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 IDDINGS 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr 
 
From 
 Here and There 
 
 By 
 
 J. WIGHT GIDDINGS 
 
 Cochrane Publishing Company 
 
 Tribune Building 
 
 New York 
 
 1910 
 
T5 3^>3 
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 Cochrane Publishing Co. 
 
 ©C1.A268049 
 
"to- 
 
 3 
 
 To one who putiently listened to these vagaries^ 
 cheered hp her interest and aided hy her counsel, 
 this little volume is dedicated. 
 
From Here and There 
 
 DEEAMS. 
 
 I WONDER how soon, after we first open our baby blue 
 eyes in this wondrous world, dreams come to us. I do 
 not mean those abnormal hallucinations that creep into 
 our brain cells in the black silence of the night and ter- 
 rorize us with their creepy horrors; nor even those that 
 steal in upon us and paint for us some exquisite pic- 
 tures; or when, from out of the unknowable, comes the 
 face that we have idolized, and which is no longer here, 
 or when we heard that dear voice, so long silent now, 
 and to which we listen again with rapturous eagerness. 
 These are precious visitations, and we cherish them 
 with passionate longing, but they are so fleeting and 
 unreal. 
 
 By dreams, I mean those entrancing visions of the 
 daylight, when we forget ourselves and our world wor- 
 ries, and drift out far, far away into that enticing land 
 where they build those fragile but enchanting castles 
 in the air. If we are to believe the over fond mother, 
 those are day dreams the baby has, when lying on its 
 pillow, eyes wide open, a funny wrinkle twists the tiny 
 mouth into* absurd formations; and she will tell you 
 that out from the mysterious land of somewhere, visions 
 are appearing that come only to the age of babyhood, 
 and are neither seen nor understood by coarse fibered 
 
From Here and There 
 
 DEEAMS. 
 
 I WONDER how soon, after we first open our baby blue 
 eyes in this wondrous world, dreams come to us. I do 
 not mean those abnormal hallucinations that creep into 
 our brain cells in the black silence of the night and ter- 
 rorize us with their creepy horrors ; nor even those that 
 steal in upon us and paint for us some exquisite pic- 
 tures; or when, from out of the unknowable, comes the 
 face that we have idolized, and which is no longer here, 
 or when we heard that dear voice, so long silent now, 
 and to which we listen again with rapturous eagerness. 
 These are precious visitations, and we cherish them 
 with passionate longing, but they are so fleeting and 
 unreal. 
 
 By dreams, I mean those entrancing visions of the 
 daylight, when we forget ourselves and our world wor- 
 ries, and drift out far, far away into that enticing land 
 where they build those fragile but enchanting castles 
 in the air. If we are to believe the over fond mother, 
 those are day dreams the baby has, when lying on its 
 pillow, eyes wide open, a funny wrinkle twists the tiny 
 mouth into* absurd formations; and she will tell you 
 that out from the mysterious land of somewhere, visions 
 are appearing that come only to the age of babyhood, 
 and are neither seen nor understood by coarse fibered 
 
6 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 
 
 maturity. But the brutal uncle standing by laughs at 
 the conceit, and describes the droll contortions to un- 
 pleasant sensations in the internal arrangements of 
 the tiny structure. 
 
 Dreams are among the first products of the working 
 of the human brain, however, and intrude themselves 
 into the most prosaic atmosphere, bringing pure delight 
 and unshadowed joy. They may fade gently away into 
 nothingness, or be shattered by cold, ruthless reality, 
 but they are beautiful, hopeful, helpful, after all. Most 
 day dreams, I fancy, are woven about that decoying 
 sometime, when our ship comes in — that elusive dream 
 ship which every human being has out on the sunny 
 sea of imagination, and which is always treasure laden, 
 with breezes of good will driving it thither. But how 
 rarely it reaches harbor, for we load it too heavily with 
 our wishes, and anchor it too strongly with our hopes. 
 
 It is the ideal, rather than the real, that appeals in 
 life after all, and brings to us the higher, the sweeter 
 joys. The heralds of our happiness are the beautiful, 
 romantic, sentimental sprites that touch the chords of 
 human nature which coarser, more practical, more nor- 
 mal things do not know the fineness of, nor do they 
 know where to touch them. 
 
 That young man, dreaming as he labors, of what the 
 future is going to bring; weaving that gilt and tinsel 
 fabric which sometime, perchance, has developed into 
 cloth of gold, found, I half believe, more delight in 
 his tinsel than afterward came to him in the possession 
 of the gold. And not the least of the change from the 
 dream life to the reality of the possession, came in the 
 passing on from the dream life and the wrecking of 
 
PEOM HERE AND THEEE 7 
 
 the dream ship, for the vision has become a reality, and 
 is it as enchanting as he thought? This little bit of 
 fragile philosophy is not a plea for a dreamer's life nor 
 a view opposed to achievement, but we are led to won- 
 der sometimes, as we view the worries and the apparent 
 unhappiness that ofttimes seem to be the ruling spirits 
 in those who have achieved, if the hopes of possession 
 did not over-balance the enchantment of the reality. 
 This application, I confess, is more fitting to the amass- 
 ing of great wealth or the attainment of lofty position, 
 those things that are material, yet which are the usual 
 cargo of that ship of dreams. 
 
 But these visions of the sunlight, these day dreams, 
 are of other things than material. They weave such 
 beautiful pictures for youth, full of sentiment and of 
 that truly greatest thing in the world, which we have 
 called Love. Every boy and every girl has been wooed 
 by that soft and dreamy atmosphere of a summer day, 
 out into those realms of extravagant fancy, and have 
 painted dream pictures such as canvas could never por- 
 tray. If there are those who have never known that 
 ecstacy of a summer dream, out in the fragrant wood, 
 where the crystal stream rippled its laughter and its 
 music as if in companionable, yet chaffing mood with 
 the exquisite revery, they have missed one of the big 
 things in life. How one's sympathy goes out to the 
 boys and girls who have never had a chance to dream 
 out a romance in the sunshine and the shade, where the 
 warmth and the coolness, the blue sky and the twisting 
 leaves, and waving meadows, all were in combination to 
 conjure up the airy phantoms that are of the enchant- 
 ment world. Always there comes to me when thinking 
 
8 PROM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 of those children to whom just these visions cannot 
 come, because they live in what is really another world, 
 those tender words of Edgar Guest : 
 
 ''The crowded street his playground is, 
 
 A patch of blue his sky ; 
 
 A puddle in a vacant lot 
 
 His sea where ships pass by; 
 
 And he would like the open fields. 
 
 For sometimes, in his dreams 
 
 The kindly angels bear him out 
 
 To where are pleasant streams. 
 
 Where he may sail a splendid boat ; 
 
 Sometimes he flies a kite, 
 
 Or romps beside a shepherd dog 
 
 And shouts with all his might, 
 
 But when the light of morning comes. 
 
