be safe. 
 Alice and Bertha at once insisted that there must 
 be room for the children's playthings. They 
 wanted to send the most approved of the old ones, 
 and to add some new presents. There was a 
 woolly sheep in particular, and a watering-pot 
 that Rose had given Fanny, about which there 
 was some sentiment; boxes of dominos, packs of 
 cards, magnetic fishes, bows and arrows, checker- 
 boards and croquet sets. Polly and Annie were 
 more considerate. Down to Coleman and Com- 
 pany they sent an order for pins, needles, hooks 
 and eyes, buttons, tapes, and I know not what 
 essentials. India-rubber shoes for the children 
 Mrs. Haliburton insisted on sending. Haliburton 
 himself bought open-eye-shut-eye dolls, though I 
 felt that wax had been, since Icarus's days, the 
 worst article in such an adventure. For the 
 babies he had india-rubber rings: he had tin 
 
The Brick Moon 87 
 
 cows and carved wooden lions for the bigger chil- 
 dren, drawing-tools for those older yet, and a box 
 of crochet tools for the ladies. For my part I 
 piled in literature, — a set of my own works, 
 the Legislative Reports of the State of Maine, 
 Jean Ingelow, as I said or intimated, and both 
 volumes of the "Earthly Paradise." All these 
 were packed in sand, bagged and corded, — 
 bagged, sanded and corded again, — yet again 
 and again, — five times. Then the whole awaited 
 Orcutt's orders and our calculations. 
 
 At last the moment came. We had, at Orcutt's 
 order, reduced the revolutions of the Flies to 
 7230, which was, as nearly as he knew, the speed 
 on the fatal night. We had soaked the bag for 
 near twelve hours, and, at the moment agreed 
 upon, rolled it on the Flies and saw it shot into 
 the air. It was so small that it went out of sight 
 too soon for us to see it take fire. 
 
 Of course we watched eagerly for signal time. 
 They were all in bed on B. M. when we let fly. 
 But the despatch was a sad disappointment. 
 
 107. "Nothing has come through but two 
 croquet balls and a china horse. But we shall 
 send the boys hunting in the bushes, and we may 
 find more." 
 
 108. "Two Harpers and an Atlantic, badly 
 singed. But we can read all but the parts which 
 were most dry. " 
 
 109. "We see many small articles revolving 
 round us which may perhaps fall in." 
 
88 The Brick Moon 
 
 They never did fall in, however. The truth 
 was that all the bags had burned through. The 
 sand, I suppose, went to its place, wherever that 
 was. And all the other things in our bundle 
 became little asteroids or aerolites in orbits of 
 their own, except a well-disposed score or two, 
 which persevered far enough to get within the 
 attraction of Brick Moon and to take to revolving 
 there, not having hit quite square, as the croquet 
 balls did. They had five volumes of the " Con- 
 gressional Globe " whirling round like bats within 
 a hundred feet of their heads. Another body, 
 which I am afraid was "The Ingham Papers," 
 flew a little higher, not quite so heavy. Then 
 there was an absurd procession of the woolly 
 sheep, a china cow, a pair of india-rubbers, a 
 lobster Haliburton had chosen to send, a wooden 
 lion, the wax doll, a Salter's balance, the "New 
 York Observer," the bow and arrows, a Nurem- 
 berg nanny-goat, Rose's watering-pot, and the 
 magnetic fishes, which gravely circled round and 
 round them slowly and made the petty zodiac of 
 their petty world. 
 
 We have never sent another parcel since, but 
 we probably shall at Christmas, gauging the 
 Flies perhaps to one revolution more. The truth 
 is, that although we have never stated to each 
 other in words our difference of opinion or feel- 
 ing, there is a difference of habit of thought in 
 our little circle as to the position which the B. M. 
 holds. Somewhat similar is the difference of 
 
The Brick Moon 89 
 
 habit of thought in which different statesmen of 
 England regard their colonies. 
 
 Is B. M. a part of our world, or is it not? 
 Should its inhabitants be encouraged to maintain 
 their connections with us, or is it better for 
 them to "accept the situation" and gradually 
 wean themselves from us and from our affairs? 
 It would be idle to determine this question in the 
 abstract : it is perhaps idle to decide any question 
 of casuistry in the abstract. But, in practice, 
 there are constantly arising questions which really 
 require some decision of this abstract problem 
 for their solution. 
 
 For instance, when that terrible breach occurred 
 in the Sandemanian church, which parted it into 
 the Old School and New School parties, Hali- 
 burton thought it very important that Brannan 
 and Orcutt and the church in B. M. under 
 Brannan's ministry should give in their adhesion 
 to our side. Their church would count one more 
 in our registry, and the weight of its influence 
 would not be lost. He therefore spent eight or 
 nine days in telegraphing, from the early proofs, 
 a copy of the address of the Chautauqua Synod to 
 Brannan, and asked Brannan if he were not will- 
 ing to have his name signed to it when it was 
 printed. And the only thing which Haliburton 
 takes sorely in the whole experience of the Brick 
 Moon, from the beginning, is that neither Orcutt 
 nor Brannan has ever sent one word of acknowl- 
 edgment of the despatch. Once, when Haliburton 
 
90 The Brick Moon 
 
 was very low-spirited, I heard him even say that 
 he believed they had never read a word of it, and 
 that he thought he and Rob. Shea had had their 
 labor for their pains in running the signals out 
 and in. 
 
 Then he felt quite sure that they would have to 
 establish civil government there. So he made 
 up an excellent collection of books, — De Lolme 
 on the British Constitution; Montesquieu on 
 Laws; Story, Kent, John Adams, and all the 
 authorities here; with ten copies of his own 
 address delivered before the Young Men's Mutual 
 Improvement Society of Podunk, on the " Abnor- 
 mal Truths of Social Order. " He telegraphed to 
 know what night he should send them, and Orcutt 
 replied : — 
 
 129. "Go to thunder with your old law-books. 
 We have not had a primary meeting nor a justice 
 court since we have been here, and, D. V., we 
 never will have." 
 
 Haliburton says this is as bad as the state of 
 things in Kansas, when, because Frank Pierce 
 would not give them any judges or laws to their 
 mind, they lived a year or so without any. Orcutt 
 added in his next despatch: — 
 
 130. "Have not you any new novels? Send 
 up Scribe and the ' Arabian Nights ' and ' Rob- 
 inson Crusoe ' and the ' Three Guardsmen, ' and 
 Mrs. Whitney's books. We have Thackeray and 
 Miss Austen." 
 
 When he read this, Haliburton felt as if they 
 
The Brick Moon 91 
 
 were not only light-footed but light-headed. 
 And he consulted me quite seriously as to tele- 
 graphing to them "Pycroft's Course of Reading." 
 I coaxed him out of that, and he satisfied himself 
 with a serious expostulation with George as to the 
 way in which their young folks would grow up. 
 George replied by telegraphing Brannan's last 
 sermon, i Thessalonians iv. 11. The sermon had 
 four heads, must have occupied an hour and a 
 half in delivery, and took five nights to telegraph. 
 I had another engagement, so that Haliburton 
 had to sit it all out with his eye to Shubael, and 
 he has never entered on that line of discussion 
 again. It was as well, perhaps, that he got 
 enough of it. 
 
 The women have never had any misunderstand- 
 ings. When we had received two or three hun- 
 dred despatches from B. M., Annie Haliburton 
 came to me and said, in that pretty way of hers, 
 that she thought they had a right to their turn 
 again. She said this lore about the Albert Nyanza 
 and the North Pole was all very well, but, for 
 her part, she wanted to know how they lived, 
 what they did, and what they talked about, 
 whether they took summer journeys, and how and 
 what was the form of society where thirty-seven 
 people lived in such close quarters. This about 
 "the form of society" was merely wool pulled 
 over my eyes. So she said she thought her hus- 
 band and I had better go off to the Biennial Con- 
 vention at Assampink, as she knew we wanted to 
 
92 The Brick Moon 
 
 do, and she and Bridget and Polly and Cordelia 
 would watch for the signals, and would make the 
 replies. She thought they would get on better if 
 we were out of the way. 
 
 So we went to the convention, as she called it, 
 which was really not properly a convention, but 
 the Forty-fifth Biennial General Synod, and we 
 left the girls to their own sweet way. 
 
 Shall I confess that they kept no record of 
 their own signals, and did not remember very 
 accurately what they were? "I was not going to 
 keep a string of ' says I's ' and ' says she's,' " said 
 Polly, boldly. "It shall not be written on my 
 tomb that I have left more annals for people to 
 file or study or bind or dust or catalogue. " But 
 they told us that they had begun by asking the 
 " bricks " if they remembered what Maria Theresa 
 said to her ladies-in-waiting.^ Quicker than any 
 signal had ever been answered, George Orcutt's 
 party replied from the Moon, " We hear, and we 
 obey." Then the women-kind had it all to them- 
 selves. The brick-women explained at once to 
 our girls that they had sent their men round to 
 the other side to cut ice, and that they were 
 manning the telescope, and running the signals 
 for themselves, and that they could have a nice 
 talk without any bother about the law-books or 
 
 1 Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, Duke of Tuscany, was 
 hanging about loose one day, and the Empress, who had got a 
 little tired, said to the maids of honor, "Girls, whenever you 
 marry, take care and choose a husband who has something to do 
 outside of the house." 
 
The Brick Moon 93 
 
 the magnetic pole. As I say, I do not know what 
 questions Polly and Annie put ; but — to give 
 them their due — they had put on paper a co- 
 herent record of the results arrived at in the 
 answers; though, what were the numbers of the 
 despatches, or in what order they came, I do not 
 know; for the session of the synod kept us at 
 Assampink for two or three weeks. 
 
 Mrs. Brannan was the spokesman. " We tried 
 a good many experiments about day and night. 
 It was very funny at first not to know when it 
 would be light and when dark, for really the 
 names day and night do not express a great deal 
 for us. Of course the pendulum clocks all went 
 wrong till the men got them overhauled, and I 
 think watches and clocks both will soon go out of 
 fashion. But we have settled down on much the 
 old hours, getting up, without reference to day- 
 light, by our great gong, at your eight o'clock. 
 But when the eclipse season comes, we vary 
 from that for signalling. 
 
 "We still make separate families, and Alice's 
 is the seventh. We tried hotel life and we liked 
 it, for there has never been the first quarrel here. 
 You can't quarrel here, where you are never sick, 
 never tired, and need not be ever hungry. But 
 we were satisfied that it was nicer for the chil- 
 dren and for all round to live separately and come 
 together at parties, to church, at signal time, and 
 so on. We had something to say then, something 
 to teach, and something to learn. 
 
94 The Brick Moon 
 
 "Since the carices developed so nicely into 
 flax, we have had one great comfort, which we 
 had lost before, in being able to make and use 
 paper. We have had great fun, and we think the 
 children have made great improvement in writing 
 novels for the Union. The Union is the old 
 Union for Christian work that we had in dear old 
 No. 9. We have two serial novels going on, one 
 called ' Diana of Carrotook, ' and the other called 
 ' Ups and Downs ' ; the first by Levi Ross, and 
 the other by my Blanche. They are really very 
 good, and I wish we could send them to you. 
 But they would not be worth despatching. 
 
 "We get up at eight; dress, and fix up at 
 home; a sniff of air, as people choose; breakfast; 
 and then we meet for prayers outside. Where 
 we meet depends on the temperature ; for we can 
 choose any temperature we want, from boiling 
 water down, which is convenient. After prayers 
 an hour's talk, lounging, walking, and so on; no 
 flirting, but a favorite time with the young folks. 
 
 "Then comes work. Three hours' head-work 
 is the maximum in that line. Of women's work, 
 as in all worlds, there are twenty-four in one of 
 your days, but for my part I like it. Farmers 
 and carpenters have their own laws, as the light 
 serves and the seasons. Dinner is seven hours 
 after breakfast began; always an hour long, as 
 breakfast was. Then every human being sleeps 
 for an hour. Big gong again, and we ride, walk, 
 swim, telegraph, or what not, as the case may be. 
 
The Brick Moon 95 
 
 We have no horses yet, but the Shanghaes are 
 coming up into very good dodos and ostriches, 
 quite big enough for a trot for the children. 
 
 " Only two persons of a family take tea at 
 home. The rest always go out to tea without 
 invitation. At 8 P. M. big gong again, and we 
 meet in ' Grace, ' which is the prettiest hall, 
 church, concert-room, that you ever saw. We 
 have singing, lectures, theatre, dancing, talk, or 
 what the mistress of the night determines, till 
 the curfew sounds at ten, and then we all go 
 home. Evening prayers are in the separate 
 households, and every one is in bed by midnight. 
 The only law on the statute-book is that every one 
 shall sleep nine hours out of every twenty-four. 
 
 " Only one thing interrupts this general order. 
 Three taps on the gong means ' telegraph, ' and 
 then, I tell you, we are all on hand. 
 
 " You cannot think how quickly the days and 
 years go by ! " 
 
 Of course, however, as I said, this could not 
 last. We could not subdue our world and be 
 spending all our time in telegraphing our dear 
 B. M. Could it be possible — perhaps it was pos- 
 sible — that they there had something else to 
 think of and to do besides attending to our affairs ? 
 Certainly their indifference to Grant's fourth 
 Proclamation, and to Mr. Fish's celebrated pro- 
 tocol in the Tahiti business, looked that way. 
 Could it be that that little witch of a Belle 
 Brannan really cared more for their performance 
 
96 The Brick Moon 
 
 of "Midsummer Night's Dream," or her father's 
 birthday, than she cared for that pleasant little 
 account I telegraphed up to all the children, of 
 the way we went to muster when we were boys 
 together ? Ah well ! I ought not to have sup- 
 posed that all worlds were like this old world. 
 Indeed, I often say this is the queerest world I 
 ever knew. Perhaps theirs is not so queer, and 
 it is I who am the oddity. 
 
 Of course it could not last. We just arranged 
 correspondence days, when we would send to 
 them, and they to us. I was meanwhile turned 
 out from my place at Tamworth Observatory. 
 Not but I did my work well, and Polly hers. 
 The observer's room was a miracle of neatness. 
 The children were kept in the basement. Visi- 
 tors were received with great courtesy; and all 
 the fees were sent to the treasurer ; he got three 
 dollars and eleven cents one summer, — that was 
 the year General Grant came there; and that 
 was the largest amount that they ever received 
 from any source but begging. I was not unfaith- 
 ful to my trust. Nor was it for such iniidelity 
 that I was removed. No ! But it was discovered 
 that I was a Sandemanian; a Glassite, as in 
 derision I was called. The annual meeting of the 
 trustees came round. There was a large Me- 
 chanics' Fair in Tamworth at the time, and an 
 Agricultural Convention. There was no horse- 
 race at the convention, but there were two com- 
 petitive examinations in which running horses 
 
The Brick Moon 07 
 
 competed with each other, and trotting horses 
 competed with each other, and five thousand 
 dollars was given to the best runner and the 
 best trotter. These causes drew all the trustees 
 together. The Rev. Cephas Philpotts presided. 
 His doctrines with regard to free agency were 
 considered much more sound than mine. He 
 took the chair, — in that pretty observatory 
 parlor, which Polly had made so bright with 
 smilax and ivy. Of course I took no chair; I 
 waited, as a janitor should, at the door. Then 
 a brief address. Dr. Philpotts trusted that the 
 observatory might always be administered in the 
 interests of science, of true science; of that 
 science which rightly distinguishes between un- 
 licensed liberty and true freedom; between the 
 unrestrained volition and the freedom of the will. 
 He became eloquent, he became noisy. He sat 
 down. Then three other men spoke, on similar 
 subjects. Then the executive committee which 
 had appointed me was dismissed with thanks. 
 Then a new executive committee was chosen, 
 with Dr. Philpotts at the head. The next day I 
 was discharged. And the next week the Phil- 
 potts family moved into the observatory, and their 
 second girl now takes care of the instruments. 
 
 I returned to the cure of souls and to healing 
 the hurt of my people. On observation days 
 somebody runs down to No. 9, and by means 
 of Shubael communicates with B. M. We love 
 them, and they love us all the same. 
 
 7 
 
98 The Brick Moon 
 
 Nor do we grieve for them as we did. Coming 
 home from Pigeon Cove in October with those 
 nice Wadsworth people, we fell to talking as to 
 the why and wherefore of the summer life we had 
 led. How was it that it was so charming .' And 
 why were we a little loath to come back to more 
 comfortable surroundings.' "I hate the school," 
 said George Wadsworth. "I hate the making 
 calls," said his mother. "I hate the office hour," 
 said her poor husband; "if there were only a 
 dozen I would not mind, but seventeen hundred 
 thousand in sixty minutes is too many." So that 
 led to asking how many of us there had been at 
 Pigeon Cove. The children counted up all the 
 six families, — the Haliburtons, the Wadsworths, 
 the Pontefracts, the Midges, the Hayeses, and 
 the Inghams, and the two good-natured girls, — 
 thirty-seven in all, — and the two babies born 
 this summer. "Really," said Mrs. Wadsworth, 
 "I have not spoken to a human being besides 
 these since June; and what is more, Mrs. Ingham, 
 I have not wanted to. We have really lived in a 
 little world of our own." 
 
 " World of our own ! " Polly fairly jumped from 
 her seat, to Mrs. Wadsworth 's wonder. So we 
 had — lived in a world of our own. Polly reads 
 no newspaper since the " Sandemanian " was 
 merged. She has a letter or two tumble in some- 
 times, but not many ; and the truth was that she 
 had been more secluded from General Grant and 
 Mr. Gladstone and the Khedive, and the rest of 
 
The Brick Moon 99 
 
 the important people, than had Brannan or Ross 
 or any of them ! 
 
 And it had been the happiest summer she had 
 ever known. 
 
 Can it be possible that all human sympathies 
 can thrive, and all human powers be exercised, 
 and all human joys increase, if we live with all 
 our might with the thirty or forty people next to 
 us, telegraphing kindly to all other people, to be 
 sure? Can it be possible that our passion for 
 large cities, and large parties, and large theatres, 
 and large churches, develops no faith nor hope 
 nor love which would not find aliment and exercise 
 in a little " world of our own " ? 
 
CRUSOE IN NEW YORK 
 
CRUSOE IN NEW YORK 
 
 PART I 
 
 I WAS born in the year 1842, in the city of 
 New York, of a good family, though not of 
 that country, my father being a foreigner of 
 Bremen, who settled first in England. He got a 
 good estate by merchandise, and afterward lived 
 at New York. But first he had married my 
 mother, whose relations were named Robinson — 
 a very good family in her country — and from 
 them I was named. 
 
 My father died before I can remember — at 
 least, I believe so. For, although I sometimes 
 figure to myself a grave, elderly man, thickset 
 and wearing a broad-brimmed hat, holding me 
 between his knees and advising me seriously, I 
 cannot say really whether this were my father 
 or no; or, rather, whether this is really some one 
 I remember or no. For my mother, with whom I 
 have lived alone much of my life, as the reader 
 will see, has talked to me of my father so much, 
 and has described him to me so faithfully, that I 
 cannot tell but it is her description of him that 
 
1 04 Crusoe in New York 
 
 I recollect so easily. And so, as I say, I cannot 
 tell whether I remember him or no. 
 
 He never lost his German notions, and perhaps 
 they gained in England some new force as to the 
 way in which boys should be bred. At least, for 
 myself, I know that he left to my mother strict 
 charge that I should be bound 'prentice to a 
 carpenter as soon as I was turned of fourteen. I 
 have often heard her say that this was the last 
 thing he spoke to her of when he was dying ; and 
 with the tears in her eyes, she promised him it 
 should be so. And though it cost her a world of 
 trouble — so changed were times and customs — 
 to find an old-fashioned master who would take 
 me for an apprentice, she was as good as her 
 •word. 
 
 I should like to tell the story of my apprentice- 
 ship, if I supposed the reader cared as much 
 about it as I do; but I must rather come to that 
 part of my life which is remarkable, than hold to 
 that which is more like the life of many other 
 boys. My father's property was lost or was 
 wasted, I know not how, so that my poor mother 
 had but a hard time of it; and when I was just 
 turned of twenty-one and was free of my appren- 
 ticeship, she had but little to live upon but what 
 I could bring home, and what she could earn by 
 her needle. This was no grief to me, for I was 
 fond of my trade, and I had learned it well. My 
 old master was fond of me, and would trust me 
 with work of a good deal of responsibility. I 
 
Crusoe in New York loc 
 
 neither drank nor smoked, nor was I over-fond of 
 the amusements which took up a good deal of the 
 time of my fellow-workmen. I was most pleased 
 when, on pay-day, I could carry home to my 
 mother ten, fifteen, or even twenty dollars — 
 could throw it into her lap, and kiss her and 
 make her kiss me. 
 
 "Here is the oil for the lamp, my darling," I 
 would say; or, "Here is the grease for the 
 wheels"; or, "Now you must give me white 
 sugar twice a day." She was a good manages-, 
 and she made both ends meet very well. 
 
 I had no thought of leaving my master when 
 my apprenticeship was over, nor had he any 
 thought of letting me go. We understood each 
 other well, he liked me and I liked him. He 
 knew that he had in me one man who was not 
 afraid of work, as he would say, and who would 
 not shirk it. And so, indeed, he would often put 
 me in charge of parties of workmen who were 
 much older than I was. 
 
 So it was that it happened, perhaps some 
 months after I had become a journeyman, that he 
 told me to take a gang of men, whom he named, 
 and to go quite up-town in the city, to put a close 
 wooden fence around a vacant lot of land there. 
 One of his regular employers had come to him, 
 to say that this lot of land was to be enclosed, 
 and the work was to be done by him. He had 
 sent round the lumber, and he told me that I 
 would find it on the ground. He gave me, in 
 
io6 Crusoe in New York 
 
 writing, the general directions by which the 
 fence was ordered, and told me to use my best 
 judgment in carrying them out. "Only take 
 care," said he, "that you do it as well as if I was 
 there myself. Do not be in a hurry, and be sure 
 your work stands. " 
 
 I was well pleased to be left thus to my own 
 judgment. I had no fear of failing to do the job 
 well, or of displeasing my old master or his 
 employer. If I had any doubts, they were about 
 the men who were to work under my lead, whom 
 I did not rate at all equally; and, if I could have 
 had my pick, I should have thrown out some of 
 the more sulky and lazy of them, and should have 
 chosen from the other hands. But youngsters 
 must not be choosers when they are on their first 
 commissions. 
 
 I had my party well at -work, with some laborers 
 whom we had hired to dig our post-holes, when a 
 white-haired old man, with gold spectacles and a 
 broad-brimmed hat, alighted from a cab upon the 
 sidewalk, watched the men for a minute at their 
 work, and then accosted me. I knew him per- 
 fectly, though of course he did not remember me. 
 He was, in fact, my employer in this very job, 
 for he was old Mark Henry, a Quaker gentleman 
 of Philadelphia, who was guardian of the infant 
 heirs who owned this block of land which we 
 were enclosing. My master did all the carpen- 
 ter's work in the New York houses which Mark 
 Henry or any of his wards owned, and I had often 
 
Crusoe in New York 107 
 
 seen him at the shop in consultation. I turned 
 to him and explained to him the plans for the 
 work. We had already some of the joists cut, 
 which were to make the posts to our fence. The 
 old man measured them with his cane, and said 
 he thought they would not be long enough. 
 
 I explained to him that the fence was to be 
 eight feet high, and that these were quite long 
 enough for that. 
 
 "I know," he said, "I know, my young friend, 
 that my order was for a fence eight feet high, but 
 I do not think that will do." 
 
 With some surprise I showed him, by a "ten- 
 foot pole," how high the fence would come. 
 
 " Yes, my young friend, I see, I see. But I 
 tell thee, every beggar's brat in the ward will be 
 over thy fence before it has been built a week, 
 and there will be I know not what devices of 
 Satan carried on in the inside. All the junk 
 from the North River will be hidden there, and I 
 shall be in luck if some stolen trunk, nay, some 
 dead man's body, is not stowed away there. Ah, 
 my young friend, if thee is ever unhappy enough 
 to own a vacant lot in the city, thee will know 
 much that thee does not know now of the exceed- 
 ing sinfulness of sin. Thee will know of trials 
 of the spirit and of the temper that thee has never 
 yet experienced." 
 
 I said I thought this was probable, but I 
 thought inwardly that I would gladly be tried 
 that way. The old man went on: — 
 
io8 Crusoe in New York 
 
 " I said eight feet to friend Silas, but thee may 
 say to him that I have thought better of it, and 
 that I have ordered thee to make the fence ten 
 feet high. Thee may say that I am now going to 
 Philadelphia, but that I will write to him niy 
 order when I arrive. Meanwhile thee will go on 
 with the fence as I bid thee." 
 
 And so the old man entered his cab again and 
 rode away. 
 
 I amused myself at his notion, for I knew very 
 well that the street-boys and other loafers would 
 storm his ten-foot wall as readily as they would 
 have stormed the Malakoff or the Redan, had 
 they supposed there was anything to gain by 
 doing it. I had, of course, to condemn some of 
 my posts, which were already cut, or to work 
 them in to other parts of the fence. My order 
 for spruce boards was to be enlarged by twenty 
 per cent by the old man's direction, and this, as 
 it happened, led to a new arrangement of my 
 piles of lumber on my vacant land. 
 
 And all this it was which set me to thinking 
 that night, as I looked on the work, that I might 
 attempt another enterprise, which, as it proved, 
 lasted me for years, and which I am now going 
 to describe. 
 
 I had worked diligently with the men to set up 
 some fifty feet of the fence where it parted us 
 from an alley-way, for I wanted a chance to dry 
 some of the boards, which had just been hauled 
 from a raft in the North River. The truckmen 
 
Crusoe in New York 109 
 
 had delivered them helter-skelter, and they lay, 
 still soaking, above each other on our vacant lot. 
 
 We turned all our force on this first piece of 
 fence, and had so much of it done that, by calling 
 off the men just before sundown, I was able to 
 set up all the wet boards, each with one end 
 resting on the fence and the other on the ground, 
 so that they took the air on both sides, and would 
 dry more quickly. Of course this left a long, 
 dark tunnel underneath. 
 
 As the other hands gathered up their tools and 
 made ready to go, a fellow named McLoughlin, 
 who had gone out with one of the three months' 
 regiments not long before, said : — 
 
 " I would not be sorry to sleep there. I have 
 slept in many a worse place than that in Dixie " ; 
 and on that he went away, leaving me to make 
 some measurements which I needed the next day. 
 But what he said rested in my mind, and, as it 
 happened, directed the next twelve years of my 
 life. 
 
 Why should not I live here? How often my 
 mother had said that if she had only a house of 
 her own she should be perfectly happy! Why 
 should not we have a house of our own here, just 
 as comfortable as if we had gone a thousand miles 
 out on the prairie to build it, and a great deal 
 nearer to the book-stores, to the good music, to 
 her old friends, and to my good wages .' We had 
 talked a thousand times of moving together to 
 Kansas, where I was to build a little hut for her, 
 
no Crusoe in New York 
 
 and we were to be very happy together. But why 
 not do as the minister had bidden us only the last 
 Sunday — . seize on to-day, and take what Provi- 
 dence offered now ? 
 
 I must acknowledge that the thonght of paying 
 any ground rent to old Mr. Henry did not occur 
 to me then — no, nor for years afterward. On the 
 other hand, all that I thought of was this, — that 
 here was as good a chance as there was in Kansas 
 to live without rent, and that rent had been, was 
 still, and was likely to be my bugbear, unless I 
 hit on some such scheme as this for abating it. 
 
 The plan, to be short, filled my mind. There 
 was nothing in the way of house-building which 
 I shrank from now, for, in learning my trade, I 
 had won my Aladdin's lamp, and I could build 
 xny mother a palace, if she had needed one. 
 Pleased with my fancy, before it was dark I had 
 explored my principality from every corner, and 
 learned all its capabilities. 
 
 The lot was an oblong, nearly three times as 
 long as it was wide. On the west side, which 
 was one of the short sides, it faced what I will 
 call the Ninety-ninth Avenue, and on the south 
 side, what I will call Fernando Street, though 
 really it was one of the cross-streets with num- 
 bers. Running to the east it came to a narrow 
 passage-way which had been reserved for the 
 accommodation of the rear of a church which 
 fronted on the street just north of us. Our back 
 line was also the back line of the yards of the 
 
Crusoe in New York 1 1 1 
 
 houses on the same street, but on our northeast 
 corner the church ran back as far as the back line 
 of both houses and yards, and its high brick 
 wall — nearly fifty feet high — took the place 
 there of the ten-foot brick wall, surmounted by 
 bottle-glass, which made their rear defence. 
 
 The moment my mind was turned to the matter, 
 I saw that in the rear of the church there was a 
 corner which lay warmly and pleasantly to the 
 southern and western sun, which was still out of 
 eye-shot from the street, pleasantly removed from 
 the avenue passing, and only liable to inspection, 
 indeed, from the dwelling-houses on the oppo- 
 site side of our street, — houses which, at this 
 moment, were not quite finished, though they 
 would be occupied soon. 
 
 If, therefore, I could hit on some way of screen- 
 ing my mother's castle from them — for a castle I 
 called it from the first moment, though it was to 
 be much more like a cottage — ■ I need fear no 
 observation from other quarters; for the avenue 
 was broad, and on the other side from us there 
 was a range of low, rambling buildings — an 
 engine-house and a long liquor-saloon were two 
 — which had but one story. Most of them had 
 been built, I suppose, only to earn something for 
 the land while it was growing valuable. The 
 church had no windows in the rear, and that 
 protected my castle — which was, indeed, still 
 in the air — from all observation on that 
 side. 
 
112 Crusoe in New York 
 
 I told my mother nothing of all this when I 
 went home. But I did tell her that I had some 
 calculations to make for my work, and that was 
 enough. She went on, sweet soul ! without 
 speaking a word, with her knitting and her sew- 
 ing at her end of the table, only getting up to 
 throw a cloth over her parrot's cage when he was 
 noisy; and I sat at my end of the table, at work 
 over my figures, as silent as if I had been on a 
 desert island. 
 
 Before bedtime I had quite satisfied myself 
 with the plan of a very pretty little house which 
 would come quite within our space, our means, 
 and our shelter. There was a little passage 
 which ran quite across from east to west. On 
 the church side of this there was my mother's 
 kitchen, which was to be what I fondly marked 
 the "common-room." This was quite long from 
 east to west, and not more than half as long the 
 other way. But on the east side, where I could 
 have no windows, I cut off, on its whole width, a 
 deep closet; and this proved a very fortunate 
 thing afterward, as you shall see. On the west 
 side I made one large square window, and there 
 was, of course, a door into the passage. 
 
 On the south side of the passage I made three 
 rooms, each narrow and long. The two outside 
 rooms I meant to light from the top. Whether 
 I would put any skylight into the room between 
 them, I was not quite so certain ; I did not expect 
 visitors in my new house, so I did not mark it a 
 
Crusoe in New York 113 
 
 " guest-room " in the plan. But I thought of it 
 as a store-room, and as such, indeed, for many 
 years we used it ; though at last I found it more 
 convenient to cut a sky-light in the roof there 
 also. But I am getting before my story. 
 
 Before I had gone to bed that night I had made 
 a careful estimate as to how much lumber I 
 should need, of different kinds, for my little 
 house; for I had, of course, no right to use my 
 master's lumber nor Mr. Henry's; nor had I any 
 thought of doing so. I made out an estimate 
 that would be quite full, for shingles, for clap- 
 boards, white pine for my floors and finish, — for 
 I meant to make a good job of it if I made any, 
 — and for laths for the inside work. I made 
 another list of the locks, hinges, window furni- 
 ture and other hardware I should need; but for 
 this I cared less, as I need not order them so 
 soon. I could scarcely refrain from showing my 
 plan to my mother, so snug and comfortable did 
 it look already; but I had already determined 
 that the "city house " should be a present to her 
 on her next birthday, and that till then I would 
 keep it a secret from her, as from all the world ; 
 so I refrained. 
 
 The next morning I told my master what the 
 old Quaiker had directed about the fence, and I 
 took his order for the new lumber we should need 
 to raise the height as was proposed. At the 
 same time I told him that we were all annoyed 
 at the need of carrying our tools back and forth, 
 
 8 
 
114 Crusoe in New York 
 
 and because we could only take the nails for one 
 day's use; and that, if he were willing, I had a 
 mind to risk an old chest I had with the nails in 
 it and a few tools, which I thought I could so 
 hide that the wharf -rats and other loafers should 
 not discover it. He told me to do as I pleased, 
 that he would risk the nails if I would risk my 
 tools; and so, by borrowing what we call a hand- 
 cart for a few days, I was able to take up my own 
 little things to the lot without his asking any 
 other questions, or without exciting the curiosity 
 of McLoughlin or any other of the men. Of 
 course, he would have sent up in the shop-wagon 
 anything we needed; but it was far out of the 
 wfay, and nobody wanted to drive the team back 
 at night if we could do without. And so, as 
 night came on, I left the men at their work, and 
 having loaded my hand-cart with a small chest I 
 had, I took that into the alley-way of which I 
 told you before, carried my box of tools into the 
 corner between the church and our fence, under 
 the boards which we had set up that day, and cov- 
 ered it heavily, with McLoughlin's help, with 
 joists and boards, so that no light work would 
 remove them, if, indeed, any wanderer of the 
 night suspected that the box was there. I took 
 the hand-cart out into the alley-way and chained 
 it, first by the wheel and then by the handle, in 
 two staples which I drove there. I had another 
 purpose in this, as you shall see; but most of all, 
 I wanted to test both the police and the knavish- 
 
Crusoe in New York 1 1 5 
 
 ness of the neighborhood by seeing if the hand- 
 cart were there in the morning. 
 
 To my great joy it was, and to my greater joy 
 it remained there unmolested all the rest of the 
 week in which we worked there. For my master, 
 who never came near us himself, increased our 
 force for us on the third day, so that at the end 
 of the week, or Saturday night, the job was 
 nearly done, and well done, too. 
 
 On the third day I had taken the precaution to 
 throw out in the inside of our enclosure a sort of 
 open fence, on which I could put the wet boards 
 to dry, which at first I had placed on our side 
 fence. I told McLoughlin, what was true enough, 
 that the south sun was better for them than the 
 sun from the west. So I ran out what I may call 
 a screen thirty-five feet from the church, and 
 parallel with it, on which I set up these boards 
 to dry, and to my great joy I saw that they would 
 wholly protect the roof of my little house from 
 any observation from the houses the other side of 
 the way while the workmen were at work, or even 
 after they were inhabited. 
 
 There was not one of the workmen with me 
 who had forethought enough or care for our 
 master's interest to ask whose boards those were 
 which we left there, or why we left them there. 
 Indeed, they knew the next Monday that I went 
 up with Fergus, the Swede, to bring back such 
 lumber as we did not use, and none of them knew 
 or cared how much we left there. 
 
1 1 6 Crusoe in New York 
 
 For me, I was only eager to get to work, and 
 that day seemed very long to me. But that 
 Monday afternoon I asked my master if I might 
 have the team again for my own use for an hour 
 or so, to move some stuff of mine and my 
 mother's, and he gave it to me readily. 
 
 I had then only to drive up-town to a friendly 
 lumberman's, where my own stuff was already 
 lying waiting for me to load up, with the assist- 
 ance of the workmen there, and to drive as quickly 
 as I could into the church alley. Here I looked 
 around, and seeing a German who looked as if he 
 were only a day from Bremen, I made signs to 
 him that if he would help me I would give him a 
 piece of scrip which I showed him. The man 
 had been long enough in the country to know 
 that the scrip was good for lager. He took hold 
 manfully with me, and carried my timbers and 
 boards into the enclosure through a gap I made 
 in the fence for the purpose. I gave him his 
 money and he went away. As he went to Min- 
 nesota the next day, he never mentioned to any- 
 body the business he had been engaged in. 
 
 Meanwhile, I had bought my hand-cart of the 
 man who owned it. I left a little pile of heavy 
 cedar logs on the outside, spiking them to each 
 other indeed, that they should not be easily 
 moved. And to them and to my posts I pad- 
 locked the hand-cart; nor was it ever disturbed 
 during my reign in those regions. So I had easy 
 method enough when I wanted a bundle or two 
 
Crusoe in New York 1 1 7 
 
 of laths, or a bunch of shingles, or anything else 
 for my castle, to bring them up in the cool of the 
 evening, and to discharge my load without special 
 observation. My pile of logs, indeed, grew 
 eventually into a blind or screen, which quite 
 protected that corner of the church alley from the 
 view of any passer-by in Fernando Street. 
 
 Of that whole summer, happy and bright as it 
 all was, I look back most often on the first morn- 
 ing when I got fairly to work on my new home. 
 I told my mother that for some weeks I should 
 have to start early, and that she must not think 
 of getting up for my breakfast. I told her that 
 there was extra work on a job up-town, and that 
 I had promised to be there at five every day 
 while the summer lasted. She left for me a pot 
 of coffee, which I promised her I would warm 
 when the time for breakfast and dinner came; and 
 for the rest, she always had my dinner ready in 
 my tin dinner-pail. Little did she know then, 
 sweet saint ! that I was often at Fernando Street 
 by half-past three in the first sweet gray of those 
 summer days. 
 
 On that particular day, it was really scarcely 
 light enough for me to find the nail I drew from 
 the plank which I left for my entrance. When I 
 was fairly within and the plank was replaced, I 
 felt that I was indeed " monarch of all I surveyed. " 
 What did I survey?' The church wall on the 
 north; on the south, my own screen of spruce 
 boards, now well dry; on the east and west, the 
 
1 1 8 Crusoe in New York 
 
 ten-foot fences which I had built myself; and over 
 that on the west, God's deep, transparent sky, in 
 which I could still see a planet whose name I did 
 not know. It was a heaven, indeed, which He 
 had said was as much mine as his ! 
 
 The first thing, of course, was to get out my 
 frame. This was a work of weeks. The next 
 thing was to raise it. And here the first step 
 was the only hard one, nor was this so hard as it 
 would seem. The highest wall of my house was 
 no higher than the ten-foot fence we had already 
 built on the church alley. The western wall, if, 
 indeed, a frame house has any walls, was only 
 eight feet high. For foundations and sills, I 
 dug deep post-holes, in which I set substantial 
 cedar posts which I knew would outlast my day, 
 and I framed my sills into these. I made the 
 frame of the western wall lie out upon the ground 
 in one piece ; and I only needed a purchase high 
 enough, and a block with repeating pulleys 
 strong enough, to be able to haul up the whole 
 frame by my own strength, unassisted. The 
 high purchase I got readily enough by making 
 what we called a "three-leg," near twenty feet 
 high, just where my castle was to stand. I had 
 no difficulty in hauling this into its place by a 
 solid staple and ring, which for this purpose I 
 drove high in the church wall. My multiplying 
 pulley did the rest; and after it was done, I took 
 out the staple and mended the hole it had made, 
 so the wall was as good as ever. 
 
Crusoe in New York 1 1 9 
 
 You see it was nobody's business what shanty 
 or what tower old Mark Henry or the Fordyce 
 heirs might or might not put on the vacant corner 
 lot. The Fordyce heirs were all in nurseries and 
 kindergartens in Geneva, and indeed would have 
 known nothing of corner lots had they been living 
 in their palace in Fourteenth Street. As for 
 Mark Henry, that one great achievement by 
 which he rode up to Fernando Street was one of 
 the rare victories of his life, of which ninety-nine 
 hundredths were spent in counting-houses. In- 
 deed, if he had gone there, all he would have 
 seen was his ten-foot fence, and he would have 
 taken pride to himself that he had it built so 
 high. 
 
 When the day of the first raising came, and the 
 frame slipped into the mortises so nicely, as I 
 had foreordained that it should do, I was so 
 happy that I could scarcely keep my secret from 
 my mother. Indeed, that day I did run back to 
 dinner. And when she asked me what pleased 
 me so, I longed to let her know; but I only 
 smoothed her cheeks with my hands and kissed 
 her on both of them, and told her it was because 
 she was so handsome that I was so pleased. She 
 said she knew I had a secret from her, and I 
 owned that I had, but she said she would not try 
 to guess, but would wait for the time for me to 
 tell her. 
 
 And so the summer sped by. Of course I saw 
 my sweetheart, as I then called my mother, less 
 
1 20 Crusoe in New York 
 
 and less. For I worked till it was pitch-dark at 
 the castle ; and after it was closed in, so I could 
 work inside, I often worked till ten o'clock by 
 candlelight. I do not know how I lived with so 
 little sleep; I am afraid I slept pretty late on 
 Sundays. But the castle grew and grew, and the 
 common-room, which I was most eager to finish 
 wholly before cold weather, was in complete 
 order three full weeks before my mother's birth- 
 day came. 
 
 Then came the joy of furnishing it. To this I 
 had looked forward all the summer, and I had 
 measured with my eye many a bit of furniture, 
 and priced, in an unaffected way, many an impos- 
 sible second-hand finery, so that I knew just 
 what I could do and what I could not do. 
 
 My mother had always wanted a Banner stove. 
 I knew this, and it was a great grief to me that 
 she had none, though she would never say any- 
 thing about it. 
 
 To my great joy, I found a second-hand Banner 
 stove, No. 2, at a sort of old junk-shop, which 
 was, in fact, an old curiosity shop not three 
 blocks away from Ninety-ninth Avenue. Some 
 one had sold this to them while it was really as 
 good as new, and yet the keeper offered it to me 
 at half-price. 
 
 I hung round the place a good deal, and when 
 the man found I really had money and meant 
 something, he took me into all sorts of alleys and 
 hiding-places, where he stored his old things 
 
Crusoe in New York 121 
 
 away. I made fabulous bargains there, for either 
 the old Jew liked me particularly, or I liked 
 things that nobody else wanted. In the days 
 when his principal customers were wharf-rats, 
 and his principal business the traffic in old cord- 
 age and copper, he had hung out as a sign an old 
 tavern-sign of a ship that had come to him. His 
 place still went by the name of "The Ship," 
 though it was really, as I say, a mere wreck, a 
 rambling, third-rate old furniture shop of the 
 old-curiosity kind. 
 
 But after I had safely carried the Banner to my 
 new house, and was sure the funnel drew well, 
 and that the escape of smoke and sparks was care- 
 fully guarded, many a visit did I make to The 
 Ship at early morning or late in the evening, to 
 bring away one or another treasure which< I had 
 discovered there. 
 
 Under the pretence of new-varnishing some of 
 my mother's most precious tables and her bureau, 
 I got them away from her also. I knocked up, 
 with my own hatchet and saw, a sitting-table 
 which I meant to have permanent in the middle 
 of the room, which was much more convenient 
 than anything I could buy or carry. 
 
 And so, on the 12th of October, the eve of my 
 mother's birthday, the common-room was all ready 
 for her. In her own room I had a new carpet 
 and a new set of painted chamber furniture, 
 which I had bought at the maker's, and brought 
 up piece by piece. It cost me nineteen dollars 
 
122 Crusoe in New York 
 
 and a half, for which I paid him in cash, which 
 indeed he wanted sadly. 
 
 So, on the morning of the 13th of October, I 
 kissed my mother forty times, because that day 
 she was forty years old. I told her that before 
 midnight she should know what the great sur- 
 prise was, and I asked her if she could hold out 
 till then. 
 