 He wakes to find once more. 
 
 That what he thought were sun-kissed hills. 
 
 Are rags upon the floor." 
 
 To those who are giving to such children a chance to 
 dream, God is going to be very good. Thus dreams 
 youth — of joy, happiness, life, love. Maturity dreams, 
 too, but the visions are less vivid, the colors more of 
 the afterglow of the sunset. If success has been wary 
 or fickle, the dream is still of success; if fortune has 
 been lavish, then come visions of some one thing want- 
 ed, yet not attained, for there must be dreams. There 
 are always haunting regrets and crushing memories of 
 things committed or of things uncommitted, and with 
 memories must come dreams — of forgiveness perhaps, 
 
PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 9 
 
 of restoration, of rehabilitation, but dreams still, though 
 more somber than those of earlier years. And of what 
 does old age dream? What visions unfold to those 
 whose eyes are dimmed and whose faculties have lost 
 their keenness, and with whom romance has been 
 crushed by relentless realities? Has the dream life 
 ended with the heavy burden of years? or do -those 
 almost in sight of the border land dream of the things 
 which have been so long unrevealed, and are they the 
 visions of things ^^ unseen"? 
 
 But dreams they must always be, dreams only, of 
 youth, of maturity, of old age, until the summons 
 comes to each one and he passes from anticipation to 
 reality. 
 
 C ( 
 
 THE BLUES.^ ' 
 
 Who ever thought of calling them ''The Blues"? 
 They are cosmopolitan, of course, and everybody has 
 been afflicted with them, from the youngster who 
 emerges from the wood shed — the boy's court house — 
 with his heart filled with wrath at the injustice he has 
 suffered, and his trousers with a smarting, stinging 
 package of his anatomy^ where a slab of clapboard had 
 been so dastardly and inhumanly applied; from the 
 maiden in whose heart is woe, in that the first beau of 
 her now wrecked life had been weaned from admiration 
 of her flaxen hair, so often praised, to the raven tresses 
 of her rival ; from middle life, which looks back on glo- 
 rious ambitions and radiant hopes pilloried against the 
 wall which Fate itself, it seemed, had builded, but over 
 which others, less gifted, had climbed without apparent 
 
10 FEOM HEEE AND THEKE 
 
 effort, to old age with all behind, whatever there may 
 have been, of joy or sorrow, waiting in the shadows of 
 this part of existence, for the gate, but just ajar, to be 
 opened on what lies beyond. 
 
 No life has been without them, these miscalled blues. 
 They come from a legion of causes, but they touch with 
 somber tint the inner thought and outer life, and dark- 
 en the very universe with their murky cheerlessness. 
 They sap the mental vitality, they obscure all light, 
 they spread utter desolation, they are the fountain of 
 misanthropy. 
 
 They are appalling things, these umbrageous blues. 
 But why ^^The Blues''? 
 
 It has ever seemed a freakish, unfair application of 
 a color which has ever stood for purity, coolness, light. 
 There is nothing gloomy suggested in the blue sky of a 
 summer day, nor that same boundless arch on a moon- 
 light night; nothing of treachery or darkness in the 
 bright blue eye, that seems frank and appealing al- 
 ways; naught disquieting in the dark and limpid blue 
 of the ocean, stretching limitless in its broad expanse. 
 It is only when the storm blackens it, and Boreas crests 
 its somber waves with foam, that one feels its danger 
 or its awful and insatiate power. Whence, then, came 
 ^^The Blues''? 
 
 The expression is a libel on one of our choicest colors 
 to denominate those fantastic, dour, and gloomy dol- 
 drums, ^^The Blues." 
 
 There is some sense in saying a man ''sees red." 
 There is something likely to be happening when this 
 gay color predominates . There is nothing soothing nor 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 11 
 
 quiescent about red. It means the gay, showy, blazing, 
 the exciting, the terrible. 
 
 No one ever questions how that person is feeling who 
 *'sees red,'' and that is a good time to fade from the 
 landscape into an atmosphere of another color, leaving 
 the one imbued with crimson sensations to have it out 
 by himself. 
 
 It is an attractive tint in its way, is red, and in its 
 place is admirable, but it always means something ani- 
 mated. It was meant to attract especial attention, to 
 divert, to stimulate. Hence the red light in the rail- 
 road yard which checks the thunderous charge of the 
 locomotive, and speaks silently but potently of danger, 
 and signals the never disregarded command, '^Halt." 
 Hence the red fire wagon, it means readiness, speed, 
 fury; the Y?d circus chariot, it means gaiety, life, ex- 
 citement; the red auction flag, it means something un- 
 usual, extraordinary, probably; big bargains — perhaps. 
 
 So when some citizen of a quiet hamlet starts out un- 
 der the influence of a superabundance of spirits to 
 decorate another man's town, he is commonly accused 
 of *' Painting it red." Thus the use of this color in con- 
 nection ^^dth things abounding in the gay or the festive 
 seems ever appropriate. 
 
 There is truly nothing peaceful nor reposeful about 
 red. 
 
 Then how expressive is, ''That dark brovvTi taste." 
 Anyone wlio has had it, and most of us have, from one 
 cause or another, can think of that indelicate, cheap, 
 disorderly taste in no other way than as being dark 
 broA^Ti. It is not a favorite color in nature. Most of 
 her fall and winter browns are a shade that attracts. 
 
12 PEOM HEEE ATs^D THERE 
 
 but they are not dark. It is strange, but the thought 
 of dark brown has an unpleasant suggestion about it. 
 All those glass jars and bottles on the shelves in the 
 pharmacy have many colored drugs in them. None of 
 them, possibly, are particularly attractive, when their 
 uses are considered, but those filled with that dark 
 brown powder awaken a feeling of indisposition, and it 
 simply tastes dark brown. 
 
 Human nature is the most perverse element on this 
 planet. Sometimes it seems utterly thinkless, or if it 
 thinks, it thinks it will do what it wants to do, regard- 
 less of deductions. Hence the epidemic of the dark 
 brown taste the morning after. 
 
 Then there is the '^Yellow Streak." It seems almost 
 a pity to ally this bright and beautiful color with any- 
 thing unpleasant, and yet its most ardent admirers 
 must admit that there is something tremendously sug- 
 gestive in the expression, ''He has a yellow streak." 
 We know he is a quitter. We know he will fail pitiably 
 at the test ; that he will run at the first fire : that the 
 spirit of courage, be it mental or physical, is entirely 
 lacking in his make-up. If he has blue blood or red 
 blood, he has our respect and admiration, but if it is 
 tinged with yellow! That is a mark that is ever dis- 
 tinguishable. He cannot mask it with an assumption 
 of braggadocio or fustian; he cannot be trusted. The 
 quality that appeals in this world is courage. History 
 gives the man of courage the distinctive pages in its 
 record. In war, in religion, in science, no matter what 
 the field, it is the man of bravery, of courage, who has 
 made epochs in the world's events, and who lives on 
 after he has gone. Loyalty to any cause, from that pa- 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 13 
 
 triotic impulse which sacrifices even life in battle, to 
 the loyalty of private life, to home, to friendship, to 
 any true principle, is one of the greatest virtues in the 
 world. It can never exist, hovv^ever, in the same tene- 
 ment with the Yellow Streak. 
 
 There is no mistaking the meaning of ^^He's green." 
 He is unripe, that is the whole substance of it. Some- 
 times green things appeal to us, and figure among life's 
 luxuries. Corn on the cob, though inelegant, is ever in 
 fashion, even if it is immature. Cucumbers, in pickle 
 and out, have a seductive disposition, and the most ver- 
 dant complexion of the Georgia watermelon has never 
 yet been a deterrent from an attack on its luscious pink 
 interior. Nature has given to most eatables that are 
 ripe, some decoying tinge, but it is very rarely green, 
 and that color in fruit has about it a hint of indiges- 
 tion. Often it is restful to the eye, but untranquil to 
 the esophagus. There is one reassuring thought about 
 green things, however. They do get ripe. For the 
 greenhorn there is always hope after proper length and 
 style of seasoning. 
 
 Thus in spite of the unique figures of our vocabulary 
 and our unbridled applications of terms, we are not, in 
 the main, far awry in our color scheme. One real error, 
 not to say perversion, however, is in using the soft, 
 grateful, pleasing color like blue to describe what is 
 lugubrious, cheerless, morbid. We are not quite just 
 in designating our woe begone and deranged sensations 
 as ^^The Blues." 
 
14 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 SINCERITY. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most scarce, though the most 
 commendable quality of the human race, is sincerity. 
 The lack of it is so common that we have no business 
 to be hurt when we find that our supposed friend, 
 whom we really trusted and believed in, has been saying 
 mean things, when, in our innocence, we thought he 
 might be saying good ones. No wonder, that with the 
 knowledge that these things are so, we warm up to the 
 true and loyal person whom we know is staunch and 
 honest with us. It is a queer quality, this knocking 
 quality, this tendency to hand your friend a lemon 
 when you think he is giving sugar plums. . Not that 
 sugar plums belong to maturity so much as to infancy, 
 but an unsweetened lemon does not really belong to the 
 average person who is trying to be on the square. I 
 used to think that politics was the field where two- 
 facedness flourished most luxuriantly and grew to the 
 greatest rankness, but I am not sure. 
 
 Once, when I was new in politics and believed in peo- 
 ple, I was a candidate for office. A friend of mine was 
 going to nominate me, at least he said he would, so, in 
 my callow and unsophisticated pulchritude, I thought 
 he would. The day of the convention I sat in the hall, 
 and waited for the time to come when, through the elo- 
 quence of my friend, I would be pushed into the lime- 
 light. At last the time came, and as my friend ascend- 
 ed the platform, I sat expectantly, and in well-feigned 
 humility, to hear myself exploited by my friend. I 
 wondered if, after I was nominated, I would not be 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 15 
 
 called upon to scatter a few gems of thought among the 
 eonventionists. My friend began to speak. He spoke 
 eloquently, he praised his candidate and set forth his 
 qualities, which, though a little extravagant, I assumed 
 might be applied to me. Then the shock came. My 
 friend had nomixfated another fellow, and the qualities 
 he had so magnificently and munificently set forth 
 were not my qualities at all. That was an awful mo- 
 ment. Humiliation, wrath, pain, hatred, enlightenment 
 all possessed me in succession. I was defeated, but I 
 had learned something. I had learned that the word 
 insincerity was the biggest and most potential word in 
 the political dictionary, and that if a man could not 
 ride in the band wagon, in politics, he would best re- 
 move himself from the procession. My friend had 
 climbed into the band wagon, and I was in the roadside, 
 looking on. It was not agreeable, but it was salutary. 
 The sensation was painful, but it w^as illuminating. It 
 taught me that a political promise was a fragile reed, 
 and was not intended to be leaned upon. This incident 
 is not set up as a wholesale charge against any man who 
 is in politics, but only as an evidence of what has hap- 
 pened and is going to happen again. It is not a whole- 
 sale charge of insincerity, but a little tale showing that 
 there is such a thing extant in the political world. But 
 there are others. Hypocrisy is rampant, and Jekyll and 
 Hyde are no fictitious individuals. Everybody has them 
 in a more or less virulent form — the good, the evil, the 
 staunch and the vacillating, the sincere and the hypo- 
 critical characteristics. 
 
 This all has a pessimistic tenor, but it is not so in- 
 tended. It is rather a plea for more individual and per- 
 
16 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 sonal honesty of procedure for true friendship for a 
 friend. It hurts terribly to find out that the one who 
 has been so pleasant with you, so confidential, so chum- 
 my, and who has won your regard, has been saying lit- 
 tle mean and spiteful things of you when you were not 
 among those present. And what 's the use ? This world 
 is filled with beautiful things to talk about. It is filled 
 with splendid people, and I do not see why it is not just 
 as easy, and surely it is just as pleasant, to say nice 
 things as disagreeable ones. '^ Speak not evil one of an- 
 other.'' That was an injunction given ages ago. It 
 shows the tendency of the human family, from the time 
 that family originated, to be mean instead of decent; 
 to gossip impertinently and despicably about your 
 friend's character and your neighbor's business. It is 
 not a square deal. One is led to wonder what kind of 
 people would be the outgrowth of a combined effort on 
 the part of all people to be sincere with each other, and, 
 ''Go about doing good." 
 
 This does not mean to condone evil, but eradicate it ; 
 not to overlook crime or offense, but punish it, that is, 
 to give each his due. I wonder if, in time, evil would 
 not be lessened, the bad in human nature eradicated, 
 and the desire to be just and fair, and sincere, become 
 the ruling spirit in humanity. It would make us all 
 feel more comfortable, anyway, and would make a bet- 
 ter world. This sounds like the millennium, and per- 
 haps we will not reach such a condition short of that, 
 but we can be a good deal better than we are. 
 
 Ever since jokes were first perpetrated, or alleged 
 jokes, Womankind has been made the foremost figure in 
 them. Her sewing society and club has been set forth 
 
FEOM HEKE AND THEEE 17 
 
 as a temple of gossip, where the back biter and the pos- 
 sessor of the sharp, agile tongue did artistic execution. 
 This may be so. I was never initiated into a sewing 
 circle, nor belonged to a w^oman's club, but I have sat 
 waiting in a chair in the operating room of a tonsorial 
 artist, meekly biding my time, and have listened to as 
 subtle and incessant a flow of gossip as ever rolled off 
 from human tongues. 
 