 She let me poke as much fun at her as I chose, 
 because she said she was so glad to have me at 
 breakfast; and I stayed long after breakfast, for 
 I had told my mother that it was her birthday, 
 and that I should be late. And such a thing as 
 my asking for an hour or two was so rare that I 
 took it quite of course when I did ask. I came 
 home early at night, too. Then I said, — 
 
 "Now, sweetheart, the surprise requires that 
 you spend the night away from home with me. 
 Perhaps, if you like the place, we will spend to- 
 morrow there. So I will take Poll in her cage, 
 and you must put up your night-things and take 
 them in your hand." 
 
 She was surprised now, for such a thing as an 
 outing over night had never been spoken of before 
 by either of us. 
 
 "Why, Rob," she said, "you are taking too 
 much pains for your old sweetheart, and spending 
 too much money for her birthday. Now, don't 
 you think that you should really have as good a 
 time, say, if we went visiting together, and then 
 came back here ? " 
 
Crusoe in New York 123 
 
 For, you see, she never thought of herself at 
 all; it was only what I should like most. 
 
 "No, sweetheart dear," said I. "It is not for 
 me, this 13th of October, it is all for you. And 
 to-night's outing is not for me, it is for you; and 
 I think you will like it and I think Poll will like 
 it, and I have leave for to-morrow, and we will 
 stay away all to-morrow. " 
 
 As for Tom-puss, I said, we would leave some 
 milk where he could find it, and I would leave a 
 bone or two for him. But I whistled Rip, my 
 dog, after me. I took Poll's cage, my mother 
 took her bag, and locked and left her door, un- 
 conscious that she was never to enter it again. 
 
 A Ninety-ninth Avenue car took us up to 
 Fernando Street. It was just the close of twi- 
 light when we came there. I took my mother to 
 Church Alley, muttered something about some 
 friends, which she did not understand more than 
 I did, and led her up the alley in her confused 
 surprise. Then I pushed aside my movable 
 board, and, while she was still surprised, led her 
 in after me and slid it back again. 
 
 " What is it, dear Rob > Tell me — tell me ! " 
 
 " This way, sweetheart, this way ! " This was 
 all I would say. 
 
 I drew her after me through the long passage, 
 led her into the common-room, which was just 
 lighted up by the late evening twilight coming 
 in between the curtains of the great square win- 
 dow. Then I fairly pushed her to the great, 
 
124 Crusoe in New York 
 
 roomy easy-chair which I had brought from The 
 Ship, and placed it where she could look out on 
 the evening glow, and I said, — 
 
 "Mother, dear, this is the surprise; this is 
 your new home ; and, mother dear, your own boy 
 has made it with his own hands, all for you." 
 
 " But, Rob, I do not understand — I do not 
 understand at all. I am so stupid. I know I am 
 awake. But it is as sudden as a dream ! " 
 
 So I had to begin and to explain it all, — how 
 here was a vacant lot that Mark Henry had the 
 care of, and how I had built this house for her 
 upon it. And long before I had explained it all, 
 it was quite dark. And I lighted up the pretty 
 student' s-lamp, and I made the fire in the new 
 Banner with my own hands. 
 
 And that night I would not let her lift a kettle, 
 nor so much as cut a loaf of bread. It was my 
 feast, I said, and I had everything ready, round 
 to a loaf of birthday-cake, which I had ordered at 
 Taylor's, which I had myself frosted and dressed, 
 and decorated with the initials of my mother's 
 name. 
 
 And when the feast was over, I had the best 
 surprise of all. Unknown to my mother, I had 
 begged from my Aunt Betsy my own father's 
 portrait, and I had hung that opposite the win- 
 dow, and now I drew the curtain that hid it, and 
 told my sweetheart that this and the house were 
 her birthday presents for this year ! 
 
Crusoe in New York 125 
 
 And this was the beginning of a happy life, 
 which lasted nearly twelve years. I could make 
 a long story of it, for there was an adventure in 
 everything, — in the way we bought our milk, and 
 the way we took in our coals. But there is no 
 room for me to tell all that, and it might not 
 interest other people as it does me. I am sure 
 my mother was never sorry for the bold step she 
 took when we moved there from our tenement. 
 True, she saw little or no society, but she had 
 not seen much before. The conditions of our life 
 were such that she did not like to be seen coming 
 out of Church Alley, lest people should ask how 
 she got in, and excepting in the evening, I did 
 not care to have her go. In the evening I could 
 go with her. She did not make many calls, 
 because she could not ask people to return them. 
 But she would go with me to concerts, and to the 
 church parlor meetings, and sometimes to exhi- 
 bitions ; and at such places, and on Sundays, she 
 would meet, perhaps, one or another of the few 
 friends she had in New York. But we cared for 
 them less and less, I will own, and we cared 
 more and more for each other. 
 
 As soon as the first spring came, I made an 
 immense effort, and spaded over nearly half of 
 the lot. It was ninety feet wide and over two 
 hundred and sixty long — more than half an acre. 
 So I knew we could have our own fresh vege- 
 tables, even if we never went to market. My 
 mother was a good gardener, and she was not 
 
126 Crusoe in New York 
 
 afraid even to hoe the corn when I was out of the 
 way. I dare say that the people whom the sum- 
 mer left in the street above us often saw her from 
 their back windows, but they did not know — as 
 how should they ? — who had the charge of this 
 lot, and there was no reason why they should be 
 surprised to see a cornfield there. We only 
 raised green corn. I am fond of Indian cake, 
 but I did not care to grind my own corn, and I 
 could buy sweet meal without trouble. I settled 
 the milk question, after the first winter, by keep- 
 ing our own goats. I fenced in, with a wire 
 fence, the northwest corner of our little empire, 
 and put there a milch goat and her two kids. 
 The kids were pretty little things, and would 
 come and feed from my mother's hand. We soon 
 weaned them, so that we could milk their mother; 
 and after that our flock grew and multiplied, and 
 we were never again troubled for such little milk 
 as we used. 
 
 Some old proprietor, in the old Dutch days, 
 must have had an orchard in these parts. There 
 were still left two venerable wrecks of ancient 
 pear-trees; and although they bore little fruit, 
 and what they bore was good for nothing, they 
 still gave a compact and grateful shade. I sod- 
 ded the ground around them and made a seat 
 beneath, where my mother would sit with her 
 knitting all the afternoon. Indeed, after the sods 
 grew firm, I planted hoops there, and many a 
 good game of croquet have she and I had together 
 
Crusoe in New York 127 
 
 there, playing so late that we longed for the 
 chance they have in Sybaris, where, in the even- 
 ing, they use balls of colored glass, with fireflies 
 shut up inside. 
 
 On the nth of February, in the year 1867, my 
 old master died, to my great regret, and I truly 
 believe to that of his widow and her children. 
 His death broke up the establishment, and I, 
 who was always more of a cabinet-maker or joiner 
 than carpenter or builder, opened a little shop of 
 my own, where I took orders for cupboards, 
 drawers, stairs, and other finishing work, and 
 where I employed two or three German journey- 
 men, and was thus much more master of my own 
 time. In particular, I had two faithful fellows, 
 natives of my own father's town of Bremen. 
 While they were with me I could leave them a 
 whole afternoon at a time, while I took any little 
 job there might be, and worked at it at my own 
 house at home. Where my house was, except 
 that it was far uptown, they never asked, nor 
 ever, so far as I know, cared. This gave me the 
 chance for many a pleasant afternoon with my 
 mother, such as we had dreamed of in the old 
 days when we talked of Kansas. I would work 
 at the lathe or the bench and she would read to 
 me. Or we would put off the bench till the 
 evening, and we would both go out into the corn- 
 field together. 
 
 And so we lived year after year. I am afraid 
 that we worshipped each other too much. We 
 
128 Crusoe in New York 
 
 were in the heart of a crowded city, but there 
 was that in our lives which tended a little to 
 habits of loneliness, and I suppose a moralist 
 would say that our dangers lay in that direction. 
 
 On the other hand, I am almost ashamed to 
 say that, as I sat in a seat I had made for myself 
 in old Van der Tromp's pear-tree, I would look 
 upon my corn and peas and squashes and tomatoes 
 with a satisfaction which I believe many a noble- 
 man in England does not enjoy. 
 
 Till the youngest of the Fordyce heirs was of 
 age, and that would not be till 1880, this was all 
 my own. I was, by right of possession and my 
 own labors, lord of all this region. How else 
 did the writers on political economy teach me 
 that any property existed! 
 
 I surveyed it with a secret kind of pleasure. 
 I had not abundance of pears ; what I had were 
 poor and few. But I had abundance of sweet 
 corn, of tomatoes, of peas, and of beans. The 
 tomatoes were as wholesome as they were plenti- 
 ful, and as I sat I could see the long shelves of 
 them which my mother had spread in the sun to 
 ripen, that we might have enough of them canned 
 when winter should close in upon us. I knew I 
 should have potatoes enough of my own raising 
 also to begin the winter with. I should have 
 been glad of more. But as by any good day's 
 work I could buy two barrels of potatoes, I 
 did not fret myself that my stock was but 
 small. 
 
Crusoe in New York 129 
 
 Meanwhile my stock in bank grew fast. Neither 
 my mother nor I had much occasion to buy new 
 clothes. We were at no charge for house-rent, 
 insurance, or taxes. I remember that a Spanish 
 gentleman, who was fond of me, for whom I had 
 made a cabinet with secret drawers, paid me in 
 moidores and pieces-of-eight, which in those 
 times of paper were a sight to behold. 
 
 I carried home the little bag and told my 
 mother that this was a birthday present for her; 
 indeed, that she was to put it all in her bed that 
 night, that she might say she had rolled in gold 
 and silver. She played with the pieces, and we 
 used them to count with as we played our game 
 of cribbage. 
 
 "But really, Robin, boy," said she, "it is as 
 the dirt under our feet. I would give it all for 
 three or four pairs of shoes and stockings, such 
 as we used to buy in York, but such as these 
 Lynn-built shoes and steam-knit stockings have 
 driven out of the market." 
 
 Indeed, we wanted very little in our desert 
 home. 
 
 And so for many years we led a happy life, and 
 we found more in life than would have been 
 possible had we been all tangled up with the 
 cords of artificial society. I say "we," for I am 
 sure I did, and I think my dear mother did. 
 
 But it was in the seventh year of our residence 
 in the hut that of a sudden I had a terrible shock 
 or fright, and this I must now describe to you. 
 
 9 
 
1 30 Crusoe in New York 
 
 It comes in about the middle of this history, and 
 it may end this chapter. 
 
 It was one Sunday afternoon, when I had taken 
 the fancy, as I often did of Sundays, to inspect 
 my empire. Of course, in a certain way, I did 
 this every time I climbed old Van der Tromp's 
 pear-tree, and sat in my hawk's-nest there. But 
 a tour of inspection was a different thing. I 
 walked close round the path which I had made 
 next the fence of the enclosure. I went in among 
 my goats, — even entered the goat-house and 
 played with my kids. I tried the boards of the 
 fence and the timber-stays, to be sure they all 
 were sound. I had paths enough between the 
 rows of corn and potatoes to make a journey of 
 three miles and half a furlong, with two rods 
 more, if I went through the whole of them. So 
 at half -past four on this fatal afternoon I bade my 
 mother good-by, and kissed her. I told her I 
 should not be back for two hours, because I was 
 going to inspect my empire, and I set out 
 happily. 
 
 But in less than an hour — I can see the face of 
 the clock now: it was twenty-two minutes after 
 five — I flung myself in my chair, panting for 
 breath, and, as my mother said, as pale as if I 
 had seen a ghost. But I told her it was worse 
 than that. 
 
 I had come out from between two high rows of 
 corn, which wholly covered me, upon a little 
 patch which lay warm to the south and west. 
 
Crusoe in New York 131 
 
 where I had some melons a-ripening, and was 
 just lifting one of the melons, to be sure that the 
 under surface did not rot, when close behind it 
 I saw the print of a man's foot, which was very 
 plain to be seen in the soft soil. 
 
 I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had 
 seen an apparition. I listened; I looked round 
 me. I could hear nothing but the roar of the 
 omnibuses, nor could I see anything. I went up 
 and down the path, but it was all one. I could 
 see no other impression but that one. I went to 
 it again, to see if there were any more, and to 
 observe if it might not be my fancy. But there 
 was no room for that, for there was exactly the 
 print of an Englishman's hobnailed shoe, — the 
 heavy heel, the prints of the heads of the nails. 
 There was even a piece of patch which had been 
 put on it, though it had never been half-soled. 
 
 How it came there I knew not; neither could I 
 in the least imagine. But, as I say, like a man 
 perfectly confused and out of myself, I rushed 
 home into my hut, not feeling the ground I went 
 upon. I fled into it like one pursued, and, as 
 my mother said, when I fell into my chair, pant- 
 ing, I looked as if I had seen a ghost. 
 
 It was worse than that, as I said to her. 
 
132 Crusoe in New York 
 
 PART II 
 
 I CANNOT well tell you how much dismay this 
 sight of a footprint in the ground gave me, nor 
 how many sleepless nights it cost me. All the 
 time I was trying to make my mother think that 
 there was no ground for anxiety, and yet all the 
 time I was showing her that I was very anxious. 
 The more I pretended that I was not troubled, 
 the more absent-minded, and so the more troubled, 
 I appeared to her. And yet, if I made no pre- 
 tence, and told her what I really feared, I should 
 have driven her almost wild by the story of my 
 terrors. To have our pretty home broken up, 
 perhaps to be put in the newspapers — which was 
 a lot that, so far, we had always escaped in our 
 quiet and modest life — all this was more than 
 she or I could bear to think of. 
 
 In the midst of these cogitations, apprehen- 
 sions, and reflections, it came into my thoughts 
 one day, as I was working at my shop down-town 
 with my men, that all this might be a chimera of 
 my own, and that the foot might be the print of 
 my own boot as I had left it in the soil some days 
 before when I was looking at my melons. This 
 cheered me up a little, too. I considered that I 
 could by no means tell for certain where I had 
 trod and where I had not, and that if at last this 
 was the print of my own boot, I had played the 
 part of those fools who strive to make stories of 
 
Crusoe in New York 133 
 
 spectres, and then are themselves frightened at 
 them more than anybody else. 
 
 So I returned home that day in very good 
 spirits. I carried to my mother a copy of Frank 
 Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, which had in it 
 some pictures that I knew would please her, and 
 I talked with her in as light-hearted a way as I 
 could, to try to make her think that I had for- 
 gotten my alarm. And afterward we played two 
 or three games of Egyptian solitaire at the table, 
 and I went to bed unusually early. But, at the 
 first break of day, when I fancied or hoped that 
 she was still asleep, I rose quickly, and half- 
 dressing myself, crept out to the melon-patch to 
 examine again the imprint of the foot and to 
 make sure that it was mine. 
 
 Alas ! it was no more mine than it was Queen 
 Victoria's. If it had only been cloven, I could 
 easily have persuaded myself whose it was, so 
 much grief and trouble had it cost me. When I 
 came to measure the mark with my own boot, I 
 found, just as I had seen before, that mine was 
 not nearly so large as this mark was. Also, this 
 was, as I have said, the mark of a heavy brogan 
 — such as I never wore — and there was the mark 
 of a strange patch near the toe, such as I had 
 never seen, nor, indeed, have seen since, from 
 that hour to this hour. All these things renewed 
 my terrors. I went home like a whipped dog, 
 wholly certain now that some one had found the 
 secret of our home: we might be surprised in it 
 
134 Crusoe in New York 
 
 before I was aware ; and what course to take for 
 my security I knew not. 
 
 As we breakfasted, I opened my whole heart to 
 my mother. If she said so, I would carry all 
 our little property, piece by piece, back to old 
 Thunberg, the junk-dealer, and with her parrot 
 and my umbrella we would go out to Kansas, as 
 we used to propose. We would give up the game. 
 Or, if she thought best, we would stand on the 
 defensive. I would put bottle-glass on the upper 
 edges of the fences all the way round. 
 
 There were four or five odd revolvers at The 
 Ship, and I would buy them all, with powder and 
 buck-shot enough for a long siege. I would 
 teach her how to load, and while she loaded I 
 would fire, till they had quite enough of attacking 
 us in our home. Now it has all gone by, I 
 should be ashamed to set down in writing the 
 frightful contrivances I hatched for destroying 
 these "creatures," as I called them, or, at least, 
 frightening them, so as to prevent their coming 
 thither any more. 
 
 "Robin, my boy," said my mother to me, when 
 I gave her a chance at last, " if they came in here 
 to-night — whoever ' they ' may be — very little 
 is the harm that they could do us. But if Mr. 
 Kennedy and twenty of his police should come in 
 here over the bodies of — five times five are 
 twenty-five, twenty-five times eleven are — two 
 hundred and seventy-five people whom you will 
 have killed by that time, if I load as fast as thee 
 
Crusoe in New York 135 
 
 tells me I can, why, Robin, my boy, it will go 
 hard for thee and me when the day of the assizes 
 comes. They will put handcuffs on thy poor old 
 mother and on thee, and if they do not send thee 
 to Jack Ketch, they will send thee to Bloom- 
 ingdale. " 
 
 I could not but see that there was sense in 
 what she said. Anyway, it cooled me down for 
 the time, and I kissed her and went to my work 
 less eager, and, indeed, less anxious, than I had 
 been the night before. As I went down-town in 
 the car, I had a chance to ask myself what right 
 I had to take away the lives of these poor savages 
 of the neighborhood merely because they entered 
 on my possessions. Was it their fault that they 
 had not been apprenticed to carpenters? Could 
 they help themselves in the arrangements which 
 had left them savages .' Had any one ever given 
 them a chance to fence in an up-town lot .' Was 
 it, in a word, I said to myself — was it my merit 
 or my good luck which made me as good as a 
 landed proprietor, while the Fordyce heirs had 
 their education? Such thoughts, before I came 
 to my shop, had quite tamed me down, and when 
 I arrived there I was quite off my design, and I 
 concluded that I had taken a wrong measure in 
 my resolution to attack the savages, as I had 
 begun to call men who might be merely harmless 
 loafers. 
 
 It was clearly not my business to meddle with 
 them unless they first attacked me. This it was 
 
1 36 Crusoe in New York 
 
 my business to prevent ; if I were discovered and 
 attacked, then I knew my duty. 
 
 With these thoughts I went into my shop that 
 day, and with such thoughts as these, and with 
 my mother's good sense in keeping me employed 
 in pleasanter things than hunting for traces of 
 savages, I got into a healthier way of thinking. 
 
 The crop of melons came in well, and many a 
 good feast we had from them. Once and again I 
 was able to carry a nice fresh melon to an old 
 lady my mother was fond of, who now lay sick 
 with a tertian ague. 
 
 Then we had the best sweet corn for dinner 
 every day that any man had in New York. For 
 at Delmonico's itself, the corn the grandees had 
 had been picked the night before, and had started 
 at two o'clock in the morning on its long journey 
 to town. But my mother picked my corn just at 
 the minute when she knew I was leaving my 
 shop. She husked it and put it in the pot, and 
 by the time I had come home, had slipped up the 
 board in the fence that served me for a door, and 
 had washed my face and hands in my own room, 
 she would have dished her dinner, would have 
 put her fresh corn upon the table, covered with a 
 pretty napkin; and so, as I say, I had a feast 
 which no nabob in New York had. No indeed, 
 nor any king that I know of, unless it were the 
 King of the Sandwich Islands, and I doubt if he 
 were as well served as I. 
 
 So I became more calm and less careworn. 
 
Crusoe in New York 137 
 
 though I will not say but sometimes I did look 
 carefully to see if I could find the traces of a 
 man's foot; but I never saw another. 
 
 Unless we went out somewhere during the 
 evening, we went to bed early. We rose early as 
 well, for I never lost the habits of my apprentice- 
 ship. And so we were both sound asleep in bed 
 one night when a strange thing happened, and a 
 sudden fright came to us, of which I must tell 
 quite at length, for it made, indeed, a very 
 sudden change in the current of our lives. 
 
 I was sound asleep, as I said, and so, I found, 
 was my mother also. But I must have been 
 partly waked by some sudden noise in the street, 
 for I knew I was sitting up in my bed in the 
 darkness when I heard a woman scream, — a 
 terrible cry, — and while I was yet startled, I 
 heard her scream again, as if she were in deadly 
 fear. My window was shaded by a heavy green 
 curtain, but in an instant I had pulled it up, and 
 by the light of the moon I seized my trousers and 
 put them on. 
 
 I was well awake by this time, and when I 
 flung open the door of my house, so as to run into 
 my garden, I could hear many wild voices, some 
 in English, some in German, some in Irish, and 
 some with terrible cries, which I will not pretend 
 I could understand. 
 
 There was no cry of a woman now, but only the 
 howling of angry or drunken men, when they are 
 in a rage with some one or with each other. 
 
138 Crusoe in New York 
 
 What startled me was that, whereas the woman's 
 cry came from the street south of me, which I 
 have called Fernando Street, the whole crowd of 
 men, as they howled and swore, were passing 
 along that street rapidly, and then stopped for an 
 instant, as if they were coming up what I called 
 Church Alley. There must have been seven or 
 eight of them. 
 
 Now, it was by Church Alley that my mother 
 and I always came into our house, and so into our 
 garden. In the eight years, or nearly so, that I 
 had lived there, I had by degrees accumulated 
 more and more rubbish near the furthest end of 
 the alley as a screen, so to speak, that when my 
 mother or I came in or out, no one in the street 
 might notice us. I had even made a little wing- 
 fence out from my own, to which my hand-cart 
 was chained. Next this I had piled broken brick- 
 bats and paving-stones, and other heavy things, 
 that would not be stolen. There was the stump 
 and the root of an old pear-tree there, too heavy 
 to steal, and too crooked and hard to clean or saw. 
 There was a bit of curbstone from the street, and 
 other such trash, which quite masked the fence 
 and the hand-caft. 
 
 On the other side — that is, the church side, or 
 the side furthest from the street — was the slid- 
 ing-board in the fence, where my mother and I 
 came in. So soon as it was slid back, no man 
 could see that the fence was not solid. 
 
 At this moment in the night, however, when I 
 
Crusoe in New York 139 
 
 found that this riotous, drunken crew were paus- 
 ing at the entrance of Church Alley, as doubting 
 if they would not come down, I ran back through 
 the passage, knocking loudly for my mother as I 
 passed, and coming to my coal-bin, put my eye 
 at the little hole through which I always re- 
 connoitred before I slid the door. I could see 
 nothing, nor at night ought I to have expected 
 to do so. 
 
 But I could hear, and I heard what I did not 
 expect. I could hear the heavy panting of one 
 who had been running, and as I listened I heard 
 a gentle, low voice sob out, "Ach, ach, mein 
 Gott! Ach, mein Gott!" or words that I 
 thought were these, and I was conscious, when I 
 tried to move the door, that some one was resting 
 close upon it. 
 
 All the same, I put my shoulder stoutly to the 
 cross-bar, to which the boards of the door were 
 nailed ; I slid it quickly in its grooves, and as it 
 slid, a woman fell into the passage. 
 
 She was wholly surprised by the motion, so 
 that she could not but fall. I seized her and 
 dragged her in, saying, " Hush, hush, hush ! " as 
 I did so. But not so quick was I but that she 
 screamed once more as I drew to the sliding-door 
 and thrust in the heavy bolt which held it. 
 
 In an instant my mother was in the passage 
 with a light in her hand. In another instant I 
 had seized the light and put it out. But that 
 instant was enough for her and me to see that 
 
140 Crusoe in New York 
 
 here was a lovely girl, with no hat or bonnet on, 
 with her hair floating wildly, both her arms 
 bleeding, and her clothes all stained with blood. 
 She could see my mother's face of amazement, 
 and she could see my finger on my mouth, as 
 with the other I dashed out the candle. We all 
 thought quickly, and we all knew that we must 
 keep still. 
 
 But that unfortunate scream of hers was enough. 
 Though no one of us all uttered another sound, 
 this was like a "view-halloo," to bring all those 
 dogs down upon us. The passage was dark, and, 
 to my delight, I heard some of them breaking 
 their shins over the curbstone and old pear-tree 
 of my defences. But they were not such hounds 
 as were easily thrown off the scent, and there 
 were enough to persevere while the leaders picked 
 themselves up again. 
 
 Then how they swore and cursed and asked 
 questions ! And we three stood as still as so 
 many frightened rabbits. In an instant more 
 one of them, who spoke in English, said he 
 would be hanged if he thought she had gone into 
 the church, that he believed she had got through 
 the fence; and then, with his fist, or something 
 harder, he began trying the boards on our side, 
 and others of them we could hear striking those 
 on the other side of the alley-way. 
 
 When it came to this, I whispered to my 
 mother that she must never fear, only keep per- 
 fectly still. She dragged the frightened girl into 
 
Crusoe in New York 141 
 
 our kitchen, which was our sitting-room, and they 
 both fell, I know not how, into the great easy-chair. 
 
 For my part, I seized the light ladder, which 
 always hung ready at the door, and ran with it at 
 my full speed to the corner of Fernando Street 
 and the alley. I planted the ladder, and was on 
 the top of the fence in an instant 
 
 Then I sprang my watchman's rattle, which 
 had hung by the ladder, and I whirled it round 
 well. It wholly silenced the sound of the swear- 
 ing fellows up the passage, and their pounding. 
 When I found they were still, I cried out : — 
 
 "This way, 24! this way, 47! I have them 
 all penned up here! Signal the ofSce, 42, and 
 bid them send us a sergeant. This way, fellows 
 — up Church Alley!" 
 
 With this I was down my ladder again. But 
 my gang of savages needed no more. I could 
 hear them rushing out of the alley as fast as they 
 might, not one of them waiting for 24 or 47. 
 This was lucky for me, for as it happened I was 
 ten minutes older before I heard two patrolmen 
 on the outside, wondering what frightened old 
 cove had been at the pains to spring a rattle. 
 
 The moonlight shone in at the western window 
 of the kitchen, so that as I came in I could just 
 make out the figure of my mother and of the girl, 
 lying, rather than sitting, in her lap and her 
 arms. I was not afraid to speak now, and I told 
 my mother we were quite safe again, and she told 
 the poor girl so. I struck a match and lighted 
 
142 Crusoe in New York 
 
 the lamp as soon as I could. The poor, fright- 
 ened creature started as I did so, and then fell on 
 her knees at my mother's feet, took both her 
 hands in her own, and seemed like one who begs 
 for mercy, or, indeed, for life. 
 
 My poor, dear mother was all amazed, and her 
 eyes were running with tears at the sight of the 
 poor thing's terror. She kissed her again and 
 again ; she stroked her beautiful golden hair with 
 her soft hands ; she said in every word that she 
 could think of that she was quite safe now, and 
 must not think of being frightened any more. 
 
 But it was clear in a moment that the girl 
 could not understand any language that we could 
 speak. My mother tried her with a few words of 
 German, and she smiled then ; but she shook her 
 head prettily, as if to say that she thanked her, 
 but could not speak to her in that way either. 
 Then she spoke eagerly in some language that we 
 could not understand. But had it been the lan- 
 guage of Hottentots, we should have known that 
 she was begging my mother not to forsake her, so 
 full of entreaty was every word and every gesture. 
 
 My dear, sweet mother lifted her at last into 
 the easy-chair and made her lie there while she 
 dipped some hot water from her boiler and filled 
 a large basin in her sink. Then she led the 
 pretty creature to it, and washed from her arms, 
 hands, and face the blood that had hardened upon 
 them, and looked carefully to find what her 
 wounds were. None of them were deep, though 
 
Crusoe in New York 143 
 
 there were ugly scratches on her beautiful arms; 
 they were cut by glass, as I guessed then, and as 
 we learned from her afterward. My mother was 
 wholly prepared for all such surgery as was needed 
 here ; she put on two bandages where she thought 
 they were needed, she plastered up the other 
 scratches with court-plaster, and then, as if the 
 girl understood her, she said to her, " And now, 
 my dear child, you must come to bed ; there is no 
 danger for you more." 
 
 The poor girl had grown somewhat reassured 
 in the comfortable little kitchen, but her terror 
 seemed to come back at any sign of removal ; she 
 started to her feet, almost as if she were a wild 
 creature. But I would defy any one to be afraid 
 of my dear mother, or indeed to refuse to do what 
 she bade, when she smiled so in her inviting way 
 and put out her hand ; and so the girl went with 
 her, bowing to me, or dropping a sort of courtesy 
 in her foreign fashion, as she went out of the 
 door, and I was left to see what damage had been 
 done to my castle by the savages, as I called 
 them. 
 
 I had sprung the rattle none too soon ; for one 
 of these rascals, as it proved — I suppose it was 
 the same who swore that she had not gone into 
 the church — with some tool or other he had in 
 his hand, had split out a bit of the fence and had 
 pried out a part of a plank. I had done my work 
 too well for any large piece to give way. But 
 the moment I looked into my coal-bin I saw that 
 
144 Crusoe in New York 
 
 something was amiss. I did not like very well 
 to go to the outside, but I must risk something ; 
 so I took out a dark lantern which I always kept 
 ready. Sure enough, as I say, the fellow had 
 struck so hard and so well that he had split out 
 a piece of board, and a little coal even had fallen 
 upon the passage-way. I was not much dis- 
 pleased at this, for if he thought no nearer the 
 truth than that he had broken into a coal-bin of 
 the church, why, he was far enough from his 
 mark for me. After finding this, however, I was 
 anxious enough, lest any of them should return, 
 not to go to bed again that night; but all was 
 still as death, and, to tell the truth, I fell asleep 
 in my chair. I doubt whether my mother slept, 
 or her frightened charge. 
 
 I was at work in the passage early the next 
 morning with some weather-stained boards I had, 
 and before nine o'clock I had doubled all that 
 piece of fence, from my wing where my hand-cart 
 was to the church, and I had spiked the new 
 boards on, which looked like old boards, as I 
 said, with tenpenny nails; so that he would be a 
 stout burglar who would cut through them unless 
 he had tools for his purpose and daylight to work 
 by. As I was gathering up my tools to go in, a 
 coarse, brutal-looking Irishman came walking up 
 the alley and looked round. My work was so 
 well done, and I had been so careful to leave no 
 chips, that even then he could not have guessed 
 that I had been building the fence anew, though 
 
Crusoe in New York 1 45 
 
 I fancied he looked at it. He seemed to want 
 to excuse himself for being there at all, and 
 asked me, with an oath and in a broad Irish 
 brogue, if there were no other passage through. 
 I had the presence of mind to say in German, 
 " Wollen sie sprechen Deutsch ? " and so made as 
 if I could not understand him; and then, kneel- 
 ing on the cellar-door of the church, pretended to 
 put a key into the lock, as if I were making sure 
 that I had made it firm. 
 
 And with that, he turned round with another 
 oath, as if he had come out of his way, and went 
 out of the alley, closely followed by me. I 
 watched him as long as I dared, but as he showed 
 no sign of going back to the alley, I at last walked 
 round a square with my tools, and so came back 
 to my mother and the pretty stranger. 
 
 My mother had been trying to get at her story. 
 She made her understand a few words of German, 
 but they talked by signs and smiles and tears and 
 kisses much more than by words; and by this 
 time they understood each other so well that my 
 mother had persuaded her not to go away that 
 day. 
 
 Nor did she go out for many days after; I will 
 go before my story far enough to say that. She 
 had, indeed, been horribly frightened that night, 
 and she was as loath to go out again into the 
 streets of New York as I should be to plunge 
 from a safe shore into some terrible, howling 
 ocean; or, indeed, as one who found himself safe 
 
 10 
 
146 Crusoe in New York 
 
 at home would be to trust himself to the tender 
 mercies of a tribe of cannibals. 
 
 Two such loving women as they were were not 
 long in building up a language, especially as my 
 mother had learned from my father and his 
 friends, in her early life, some of the common 
 words of German — what she called a bread- 
 and-butter German. For our new inmate was 
 a Swedish girl. Her story, in short, was 
 this: — 
 
 She had been in New York but two days. On 
 the voyage over, they had had some terrible sick- 
 ness on the vessel, and the poor child's mother 
 had died very suddenly and had been buried in 
 the sea. Her father had died long before. 
 
 This was, as you may think, a terrible shock 
 to her. But she had hoped and hoped for the 
 voyage to come to an end, because there was a 
 certain brother of hers in America whom they 
 were to meet at their landing, and though she 
 was very lonely on the packet-ship, in which she 
 and her mother and a certain family of the name 
 of Hantsen — of whom she had much to say — 
 were the only Swedes, still she expected to find 
 the brother almost as soon, as I may say, as they 
 saw the land. 
 
 She felt badly enough that he did not come 
 on board with the quarantine ofiScer. When the 
 passengers were brought to Castle Garden, and 
 no brother came, she felt worse. However, with 
 the help of the clerks there, she got off a letter 
 
Crusoe in New York 147 
 
 to him, somewhere in Jersey, and proposed to 
 wait as long as they would let her, till he should 
 come. 
 
 The second day there came a man to the 
 Garden, who said he was a Dane, but he spoke 
 Swedish well enough. He said her brother was 
 sick, and had sent him to find her. She was 
 to come with her trunks, and her mother's, 
 and all their affairs, to his house, and the same 
 afternoon they should go to where the brother 
 was. 
 
 Without doubt or fear she went with this man, 
 and spent the day at a forlorn sort of hotel which 
 she described, but which I never could find again. 
 Toward night the man came again and bade her 
 take a bag, with her one change of dress, and 
 come with him to her brother. 
 
 After a long ride through the city, they got 
 out at a house which, thank God ! was only one 
 block from Fernando Street. And there this 
 simple, innocent creature, as she went in, asked 
 where her brother was, to meet only a burst of 
 laughter from one or two coarse-looking men, and 
 from half-a-dozen brazen-faced girls whom she 
 hated, she said, the minute she saw them. 
 
 Except that an old woman took off her shawl 
 and cloak and bonnet, and took away from her 
 the travelling things she had in her hand, nobody 
 took any care of her but to laugh at her, and 
 mock her if she dared say anything. 
 
 She tried to go out to the door to find even the 
 
148 Crusoe in New York 
 
 Dane who had brought her there, but she was 
 given to understand that he was coming again for 
 her, and that she must wait till he came. As for 
 her brother, there was no brother there, nor had 
 been any. The poor girl had been trapped, and 
 saw that she had been trapped; she had been 
 spirited away from everybody who ever heard of 
 her mother, and was in the clutches, as she said 
 to my mother afterward, of a crew of devils who 
 knew nothing of love or of mercy. 
 
 They did try to make her eat and drink, — tried 
 to make her drink champagne, or any other wine ; 
 but they had no fool to deal with. The girl did 
 not, I think, let her captors know how desperate 
 were her resolutions. But her eyes were wide 
 open, and she was not going to lose any chance. 
 She was all on the alert for her escape when, at 
 eleven o'clock, the Dane came at last whom she 
 had been expecting so anxiously. 
 
 The girl asked him for her brother, only to be 
 put off by one excuse or another, and then to hear 
 from him the most loathsome talk of his admira- 
 tion, not to say his passion, for her. 
 
 They were nearly alone by this time, and he 
 led her unresisting, as he thought, into another 
 smaller room, brilliantly lighted, and, as she saw 
 in a glance, gaudily furnished, with wine and 
 fruit and cake on a side-table, — a room where 
 they would be quite alone. 
 
 She walked simply across and looked at her- 
 self in the great mirror. Then she made some 
 
Crusoe in New York 149 
 
 foolish little speech about her hair, and how pale 
 she looked. Then she crossed to the sofa, and 
 sat upon it with as tired an air as he might have 
 expected of one who had lived through such a 
 day. Then she looked up at him and even smiled 
 upon him, she said, and asked him if he would 
 not ask them for some cold water. 
 
 The fellow turned into the passage-way, well 
 pleased with her submission, and in the same 
 instant the girl was at the window as if she had 
 flown across the room. 
 
 Fool ! The window was made fast, not by any 
 moving bolt, either. It was nailed down, and it 
 did not give a hair's-breadth to her hand. 
 
 Little cared she for that. She sat on the 
 window-seat, which was broad enough to hold 
 her; she braced her feet against the foot of the 
 bedstead, which stood just near enough to her; 
 she turned enough to bring her shoulder against 
 the window-sash, and then with her whole force 
 she heaved herself against the sash, and the 
 entire window, of course, gave way. 
 
 The girl caught herself upon the blind, which 
 swung open before her. She pulled herself free 
 from the sill and window-seat, and dropped fear- 
 less into the street. 
 
 The fall was not long. She lighted on her feet 
 and ran as only fear could teach her to run. 
 Where to, she knew not; but she thought she 
 turned a corner before she heard any voices from 
 behind. 
 
150 Crusoe in New York 
 
 Still she ran. And it was when she came to 
 the corner of the next street that she heard for 
 the first time the screams of pursuers. 
 
 She turned again, like a poor hunted hare as 
 she was. But what was her running to theirs? 
 She was passing our long fence in Fernando 
 Street, and then for the first time she screamed 
 for help. 
 
 It was that scream which waked me. 
 
 She saw the steeple of the church. She had 
 a dim feeling that a church would be an asylum. 
 So was it that she ran up our alley, to find that 
 she was in a trap there. 
 
 And then it was that she fell against my door, 
 that she cried twice, " Oh, my God ! Oh, ray 
 God ! " and that the good God, who had heard her, 
 sent me to draw her in. 
 
 We had to learn her language, in a fashion, 
 and she to learn ours, before we understood her 
 story in this way. But at the very first my 
 mother made out that the girl had fled from sav- 
 ages who meant worse than death for her. So 
 she understood why she was so frightened at 
 every sound, and why at first she was afraid to 
 stay with us, yet more afraid to go. 
 
 But this passed off in a day or two. She took 
 to my mother with a sort of eager way which 
 showed how she must have loved her own mother, 
 and how much she lost when she lost her. And 
 that was one of the parts of her sad story that we 
 understood. 
 
Crusoe in New York 151 
 
 No one, I think, could help loving my mother; 
 but here was a poor, storm-tossed creature who, 
 I might say, had nothing else to love, seeing she 
 had lost all trace of this brother, and here was my 
 mother, soothing her, comforting her, dressing 
 her wounds for her, trying to make her feel that 
 God's world was not all wickedness; and the girl 
 in return poured out her whole heart. 
 
 When my mother explained to her that she 
 should not let her go away till her brother was 
 found, then for the first time she seemed perfectly 
 happy. She was indeed the loveliest creature I 
 ever put my eyes on. 
 
 She was then about nineteen years old, of a 
 delicate complexion naturally, which was now a 
 little browned by the sea-air. She was rather tall 
 than otherwise, but her figure was so graceful 
 that I think you never thought her tall. Her 
 eyes were perhaps deep-set, and of that strange 
 gray which I have heard it said the goddesses in 
 the Greek poetry had. Still, when she was sad, 
 one saw the less of all this. It was not till she 
 forgot her grief for the instant in the certainty 
 that she might rest with my mother, so that 
 her whole face blazed with joy, that I first knew 
 what the perfect beauty of a perfect woman was. 
 
 Her name, it seemed, was Frida, — a name 
 made from the name of one of the old goddesses 
 among the. Northmen, the same from whom our 
 day Friday is named. She is the half-sister of 
 Thor, from whom Thursday is named, and the 
 
152 Crusoe in New York 
 
 daughter of Wodin, from whom Wednesday is 
 named. 
 
 I knew little of all this then, but I did not 
 wonder when I read afterward that this northern 
 goddess was the Goddess of Love, the friend of 
 song, the most beautiful of all their divinities, — 
 queen of spring and light and everything lovely. 
 
 But surely never any one took fewer of the airs 
 of a goddess than our Frida did while she was 
 with us. She would watch my mother, as if 
 afraid that she should put her hand to a gridiron 
 or a tin dipper. She gave her to understand, in 
 a thousand pretty ways, that she should be her 
 faithful, loving, and sincere servant. If she 
 would only show her what to do, she would work 
 for her as a child that loved her. And so indeed 
 she did. My dear mother would laugh and say 
 she was quite a fine lady now, for Frida would 
 not let her touch broom nor mop, skimmer nor 
 dusting-cloth. 
 
 The girl would do anything but go out upon an 
 errand. She could not bear to see the other side 
 of the fence. What she thought of it all I do not 
 know. Whether she thought it was the custom 
 in America for young men to live shut up with 
 their mothers in enclosures of half an acre square, 
 or whether she thought we two made some pecu- 
 liar religious order, whose rules provided that one 
 woman and one man should live together in a 
 convent or monastery of their own, or whether 
 she supposed half New York was made up, as 
 
Crusoe in New York 153 
 
 Marco Polo found Pekin, of cottages or of gardens, 
 I did not know, nor did I much care. I could see 
 that here was provided a companion for my mother, 
 who was else so lonely, and I very soon found 
 that she was as much a companion for me. 
 
 So soon as we could understand her at all, I 
 took the name of her brother and his address. 
 When he wrote last he was tending a saw-mill at 
 a place about seven miles away from Tuckahoe, 
 in Jersey. But he said he was going to leave 
 there at once, so that they need not write there. 
 He sent the money for their passage, and promised, 
 as I said, to meet them at New York. 
 
 This was a poor clew at the best. But I put 
 a good face on it, and promised her I would find 
 him if he could be found. And I spared no 
 pains. I wrote to the postmaster at Tuckahoe, 
 and to a minister I heard of there. I inquired 
 of the Swedish consuls in New York and Phila- 
 delphia. Indeed, in the end, I went to Tuckahoe 
 myself, with her, to inquire. But this was long 
 after. However, I may say here, once for all, to 
 use an old phrase of my mother's, we never found 
 "hide nor hair" of him. And although this 
 grieved Frida, of course, yet it came on her 
 gradually, and as she had never seen him to 
 remember him, it was not the same loss as if 
 they had grown up together. 
 
 Meanwhile that first winter was, I thought, the 
 pleasantest I had ever known in my life. I did 
 not have to work very hard now, for my business 
 
154 Crusoe in New York 
 
 was rather the laying out work for my men, and 
 sometimes a nice job which needed my hand on 
 my lathe at home, or in some other delicate affair 
 that I could bring home with me. 
 
 We were teaching Frida English, my mother 
 and I, and she and I made a great frolic of her 
 teaching me Swedish. I would bring home 
 Swedish newspapers and stories for her, and we 
 would puzzle them out together, — she as much 
 troubled to find the English word as I to find out 
 the Swedish. Then she sang like a bird when 
 she was about her household work, or when she 
 sat sewing for my mother, and she had not lived 
 with us a fortnight before she began to join us on 
 Sunday evenings in the choruses of the Methodist 
 hymns which my mother and I sang together. 
 So then we made her sing Swedish hymns to us. 
 And before she knew it, the great tears would 
 brim over her deep eyes and would run down in 
 pearls upon her cheek. Nothing set her to think- 
 ing of her old home as those Sunday evenings 
 did. Of a Sunday evening we could make her go 
 out with us to church sometimes. Not but then 
 she would half cover her face with a veil, so 
 afraid was she that we might meet the Dane. 
 But I told her that .the last place we should find 
 him at would be at church on Sunday evening. 
 
 I have come far in advance of my story, that I 
 might make any one who reads this life of mine 
 to understand how naturally and simply this poor 
 lost bird nestled down into our quiet life, and 
 
Crusoe in New York 155 
 
 how the house that was built for two proved big 
 enough for three. For I made some new pur- 
 chases now, and fitted up the little middle 
 chamber for Frida's own use. We had called it 
 the "spare chamber" before, in joke. But now 
 my mother fitted pretty curtains to it, and other 
 hangings, without Frida's knowledge. I had a 
 square of carpet made up at the warehouse for the 
 middle of the floor, and by making her do one 
 errand and another in the corner of the garden 
 one pleasant afternoon in November, we had it 
 all prettily fitted up for her room before she knew 
 it. And a great gala we made of it when she 
 came in from gathering the seeds of the calystegia, 
 which she had been sent for. 
 