 No woman, nor set of women, ever had a corner on 
 insincerity, nor ever had a temple where friend and 
 neighbor were excoriated and flayed with any more 
 skill or rancor than those places where men assemble, 
 with nothing to do but w^ait and let loose their tongues. 
 So this unkind habit belongs neither to sex nor nation- 
 ality, but to humanity. It seems to be the birth mark 
 of a race. Yet may we not hope that some day this 
 habit may be Avrestled with and overthrown, and friend- 
 ship be all that the word implies — sincerity, respect and 
 unaffected regrard? 
 
 SMILES. 
 
 This subject has no reference to that vulgar use of 
 the word when one man, who ought to be going home, 
 says to another who ought to be at home, when they 
 meet in front of a thirst palace, ' ' Will you have a 
 smile?'' In our strange vernacular, so many words 
 that have a naturally delightful significance and carry 
 a pleasant impression get into the wrong place and 
 indiscriminately mix all that is sweet and pleasing 
 with things that repel and disgust and offend. The 
 man, or more likely the woman, who first thought of 
 
18 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 hanging up cards on which were printed the words, 
 '^Keep Smiling," was a philanthropist, in a way. 
 Many a person who was feeling discouraged, depressed 
 or dejected, has happened to glance at that simple lit- 
 tle two-worded injunction and been helped by it. 
 Strange, is it not, that just a certain arrangement of 
 our features will bring pleasure or even joy to another, 
 and actually change the feelings in one^s own mind? Bui 
 a smile will do it. A frown has no particular effect on 
 anyone. It is passed unnoticed and nobody cares if 
 anybody frowns, but let them smile ! There is nothing 
 more beautiful in this world than a woman^s smile — 
 not the simple, simpering facial contortion which mor- 
 tifies you to be in the presence of; nor the meaningless 
 slit across the face, which has as little expression as a 
 pan of lard, nor that sarcastic leer that makes you 
 want to swing a big stick against it^ but just a real, a 
 natural, a pleasant smile. A man w^ho has any red 
 blood in him, any emotion, any sense of things enticing, 
 can be lured, without expostulation, by a pretty smile, 
 to put down the carpet, or put up a stove. Just what 
 there is about it that is so alluring and magnetic, is 
 hard to say, but the bewitching influence of a woman's 
 smile has been one of the big things in the world ever 
 since she knew how to use it, and that knowledge prob- 
 ably came with the first breath the first woman ever 
 drew. If we are to believe history — and we all do, of 
 course — especially those of us who realize the power of 
 this little facial wizard, we can recall how governments 
 have tottered, countries have changed boundaries, na- 
 tions have warred with one another because a woman 
 smiled. The men who were slaves to the enchantment 
 
PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 19 
 
 of it were not small men, either, not vacillating, in- 
 sipid, spiritless men, but the intrepid, dauntless, clever, 
 gifted men, those who have been foremost in every 
 department of life, who have wrought events, and Avith- 
 out whom there would be no vivid nor momentous his- 
 tory; no tremendous movements which have rocked 
 Christendom, changed empires, founded new worlds. 
 
 A woman can accomplish what she wants much more 
 easily with her lips than with her tongue. She can 
 drive a man out of the house, to drink, to desperation, 
 with a reckless use of her tongue. She can talk a man 
 out of a thing, or she can smile him into it. It some- 
 times seems as though a man were started in the world 
 with a paucity of assets to do business with, but his lia- 
 bilities have always been appalling. A woman seems 
 to have been bequeathed all the graces, and a man the 
 disgraces, though in these days, we frequently find 
 woman trespassing on man's preserves. Whatever it 
 is that influences a woman to do what a man wants her 
 to, if she ever does, it is not his smile. His face is not 
 of the right architecture to produce the result, or he 
 cannot arrange it effectually; neither by the wildest 
 stretch of imagination, could the term beautiful be ap- 
 plied to it. This smile of which feminine creation is 
 master, is not the smile that goes with conversation, the 
 laughing concomitant or condiment that accompanies 
 a vivacious style in talk, but that look she gives, or can 
 give, when there is no converse, but just silence. When 
 she looks at you and smiles, then, if there is anything 
 about you that is chivalrous, or responsive, or ardent. 
 or susceptible, if you have any real manhood in you, 
 that is the moment of unconditional surrender; and if 
 
20 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 she smiles again, you surrender again still more ab~ 
 jectly. It is fortunate for mankind that the average 
 woman does not know the value of a real smile, or she 
 would have man under subjection all the time. It is 
 fortunate that she considers her tongue her best wea- 
 pon, as a man can come back at her then, and get as 
 near even as he can, which is far short of even, for he 
 has a tongue if he is defective in smiles. 
 
 But the smile that is meant in this random excursion 
 is not one that can be put on at any time, like an out- 
 side garment, that may cover a patch, a darn or a rent 
 in an inside garment. It must be genuine. It must be 
 the art glass that the sweet and benign spirit shines 
 through. It is really but the reflection of what is being 
 felt within, but it will reflect only what is friendly, 
 gentle, genial. A smile will not be the agent of a bit- 
 ter, unkind, or even indifferent thought. Perhaps that 
 is the reason why it is so beautiful, and why it can ac- 
 complish so much; why it is the most bewitching in- 
 strument that has been given to one division of the hu- 
 man race. But whenever worn, whether by children, 
 by persons in mid life, or those frosted by age, the smil- 
 ing face is a benediction. No person can recall an in- 
 stance in all their lives, when they have been saddened, 
 shocked, or made dispirited by a smile, but most of us 
 can recall some instance or instances when we have 
 been helped by one, been brightened, or received some 
 inspiration. So, if to some of us is not given the privi- 
 lege to wear a smile that is beautiful, we may put on a 
 cheery one, in the hope that our reflection may touch 
 someone else, to be passed on, like the endless chain of 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 21 
 
 letters which was once so popular. That is not a bad 
 motto to keep before ns — ^'Keep Smiling." 
 
 GRAFT. 
 
 Back in the halycon days of our boyhood, grafting 
 was a simple process. It was done out in the open and 
 anyone who wanted to witness the operation was per- 
 mitted to do so unopposed. A man came into the or- 
 chard, sawed off a limb or two, split them down a little 
 ways, inserted a sprig into the opening, put some thick- 
 salvey stuff around it and went away. In a few sea- 
 sons, spitzenburgs and baldwins, snow apples and 
 brother Jonathans, russetts and Canada reds were grow- 
 ing harmoniously and picturesquely together on the 
 same trees. So when Noah Webster said, ^^ Grafting is 
 the act or process of inserting grafts," he knew what 
 he was talking about. When he said a grafter is ' ' One 
 who inserts scions on other stocks or propagates fruit 
 by ingrafting/ ^ his definition was correct. Naturally 
 we are led to see what this ''scion" is that is ''insert- 
 ed." It proves to be a "shoot, a sprout of a plant, a 
 sucker. ' ' Now there it is. A grafter, in other words, is 
 one who inserts a sucker into another's preserves. This 
 sucker is not the fish that we boys used to spear down 
 in the river, just when the ice went out in the 
 spring; the fellow that had his myriad of bones all 
 done up in bundles and that didn't have even energy 
 enough to squirm when you jabbed the spear into him, 
 nor is it that big, flat, mucilaginous gob of glucose 
 gummed onto the end of a little round stick — that ' ' all 
 
22 FKOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 day sucker" of those rapturous days of long ago, nor 
 is it that gold brick and green goods rube, nor the chap 
 who so guilelessly separates himself from his coin in 
 his eagerness to get in on the ground floor, or to be a 
 charter member in the get-rich-quick society, or jumps 
 at the alluring bait labeled *^ something good." The 
 sucker of the grafting process is just simply the thing 
 that sucks. The grafter is not the sucker — only when 
 he gets caught. What we call graft is no new process. 
 It began when the human race began. Jacob was the 
 first artistic grafter of the B. C. period. He grafted 
 Esau's inheritance onto his own. Jacob was the grafter, 
 Esau the sucker. So on through all succeeding ages, 
 what has become known as graft in our rapidly in- 
 creasing vocabulary, was carried on, until it seemed to 
 have found, in our own beloved America, its most fer- 
 tile field for operation. It seemed to come with that in- 
 creasing desire to have things, to be in the tide of af- 
 fairs, among the mighty and the wealthy. Money, a 
 desire for which is the father of the graft system, did 
 not use to be the absolutely controlling power that it 
 is today. When our forefathers left the royalty ridden 
 land of their birth, it was not love of money that lured 
 them, but a higher quality, one little regarded in these 
 more advanced days of our civilization — the love of lib- 
 erty, freedom of thought, untrammeled action. Today, 
 there are no great movements inspired by lofty motives. 
 Every struggle is commercial — for more money. The 
 working man strikes, for what? more money. The cor- 
 poration expands, enlarges, reaches out among the peo- 
 ple, for philanthopy? No, more money. Churches call 
 constantly from attendants for more sanctity, more 
 
FROM HEBE AXD THEEE 23 
 
 charity, more Galilean religion? No, more money to 
 erect a building that will outstrip its rival and buy a 
 higher priced minister. The business man hurries from 
 his house the minute the morning meal is pitched down, 
 and he lunches at the club. He has no time for any- 
 thing but to make more money. The old home life, as 
 we once called it, the family association, the games and 
 enjoyments have become obsolete. The slight acquain- 
 tance the average business man has with his own family 
 is scarce worth mentioning. Everything has resolved 
 itself into a struggle for more money, and it is not to 
 be wondered at that out of this condition has arisen 
 the system of graft which has permeated every avenue 
 and reached into every corner of our governmental sys- 
 tem. We need not be surprised at it, nor horrified at 
 it, as we seem to be, when we read of some grafter who 
 has worked the sucker a little too diligently or become 
 a little too avaricious, and has been snared by some well 
 set traps, temptingly baited, and is now on his way to a 
 long season in the penitentiary. Graft is the natural 
 product of our frenzy to get rich. This spirit has be- 
 come a veritable, gluttonous monster, that stifles all our 
 better qualities, higher instincts, safer environments. 
 Under the reign of this spirit of acquisition, we all are 
 a species of grafters. The work of some is more coarse 
 than that of others, but is all the same breed. The 
 something for nothing microbe is the real originator of 
 it all. We are led to wonder where the spirit of com- 
 mercialism will lead us ; what sort of people we will be 
 three generations hence. Literally we will, quite likely, 
 .be up in a balloon, ''all among the little stars floating 
 'round the moon," for genius is bound to solve the 
 
24 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 
 
 aerial problem; we may be up there financially, too. 
 We make those ascensions now and then, but some day 
 may go so high that we will be seriously disjointed 
 when we come back. Graft is not a safe atmosphere to 
 sail in, and we are likely to lose our equilibrium. 
 
 We are inclined to wear a supercilious smile when we 
 hear anyone mention ^'The simple life." Everything, 
 now, must be done in an exaggerated and inflated way, 
 and there is no such thing as contentment in the rest- 
 less, eager, frenzied manner in which we live. All this 
 leads us to make our watchword, ^^Q-et money honestly 
 if you can, but get money. ' ' Everything is put on the 
 market and sold like a commodity in commerce. In- 
 fluence, position, prestige, power, have become as com- 
 mon articles of purchase as any staple article of com- 
 merce that goes over the counter in trade. Food is not 
 the only thing that is being adulterated, and there is 
 as much need of an inspector of character as there is of 
 an inspector of food. We can legislate some of the 
 ghostly adulterations out of what we eat and drink, by 
 the passage of pure food laws, but we cannot legislate 
 the ghastly chicanery out of our moral system by any 
 act of the Legislature. We can punish the man who 
 gets caught with the goods on him, and send him to 
 jail, but grafting is not intended to be a public per- 
 formance in this age, and will flourish, unchecked, un- 
 til a new spirit is instilled into the lives and hearts of 
 the American people — that spirit which sees something 
 more in life than the mere accumulation of wealth, and 
 the lavish display of it. More of home atmosphere, 
 more of the spirit of contentment in the reasonable 
 things of life ; more enjoyment of the beautiful things 
 
FROM HEEE AND THEEE 25 
 
 all about us, and less desire for the tawdry pleasures, 
 and costly possessions, would bring us back to sane and 
 happy living; out of the brain storms, the dementia 
 Americana, the paranoics, the hysterics, the suicides, 
 and be far more efScacious than the passage of laws or 
 infliction of penalties. 
 
 THE AGEICULTURAL INSTINCT. 
 
 Everyone, almost, seems to have hidden somewhere 
 in his structure an unappeasible desire to ^^get back to 
 the soil." Not the dust to dust condition — ^very few of 
 us have any inordinate longing for that, but to most of 
 us comes sometime in life a persistent craving to 
 monkey with the soil, to manipulate it, to tickle it, and 
 then watch it do things. 
 
 The supernatural always appeals to us. We feel 
 queer sensations of mingled incredulity and acquies- 
 cence, in strange and unfathomed power, when we see 
 the prestidigitator calmly lift a live rabbit out from 
 the shirt front of the man sitting next to us in the par- 
 quet, but when we see that tiny green sprout just peek- 
 ing up at the sunlight from the ordinary looking 
 ground from which it springs, and we know that it 
 comes from the seed which we planted a few days ago, 
 even though it is the most familiar result in the ma- 
 terial world, a sort of awe takes possession of us, and 
 we recognize that here is no slight of hand work, no 
 befoozling mummery, but that we are in the presence 
 of a great natural phenomenon, and that only Divinity 
 could have conceived or perfected it. There is really 
 
26 FEOM HEEE AND THERE 
 
 no more fascinating thing in the universe than to be 
 the possessor of a garden. It has its drawbacks, of 
 course; its disappointments, its aggravations that seem 
 only to be alleviated by lurid profanity at those pes- 
 tiferous, persistent buglets, the existence of which is a 
 conundrum, while the destruction which they occasion 
 is both dumfounding and dispiriting. The garden has 
 lured many a writer to put his sensations experienced 
 by a summer's gardening before the world, but few of 
 us are influenced by the experience of others, and the 
 garden annually snares its usual number of easy marks, 
 who feel that they can achieve success where others 
 have achieved only humiliation. 
 