 She looked like a northern Flora as she came 
 in, with her arms all festooned by the vines she 
 had been pulling down. And when my mother 
 made her come out to the door she had never seen 
 opened before, and led her in, and told her that 
 this pretty chamber was all her own, the pretty 
 creature flushed crimson red at first, and then her 
 quick tears ran over, and she fell on my mother's 
 neck and kissed her as if she would never be 
 done. And then she timidly held her hand out 
 to me, too, as I stood in the doorway, and said, 
 in her slow, careful English, — 
 
 "And you, too — and you, too. I must tank 
 you both, also, especially. You are so good — so 
 good to de poor lost girl!" That was a very 
 happy evening. 
 
156 Crusoe in New York 
 
 But, as I say, I have gone ahead of my story. 
 For before we had these quiet evenings we were 
 fated to have many anxious ones and one stormy 
 one. 
 
 The very first day that Frida was with us, I 
 felt sure that the savages would make another 
 descent upon us. They had heard her scream, 
 that was certain. They knew she had not passed 
 them, that was certain. They knew there was a 
 coal-bin on the other side of our fence, that was 
 certain. They would have reason enough for 
 being afraid to have her at large, if, indeed, there 
 were no worse passion than fear driving some of 
 them in pursuit of her. I could not keep out of my 
 mind the beastly look of the Irishman who asked 
 me, with such an ugly leer on his face, if there 
 were no passage through. Not that I told either 
 of the two women of my fears. But, all the 
 same, I did not undress myself for a week, and 
 sat in the great easy-chair in our kitchen through 
 the whole of every night, waiting for the least 
 sound of alarm. 
 
 Next to the savages, I had always lived in fear 
 of being discovered in my retreat by the police, 
 who would certainly think it strange to find a 
 man and his mother living in a shed, without any 
 practicable outside door, in what they called a 
 vacant lot. 
 
 But I have read of weak nations in history 
 which were fain to call upon one neighbor whom 
 they did not like to protect them against another 
 
Crusoe in New York 157 
 
 whom they liked less. I made up my mind, in 
 like wise, to go round to the police-station nearest 
 me. 
 
 And so, having dressed myself in my black 
 coat, and put on a round hat and gloves, I bought 
 me a Malacca walking-stick, such as was then in 
 fashion, and called upon the captain in style. I 
 told him I lived next the church, and that on such 
 and such a night there was a regular row among 
 roughs, and that several of them went storming 
 up the alley in a crowd. I said, " Although your 
 men were there as quick as they could come, 
 these fellows had all gone before they came." 
 But then I explained that I had seen a fellow 
 hanging about the alley in the daytime, who 
 seemed to be there for no good; that there was a 
 hand-cart kept there by a workman, who seemed 
 to be an honest fellow, and, perhaps, all they 
 wanted was to steal that ; that, if I could, I would 
 warn him. But meanwhile, I said, I had come 
 round to the station to give the warning of my 
 suspicions, that if my rattle was heard again, the 
 patrolmen might know what was in the wind. 
 
 The captain was a good deal impressed by my 
 make-up and by the ease of my manner. He 
 affected to be perfectly well acquainted with me, 
 although we had never happened to meet at the 
 Century Club or at the Union League. I con- 
 firmed the favorable impression I had made by 
 leaving my card, which I had had handsomely 
 engraved: "Mr. Robinson CRUSOE." With my 
 
158 Crusoe in New York 
 
 pencil I added my down-town address, where, I 
 said, a note or telegram would find me. 
 
 I was not a day too soon with my visit to this 
 gentleman. That very night, after my mother 
 and Frida had gone to bed, as I sat in my easy- 
 chair, there came over me one of those strange 
 intimations which I have never found it safe to 
 disregard. Sometimes it is of good, and some- 
 times of bad. This time it made me certain that 
 all was not well. To relieve my fears I lifted my 
 ladder over the wall and dropped it in the alley. 
 I swung myself down and carried it to the very 
 end of the alley, to the place where I had dragged 
 poor Frida in. The moon fell on the fence 
 opposite ours. My wing-fence and hand-cart 
 were all in shade. But everything was safe 
 there. 
 
 Again I chided myself for my fears, when, as 
 I looked up the alley to the street, I saw a group 
 of four men come in stealthily. They said not a 
 word, but I could make out their forms distinctly 
 against the houses opposite. 
 
 I was caught in my own trap ! 
 
 Not quite ! They had not seen me, for I was 
 wholly in shadow. I stepped quickly in at my 
 own slide. I pushed it back and bolted it 
 securely, and with my heart in my mouth, I 
 waited at my hole of observation. In a minute 
 more they were close around me, though they did 
 not suspect I was so near. 
 
 They also had a dark-lantern, and, I thought. 
 
Crusoe in New York 159 
 
 more than one. They spoke in low tones ; but as 
 they had no thought they had a hearer quite so 
 near, I could hear all they said. 
 
 "I tell you it was this side, and this is the 
 side I heard their deuced psalm-singing day 
 before yesterday." 
 
 " What if he did hear psalm-singing ? Are you 
 going to break into a man's garden because he 
 sings psalms .' I came here to find out where the 
 girl went to ; and now you talk of psalm-singing 
 and coal-bins." This from another, whose Eng- 
 lish was poor, and in whom I fancied I heard the 
 Dane. It was clear enough that he spoke sense, 
 and a sort of doubt fell on the whole crew ; but 
 speaker No. i, with a heavy crowbar he had, 
 smashed into my pine wall, as I have a right to 
 call it now, with a force which made the splinters 
 
 fly- 
 
 "I should think we were all at Niblo's," said 
 a man of slighter build, " and that we were play- 
 ing Humpty Dumpty. Because a girl flew out of 
 a window, you think a fence opened to take her 
 in. Why should she not go through a door.'" 
 and he kicked with his foot upon the heavy slop- 
 ing cellar-door of the church, which just rose a 
 little from the pavement. It was the doorway 
 which they used there when they took in their 
 supply of coal. The moon fell full on one side 
 of it. To my surprise it was loose and gave 
 way. 
 
 "Here is where the girl flew to, and here is 
 
i6o Crusoe in New York 
 
 where Bully Bigg, the donkey, let her slip out of 
 his fingers. I knew he was a fool, but I did not 
 know he was such a fool, " said the Dane (if he 
 were the Dane). 
 
 I will not pretend to write down the oaths and 
 foul words which came in between every two of 
 the words I have repeated. 
 
 "Fool yourself!" replied the Bully; "and 
 what sort of a fool is the man who comes up a 
 blind alley looking after a girl that will not kiss 
 him when he bids her ? " 
 
 "Anyway," put in another of the crew, who 
 had just now lifted the heavy cellar-door, " other 
 people may find it handy to hop down here when 
 the ' beaks ' are too near them. It 's a handy 
 place to know of in a dark night, if the dear 
 deacons do choose to keep it open for a poor 
 psalm-singing tramp, who has no chance at the 
 station-house. Here, Lopp, you are the tallest, 
 — jump in and tell us what is there ; " and at this 
 moment the Dane caught sight of my unfortunate 
 ladder, lying full in the moonlight. I could see 
 him seize it and run to the doorway with it with 
 a deep laugh and some phrase of his own country 
 talk, which I did not understand. 
 
 "The deacons are very good," said the savage 
 who had lifted the cellar-door. "They make 
 everything handy for us poor fellows." 
 
 And though he had not planted the ladder, he 
 was the first to run down, and called for the rest 
 to follow. The Dane was second, Lopp was 
 
Crusoe in New York i6i 
 
 third, and "The Bully," as the big rascal seemed 
 to be called by distinction, was the fourth. 
 
 I saw him disappear from my view with a mix- 
 ture of wonder and terror which I will not 
 describe. I seized my light overcoat, which 
 always hung in the passage. I flung open my 
 sliding-door and shut it again behind me. I 
 looked into the black of the cellar to see the 
 reflections from their distant lanterns, and with- 
 out a sound I drew up my ladder. Then I 
 ran to the head of the alley and sounded my 
 rattle as I would have sounded the trumpet for 
 a charge in battle. The officers joined me in one 
 moment. 
 
 " I am the man who spoke to the captain about 
 these rowdies. Four of them are in the cellar of 
 the church yonder now. " 
 
 " Do you know who ? " 
 
 "One they called Lopp, and one they called 
 Bully Bigg," said I. "I do not know the others' 
 names. " 
 
 The officers were enraptured. 
 
 I led them, and two other patrolmen who joined 
 us, to the shelter of my wing-wall. In a few 
 minutes the head of the Dane appeared, as he was 
 lifted from below. With an effort and three or 
 four oaths, he struggled out upon the ground, to 
 be seized and gagged the moment he stepped 
 back. With varying fortunes, Bigg and Lopp 
 emerged, and were seized and handcuffed in turn. 
 The fourth surrendered on being summoned. 
 
1 62 Crusoe in New York 
 
 What followed comes into the line of daily life 
 and the morning newspaper so regularly that I 
 need not describe it. Against the Dane it proved 
 that endless warrants could be brought imme- 
 diately. His lair of stolen baggage and other 
 property was unearthed, and countless sufferers 
 claimed their own. I was able to recover Fr Ida's 
 and her mother's possessions — the locks on the 
 trunks still unbroken. The Dane himself would 
 have been sent to the Island on I know not how 
 many charges, but that the Danish minister asked 
 for him that he might be hanged in Denmark, 
 and he was sent and hanged accordingly. 
 
 Lopp was sent to Sing-Sing for ten years, and 
 has not yet been pardoned. 
 
 Bigg and Cordon were sent to Blackwell's 
 Island for three years each. And so the land had 
 peace for that time. 
 
 That winter, as there came on one and another 
 idle alarm that Frida's brother might be heard 
 from, my heart sank with the lowest terror lest 
 she should go away. And in the spring I told 
 her that if she went away I was sure I should die. 
 And the dear girl looked down, and looked up, 
 and said she thought — she thought she should, 
 too. And we told my mother that we had deter- 
 mined that Frida should never go away while we 
 stayed there. And she approved. 
 
 So I wrote a note to the minister of the church 
 which had protected us so long, and one night 
 
Crusoe in New York 163 
 
 we slid the board carefully, and all three walked 
 round, fearless of the Dane, and Frida and I were 
 married. 
 
 It was more than three years after, when I 
 received by one post three letters, which gave us 
 great ground for consultation. The first was 
 from my old friend and patron, the Spaniard. He 
 wrote to me from Chicago, where he, in his turn, 
 had fallen in with a crew of savages, who had 
 stripped him of all he had, under the pretext 
 of a land-enterprise they engaged him in, and 
 had left him without a real, as he said. He 
 wanted to know if I could not find him some 
 clerkship, or even some place as janitor, in New 
 York. 
 
 The second letter was from old Mr. Henry in 
 Philadelphia, who had always employed me after 
 my old master's death. He said that the fence 
 around the lot in Ninety-ninth Avenue might 
 need some repairs, and he wished I would look 
 at it. He was growing old, he said, and he did 
 not care to come to New York. But the Fordyce 
 heirs would spend ten years in Europe. 
 
 The third letter was from Tom Grinnell. 
 
 I wrote to Mr. Henry that I thought he had 
 better let me knock up a little office, where a 
 keeper might sleep, if necessary ; that there was 
 some stuff with which I could put up such an 
 office, and that I had an old friend, a Spaniard, 
 who was an honest fellow, and if he might have 
 
1 64 Crusoe in New York 
 
 his bed in the office, would take gratefully what- 
 ever his services to the estate proved worth. He 
 wrote me by the next day's mail that I might 
 engage the Spaniard and finish the office. So I 
 wrote to the Spaniard and got a letter from him, 
 accepting the post provided for him. Then I 
 wrote to Tom Grinnell. 
 
 The last day we spent at our dear old home, I 
 occupied myself in finishing the office as Friend 
 Henry bade me. I made a "practicable door," 
 which opened from the passage on Church Alley. 
 Then I loaded my hand-cart with my own chest 
 and took it myself, in my working clothes, to the 
 Vanderbilt Station, where I took a brass check 
 for it. 
 
 I could not wait for the Spaniard, but I left a 
 letter for him, giving him a description of the 
 way I managed the goats, and directions to milk 
 and fatten them, and to make both butter and 
 cheese. 
 
 At half-past ten a "crystal," as those cabs 
 were then called, came to the corner of Fernando 
 Street and Church Alley, and so we drove to the 
 station. I left the key of the office, directed to 
 the Spaniard, in the hands of the baggage- 
 master. 
 
 When I took leave of my castle, as I called it, 
 I carried with me for relics the great straw hat I 
 had made, my umbrella, and one of my parrots; 
 also I forgot not to take the money I formerly 
 mentioned, which had lain by me so long useless 
 
Crusoe in New York 165 
 
 that it was grown rusty and tarnished, and could 
 scarcely pass for money till it had been a little 
 rubbed and handled. With these relics and with 
 my wife's and mother's baggage and my own 
 chest, we arrived at our new home. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 
 
 A WASHINGTON CHRISTMAS 
 / 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 
 
 [No. This story also is " Invented Example." But it is 
 founded on facts. It is a pleasure to me, writing fifty-four 
 years after the commission intrusted to me by the late Mrs. 
 Fales, to say that that is a real name, and that her benevo- 
 lence at a distance is precisely represented here. 
 
 Perhaps the large history of the world would be differently 
 written but for that kindness of hers. 
 
 I was a very young clergyman, and the remittance she 
 made to me was the first trust of the same kind which had 
 ever been confided to me.] 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MAKE READY 
 
 "/^NLY think, Matty, papa passed right by 
 V-/ me when I was sitting with my back to the 
 fire and stitching away on his book-mark with- 
 out my once seeing him ! But he was so busy 
 talking to mamma that he never saw what I was 
 doing, and I huddled it under a newspaper 
 before he came back again. Well, I have got 
 papa's present done, but I cannot keep out of 
 mamma's way. Matty, dear, if I will sit in the 
 sun and keep a shawl on, may I not sit in your 
 room and work? It is not one bit cold there. 
 
I/O Bread on the Waters 
 
 Really, Matty, it is a great deal warmer than it 
 was yesterday." 
 
 "Dear child," said Matty, to whom everybody 
 came so readily for advice and help, " I can do 
 better for you than that. You shall come into 
 the study; papa will be away all the morning, 
 and I will have the fire kept up there, — and 
 mamma shall never come near you." 
 
 All this, and a thousand times more of plotting 
 and counterplotting, was going on among four 
 children and their elders in a comfortable, free- 
 and-easy seeming household in Washington, as 
 the boys and girls, young men and young women 
 were in the last agonies of making ready for 
 Christmas. Matty is fully entitled to be called 
 a young woman, when we see her. She has just 
 passed her twenty-first birthday. But she looks 
 as fresh and pretty as when she was seventeen, 
 and certainly she is a great deal pleasanter though 
 she be wiser. She is the oldest of the troop. 
 Tom, the next, is expected from Annapolis this 
 afternoon, and Beverly from Charlotte. Then 
 come four boys and girls whose ages and places 
 the reader must guess at as we go on. 
 
 The youngest of the family were still young 
 enough to write the names of the presents which 
 they would be glad to receive, or to denote them 
 by rude hieroglyphs, on large sheets of paper. 
 They were wont to pin up these sheets on certain 
 doors, which, by long usage in this free-and-easy 
 family, had come to be regarded as the bulletin- 
 
Bread on the Waters 171 
 
 boards of the establishment. Well-nigh every 
 range of created things had some representation 
 on these bulletins, — from an ambling pony round 
 to a "boot-buttenner," thus spelled out by poor 
 Laura, who was constantly in disgrace, because 
 she always appeared latest at the door when the 
 children started for church, to ride, or for school. 
 The youngsters still held to the theory of an- 
 nouncing thus their wants in advance. Horace 
 doubted whether he were not too old. But there 
 was so much danger that nobody would know how 
 much he needed a jig-saw, that he finally com- 
 promised with his dignity, wrote on a virgin 
 sheet of paper, "gig-saw," signed his name, 
 "Horace Molyneux, Dec. 21," and left his other 
 presents to conjecture. 
 
 And of course at the very end, as Santa Claus 
 and his revels were close upon them, while the 
 work done had been wonderful, that which we 
 ought to have done but which we had left undone, 
 was simply terrible. Here were pictures that 
 must be brought home from the frame-man, who 
 had never pretended he would send them; there 
 were ferns and lycopodiums in pots which must 
 be brought home from the greenhouse; here 
 were presents for other homes, which must not 
 only be finished, but must be put up in paper and 
 sent before night, so as to appear on other trees. 
 Every one of these must be shown to mamma, 
 and approved by her and praised ; and every one 
 must be shown to dear Matty, and praised and 
 
172 Bread on the Waters 
 
 approved by her. And yet by no accident must 
 Matty see her own presents or dream that any 
 child has remembered her, or mamma see hers or 
 think herself remembered. 
 
 And Matty has all her own little list to see to, 
 while she keeps a heart at leisure from itself to 
 soothe and sympathize. She has to correct the 
 mistakes, to repair the failures, to respect the 
 wonder, to refresh the discouragement, of each 
 and all the youngsters. Her own Sunday scholars 
 are to be provided with their presents. The last 
 orders are to be given for the Christmas dinners 
 of half-a-dozen families of vassals, mostly black 
 or of some shade of black, who never forgot their 
 vassalage as Christmas came round. Turkey, 
 cranberry, apples, tea, cheese, and butter must 
 be sent to each household of these vassals, as if 
 every member were paralyzed except in the 
 muscles of the jaw. But, all the same, Matty or 
 her mother must be in readiness all the morning 
 and afternoon to receive the visits of all the 
 vassals, — who, so far as this form of homage 
 went, did not seem to be paralyzed at all. 
 
 For herself, Matty took possession of the 
 dining-room, as soon as she could clear it of the 
 breakfast equipage, of the children and of the ser- 
 vants, and here, with pen and ink, with wrapping- 
 paper and twine, with telegraph blanks and 
 with the directory, and with Venty as her Ariel 
 messenger — not so airy and quick as Ariel, but 
 quite as willing — Matty worked her wonders, 
 
Bread on the Waters 173 
 
 and gave her audiences, whether to vassals from 
 without or puzzled children from within. 
 
 Venty was short for Ventidius. But this 
 name, given in baptism, was one which Venty 
 seldom heard. 
 
 Matty corded up this parcel, and made Venty 
 cord up that ; wrote this note of compliment, 
 that of inquiry, that of congratulation, and sent 
 Venty on this, that, and another errand with them ; 
 relieved Flossy's anxieties and poor Laura's in 
 ways which have been described ; made sure 
 that the wagon should be at the station in ample 
 time for Beverly's arrival; and at last, at nearly 
 one o'clock, called Aunty Chloe (who was in 
 waiting on everybody as a superserviceable per- 
 son, on the pretence that she was needed), bade 
 Aunty pick up the scraps, sweep the floor, and 
 bring the room to rights. And so, having 
 attended to everybody beside herself, to all their 
 wishes and hopes and fears, poor Matty — or shall 
 I say, dear Matty — ran off to her own room, to 
 finish her own presents and make her own last 
 preparations. 
 
 She had kept up her spirits as best she could 
 all the morning, but, at any moment when she 
 was alone, her spirits had fallen again. She 
 knew it, and she knew why. And now she could 
 not hold out any longer. She and her mother, 
 thank God, never had any secrets. And as she 
 ran by her mother's door she could not help 
 tapping, to be sure if she had come home. 
 
174 Bread on the Waters 
 
 Yes, she had come home. " Come in ! " and 
 Matty ran in. 
 
 Her mother had not even taken off her hat or 
 her gloves. She had flung herself on the sofa, as 
 if her walk had been quite too much for her ; her 
 salts and her handkerchief were in her hands, and 
 when she saw it was Matty, as she had hoped 
 when she spoke, she would not even pretend she 
 had not been in tears. 
 
 In a moment Matty was on her knees on the 
 floor by the sofa, and somehow had her left arm 
 round about her mother's neck. 
 
 " Dear, dear mamma ! What is it, what is the 
 matter ? " 
 
 "My dear, dear Matty," replied her mother, 
 just succeeding in speaking without sobs, and 
 speaking the more easily because she stroked the 
 girl's hair and caressed her as she spoke, "do not 
 ask, do not try to know. You will know, if you do 
 not guess, only too soon. And now the children 
 will be better, and papa will get through Christ- 
 mas better, if you do not know, my darling." 
 
 "No, dear mamma," said Matty, crossing her 
 mother's purpose almost for the first time that 
 she remembered, but wholly sure that she was 
 right in doing so, — " No, dear mamma, it is not 
 best so. Indeed, it is not, mamma! I feel in 
 my bones that it is not!" This she said with a 
 wretched attempt to smile, which was the more 
 ghastly because the tears were running down 
 from both their faces. 
 
Bread on the Waters ly^ 
 
 "You see I have tried, mamma. I knew all 
 day yesterday that something was wrong, and at 
 breakfast this morning I knew it. And I have 
 had to hold up — with the children and all these 
 people — with the feeling that any minute the 
 hair might break and the sword fall. And I 
 know I shall do better if you tell me. You see 
 the boys will be here before dark, and of course 
 they will see, and what in the world shall I say 
 to them?" 
 
 " What, indeed .' " said her poor mother. " Ter- 
 rible it is, dear child, because your father is so 
 wretched. I have just come from him. He 
 would not let me stay, and yet for the minute I 
 was there, I saw that no one else could come in 
 to goad him. Dear, dear papa, he is so resolute 
 and brave, and yet any minute I was afraid that 
 he would break a blood-vessel and fall dead be- 
 fore me. Oh, Matty, Matty, my darling, it is 
 terrible ! " 
 
 And this time the poor woman could not con- 
 trol herself longer, but gave way to her sobs, 
 and her voice fairly broke, so that she was in- 
 articulate, as she laid her cheek against her 
 daughter's on the sofa. 
 
 "What is terrible.' Dear mamma, you must 
 tell me!" 
 
 " I think I must tell you, Matty, my darling. 
 I believe if I cannot tell some one, I shall die. " 
 
 Then Mrs. Molyneux told the whole horror to 
 Matty. Here was her husband charged with the 
 
1/6 Bread on the Waters 
 
 grossest plunder of the treasury, and now charged 
 even in the House of Representatives. It had 
 been whispered about before, and had been hinted 
 at in some of the lower newspapers, but now even 
 a committee of Congress had noticed it, and had 
 "given him an opportunity to clear himself." 
 There was no less a sum than forty-seven thou- 
 sand dollars, in three separate payments, charged 
 to him at the Navy Department as long ago as 
 the second and third years of the Civil War. 
 At the Navy they had his receipts for it. Not 
 that he had been in that department then any 
 more than he was now. He was then chief clerk 
 in the Bureau of Internal Improvement, as he was 
 now Commissioner there. But this was when the 
 second Rio Grande expedition was fitted out ; and 
 from Mr. Molyneux's knowledge of Spanish, and 
 his old connection with the Santa F6 trade, this 
 particular matter had been intrusted to him. 
 
 "Yes, dear mamma!" 
 
 " Well, papa has it all down on his own cash- 
 book; that book he carries in his breast-pocket. 
 There are the three payments, and then all the 
 transfers he made to the different people. One 
 was that old white-haired Spaniard with the hare- 
 lip, who used to come here at the back door, so 
 that he should not be seen at the Department. 
 But it was before you remember. The others 
 were in smaller sums. But the whole thing was 
 done in three weeks, and then the expedition 
 sailed, and papa had enough else to think of, and 
 
Bread on the Waters i jj 
 
 has never thought of it since, till ten or fifteen 
 days- ago, when somebody in the Eleventh Audi- 
 tor's office discovered this charge, and his receipt 
 for this money." 
 
 " Well, dear mamma ? " 
 
 " Well, dear child, that is all, but that now the 
 newspapers have got hold of it, and the Com- 
 mittee on Retrenchment, who are all new men, 
 with their reputations to make, have got hold of 
 it, and some of them really think, you know, that 
 papa has stolen the money!" And she broke 
 down crying again. 
 
 " But he can show his accounts, mamma ! " 
 
 " What are his accounts worth ? He must show 
 the vouchers, as they are called. He must show 
 these people's receipts, and what has become of 
 these people ; what they did with the money. He 
 must show everything. Well, when the ' Copper- 
 head ' first spoke of it — that was a fortnight 
 ago — papa was really pleased. For he said it 
 would be a good chance to bring out a piece of 
 war history. He said that in our Bureau we had 
 never had any credit for the Rio Grande suc- 
 cesses, that they were all our thunder; because 
 then he could laugh about this horrid thing. He 
 said the Navy had taken all the honors, while we 
 deserved them all. And he said if these horrid 
 'Copperhead ' and ' Argus ' and 'Scorpion ' people 
 would only publish the vouchers half as freely as 
 they published the charges, we should get a little 
 of the credit that was our due. " 
 
178 Bread on the Waters 
 
 " Well, mamma, and what is the trouble now ? " 
 
 " Why, papa was so sure that he would do noth- 
 ing until an official call came. But on Monday 
 it got into Congress. That hairy man from the 
 Yellowstone brought in a resolution or some- 
 thing, and the Committee was ordered to inquire. 
 And when the order came down, papa told Mr. 
 Waltsingham to bring him the papers, and, 
 Matty, the papers were not there ! " 
 
 "Stolen!" cried Matty, understanding the 
 crisis for the first time. 
 
 " Yes — perhaps — or lost — hidden somewhere. 
 You have no idea of the work of those days — 
 night work and all that. Many a time your 
 father did not undress for a week." 
 
 " And now he must remember where he put a 
 horrid pile of papers, eleven, twelve years ago. 
 Mamma, that pile is stolen. That odious Green- 
 hithe stole it. He lives in Philadelphia now, 
 and he has put up these newspapers to this 
 lie." 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe was an underclerk in the 
 Internal Improvement Bureau, who had shown an 
 amount of attention to Miss Matty, which she 
 had disliked and had refused to receive. She had 
 always said he was bad and would come to a bad 
 end, and when he was detected in a low trick, 
 selling stationery which he had stolen from the 
 supply room, and was discharged in disgrace, 
 Matty had said it was good enough for him. 
 
 These were her reasons for pronouncing at once 
 
Bread on the Waters 179 
 
 that he had stolen the vouchers and had started 
 the rumors. 
 
 "I do not know. Papa does not know. He 
 hardly tries to guess. He says either way it is 
 bad. If the vouchers are stolen, he is in fault, 
 for he is responsible for the archives ; if he cannot 
 produce the vouchers, then all the country is 
 down on him for stealing. I only hope," said 
 poor Mrs. Molyneux, "that they won't say our 
 poor old wagon is a coach and six;" and this 
 time she tried to smile. 
 
 And now she had told her story. All last 
 night, while the children were asleep, Mr. 
 Molyneux had been at the office, even till four 
 o'clock in the morning, taking old dusty piles 
 from their lairs and searching for those wretched 
 vouchers. And mamma had been waiting — shall 
 one not say, had been weeping ? — here at home. 
 That was the reason poor papa had looked so 
 haggard at breakfast this morning. 
 
 This was all mamma had to tell. She had 
 been to the office this morning, but papa would 
 not let her stay. He must see all comers, just as 
 if nothing had happened, was happening, or was 
 going to happen. 
 
 Well ! Matty did make her mother take off 
 her jacket and her hat and her gloves. She even 
 made her drink a glass of wine and lie down. 
 And then the poor girl retired to her own room, 
 with such appetite as she might for taking the 
 last stitches in worsted work, for stippling in the 
 
t8o Bread on the Waters 
 
 lights into drawings, for writing the presentation 
 lines in books, and for doing the thousand little 
 niceties in the way of finishing touches which 
 she had promised the children to do for them. 
 
 Her dominant feeling — yes, it was a dominant 
 passion, as she knew — ^was simply rage against 
 this miserable Greenhithe, this cowardly sneak 
 who was thus taking his revenge upon her, be- 
 cause she had been so cold to him. Or was it 
 that he made up to her because he was already in 
 trouble at the Office and hoped she would clear 
 him with her father? Either way he was a snake 
 and a scorpion, but he had worked out for himself 
 a terrible revenge. Poor Matty! She tried to 
 think what she could do, how she could help, for 
 that was the habit of her life. But this was now 
 hard indeed. Her mind would not now take that 
 turn. All that it would turn to was to the 
 wretched and worse than worthless question, what 
 punishment might fall on him for such utter 
 baseness and wickedness. 
 
 All the s^e the children must have their 
 lunch, and they must not know that anything was 
 the matter. Oh dear ! this concealment was the 
 worst of all ! 
 
 So they had their lunch. And poor Matty 
 counselled again, and helped again, and took the 
 last stitches, and mended the last breaks, and 
 waited and wondered, and tried to hope, till at 
 five o'clock an office messenger came up with this 
 message. 
 
Bread on the Waters 1 8 1 
 
 4-45 P- M. 
 Dear Matty, — I shall not come up to dinner. 
 There is pressing work here. Tell mamma not to sit 
 up for me. I have my key. 
 
 I have no chance to get my things for the children. 
 Will you see to it? Here is twenty dollars, and if you 
 need more let them send in the bill. I had only thought 
 of that jig-saw — was it ? — that Horace wants. See that 
 the dear fellow has a good one. 
 
 Love to all and ever yours. 
 
 Papa. 
 
 "Poor, dear papa," said Matty aloud, shedding 
 tears in spite of herself. "To be thinking of 
 jig-saws and children in all this horrid hunt ! 
 As if hunting for anything was not the worst 
 trial of all, always." And at once the brave girl 
 took down her wraps and put on her walking- 
 shoes, that her father's commissions might be 
 met before their six-o'clock dinner. And she 
 determined that first of all she would meet Tom 
 at the station. 
 
 At the station she met Tom; that was well. 
 Matty had not been charged to secrecy ; that was 
 well. She told him all the story, not without 
 adding her suspicions, and giving him some 
 notion of her rage. 
 
 And Tom was angry enough, — there was a 
 crumb of comfort there. But Tom went off on 
 another track. Tom distrusted the Navy Depart- 
 ment. He had been long enough at Annapolis 
 to doubt the red tape of the bureaus with which 
 
1 8 2 Bread on the Waters 
 
 his chiefs had to do. "If the navy had the 
 money, the navy had the vouchers," that was 
 Tom's theory. He knew a chief clerk in the 
 navy, and Tom was going at once round there. 
 
 But Matty held him in check at least for the 
 moment. Whatever else he did, he must come 
 home first ; he must see mamma and he must see 
 the children, and he must have dinner. She had 
 not told him yet how well he looked, and how 
 handsome he was. 
 
 But after Tom had seen them he slipped off, 
 pretended he had unfinished preparations to make, 
 and went right to the Department, forced his way 
 in because he was Mr. Molyneux's son, and found 
 his poor father with Zeigler, the chief clerk, still 
 on this wretched and fruitless overhaul of the old 
 files. Tom stated frankly, in his off-hand, busi- 
 ness-like way, what his theory was. Neither 
 Zeigler nor Tom's father believed in it in the 
 least. Tom knew nothing, they said; the Navy 
 paid the money, but the Navy was satisfied with 
 our receipt, and should be. 
 
 Tom continued to say, " If the Navy paid the 
 money the Navy must have the vouchers ; " and at 
 last, more to be rid of him than with any hope of 
 the result, Mr. Molyneux let the eager fellow go 
 round to his friend, Eben Ricketts, and see if 
 Eben would not give an hour or two of his 
 Christmas to looking up the thing. Mr. Molyneux 
 even went so far as to write a frank line to Mr. 
 Ricketts, and enclosed a letter which he had had 
 
Bread on the Waters 183 
 
 that day from the chairman of the House Com- 
 mittee, — a letter which was smooth enough in the 
 language, but horrible enough in the thing. 
 
 Ah me ! Had not Ricketts read it all already 
 in the evening " Argus " ? He was willing, if he 
 could, to serve. So he with Tom went round and 
 found the Navy Department messenger, and 
 opened and lighted up the necessary rooms, and 
 they spent three hours of their Christmas there. 
 Meanwhile Beverly had arrived from Norfolk. 
 He had a frolic with the children, and then called 
 his mother and Matty away from them. 
 
 " What in thunder is the matter ? " said the 
 poor boy. 
 
 And they told him. How could they help 
 telling him? And so soon as the story was 
 finished, the boy had his coat on and was putting 
 on his boots. He went right down to his father's 
 office, he made old Stratton admit him, and told 
 his father he too had reported for duty. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHRISTMAS MORNING 
 
 And at last Christmas morning dawned, — gray 
 enough. and grim enough. 
 
 In that house the general presenting was 
 reserved for evening after dinner, — when in 
 olden days there had always been a large Christ- 
 
1 84 Bread on the Waters 
 
 mas-tree lighted and dressed for the children and 
 their little friends. As the children had grown 
 older, and the trees at the Sunday-school and 
 elsewhere had grown larger, the family tree had 
 grown smaller, and on this day was to be simply 
 a typical tree, a little suggestion of a tree, between 
 the front windows ; while most of the presents of 
 every sort and kind were to be dispersed — where 
 room could be made for them — in any part of 
 the front parlors. All the grand ceremonial of 
 present-giving was thus reserved to the afternoon 
 of Christmas, because then it was certain papa 
 would be at home, Tom and Beverly would both 
 be ready, and, indeed, as the little people con- 
 fessed, they themselves would have more chance 
 to be quite prepared. 
 
 But none the less was the myth of Santa 
 Claus and the stockings kept up, although that 
 was a business of less account, and one in which 
 the children themselves had no share, except to 
 wonder, to enjoy, and to receive. You will 
 observe that there is a duality in most of the 
 enjoyments of life, — that if you have a long- 
 expected letter from your brother who is in 
 Yokohama, by the same mail or the next mail 
 there comes a letter from your sister who is in 
 Cawnpore. And so it was of Christmas at this 
 Molyneux house. Besides the great wonders, 
 like those wrought out by Aladdin's slave of the 
 lamp, there were the wonders, less gigantic but 
 not less exquisite, of the morning hours, wrought 
 
Bread on the Waters 185 
 
 out by the slave of the ring. How this series of 
 wonders came about, the youngest of the children 
 did not know, and were still imaginative enough 
 and truly wise enough not to inquire. 
 
 While, then, the two young men and their 
 father were at one or the other Department, now 
 on step-ladders, handing down dusty old paste- 
 board boxes, now under gaslights, running down 
 long indexes with inquiring fingers and unwink- 
 ing eyes, Matty and her mother watched and 
 waited till eleven o'clock came, not saying much 
 of what was on the hearts of both, but sometimes 
 just recurring to it, as by some invisible influ- 
 ence, — an influence which would overcome both 
 of them at the same moment. For the mother 
 and daughter were as two sisters, not parted far, 
 even in age, and not parted at all in sympathy. 
 For occupation, they were wrapping up in thin 
 paper a hundred barley dogs, cats, eagles, loco- 
 motives, suns, moons, and stars, — with little 
 parcels of nuts, raisins, and figs, large red 
 apples, and bright Florida oranges, — all of which 
 were destined to be dragged out of different 
 stockings at daybreak. 
 
 "And now, dear, dear mamma," said Matty, 
 "you will go to bed, — please do, dear mamma." 
 This was said as she compelled the last obstinate 
 eagle to accept his fate and stay in his wrapping- 
 paper, from which he had more than once 
 struggled out, with the instincts of freedom. 
 
 "Please do, dear mamma; I will sort these all 
 
1 86 Bread on the Waters 
 
 out, and will be quite sure that each has his own. 
 At least, let us come upstairs together. I will 
 comb your hair for you ; that is one of the little 
 comforts. And you shall get into bed and see 
 me arrange them, and if I do it wrong you can 
 tell me." 
 
 Poor mamma, she yielded to her — as who does 
 not yield, and because it was easier to go up- 
 stairs than to stay. And the girl led her up and 
 made herself a toilet woman indeed, and did put 
 her worn-out mamma into bed, and then hurried 
 to the laundry, where she was sure she could find 
 what Diana had been bidden to reserve there — a 
 pair of clean stockings belonging to each member 
 of the family. The youngest children, alas, who 
 would need the most room for their spread-eagles 
 and sugar locomotives, had the smallest feet and 
 legs. But nature compensates for all things, and 
 Matty did not fail to provide an extra pair of her 
 mother's longest stockings for each of "the 
 three," as the youngest were called in the coun- 
 cils of their elders. So a name was printed by 
 Santa Claus on a large red card and pinned upon 
 each receptacle, FLOSSY or Laura, while all were 
 willing to accept of his bounties contained within, 
 even if they did not recognize yarn or knitting as 
 familiar. Matty hurried back with their treasures. 
 She brought from her own room the large red 
 tickets, already prepared, and then, on the floor 
 by her mother's bedside, assorted the innumerable 
 parcels, and filled each stocking full. 
 
Bread on the Waters 187 
 
 Dear girl! she had not wrongly guessed. 
 There was just occupation enough, and just little 
 enough, for the poor mother's anxious, tired 
 thought. Matty was wise. She asked fewer and 
 fewer questions; fewer and fewer she made her 
 journeys to the great high fender, where she 
 pinned all these stiff models of gouty legs. And 
 when the last hung there quietly, the girl had 
 the exquisite satisfaction of seeing that her 
 mother was fast asleep. She would not leave the 
 room. She turned the gas-light down to a tiny 
 bead. She slipped off her own frock, put on her 
 mother's heavy dressing-gown, lay down quietly 
 by her side without rousing her, and in a little 
 while — for with those so young this resource is 
 well-nigh sure — she slept too. 
 
 It was five o'clock when she was wakened by 
 her father's hand. He led her out into his own 
 dressing-room, and before she spoke she kissed 
 him ! 
 
 She knew what his answer would be. She 
 knew that from his heavy face. But all the 
 same she tried to smile, and she said, — ■ 
 
 " Found .' " 
 
 " Found ? No, no, dear child, nor ever will 
 be. How is mamma?" 
 
 And Matty told him, and begged him to come 
 and sleep in her own little room, because the 
 children would come in in a rout at daybreak. 
 But no ! he would not hear to that. " Whatever 
 else is left, dear Matty, we have each other. And 
 
1 88 Bread on the Waters 
 
 we will not begin — on what will be a new life to 
 all of us — we will not begin by 'bating a jot of 
 the dear children's joys. Matty, that is what I 
 have been thinking of all the way as I walked 
 home. But maybe I should not have said it, but 
 that Beverly said it just now to me. Dear 
 fellow ! I cannot tell you the comfort it was to 
 me to see him come in ! I told him he should 
 not have come, but he knew that he made me 
 almost happy. He is a fine fellow, Matty, and 
 all night long he has shown the temper and the 
 sense of a man." 
 
 For a moment Matty could not say a word. 
 Her eyes were all running over with tears. She 
 kissed her father again, and then found out how 
 to say, " I shall tell him what you say, papa, and 
 there will be two happy children in this house, 
 after all." 
 
 So she ran to Beverly's room, found him before 
 he was undressed, and told him. And the boy 
 who was just becoming a man, and the girl who, 
 without knowing it, had become a woman, kissed 
 each other; held each other for a minute, each 
 by both hands, looked each other so lovingly in 
 the eyes, comforted each other by the infinite 
 comfort of love, and then said good-night and 
 were asleep. Tom had stolen to bed without wak- 
 ing his mother or his sister, some hours before. 
 
 Yes! They all. slept. The little ones slept, 
 though they had been so certain that they should 
 not sleep one wink from anxiety. This poor 
 
Bread on the Waters 189 
 
 jaded man slept because he must sleep. His 
 poor wife slept because she had not slept now for 
 two nights before. And Matty and Tom and 
 Beverly slept because they were young and 
 brave and certain and pure, and because they 
 were between seventeen and twenty-two years of 
 age. This is all to say that they could seek 
 God's help and find it. This is to say that they 
 were well-nigh omnipotent over earthly ills, — so 
 far, at the least, that sleep came when sleep was 
 needed. 
 
 But not after seven o'clock ! Venty and Diana 
 had been retained by Flossy and Laura to call 
 them at five minutes of seven, and Laura and 
 Flossy had called the others. And at seven 
 o'clock, precisely, a bugle-horn sounded in the 
 children's quarters, and then four grotesque 
 riders, each with a soldier hat made of news- 
 paper, each with a bright sash girt round a dress- 
 ing-gown, each with bare feet stuck into stout 
 shoes, came storming down the stairs, and as 
 soon as the lower floor was reached, each mounted 
 on a hobby-horse or stick, and with riot not to be 
 told came knocking at Matty's door, at Beverly's, 
 and at Tom's. And these all appeared, also with 
 paper soldier hats upon their heads, and girt in 
 some very spontaneous costume, and so the whole 
 troop proceeded with loud fanfaron and drum- 
 beat to mamma's door and knocked for admission, 
 and heard her cheery " Come in. " And papa and 
 mamma had heard the bugle-calls, and had 
 
190 Bread on the Waters 
 
 wrapped some sort of shawls around their shoul- 
 ders, and were sitting up in bed, they also with 
 paper soldier hats upon them ; and one scream of 
 " Merry Christmas " resounded as the doors flew 
 open, — and then a wild rampage of kissing and 
 of hugging as the little ones rushed for the best 
 places they could find on the bed ■ — not to say in 
 it. This was the Christmas custom. 
 
 And Tom rolled up a lounge on one side of 
 the bed, which after a fashion widened it, and 
 Beverly brought up his mother's easy-chair, 
 which had earned the name of "Moses' seat," on 
 the other side, and thus, in a minute, the great 
 broad bed was peopled with the whole family, as 
 jolly, if as absurd, a sight as the rising sun looked 
 upon. And then Flossy and Beverly were 
 deputed to go to the fender, and to bring the 
 crowded, stiff stockings, whose crackle was so 
 delicate and exquisite; and so, youngest by 
 youngest, they brought forth their treasures, — 
 not indeed gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but 
 what answered the immediate purposes better, — 
 barley cats, dogs, elephants and locomotives, 
 figs, raisins, walnuts, and pecans. 
 
 Yes, and for one noisy half-hour not one person 
 thought of the cloud which hung over the house 
 only the night before! 
 
 But such happy forgetfulness cannot last for- 
 ever. There was the Christmas breakfast. And 
 Tom tried to tell of Academy times, and Beverly 
 
Bread on the Waters 191 
 
 tried to tell stories of the University. But it was 
 a hard pull. The lines under papa's eyes were 
 only too dark. And all of a sudden he would 
 start, and ask some question which showed that 
 he did not know what they were talking of. 
 Matty had taken care to have the newspapers out 
 of the way; but everybody knew why they were 
 out of the way, — and perhaps this made things 
 worse. Poor blundering Laura must needs say, 
 " That is the good of Christmas, that there are no 
 horrid newspapers for people to bother with," 
 when everybody above Horace's age knew that 
 there were papers somewhere, and soon Horace was 
 bright enough to see what he had not been told in 
 words, — that something was going wrong. 
 