 It looks like a simple operation for a full grown hu- 
 man being, possessed of an average intellect, with shin- 
 gles, solutions and poisons at his disposal, to cope with 
 a few tiny bugs that are simply on his premises in ac- 
 cordance with natural instinct, to eat up the products 
 of his labor, as soon as it becomes edible. But you just 
 engage once in a battle with bugdom, and see what hap- 
 pens to you. It is the most exasperating, futile, morti- 
 fying, infuriating, gloomy struggle in which a poor, 
 helpless individual can become involved. The unequal 
 contest rages all summer, and when one set of bugs has 
 passed on, another set of bugs arrives to continue the 
 withering devastation. One set eats the tender green 
 leaves, another set the blossoms, another set the fruit, 
 and it is probable that if there were anything else to eat, 
 there would be another set to eat it. You sift poisons 
 on the vines till they are brown or white with it, but 
 the bugs don't care. They crawl onto the under side 
 of the leaves and proceed tantalizingly with their de- 
 
FEOM HERE AND THERE 27 
 
 struction. You poison the under side, and, undaunted, 
 they eat the poison. Nothing feazes them. They are 
 immune. 
 
 No person who has ever possessed a garden, has 
 failed to meet with a certain small voracious bug, hav- 
 ing yellow and black striped wings, and which is more 
 wily than you are. That you are acquainted with it, 
 I see by the pained smile on your face. Well, this 
 damnable creation is the most unprincipled, graceless, 
 contemptible, pucillanimous production in all bugology. 
 He has 3^ou buffaloed at every angle of the proceedings, 
 and if you do have a few melon or cucumber vines 
 which bear fruit at the end of the struggle, it can only 
 be because his capacity was unequal to his voracity. 
 
 Then one would sometimes dream of Hubbard squash 
 in the cellar for winter delights, and the dream could 
 be realized, too, were it not for that triangular shaped, 
 dirty looking object, familiarly known and properly 
 named, '^ Stink Bug.'' 
 
 These two destroyers always seem the most pestilen- 
 tial specimens among garden freebooters. The cut 
 worm, tomato worm, cabbage grub, potato bug, all ex- 
 cite one's animosity, but the little chap that wears the 
 black and yellow stripes, always seems to wear out pa- 
 tience, and exhaust even a Websterian vocabulary to 
 properly anathematize him. 
 
 Yet with all these omnipresent and desolating sum- 
 mer enemies; in spite of all the weeds that thrive and 
 spread and delve into the earth's very center, and 
 laugh, apparently, as you yank them out vindictively, 
 and turn their roots up to the burning summer sun, you 
 will be planning another garden next year as soon as 
 
28 FEOM HEEE AJ^D THEEE 
 
 the brilliant colored catalogues are out. What though 
 you did not supply the table from the garden, as you 
 valiantly announced in the spring you would do? you 
 had the fun of thinking that you would and sometimes 
 our dreams exceed the pleasure of the reality. You 
 had good exercise; you had really great sport in the 
 fun of getting back to the soil, and you had your 
 dreams. If the melons, which in the spring time looked 
 round, plump and juicy in imagination, were eaten by 
 the bugs or plugged by vandal boys — you remember 
 when you plugged melons, don't you? — those dream 
 melons made your mouth water as you planted the 
 seeds in the spring. It was not, then, a failure after 
 all. You did really gather some fruits and roots of it 
 and enjoyed them as much as you anticipated. 
 
 "What stuff the bugs left you had. It was fresh from 
 your garden, and you picked it or dug it yourself, and 
 it gave you a chance to cast scornful glances at the 
 withered truck in the grocery store which those who 
 had no garden were compelled to content themselves 
 with, and your nose tipped at a forty-five degree angle 
 at the bare thought of canned goods. So even with en- 
 thusiasm a little tempered by affliction, you really did 
 enjoy what you blithely announced, in the spring, you 
 were going to enjoy. In spite of weeds and worms, 
 bugs and blisters, some mortification and much virtu- 
 ous wrath, it is worth while to have a garden, and once 
 a year, for a little time, get back to the soil. 
 
PEOM HERE AND THERE 29 
 
 CUSTOMS. 
 
 Customs of nations are most interesting and in most 
 particulars valuable. They are the outgrowth of some 
 big national event, usually, and are based on some 
 pretty sentiment. The suggestion of a brief review of 
 some national fetes came through the observance of 
 some Indian usages, in comparison with those of our 
 own nation, brought out by mingling with these native 
 children, who have brought down for centuries these 
 feast days and observances. Like ours they are senti- 
 mental, the outgrowth of patriotic ebullition, or they 
 touch most sweetly our recognition of Divine supervi- 
 sion, and a thankfulness for cur bounties. "We do not 
 include Christmas in this simple review, for that is a 
 world-wide institution, the most beautiful, the most sa- 
 cred, the most delightful of all. The word itself is full 
 of memories, so dear, so fragrant, so enchanting, so rev- 
 erential, that it stands alone among the world's observ- 
 ances. No one with any sentiment can hear that word 
 Christmas, and not feel a softening of the heart. It is 
 so full of tenderness, of sweetness, of reminiscence, of 
 sanctity. It is a holy day. 
 
 We love our Thanksgiving, and with the good cheer 
 of it, and its blessed reunion of friends, its fullness of 
 warmth and hospitality; it is the outgrowth of a spirit 
 which has made us such a nation as we have grown to 
 be. It is quiet and restful and partakes naught of the 
 hilarity, the noise, the pride and elation of the day of 
 our national birth. Fourth of July is America's great 
 day, and we let loose all of the pent-up enthusiasm of 
 
30 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 three hundred and sixty-four days. We revel in boast- 
 fulness and thunder our patriotism. It is an outward 
 show. Thus, too, do the natives, these children of the 
 West, express their recognition of their Deities, and 
 celebrate their feast days. The Indian is, as a rule, a 
 sun worshiper, though he adopts a religion, Catholic 
 usually, yet back of it all, down in his heart, the orb 
 that gives him light and heat and brightness is an estab- 
 lished and unforgotten Deity. The Pueblo Indian cus- 
 toms give substance for this little mention of native ob- 
 servances, and they are well worth mention. Their 
 first celebration is a com dance, which is given in three 
 seasons. First, when the corn appears, and its tiny 
 green shoots give promise of the future, a certain num- 
 ber of children of the village chosen by authority give 
 a dance in the center of the settlement, gayly arrayed 
 and fancifully painted, chanting as they dance to the 
 wierd music of their native instruments. Then when 
 the corn is in the silk, the next generation, young men 
 and maidens hold the stage and the scenes of the first 
 dance are repeated, only with still more noise and en- 
 thusiasm. The tom toms roar and the dancers, arrayed 
 in gayest of colors, shout and chant and sing as they 
 move about the plaza. Again when the corn ripens the 
 old people of the Pueblos don the spangles and bright 
 colors and the paint, shouting their thanks for the ri- 
 pened harvest, and showing by this outward expression 
 the joy felt in the fruitfulness of their labors. 
 
 The three celebrations are really those of Thanksgiv- 
 ing. They recognize the power of the Sun God. They 
 feel his goodness, they acknowledge the weariness he 
 must feel in traveling daily his long course, in bringing 
 
FROM HERE AND THERE 31 
 
 to fruition the grain which is their sustenance, and they 
 would cheer him by their gay dances, and thank him 
 with their songs. It is a pretty custom, and abounds 
 with a genuine sentiment which touches all observers. 
 Then comes, on September thirtieth of each year, San 
 Geronimo day. It is the day given to a saint and dates 
 back to the sixteenth century. 
 
 In 1598, a Spanish priest left the little settlement of 
 San Gabriel, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, where 
 the Chance river flows into it, and came to the Taos 
 Pueblo to establish a mission. He chose, as their patron 
 saint, Jerome, whose day falls on the thirtieth of Sep- 
 tember each year, and from that time down to the pres- 
 ent date this feast has been annually observed that 
 day. The famous relay race, which is one of the big 
 features of the celebration, originated purely as an In- 
 dian custom, and, previous to the institution of Saint's 
 day, it was held on the day of assuming office by the 
 Alcalde of the Pueblos. It was originally used as a mar- 
 riage sacrament. When a new Alcalde assumed office 
 he would select an equal number of unmarried men and 
 women, placing the men together at one end of the 
 track and the women at the other. At a given signal 
 the men all rushed to the end of the track where the 
 women were congregated, and whichever woman a run- 
 ner reached first, that one was his wife. The race was 
 to the swift, and the fleetest runner had his pick from 
 the waiting women for his bride. The last to arrive 
 at the goal had to be content with what was left. The 
 famous relay race has since become a method of choos- 
 ing a new Alcalde^ the victors of the race being those 
 from among whom the candidates were chosen. There 
 
32 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 is nothing about the San Geronimo celebration that is 
 more attractive and more delightful to visitors and to 
 Pueblos than the hours devoted to the sports of the 
 Chiffonettes, made far-famed by Bandolier, in his 
 dainty story, and by him named the '^Delight Mak- 
 ers." This title of Chiffonettes, as translated from the 
 native to the English tongue, means Indian Clowns, and 
 well does the title fit, as the mirthful gambols of the 
 gayly bedecked and fancifully painted performers call 
 to mind the jolly clown of the pantomime, and him of 
 the old day circus ring. The Chiffonettes really give 
 the most enjoyable performance of this famous San 
 Geronimo celebration. The Chiffonettes are born of le- 
 gend like all the ceremonies of this gala day. Many 
 centuries ago a severe tribulation swept over the land. 
 It was an hour of pestilence and darkness and famine. 
 Crops withered and failed ; the glories of the field were 
 dimmed and the flowers that brightened and made 
 happy no longer bloomed. The tribes were disheart- 
 ened, afflicted and without hope, but the Trues, sym- 
 pathizing with their distresses, sent into their midst a 
 gay band of troubadours who entered the Pueblo, and 
 with their comical antics, their jest and joyousness, 
 lifted the cloud of sorrow and hopelessness which had 
 enthralled the people, and led them to forget their hun- 
 ger and weariness and take heart again, till the sun 
 warmed the ground once more, the earth blossomed, and 
 grain took on its golden tint and fruit its ripened 
 beauty. Prom this legend come the present day Chif- 
 fonettes who carry out the idea by appearing, painted 
 in horizontal stripes of light and dark clay, to repre- 
 sent these two periods of darkness and of light. They 
 
EROM HEEE AND THERE 33 
 
 always wear a bunch of dried grass in the hair, sym- 
 bolic of the withered and dead crops. 
 
 The Kive of the Chiffonettes is situated within the 
 walls of the town near the northeast corner of the south 
 Pyramid. The principal ceremony takes place in the 
 afternoon of the thirtieth of September, when a large 
 pole is erected on the bank of the river, from which is 
 suspended a live sheep, and an abundance of fruit, vege- 
 tables and bread. The Delight Makers go through their 
 laughable antics over the Pueblo, until they discover 
 the tracks of the sheep, apparently leading to the pole. 
 After a short while, amid much gay frolic, they dis- 
 cover the sheep at the top of the pole. After many 
 ridiculous attempts to reach the top, about forty feet 
 from the ground, one clown succeeds in reaching the 
 sheep, which he lowers to the ground together with the 
 other favors with which the pole is bedecked, and a 
 grand feast follows amid a jovial merry-making in 
 which all Pueblo joins. This closes the particular cere- 
 monies of the Chiffonettes or Delight Makers. 
 
 Thus all nations and all people are the observers of 
 customs, and nearly all of these are in recognition of 
 some event touching our material fortunes, and in rec- 
 ognition of some act of the Deity. If we can hold our 
 customs on a high plane, and in recognition of our best 
 endeavors and the things that are truest and holiest, 
 they are well worthy to be continued. 
 
 SLIPPERS. 
 
 Away back, when I graduated from the town high 
 school, at the close of my delivery of an immortal ora- 
 
34 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 tion, flashing with eloquent suggestions and stupendous 
 thoughts, which seemed to have sunk into sad oblivion, 
 immediately after their impassioned presentation, I re- 
 ceived the customary abundance of beautiful flowers 
 with card attachments. Among them was a charming 
 bouquet of lady slippers, and the little card attached, 
 read: '^To an admirer of the same." I remember I 
 kept them as long as their dainty, evanescent beauty 
 lasted, and for many months afterward. I knew ex- 
 actly where they came from — ^in that boggy land a mile 
 and a half west of town, just across the road from the 
 spring. They grew in that little patch of wood there, 
 where the shade was so dense and cool in the summer; 
 where only here and there a shaft of sunlight ever 
 penetrated; where only such exquisite things as a lady 
 slipper would grow. 
 