 And as soon as breakfast was done, Flossy 
 cried out, "And now papa will tell us the story of 
 the bear ! Papa always tells us that on Christmas 
 morning. Laura, you shall come; and, Horace, 
 you shall sit there." And then her poor papa 
 had to take her up and kiss her, and say that this 
 morning he could not stop to tell stories, that he 
 had to go to the Department. And then Flossy 
 and Laura fairly cried. It was too bad. They 
 hated the Department. There never could be 
 any fun but what that horrid old Department 
 came in. And when Horace found that Tom 
 was going to the Department too, and that Bev 
 meant to go with him, he was mad, and said he 
 did not see what was the use of having Christ- 
 mas. Here he had tin-foil and plaster upstairs, 
 
192 Bread on the Waters 
 
 and little Watrous had lent him a set of govern- 
 ment medals, and they should have such a real 
 good time if Bev would only stay. He wished 
 the Department was at the bottom of the Poto- 
 mac. Matty fairly had to take the scolding boy 
 out of the room. 
 
 Mr. Molyneux, poor fellow, undertook the 
 soothing of Flossy. "Anyway, old girl, you 
 shall meet me as you go to church, and we will 
 go through the avenue together, and I will show 
 you the new Topsy girl selling cigars at Pierre's 
 tobacco shop. She is as big as Flossy. She has 
 not got quite such golden hair, but she never 
 says one word to her papa, because she is never 
 cross to him." 
 
 "That 's because he is never kind to her," said 
 the quick child, speaking wiser than she knew. 
 
 For Matty, she got a Word with Tom, and he 
 too promised that they would be away from the 
 Department in time to meet the home party, and 
 that all of them should go to church together. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHURCH AND SERMON 
 
 And, accordingly, as Mrs. Molyneux with her 
 little troop crossed F Street, they met the gentle- 
 men all coming toward them. They broke up 
 into groups, and Tom and Matty got their first 
 real chance for talk since they had parted the 
 
Bread on the Waters 193 
 
 night before. No ! Tom had found no clue at 
 the Navy Department. And although Eben 
 Ricketts had been good as gold, and had stayed 
 and worked with Tom till long after midnight, 
 Eben had only worked to show good-will, for 
 Eben had not the least faith that there was any 
 clue there. Eben had said that if old Mr. 
 Whilthaugh, who knew the archive rooms through 
 and through, had not been turned out, they could 
 do in fifteen minutes what had cost them six 
 hours, and that old Mr. Whilthaugh, without 
 looking, could tell whether it was worth while to 
 look. But old Mr. Whilthaugh had been turned 
 out, and Eben, even, did not know precisely what 
 had become of him. He thought he had gone 
 back into Pennsylvania, where his wife came from, 
 but he did not know. 
 
 "But, Matty, if nothing turns up to-day, I go 
 to Pennsylvania to-morrow to find this old Mr. 
 Whilthaugh. For I shall die if I stay here ; and 
 all the Eben Rickettses in the world will never 
 persuade me that the vouchers are not in that 
 archive-room. If the Navy did the work, the 
 Navy must have the vouchers." 
 
 Then Matty ventured to ask what she and her 
 mother had wondered about once and again, — why 
 these particular bits of paper were so necessary. 
 Surely other vouchers, or certified copies, or 
 books of account could be found somewhere! 
 
 " Yes ! I know ; you would say so. And if it 
 were all yesterday, and was all in these lazy 
 
 13 
 
194 Bread on the Waters 
 
 times of peace, you would say true. But you see, 
 in the first place, this is ever so long ago. Then, 
 in the second place, it was in the heat of war, 
 when everything was on a gigantic scale, and 
 things had to be done in unheard-of ways. Then, 
 chiefly, this particular business involved the buy- 
 ing up of I do not know who among the Rebels 
 there in Texas, and among their allies on the 
 other side the Rio Grande. This old Spaniard, 
 whom mamma remembers, and whom I just 
 remember, he was the chief captain among the 
 turncoats, and there were two or three others, 
 F. F. men in their places, — "First Family men," 
 that means, you know; but after they did this 
 work they did not stay in their places long. No ! 
 papa says he was mighty careful; that he had 
 three of the scoundrels sworn- before notaries, or 
 rather before one notary, and had their receipts 
 and acknowledgments stamped with his notary's 
 seal. Still, it did not do to have a word said in 
 public then. And after everything succeeded so 
 perfectly, after the troops landed without a shot, 
 and found all the base ready for them, corn and 
 pork just where they wanted it, — why, then every- 
 body was too gratified to think of imagining, as 
 they do now, that papa had stolen that money 
 that bought the pork and the corn." 
 
 "I wish they were only half as grateful now," 
 he said, after a pause. 
 
 "Tom," said Matty, eagerly, "who was that 
 notary ? " 
 
Bread on the Waters 195 
 
 "I thought of that, too," said Tom. "There 
 is no doubt who it was. It was old Gilbert ; you 
 must remember his sign, just below Faulkner's 
 on the avenue. But in the first place, Gilbert 
 died just after our taking Richmond. In the 
 second place, he never knew what the papers 
 were — and he executed twenty such sets of 
 papers every day, very likely. All he could say, 
 at the very best, would be that at such a time 
 father brought in an old Spaniard and two or 
 three other greasers, and that he took their 
 acknowledgments of something." 
 
 "I do not know that, Tom," said the girl, 
 without flinching at his mannish information. 
 "If notaries in Washington are anything like 
 notaries in novels, that man kept a record or 
 register of his work. If he was not very unlike 
 everybody else who lives and works here, he left 
 a very destitute widow when he died. Tom, I 
 shall go after church and hunt up the Widow 
 Gilbert. I shall ask her for her husband's books, 
 and shall tell her why I want them. " 
 
 The girl dropped her voice and said : " Tom, I 
 shall ask her in his name. " 
 
 " God grant it does any good, dear girl, " said 
 he. "Far be it from me to say that you shall 
 not try — " 
 
 But here he stopped speaking, for he felt 
 Matty's arm shake in his, and her whole frame 
 trembled. Tom had only to keep his eyes before 
 him to see why. 
 
196 Bread on the Waters 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe, Matty's old admirer, the clerk 
 who had been dismissed for stealing, was just 
 entering the church, and even touched his hat to 
 her as she went by. 
 
 Tom resisted his temptation to thrash him then 
 and there. He said, — 
 
 " Matty, I believe I will tackle that man ! " 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! " 
 
 "Yes, Matty, I can keep my temper, and he 
 cannot keep his. He has one advantage over 
 most knaves, that he is not only a knave of the 
 first water, but he is sometimes a fool, too. If it 
 were only decent and right to take him into 
 Downing' s saloon, and give him just one more 
 glass of whiskey than the blackguard would care 
 to pay for, I could get at his whole story." 
 
 "But, Tom, I thought you were so sure the 
 Navy had the papers ! " 
 
 " Well ! well ! " said Tom, a little annoyed, as 
 eager people are when other eager people remem- 
 ber their words against them. " I was sure — I 
 was wholly sure — till I left Eben Ricketts. But 
 after that — well, of course, we ought to pull 
 every string." 
 
 "Tom ! " This with a terrible gulp. 
 
 " Tom, you don't think I ought to speak with 
 him !" 
 
 " Matty ! " 
 
 " Why, Tom, yes ; if he does know — if he is 
 holding this up in terror, Tom, I could make him 
 do what I chose once, Tom. You don't think I 
 ought to try.'" 
 
Bread on the Waters 197 
 
 " Matty, if you ever speak to that snake again, 
 I will thrash him within an inch of his life, and 
 I will never say a word to you as long as you 
 live." 
 
 " That 's my dear Tom ! " And, hidden as they 
 were, and crying as she was under her veil, she 
 flung her arms around him and kissed him. 
 
 "All the same," said Tom, after he had kissed 
 her again and again, — " all the same, I shall find 
 out, after church, where the snake is staying. I 
 shall go to the hotel and take a cigar. I shall 
 offer him one, and he is so mean and stingy that 
 he will take it. Perhaps this may be one of his 
 fool days. Perhaps somebody else will treat him 
 to the whiskey. No, Matty! honor bright, /will 
 not, though that ten cents might give us all a Merry 
 Christmas. Honor bright, I will not treat. But 
 I am not a saint, Matty ! If anybody else treats, 
 I must not be expected to be far away." 
 
 Then he wiped her eyes with his own handker- 
 chief and led her in to the service. Their own 
 pew was already full. He had to take her back 
 into Dr. Metcalf's pew. 
 
 So Matty was spared one annoyance which was 
 prepared for her. 
 
 Directly in front of her father's pew, sitting in 
 the most conspicuous seat on the other side of 
 the aisle, was the hateful Mr. Greenhithe. 
 
 Had he put himself there to watch Matty's 
 face .' 
 
 If he did, he was disappointed. If he had 
 
198 Bread on the Waters 
 
 persuaded himself he was to see a pale cheek or 
 tearful eyes, or that he was going to compel her 
 to drop her veil, he had reckoned quite without 
 his host. Whenever he did look that way, all 
 he saw was the face of Master Horace. Horace 
 was engaged in counting the large tassels on his 
 side of the pulpit curtains; in counting, also, 
 the number of small tassels between them, and 
 from the data thus obtained, in calculating how 
 many tassels there must be on all the curtains to 
 the pulpit, and how many on the curtains behind 
 the rail to the chancel. Mr. Greenhithe, there- 
 fore, had but little comfort in studying Horace's 
 face. 
 
 Just as the Creed was finished, when the rest 
 of the church was still, the sexton led up the aisle 
 a grim-looking man, with a shaggy coat and a 
 very dirty face, and brought him close to the door 
 of Mr. Molyneux's pew — as if he would fain 
 bring him in. Mr. Molyneux was at the end of 
 the pew, but happened to be turning away from 
 the aisle, and the sexton actually touched him. 
 He turned round and looked at the stranger, — 
 evidently did not know him, — ■ but with the 
 instinct of hospitality, stepped into the aisle and 
 offered him his seat. The stranger was embar- 
 rassed ; hesitated as if he would speak, then shook 
 his head in refusal of the attention, and crossing 
 the aisle, took a seat offered him there, in 
 full sight of Mr. Molyneux, and, indeed, of 
 Matty. 
 
Bread on the Waters 199 
 
 Poor girl ! The trifle — of course it was a 
 trifle — upset her sadly. 
 
 Was the man a marshal or a sheriff ? Would 
 they really arrest her father on Christmas Day, in 
 church ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IS THIS CHRISTMAS? 
 
 Yes; it was, as you have said, a very curious 
 Christmas service for all those people. 
 
 What Horace turned his mind to, at intervals, 
 has been told. 
 
 Of the elder members of our little company 
 who sat there near the head of the side aisle, it 
 may be said, in general, that they did their best 
 to keep their hearts and minds engaged in the 
 service, and that sometimes they succeeded. 
 They succeeded better while they could really 
 join in the hymns and the prayers than they did 
 when it came to the sermon. Good Dr. Gill, 
 overruled by one of those lesser demons, whose 
 work is so apparent though so inexplicable in 
 this finite world, had selected for the text of his 
 sermon of gladness the words, " Search and look." 
 And so it happened — it was what did not often 
 happen with him — he must needs repeat those 
 words often, at the beginning and end, indeed, of 
 every leading paragraph of the sermon. Now 
 this duty of searching and looking had been just 
 
200 Bread on the Waters 
 
 what all the elder members of the Molyneux 
 family had been solidly doing — each in his way 
 or hers, directly or by sympathy — in the last 
 forty-eight hours. To get such relief as they 
 might from it, they had come to church, to look 
 rather higher if they could. So that it was to 
 them more a misfortune than a matter of imme- 
 diate spiritual relief that their dear old friend, 
 who loved each one of them with an intimate and 
 peculiar love, happened to enlarge on his text 
 just as he did. 
 
 If poor Mr. Molyneux, by dint of severe self- 
 command, had succeeded in abstracting his 
 thoughts from disgrace almost certain, — from 
 thinking over, in horrible variety, the several 
 threads of inquiry and answer by which that dis- 
 grace was to be avoided or precipitated, — how 
 was it possible to maintain such abstraction, 
 while the worthy preacher, wholly unconscious of 
 the blood he drew with every word, ground out 
 his sentences in such words as these: — 
 
 " Search and look, my brethren. Time passes 
 faster than we think. Our gray hairs gather 
 apace above our foreheads. And the treasure 
 which we prized beyond price in years bygone 
 has, perhaps, amid the cares of this world, or in 
 the deceitfulness of riches, been thrust on one 
 side, neglected, at last forgotten. How is it 
 with you, dear friends ? Are you the man ? Are 
 you the woman ? Have you put on one side the 
 very treasure of your life, — as some careless 
 
Bread on the Waters 201 
 
 housewife might lay aside on a forgotten shelf 
 this parcel or that, once so precious to her? Dear 
 friends, as the year draws to a close, awaken from 
 such neglect! Brush away the dust from these 
 forgotten caskets! Lift them from their hiding- 
 places and set them forth, even in your Christmas 
 festivities. Search and look ! " 
 
 Poor Mrs. Molyneux had never wished before 
 so earnestly that a sermon might be done. She 
 dared not look round to see her husband for a 
 while, but after one of these invocations — not 
 quite so terrible as the rest, perhaps — she stole a 
 glance that way, to find — that she might have 
 spared her anxiety. Two nights of "searching 
 and looking" had done their duty by the poor 
 man, and though his head was firm braced against 
 the column which rose from the side of their pew, 
 his eyes were closed, and his wife was relieved 
 by the certainty that he was listening, as those 
 happy members of the human family listen who 
 assure me that they hear when their lids are tight 
 pressed over their eyeballs. As for Beverly, he 
 was assuming the resolute aspect of a sailor under 
 fire, and was imagining himself taking the whole 
 storm of Fort Constantine as he led an American 
 squadron into the Bay of Sevastopol. Tom did 
 not know what the preacher said, but was devising 
 the method of his interview with Greenhithe. 
 Matty did know. Dear girl ! she knew very well. 
 And with every well-rounded sentence of the ser- 
 mon she was more determined as to the method 
 
202 Bread on the Waters 
 
 of her appeal to Mrs. Gilbert, the widow of the 
 notary. She would search and look there. 
 
 Yes ! and it was well for every one of them 
 that they went to that service. The sermon at 
 the worst was but twenty minutes. "Twenty 
 minutes in length," said Beverly, wickedly, 
 "and no depth at all." But that was not true 
 nor fair ; nor was that, either way, the thing that 
 was essential. By the time they had all sung * 
 
 " Praise God from whom all blessings flow," 
 
 even before the good old Doctor had asked for 
 Heaven's blessing upon them, it had come. To 
 Mr. Molyneux it had come in an hour's rest of 
 mind, body, and soul. To Matty it had come 
 in an hour's calm determination. To Mrs. 
 Molyneux it had come in the certainty that there 
 is One Eye which sees through all hiding-places 
 and behind all disguises. To the children it had 
 come, because the hour had called up to them a 
 hundred memories of Galilee and Nazareth, of 
 Mary Mother, and of children made happy, to 
 supplement and help out their legends of Santa 
 Claus. Yes, and even Beverly the brave, and 
 Tom the outraged, as they stood to receive the 
 benediction of the preacher, were more of men 
 and less of firebrands than they were. They all 
 stood with reverence; they paused a moment, 
 and then slowly walked down the aisle. 
 
 " Where is your father, Horace ? " said Mrs. 
 Molyneux, a little anxiously, as she came where 
 
Bread on the Waters 203 
 
 she could speak aloud. Horace was waiting for 
 her. 
 
 "Papa.' He went away with the gentleman 
 who came in after service began ; they crossed the 
 street and took a carriage together." 
 
 " And did papa leave no message .' " 
 
 "Why, no; he did not turn round. The 
 strange man — the man in the rough coat — just 
 touched him and spoke to him half-way down the 
 aisle. Then papa whispered to him and he 
 whispered back. Then, as soon as they came 
 into the vestibule here, papa led him out at that 
 side door, and did not seem to remernber me. 
 They almost ran across the street, and took 
 George Gibb's hack. I knew the horses." 
 
 "That's too bad," said Laura; "I thought 
 papa would walk home with us and tell us the 
 story of the bears." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Molyneux thought it was too bad, 
 too; but she said nothing. 
 
 And Matty, when she joined her mother, 
 said, — 
 
 " I shall feel a thousand times happier, mamma, 
 if I go and see Mrs. Gilbert now." And she 
 explained who Mrs. Gilbert was. "Perhaps it 
 may do some good. Anyway, I shall feel as if I 
 were doing something. I will be home in time 
 to finish the tree and things, for Horace will like 
 to help me." 
 
 And the poor girl looked her entreaties so 
 eagerly that her mother could not but assent to 
 
204 Bread on the Waters 
 
 her plan. So she made Beverly go up the avenue 
 with her, — Beverly, who would have swum the 
 Potomac and back for her, had she asked him, — 
 as he was on his way to join his father at the 
 Bureau. 
 
 As they came out upon the broad sidewalk, 
 that odious Greenhithe, with some one whom 
 Beverly called a blackguard of his crew, pushed 
 by them, and he had the impudence to turn and 
 touch his hat to Matty again. 
 
 Matty's hand trembled on Beverly's arm, but 
 she would not speak for a minute, only she 
 walked slower and slower. 
 
 Then she said : " I am so afraid, Bev, that 
 Tom and he will get into a quarrel. Tom declares 
 he will go into Willard's and find out whether he 
 does know anything." 
 
 But Beverly, very mannish, tried to reassure 
 her and make her believe that Tom would be 
 very self-restrained and perfectly careful. 
 
 On Christmas Day the Jew's dry-goods store, 
 which had taken the place of old Mr. Gilbert's 
 notary's office, was closed — not perhaps so much 
 from the Israelite's enthusiasm about Christmas 
 as in deference to what in New England is called 
 "the sense of the street." Matty, however, act- 
 ing from a precise knowledge of Washington life, 
 rang boldly at the green door adjacent, Beverly 
 still waiting to see what might turn up ; and when 
 a brisk " colored girl " appeared, Matty inquired 
 if Mrs. Munroe was at home. 
 
Bread on the Waters 205 
 
 • Now all that Matty knew of Mrs. Munroe was 
 that her name was on a well-scoured brass plate 
 on the door. 
 
 Mrs. Munroe was in. Beverly said he would 
 wait in the passage. Mrs. Munroe proved to be 
 a nice, motherly sort of a person, who, as it 
 need hardly be said, was stone-deaf. It required 
 some time for Matty to adjust her speaking 
 apparatus to the exigency, but when this was 
 done, Mrs. Munroe explained that Mr. Gilbert 
 was dead, — that an effort had been made to con- 
 tinue the business with the old sign and the old 
 good will, under the direction of a certain Mr. 
 Bundy, who had sometimes been called in as an 
 assistant. But Mr. Bundy, after some years, 
 paid more attention to whiskey than he did to 
 notarying, and the law business had suffered. 
 Finally, Mr. Bundy was brought home by the 
 police one night with a broken head, and then 
 Mrs. Gilbert had withdrawn the signs, cancelled 
 the lease, turned Mr. Bundy out-of-doors, and 
 retired to live with a step -sister of her brother's 
 wife's father near the Arsenal; good Mrs. Munroe 
 was not certain whether on Delaware Avenue, or 
 whether on T Street, U Street, or V Street. 
 And, indeed, whether the lady's name were But- 
 man before she married her second husband, and 
 Lichtenfels afterward — or whether his name 
 were Butman and hers Lichtenfels, Mrs. Munroe 
 was not quite sure. Nor could she say whether 
 Mr. Gilbert took the account books and registers 
 
2o6 Bread on the Waters 
 
 — there were heaps on heaps of them, for Mr. 
 Gilbert had been a notary ever since General 
 Jackson's day — or whether Bundy did not take 
 them, or whether they were not sold for old 
 paper, Mrs. Munroe was not sure. For all this 
 happened — all the break-up and removal — while 
 Mrs. Munroe was on a visit to her sister not far 
 from Brick Church above Little Falls, on your 
 way to Frederic. And Mrs. Munroe offered this 
 visit as a constant apology for her not knowing 
 more precisely every detail of her old friend's 
 business. 
 
 This explanation took a good deal of time, 
 through all of which poor Beverly was fretting 
 and fuming and stamping his cold feet in the 
 passage, hearing the occasional questions of his 
 sister, uttered with thunder tone in the " setting- 
 room " above, but hearing no word of the placid 
 widow's replies. 
 
 When Matty returned and held a consultation 
 with him, the question was, whether to follow 
 the books of account to Georgetown, where Mr. 
 Bundy was understood to be still residing, or to 
 the neighborhood of the Arsenal, in the hope of 
 finding Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Lichtenfels, or Mrs. 
 Butman, as the case might be. Readers should 
 understand that these two points, both unknown 
 to the young people, are some six miles asunder, 
 the original notary's office being about half-way 
 between them. Beverly was more disposed to 
 advise following the man. He was of a mind to 
 
Bread on the Waters 207 
 
 attack some one of his own sex. But the enter- 
 prise was, in truth, Matty's enterprise. Beverly 
 had but little faith in it from the beginning, and 
 Matty was minded to follow such clue as they 
 had to Mrs. Gilbert, quite sure that, woman with 
 woman, she should succeed better with her than, 
 man with man, Beverly with Bundy. Beverly 
 assented to this view the more willingly, because 
 Matty was quite willing to undertake the quest 
 alone. She was very brave about it indeed. 
 "Plenty of nice people at the Arsenal," or near 
 it, whom she could fall back upon for counsel or 
 information. So they parted. Matty took a 
 street car for the east and south, and Beverly 
 went his ways to the Bureau of Internal Improve- 
 ment to report for duty to his father. 
 
 This story must not follow the details of Matty's 
 quest for the firm of "Gilbert, Lichtenfels, or 
 Butman. " Certain it is that she would never 
 have succeeded had she rested simply on the 
 directory or on such crude information as Mrs. 
 Munroe had so freely given. But Matty had an 
 English tongue in her head, — a courteous, which 
 is to say a confiding, address with strangers ; she 
 seemed almost to be conferring a favor at the 
 moment when she asked one, and she knew, in 
 this business, that there was no such word as fail. 
 After one or two false starts — some very stupid 
 answers, and some very blunt refusals — she found 
 her quarry at last, by as simple a process as 
 walking into a Sunday-school of colored children. 
 
2o8 Bread on the Waters 
 
 where she heard singing in the basement of a 
 little chapel. 
 
 In a few words Matty explained her errand to 
 the Superintendent, and that it was necessary 
 that she should find Mrs. Gilbert before dark. 
 
 "Ting!" one stroke of the bell called hun- 
 dreds of eager voices to silence. 
 
 " Who knows where Mrs. Gilbert lives ? Is it 
 at Mrs. Butman's house or Mrs. Lichtenfels' } " 
 
 Twenty eager hands contended with each other 
 for the honor of giving the information, and in 
 three minutes more, Matty, all encouraged by her 
 success, was on her way. 
 
 And Mrs. Gilbert was at home. Good fortune 
 number two! Matty's star was surely in the 
 ascendant! Matty sent in her card, and the nice 
 old lady presented herself at once, remembered 
 who Matty was, remembered how much business 
 Mr. Molyneux used to bring to the office, and 
 how grateful Mr. Gilbert always was. She was 
 so glad to see Matty, and she hoped Mr. Molyneux 
 was well, and Mrs. Molyneux and all those little 
 ones ! She used to see them every Sunday as 
 they went to church, if they went on the avenue. 
 
 Thus encouraged, Matty opened on her sad 
 story, and was fairly helped from stage to stage 
 by the wonder, indignation, and exclamations of 
 the kind old lady. When Matty came to the end, 
 and made her understand how much depended 
 on the day-book, register, and ledger of her hus- 
 band, it was a fair minute before she spoke. 
 
Bread on the Waters 209 
 
 "We will see, my dear, we will see. I wish it 
 may be so, but I 'm all afeard. It would not be 
 like him, my dear. It would not be like any of 
 them. But come with me, my dear, we will see 
 — we will see." 
 
 Then, as Matty followed her, through devious 
 ways, out through the kitchen, across a queer 
 bricked yard, into a half stable, half woodshed, 
 which the good woman unlocked, she went on 
 talking: — 
 
 " You see, my dear child, that though notaries 
 are called notaries, as if it were their business to 
 give notice, fhe most important part of their 
 business is keeping secrets. Now, when a man's 
 note goes to protest, the notary tells him what 
 has happened, which he knew very well before; 
 and then he comes to the notary and begs him 
 not to tell anybody else, and of course he does 
 not. And the business of a notary's account 
 books, as my husband used to say, is to tell just 
 enough, and not to tell any more. 
 
 " Why, my dear child, he would not use blot- 
 ting-paper in the ofifice, — he would always use 
 sand. ' Blotting-paper ! Never ! ' he would say ; 
 ' Blotting-paper tells secrets ! ' " 
 
 With such chatter they came to the little chilly 
 room, which was shelved all around, and to 
 Matty's glad eyes presented rows of green and 
 blue and blue and red boxes, — and folio and 
 quarto books of every date, from 1829 to 1869, 
 forty years in which the late Mr. Gilbert had 
 
 14 
 
2IO Bread on the Waters ' 
 
 been confirming history, keeping secret what he 
 knew, but making sure what, but for him, might 
 have been doubted by a sceptic world. 
 
 Things were in good order. Mrs. Gilbert was 
 proud to show that they were in good order. 
 The day-book for 1863 was at hand. Matty knew 
 the fatal dates only too well. And the fatal 
 entries were here ! 
 
 How her heart beat as she began to read ! 
 
 Cr. 
 
 To Thomas Molyneux Esq., (B. I. I.) official au- 
 thentication of signature of Felipe Gazza . . jSi.25 
 
 Same, authentication of signature of Jose B. Du 
 Camara 1.25 
 
 Same, authentication of signature of Jacob H. 
 Cole 1.25 
 
 And this was all ! Poor Matty copied it all, but 
 all the time she begged Mrs. Gilbert to tell her 
 if there was not some note-book or journal that 
 would tell more. And kind Mrs. Gilbert looked 
 eagerly for what she called the " Diry. " At the 
 proper dates on the cash-book, at intervals of a 
 week or two, Matty found similar entries — the 
 names of the two Spaniards appearing in all 
 these — but other names in place of Cole's just as 
 Tom had told her already. By the time she had 
 copied all of these, Mrs. Gilbert had found the 
 " Diry." Eager, and yet heart -sick, Matty turned 
 it over with her old friend. 
 
 This was all : — 
 
 "Mr. Molyneux here. Very private. Papers 
 
Bread on the Waters 2 1 1 
 
 in R. G. E." And then followed a little burst of 
 unintelligible short-hand. 
 
 Poor Matty ! She could not but feel that here 
 would not be evidence good for anything, even in 
 a novel. But she copied every word carefully, 
 as a chief clerk's daughter should do. She 
 thanked the kind old lady, and even kissed her. 
 She looked at her watch. Heavens ! how fast 
 time had gone ! and the afternoons were so short ! 
 
 "Yes, my dear Miss Molyneux; but they have 
 turned, my dear, the day is a little longer and a 
 little lighter." 
 
 Did the old lady mean it for an omen, or was it 
 only one of those chattering remarks on meteors 
 and weather change of which old age is so fond ? 
 Matty wondered, but did not know. Fast as she 
 could, she tripped bravely on to the avenue for 
 her street car. 
 
 "The day is longer and lighter." 
 
 Meanwhile Tom was following his clue in the 
 public rooms at Willard's, to which, as he 
 prophesied, Mr. Greenhithe had returned after 
 the unusual variation in his life of a morning 
 spent in the sanctuary. Tom bought a copy of 
 the Baltimore " The Sun," and went into one of the 
 larger rooms resorted to by travellers and loafers, 
 and sat down. But Mr. Greenhithe did not 
 appear there. Tom walked up and down through 
 the passages a little uneasily, for he was sure the 
 ex-clerk had come into the hotel. He went up 
 
2 1 2 Bread on the Waters 
 
 and looked in at the ladies' sitting-rooms, to see 
 if perhaps some Duchess of Devonshire, of high 
 political circles, had found it worth while to drag 
 Mr. Greenhithe up there by a single hair. No 
 Mr. Greenhithe! Tom was forced to go down 
 and drink a glass of beer to see if Mr. Greenhithe 
 was not thirsty. But at that moment, though 
 Mr. Greenhithe was generally thirsty in the 
 middle of the day, and although many men were 
 thirsty at the time Tom hung over his glass of 
 lager, Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty there. It 
 was only as Tom passed the billiard-room that he 
 saw Mr. Greenhithe was playing a game of bil- 
 liards, by way of celebrating the new birth of a 
 regenerated world. 
 
 What to do now ! Tom could not, in common 
 decency, go in to look on at the game of a man 
 he wanted to choke. Yet Tom would have given 
 all his chances for rank in the Academy to know 
 what Greenhithe was talking about. Tom slowly 
 withdrew. 
 
 As he withdrew, whom should he meet but 
 one of his kindest friends. Commodore Benbow.' 
 When the boys made their " experimental cruise " 
 the year before, they had found Commodore 
 Benbow's ship at Lisbon. The Commodore had 
 taken a particular fancy to Tom, because he had 
 known his mother when they were boy and girl. 
 Tom had even been invited personally to the 
 flag-ship, and was to have been presented at 
 Court, but that they sailed too soon. 
 
Bread on the Waters 213 
 
 To tell the whole truth, the Commodore was not 
 overpleased to see his protigi hanging about the 
 bar and billiard-room on Christmas Day. For 
 himself, his whole family were living at Willard's, 
 but he knew Tom's father was not living there, and 
 he thought Tom might be better employed. 
 
 Perhaps Tom guessed this. Perhaps he was in 
 despair. Anyway he knew " Old Benbow," as the 
 boys called him, would be a good counsellor. In 
 point of statistics " Old Benbow " was just turned 
 forty, had not a gray hair in his head, could have 
 beaten any one of Tom's class, whether in gunning 
 or at billiards, could have demonstrated every 
 problem in Euclid while they were fiddling over 
 the forty-seventh proposition. He was at the very 
 prime of well-preserved power, but young nineteen 
 called him " Old Benbow," as young nineteen will, 
 in such cases. 
 
 Bold with despair, or with love for his father, 
 Tom stopped " Old Benbow" and asked him if he 
 would come into one of the sitting-rooms with 
 him. Then he made this venerable man his 
 confidant. The Commodore had seen the slurs in 
 the " Scorpion " and the " Argus " and the " Even- 
 ing Journal." " A pity," said he, " that Newspaper 
 Row, that can do so much good, should do so 
 much harm. What is Newspaper Row ? Three or 
 four men of honor, three or four dreamers, three 
 or four schoolboys, three or four fools, and three 
 or four scamps. And the public, Molyneux, — 
 which is to say you and I, — accept the trumpet 
 
214 Bread on the Waters 
 
 blast of one of these heralds precisely as we do 
 that of another. Practically," said he, pensively, 
 " when we were detached to serve with the 33d 
 Corps in Mobile Bay, I found I liked the talk of those 
 light-infantry men who had been in every scrim- 
 mage of the war, quite as much as I did that of the 
 bandmen who played the trumpets on parade. 
 But this is neither here nor there. I thought of 
 coming round to see your father, but I knew I 
 should bother him. What can I do, my boy ? " 
 
 Then Tom told him, rather doubtfully, that he 
 had reason to fear that Mr. Greenhithe was at the 
 bottom of the whole scandal. He said he wished 
 he did not think that Mr. Greenhithe had himself 
 stolen the papers. " If I am wrong, I want to 
 know it," said he ; " if I am right, I want to know it. 
 I do not want to be doing any man injustice. But 
 I do not want to keep old Eben Ricketts down at 
 the department hunting for a file of papers which 
 Greenhithe has hidden in his trunk or put into the 
 fire." 
 
 " No ! — no ! — no, indeed," said " old Benbow," 
 musing. "No!— No! — No ! — " 
 
 Then after a pause, "Tom," said he, "come 
 round here in an hour. I know that young fellow 
 your friend is playing with, and I wish he were in 
 better company than he is. I think I know enough 
 of the usages of modern society to ' interview ' him 
 and his companion, though times have changed 
 since I was of your age in that regard. Come here 
 in an hour, or give me rather more, come here 
 
Bread on the Waters 215 
 
 at half-past two, and we will see what we will 
 see." 
 
 So Tom went round to the Navy Department, 
 and here he found the faithful Eben — faithful to 
 him, though utterly faithless as to any success in 
 the special quest which was making the entertain- 
 ment of the Christmas holiday. Vainly did Tom 
 repeat to him his formula, — 
 
 " If the Navy did the work, the Navy has the 
 vouchers." 
 
 " My dear boy," Eben Ricketts repeated a hun- 
 dred times, " though the Navy did the work, the 
 Navy did not provide the pork and beans ; it did 
 flot arrange in advance for the landing, least of all 
 did it btiy the greasers. I will look where you like, 
 for love of your father and you ; but that file of 
 vouchers is not here, never was here, and never 
 will be found here." 
 
 An assistant like this is not an encouraging 
 companion or adviser. 
 
 And, in short, the vouchers were not found in 
 the Navy Department, in that particular midday 
 search. At twenty-five minutes past two Tom 
 gave it up unwillingly, bade Eben Ricketts good- 
 by, washed from his hands the accretions of coal- 
 dust, which will gather even on letter-boxes in 
 Navy Departments, and ran across in front of 
 the President's House, to Willard's. He looked 
 up at the White House, and wondered how the 
 people there were spending their Christmas 
 Day. 
 
2i6 Bread on the Waters 
 
 Commodore Benbow was waiting for him. He 
 took him up into his own parlor. 
 
 " Molyneux, your Mr. Greenhithe is either the 
 most ingenious liar and the best actor on God's 
 earth, or he knows no more of your lost papers 
 than a child in heaven. 
 
 " I went back to the billiard-room, after you left 
 me. I walked up to Millet — that was Lieutenant 
 Millet playing with Greenhithe • — and I shook 
 hands. He had to introduce me to your friend. 
 Then I asked them both to come here, told Millet 
 I had some papers from Montevideo that he would 
 be glad to see, and that I should be glad of a 
 call when they had done their game. Well, they 
 came. I am sorry to say your friend — " 
 
 " Oh, don't, my dear Commodore Benbow, 
 don't call him my friend, even in a joke ; it makes 
 me feel awfully." 
 
 "I am glad it does," said the Commodore, 
 laughing. " Well, I am very sorry to say that the 
 black sheep had been drinking more of the whisky 
 downstairs than was good for him; and, no. fault 
 of mine, he drank more of my Madeira than he 
 should have done, and, Tom, I do not believe he 
 was in any condition to keep secrets. Well, first 
 of all, it appeared that he had been in Bremen 
 and Vienna for six months. He only arrived in 
 New York yesterday morning." 
 Tom's face fell. 
 
 "And, next — you may take this for what it is 
 worth — but I believe he spoke the truth for once ; 
 
Bread on the Waters 217 
 
 he certainly did if there is any truth in liquor or in 
 swearing. For when I asked Millet what all this 
 stuff about your father meant, Greenhithe inter- 
 rupted, very unnecessarily and very rudely, and 
 said, with more oaths than I will trouble you with, 
 that the whole was a damned lie of the newspaper 
 men ; that they had lied about him (Greenhithe) 
 and now were lying about old Molyneux; that 
 Molyneux had been very hard on him and very 
 unjust to him, but he would say that he was honest 
 as the clock — honest enough to be mean. And 
 that he would say that to the committee, if they 
 would call on him, and so on and so on." 
 
 " Much good would he do before the com- 
 mittee," said poor Tom. 
 
 And thus ended Tom's branch of the investiga- 
 tion. " Come to me, if I can help you, my boy," 
 said Old Benbow. " It is always the darkest, old 
 fellow, the hour before day." 
 
 Tom was astronomer enough to know that this 
 old saw was as false as most old saws. But with 
 this for his only comfort, he returned to the bureau 
 to seek Beverly and his father. 
 
 Neither Beverly nor his father was there ! 
 
 Tom went directly home. His mother was 
 eager to see him. 
 
 She had come home alone, and, save Horace 
 and Laura and Flossy and Brick, she had seen 
 nobody but a messenger from the bureau. 
 
 Brick was the family name for Robert, one of 
 the youngest of this household. 
 
2 1 8 Bread on the Waters 
 
 Of Beverly's movements the story must be more 
 briefly told. They took more time than Tom's ; 
 as much indeed as his sister's, after they parted. 
 But they were conducted by means of that marvel 
 of marvels, the telegraph, — the chief of whose 
 marvels is that it compels even a long-winded 
 generation like ours to speak in very short 
 metre. 
 
 Beverly began with Mr. Bundy at Georgetown. 
 Georgetown is but a quiet place on the most active 
 of days. On Christmas Day Beverly found but 
 little stirring out of doors. 
 
 Still, with the directory, with the advice of 
 a saloon-keeper and the information of a police 
 officer, Beverly tracked Mr. Bundy to his lair. 
 
 It was not a notary's office, it was a liquor shop 
 of the lowest grade, with many badly painted signs, 
 which explained that this was " Our House," and 
 that here Mr. Bundy made and sold with proper 
 license — let us be grateful — Tom and Jerry, 
 Smashes, Cocktails, and did other " deeds without 
 a name." On this occasion, however, even the 
 door of " Our House " was closed. Mr. Bundy had 
 gone to a turkey-shooting match at Fairfax Court 
 House. The period of his return was very doubt- 
 ful. He had never done anything but keep this 
 drinking-room since old Mrs. Gilbert turned him 
 out of doors. 
 
 With this information Master Beverly returned 
 to town. He then began on his own line of search. 
 Relying on Tom's news, he went to the office of 
 
Bread on the Waters 219 
 
 the Western Union Telegraph and concocted this 
 despatch, which he thought a masterpiece. 
 
 Greensburg, Westmoreland Co., Pa. 
 To Robert John Whilthaugh : 
 
 When and where can I see you on important busi- 
 ness ? Answer. 
 
 Beverly Molyneux, for Thomas Molyneux. 
 
 Then he took a walk, and after half an hour called 
 at the office again. The office was still engaged in 
 caUing Greensburg. Greensburg was eating its 
 Christmas dinner. But at last Greensburg was 
 called. Then Beverly received this answer : — 
 
 Whilthaugh has been dead more than a year. 
 
 Greensburg. 
 To which Beverly replied : — 
 
 Where does his wife live, or his administrator? 
 
 To which Greensburg, having been called a 
 second time with difficulty, replied : — 
 
 His wife is crazy, and we never heard of any 
 property, Greensburg. 
 
 With this result of his investment as a non- 
 dividend member of the great Western Union 
 Mutual Information Club, Beverly returned home, 
 chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies. 
 
 " There is no speech nor language," sang the 
 choir in St. Matthews as he passed, " where their 
 voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through 
 
220 Bread on the Waters 
 
 all the earth — " A,nd Tom heard no more, as he 
 passed on. 
 
 As he walked, almost unwillingly, up the street 
 to the high steps of his father's house, Matty, out 
 of breath, overtook him. 
 
 "What have you found, Bev? " 
 
 "Nothing," said the boy, moodily. And poor 
 Matty had to confess that she had hardly more 
 to tell. 
 
 They came into the house by the lower entrance, 
 that they need not attract their mother's attention. 
 But she was on the alert. Even Horace and the 
 younger children knew by this time that something 
 was wrong. 
 
 Horace's story about the strange man and papa 
 was the last news of papa. Papa had not been at 
 the bureau. The bureau people waited for him 
 till two, and he did not come. Then Stratton had 
 come round to see if he was to keep open any 
 longer. Stratton had told Mrs. Molyneux that her 
 husband had not been there since church. 
 
 Where in the world was he ? 
 
 Poor Mrs. Molyneux had not known where to 
 send or to go. She had just looked in at the 
 Doctor's, but he was not there. 
 
 Tom had appeared first to her tedious waiting. 
 Tom would not tell her, but he even went and 
 looked in on Newspaper Row, which he had been 
 abusing so. For Tom's first thought was that a 
 formal information had been lodged somewhere, 
 and that his father was arrested. 
 
Bread on the Waters 221 
 
 But Newspaper Row evidently was unsuspicious 
 of any arrest. 
 
 Tom even walked down to the old jail, and 
 made an absurd errand to see the Deputy-Marshal. 
 But the Deputy-Marshal was at his Christmas 
 dinner. 
 
 Tom told all this in the hall to Beverly and to 
 Matty. 
 
 Everything had failed, and papa was gone. 
 Who could the man in the shaggy coat be? 
 
 The three went together into the parlor. 
 
 For a little, Matty and Horace and Tom and 
 Beverly then made a pretence of arranging the 
 tree. But, in truth, Mrs. Molyneux, in the midst of 
 all her care, had done that, while they were all 
 away. 
 
 Dinner was postponed half an hour, and they 
 gathered, all in the darkness, looking at the sick- 
 liest blaze that ever rambled over half-burned 
 Cumberland coal. 
 
 The Brick came climbing up on Tom's knees 
 and bade him tell a story ; but even Laura saw that 
 something was wrong, and hushed the child, and 
 said she and Flossy would sing one of their carols. 
 And they sang it, and were praised; and they 
 sang another, and were praised. But then it was 
 quite dark, and nobody had any heart to say one 
 word. 
 
 " Where is papa?" said the Brick. 
 
 "Where indeed?" everybody wanted to say, 
 and no one did. 
 
222 Bread on the Waters 
 
 But then the door-bell rang, and Chloe brought 
 in a note. 
 
 " He 's waiting for an answer, mum." 
 
 And Tom lighted the gas. It popped up so 
 bright that little Flossy said, — 
 
 "The people that sat in darkness saw a great 
 light — " 
 
 This was just as Mrs. Molyneux tore open the 
 note. For the instant she could not speak. She 
 handed it to the three. 
 
 " Found 
 
 "Home in half an hour ! 
 
 " All right ! thank God ! T. M." 
 
 " Saw a great light, indeed ! " said Horace, who, 
 for once, felt awed. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THIS IS CHRISTMAS 
 
 For half a minute, as it seemed afterwards, no 
 one spoke. Then Matty flew to her mother, and 
 flung her arms around her neck, and kissed her 
 again and again. 
 
 Tom hardly knew what he was doing; but he 
 recovered self-command enough to know that he 
 must try to be manly and businesslike, — and so 
 he rushed downstairs to find the man who brought 
 the note. It proved to be a man he did not know. 
 Not a messenger from the bureau, not one from 
 
Bread on the Waters 223 
 
 the Navy Department, least of all, an aid of the 
 Assistant Marshal's. He was an innocent waiter 
 from the Seaton House, who said a gentleman 
 called him and gave him the note, told him to lose 
 no time, and gave him half a dollar for coming. 
 He had asked for an answer, though the gentleman 
 had not told him to do so. 
 
 Tom wrote : " Hurrah ! All 's well ! All at 
 home. — T." and gave this note to the man. 
 
 They all talked at once, and then they sat still with- 
 out talking. The children — must it be confessed? 
 — asked all sorts of inopportune questions. At last 
 Tom was even fain to tell the story of the bear 
 himself, by way of silencing the Brick and Laura; 
 and with much correction from Horace, had got 
 the bear well advanced in smelling at the almond- 
 candy and the figs, when a carriage was heard on 
 the street, evidently coming rapidly towards them. 
 It stopped at the door. The bear was forgotten, 
 as all the elders in this free-and-easy family rushed 
 out of the parlor into the hall. 
 
 Papa was there, and was as happy as they. With 
 papa, or just behind him, came in the man with the 
 rough coat, whose face at church had been so 
 dirty, whose face now was clean. To think that 
 papa should have brought the Deputy-Marshal 
 with him ! For by the name of " the Deputy- 
 Marshal " had this mysterious stranger been spoken 
 of in private by the two young men since the fatal 
 theory had been advanced that he had come into 
 the church to arrest Mr. Molyneux. 
 
224 Bread on the Waters 
 
 The unknown, with great tact, managed to keep 
 in the background, while Mrs. Molyneux kissed her 
 husband, and while Matty kissed him, and while 
 among them they pulled off his coat. But Mr. Moly- 
 neux did not forget. He made a chance in a moment 
 for saying, " You must speak to our friend who 
 has brought me here ; no one was ever so welcome 
 at a Christmas dinner. Mr. Kuypers, my dear, 
 Mr. Kuypers, Matty dear ; these are my boys, Mr. 
 Kuypers." 
 
 Then the ladies welcomed the stranger, and the 
 boys shook hands with him. Mr. Molyneux added, 
 what hardly any one understood : " It is not every 
 friend that travels two thousand miles to jog a 
 friend's memory." 
 
 And they all huddled into the parlor. But in 
 a moment more, Mrs. Molyneux had invited Mr. 
 Kuypers to go upstairs to wash himself, and he, 
 with good feeling, which he showed all the evening, 
 gladly took himself out of the way, and so, as 
 Tom returned from showing him to his room, the 
 parlor was filled with " those God made there," as 
 the little boy used to say, and with none beside. 
 
 " Now tell us all about it, dear papa," cried Tom. 
 
 " I was trying to tell your mother. But there is 
 not much to tell. Poor Mr. Kuypers had travelled 
 all the way from Colorado, the minute he heard I 
 was in trouble. Yesterday he bought the ' Scorpion ' 
 in the train, and found the Committee was down 
 on us. He drove here from the station as soon as 
 the train came in. He piissed you here, and drove 
 
Bread on the Waters 225 
 
 by mistake to Trinity. That made him late with 
 us, and so, as the service had begun, he waited till 
 it was done." 
 
 " Well ! " said Bev, perhaps a little impatiently. 
 
 " But so soon as we were going out he touched 
 me, and said he had come to find me, in the matter of 
 the Rio Grande vouchers. Do you know, Eliza, I 
 can afford to laugh at it now, but at the moment I 
 thought he was a deputy of the Sergeant-at-Arms ? " 
 
 " There ! " screamed Tom, " I said he was a 
 deputy-marshal ! " 
 
 " I said, ' Certainly ; ' and I laughed, and said 
 they seemed to interest all my friends. Then he 
 said, ' Then you have them ? If I had known that, 
 I would have spared my journey.' This threw me 
 off guard, and I said I supposed I had them, but I 
 could not find them. And he said eagerly — this 
 was just on the church steps — ' But I can.' 
 
 " Then he said he had a carriage waiting, and he 
 bade me jump in. 
 
 " So soon as we were in the carriage he ex- 
 plained, what I ought to have remembered, but 
 could not then recollect for the life of me, that 
 after General Trebou returned from Texas, there 
 was a Court of Inquiry, and that there was some 
 question about these very supplies, the beans and 
 the coffee particularly; they had nothing to do 
 with the landing nor with the Mexicans. And the 
 Court of Inquiry sent over one day from the War 
 Department, where they were sitting, to our office 
 for an account, because ^e were said to have it. 
 
 15 
 
2 26 Bread on the Waters 
 
 Mr. Kuypers was their messenger to us, and be- 
 cause we had bound them all together, the whole 
 file was sent as it was. He took them, and as it 
 happened, he looked them over, and what was 
 better, he remembered them. Where our receipt 
 is. Heaven knows ! 
 
 , " Well, that Court of Inquiry was endless, as 
 those army inquiries always are. Mr. Kuypers 
 was in attendance all the time. He says he never 
 shall forget it, if other people do. 
 
 " So, as soon as he saw that we were in trouble at 
 the bureau — that I was in trouble, I mean," said 
 Mr. Molyneux, stoutly, " he knew that he knew 
 what nobody else knew, — that the vouchers were 
 in the papers of that Court of Inquiry." 
 
 "And he came all the way to tell? What a 
 good fellow ! " 
 
 " Yes, he came on purpose. He says he could 
 not help coming. He says he made two or three 
 telegrams ; but every time he tried to telegraph, he 
 felt as if he were shirking. And I believe he was 
 right. I believe we should never have pulled 
 through without him. ' Personal presence moves 
 the world,' as Eli Thayer used to say." 
 
 " And you found them ? " asked Mrs. Molyneux, 
 faintly essaying to get back to the story. 
 
 " Oh yes, we found them ; but not in one minute. 
 You see, first of all, I had to go to the chief clerk 
 at the War Department and get the department 
 opened on a holiday. Then we had no end of 
 clerks to disturb at their Christmas dinners, and at 
 
Bread on the Waters 227 
 
 last we found a good fellow named Breen who was 
 willing to take hold with Mr. Kuypers. And Mr. 
 Kuypers himself," here he dropped his voice, 
 " why, we have not three men in all the depart- 
 ments who know the history of this government or 
 the system of its records as he does. 
 
 " Once in the office, he went to work like a 
 master. Breen was amazed. Why ! We found 
 those documents in less than half an hour ! 
 
 "Then I sent Breen with a note to the Secretary. 
 He was good as gold ; came down in his own car- 
 riage, congratulated me as heartily — well almost 
 as heartily as you do, Tom — and took us both 
 round, with the files, to Mr. McDermot, the Chair- 
 man of the House Committee. He was dining 
 with his mess, at the Seaton House, but we called 
 him out, and I declare, I believe he was as much 
 pleased as we were. 
 
 " I only stopped to make him give me a receipt 
 for the papers, because they all said it was idle to 
 take copies, and here we are ! " 
 
 On the hush that followed, the Brick made his 
 way up on his father's knee and said, — 
 
 "And now, papa, will you tell us the story of 
 the bear? Tom does not tell it very well." 
 
 They all laughed, — they could afford to laugh 
 now ; and Mr» Molyneux was just beginning upon 
 the story of the bear, when Mr. Kuypers reap- 
 peared. He had in this short time revised his 
 toilet, and looked, Mr. Molyneux said in an aside, 
 like the angel of light that he was. " Bears ! " said 
 
2 28 Bread on the Waters 
 
 he, "are there any bears in Washington? Why, 
 it was only last Monday that I killed a bear, and I 
 ate him on Tuesday." 
 
 " Did you eat him all? " asked the Brick, whose 
 reverence for Mr. Kuypers was much more in- 
 creased by this story than by any of the unintel- 
 ligible conversation which had gone before. But 
 just as Mr. Kuypers began on the story of the 
 bear, Chloe appeared with beaming face, and 
 announced that dinner was ready. 
 
 That dinner, which this morning every one who 
 had any sense had so dreaded, and which now 
 seemed a festival indeed ! 
 
 Well ! there was great pretence in fun and form 
 in marshalling. And Mr. Kuypers gave his arm 
 to Matty, and Horace his to Laura, and Beverly 
 his to Flossy, and Tom brought up the rear with 
 the Brick on his shoulders. And Mr. Molyneux 
 returned thanks and asked a blessing all together. 
 And then they fell to, on the turkey and on the 
 chicken pie. And they tried to talk about Colo- 
 rado and mining ; about Gold Hill and Hale-and- 
 Norcross, and Uncle Sam and Overman and Yellow 
 Jacket. But in spite of them all, the talk would 
 drift back to Bundy and his various signs, " Our 
 House " and Tom and Jerry ; to the wife of Mr. 
 Whilthaugh ; to Commodore Benbow ; to old Mrs, 
 Gilbert and Delaware Avenue. And this was really 
 quite as much the fault of Mr. Kuypers as it was 
 of any of the Molyneux family. He seemed as 
 much one of them as did Tom himself. This anec- 
 
Bread on the Waters 229 
 
 dote of failure and that of success kept cropping out. 
 Walsingham's high-bred and dignified enthusiasm 
 for the triumph of the office, and the satisfaction 
 that Eben Ricketts would feel when he was told 
 that the Navy never had the vouchers, — all were 
 commented on. Then Mr. Molyneux would start 
 and say, " We are talking shop again. You say 
 the autumn has been mild in the mountains ; " and 
 then in two minutes they would be on the trail of 
 " Search and Look " again. 
 
 It was in one of these false starts that Mr. Kuy- 
 pers explained why he came, which in Horace's 
 mind and perhaps in the minds of the others had 
 been the question most puzzling of all. 
 
 " Why," said Horace, bluntly, " had you ever 
 heard of papa before ! " 
 
 " Had I heard of him? " said Mr. Kuypers. " I 
 think so. Why, my dear boy, your father is my 
 oldest and kindest friend ! " At this exclamation 
 even Mrs. Molyneux showed amazement. Tom 
 laid down his fork and looked to see if the man 
 was crazy, and Mr. Molyneux himself was thrown 
 off his balance. 
 
 Mr. Kuypers was a well-bred man, but this time 
 he could not conceal his amazement. He laid 
 down knife and fork both, looked up and almost 
 laughed, as he said with wonder, — 
 
 " Don't you know who I am ? " 
 
 " We know you are our good angel to-day," said 
 Mrs. Molyneux, bravely ; " and that is enough to 
 know." 
 
230 Bread on the Waters 
 
 " But don't you know why I am here, or what 
 sent me? " 
 
 Mr. Molyneux said that he understood very well 
 that his friend wanted to see justice done, and 
 that he had preferred to see to this in person. 
 
 " I thought you looked queer," said Mr. Kuy- 
 pers, frankly ; " but still, I did not know I was 
 changed. Why, don't you remember Bruce ? You 
 remember Mrs. Chappell, surely." 
 
 " Are you Bruce ? " cried Mr. Molyneux ; and he 
 fairly left his chair and went round the table to the 
 young man. " Why, I can see it now. But then 
 — why, you were a boy, you know, and this black 
 beard — " 
 
 " But pray explain, pray explain," cried Tom. 
 " The mysteries increase on us. Who is Mrs. 
 Chappell, and, for that matter, who is Bruce, if his 
 real name be not Kuypers ? " 
 
 And they all laughed heartily. People got back 
 their self-possession a little, and Mr. Kuypers 
 explained. 
 
 " I am Bruce Kuypers," said he, " though your 
 father does not seem to remember the Kuypers 
 part." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Molyneux, " I cannot remember 
 the Kuypers part, but the Bruce part I remember 
 very well." 
 
 " My mother was Mrs. Kuypers before she 
 married Mr. Chappell, and Mr. Chappell died 
 when my brother Ben was six years old, and little 
 Lizzy was a baby." 
 
Bread on the Waters 231 
 
 " Lizzy was my godchild," said Mrs. Molyneux, 
 who now remembered everything. 
 
 " Certainly she was, Mrs. Molyneux, and last 
 month Lizzy was married to as good a fellow as 
 ever presided over the melting of ingots. We 
 marry them earlier at the West than you do here." 
 
 " Where Lizzie would have been," he said more 
 gravely, addressing Tom again, " where my mother 
 would have been, or where I should have been but 
 for your father and mother here, it would be hard 
 to tell. And all to-day I have taken it for granted 
 that to him, as to me, this has been one part of 
 that old Christmas! Surely you remember?" he 
 turned to Mrs. Molyneux. 
 
 Yes, Mrs. Molyneux did remember, but her eyes 
 were all running over with tears and she did not 
 say so. 
 
 " Mr. Molyneux," said Bruce Kuypers, again ad- 
 dressing Tom, " seventeen years ago this blessed 
 day, there was a Christmas morning in the poor 
 old tenement above Massachusetts Avenue such 
 as you never saw, and such as I hope you never 
 may see. 
 
 " There was fire in the stove because your father 
 had sent the coal. There was oatmeal mush on 
 the table because your father paid my mother's 
 scot at your father's grocer. 
 
 " But there was not much jollity in that house, 
 and there were no Christmas presents, but what 
 your mother had sent to Bruce and Ben and Flora, 
 and even to the baby. Still we kept up such 
 
232 Bread on the Waters 
 
 courage as we could. It was a terribly cold day, 
 and there was a wet storm. 
 
 " All of a sudden a carriage stopped at the door, 
 and in came your father here. He came to say 
 that that day's mail had brought a letter from Dr. 
 Wilder of the navy, conveying the full certificate 
 that William Chappell's death was caused by ex- 
 posure in the service. That certificate was what my 
 mother needed for her pension. She never could 
 get it, but your father here had sifted and worried 
 and worked. The ' Macedonian ' arrived Thurs- 
 day at New York, and had Dr. Wilder on board, 
 and Friday afternoon your father had Wilder's 
 letter, and he left his own Christmas dinner to 
 make light my mother's and mine. That was not 
 all. Your father, as he came, had stopped to see 
 Mr. Birdsall, who was the Speaker of the House. 
 He had seen the Speaker before, and had said 
 kind things about me. And that day the Speaker 
 told him to tell me to come and see him at his 
 room at the Capitol next day. Oh ! how my 
 mother dressed me up ! Was there ever such a 
 page seen before ! What with your father's kind 
 words and my dear mother's extra buttons, the 
 Speaker made me his own page the next day, and 
 there I served for four years. It was then that I 
 was big enough to go into the War Department, 
 and Mr. Goodsell — he was the next Speaker, if 
 you remember — recommended me there. 
 
 " After that," said Bruce Kuypers, modestly, 
 " I did not see you so often, but I used to see 
 
Bread on the Waters 233 
 
 you sometimes, and I did not think" — this with a 
 roguish twinkling of the eye — " that you forgot 
 your young friends so soon." 
 
 " I remember you," said Tom. " I used to 
 think you were the grandest man in Washington. 
 You gave me the first ride on a sled I ever had, 
 when there was some exceptional fall of snow." 
 
 " I think we all remember Mr. Kuypers now," 
 said Matty, and she laughed while she blushed; 
 " he always bought things for our stockings. I 
 have a Noah's Ark upstairs now, that he gave 
 me. In my youngest days I had a queer mixture 
 of the name Bruce and the name Santa Claus. I 
 believe I thought Santa Claus' name was Nicholas 
 Bruce. I am sure I did not know that Mr. Bruce 
 had any other name." 
 
 " If you had said you were Mr. Chappell," said 
 Mr. Molyneux, " I should have known you in a 
 minute." 
 
 " But I was not," said the young man, laughing. 
 
 " Well, if you had said you were ' Bruce,' I 
 should have known." 
 
 " Dear me, yes ; but I have been a man so long, 
 and at Gem City nobody calls me Bruce, but my 
 mother and Lizzy. So I said ' Mr. Kuypers,' 
 forgetting that I had ever been a boy. But now 
 I am in Washington again, I shall remember that 
 things change here very fast in ten years. And 
 yet not so fast as they change at the mines." 
 
 And now everybody was at ease. How well 
 Mrs. Molyneux recalled to herself what she would 
 
234 Bread on the Waters 
 
 not speak of that Christmas Day of which Mr. 
 Kuypers told his story ! It was in their young 
 married life. She had her father and mother to 
 dine with her, and the event was really a trial in 
 her young experience. And then, just as the old 
 folks were expected, her husband came dashing 
 in and had asked her to put dinner a little later 
 because he had had this good news for the poor 
 Widow Chappell, and she had to tell her father 
 and mother, when they came, that they must all 
 wait for his return. 
 
 The Widow Chappell was one of those waifs who 
 seem attracted to Washington by some fatal law. 
 It had been two or three months before that Mr. 
 Molyneux had been asked to hunt her up and help 
 her. A letter had come, asking him to do this, 
 from Mrs. Fales, in Roxbury, and Mrs. Fales had 
 sent money for the Chappells. But the money 
 had gone in back rent, and shoes, and the rest, 
 and the wolf was very near the Chappells' door, 
 when the telegraph announced the " Macedonian." 
 Mr. Molyneux had telegraphed instanter to this 
 Dr. Wilder. Dr. Wilder had some sense of Christ- 
 mas promptness. He remembered poor Chappell 
 perfectly, and mailed that night a thorough certifi- 
 cate. This certificate it was which Mr. Molyneux 
 had carried to the poor old tenement of Massa- 
 chusetts Avenue, and this had made happy that 
 Christmas Day — and this. 
 
 "Why," said Mr. Bruce Kuypers, almost as if 
 he were speaking aloud, " it seems so queer that 
 
Bread on the Waters 235 
 
 Christmas comes and goes with you, and you 
 have forgotten all about that stormy day, and your 
 ride to Mrs. Chappell's ! 
 
 " Why, at our place, we drink Mr. Molyneux's 
 health every Christmas Day, and I am afraid the 
 little ones used to think that you had a red nose, 
 a gray beard, and came down the chimney ! " 
 
 " As, at another place," said Matty, " they 
 thought of Mr. Bruce — of Noah's Ark memory." 
 
 "Anyway," said Mr. Molyneux, "any crumbs 
 of comfort we scattered that day were BREAD 
 UPON THE Waters." 
 
 Of Mr. Kuypers's quick journey the main points 
 have been told. Six days before, by some good 
 luck, which could hardly have been expected, the 
 " Gem City Medium's " despatch from Washington 
 was full enough to be intelligible. It was headed, 
 " Another Swindler Nailed." It said that Mr. 
 Molyneux, of the Internal Improvement office, had 
 feathered his nest with ;^soo,ooo during the war, 
 in a pretended expedition to the Rio Grande. It 
 had now been discovered that there never was any 
 such expedition, and the correspondent of the As- 
 sociated Press hoped that justice would be done. 
 
 The moment Bruce Kuypers read this he was 
 anxious. Before an hour passed he had deter- 
 mined to cross to the Pacific train eastward. Before 
 night he was in a sleeping-car. Day by day as 
 he met Eastern papers, he searched for news of 
 the investigation. Day by day he met it, but 
 thanks to his promptness he had arrived in time. 
 
236 Bread on the Waters 
 
 It was pathetic to hear him describe his anxiety 
 from point to point, and they were all hushed 
 to silence when he told how glad he was when 
 he found he should certainly appear on Christmas 
 Day. 
 
 After the dinner, another procession, not wholly 
 unlike the rabble rout of the morning, moved from 
 the dining-room to the great front parlor, where 
 the tree was lighted, and parcels of gray and white 
 arid brown lay round on mantel, on piano, on 
 chairs, on tables, and on the floor. 
 
 No ; this tale is too long already. We will not 
 tell what all the presents were to all the ten, — to 
 Venty, Chloe, Diana, and all of their color. Only 
 let it tell that all the ten had presents. To Mr. 
 Kuypers's surprise, and to every one's surprise, 
 indeed, there were careful presents for him as for 
 the rest, but it must be confessed that Horace and 
 Laura had spelled Chipak a little wildly. The 
 truth was that each separate person had feared 
 that he would feel a little left on one side, — he 
 to whom so much was due on that day. And 
 each person, severally, down to the Brick himself, 
 had gone secretly, without consulting the others, 
 to select from his own possessions something very 
 dear, and had wrapped it up and marked it for the 
 stranger. When Mr. Kuypers opened a pretty 
 paper, to find Matty's own illustrated Browning, 
 he was touched indeed. When in a rough brown 
 paper he found the Brick's jack-knife labelled 
 "FOR THE MAN," the tears stood in his eyes. 
 
Bread on the Waters 
 
 237 
 
 The next day the " Evening Lantern " contained 
 this editorial article : — 
 
 "The absurd fiasco regarding the accounts of Mr. 
 Molyneux, which has occupied the correspondents of 
 the periodical press for some days, and has even been 
 adverted to in New York journals claiming the title of 
 metropolitan, came to a fit end at the Capitol yesterday. 
 The wiseacre owls who started it did not see fit to put 
 in an appearance before the committee. Mr. Molyneux 
 himself sent to the Chairman a most interesting volume 
 of manuscript, which is, indeed, a valuable historical 
 memorial of times that tried men's souls. The com- 
 mittee and other gentlemen present examined this 
 curious record with great interest. Not to speak of the 
 minor details, an autograph letter of the lamented Gen. 
 Trebou gives full credit to the Bureau of Internal Im- 
 provement for the skill with which they executed the 
 commission given them in a department quite out of 
 their line. Our brethren of the ' Argus ' will be pleased 
 to know that every grain of oats and every spear of 
 straw paid for by the now famous ;?4 7,000, are ac- 
 counted for in detail. The authenticated signatures of 
 the somewhat celebrated Camara and Gazza and the 
 mythical Captain Cole appear. Very valuable letters, 
 throwing interesting light on our relations with the 
 Government of Mexico, from the pens of the lamented 
 Adams and Prigg, show what were the services of those 
 Spanish turncoats and their allies. 
 
 "We cannot say that .we regret the attention which 
 has thus been given to a very important piece of history, 
 too long neglected in the rush of more petty affairs. 
 
238 Bread on the Waters 
 
 We take the occasion, however, to enter our protest 
 once more against this preposterous system of 'Reso- 
 lutions,' in which, as it were in echo to every niaiserie 
 of every hired pen in the country, the House degrades 
 itself to the work of the common scavenger, orders at 
 immense expense an investigation into some subject 
 where all well informed persons are fully advised, and 
 at a cost of the national treasure, ' etc., etc., etc. to the 
 end of that chapter.' " 
 
 But I fear no one at the Molyneux mansion had 
 " the lantern." They had " found a man," and 
 did not need a lantern to look farther. 
 
 It was as Mr. Molyneux had said : he had cast 
 his Bread upon the Waters, and he had found it 
 after many days. 
 
THE LOST PALACE 
 
THE LOST PALACE 
 
 [From the Ingham Papers.] 
 
 PASSENGERS for Philadelphia and New 
 York will change cars." 
 
 This annoying and astonishing cry was loudly 
 made in the palace-car "City of Thebes," at 
 Pittsburg, just as the babies were well asleep, 
 and all the passengers adapting themselves to a 
 quiet evening. 
 
 "Impossible!" said I, mildly, to the "gentle- 
 manly conductor," who beamed before me in the 
 majesty of gilt lace on his cap, and the embroid- 
 ered letters P. P. C. These letters do not mean, 
 as in French, "to take leave," for the peculiarity 
 of this man is, that he does not leave you till your 
 journey's end: they mean, in American, "Pull- 
 man's Palace Car." "Impossible!" said I; "I 
 bought my ticket at Chicago through to Philadel- 
 phia, with the assurance that the palace-car would 
 go through. This lady has done the same for 
 herself and her children. Nay, if you remember, 
 you told me yourself that the ' City of Thebes ' 
 was built for the Philadelphia service, and that I 
 need not move my hat, unless I wished, till we 
 
 were there." 
 
 i6 
 
242 The Lost Palace 
 
 The man did not blush, but answered, in the 
 well-mannered tone of a subordinate used to obey, 
 "Here are my orders, sir; telegram just received 
 here from headquarters : ' " City of Thebes " is to 
 go to Baltimore.' Another palace here, sir, 
 waiting for you." And so we were trans-shipped 
 into such chairs and berths as might have been 
 left in this other palace, as not wanted by anybody 
 in the great law of natural selection; and the 
 "City of Thebes " went to Baltimore, I suppose. 
 The promises which had been made to us when 
 we bought our tickets went to their place, and 
 the people who made them went to theirs. 
 
 Except for this little incident, of which all my 
 readers have probably experienced the like in 
 these days of travel, the story I am now to tell 
 would have seemed to me essentially improbable. 
 But so soon as I reflected, that, in truth, these 
 palaces go hither, go thither, controlled or not, 
 as it may be, by some distant bureau, the story 
 recurred to me as having elements of vraisem- 
 blance which I had not noticed before. Having 
 occasion, nearly at the same time, to inquire at 
 the Metropolitan station in Boston for a lost shawl 
 which had been left in a certain Brookline car, 
 the gentlemanly official told me that he did not 
 know where that car was ; he had not heard of it 
 for several days. This again reminded me of 
 " The Lost Palace. " Why should not one palace, 
 more or less, go astray, when there are thousands 
 to care for.? Indeed, had not Mr. Firth told me. 
 
The Lost Palace 243 
 
 at the Albany, that the worst difficulty in the ad- 
 ministration of a strong railway is, that they can- 
 not call their freight-cars home? They go astray 
 on the line of some weaker sister, which finds it 
 convenient to use them till they begin to show a 
 need for paint or repairs. If freight-cars disap- 
 pear, why not palaces? So the story seems to 
 me of more worth, and I put it upon paper. 
 
 It was on my second visit to Melbourne that I 
 heard it. It was late at night, in the coffee-room 
 of the Auckland Arms, rather an indifferent third- 
 class house, in a by-street in that city, to which, 
 in truth, I should not have gone had my finances 
 been on a better scale than they were. I laid 
 down, at last, an old New York "Herald," which 
 the captain of the " Osprey " had given me that 
 morning, and which, in the hope of home-news, 
 I had read and read again to the last syllable of 
 the "personals." I put down the paper as one 
 always puts down an American paper in a foreign 
 land, saying to myself, " Happy is that nation 
 whose history is unwritten." At that moment 
 Sir Roger Tichborne, who had been talking with 
 an intelligent-looking American on the other 
 side of the table, stretched his giant form, and 
 said he believed he would play a game of billiards 
 before he went to bed. He left us alone ; and the 
 American crossed the room, and addressed me. 
 
 " You are from Massachusetts, are you not ? " 
 said he. I said I had lived in that State. 
 
 "Good State to come from," said he. "I was 
 
244 The Lost Palace 
 
 there myself for three or four months, — four 
 months and ten days precisely. Did not like it 
 very well; did not like it. At least I liked it 
 well enough: my wife did not like it; she could 
 not get acquainted. " 
 
 " Does she get acquainted here .' " said I, acting 
 on a principle which I learned from Scipio Afri- 
 canus at the Latin School, and so carrying the 
 w^r into the enemy's regions promptly. That is 
 to say, I saw I must talk with this man, and I 
 preferred to have him talk of his own concerns 
 rather than of mine. 
 
 " O sir, I lost her, — I lost her ten years ago ! 
 Lived in New Altoona then. I married this 
 woman the next autumn, in Vandalia. Yes, Mrs. 
 Joslyn is very well satisfied here. She sees a 
 good deal of society, and enjoys very good health." 
 
 I said that most people did who were fortunate 
 enough to have it to enjoy. But Mr. Joslyn did 
 not understand this bitter sarcasm, far less resent 
 it. He went on, with sufficient volubility, to give 
 to me his impressions of the colony, — of the 
 advantages it would derive from declaring its in- 
 dependence, and then from annexing itself to the 
 United States. At the end of one of his periods, 
 goaded again to say something, I asked why he 
 left his own country for a "colony," if he so 
 greatly preferred the independent order of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Joslyn looked round somewhat carefully, 
 shut the door of the room in which we were now 
 
The Lost Palace 245 
 
 alone, — and were likely, at that hour of the night, 
 to be alone, — and answered my question at length, 
 as the reader will see. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of the lost palace ? " said 
 he a little anxiously. 
 
 I said, no; that, with every year or two, I 
 heard that Mr. Layard had found a palace at 
 Nineveh, but that I had never heard of one's 
 being lost. 
 
 "They don't tell of it, sir. Sometimes I think 
 they do not know themselves. Does not that 
 seem possible .' " And the poor man repeated 
 this question with such eagerness, that, in spite 
 of my anger at being bored by him, my heart 
 really warmed toward him, " I really think they 
 do not know. I have never seen one word in the 
 papers about it. Now, they would have put 
 something in the papers, — do you not think they 
 would .' If they knew it themselves, they would. " 
 
 " Knew what ? " said I, really startled out of my 
 determination to snub him. 
 
 " Knew where the palace is, — knew how it was 
 lost." 
 
 By this time, of course, I supposed he was 
 crazy. But a minute more dispelled that notion; 
 and I beg the reader to relieve his mind from it. 
 This man knew perfectly well what he was talk- 
 ing about, and never, in the whole narration, 
 showed any symptom of mania, — a matter on 
 which I affect to speak with the intelligence of 
 the "experts" indeed. 
 
246 The Lost Palace 
 
 After a little of this fencing with each other, in 
 which he satisfied himself that my ignorance was 
 not affected, he took a sudden resolution, as if it 
 were a relief to him to tell me the whole story. 
 
 " It was years on years ago, " said he. " It was 
 when they first had palaces." 
 
 Still thinking of Nimrod's palace and Priam's, 
 I said that must have been a great while ago. 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said he. "You would not call 
 them palaces now, since you have seen Pullman's 
 and Wagner's. But we called them palaces then. 
 So many looking-glasses, you know, and tapestry 
 carpets and gold spit-boxes. Ours was the first 
 line that run palaces." 
 
 I asked myself, mentally, of what metal were 
 the spit-boxes in Semiramis's palace; but I said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Our line was the first line that had them. 
 We were running our lightning express on the 
 ' Great AUeghanian. ' We were in opposition to 
 everybody, made close connections, served supper 
 on board, and our passengers only were sure of 
 the night-boat at St. Louis. Those were the days 
 of river-boats, you know. We introduced the 
 palace feature on the railroad ; and very successful 
 it was. I was an engineer. I had a first-rate 
 character, and the best wages of any man on the 
 line. Never put me on a dirt-dragger or a lazy 
 freight loafer, I tell you. No, sir! I ran the 
 expresses, and nothing else, and lay off two days 
 in the week, besides. I don't think I should have 
 
The Lost Palace 247 
 
 thought of it but for Todhunter, who was my 
 palace conductor." 
 
 Again this IT, which had appeared so mysteri- 
 ously in what the man said before. I asked no 
 question, but listened, really interested now, in 
 the hope I should find out what IT was ; and this 
 the reader will learn. He went on, in a hurried 
 way: — 
 
 "Todhunter was my palace conductor. One 
 night he was full, and his palace was hot, and 
 smelled bad of whale-oil. We did not burn petro- 
 leum then. Well, it was a splendid full moon in 
 August; and we were coming down grade, mak- 
 ing up the time we had lost at the Brentford 
 Junction. Seventy miles an hour she ran if she 
 ran one. Todhunter had brought his cigar out on 
 the tender, and was sitting by me. Good Lord I 
 it seems like last week. 
 
 " Todhunter says to me, ' Joslyn, ' says he, 
 'what 's the use of crooking all round these val- 
 leys, when it would be so easy to go across .-' ' 
 
 "You see, we were just beginning to crook 
 round, so as to make that long bend there is at 
 Chamoguin ; but right across the valley we could 
 see the stern lights of Fisher's train: it was not 
 more than half a mile away, but we should run 
 eleven miles before we came there. " 
 
 I knew what Mr. Joslyn meant. To cross the 
 mountain ranges by rail, the engineers are obliged 
 to wind up one side of a valley, and then, boldly 
 crossing the head of the ravine on a high arch, 
 
248 
 
 The Lost Palace 
 
 to wind up the other side still, so that perhaps 
 half an hour's journey is consumed, while not a 
 mile of real distance is made. Joslyn took out 
 his pencil, and on the back of an envelope drew a 
 little sketch of the country; which, as it hap- 
 pened, I still preserve, and which, with his com- 
 
 ments, explains his whole story completely. 
 "Here we are," said he. "This black line is 
 the Great Alleghanian, — double track, seventy 
 pounds to the yard; no figuring off there, I tell 
 you. This was a good straight run, down grade a 
 hundred and seventy- two feet on the mile. 
 There, where I make this X, we came on the 
 
The Lost Palace 249 
 
 Chamoguin Valley, and turned short, nearly 
 north. So we ran wriggling about till Drums 
 here, where we stopped if they showed lanterns, 
 — what we call a flag-station. But there we got 
 across the valley, and worked south again to this 
 other X, which was, as I say, not five-eighths of 
 a mile from this X above, though it had taken us 
 eleven miles to get there. " 
 
 He had said it was not more than half a mile; 
 but this half-mile grew to five-eighths as he 
 became more accurate and serious. 
 
 "Well," said he, now resuming the thread of 
 his story, " it was Todhunter put it into my head. 
 He owns he did. Todhunter says, says he, ' Jos- 
 lyn, what 's the use of crooking round all these 
 valleys, when it would be so easy to go across ? ' 
 
 "Well, sir, I saw it then, as clear as I see it 
 now. When that trip was done, I had two days 
 to myself, — one was Sunday, — and Todhunter 
 had the same ; and he came round to my house. 
 His wife knew mine, and we liked them. Well, 
 we fell talking about it; and I got down the 
 Cyclopaedia, and we found out there about the 
 speed of cannon-balls, and the direction they had 
 to give them. You know this was only talk then ; 
 we never thought what would come of it ; but very 
 curious it all was." 
 
 And here Mr. Joslyn went into a long mathe- 
 matical talk, with which I will not harass the 
 reader, perfectly sure, from other experiments 
 which I have tried with other readers, that this 
 
250 The Lost Palace 
 
 reader would skip it all if it were written down. 
 Stated very briefly, it amounted to this : In the 
 old-fashioned experiments of those days, a cannon- 
 ball travelled four thousand and one hundred feet 
 in nine seconds. Now, Joslyn was convinced, 
 like every other engineman I ever talked to, that 
 on a steep down-grade he could drive a train at 
 the rate of a hundred miles an hour. This is 
 thirteen hundred and fourteen feet in nine 
 seconds, — almost exactly one-third of the cannon- 
 ball's velocity. At those rates, if the valley at 
 Chamoguin were really but five-eighths of a mile 
 wide, the cannon-ball would cross it in seven or 
 eight seconds, and the train in about twenty- 
 three seconds. Both Todhunter and Joslyn were 
 good enough mechanics and machinists to know 
 that the rate for thirty-three hundred feet, the 
 width of the valley, was not quite the same as that 
 for four thousand feet ; for which, in their book, 
 they had the calculations and formulas; but they 
 also knew that the difference was to their advan- 
 tage, or the advantage of the bold experiment 
 which had occurred to both of them when Tod- 
 hunter had made on the tender his very critical 
 suggestion. 
 
 The reader has already conceived the idea of 
 this experiment. These rash men were wonder- 
 ing already whether it were not possible to leap 
 an engine flying over the Chamoguin ravine, as 
 Eclipse or Flying Childers might have leaped 
 the brook at the bottom of it. Joslyn believed 
 
The Lost Palace 251 
 
 implicitly, as I found in talk with him, the re- 
 ceived statement of conversation, that Eclipse, at 
 a single bound, sprang forty feet. "If Eclipse, 
 who weighed perhaps one thousand two hundred, 
 would spring forty feet, could not my train, weigh- 
 ing two hundred tons, spring a hundred times as 
 far?" asked he triumphantly. At least, he said 
 that he said this to Todhunter. They went into 
 more careful studies of projectiles, to see if it 
 could or could not. 
 
 The article on " Gunnery " gave them just one 
 of those convenient tables which are the blessing 
 of wise men and learned men, and which lead half- 
 trained men to their ruin. They found that for 
 their "range," which was, as they supposed, 
 eleven hundred yards, the elevation of a forty-two 
 pounder was one degree and a third ; of a nine- 
 pounder, three degrees. The elevation for a rail- 
 way train, alas ! no man had calculated. But this 
 had occurred to both of them from the beginning. 
 In descending the grade, at the spot where, on his 
 little map, Joslyn made the more westerly X, they 
 were more than eleven hundred feet above the 
 spot where he had made his second, or easterly X. 
 All this descent was to the advantage of the ex- 
 periment. A gunner would have said that the 
 first X "commanded" the second X, and that a 
 battery there would inevitably silence a battery 
 at the point below. 
 
 "We need not figure on it," said Todhunter, 
 as Mrs. Joslyn called them in to supper. "If 
 
252 The Lost Palace 
 
 we did, we should make a mistake. Give me 
 your papers. When I go up, Monday night, I '11 
 give them to my brother Bill. I shall pass him 
 at Faber's Mills. He has studied all these 
 things, of course; and he will like the fun of 
 making it out for us." So they sat down to Mrs. 
 Joslyn's waffles; and, but for Bill Todhunter, this 
 story would never have been told to me, nor 
 would John Joslyn and " this woman " ever have 
 gone to Australia. 
 
 But Bill Todhunter was one of those acute men 
 of whom the new civilization of this country is 
 raising thousands with every year; who, in the 
 midst of hard hand-work, and a daily duty which 
 to collegians and to the ignorant men among their 
 professors seems repulsive, carry on careful scien- 
 tific study, read the best results of the latest in- 
 quiry, manage to bring together a first-rate library 
 of reference, never spend a cent for liquor or 
 tobacco, never waste an hour at a circus or a ball, 
 but make their wives happy by sitting all the 
 evening, "figuring," one side of the table, while 
 the wife is hemming napkins on the other. All 
 of a sudden, when such a man is wanted, he steps 
 out, and bridges the Gulf of Bothnia; and people 
 wonder, who forget that for two centuries and a 
 half the foresighted men and women of this coun- 
 try have been building up, in the face of the 
 Devil of Selfishness on the one hand, and of the 
 Pope of Rome on the other, a system of popular 
 education, improving every hour. 
 
The Lost Palace 253 
 
 At this moment Bill Todhunter was foreman of 
 Repair Section No. 11 on the "Great Alleghan- 
 ian," — a position which needed a man of first- 
 rate promptness, of great resource, of good 
 education in engineering. Such a man had the 
 " Great AUeghanian " found in him, by good luck; 
 and they had promoted him to their hardest-worked 
 and best-paid section, — the section on which, as 
 it happened, was this Chamoguin run, and the 
 long bend which I have described, by which the 
 road "headed" that stream. 
 
 The younger Todhunter did meet his brother at 
 Faber's Mills, where the repair-train had hauled 
 out of the way of the express, and where the 
 express took wood. The brothers always looked 
 for each other on such occasions; and Bill prom- 
 ised to examine the paper which Joslyn had care- 
 fully written out, and which his brother brought 
 to him. 
 
 I have never repeated in detail the mass of cal- 
 culations which Bill Todhunter made on the sug- 
 gestion thus given to him. If I had, I would not 
 repeat them here, for a reason which has been 
 suggested already. He became fascinated with 
 the problem presented to him. Stated in the lan- 
 guage of the craft, it was this : — 
 
 "Given a moving body, with a velocity eight 
 thousand eight hundred feet in a minute, what 
 should be its elevation that it may fall eleven 
 hundred feet in the transit of five-eighths of a 
 
254 The Lost Palace 
 
 mile?" He had not only, to work up the para- 
 bola, comparatively simple, but he had to allow 
 for the resistance of the air, on the supposition 
 of a calm, according to the really admirable for- 
 mulas of Robins and Coulomb, which were the 
 best he had access to. Joslyn brought me, one 
 day, a letter from Bill Todhunter, which shows 
 how carefully he went into this intricate inquiry. 
 
 Unfortunately for them all, it took possession 
 of this spirited and accomplished young man. 
 You see, he not only had the mathematical ability 
 for the calculation of the fatal curve, but, as had 
 been ordered without any effort of his, he was in 
 precisely the situation of the whole world for try- 
 ing in practice his own great experiment. At 
 each of the two X X of Joslyn's map, the company 
 had, as it happened, switches for repair-trains or 
 wood-trains. Had it not, Bill Todhunter had 
 ample power to make them. 
 
 For the "experiment," all that was necessary 
 was, that under the pretext of re-adjusting these 
 switches, he should lay out that at the upper X so 
 that it should run, on the exact grade which he 
 required, to the western edge of the ravine, in a 
 line which should be the direct continuation of 
 the long, straight run with which the little map 
 begins. 
 
 An engine, then, running down that grade at 
 the immense rapidity practicable there, would 
 take the switch with its full speed, would fly the 
 ravine at precisely the proper slopes, and, if the 
 
The Lost Palace 255 
 
 switch had been rightly aligned, would land on 
 the similar switch at the lower X. It would 
 come down exactly right on the track, as you sit 
 precisely on a chair when you know exactly how 
 high it is. 
 
 "If." And why should it not be rightly 
 aligned, if Bill Todhunter himself aligned it.' 
 This he was well disposed to do. He also would 
 align the lower switch, that at the lower X, that 
 it might receive into its willing embrace the 
 engine on its arrival. 
 
 When the bold engineer had conceived this 
 plan, it was he who pushed the others on to it, 
 not they who urged him. They were at work on 
 their daily duty, sometimes did not meet each 
 other for a day or two. Bill Todhunter did not 
 see them more than once in a fortnight. But 
 whenever they did meet, the thing seemed to be 
 taken more and more for granted. At last Joslyn 
 observed one day, as he ran down, that there was.^^ 
 a large working-party at the switch above Drums, 
 and he could see Bill Todhunter, in his broad 
 sombrero, directing them all. Joslyn was not sur- 
 prised, somehow, when he came to the lower 
 switch, to find another working-party there. The 
 next time they all three met. Bill Todhunter told 
 them that all was ready if they were. He said 
 that he had left a few birches to screen the line 
 of the upper switch, for fear some nervous bun- 
 gler, driving an engine down, might be fright- 
 ened, and " blow " about the switch. But he said 
 
256 The Lost Palace 
 
 that any night when the others were ready to make 
 the fly, he was ; that there would be a full moon 
 the next Wednesday, and, if there was no wind, 
 he hoped they would do it then. 
 
 "You know," said poor Joslyn, describing it to 
 me, "I should never have done it alone; August 
 would never have done it alone; no, I do not 
 think that Bill Todhunter himself would have 
 done it alone. But our heads were full of it. 
 We had thought of it and thought of it till we did 
 not think of much else; and here was everything 
 ready, and neither of us was afraid, and neither 
 of us chose to have the others think he was afraid. 
 I did say, what was the truth, that I had never 
 meant to try it with a train. I had only thought 
 that we should apply to the supe, and that he 
 would get up a little excursion party of gentlemen, 
 — editors, you know, and stockholders, — who 
 would like to do it together, and that I should 
 have the pleasure and honor of taking them over. 
 But Todhunter poohed at that. He said all the 
 calculations were made for the inertia of a full 
 train, that that was what the switch was graded 
 for, and that everything would have to be altered 
 if any part of the plan were altered. Besides, he 
 said the superintendent would never agree, that 
 he would insist on consulting the board and the 
 chief engineer, and that they would fiddle over it 
 till Christmas. 
 
 " ' No, ' said Bill, ' next Wednesday, or never ! 
 If you will not do it then, I will put the tracks 
 
The Lost Palace 257 
 
 back again.' August Todhunter said nothing; 
 but I knew he would do what we agreed to, and 
 he did. 
 
 " So at last I said I would jump it on Wednes- 
 day night, if the night was fine. But I had just 
 as lief own to you that I hoped it would not be 
 fine. Todhunter — Bill Todhunter, I mean — was 
 to leave the switch open after the freight had 
 passed, and to drive up to the Widow Jones's 
 Cross Road. There he would have a lantern, 
 and I would stop and take him up. He had a 
 right to stop us, as chief of repairs. Then we 
 should have seven miles down-grade to get up 
 our speed, and then — we should see ! 
 
 "Mr. Ingham, I might have spared myself 
 the hoping for foul weather. It was the finest 
 moonlight night that you ever knew in October. 
 And if Bill Todhunter had weighed that train 
 himself, he could not have been better pleased, 
 — one baggage-car, one smoking-car, two regular 
 first-class, and two palaces : she run just as steady 
 as an old cow! We came to the Widow Jones's, 
 square on time; and there was Bill's lantern 
 waving. I slowed the train : he jumped on the 
 tender without stopping it. I ' up brakes ' again, 
 and then I told Flanagan, my fireman, to go back 
 to the baggage-car, and see if they would lend me 
 some tobacco. You see, we wanted to talk, and 
 we did n't want him to see. ' Mr. Todhunter and 
 I will feed her till you come back,' says I to 
 17 
 
258 The Lost Palace 
 
 Flanagan. In a minute after he had gone, August 
 Todhunter came forward on the engine; and, I 
 tell you, she did fly ! 
 
 '"Not too fast,' said Bill, 'not too fast: too 
 fast is as bad as too slow. ' 
 
 "'Never you fear me,' says I. 'I guess I 
 know this road and this engine. Take out your 
 watch, and time the mile-posts,' says I; and he 
 timed them. 'Thirty-eight seconds,' says he; 
 ' thirty-seven and a half, thirty-six, thirty-six, 
 thirty-six,' — three times thirty-six, as we passed 
 the posts, just as regular as an old clock ! And 
 then we came right on the mile-post you know at 
 Old Flander's. 'Thirty-six,' says Bill again. 
 And then she took the switch, — I can hear that 
 switch-rod ring under us now Mr. Ingham, — and 
 then — we were clear ! 
 
 " Was n't it grand ? The range was a little bit 
 up, you see, at first ; but it seemed as if we were 
 flying just straight across. All the rattle of the 
 rail stopped, you know, though the pistons worked 
 just as true as ever; neither of us said one word, 
 you know; and she just flew — well, as you see a 
 hawk fly sometimes, when he pounces, you know, 
 only she flew so straight and true ! I think you 
 may have dreamed of such things. I have; and 
 now, — now I dream it very often. It was not 
 half a minute, you know, but it seemed a good 
 long time. I said nothing and they said nothing ; 
 only Bill just squeezed my hand. And just as I 
 knew we must be half over, — for I could see by 
 
The Lost Palace 259 
 
 the star I was watching ahead that we were not 
 going up, but were falling again, — do you think 
 the rope by my side tightened quick, and the old 
 bell on the engine gave one savage bang, turned 
 right over as far as the catch would let it, and 
 stuck where it turned! Just that one sound, 
 everything else was still ; and then she landed on 
 the rails, perhaps seventy feet inside the ravine, 
 took the rails as true and sweet as you ever saw a 
 ship take the water, hardly touched them, you 
 know, skimmed — well, as I have seen a swallow 
 skim on the sea; the prettiest, well, the tenderest 
 touch, Mr. Ingham, that ever I did see ! And I 
 could just hear the connecting rods tighten the 
 least bit in the world behind me, and we went 
 right on. 
 
 " We just looked at each other in the faces, and 
 we could not speak; no, I do not believe we spoke 
 for three quarters of a minute. Then August 
 said, ' Was not that grand ? Will they let us do 
 it always, Bill ? ' But we could not talk then. 
 Flanagan came back with the tobacco, and I had 
 just the wit to ask him why he had been gone so 
 long. Poor fellow ! he was frightened enough 
 when we pulled up at Clayville, and he thought 
 it was Drums. Drums, you see, was way up the 
 bend, a dozen miles above Clayville. Poor Flan- 
 agan thought we must have passed there while he 
 was skylarking in the baggage-car, and that he 
 had not minded it. We never stopped at Drums 
 unless we had passengers, or they. It was what 
 
26 o The Lost Palace 
 
 we call a flag-station. So I blew Flanagan up, 
 and told him he was gone too long. 
 
 " Well, sir, at Clayville we did stop, — always 
 stopped there for wood. August Todhunter, he 
 was the palace conductor; he went back to look 
 to his passengers. Bill stayed with me. But in 
 a minute August came running back, and called 
 me off the engine. He led me forward, where it 
 was dark; but I could see, as we went, that some- 
 thing was to pay. The minute we were alone he 
 says, — 
 
 " ' John, we 've lost the rear palace. ' 
 
 "' Don't fool me, August,' says I. 
 
 " ' No fooling, John, ' says he. ' The shackle 
 parted. The cord parted, and is flying loose 
 behind now. If you want to see, come and count 
 the cars. The " General Fremont " is here all 
 right; but I tell you the "James Buchanan" is at 
 the bottom of the Chamoguin Creek. ' 
 
 " I walked back to the other end of the plat- 
 form, as fast as I could go and not be minded. 
 Todhunter was there before me, tying up the 
 loose end of the bell-cord. There was a bit of 
 the broken end of the shackle twisted in with the 
 bolt. I pulled the bolt and threw the iron into 
 the swamp far as I could fling her. Then I 
 nodded to Todhunter and walked forward just as 
 that old goose at Clayville had got his trousers 
 on, so he could come out, and ask me if we were 
 not ahead of time. I tell you, sir, I did not stop 
 to talk with him. I just rang ' All aboard ! ' 
 
The Lost Palace 261 
 
 and started her again; and this time I run slow 
 enough to save the time before we came down to 
 Steuben. We were on time, all right, there." 
 
 Here poor Joslyn stopped a while in his story ; 
 and I could see that he was so wrought up with 
 excitement that I had better not interrupt, either 
 with questions or with sympathy. He rallied in 
 a minute or two, and said, — 
 
 " I thought — we all thought — that there would 
 be a despatch somewhere waiting us. But no; 
 all was as regular as the clock. One palace 
 more or less, — what did they know, and what 
 did they care.' So daylight came. We could not 
 say a word, you know, with Flanagan there ; and 
 we only stopped, you know, a minute or two every 
 hour; and just then was when August Todhunter 
 had to be with his passengers, you know. Was 
 not I glad when we came into Pemaquid, — our 
 road ran from Pemaquid across the mountains to 
 Eden, you know, — when we came into Pemaquid, 
 and nobody had asked any questions .' 
 
 " I reported my time at the office of the master 
 of trains, and I went home. I tell you, Mr. 
 Ingham, I have never seen Pemaquid Station 
 since that day. 
 
 " I had done nothing wrong, of course. I had 
 obeyed every order, and minded every signal. 
 But still I knew public opinion might be against 
 me when they heard of the loss of the palace. 
 I did not feel very well about it, and I wrote a 
 note to say I was not well enough to take my 
 
262 The Lost Palace 
 
 train the next night ; and I and Mrs. Joslyn went 
 to New York, and I went aboard a Collins steamer 
 as fireman; and Mrs. Joslyn, she went as stew- 
 ardess ; and I wrote to Pemaquid, and gave up my 
 place. It was a good place, too ; but I gave it up, 
 and I left America. 
 
 " Bill Todhunter, he resigned his place too, that 
 same day, though that was a good place. He is 
 in the Russian service now. He is running their 
 line from Archangel to Astrachan; good pay, he 
 says, but lonely. August would not stay in 
 America after his brother left; and he is now 
 captain's clerk on the Harkaway steamers between 
 Bangkok and Cochbang; good place he says, but 
 hot. So we are all parted. 
 
 "And do you know, sir, never one of us ever 
 heard of the lost palace ! " 
 
 Sure enough, under that very curious system 
 of responsibility, by which one corporation owns 
 the carriages which another corporation uses, no- 
 body in the world has to this moment ever missed 
 "The Lost Palace." On each connecting line, 
 everybody knew that "she" was not there; but 
 no one knew or asked where she was. The 
 descent into the rocky bottom of the Chamoguin, 
 more than fifteen hundred feet below the line of 
 flight, had of course been rapid, — slow at first, 
 but in the end rapid. In the first second, the 
 lost palace had fallen sixteen feet ; in the second, 
 sixty -four; in the third, one hundred and forty- 
 four ; in the fourth, two hundred and fifty-six ; in 
 
The Lost Palace 263 
 
 the fifth, four hundred feet ; so that it must have 
 been near the end of the sixth second of its fall, 
 that, with a velocity now of more than six hun- 
 dred feet in a second, the falling palace, with its 
 unconscious passengers, fell upon the rocks at the 
 bottom of the Chamoguin ravine. In the dead 
 of night, wholly without jar or parting, those 
 passengers must have been sleeping soundly ; and 
 it is impossible, therefore, on any calculation of 
 human probability, that any one of them can have 
 been waked an instant before the complete de- 
 struction of the palace, by the sudden shock of its 
 fall upon the bed of the stream. To them the 
 accident, if it is fair to call it so, must have been 
 wholly free from pain. 
 
 The tangles of that ravine, and the swamp 
 below it, are such that I suppose that even the 
 most adventurous huntsman never finds his way 
 there. On the only occasion when I ever met 
 Mr. Jules Verne he expressed a desire to descend 
 there from one of his balloons, to learn whether 
 the inhabitants of " The Lost Palace " might not 
 still survive, and be living in a happy republican 
 colony there, — a place without railroads, without 
 telegrams, without mails, and certainly without 
 palaces. But at the moment when these sheets 
 go to press, no account of such an adventure has 
 appeared from his rapid pen. 
 
99 LINWOOD STREET 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY 
 
99 LINWOOD STREET 
 
 A GRAY cold morning, the deck wet, the iron 
 all beaded with frost, all the longshoremen 
 in heavy pea-jackets or cardigans, the whole ship 
 in a bustle, and the favored first-class passengers 
 just leaving. 
 
 One sad-looking Irish girl stands with her knit 
 hood already spotted with the rime, and you can- 
 not tell whether those are tears which hang from her 
 black eyelashes or whether the fog is beginning to 
 freeze there. What you see is that the poor thing 
 looks right and left and up the pier and down the 
 pier, and that in the whole crowd — they all seem 
 so selfish — she sees nobody. Hundreds of peo- 
 ple going and coming, pushing and hauling, and 
 Nora's big brother is not there, as he promised to 
 be and should be. 
 
 Mrs. Ohstrom, the motherly Swedish woman, 
 who has four children and ten tin cups and a 
 great bed and five trunks and a fatuous, feckless 
 husband, makes time, between cousins and uncles 
 and custom-house men and sharpers, to run up 
 every now and then to say that Nora must not 
 cry, that she must be easy, that she has spoken to 
 the master and the master has said they are three 
 
268 99 Linwood Street 
 
 hours earlier than they were expected. And all 
 this was so kindly meant and so kindly said that 
 poor Nora brushed the tears away, if they were 
 tears, and thanked her, though she did not under- 
 stand one word that dear Mrs. Ohstrom said to 
 her. What is language, or what are words, after 
 all? 
 
 And the bright-buttoned, daintily dressed little 
 ship's doctor, whom poor Nora hardly knew in his 
 shore finery, — he made time to stop and tell her 
 that the ship was too early, and that she must not 
 worry. Father, was it, she was waiting for? 
 " Oh, brother ! Oh, he will be sure to be here ! 
 Better sit down. Here is a chair. Don't cry. 
 I am afraid you had no breakfast. Take this 
 orange. It will cheer you up. I shall see you 
 again." 
 
 Alas ! the little doctor was swept away and for- 
 got Nora for a week, and she " was left lamenting." 
 
 For one hour went by, and two, and three. The 
 Swedish woman went, and the doctor went, and 
 the girl could see the captain go, and the mate 
 that gave them their orders every morning. The 
 custom-house people began to go. The cabs and 
 other carriages for the gentry had gone long 
 before. 
 
 And poor Nora was left lamenting. 
 
 Then was it that that queer Salvation Army 
 girl, with a coal-scuttle for a bonnet, came up 
 again. She had smiled pleasantly two or three 
 times before, and had asked Nora to eat a bun. 
 
99 Linwood Street 269 
 
 Poor Nora broke down and cried heartily this 
 time. But the other was patient and kind, and 
 said just what the others had said. Only she did 
 not go away. And she had the sense to ask if 
 Nora knew where the brother Uved. 
 
 "Fwhy, of course I do, miss. See, here is the 
 paper." 
 
 And the httle soldier lass read it : " 99 Linwood 
 Street, Boston." 
 
 " My poor child, what a pity you did not let us 
 see it before ! " 
 
 Alas and alas ! Nora's box was of the biggest. 
 But the army lass flinched at nothing. 
 
 An immense wagon, with two giant horses, 
 loaded with the most extraordinary chests which 
 have been seen since the days of the Vikings. 
 Piled on the top were many feather-beds, and on 
 the top of the feather-beds a Scandinavian matron. 
 With Mike, the good-natured teamster, who was 
 at once captain and pilot of this craft, the army 
 lass had easily made her treaty, when he was told 
 the story. He was to carry Nora and her outfit 
 to the Linwood Street house after he had taken 
 these Swedes to theirs. " And indade it will not 
 be farr, miss. There 's a shorrt cut behind Egan's, 
 if indade he did not put up a tinimint house since 
 I was that way." And with new explanations to 
 Nora that all was right, that indeed it was better 
 this way than it would have been had her brother 
 been called from his work, she was lifted, without 
 much consent of her own, to the driver's seat, and 
 
270 99 Linwood Street 
 
 her precious " box " was so placed that she could 
 rest her little feet upon it. 
 
 Nora had proudly confided to the friendly lass 
 the assurance that she had money, had even shown 
 a crisp $2 bill which had been sent to her for 
 exigencies. 
 
 But when the lass made the contract with Mike 
 Dermott, the good fellow said he should take Nora 
 and her box for the love of County Cork. " In- 
 dade, indade, I don't take money from the like of 
 her." 
 
 And so they started, with the Swedish men 
 walking on one side of the cart with their rifles, 
 keeping a good lookout for buffaloes and red 
 Indians and grizzly bears, as men landing in a new 
 country which they were to civilize. More sailing, 
 for there was the ferry to cross to old Boston. Much 
 waiting, for there was a broken-down coal-wagon 
 in Salutation Alley. Long conference between 
 Nora and Mike, in which he did all the talking 
 and she all the listening, as to home rule and Mr. 
 McCarthy, and what O'Brien thought of this, and 
 what Cunniff thought of that. Then an occasional 
 question came in Swedish from the matron above 
 their heads, and was followed by a reply in Celtic 
 English from Mike, each wholly ignorant of the 
 views or wishes of the others. And occasionally 
 the escort of riflemen, after some particular attack 
 of chaff, in words which they fortunately did not 
 understand, looked up to their matron, controller, 
 and director, exchanged words with her, and then 
 
99 Linwood Street 271 
 
 studied the pavement again for tracks of buffalo. 
 A long hour of all this, the stone and brick of the 
 city giving way to green trees between the houses 
 as they come to Dorchester. 
 
 Poor Nora looks right and looks left, hoping to 
 meet her big brother. She begins to think she 
 shall remember him. Everybody else looks so 
 different from Fermoy that he must look like 
 home. 
 
 But there is no brother. 
 
 There is at last a joyful cry as the Swedish 
 matron and the riflemen recognize familiar faces. 
 And Mike smiles gladly, and brings round the stout 
 bays with a twitch, so that the end of the cart 
 comes square to the sidewalk. Somebody pro- 
 duces a step-ladder, and the Swedish matron, with 
 her bird-cage in her hand, descends in triumph. 
 Much kissing, much shaking of hands, much thank- 
 ing of God, more or less reverent. Then the cords 
 are cut, beds flung down, the giant boxes lifted, 
 the sons of Anak only know how. The money 
 covenanted for is produced and paid, and Mike 
 mounts lightly to Nora's side. 
 
 " And now, Nora, my child, wherr is the paper? 
 For in two minutes we '11 soon be therr, now that 
 this rubbish is landed." 
 
 And he read on the precious paper, " John 
 McLaughlin, 99 Linwood Street." 
 
 Strange to say, the paper said just what it had 
 said two hours before. 
 
 " And now, my dear child, we will be therr 
 
272 99 Linwood Street 
 
 in ten minutes, if only we can cross back of 
 Egan's." 
 
 And although they could not cross back of 
 Egan's, for Egan had put up a " tinimint " house 
 since Mike had passed that way, yet in ten minutes 
 Linwood Street had been found. No. 99 at last 
 revealed itself, between Nos. 7 and 2, — a great six- 
 story wooden tinder-box, with clothes-lines myste- 
 rious behind, open doors in front, long passages 
 running through, three doors on each side of a 
 passage, and the wondering heads of eleven women 
 who belonged to five different races and spoke in 
 six different languages appearing from their eleven 
 windows, as Mike and Nora and the two bays all 
 stopped at one and the same moment at the door. 
 
 Mike was already anxious about his time, for he 
 was to be at the custom-house an hour away or 
 more at eleven sharp. But he selected a certain 
 Widow Flynn from the eleven white-capped 
 women; he explained to her briefly that John 
 McLaughHn was to be found ; he told Nora for the 
 thirty-seventh time that all was right and that she 
 must not cry ; he looked at his watch again, rather 
 anxiously, mounted his box, and drove swiftly 
 away. 
 
 He was the one thread which bound Nora to 
 this world. And this thread broke before her 
 eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Flynn affected to be cheerful. But she 
 was not cheerful. Mrs. Flynn was a prominent 
 person in her sodahty. And well she knew that_ if 
 
99 Linwood Street 273 
 
 any John McLaughlin in those parts were expecting 
 any sister from home, she should know him and 
 where he lived. Well she knew, also, that John 
 McLaughlin, the mason, was born in Glasgow; 
 that John McLaughlin, who is on the city work, 
 had all his family around him, and, most distinct 
 of all, she knew that no McLaughHn, sisterless or 
 many-sistered, liyed in this beehive which she lived 
 in, though it were 99 Linwood Street. Into her 
 own cell of that beehive, however, she took poor, 
 sad, desolate Nora. Into the hallway she bade 
 the loafing neighbor boys bring Nora's trunk; in 
 a language Nora could hardly understand she 
 explained to her that all would be well as soon as 
 the policeman passed by. She sent Mary Murphy, 
 who happened to be at home from school, for a 
 pint of milk, and so compelled Nora to drink a cup 
 of tea and to eat a biscuit and a dropped egg, while 
 they waited for the policeman. 
 
 Of course he knew of seven John McLaughlins. 
 He even went to the drug-store and looked in the 
 Boston Directory to find that there were there the 
 names of sixty-one more. But not one of them 
 lived in Linwood Street, as they all knew already. 
 All the same Nora was charged not to cry, to 
 drink more tea and eat more bread and butter. 
 The " cop " said he would look in on three of the 
 Johns whom he knew, and intelligent boys now 
 returning from school were sent to the homes of 
 the other four to interrogate them as to any ex- 
 pected sister. Within an hour, now nearly one 
 
 18 
 
274 99 Linwood Street 
 
 o'clock, answers were received from all the seven. 
 No one of them expected chick or child from 
 Fermoy. 
 
 But the " cop " had a suggestion to make. His 
 pocket list of names of streets revealed another 
 Linwood Street — in Roxbury; not this one in 
 Dorchester. Be it known to unlearned readers, 
 who in snug shelter in Montana follow along this 
 little tale, that Roxbury and Dorchester are both 
 parts of that large municipality called Boston. 
 Though no John McLaughlin was in the directory 
 for 99 Linwood Street, Roxbury, was not that the 
 objective ? Poor Nora was questioned as to Rox- 
 bury. She was sure she never heard of it. 
 
 But the clue was too good to be lost, and the 
 authority of the friendly " cop " was too great to 
 be resisted. He telephoned to the central office 
 that Nora McLaughlin, just from Ireland, had 
 been found, in a fashion, but that no one knew 
 where to put her. Then he stopped a milkman 
 from Braintree, who delivered afternoon milk for 
 invalids. 
 
 Was he not going through Roxbury? 
 
 Of course he was. 
 
 Would he not take this lost child to 99 Linwood 
 Street? 
 
 Of course he would. Milkmen, from their pro- 
 fession, have hearts warm toward children. 
 
 Well, if he were to take her, he had better take 
 her trunk too. 
 
 To which illogical proposal the milkman ac- 
 
99 Linwood Street 275 
 
 ceded — on the afternoon route there is so much 
 less milk to take than there is in the morning. 
 
 So Nora was lifted into the milk-wagon. In 
 tears she kissed good Mrs. Flynn. The boys and 
 girls assembled to bid her good-by, and even she 
 had a hope for a few moments that her troubles 
 were at an end. 
 
 At 99 Linwood Street, Roxbury, they were pre- 
 paring for the Review Club. 
 
 The Review Club met once a fortnight at half- 
 past two o'clock at the house of one or another 
 of the members. They first arranged the little 
 details of the business. Then the hostess read, or 
 made some one read, the scraps which seemed 
 most worthy in the reviews and magazines of the 
 last issues, and at four the husbands and brothers 
 and neighbors generally dropped in, and there 
 was afternoon tea. 
 
 " You are sure you have cream enough, Ellen? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, mum." 
 
 "All kinds of tea, you know, that which the 
 Chinese gentlemen sent, and be sure of the choco- 
 late for Mrs. Bunce." 
 
 " Indeed yes, mum." 
 
 " And let me know just before you bring up the 
 hot water." Doorbell rings. " There is Mrs. 
 Walter now ! " 
 
 No, it was n't Mrs. Walter. She came three 
 minutes after. But before she came, Howells, the 
 milkman, had lifted Nora from her seat. As the 
 snow fell fast on the doorsteps, he carried her 
 
276 99 Linwood Street 
 
 carefully up to the door, and even by the time Ellen 
 answered the bell he had the heavy chest, dragging 
 it over the snow by the stout rope at one end. 
 
 Ellen was amazed to find this grpup instead of 
 Mrs. Walter. She called her mistress, who heard 
 Howells's realistic story with amazement, not to 
 say amusement. 
 
 " You poor dear child ! " she cried at once. 
 "Come in where it is dry! John McLaughlin? 
 No, indeed! Who can John McLaughlin be? 
 Ellen, what is Mike's last name ? " 
 
 Mike was the choreman, who made the furnace 
 fire and kept the sidewalk. 
 
 "Mike's name, mum? I don't know, mum. 
 Mary will know, mum." 
 
 And for the moment Ellen disappeared to find 
 Mary. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind. Come in, you poor 
 child. You are very good to bring her, Mr. 
 Howells, very good indeed. We will take care 
 of her. Is it going to storm? " 
 
 Mr. Howells thought it was going to storm, and 
 turned to go away. At that moment Mrs. Walter 
 arrived, the first comer of the Review Club. And 
 Nora's new hostess had to turn to her guests, while 
 Ellen in the last cares for the afternoon table had 
 to comfort Nora by spasms. It was left for Mar- 
 garet the chambermaid to pump out — or to screw 
 out, as you choose — the details of the story from 
 the poor frightened waif, who seemed more astray 
 than ever. 
 
99 Linwood Street 277 
 
 John McLaughlin? No. Nobody knew any- 
 thing about him. The last choreman was named 
 McManus, but he went to Ottawa three years ago ! 
 
 And while the different facts and doubts were 
 canvassed in the kitchen, upstairs they settled the 
 Bulgarian question, the origin of the natives of 
 Tasmania, and the last questions about realism. 
 
 Only the mind of the lady of the house returned 
 again and again to questions as to the present 
 residence of John McLaughlin. 
 
 For in spite of the gathering snow and the pros- 
 pect of more, the members of the Review Club 
 had followed fast on Mrs. Walters and gathered in 
 full force. 
 
 The hostess, though somewhat preoccupied, was 
 courteous and ready. 
 
 Only the functions of the club, as they went for- 
 ward, would be occasionally interrupted. Thus 
 she would read aloud " as in her private duty 
 bound" — 
 
 " ' The peasantry were excited, but were held in 
 check by promises from StambulofF. The emis- 
 saries of the Czar — ' 
 
 " Mrs. Goodspeed, would you mind reading on ? 
 Here is the place. I see my postman pass the 
 window." 
 
 And so, moving quickly to the front door, she 
 interviewed the faithful Harrington, dressed, heaven 
 knows why, in Confederate uniform of gray. 
 For Harrington had served his four years on the 
 loyal side. Four times a day did Harrington with 
 
2/8 99 Linwood Street 
 
 his letter-bag renew the connection of this house- 
 hold with the world and other worlds. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Harrington, I thought you could tell 
 us. Here is a girl named Nora McLaughlin, and 
 here is her trunk, both left at the door by the 
 milkman, and we do not know anything about 
 where she belongs." 
 
 " Insufficient address?" asked Harrington, pro- 
 fessionally. 
 
 " Exactly. All she knows is that her brother is 
 named John." 
 
 " A great many of them are," said Harrington, 
 already writing on his memorandum book, and in 
 his memory fixing the fact that a large, two-legged 
 living parcel, insufficiently addressed, had been 
 left at the wrong door for John McLaughlin ; also 
 a trunk, too large for delivery by the penny 
 post. 
 
 " I will tell the other men, and if I was you I 
 would send to the police." 
 
 "Would you mind telling the first officer you 
 meet? I hate to send my girls out." And so she 
 returned to Bulgaria. 
 
 But Bulgaria was ended, and Mrs. Conover 
 handed her an article on " Antarctic Discovery." 
 She was again reading : — 
 
 " Under these circumstances Captain Wilkes, 
 who had collected a boatload of stones from the 
 front of the glacier," when she gave back the 
 " Forum " to Mrs. Conover. " Would you mind 
 going on just a minute?" she said, and ran out to 
 
99 Linwood Street 279 
 
 meet the icecream man. So soon as he had left 
 his tins she said, — 
 
 " Mr. Fridge, would you mind stopping at the 
 Dudley School as you go home and telling Miss 
 Lougee that there is a lost girl here ? " etc. 
 
 Good Mr. Fridge was most eager to help, and 
 the hostess returned, took the book again and read 
 on with " the temperature, as they observed it, was 
 99 degrees C. ; but, as the alcohol in their tins was 
 frozen at the moment, there seemed reason to sus- 
 pect the correctness of this observation." 
 
 And a shiver passed over the Review Club. 
 
 Thus far the powers of confusion and error 
 seemed to have been triumphant over poor Nora, 
 or such was the success of that power who uses 
 these agencies, if the reader prefer to personify 
 him. 
 
 But the time had come to turn his left flank and 
 to attack his forces in the rear, for the postman 
 now took the field, — that is to say, Harrington, 
 good fellow, finished his third delivery, four good 
 miles and nine-tenths of a furlong, snow two 
 inches deep, three, four, six, before he was done, 
 and then returned to his branch office to report. 
 
 "Two-legged parcel; insufficient address; 99 
 Linwood Street! Jim, what ever come to that 
 letter that went to 99 Linwood Street with insuffi- 
 cient address six weeks ago ? " 
 
 "Linwood Street? Insufficient address? Foreign 
 letter? Why, of course, you know, went back to 
 the central office." 
 
28o 99 Lin wood Street 
 
 "I guess it did," said Harrington, grimly; "so 
 I must go there too." 
 
 This meant that after Harrington had gone his 
 rounds again on delivery route No. 6, four more 
 miles and nine-tenths more of a furlong, 313 door- 
 bells and only 73 slit boxes, snow now ranging 
 from 6 inches to 12 on the sidewalks, and breast- 
 deep where there was a chance for drifting, — 
 when all this was well done, so that Harrington 
 had no more duties to Uncle Sam, he could take 
 Nora McLaughlin's work in hand, and thus defeat 
 the prince of evil. 
 
 To the central office by a horse-car. Blocked 
 once or twice, but well at the office at 7.30 in the 
 evening. 
 
 Christmas work heavy, so the whole home staff 
 is on duty. That is well. Enemy of souls loses 
 one point there. 
 
 Blind-letter clerks all here. Insufficient-delivery 
 men both here. Chief of returned bureau here. 
 All summoned to the foreign office as Harrington 
 tells his story. Indexes produced, ledgers, jour- 
 nals, day-books, and private passbooks. John Mc- 
 Laughlin's biography followed out on 67 of the 
 different avatars in which his personality has been 
 manifested under that name. False trail here — 
 clue breaks there — scent fails here, but at last — 
 a joyful cry from Will Search : — 
 
 " Here you are ! Insufficient address. No- 
 vember I. Queenstown letter — 'Linwood, to 
 John McLaughlin. Try Dorchester. Try Rox- 
 
99 Linwood Street 281 
 
 bury. Try East Boston. Try Somerville ' — and 
 there it stops, and was not returned." 
 
 " Try Somerville ! " 
 
 In these words great light fell over the eager 
 circle. Not because Somerville is the seat of an 
 insane hospital. No ! But because it is not in 
 the Boston Directory. 
 
 If you please, Somerville is an independent 
 city, and so, unless John McLaughlin worked in 
 Boston, if he lived in Somerville, he would not be 
 in the Boston Directory. 
 
 Not much ! Somerville has its own seven John 
 McLaughlins besides those Boston ones. 
 
 "I say, Harry, Tom, Dick — somebody fetch 
 Somerville Directory ! " 
 
 Dick flew and returned with the book. 
 
 " Here you be 1 ' John McLaughlin, laborer, 
 99 Linwood Street ! ' " 
 
 " Victory ! " 
 
 Satan's forces tremble, and as the different officers 
 return to their desks " even the ranks of Tuscany " in 
 that well-bred office " can scarce forbear to cheer." 
 
 As for Harrington, he bids good-by, wraps his 
 tartan around him, and is out in the snow again. 
 Where Linwood Street is he " knows no more than 
 the dead." But somebody will know. 
 
 Somerville car. Draw of bridge open. Man 
 falls into the river and has to be rescued. Draw 
 closes. Snow-drift at Margin Street. Shovels. 
 Drift open. Centre of Somerville. Apothecary's 
 shop open. " Please, where is Linwood Street? " 
 
282 99 Lin wood Street 
 
 "Take your second left, cross three or four 
 streets, turn to the right by the water-pipe, take 
 the third right, go down hill by the schoolhouse 
 and take second left, and you come out at II 
 Linwood Street." 
 
 All which Harrington does. He experiences 
 one continual burst of joy that his route does not 
 take him through these detours daily. But his 
 professional experience is good for him. We 
 have no need to describe his false turns. Even 
 aniseed would have been useless in that snow. 
 At last, just as the Somerville bells ring for nine 
 o'clock, Harrington also rings triumphant at the 
 door of the little five-roomed cottage, where his 
 lantern has already revealed the magic number 99. 
 
 Ring ! as for a gilt-edged special delivery ! 
 
 Door thrown open by a solid man with curly 
 red hair, unshaven since Sunday, in his shirt- 
 sleeves and with kerosene lamp in his hand. 
 
 "Are you John McLaughlin? " 
 
 " Indade I am ; the same." 
 
 " And where 's your sister Nora? " 
 
 The good fellow, who had been stern before, 
 broke down. " And indade I was saying to Ellen 
 it 's an awful night for 'em all in the gale off the 
 coast in the ship. The holy Virgin and the good 
 God take care of 'em ! " 
 
 "They have taken care of them," said Harring- 
 ton, reverently. " The ship is safe in dock, and 
 your sister Nora is in Roxbury, at 99 Linwood 
 Street ! " 
 
99 Linwood Street 283 
 
 And a broad grin lighted his face as he spoke 
 the words. 
 
 There was joy in every bed and at every door 
 of the five rooms. Then John hastily donned 
 coat, cardigan, and ulster. He persuaded Har- 
 rington to drink a cup of red-hot tea which was 
 brewing on the stove. While the good fellow did 
 so, and ate a St. Anne's bun, which Mrs. Mc- 
 Laughlin produced in triumph, John was persuad- 
 ing Hermann Gross, the expressman next door, to 
 put the gray into a light pung he had for special 
 delivery. By the time Harrington went to the 
 door two lanterns were flitting about in the snow- 
 piled yard behind the two houses. 
 
 Harrington assisted in yoking the gray. In five 
 minutes he and John were defying the gale as they 
 sped across the silent bridge, bound south to Rox- 
 bury. Poor little Nora was asleep in the parlor on 
 the sofa. 'She had begged and begged that she 
 need not be put to bed, and by her side her pro- 
 tector sat reading about the antarctic. But of a 
 sudden Harrington reappeared ! 
 
 Is it Santa Claus? 
 
 Indeed it is ! Beard, hat, coat, all white with 
 snow! 
 
 And Santa Claus has come for the best present 
 he will deliver that evening ! 
 
 Dear little Nora is wrapped in sealskins and 
 other skins, mauds and astrakhan rugs. She has 
 a hot brick at her feet, and Pompey, the dog, 
 is made to lie over them, so John McLaughlin 
 
284 99 Linwood Street 
 
 No. 68 takes her in triumph to 99 Linwood 
 Street. 
 
 That was a Christmas to be remembered ! And 
 Christmas morning, after church, the Brothers of 
 St. Patrick, which was the men's society, and the 
 Sodality of St. Anne's, which was the women's, 
 determined on a great Twelfth-night feast to cele- 
 brate Nora's return. 
 
 It was to show " how these brethren love one 
 another." 
 
 They proposed to take the rink. People did n't 
 use it for skating in winter as much as in summer. 
 
 Nora was to receive, with John McLaughlin 
 and his wife to assist. The other 74 John Mc- 
 Laughlins were to act as ushers. 
 
 The Salvation Army came first, led by the lass 
 who found Michael. 
 
 Procession No. 2 was Mike and the teamsters 
 who " don't take nothing for such as she." 
 
 Third, in special horse-cars, which went through 
 from Dorchester to Somerville by a vermilion 
 edict from the West End Company, the eleven 
 families of that No. 99. They stopped in Roxbury 
 to pick up Ellen and the hostess of the Review 
 Club. 
 
 Fourth, all the patrolmen who had helped and 
 all who tried to help, led by " cop " No. 47. 
 
 Fifth, all the school children who had told the 
 story and had made inquiries. 
 
 Sixth, the man who made the Somerville 
 Directory. 
 
99 Linwood Street 285 
 
 Seventh and last, in two barouches, Harrington 
 and the chiefs of staff at the general post-office. 
 And the boys asked Father McElroy to make a 
 speech to all just before the dancing began. 
 
 And he said : " The lost sheep was never lost. 
 She thought she was lost in the wilderness, but she 
 was at home, for she was met by the Christmas 
 greeting of the world into which the dear Lord 
 was born ! " 
 
 Note. — It may interest the reader to know that the important 
 part of this story is true. 
 
IDEALS 
 
IDEALS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN ACCOUNT 
 
 T HAVE a little circle of friends, among all my 
 ■*■ other friends quite distinct, though of them. 
 They are four men and four women ; the husbands 
 more in love with their wives than on the days 
 when they married them, and the wives with their 
 husbands. These people live for the good of the 
 world, to a fair extent, but much, very much, of 
 their lives is passed together. Perhaps the happi- 
 est period they ever knew was when, in different 
 subordinate capacities, they were all on the staff of 
 the same magazine. Then they met daily at the 
 office, lunched together perforce, and could make 
 arrangements for the evening. But, to say true, 
 things differ little with them now, though that 
 magazine long since took wings and went to a 
 better world. 
 
 Their names are Felix and Fausta Carter, Frederic 
 and Mary Ingham, George and Anna Haliburton, 
 George and Julia Hackmatack. 
 
 I get the children's names wrong to their faces 
 — except that in general their name is Legion, for 
 they are many — so I will not attempt them here. 
 
 19 
 
290 Ideals 
 
 These people live in very different houses, with 
 very different " advantages," as the world says. 
 Haliburton has grown very rich in the rag and 
 paper business, rich enough to discard rag money 
 and believe in gold. He even spits at silver, which 
 I am glad to get when I can. Frederic Ingham 
 will never be rich. His regular income consists in 
 his half-pay as a retired brevet officer in the patriot 
 service of Garibaldi of the year 1859. For the 
 rest, he invested his money in the Brick Moon, and, 
 as I need hardly add, insured his life in the late 
 Continental Insurance Company. But the Inghams 
 find just as much in life as the Haliburtons, and 
 Anna Haliburton consults Polly Ingham about the 
 shade of a flounce just as readily and as eagerly as 
 Polly consults her about the children's dentistry. 
 They are all very fond of each other. 
 
 They get a great deal out of life, these eight, 
 partly because they are so closely allied together. 
 Just two whist-parties, you see ; or, if they go to 
 ride, they just fill two carriages. Eight is such a 
 good number — makes such a nice dinner-party. 
 Perhaps they see a little too much of each other. 
 That we shall never know. 
 
 They got a great deal of life, and yet they were 
 not satisfied. They found that otit very queerly. 
 They have not many standards. Ingham does 
 take the " Spectator ; " Hackmatack condescends 
 to read the " Evening Post ; " Haliburton, who 
 used to be in the insurance business, and keeps his 
 old extravagant habits, reads the " Advertiser " 
 
Ideals 291 
 
 and the " Transcript ; " all of them have . the 
 " Christian Union," and all of them buy " Harper's 
 Weekly." Every separate week of their lives they 
 buy of the boys, instead of subscribing; they 
 think they may not want the next number, but 
 they always do. Not one of them has read the 
 " Nation " for five years, for they like to keep good- 
 natured. In fact, they do not take much stock in 
 the general organs of opinion, and the standard 
 books you find about are scandalously few. The 
 Bible, Shakespeare, John Milton ; Polly has Dante ; 
 Julia has "Barclay's Apology," with ever so many 
 marks in it ; one George has " Owen Felltham," and 
 the other is strong on Marcus Aurelius. Well, no 
 matter about these separate things; the uniform 
 books besides those I named, in different editions 
 but in every house, are the " Arabian Nights " and 
 " Robinson Crusoe." Hackmatack has the price- 
 less first edition. Haliburton has Grandville's (the 
 English Grandville). Ingham has a proof copy of 
 the Stothard. Carter has a good copy of the 
 Cruikshank. 
 
 If you ask me which of these four I should like 
 best, I should say as the Laureate did when they 
 gave him his choice of two kinds of cake, — 
 
 " Both 's as good as one." 
 
 Well, " Robinson Crusoe " being their lay gospel 
 and creed, not to say epistle and psalter, it was 
 not queer that one night, when the election had 
 gone awfully, and the men were as blue as that 
 little porcelain Osiris of mine yonder, who is so 
 
292 Ideals 
 
 blue that he cannot stand on his feet — it was not 
 queer, I say, that they turned instinctively to 
 " Robinson Crusoe " for relief. 
 
 Now, Robinson Crusoe was once in a very bad 
 box indeed, and to comfort himself as well as he 
 could, and to set the good against the evil, that he 
 might have something to distinguish his case from 
 worse, he stated impartially, like debtor and credi- 
 tor, the comforts and miseries, thus : — 
 
 EVIL. GOOD. 
 
 I am cast upon a horrible But I am alive, and not 
 
 desolate island, void of all hope drowned as all my ship's com- 
 of recovery. pany were. 
 
 I am singled out and sepa- But I am singled out, too, 
 
 rated, as it were, from all the from the ship's crew to be 
 world, to be miserable. spared from death. 
 
 And SO the debtor and creditor account goes on. 
 
 Julia Hackmatack read this aloud to them — the 
 whole of it — and they agreed, as Robinson says, 
 not so much for their posterity as to keep their 
 thoughts from daily poring on their trials, that for 
 each family they would make such a balance. 
 What might not come of it? Perhaps a partial — 
 nay, perhaps a perfect cure ! 
 
 So they determined that on the instant they 
 would go to work, and two in the smoking-room, 
 two in the dining-room, two in George's study, and 
 two in the parlor, they should in the next half- 
 hour make up their lists of good and evil. Here 
 are the results : — 
 
Ideals 
 
 293 
 
 FREDERIC AND MARY INGHAM. 
 
 GOOD. 
 
 We have three nice boys and 
 three nice girls. 
 
 We have enough to eat, 
 drink, and wear. 
 
 We have more books than 
 we can read, and do not care 
 to read many newspapers. 
 
 We have many very dear 
 friends — enough. 
 
 We 
 
 have 
 
 health 
 
 in 
 
 our 
 
 family. 
 
 
 
 
 
 We 
 
 seem to 
 
 be of 
 
 some 
 
 use 
 
 in the world. 
 
 
 
 
 EVIL. 
 
 But the door-bell rings all 
 the time. 
 
 But the coal bill is awful, 
 and the Larrabee furnace has 
 given out. The firm that made 
 it has gone up, and no castings 
 can be got to mend it. 
 
 But our friends borrow our 
 books, and only return odd 
 volumes. 
 
 But we are behindhand 143 
 names on our lists of calls. 
 
 But the children may be 
 sick. The Lowndes children 
 are. 
 
 But Mrs. Hogarth has left 
 Fred $200 for the poor, and he 
 is afraid he shall spend it 
 wrong. 
 
 The country has gone to the 
 dogs. 
 
 GEORGE AND ANNA HALIBURTON. 
 
 GOOD. 
 
 We have a nice home in 
 town, and one in Sharon, and a 
 sea-shore place at Little Gau, 
 and we have friends enough to 
 fill them. 
 
 EVIL. 
 
 You cannot give a cup of 
 cofEee to a beggar but he sends 
 five hundred million tramps to 
 the door. 
 
294 
 
 Ideals 
 
 GOOD. 
 
 EVIL. 
 
 We have some of the nicest 
 children in the world. 
 
 A great many people call 
 whose names we have for- 
 
 
 gotten.' 
 
 We have enough to do, and 
 not too much. 
 
 Business is good enough,, 
 though complaining. 
 
 The children are all w«ll. 
 
 We have to give a party to 
 all our acquaintance every year, 
 which is horrid. 
 
 We do not do anything we 
 want to do, and we do a great 
 deal that we do not want to do. 
 George had added, " And there 
 is no health in us." But Anna 
 marked that out as wicked. 
 
 People vote as if they were 
 possessed. 
 
 GEORGE AND JULIA HACKMATACK 
 
 GOOD. EVIL. 
 
 We have 
 children. 
 
 eight splendid' 
 
 We have money enough, 
 though we know what to do 
 with more. 
 
 George will not have to go to 
 Bahia next year. 
 
 Tom got through with scarlet 
 fever without being deaf. 
 
 The plumbers' work always 
 gives way at the wrong time, 
 and the plumbers' bills are 
 awful. 
 
 The furnace will not heat the 
 house unless the wind is at the 
 southwest. None of the chim- 
 neys draw well. 
 
 We hate the Kydd School. 
 The master drinks and the first 
 assistant lies.. But we live in 
 that district ; so the boys have 
 to go there. 
 
 Lucy said " commence " yes- 
 terday, Jane said "gent," 
 Walter said "Bully for you," 
 and Alice said "nobby." And 
 what is coming we do not 
 know. 
 
Ideals 
 
 295 
 
 GOOD. 
 
 Dr.Witherspoon has accepted 
 the presidency of Tiberias Col- 
 lege in Alaska. 
 
 EVIL. 
 
 How long any man can live 
 under this government I do not 
 know. 
 
 FELIX AND FAUSTA CARTER 
 
 Governments are stronger 
 every year. Money goes farther 
 than it did. 
 
 All the boys are good and 
 well. So are the girls. They 
 are splendid children. 
 
 Old Mr. Porter died last 
 week, and Felix gets promotion 
 in the office. 
 
 The lost volume of Fichte 
 was left on the door-step last 
 night by some one Who rang 
 the bell and ran away. It is 
 rather wet, but when it is bound 
 will look nicely. 
 
 The mistress of the Arbella 
 School is dead. 
 
 But as the children grow 
 bigger, their clothes cost more. 
 
 But the children get no good 
 at school, except measles, 
 whooping-cough, and scarlet 
 fever. 
 
 But the gas-meter lies ; and 
 the gas company wants to have 
 it lie. 
 
 But the Athenaeum is always 
 calling in its books to examine 
 them, and making us say where 
 Mr. Fred Curtis's books are. 
 As if we cared. 
 
 But our drains smell awfully, 
 though the Board of Health 
 says they do not. 
 
 We have to go to evening 
 parties among our friends, or 
 seem stuck up. We hate to 
 go, and wish there were none. 
 We had rather come here. 
 
 The increasing worthlessness 
 of the franchise. 
 
296 Ideals 
 
 With these papers they gathered all in the study 
 just as the clock struck nine, and, in good old Bos- 
 ton fashion, Silas was bringing in some hot oysters. 
 They ate the oysters, which were good — trust 
 Anna for that — and then the women read the 
 papers, while the smoking men smoked and 
 pondered. 
 
 They all recognized the gravity of the situation. 
 Still, as Julia said, they felt better already. It was 
 like having the doctor come : you knew the worst, 
 and could make ready for it. 
 
 They did not discuss the statements much. They 
 had discussed them too much in severalty. They 
 did agree that they should be left to Felix to re- 
 port upon the next evening. He was, so to speak, 
 to post them, to strike out from each side the 
 quantities which could be eliminated, and leave the 
 equations so simplified that the eight might deter- 
 mine what they should do about it — indeed, what 
 they could do about it. 
 
 The visitors put on their " things " — how strange 
 that that word should once have meant " parlia- 
 ments ! " — kissed good-by so far as they were 
 womanly, and went home. George Haliburton 
 screwed down the gas, and they went to bed. 
 
Ideals 297 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 STRIKING THE BALANCE 
 
 The next night they went to see Warren at the 
 Museum. That probably helped them. After the 
 play they met by appointment at the Carters'. 
 Felix read his 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 1. Number. — There are twenty-one reasons for con- 
 gratulation, twenty-four for regret. But of the twenty- 
 four, four are the same ; namely, the cursed political 
 prospect of the country. Counting that as one only, 
 there are twenty-one on each side. 
 
 2. Evil. — The twenty-one evils may be classified 
 thus : political, i ; social, 1 2 ; physical, 5 ; terrors, 3. 
 
 All the physical evils would be relieved by living in a 
 temperate climate, instead of this abomination, which is 
 not a climate, to which our ancestors were sold by the 
 cupidity of the Dutch. 
 
 The political evil would be ended by leaving the ju- 
 risdiction of the United States. 
 
 The social evils, which are a majority of all, would be 
 reduced by residence in any place where there were not 
 so many people. 
 
 The terrors properly belong to all the classes. In a 
 decent climate, in a country not governed by its vices, 
 and a community not crowded, the three terrors would 
 be materially abated, if not put to an end. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, Feux Carter. 
 
298 Ideals 
 
 How they discussed it now ! Talk? I think so ! 
 They all talked awhile, and no one listened. But 
 they had to stop when Phenice brought in the 
 Welsh rare-bit (good before bed, but a little in- 
 digestible, unless your conscience is stainless), and 
 Felix then put in a word. 
 
 " Now I tell you, this is not nonsense. Why not 
 do what Winslow and Standish and those fellows 
 thought they were doing when they sailed ? Why 
 not go to a climate like France, with milder winters 
 and cooler summers than here? You want some 
 winter, you want some summer." 
 
 " I hate centipedes and scorpions," said Anna, 
 
 " There 's no need of them. There 's a place in 
 Mexico, not a hundred miles from the sea, where 
 you can have your temperature just as you like." 
 
 " Stuff! " 
 
 " No, it is not stuff at all," said poor Felix, 
 eagerly. " I do not mean just one spot. But you 
 live in this valley, you know. If you find it is 
 growing hot, you move about a quarter of a mile 
 to another place higher up. If you find that hot, 
 why you have another house a little higher. Don't 
 you see? Then, when winter comes, you move 
 down." 
 
 "Are there many people there?" asked Hali- 
 burton ; " and do they make many calls? " 
 
 " There are a good many people, but they are a 
 gentle set. They never quarrel. They are a little 
 too high up for the revolutions, and there is some- 
 thing tranquillizing about the place ; they seldom 
 
Ideals 299 
 
 die, none are sick, need no aguardiente, do what 
 the head of the village tells them to do — only he 
 never has any occasion to tell them. They never 
 make calls." 
 
 " I like that," said Ingham. " That patriarchal 
 system is the true system of government." 
 
 " Where is this place? " said Anna, incredulously. 
 
 " I have been trying to remember all day, but I 
 can't. It is in Mexico, I know. It is on this side 
 of Mexico. It tells all about it in an old ' Harper ' 
 — oh, a good many years ago — but I never bound 
 mine ; there are always one or two missing every 
 year. I asked Fausta to look for it, but she was 
 busy. I thought," continued poor Felix, a little 
 crestfallen, " one of you might remember." 
 
 No, nobody remembered ; and nobody felt much 
 like going to the public library to look, on Carter's 
 father vague indications. In fact, it was a sugges- 
 tion of Haliburton's that proved more popular. 
 
 Haliburton said he had not laid in his coal. 
 They all said the same. " Now," said he, " the 
 coal of this crowd for this winter will cost a thou- 
 sand dollars, if you add in the kindling, and the 
 matches, and patching the furnace pots and sweep- 
 ing the chimneys." 
 
 To this they agreed. 
 
 " It is now Wednesday. Let us start Saturday 
 for Memphis, take a cheap boat to New Orleans, 
 go thence to Vera Cruz by steamer, explore the 
 ground, buy the houses if we like, and return by 
 the time we can do without fires next spring. Our 
 
300 Ideals 
 
 board will cost less than it would here, for it is 
 there the beef comes from. And the thousand 
 dollars will pay the fares both ways." 
 
 The women, with one voice, cried, "And the 
 children?" 
 
 " Oh yes," cried the eager adventurer. " I had 
 forgotten the children. Well, they are all well, are 
 they not? " 
 
 Yes ; all were well. 
 
 " Then we will take them with us as far as 
 Yellow Springs, in Ohio, and leave them for the 
 fall and winter terms at Antioch College. They 
 will be enough better taught than they are at the 
 Kydd School, and they will get no scarlet fever.^ 
 Nobody is ever sick there. They will be better." 
 cared for than my children are when they are left 
 to me, and they will be seven hundred miles nearer 
 to us than if they were here. The little ones can 
 go to the Model School, the middling ones to the 
 Academy, and the oldest can go to college. How 
 many are there, Felix? " 
 
 Felix said there were twenty-nine. 
 
 " Well," said the arithmetical George, " it is the 
 cheapest place I ever knew. Why, their Seniors 
 get along for three hundred dollars a year, and 
 squeeze more out of life than I do out of twenty 
 thousand. The little ones won't cost at that rate. 
 A hundred and fifty dollars for twenty-nine chil- 
 dren ; how much is that, Polly? " 
 
 " Forty-three hundred and fifty dollars, of 
 course," said she. 
 
Ideals 301 
 
 " I thought so. Well, don't you see, we shall 
 save that in wages to these servants we are board- 
 ing here, of whom there are eleven, who cost us, 
 say, six dollars a week ; that is, sixty-six dollars 
 for twenty weeks is thirteen hundred and twenty 
 dollars. We won't buy any clothes, but live on the 
 old ones, and make the children wear their big 
 brothers' and sisters'. There 's a saving of thirty- 
 seven hundred dollars for thirty-seven of us. Why, 
 we shall make money ! I tell you what, if you '11 
 do it, I '11 pay all the bills till we come home. If 
 you like, you shall then each pay me three-quarters 
 of your last winter's accounts, and I '11 charge any 
 difference to profit and loss. But I shall make by 
 the bargain." 
 
 The women doubted if they could be ready. 
 But it proved they could. Still they did not start 
 Saturday; they started Monday, in two palace- 
 cars. They left the children, all delighted with 
 the change, at Antioch on Wednesday — a little 
 tempted to spend the winter there themselves; 
 but, this temptation well resisted, they sped on to 
 Mexico. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FULFILMENT 
 
 Such a tranquil three days on the Mississippi, 
 which was as an autumn flood, and revealed him- 
 self as indeed King of Waters ! Such delightful 
 
302 Ideals 
 
 three days in hospitable New Orleans ! Might it 
 not be possible to tarry even here? "No," cried 
 the inexorable George. " We have put our hand 
 to the plough. Who will turn back? " Two days of 
 abject wretchedness on the Gulf of Mexico. " Why 
 were we born? Why did we not die before we 
 left solid land?" And then the light-house at 
 Vera Cruz. 
 
 " Lo, land ! and all was well." 
 
 What a splendid city ! Why had nobody told 
 them of this queen on the sea-shore? Red and 
 white towers, cupolas, battlements ! It was all like 
 a story-book. When they landed, to be sure, it 
 Was not quite so big a place as they had fancied 
 from all this show ; but for this they did not care. 
 To land — that was enough. Had they landed on 
 a sand-spit, they would have been in heaven. No 
 more swaying to and fro as they lay in bed, no 
 more stumbling to and fro as they walked. They 
 refused the amazed Mexicans who wanted them to 
 ride to the hotel. To walk steadily was in itself a 
 luxury. 
 
 And then it was not long before the men had 
 selected the little caravan of horses and mules 
 which were to carry them on their expedition of 
 discovery. Some valley of paradise, where a man 
 could change his climate from midwinter to mid- 
 summer by a journey of a mile. Did the consul 
 happen to have heard of any such valley? 
 
 Had he heard of them .' He had heard of fifty. 
 
Ideals 303 
 
 He had not, indeed, heard of much else. How 
 could he help hearing of them ? 
 
 Could the consul, then, recommend one or two 
 valleys which might be for sale ? Or was it, per- 
 haps, impossible to buy a foothold in such an Eden? 
 
 For sale ! There was nothing in the country, so 
 far as the friend knew to whom the consul pre- 
 sented them, which was not for sale. Anywhere 
 in Queretaro ; or why should they not go to the 
 Baxio? No; that was too flat and too far off. 
 There were pretty places round Xalapa. Oh, 
 plenty of plantations for sale. But they need not 
 go so far. Anywhere on the rise of Chiquihiti, 
 
 Was the friend quite sure that there were no 
 plumbers in the regions he named? 
 
 " Ifever a plumber in Mexico." 
 
 Any life-insurance men? 
 
 " Not one." The prudent friend did not add, 
 " Risk too high." 
 
 Were the public schools graded schools or 
 district schools? 
 
 " Not a public school in six provinces." 
 
 Would the neighbors be offended if we do not 
 call? 
 
 " Cut your throats if you did." 
 
 Did the friend think there would be many 
 tramps? 
 
 The friend seemed more doubtful here, but sug- 
 gested that the occasional use of a six-shooter 
 reduced the number, and gave a certain reputation 
 to the premises where it was employed which 
 
304 Ideals 
 
 diminished much tramping afterward, and said that 
 the law did not object to this method. 
 
 They returned to a dinner of fish, for which Vera 
 Cruz is celebrated. " If what the man says be true," 
 said Ingham, " we must be very near heaven." 
 
 It was now in November. Oh, the glory of that 
 ride, as they left Vera Cruz and through a wil- 
 derness of color jogged slowly on to their new 
 paradise ! 
 
 " Through Eden four glad couples took their way." 
 
 Higher and higher. This wonder and that. Not 
 a blade of grass such as they ever saw before, not 
 a chirping cricket such as they ever heard before ; 
 a hundred bright-winged birds, and not one that 
 they had ever seen before. Higher and higher. 
 Trees, skies, clouds, flowers, beasts, birds, insects, 
 all new and all lovely. 
 
 The final purchase was of one small plantation, 
 with a house large enough for a little army, yet 
 without a stair. Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, 
 mangoes, bananas, pine-apples, coffee, sugar — 
 what did not ripen in those perennial gardens? 
 Half a mile above there were two smaller houses 
 belonging to the same estate ; half a mile above, 
 another was purchased easily. This was too cold 
 to stay in in November, but in June and July and 
 August the temperature would be sixty-six, with- 
 out change. 
 
 They sent back the mules. A telegram from 
 Vera Cruz brought from Boston, in fifteen days, 
 
Ideals 305 
 
 the best books in the world, the best piano in the 
 world, a few boxes of colors for the artists, a few 
 reams of paper, and a few dozen of pencils for the 
 men. And then began four months of blessed 
 life. Never a gas-bill nor a water-leak, never a 
 crack in the furnace nor a man to put in coal, 
 never a request to speak for the benefit of the 
 Fenians, never the necessity of attending at a 
 primary meeting. The ladies found in their walks 
 these gentle Mexican children, simple, happy, civil, 
 and with the strange idea that the object for which 
 life is given is that men may live. They came 
 home with new wealth untold every day — of 
 ipomoea, convolvulus, passion-flowers, and or- 
 chids. The gentlemen brought back every day a 
 new species, even a new genus, — a new illustration 
 of evolution, or a new mystery to be accounted for 
 by the law of natural selection. Night was all 
 sleep ; day was all life. Digestion waited upon 
 appetite ; appetite waited upon exercise ; exercise 
 waited upon study; study waited upon conversa- 
 tion ; conversation waited upon love. Could it be 
 that November was over ? Can life run by so fast .' 
 Can it be that Christmas has come? Can we let 
 life go by so fast? Is it possible that it is the 
 end of January? We cannot let life go so fast. 
 Really, is this St. Valentine's Day! When ever 
 did life go so fast? 
 
 And with the ist of March the mules were 
 ordered, and they moved to the next higher level. 
 The men and women walked. And there, on the 
 
306 Ideals 
 
 grade of a new climate, they began on a new 
 botany, on new discoveries, and happy life found 
 new forms as they began again. 
 
 So sped April and so sped May, Life had its 
 battles, — oh yes, because it was life. But they 
 were not the pettiest of battles. They were not 
 the battles of prisoners shut up, to keep out the 
 weather, in cells fifteen feet square. They fought, 
 if they fought, with God's air in their veins, and 
 God's warm sunshine around them, and God's blue 
 sky above them. So they did what they could, as 
 they wrote and read and drew and painted, as they 
 walked and ran and swam and rode and drove, as 
 they encouraged this peon boy and taught that 
 peon girl, smoothed this old woman's pillow and 
 listened to that old man's story, as they analyzed 
 these wonderful flowers, as they tasted these won- 
 derful fruits, as they climbed these wonderful 
 mountains, or, at night, as they pointed the tel- 
 escope through this cloudless and stainless sky. 
 
 With all their might they lived. And they were 
 so many, and there were so many round them to 
 whom their coming was a new life, that they 
 lived in love, and every day drank in of the infinite 
 elixir. 
 
 But June came. The mules are sent for again. 
 Again they walked a quarter of a mile. And here 
 in the little whitewashed cottage, with only a 
 selection from the books below, with two guitars 
 and a flute in place of the piano, — here they 
 made ready for three weeks of June. Only three 
 
Ideals 307 
 
 weeks ; for on the 29th was the Commencement at 
 Antioch, and Jane and Walter and Florence were 
 to take their degrees. There would need five days 
 from Vera Cruz to reach them. And so this sum- 
 mer was to be spent in the North with them, before 
 October should bring all the children and the 
 parents to the land of the open sky. Three busy 
 weeks between the i stand the 22d, in which all the 
 pictures must be finished, Ingham's novel must be 
 revised, Haliburton's articles completed, the new 
 invention for measuring power must be gauged 
 and tested, the dried fiowers must be mounted and 
 packed, the preserved fruits must be divided for 
 the Northern friends. Three happy weeks of life 
 eventful, but life without crowding, and, above all, 
 without interruption. " Think of it," cried Felix, 
 as they took their last walk among the lava crags, 
 " the door-bell has not rung all this last winter.' " 
 
 " ' This happy old king 
 On his gate he did swing, 
 Because there was never a door-bell to ring.' " 
 
 This was Julia's impromptu reply. 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOME AGAIN 
 
 So came one more journey. Why can we not go 
 and come without this musty steamer, these odious 
 smells, this food for dogs, and this surge — ah, 
 how remorseless ! — of the cruel sea? 
 
3o8 Ideals 
 
 But even this will end. Once more the Stars 
 and Stripes ! A land of furnaces and of water- 
 pipes, a land of beggars and of caucuses, a land of 
 gas-meters and of liars, a land of pasteboard and of 
 cards, a land of etiquettes and of bad spelling, but 
 still their country ! A land of telegraphs, which 
 told in an instant, as they landed on the levee, that 
 all the twenty-nine were well, and begged them to 
 be at the college on Tuesday evening, so as to see 
 " Much Ado about Nothing." For at Antioch they 
 act a play the night before Commencement. A 
 land of Pullman's palace-cars. And lo ! they 
 secured sections 5 and 6, 7 and 8, in the " May- 
 flower." Just time to kiss the baby of one friend, 
 and to give a basket of guavas to another, and 
 then whir for Cincinnati and Xenia and Yellow 
 Springs ! 
 
 How beautiful were the live-oaks and the magno- 
 lias ! How fresh the green of the cotton ! How 
 black the faces of the little negroes, and how 
 beyond dispute the perfume of the baked peanuts 
 at the stations where sometimes they had to stop 
 for wood and water ! Even the heavy pile of 
 smoke above Cincinnati was golden with the hopes 
 of a new-born day as they rushed up to the Ohio 
 River, and as they crossed it. And then, the land 
 of happy homes ! It was Kapnist who said to 
 me that the most favored places in the world were 
 the larger villages in Ohio. He had gone every- 
 where, too. Xenia, and a perfect breakfast at the 
 station, then the towers of Antioch, then the 
 
Ideals 309 
 
 twenty-nine children waving their handkerchiefs as 
 the train rushes in ! 
 
 How much there was to tell, to show, to ask for, 
 and to see ! How much pleasure they gave with 
 their cochineal, their mangoes, their bananas, their 
 hat-bands for the boys, and their fans for the girls ! 
 Yes; and how much more they took from nut- 
 brown faceSj from smiles beaming from ear to ear, 
 from the boy so tall that he looked down upon his 
 father, from the girl so womanly that you asked if 
 her mother were not masquerading. " You rascal 
 Ozro, you do not pretend that those trousers were 
 made for you? Why, my boy, you disgrace the 
 family." "I hope not, papa; I had ninety-eight 
 in the botany examination, passed with honors in 
 Greek, and we beat the Buckeye Club to nothing 
 in the return match yesterday." " You did, you 
 little beggar?" the proud papa replied. "You 
 ran all the better, I suppose, because you had 
 nothing to trip you." And so on, and so on. 
 The children did not live in paradise, perhaps, but 
 this seems very like the kingdom come ! 
 
 And after commencements and the president's 
 party, up to the Yellow Springs platform came two 
 unusual palaces, specially engaged. And one was 
 named the " Valparaiso," and the other, as it hap- 
 pened, the "Bethlehem." And they took all the 
 children, and by good luck Mrs. Tucker was going 
 also, and three or four of the college girls, and 
 they took them. So there were forty-two in all. 
 And they sped and sped, without change of cars. 
 
3 1 o Ideals 
 
 save as Bethlehem visited Paradise and Paradise 
 visited Bethlehem, till they came to New Salem, 
 which is the station men buy tickets for when they 
 would go to the beach below Quonochontaug, 
 where the eight and the twenty-nine were to make 
 their summer home before the final emigration. 
 
 They do not live at Quonochontaug, but to that 
 post-ofSce are their letters sent. They live in a 
 hamlet of their own, known to the neighbors as the 
 Little Gau. Four large houses, whitewashed with- 
 out and within, with deep piazzas all around, the 
 roofs of which join the roofs of the houses them- 
 selves, and run up on all sides to one point above 
 the centre. In each house a hall some twenty feet 
 by fifty, and in the hall — what is not in the hall? 
 
 — maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle 
 or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of 
 songs, a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battle- 
 dore. You might ask widely for what you needed, 
 for study or for play, and you would find it, 
 though it were a deep divan of Osiut or a chi- 
 bouque from Stamboul — you would find it in 
 one of these simple whitewashed halls. 
 
 Little Gau is so near the sea-shore that every 
 day they go down to the beach to bathe, and the 
 beach is so near the Gulf Stream that the swim is 
 
 — well, perfection. Still, the first day the ladies 
 would not swim. They had the trunks to open, 
 they said, and the closets to arrange. And the 
 four men and the fourteen boys went to that bath 
 of baths alone. And as Felix, the cynic grumbler, 
 
Ideals 311 
 
 ran races naked on the beach with his boy and the 
 boy beat him, even Felix was heard to say, " How 
 little man needs here below to be perfectly happy ! " 
 
 And at the Little Gau they spent the months 
 from the Fourth of July to the 13th of October — 
 two great days in history — getting ready for Mex- 
 ico. New sewing-machines were bought, and the 
 fall of the stream from the lake was taught to run 
 the treadles. No end of clothing was got ready for a 
 country which needs none ; no end of memoranda 
 made for the last purchases; no end of lists of 
 books prepared, which they could read in that land 
 of leisure. And on the 14th of October, with a 
 passing sigh, they bade good-by to boats and dogs 
 and cows and horses and neighbors and beaches 
 — almost to sun and moon, which had smiled on 
 so much happiness, and went back to Boston to 
 make the last bargains, to pay the last bills, and to 
 say the last good-byes. 
 
 After one day of bill-paying and house-advertis- 
 ing and farewelling, they met at Ingham's to " tell 
 their times." And Julia told of her farewell call 
 on dear Mrs Blake. 
 
 " The saint ! " said she ; " she does not see as 
 well as she did. But it was just lovely there. 
 There was the great bronze Japanese stork, which 
 seemed so friendly, and the great vases, and her 
 flowers as fresh as ever, and her books everywhere. 
 She found something for Tom and Maud to play 
 with, just as she used to for Ben and Horace. 
 And we sat and talked of Mexico and Antioch and 
 
3 1 2 Ideals 
 
 everything. I asked her if her eyes troubled her, 
 and I was delighted because it seems they do not 
 trouble her at all. She told all about Swampscott 
 and her grandchildren. I asked her if the dust 
 never troubled them on Gladstone Street, but she 
 says it does not at all; and she told all about 
 her son's family in Hong-Kong. I asked her if 
 the failure of Rupee & Lac annoyed them, and she 
 said not at all, and I was so glad, for I had 
 been so afraid for them ; and then she told about 
 how much they were enjoying Macaulay. Then I 
 asked her if the new anvil factory on the other side 
 of the street did not trouble her, and she said not 
 at all. And when I said, ' How can that be ? ' she 
 said, ' Why, Julia dear, we do not let these things 
 trouble us, don't you see. If I were you, I would 
 iiot let such things trouble me.' " 
 
 George Haliburton laid down his knife as Julia told 
 the story. " Do you remember Rabia at Mecca?" 
 
 Yes, they all remembered Rabia at Mecca : — 
 
 " Oh heart, weak follower of the weak, 
 
 That thou shouldst traverse land and sea ; 
 In this far place that God to seek 
 Who long ago had come to thee ! " 
 
 "Why should we not stay here, and not let 
 these things trouble us? " 
 Why not, indeed ? 
 And they stayed. 
 
ONE CENT 
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY 
 
ONE CENT 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 DOWN 
 
 MR. STARR rose very early that day. The 
 sun was not up. Yet, certainly, it was too 
 light to strike a match. Ah, Mr. Starr, a match 
 may be an economy! 
 
 So it was that when, as always, the keys jingled 
 out from his trousers pockets upon the floor, and 
 the money as well, one cent rolled under the 
 bureau unseen by Mr. Starr. He went down to 
 his work now, after he had gathered up the rest of 
 the money and the keys, and answered yesterday's 
 letters. 
 
 Then, of course, he could loiter over his break- 
 fast. 
 
 But not too long. Clara, his wife, was in good 
 spirits, and the boys were very jolly, but Mr. Starr, 
 all the same, did the duty next his hand. He 
 " kissed her good-by," and started down-town. 
 Edgar stopped him to ask for fifty cents for his 
 lunch; the postman wanted fifteen for an under- 
 paid parcel; Susan, the maid, asked for ten for 
 some extra milk ; and then he kissed his hand to 
 the parlor window, and was off. 
 
3i6 One Cent 
 
 No ! He was not off. 
 
 For Clara threw up the window and waved her 
 lily hand. Mr. Starr ran back to the door. She 
 flung it open. 
 
 " My dear John, here is your best coat. That 
 coat you have on has a frayed button. I saw it 
 yesterday, and I cannot bear to have you wear it 
 at the Board." 
 
 " Dear Clara, what a saint you are ! " One more 
 kiss, and Mr. Starr departed. 
 
 And loyally he did the duty next his hand. He 
 stopped and signed the sewerage petition; he 
 looked in on poor Colt and said a cheerful word to 
 him ; he bade Woolley, the fruit man, send a bar- 
 rel of Nonesuches to old Mrs. Cowen ; he was on 
 time at the Board meeting, took the chair, and 
 they changed the constitution. He looked in at 
 the office and told Mr. Freemantle he should be 
 late, but that he would look at the letters when he 
 came back, and then, ho ! for East Boston ! 
 
 If only you knew, dear readers, that to East 
 Boston you must go by a ferry-boat, as if it were 
 nanied Greenbush, or Brooklyn, or Camden. 
 
 As Mr. Starr took the street car after he had 
 crossed the ferry, to go into the unknown parts of 
 East Boston, he did notice that he gave the con- 
 ductor his last ticket. But what of that? " End 
 of the route " came, and he girded his loins, 
 trudged over to the pottery he was in search of, 
 found it at last, found the foreman and gave his 
 orders, and then, through mud unspeakable, waded 
 
One Cent 317 
 
 back to the street car. He was the only passen- 
 ger. No wonder! The only wonder was that 
 there was a car. 
 
 " Ticket, sir," said the conductor, after half a 
 mile. 
 
 Mr. Starr {smiling). I have no ticket, but you 
 may sell me a dollar's worth. {Feels for ppcketbook.) 
 Hello ! I have not my pocketbook ; changed my 
 coat. 
 
 Conductor {savagely). They generally has 
 changed their coats. 
 
 Mr. Starr (with dignity, offering a five-cent 
 nickeV). There 's your fare, man. 
 
 Conductor. That won't do, mud-hopper. 
 Fare's six cents. 
 
 Mr. Starr {well remembering the cent, which is, 
 alas ! under the bureau, and grovelling for it in 
 both pockets). I have a cent somewhere. 
 
 Conductor {stopping car and returning five-cent 
 piece). We've had enough of you tramps who 
 change your coats and cannot find your pennies. 
 You step off — and step off mighty quick. 
 
 Mr. Starr declines ; when they come to Maverick 
 Square he will report the man to the superintendent, 
 who knows him well. Slight scuffle. Mr. Starr 
 resists. Conductor calls driver. Mr. Starr is 
 ejected. Coat torn badly and hat thrown into 
 mud. Car departs. 
 
 Tableau. 
 
3 1 8 One Cent 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 Up 
 
 {Muddy street in East Boston. Mr. STARR, wiping 
 his hat with his handkerchief, solus.) 
 
 Mr. Starr. If only Clara had not been so anx- 
 ious about the Board meeting ! {Eyes five-cent 
 piece.) Where can that penny be? {Searches in 
 pockets, is searching when — ) 
 {Enter R. H. u. E. span of wild horses, swiftly drag- 
 ging a carryall. In the carryall two children 
 
 screaming. Speed of horses, 2.0^^^ 
 
 Mr. Starr. Under the present circumstances 
 life is worthless, or nearly so. Let me bravely 
 throw it away ! 
 (Rushes upon the span. Catches each horse by the 
 
 bit, and by sheer weight controls them. Horses on 
 
 their mettle ; Mr. Starr on his. Enter, running, 
 
 John Cradock.) 
 
 John Cradock. Whoa, whoa ! Ha ! they stop. 
 How can I thank you, my man? You have saved 
 my children's lives. 
 
 Mr. Starr {still holding bits). You had better 
 take the reins. 
 
 John Cradock mounts the seat, seizes reins, but 
 is eager to reward the poor, tattered wretch at 
 their heads. Passes reins to right hand, and with 
 left feels for a half eagle, which he throws, with 
 grateful words, to Mr. Starr. Mr. Starr leaves 
 
One Cent 319 
 
 the plunging horses, and they rush toward Pres- 
 cott Street. (^Exeunt JOHN Cradock, korses and 
 children.) 
 
 Half amused, half ashamed, Mr. Starr picks up 
 the coin, which he also supposes to be half an eagle. 
 
 It proves to be a bright penny, just from the mint. 
 
 Mr. Starr lays it with delight upon the five- 
 cent nickel. 
 {Enter a street car, L. H. L. E. Mr. Starr waves 
 
 his hand with dignity, and enters car. Pays his 
 
 fare, six cents, as he passes conductor.') 
 
 In fifteen minutes they are at Maverick Square. 
 Mr. Starr stops the car at the office of Siemens & 
 Bessemer, and enters. Meets his friend Fothergill. 
 
 Fothergill. Bless me, Starr, you are covered 
 with mud! Pottery, eh? Runaway horse, eh? 
 No matter; we are just in time to see Wendell 
 off. William, take Mr. Starr's hat to be pressed. 
 Put on this light overcoat, Starr. Here is my 
 tweed cap. Now, jump in, and we will go to the 
 " Samaria " to bid Wendell good-by. 
 
 And indeed they both found Wendell. Mr. 
 Starr bade him good-by, and advised him a little 
 about the man he was to see in Dresden. He met 
 Herr Birnebaum, and talked with him a little about 
 the chemistry of enamels. Oddly enough, Fonseca 
 was there, the attach^, the same whom Clara had 
 taken to drive at Bethlehem. Mr. Starr talked a little 
 Spanish with him. Then they were all rung on shore. 
 
 Tableau: Departing steamer. Crowd waves 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
320 One Cent 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 CHRISTMAS — THE END 
 
 At Mr, Starr's Christmas dinner, beside their 
 cousins from Harvard College and their second 
 cousins from Wellesley College and their third 
 cousins from Bradford Academy, they had young 
 Clifford, the head book-keeper. As he came in, 
 joining the party on their way home from church, 
 he showed Mr. Starr a large parcel. 
 
 " It 's the ' Alaska's ' mail, and I thought you 
 might like to see it." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Mr. Starr, " it is Christmas, 
 and I think the letters can wait, at least till after 
 dinner." 
 
 And a Jolly dinner it was. Turkey for those 
 who wished, and goose for those who chose 
 goose. And when the Washington pie and the 
 Marlborough pudding came, the squash, the mince, 
 the cranberry-tart, and the blazing plum-pudding, 
 then the children were put through their genea- 
 logical catechism. 
 
 "Will, who is your mother's father's mother's 
 father? " 
 
 " Lucy Pico, sir ! " and then great shouting. 
 Then was it that Mr. Starr told the story which 
 the reader has read in scene one, — of the perils 
 which may come when a man has not a penny. 
 He did not speak hastily, nor cast reproach on 
 
One Cent 321 
 
 Clara for her care of the button. Over that part 
 of the story he threw a cautious veil. But to boys 
 and girls he pointed a terrible lesson of the value 
 of one penny. 
 
 " How dangerous, papa, to drop it into a box 
 for the heathen ! " 
 
 But little Tom found this talk tiresome, and 
 asked leave to slip away, teasing Clifford as he 
 went about some postage-stamps Clifford had 
 promised him. 
 
 " Go bring the parcel I left on the hall table, 
 and your papa will give you some Spanish 
 stamps." 
 
 So the boy brought the mail. 
 
 "What in the world is this?" cried Mr. Starr, 
 as he cut open the great envelope ; and more 
 and more amazed he was as he ran down the 
 lines : — 
 
 " ' Much Esteemed and Respected Senor, Don John 
 Starr, Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece : 
 " ' Senor, — It is with true yet inexpressible satisfac- 
 tion that I write this private note, that I may be the first 
 of your friends in Madrid to say to you that the order 
 for your creation as a Knight Companion of the much 
 esteemed and truly venerable Order of the Golden 
 Fleece passed the seals of the Chancellerie yesterday. 
 His Majesty is pleased to say that your views on the 
 pacification of Porto Rico coincide precisely with his 
 own ; that the hands of the government will be strength- 
 ened as with the force of giants when he communicates 
 
322 One Cent 
 
 them to the very excellent and much honored governor 
 of the island, and that, as a mark of his confidence, he 
 has the pleasure of sending to you the cordon of the 
 order, and of asking your acceptance.' 
 
 " My dear Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, that is 
 what came to you when that Cradock man threw 
 a cent into the mud for me." 
 
 " But, papa, what are the other letters?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, what are they? Here is English ; it 's 
 
 from Wendell. H'm — h'm — h'm. Short passage. 
 
 Worcestershire — h'm — Wedgewood — h'm — 
 
 Staffordshire — h'm. Why, Clara, George, listen : 
 
 " ' I suppose you will not be surprised when I say 
 that your suggestion made on the deck of the ' Samaria,' 
 as to oxalate of strontium, was received with surprise 
 by Herr Femow and Herr Klee. But such is the 
 respect in which suggestions from America are now 
 held, that they ordered a trial at once in the Royal 
 kilns, the result of which are memoranda A and B, 
 enclosed. They are so much delighted with these 
 results that they have formed a syndicate with the 
 Winkels, of Potsdam, and the Schonhoffs, of Berlin, to 
 undertake the manufacture in Germany; and I am 
 instructed to ask you whether you will accept a round 
 sum, say 150,000 marks, for the German patent, or 
 join them, say as a partner, with twenty per cent of 
 stock in their adventure.' 
 
 " I think so," said Mr. Starr. " That is what 
 the bright penny comes to at compound interest. 
 Let us try Birnebaum's letter." 
 
One Cent 323 
 
 " ' Gottfried Birnebaum to John Starr : 
 
 " ' My Honored Sir, — I am at a loss to express to 
 you the satisfaction with which I write. The eminently 
 practical suggestions which you made to me so kindly 
 and freely, as we parted, have, indeed, also proved 
 themselves undoubtedly to be of even the first import. 
 It has to me been also, indeed, of the very first pleasure 
 to communicate them, as I said indeed, to the first 
 director in charge at the works at Sfevres, as I passed 
 through Paris, and now yet again, with equal precision 
 also and readiness, to the Herr first fabricant at Dresden. 
 Your statement regarding the action of the oxides of 
 gold, in combination with the tungstate of bdellium, has 
 more than in practice verified itself. I am requested by 
 the authorities at Dresden to ask the acceptance, by your 
 accomplished and highly respected lady, of a dinner-set 
 of their recent manufacture, in token small of their appre- 
 ciation, renewed daily, of your contribution so valuable 
 to the resources of tint and color in their rooms of 
 design ; and M. Foudroyant, of Sfevres, tells me also, by 
 telegraph of to-day, that to the same much esteemed 
 and highly distinguished lady he has shipped by the 
 ' San Laurent ' a tea-service, made to the order of the 
 Empress of China, and delayed only by the untoward 
 state of hostilities, greatly to be regretted, on the 
 Annaraite frontier.' " 
 
 Mr. Starr read this long-winded letter with 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Well, Dulcinea, you will be able to give a 
 dinner-party to the King of Spain when he comes 
 to visit you at Toboso. 
 
324 One Cent 
 
 " So much for Brother Cradock's penny." 
 
 " Dear John, till I die I will never be afraid to 
 call you back when your buttons are tattered." 
 
 " And for me," said little Jack, " I will go now 
 and look under the bureau for the lost cent, and 
 will have it for my own." 
 {Enter servants, R. H. L. E., with the Dresden china. 
 
 They meet other servants, L. H. L. E., with the 
 
 Sivres china.') 
 
 Tableau. 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 
THANKSGIVING AT THE POLLS 
 
 A THANKSGIVING STORY 
 
THANKSGIVING AT THE POLLS 
 
 FREDERICK DANE was on his way towards 
 what he called his home. His home, alas, 
 was but an indifferent attic in one of the southern 
 suburbs of Boston. He had been walking; but 
 he was now standing still, at the well-known corner 
 of Massachusetts and Columbus Avenues. 
 
 As often happens, Frederick Dane had an 
 opportunity to wait at this corner a quarter of an 
 hour. As he looked around him on the silent 
 houses, he could not but observe the polling-booth, 
 which a watchful city government had placed in 
 the street, a few days before, in preparation for 
 the election which was to take place three weeks 
 afterward. Dane is of an inquiring temper, and 
 seeing that the polling-booth had a door and the 
 door had a keyhole, he tried in the keyhole a steel 
 key which he had picked up in Dock Square the 
 day before. Almost to his surprise, the key gov- 
 erned the lock at once, and he found himself able 
 to walk in. 
 
 He left the door wide open, and the gaslight 
 streaming in revealed to him the aspect of the 
 
328 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 cells arranged for Australian voting. The rails 
 were all in their places, and the election might 
 take place the very next day. It instantly oc- 
 curred to Dane that he might save the five cents 
 which otherwise he would have given to his mas- 
 ters of the street railway, and be the next morning 
 three miles nearer his work, if he spent the night 
 in the polling-cabin. He looked around for a 
 minute or two, and found some large rolls of street 
 posters, which had been left there by some dis- 
 appointed canvasser the year before, and which 
 had accompanied one cell of the cabin in its travels. 
 Dane is a prompt man, and, in a minute more, he 
 had locked the door behind him, had struck a wax 
 taper which he had in his cigar-box, had rolled 
 the paper roll out on the floor, to serve as a pil- 
 low. In five minutes more, covered with his heavy 
 coat, he lay on the floor, sleeping as soundly as he 
 had slept the year before, when he found him- 
 self on the lee side of an iceberg under Peary's 
 command. 
 
 This is perhaps unnecessary detail, by way of 
 saying that this is the beginning of the arrange- 
 ment which a city, not very intelligent, will make 
 in the next century for unsettled people, whose 
 own houses are not agreeable to them. There 
 exist in Boston at this moment three or four hun- 
 dred of the polling-booths, — nice little houses, 
 enough better than most of the peasantry of most 
 of Europe ever lived in. They are, alas, generally 
 packed up in lavender and laid away for ten months 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 329 
 
 of the year. But in the twentieth century we 
 shall send them down to the shores of islands and 
 other places where people like to spend the sum- 
 mer, and we shall utilize them, not for the few hours 
 of an election only, but all the year round. This 
 will not then be called " Nationalism," it will be 
 called " Democracy ; " and that is a very good 
 name when it is applied to a very good thing. 
 
 Dane was an old soldier and an old seaman. 
 He was not troubled by disagreeable dreams, and 
 in the morning, when the street-cars began to 
 travel, he was awaked a little after sunrise, by 
 their clatter on the corner. He felt well satisfied 
 with the success of his experiment, and began on 
 a forecast, which the reader shall follow for a few 
 weeks, which he thought, and thought rightly, 
 would tend to his own convenience, possibly to 
 that of his friends. 
 
 Dane telegraphed down to the office that he 
 should be detained an hour that morning, went out 
 to his home of the day before at Ashmont, paid 
 his landlady her scot, brought in with him his 
 little possessions in a valise to the office, and did 
 not appear at his new home until after nightfall. 
 
 He was then able to establish himself on the 
 basis which proved convenient afterwards, and 
 which it is worth while to explain to a world 
 which is not ' too well housed. The city had 
 provided three or four chairs there, a stove, 
 and two tables. Dane had little literature, but, 
 as he was in the literary Hne himself, he did not 
 
330 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 care for this so much; men who write books are 
 not commonly eager to read books which are 
 worse than their own. At a nine-cent window of 
 a neighboring tinman's he was able to buy himself 
 the few little necessities which he wanted for house- 
 keeping. And not to detain the reader too long 
 upon merely fleshly arrangements, in the course of 
 a couple of hours of Tuesday evening and Wednes- 
 day evening, he had fitted up his convenient if not 
 pretty bower with all that man requires. It was 
 easy to buy a mince pie or a cream cake, or a bit 
 of boiled ham or roast chicken, according as pay- 
 day was near or distant. One is glad to have a 
 tablecloth. But if one have a large poster warning 
 people, a year before, that they should vote the 
 Prohibition ticket, one's conscience is not wounded 
 if this poster, ink down, takes the place which a 
 tablecloth would have taken under other circum- 
 stances. If there is not much crockery to use, 
 there is but little to wash. And, in short, as well 
 trained a man of the world as Dane had made 
 himself thoroughly comfortable in his new quarters 
 before the week was over. 
 
 II 
 
 At the beginning Frederick's views were purely 
 personal, or, as the preachers say, selfish. Here 
 was an empty house, three miles nearer his work 
 than his hired attic was, and he had taken posses- 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 331 
 
 sioti. But conscience always asserts itself, and it 
 was not long before he felt that he ought to extend 
 the benefits of this new discovery of his somewhat 
 further. It really was a satisfaction to what the 
 pulpits call a " felt want " when as he came through 
 Massachusetts Avenue on Thursday evening, he 
 met a boy and a girl, neither of them more than 
 ten years old, crying on the sidewalk. Dane is 
 sympathetic and fond of children. He stopped 
 the little brats, and satisfied himself that neither 
 had had any supper. He could not understand a 
 word of the language in which they spoke, nor 
 could they understand him. But kindness needs 
 little spoken language; and accordingly Frederick 
 led them along to his cabin, and after waiting, as 
 he always did, a minute or two, to be sure that no 
 one was in sight, he unlocked the door, and 
 brought in his little companions. 
 
 It was clear enough that the children were such 
 waifs and strays that nothing surprised them, and 
 they readily accepted the modest hospitalities of 
 the position. Like all masculine housekeepers, 
 Frederick had provided three times as much food 
 as he needed for his own physical wants, so that it 
 was not difficult to make these children happy 
 with the pieces of mince pie and lemon pie and 
 cream cake and eclairs which were left from his 
 unknown festivals of the day before. Poor Httle 
 things, they were both cold and tired, and, before 
 half an hour was over, they were snugly asleep on 
 and under a pile of Prohibition posters. 
 
332 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 III 
 
 Fortunately for Frederick Dane, for the nine 
 years before he joined Peary, he had lived in the 
 ''city of Bagdad. He had there served as the 
 English interpreter for the Caliph of that city. 
 The Caliph did most of his business at night, and 
 was in the habit of taking Mr. Dane with him on 
 his evening excursions. In this way Mr. Dane 
 had made the somewhat intimate acquaintance of 
 Mr. Jaffrey, the private secretary of the Caliph; 
 and he had indeed in his own employment for 
 some time, a wide-awake black man, of the name 
 of Mezrour, who, for his " other place," was en- 
 gaged as a servant in the Caliph's household. 
 Dane was thus not unfamiliar with the methods of 
 unexpected evening visits; and it was fortunate 
 for him that he was so. The little children whom 
 he had picked up, explained to him, by pantomime 
 which would have made the fortune of a ballet- 
 girl, that they were much more comfortable in 
 their new home than they had been in any other, 
 and that they had no wish to leave it. But by 
 various temptations addressed to them, in the form 
 of barley horses and dogs, and sticks of barber' s- 
 candy, Dane, who was of a romantic and enter- 
 prising disposition, persuaded them to take him 
 to some of their former haunts. 
 
 These were mostly at the North End of Boston, 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 333 
 
 and he soon found that he needed all his recollec- 
 tions of Bagdad for the purpose of conducting any 
 conversation with any of the people they knew best. 
 In a way, however, with a little broken Arabic, a 
 little broken Hebrew, a great deal of broken China, 
 and many gesticulations, he made acquaintance 
 with two of their compatriots, who had, as it 
 seemed, crossed the ocean with them in the same 
 steerage. That is to say, they either had or had 
 not; but for many months Mr. Dane was unable 
 to discover which. Such as they were, however, 
 they had been sleeping on the outside of the upper 
 attic of the house in Salutation Alley where these 
 children had lodged, or not lodged, as the case 
 might be, during the last few days. When Mr. 
 Dane saw what were called their lodgings, he did 
 not wonder that they had accepted pot-luck with 
 him. 
 
 It is necessary to explain all this, that the reader 
 may understand why, on the first night after the 
 arrival of these two children, the population of the 
 polling-booth was enlarged by the presence of 
 these two Hebrew compatriots. And, without 
 further mystery, it may be as well to state that all 
 four were from a village about nine hundred and 
 twenty-three miles north of Odessa, in the southern 
 part of Russia. They had emigrated in a compulsory 
 manner from that province, first on account of the 
 utter failure of anything to eat there; second, 
 on account of a prejudice which the natives of that 
 country had contracted against the Hebrew race. 
 
334 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 The two North End friends of little Ezra and 
 Sarah readily accepted the invitation of the two 
 children to join in the College Settlement at the 
 corner of the two avenues. The rules of the in- 
 stitution proved attractive, and before a second 
 week was well advanced ten light excelsior mat- 
 tresses were regularly rolled up every morning as 
 the different inmates went to their duties; while, 
 as evening closed in, eight cheerful companions 
 told stories around the hospitable board. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is no part of this little tale to follow, with Mr. 
 Stevenson's magic, or with that of the Arabian 
 Nights, the fortunes from day to day of the little 
 circle. Enough that men of Hebrew race do not 
 prove lazy anywhere. Dane, certainly, gave them 
 no bad example. The children were at once 
 entered in a neighboring school, where they 
 showed the quickness of their race. They had 
 the advantage, when the week closed and began, 
 that they could attend the Sabbath school pro- 
 vided for them by the Hebrews on Saturday and 
 the several Sunday-schools of the Parker Memo- 
 rial, the Berkeley Temple, and the other churches 
 of the neighborhood. The day before the election, 
 Frederick Dane asked Oleg and Vladimir to help 
 him in bringing up some short boards, which they 
 laid on the trusses in the roof above them. On 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 335 
 
 the little attic thus prepared, they stored their mat- 
 tresses and other personal effects before the great 
 election of that year began. They had no inten- 
 tion of interfering, even by a cup of cold coffee, 
 with the great wave of righteous indignation which, 
 on that particular day of that particular year, 
 " swept away, as by a great cosmic tidal flood, the 
 pretences and ambitions, etc., etc., etc." These 
 words are cited from Frederick Dane's editorial of 
 the next morning, and were in fact used by him or 
 by some of his friends, without variations, in all the 
 cosmic changes of the elections of the next six 
 years. 
 
 V 
 
 But so soon as this election was well over, the 
 country and the city settled down, with what Ran- 
 som used to call " amazin' " readiness to the new 
 order, such as it was. Only the people who " take up 
 the streets " detached more men than ever to spoil 
 the pavement. For now a city election was ap- 
 proaching. And it might be that the pavers and 
 ditchers and shovellers and curbstone men and 
 asphalt makers should vote wrong. Dane and his 
 settlement were well aware that after this election 
 they would all have to move out from their com- 
 fortable quarters- But, while they were in, they 
 determined to prepare for a fit Thanksgiving to 
 God, and the country which makes provision 
 so generous for those in need. It is not every 
 
336 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 country, indeed, which provides four hundred 
 empty houses, every autumn, for the convenience 
 of any unlodged night-editor with a skeleton key, 
 who comes along. 
 
 He explained to his companions that a great 
 festival was near. They heard this with joy. He 
 explained that no work would be done that day, 
 — not in any cigar-shop or sweating-room. This 
 also pleased them. He then, at some length, ex- 
 plained the necessity of the sacrifice of turkeys on 
 the occasion. He told briefly how Josselyn and 
 the fathers shot them as they passed through the 
 sky. But he explained that now we shoot them, 
 as one makes money, not directly but indirectly. 
 We shoot our turkeys, say, at shooting-galleries. 
 All this proved intelligible, and Frederick had no 
 fear for turkeys. 
 
 As for Sarah and Ezra, he found that at Ezra's 
 boys' club and at Sarah's girls' club, and each of 
 her Sabbath-school classes and Sunday-school 
 classes, and at each of his, it had been explained 
 that on the day before Thanksgiving they must 
 come with baskets to places named, and carry 
 home a Thanksgiving dinner. 
 
 These announcements were hailed with satisfac- 
 tion by all to whom Dane addressed them. Every- 
 thing in the country was as strange to them as it 
 would have been to an old friend of mine, an in- 
 habitant of the planet Mars. And they accepted 
 the custom of this holiday among the rest. Oddly 
 enough, it proved that one or two of them were 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 337 
 
 first-rate shots, and, by attendance at different 
 shooting-galleries, they brought in more than a 
 turkey apiece, as Governor Bradford's men did in 
 1 62 1. Many of them were at work in large fac- 
 tories, where it was the custom of the house to 
 give a roasted turkey and a pan of cranberry sauce 
 to each person who had been on the pay-list for 
 three months. One or two of them were errand 
 men in the market, and it was the practice of the 
 wholesale dealers there, who at this season become 
 to a certain extent retailers, to encourage these 
 errand men by presenting to each of them a 
 turkey, which was promised in advance. As for 
 Dane himself, the proprietors of his journal always 
 presented a turkey to each man on their staff. 
 And in looking forward to his Thanksgiving at 
 the polls, he had expected to provide a twenty- 
 two pound gobbler which a friend in Vermont was 
 keeping for him. It may readily be imagined, 
 then, that, when the day before Thanksgiving 
 came, he was more oppressed by an embarrass- 
 ment of riches than by any difficulty on the debtor 
 side of his account. He had twelve people to 
 feed, himself included. There were the two chil- 
 dren, their eight friends, and a young Frenchman 
 from Paris who, like all persons of that nationality 
 who are six months in this country, had found 
 many enemies here. Dane had invited him to 
 dinner. He had arranged that there should be 
 plates or saucers enough for each person to have 
 two. And now there was to be a chicken-pie 
 
338 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 from Obed Shalom, some mince pies and Marl- 
 borough pies from the Union for Christian Work, 
 a turkey at each end of the board ; and he found 
 he should have left over, after the largest compu- 
 tation for the appetites of the visitors, twenty- 
 three pies of different structure, five dishes of 
 cranberry sauce, three or four boxes of raisins, 
 two or three drums of figs, two roasted geese and 
 eleven turkeys. He counted all the turkeys as 
 roasted, because he had the promise of the keeper 
 of the Montgomery House that he would roast 
 for him all the birds that were brought in to him 
 before nine o'clock on Thanksgiving morning. 
 
 VI 
 
 Having stated all this on a list carefully written, 
 first in the English language and second in the 
 language of the Hebrews, Frederick called his 
 fellow-lodgers together earlier than usual on the 
 evening before Thanksgiving Day. He explained 
 to them, in the patois which they used together, 
 that it would be indecent for them to carry this 
 supply of food farther than next Monday for their 
 own purposes. He told them that the occasion 
 was one of exuberant thanksgiving to the God of 
 heaven. He showed them that they all had great 
 reason for thanksgiving. And, in short, he made 
 three heads of a discourse which might have been 
 expanded by the most eloquent preacher in Bos- 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 339 
 
 ton the next day, and would have well covered 
 the twenty-five minutes which the regulation 
 would have required for a sermon. He then said 
 that, as they had been favored with much more 
 than they could use for their own appetites, they 
 must look up those who were not so well off as 
 themselves. 
 
 ii_ He was well pleased by finding that he was 
 understood, and what he said was received with 
 applause in the various forms in which Southern 
 Russia applauds on such occasions. As for the 
 two children, their eyes were wide open, and their 
 mouths, and they looked their wonder. 
 
 Frederick then proposed that two of their num- 
 ber should volunteer to open a rival establishment 
 at the polling-booth at the corner of Gates Street 
 and Burgoyne Street, and that the company 
 should on the next day invite guests enough to 
 make another table of twelve. He proposed that 
 the same course should be taken at the corner of 
 Shapleigh and Bowditch Streets, and yet again at 
 the booth which is at the corner of Curtis Avenue 
 and Quincy Street. And he said that, as time 
 would press upon them, they had better arrange 
 to carry a part at least of the stores to these places 
 that evening. To this there was a general assent. 
 The company sat down to a hasty tea, adminis- 
 tered much as the Israelites took their last meal 
 in Egypt; for every man had on his long frieze 
 coat and his heavy boots, and they were eager for 
 the active work of Thanksgiving. For each the 
 
340 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 stewards packed two turkeys in a basket, filled 
 in as far as they could with other stores, and 
 Frederick headed his procession. 
 
 It was then that he was to learn, for the first 
 time, that he was not the only person in Boston. 
 
 It was then that he found out that the revelation 
 made to one man is frequently made to many. 
 
 He found out that he was as wise as the next 
 fellow, but was no wiser ; was as good as the next 
 fellow, but was no better; and that, in short, he 
 had no special patent upon his own undertaking. 
 
 The little procession soon arrived at the corner 
 of Shapleigh and Bowditch Streets. Whoever 
 had made the locks on the doors of the houses 
 had been content to use the same pattern for all. 
 It proved, therefore, that the key of No. 237 
 answered for No. 238, and it was not necessary to 
 open the door with the "jimmy" which Simeon 
 had under his ulster. 
 
 But on the other hand, to Frederick's amaze- 
 ment, as he threw the door open, he found a lighted 
 room and a long table around which sat twelve 
 men, guised or disguised in much the same way 
 as those whom he had brought with him. A few 
 moments showed that another leader of the people 
 had discovered this vacant home a few weeks 
 before, and had established there another settle- 
 ment of the un-homed. As it proved, this gentle- 
 man was a Mashpee Indian. He was, in fact, the 
 member of the House of Representatives from the 
 town of Mashpee for the next winter. Arriving in 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 341 
 
 Boston to look for lodgings, he, not unnaturally, 
 met with a Mohawk, two Dacotahs, and a Chero- 
 kee, who, for various errands, had come north and 
 east. A similarity of color, not to say of racial 
 relations, had established a warm friendship among 
 the five, and they had brought together gradually 
 twelve gentlemen of copper color, who had been 
 residing in this polling-booth since the second 
 day after the general election. Their fortune had 
 not been unlike that of Frederick and his friends, 
 and at this moment they were discussing the 
 methods by which they might distribute several 
 brace of ducks which had been sent up from 
 Mashpee, a haunch of venison which had come 
 down from above Machias, and some wild turkeys 
 which had arrived by express from the St. Regis 
 Indians of Northern New York. At the moment 
 of the arrival of our friends, they were sending 
 out two of their number to find how they might 
 best distribute thus their extra provender. 
 
 These two gladly joined in the little procession, 
 and all went together to the corner of Quincy 
 Street and Curtis Avenue. There a similar reve- 
 lation was made, only there was some difficulty at 
 first in any real mutual understanding. For here 
 they met a dozen, more or less, of French Cana- 
 dians. These gentlemen had left their wives and 
 their children in the province of Quebec, and, 
 finding themselves in Boston, had taken possession 
 of the polling-booth, where they were living much 
 more comfortably than they would have lived at 
 
342 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 home. They too had been well provided for 
 Thanksgiving, both by their friends at home and 
 by their employers, and had been questioning as 
 to the distribution which they could make of 
 their supplies. Reinforced by four of their num- 
 ber, the delegation in search of hungry people 
 was increased to fourteen in number, and with a 
 certain curiosity, it must be confessed, they went 
 together to try their respective keys on No. 311. 
 
 Opening this without so much as knocking at 
 the door to know if here they might not provide 
 the "annex" or "tender" which they wished to 
 establish, they found, it must be confessed without 
 any amazement or amusement, a company of 
 Italians under the charge of one Antonio Fero, 
 who had also worked out the problem of cheap 
 lodgings, and had established themselves for some 
 weeks here. These men also had been touched, 
 either by some priest's voice or other divine word, 
 with a sense of the duties of the occasion, and 
 were just looking round to know where they 
 might spread their second table. Five of them 
 joined the fourteen, and the whole company, after 
 a rapid conversation, agreed that they would try 
 No. 277 on the other side of the Avenue. And 
 here their fortunes changed. 
 
 For here it proved that the " cops " on that 
 beat, finding nights growing somewhat cold, and 
 that there was no provision made by the police 
 commissioners for a club-room for gentlemen of 
 their profession, had themselves arranged in the 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 343 
 
 polling-booth a convenient place for the reading 
 of the evening newspapers and for conference on 
 their mutual affairs. These " cops " were unmarried 
 men, and did not much know where was the 
 home in which the governor requested them to 
 spend their Thanksgiving. They had therefore 
 determined to spread their own table in their 
 club-room, and this evening had been making 
 preparations for a picnic feast there at midnight 
 on Thanksgiving Day, when they should be re- 
 lieved from their more pressing duties. They 
 also had found the liberality of each member of 
 the force had brought in more than would be 
 requisite, and were considering the same subject 
 which had oppressed the consciences of the leaders 
 of the other bands. 
 
 No one ever knew who made the great sugges- 
 tion, but it is probable that it was one of these 
 officials, well acquainted with the charter of the 
 city of Boston and with its constitution and by- 
 laws, who offered the proposal which was adopted. 
 In the jealousy of the fierce democracy of Boston 
 in the year 1820, when the present city charter 
 was made, it reserved for itself permission to open 
 Faneuil Hall at any time for a public meeting. 
 It proves now that whenever fifty citizens unite to 
 ask for the use of the hall for such a meeting, it 
 must be given to them. At the time of which we 
 are reading the mayor had to preside at every 
 such meeting. At the " Cops' " club it was highly 
 determined that the names of fifty citizens should 
 
344 Thanksgiving at the Polls 
 
 at once be obtained, and that the Cradle of Liberty 
 should be secured for the general Thanksgiving. 
 
 It was wisely resolved that no public notice 
 should be given of this in the journals. It was 
 well known that that many-eyed Argus called the 
 press is very apt not to interfere with that which 
 is none of its business. 
 
 VII 
 
 And thus it happened that, when Thanksgiving 
 Day came, the worthy Janitor of Faneuil Hall sent 
 down his assistant to open it, and that the assist- 
 ant, who meant to dine at home, found a good- 
 natured friend from the country who took the keys 
 and lighted the gas in his place. Before the sun 
 had set, Frederick Dane and Antonio Fero and 
 Michael Chevalier and the Honorable Mr. Walk- 
 in-the-Water and Eben Kartschoff arrived with an 
 express-wagon driven by a stepson of P. Nolan. 
 There is no difficulty at Faneuil Hall in bringing 
 out a few trestles and as many boards as one wants 
 for tables, for Faneuil Hall is a place given to 
 hospitality. And so, before six o'clock, the hour 
 assigned for the extemporized dinner, the tables 
 were set with turkeys, with geese, with venison, 
 with mallards and plover, with quail and par- 
 tridges, with cranberry and squash, and with dishes 
 of Russia and Italy and Greece and Bohemia, such 
 as have no names. The Greeks brought fruits, 
 
Thanksgiving at the Polls 345 
 
 the Indians brought venison, the Italians brought 
 red wine, the French brought walnuts and chest- 
 nuts, and the good God sent a blessing. Almost 
 every man found up either a wife or a sweetheart 
 or a daughter or a niece to come with him, and 
 the feast went on to the small hours of Friday. 
 The Mayor came down on time, and being an ac- 
 complished man, addressed them in English, in 
 Latin, in Greek, in Hebrew, and in Tuscan. And 
 it is to be hoped that they understood him. 
 
 But no record has ever been made of the feast 
 in any account-book on this side the line. Yet 
 there are those who have seen it, or something 
 like it, with the eye of faith. And when, a hun- 
 dred years hence, some antiquary reads this story 
 in a number of the " Omaha Intelligencer," which 
 has escaped the detrition of the thirty-six thousand 
 days and nights, he will say, — 
 
 " Why, this was the beginning of what we do 
 now! Only these people seem to have taken 
 care of strangers only one month in the twelve. 
 Why did they not welcome all strangers in like 
 manner, until they had made them feel at home? 
 These people, once a year, seem to have fed the 
 hungry. Would it not have been simpler for 
 them to provide that no man should ever be 
 hungry? These people certainly thanked God to 
 some purpose once a year; how happy is the 
 nation which has learned to thank Him always ! " 
 
THE SURVIVOR'S STORY 
 
THE SURVIVOR'S STORY 
 
 FORTUNATELY we were with our wives. 
 It is in general an excellent custom, as I 
 will explain if opportunity is given. 
 
 First, you are thus sure of good company. 
 
 For four mortal hours we had ground along, 
 and stopped and waited and started again, in the 
 drifts between Westfield and Springfield. We 
 had shrieked out our woes by the voices of five 
 engines. Brave men had dug. Patient men had 
 sat inside and waited for the results of the digging. 
 At last, in triumph, at eleven and three quarters, 
 as they say in " Cinderella," we entered the Spring- 
 field station. 
 
 It was Christinas Eve ! 
 
 Leaving the train to its devices, Blatchford and 
 his wife (her name was Sarah), and I with mine 
 (her name was Phebe), walked quickly with our 
 little sacks out of the station, ploughed and waded 
 along the white street, not to the Massasoit — no, 
 but to the old Eagle and Star, which was still 
 standing, and was a favorite with us youngsters. 
 Good waffles, maple syrup ad lib., such fixings of 
 other sorts as we preferred, and some liberty. 
 
35° The Survivor's Story 
 
 The amount of liberty in absolutely first-class 
 hotels is but small. A drowsy boy waked, and 
 turned up the gas. Blatchford entered our names 
 on the register, and jcried at once, " By George, 
 Wolfgang is here, and Dick ! What luck ! " for 
 Dick and Wolfgang also travel with their wives. 
 The boy explained that they had come up the 
 river in the New Haven train, were only nine 
 hours behind time, had arrived at ten, and had 
 just finished supper and gone to bed. We ordered 
 rare beefsteak, waffles, dip-toast, omelettes with 
 kidneys, and omelettes without; we toasted our 
 feet at the open fire in the parlor; we ate the 
 supper when it was ready; and we also went 
 to bed; rejoicing that we had home with us, 
 having travelled with our wives; and that we 
 could keep our Merry Christmas here. If only 
 Wolfgang and Dick and their wives would join us, 
 all would be well. (Wolfgang's wife was named 
 Bertha, and Dick's was named Hosanna, — a name 
 I have never met with elsewhere.) 
 
 Bed followed; and I am a graceless dog that 
 I do not write a sonnet here on the unbroken 
 slumber that followed. Breakfast, by arrangement 
 of us four, at nine. At 9.30, to us enter Bertha, 
 Dick, Hosanna, and Wolfgang, to name them in 
 alphabetical order. Four chairs had been turned 
 down for them. Four chops, four omelettes, and 
 four small oval dishes of fried potatoes had been 
 ordered, and now appeared. Immense shouting, 
 immense kissing among those who had that privi- 
 
The Survivor's Story 351 
 
 lege, general wondering, and great congratulating 
 that our wives were there. Solid resolution that we 
 would advance no farther. Here, and here only, 
 in Springfield itself, would we celebrate our 
 Christmas Day. 
 
 It may be remarked in parenthesis that we 
 had learned already that no train h : d entered the 
 town since eleven and a quarter; and it was 
 known by telegraph that none was within thirty- 
 four miles and a half of the spot, at the moment 
 the vow was made. 
 
 We waded and ploughed our way through the 
 snow to church. I think Mr. Rumfry, if that is 
 the gentleman's name who preached an admirable 
 Christmas sermon in a beautiful church there, 
 will remember the platoon of four men and four 
 women who made perhaps a fifth of his congrega- 
 tion in that storm, — a storm which shut off most 
 church-going. Home again : a jolly fire in the 
 parlor, dry stockings, and dry slippers. Turkeys, 
 and all things fitting for the dinner; and then 
 a general assembly, not in a caravansary, not in a 
 coffee-room, but in the regular guests' parlor of a 
 New England second-class hotel, where, as it was 
 ordered, there were no " transients " but ourselves 
 that day ; and whence all the " boarders " had 
 gone either to their own rooms or to other 
 homes. 
 
 For people who have their wives with them, it 
 is not diflScult to provide entertainment on such 
 an occasion. 
 
352 The Survivor's Story 
 
 " Bertha," said Wolfgang, " could you not en- 
 tertain us with one of your [native dances?" 
 
 " Ho ! slave," said Dick to Hosanna, " play 
 upon the virginals." And Hosanna played a 
 lively Arab air on the tavern piano, while the fair 
 Bertha danced with a spirit unusual. Was it 
 indeed in memory of the Christmas of her own 
 dear home in Circassia ? 
 
 All that, from " Bertha " to " Circassia," is not 
 so. We did not do this at all. That was all a 
 slip of the pen. What we did was this. John 
 Blatchford pulled the bell-cord till it broke (they 
 always break in novels, and sometimes they do in 
 taverns). This bell-cord broke. The sleepy boy 
 came ; and John said, " Caitiff, is there never a 
 barber in the house?" The frightened boy said 
 there was; and John bade him send him. In a 
 minute the barber appeared — black, as was ex- 
 pected — with a shining face, and white teeth, and 
 in shirt-sleeves, and broad inquiry. 
 
 " Do you tell me, Caesar," said John, " that in 
 your country they do not wear their coats on 
 Christmas Day?" 
 
 " Sartin, they do, sah, when they go outdoors." 
 
 "Do you tell me, Caesar," said Dick, "that they 
 have doors in your country?" 
 
 " Sartin, they do," said poor Caesar, flurried. 
 
 " Boy," said I, " the gentlemen are making fun 
 of you. They want to know if you ever keep 
 Christmas in your country without a dance." 
 
The Survivor's Story 353 
 
 " Never, sah," said poor Caesar. 
 
 "Do they dance without music?" 
 
 " No, sah ; never." 
 
 "Go, then," I said, in my sternest accents, — 
 " go fetch a zithern, or a banjo, or a kit, or a 
 hurdy-gurdy, or a fiddle." 
 
 The black boy went, and returned with his 
 violin. And as the light grew gray, and crept 
 into the darkness, and as the darkness gathered 
 more thick and more, he played for us, and he 
 played for us, tune after tune ; and we danced 
 — first with precision, then in sport, then in wild 
 holiday frenzy. We began with waltzes — so 
 great is the convenience of travelling with your 
 wives — where should we have been, had we been 
 all sole alone, four men? Probably playing whist 
 or euchre. And now we began with waltzes, 
 which passed into polkas, which subsided into 
 other round dances; and then in very exhaustion 
 we fell back in a grave quadrille. I danced with 
 Hosanna ; Wolfgang and Sarah were our vis-a-vis. 
 We went through the same set that Noah and 
 his three boys danced in the ark with their four 
 wives, and which has been danced ever since, in 
 every moment, on one or another spot of the dry 
 earth, going round it with the sun, like the drum- 
 beat of England — right and left, first two forward, 
 right hand across, pastorale — the whole series of 
 them; we did them with as much spirit as if it 
 had been on a flat on the side of Ararat, ground 
 yet too muddy for croquet. Then Blatchford 
 
 23 
 
354 The Survivor's Story 
 
 called for "Virginia Reel," and we raced and 
 chased through that. Poor Caesar began to get 
 exhausted, but a little flip from downstairs helped 
 him amazingly. And after the flip Dick cried, 
 " Can you not dance ' Money-Musk '? " And in 
 one wild frenzy of delight we danced " Money- 
 Musk " and " Hull's Victory " and " Dusty Miller " 
 and " Youth's Companion," and " Irish Jigs " on 
 the closet-door lifted off for the occasion, till the 
 men lay on the floor screaming with the fun, and 
 the women fell back on the sofas, fairly faint with 
 laughing. 
 
 All this last, since the sentence after " Circassia," 
 is a mistake. There was not any bell, nor any 
 barber, and we did not dance at all. This was all 
 a slip of my memory. 
 
 What we really did was this : 
 
 John Blatchford said, " Let us all tell stories." 
 It was growing dark and he put more logs on 
 the fire. 
 
 Bertha said, — 
 
 " Heap on more wood, the wind is chill ; 
 But let it whistle as it will, 
 We'll keep our merry Christmas still." 
 
 She said that because it was in " Bertha's Visit," 
 — a very stupid book, which she remembered. 
 Then Wolfgang told 
 
The Survivor's Story 355 
 
 THE PENNY-A-LINER'S STORY 
 
 [Wolfgang is a reporter, or was then, on the 
 staff of the " Star." ] 
 
 When I was on the " Tribune " [he never was on 
 the " Tribune" an hour, unless he calls selling the 
 " Tribune " at Fort Plains being on the " Tribune." 
 But I tell the story as he told it. He said :] 
 When I was on the "Tribune," I was despatched 
 to report Mr. Webster's great reply to Hayne. This 
 was in the days of stages. We had to ride from 
 Baltimore to Washington early in the morning to 
 get there in time. I found my boots were gone 
 from my room when the stage-man called me, and 
 I reported that speech in worsted slippers my 
 wife had given me the week before. As we came 
 into Bladensburg, it grew light, and I recognized 
 my boots on the feet of my fellow-passenger, — 
 there was but one other man in the stage. I 
 turned to claim them, but stopped in a moment, 
 for it was Webster himself How serene his face 
 looked as he slept there ! He woke soon, passed 
 the time of day, offered me a part of a sandwich, 
 for we were old friends, — I was counsel against 
 him in the Ogden case. Said Webster to me, 
 " Steele, I am bothered about this speech ; I have 
 a paragraph in it which I cannot word up to my 
 mind ; " and he repeated it to me. " How would 
 this do? " said he. " ' Let us hope that the sense 
 of unrestricted freedom may be so intertwined 
 
356 The Survivor's Story 
 
 with the desire to preserve a connection of the 
 several parts of the body politic, that some 
 arrangement, more or less lasting, may prove in 
 a measure satisfactory.' How would that do ? " 
 
 I said I liked the idea, but the expression 
 seemed involved. 
 
 "And it is involved," said Webster; "but I 
 can't improve it." 
 
 " How would this do .' " said I. 
 
 "'Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
 one and inseparable ! ' " 
 
 " Capital ! " he said, " capital ! write that down 
 for me." At that moment we arrived at the Capi- 
 tol steps. I wrote down the words for him, and 
 from my notes he read them, when that place in 
 the speech came along. 
 
 All of us applauded the story. 
 Phebe then told 
 
 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS'S STORY 
 
 You remind me of the impression that very 
 speech made on me, as I heard Henry Chapin 
 deliver it at an exhibition at Leicester Academy. 
 I resolved then that I would free the slave, or 
 perish in the attempt. But how? I, a woman — 
 disfranchised by the law? Ha! I saw! 
 
 I went to Arkansas. I opened a " Normal Col- 
 lege, or Academy for Teachers." We had balls 
 
The Survivor's Story 357 
 
 every second night, to make it popular. Immense 
 numbers came. Half the teachers of the South- 
 ern States were trained there. I had admirable 
 instructors in oil painting and music — the most 
 essential studies. The arithmetic I taught myself. 
 I taught it well. I achieved fame. I achieved 
 wealth ; invested in Arkansas five per cents. Only 
 one secret device I persevered in. To all — old 
 and young, innocent girls and sturdy men — I so 
 taught the multiplication table that one fatal error 
 was hidden in its array of facts. The nine line is 
 the difficult one. I buried the error there. " Nine 
 times six," I taught them, "is fifty-six." The 
 rhyme made it easy. The gilded falsehood passed 
 from lip to lip, from State to State, — one little 
 speck in a chain of golden verity. I retired from 
 teaching. Slowly I watched the growth of the 
 rebellion. At last the aloe blossom shot up — 
 after its hundred years of waiting. The Southern 
 heart was fired. I brooded over my revenge. I 
 repaired to Richmond. I opened a first-class 
 boarding-house, where all the Cabinet and most 
 of the Senate came for their meals ; and I had 
 eight permanents. Soon their brows clouded. 
 The first flush of victory passed away. Night 
 after night they sat over their calculations, which 
 all came wrong. I smiled — and was a villain ! 
 None of their sums would prove. None of their 
 estimates matched the performance ! Never a 
 muster-roll that fitted as it should do ! And I — 
 the despised boarding-mistress — I alone knew 
 
35^ The Survivor's Story 
 
 why ! Often and often, when Memminger has 
 said to me, with an oath, " Why this discordancy 
 in our totals ? " have my lips burned to tell the 
 secret ! But no ! I hid it in my bosom. And 
 when at last I saw a black regiment march into 
 Richmond, singing "John Brown," I cried, for 
 the first time in twenty years, " Six times nine is 
 fifty-four," and gloated in my sweet revenge. 
 
 Then was hushed the harp of Phebe, and Dick 
 told his story. 
 
 THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY 
 
 Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It 
 is well-nigh thirty years since I was walking by the 
 Owego and Ithaca Railroad, — a crooked road, not 
 then adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw 
 that a long cross timber, on a trestle, high above 
 a swamp, had sprung up from its ties. I looked 
 for a spike with which to secure it. I found a 
 stone with which to hammer the spike. But at 
 this moment a train approached, down hill. I 
 screamed. They heard 1 But the engine had no 
 power to stop the heavy train. With the presence 
 of mind of a poet, and the courage of a hero, I 
 flung my own weight on the fatal timber. I would 
 hold it down, or perish. The engine came. The 
 elasticity of the pine timber whirled me in the air ! 
 But I held on. The tender crossed. Again I was 
 
The Survivor's Story 359 
 
 flung in wild gyrations. But I held on. " It is no 
 bed of roses," I said ; " but what act of Parliament 
 was there that I should be happy?" Three pas- 
 senger cars and ten freight cars, as was then the 
 vicious custom of that road, passed me. But I 
 held on, repeating to myself texts of Scripture to 
 give me courage. As the last car passed, I was 
 whirled into the air by the rebound of the rafter. 
 " Heavens ! " I said, " if my orbit is a hyperbola, 
 I shall never return to earth." Hastily I estimated 
 its ordinates, and calculated the curve. What 
 bliss! It was a parabola! After a flight of a 
 hundred and seventeen cubits, I landed, head 
 down, in a soft mud-hole ! 
 
 In that train was the young U. S. Grant, on his 
 way to West Point for examination. But for me 
 the armies of the Republic would have had no 
 leader. 
 
 I pressed my claim, when I asked to be 
 appointed Minister to England, Although no one 
 else wished to go, I alone was forgotten. Such is 
 gratitude with republics! 
 
 He ceased. Then Sarah Blatchford told 
 
 THE WHEELER AND WILSON'S OPERATIVE'S 
 STORY 
 
 My father had left the anchorage of Sorrento 
 for a short voyage, if voyage it may be called. 
 
360 The Survivor's Story 
 
 Life was young, and this world seemed heaven. 
 The yacht bowled on under tight-reefed staysails, 
 and all was happy. Suddenly the corsairs seized 
 us ; all were slain in my defence ; but I — this 
 fatal gift of beauty bade them spare my life ! 
 
 Why linger on my tale ? In the Zenana of the 
 Shah of Persia I found my home. " How escape 
 his eye?" I said; and, fortunately, I remembered 
 that in my reticule I carried one box of F. Kid- 
 der's indelible ink. Instantly I applied the liquid 
 in the large bottle to one cheek. Soon as it was 
 dry, I applied that in the small bottle, and sat in 
 the sun one hour. My head ached with the sun- 
 light, but what of that? I was a fright, and I knew 
 all would be well. 
 
 I was consigned, so soon as my hideous deficien- 
 cies were known, to the sewing-room. Then how 
 I sighed for my machine ! Alas ! it was not there ; 
 but I constructed an imitation from a cannon- 
 wheel, a coffee-mill, and two nut-crackers. And 
 with this I made the underclothing for the palace 
 and the Zenana. 
 
 I also vowed revenge. Nor did I doubt one 
 instant how; for in my youth I had read Lucretia 
 Borgia's memoirs, and I had acertam rule for slowly 
 slaying a tyrant at a distance. I was in charge 
 of the Shah's own linen. Every week I set back 
 the buttons on his shirt collars by the width of 
 one thread ; or, by arts known to me, I shrunk the 
 binding of the collar by a like proportion. Tighter 
 and tighter with each week did the vice close 
 
The Survivor's Story 361 
 
 around his larynx. Week by week, at the high 
 rehgious festivals, I could see his face was blacker 
 and blacker. At length the hated tyrant died. 
 The leeches called it apoplexy. I did not unde- 
 ceive them. His guards sacked the palace. I 
 bagged the diamonds, fled with them to Trebizond, 
 and sailed thence in a ca'fque to South Boston. 
 No more ! such memories oppress me. 
 
 Her voice was hushed. I told my tale in turn. 
 
 THE CONDUCTOR'S STORY 
 
 I was poor. Let this be my excuse, or rather 
 my apology. I entered a Third Avenue car at 
 Thirty-sixth Street, and saw the conductor sleep- 
 ing. Satan tempted me, and I took from him his 
 badge, 213. I see the hated figures now. When 
 he woke, he knew not he had lost it. The car 
 started, and he walked to the rear. With the 
 badge on my coat I collected eight fares within, 
 stepped forward, and sprang into the street. Pov- 
 erty is my only apology for the crime. I concealed 
 myself in a cellar where men were playing with 
 props. Fear is my only excuse. Lest they should 
 suspect me, I joined their game, and my forty 
 cents were soon three dollars and seventy. With 
 these ill-gotten gains I visited the gold exchange, 
 then open evenings. My superior intelligence 
 enabled me to place well my modest means, and 
 
362 The Survivor's Story 
 
 at midnight I had a competence. Let me be a 
 warning to all young men. Since that night I 
 have never gambled more. 
 
 I threw the hated badge into the river. I bought 
 a palace on Murray Hill, and led an upright and 
 honorable life. But since that night of terror the 
 sound of the horse-cars oppresses me. Always 
 since, to go up town or down, I order my own 
 coup6, with George to drive me ; and never have 
 I entered the cleanly, sweet, and airy carriage pro- 
 vided for the public. I cannot ; conscience is too 
 much for me. You see in me a monument of 
 crime. 
 
 I said no more. A moment's pause, a few natu- 
 ral tears, and a single sigh hushed the assembly ; 
 then Bertha, with her siren voice, told 
 
 THE WIFE OF BIDDEFORD'S STORY 
 
 At the time you speak of I was the private 
 governess of two lovely boys, Julius and Pompey 
 — Pompey the senior of the two. The black-eyed 
 darling ! I see him now. I also see, hanging to 
 his neck, his blue-eyed brother, who had given 
 Pompey his black eye the day before. Pompey 
 was generous to a fault; Julius parsimonious be- 
 yond virtue. I, therefore, instructed them in two 
 different rooms. To Pompey I read the story of 
 " Waste not, want not." To Julius, on the other 
 
The Survivor's Story 363 
 
 hand, I spoke of the All-love of his great Mother 
 Nature, and her profuse gifts to her children. 
 Leaving him with grapes and oranges, I stepped 
 back to Pompey, and taught him how to untie 
 parcels so as to save the string. Leaving him 
 winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, 
 and gave him ginger-cakes. The dear boys grew 
 from year to year. They outgrew their knicker- 
 bockers, and had trousers. They outgrew their 
 jackets, and became men; and I felt that I had 
 not lived in vain. I had conquered nature. Pom- 
 pey, the little spendthrift, was the honored cashier 
 of a savings-bank, till he ran away with the capital. 
 Julius, the miser, became the chief croupier at the 
 New Crockford's. One of those boys is now in 
 Botany Bay, and the other is in Sierra Leone ! 
 
 " I thought you were going to say in a hotter 
 place," said John Blatchford; and he told his 
 story. 
 
 THE STOKER'S STORY 
 
 We were crossing the Atlantic in a Cunarder. 
 I was second stoker on the starboard watch. In 
 that horrible gale we spoke of before dinner, the 
 coal was exhausted, and I, as the best-dressed 
 man, was sent up to the captain to ask him what 
 we should do. I found him himself at the wheel. 
 He almost cursed me, and bade me say nothing 
 
364 The Survivor's Story 
 
 of coal, at a moment when he must keep her head 
 to the wind with her full power, or we were lost. 
 He bade me slide my hand into his pocket, and 
 take out the key of the after freight-room, open 
 that, and use the contents for fuel. I returned 
 hastily to the engine-room, and we did as we were 
 bid. The room contained nothing but old account 
 books, which made a hot and effective fire. 
 
 On the third day the captain came down him- 
 self into the engine-room, where I had never seen 
 him before, called me aside, and told me that by 
 mistake he had given me the wrong key; asking 
 me if I had used it. I pointed to him the empty 
 room ; not a leaf was left. He turned pale with 
 fright. As I saw his emotion, he confided to me 
 the truth. The books were the evidences or 
 accounts of the British national debt ; of what is 
 familiarly known as the Consolidated Fund, or the 
 " Consols." They had been secretly sent to New 
 York for the examination of James Fiske, who had 
 been asked to advance a few millions on this 
 security to the English Exchequer, and now all 
 evidence of indebtedness was gone! 
 
 The captain was about to leap into the sea. 
 But I dissuaded him. I told him to say nothing; 
 I would keep his secret ; no man else knew it. 
 The government would never utter it. It was safe 
 in our hands. He reconsidered his purpose. We 
 came safe to port and did — nothing. 
 
 Only on the first quarter-day which followed, I 
 obtained leave of absence, and visited the Bank of 
 
The Survivor's Story 365 
 
 England, to see what happened. At the door was 
 this placard, " Applicants for dividends will file 
 a written application, with name and amount, at 
 desk A, and proceed in turn to the Paying Teller's 
 Office." I saw their ingenuity. They were mak- 
 ing out new books, certain that none would apply 
 but those who were accustomed to. So skilfully 
 do men of government study human nature. 
 
 I stepped lightly to one of the public desks. I 
 took one of the blanks. I filled it out, "John 
 Blatchford, £i7A^7 6^- ^d." and handed it in at the 
 open trap. I took my place in the queue in the 
 teller's room. After an agreeable hour, a pile, 
 not thick, of Bank of England notes was given to 
 me ; and since that day I have quarterly drawn 
 that amount from the maternal government of that 
 country. As I left the teller's room, I observed 
 the captain in the queue. He was the seventh man 
 from the window, and I have never seen him more. 
 
 We then asked Hosanna for her story. 
 
 THE N. E. HISTORICAL GENEALOGIST'S 
 STORY 
 
 " My story," said she, " will take us far back 
 into the past. It will be necessary for me to dwell 
 on some incidents in the first settlement of this 
 country, and I propose that we first prepare and 
 enjoy the Christmas tree. After this, if your 
 courage holds, you shall hear an over-true tale." 
 
366 The Survivor's Story 
 
 Pretty creature, how little she knew what was 
 before us ! 
 
 As we had sat listening to the stories, we had 
 been preparing for the tree. Shopping being out 
 of the question, we were fain from our own stores 
 to make up our presents, while the women were 
 arranging nuts, and blown egg-shells, and pop- 
 corn strings from the stores of the Eagle and Star. 
 The popping of corn in two corn-poppers had gone 
 on through the whole of the story-telling. All 
 being so nearly ready, I called the drowsy boy 
 again, and, showing him a very large stick in the 
 wood-box, asked him to bring me a hatchet. To 
 my great joy he brought the axe of the establish- 
 ment, and I bade him farewell. How little did he 
 think what was before him ! So soon as he had 
 gone I went stealthily down the stairs, and step- 
 ping out into the deep snow, in front of the hotel, 
 looked up into the lovely night. The storm had 
 ceased, and I could see far back into the heavens. 
 In the still evening my strokes might have been 
 heard far and wide, as I cut down one of the two 
 pretty Norways that shaded Mr. Pynchon's front 
 walk, next the hotel. I dragged it over the snow. 
 Blatchford and Steele lowered sheets to me from 
 the large parlor window, which I attached to the 
 larger end of the tree. With infinite difficulty 
 they^ hauled it in. I joined them in the parlor, 
 and soon we had as stately a tree growing there as 
 was in any home of joy that night in the river 
 counties. 
 
The Survivor's Story 367 
 
 With swift fingers did our wives adorn it. I 
 should have said above, that we travelled with our 
 wives, and that I would recommend that custom 
 to others. It was impossible, under the circum- 
 stances, to maintain much secrecy; but it had 
 been agreed that all who wished to turn their 
 backs to the circle, in the preparation of presents, 
 might do so without offence to the others. As 
 the presents were wrapped, one by one, in paper 
 of different colors, they were marked with the 
 names of giver and receiver, and placed in a large 
 clothes-basket. At ~last all was done. I had 
 wrapped up my knife, my pencil-case, my letter- 
 case, for Steele, Blatchford, and Dick. To my 
 wife I gave my gold watch-key, which fortunately 
 fits her watch ; to Hosanna, a mere trifle, a seal 
 ring I wore; to Bertha, my gold chain; and to 
 Sarah Blatchford, the watch which generally hung 
 from it. For a few moments we retired to our 
 rooms while the pretty Hosanna arranged the forty- 
 nine presents on the tree. Then she clapped her 
 hands, and we rushed in. What a wondrous sight ! 
 What a shout of infantine laughter and charming 
 prattle ! for in that happy moment were we not 
 all children again? 
 
 I see my story hurries to its close. Dick, who 
 is the tallest, mounted a step-ladder, and called us 
 by name to receive our presents. I had a nice 
 gold watch-key from Hosanna, a knife from Steele, 
 a letter-case from Phebe, and a pretty pencil-case 
 from Bertha. Dick had given me his watch-chain, 
 
368 The Survivor's Story 
 
 which he knew I fancied; Sarah Blatchford, a 
 little toy of a Geneva watch she wore ; and her 
 husband, a handsome seal ring, — a present to him 
 from the Czar, I believe ; Phebe, that is my wife, 
 — for we were travelling with our wives, — had a 
 pencil-case from Steele, a pretty little letter-case 
 from Dick, a watch-key from me, and a French 
 repeater from Blatchford ; Sarah Blatchford gave 
 her the knife she carried, with some bright verses, 
 saying that it was not to cut love; Bertha, a 
 watch-chain ; and Hosanna, a ring of turquoise 
 and amethysts. The other presents were similar 
 articles, and were received, as they were given, 
 with much tender feeling. But at this moment, as 
 Dick was on the top of the flight of steps, hand- 
 ing down a red apple from the tree, a slight 
 catastrophe occurred. 
 
 The first thing I was conscious of was the angry 
 hiss of steam. In a moment I perceived that the 
 steam-boiler, from which the tavern was warmed, 
 had exploded. The floor beneath us rose, and we 
 were driven with it through the ceiling and the 
 rooms above, — through an opening in the roof 
 into the still night. Around us in the air were 
 flying all the other contents and occupants of the 
 Star and Eagle. How bitterly was I reminded of 
 Dick's flight from the railroad track of the Ithaca 
 and Owego Railroad ! But I could not hope such 
 an escape as his. Still my flight was in a para- 
 bola ; and, in a period not longer than it has taken 
 to describe it, I was thrown senseless, at last, 
 
The Survivor's Story 369 
 
 into a deep snow-bank near the United States 
 Arsenal. 
 
 Tender hands lifted me and assuaged me. Tender 
 teams carried me to the City Hospital. Tender 
 eyes brooded over me. Tender science cared for 
 me. It proved necessary, before I recovered, to 
 amputate my two legs at the hips. My right arm 
 was wholly removed, by a delicate and curious 
 operation, from the socket. We saved the stump 
 of my left arm, which was amputated just below 
 the shoulder. I am still in the hospital to recruit 
 my strength. The doctor does not like to have 
 me occupy my mind at all ; but he says there is 
 no harm in my compiling my memoirs, or writing 
 magazine stories. My faithful nurse has laid me 
 on my breast on a pillow, has put a camel's-hair 
 pencil in my mouth, and, feeling almost personally 
 acquainted with John Carter, the artist, I have 
 written out for you, in his method, the story of 
 my last Christmas. 
 
 I am sorry to say that the others have never 
 been found. 
 
 24