 Just where this flower received its name, I have 
 oftened wondered, and yet the name always seemed ap- 
 propriate, too. Perhaps their prettiness and daintiness 
 inspired the name. It must have been first bestowed by 
 someone who truly knows what shapeliness, beauty and 
 refinement really is. To me a show window of a shoe 
 dealer is more attractive than that of a jeweler. I don't 
 mean that window where are arranged those great, big, 
 box-shaped things, ranging in size from seven to eleven, 
 looking fit to be used for a flat boat or a raft, but the 
 window on the other side of the door where you see 
 those elegant, refined little specimens of leather and 
 kid architecture, in colors of black, pink, blue, gray, 
 white, and in ox bloods, tans and russets. They really 
 vv^ear them, too, though it seems almost incredible, for 
 that tale of Cinderella was only a fairy story. I am 
 
PEOM HEEE AJTD THEEE 35 
 
 snre even she would have to pinch her foot to get it 
 into that little bit of a slipper over there in the left- 
 hand comer, the one all embroidered so beautifully and 
 having a satin heel. I don't know how you feel, but a 
 lady's slipper, I mean the pretty, genteel, dainty one, 
 has a wonderful fascination for me. It makes me feel 
 just the same as does that skittish little swish of her 
 petticoat. It gives me a sort of bewildered feeling of 
 all-overishness, and has an air of bewitchery about it. 
 Every woman knows that a pretty slipper is a capti- 
 vating possession. That 's why she lets it just peep tan- 
 talizingly out from under her dress sometimes. She 
 knows you think it prettier than the rings she has on 
 or the brooch she wears, and she likes to tease you by 
 just that tiny bit she pushes in front of the curtain. I 
 have seen times in my life, though, when slippers ap- 
 pealed to me in another way and caused other sensa- 
 tions — lady slippers, too, they were. This was long 
 ago — ^back before I gave to the world that deathless ora- 
 tion, that one I harbored the delusion would be death- 
 less, but I guess it died in the dreary hours of the same 
 night; anyway, the editor seemed to think it dead 
 when he delivered his paltry eulogy on it in his next 
 issue. He spoke of it in the past tense and used the 
 same adjective describing it that he used on all the 
 other orations delivered on that memorable occasion, so 
 I guess it died. Well, way back before it died, my re- 
 lations with slippers were of a different kind than those 
 I have been describing, and my sensations were differ- 
 ent. They were bewildering but not bewitching. The 
 slippers of those days were associated with scenes that 
 belong only to childhood. They belong to days when 
 
36 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 for some unhallowed deed, some thoughtless act of diso- 
 bedience, some reckless bit of bold impudence let loose, 
 I was ordered to go to a certain well-known room and 
 ^ wait. When the inquisitor entered I knew at once just 
 how heinous my offense had> been. If she had in her 
 hand a lady's slipper, I knew there was to be only a 
 lesson in palmistry, and I was to receive on my hand a 
 stinging reminder of the fact that I was still under pa- 
 rental law; if she had one of those slippers on which 
 was embroidered a bunch of cherries, in raised figures, 
 or one worked in fancy patterns of gay-colored worsted, 
 I knew there was going to be some warm and energetic 
 industry applied to my framework; but if she had one 
 of those big, flat-bottomed, slab-sided carpet slippers, 
 with the flaps fastened together with copper rivets, I 
 knew there was going to be a tragedy, and that my 
 chair at the table would have a cushion on it for the 
 next day or two. How I sighed for a pair of double- 
 seated leather breeches for the next five minutes. Yet 
 I knew they would be useless, for the outrage about to 
 be perpetrated, would be in the altogether. Were you 
 ever stung by a carpet slipper? If so, why attempt to 
 describe the blistering misery of it? If not, may you 
 never be. 
 
 How the years, as they pass, change our view of 
 things, and how we forget those events of our child- 
 hood, which seemed of such moment then. What ap- 
 pealed to us then as only flagrant injustice was, in 
 reality, a blessing. It was well disguised, to be sure, 
 but a blessing none the less. Now after the years have 
 placed me on a different height, and the view unfolds 
 from a different standpoint, I can see things from a 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 37 
 
 less abnormal view. Now, a lady's slipper seems only a 
 thing of beauty — dainty, charming, fascinating; the 
 old-fashioned embroidered slipper, when it occasionally 
 comes into view from out of that past in which it flour- 
 ished, awakens no animosity, and even the ancient car- 
 pet slipper, which, thank goodness, is now but a relic, 
 I can look upon with equanimity. 
 
 THE KINDERGARTEN. 
 
 Just what relationship exists between the Peace Con- 
 gress and the Kindergarten may not be easily deter- 
 mined, but there must be one somewhere. Inasmuch 
 as the kindergarten came first, it must be the promoter, 
 the ancestor, or progenitor, or something of that kind, 
 or possibly the grandmother. At any rate, if not ac- 
 tually blood relatives, they are akin in belief and theorj'- 
 — they are both opposed to war. If the kindergarten 
 is responsible for the peace spirit that seems to have 
 been instilled into the heart of nations, it ought to have 
 a niche in the halls of fame, for peace is a delightful 
 attribute, and brings about a most tranquilizing condi- 
 tion. It is desirable universally, nationally, individu- 
 ally, and is doubtless one of the harbingers of a new 
 alignment of affairs. There may have been nothing sug- 
 gestive, ironical, artful, in the fact that during the 
 meeting of the first "World's Peace Congress of Na- 
 tions, every government in the world, of any impor- 
 tance, was making faces at some other government, 
 building bigger, better battleships, while America was 
 preparing that neat little object lesson — sending a fleet 
 
38 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 of magnificent war vessels on its cruise around the 
 world. The Dove of Peace is a beautiful bird, in pic- 
 tures, but the war eagie is not yet an extinct species, 
 and has not yet ceased to excite admiration. The sweet 
 spirit of peace that rules the kindergarten^ — this has no 
 reference to the teacher, though in many cases the term 
 is not inappropriate — may give us a generation of peo- 
 ple far in advance of the present in loveliness and calm- 
 ness, and gentleness. Those of us who have quivered 
 and writhed under a rude and unbridled application of 
 the back of a hair brush upon our undraped anatomy, 
 or felt the biting sting of a horsewhip on our unsea- 
 soned little legs, can scarcely imagine into what sort of 
 an individual a child will eventually emerge, who has 
 never had a chance to let passion and angry hatred pos- 
 sess his soul, and fill his very body as he is released, 
 sore and excoriated from the contact with these base 
 instruments of chastisement; or how a child must feel 
 who has never had the harrowing pleasure of planning 
 an escape from such humiliating thralldom and brutal 
 treatment, and of going out into the great world alone, 
 to conquer or die, if need be, thus bringing to those 
 left behind an eternal regret for their unrestrained and 
 inhuman action. 
 
 Nothing in the world quite equals that exquisite 
 wretchedness a child feels in dreaming of the unap- 
 peased woe that will reign in the house, from which he 
 has gone forth, alone, driven hence by the soulless treat- 
 ment administered in a spirit of ^^ sorrow and love but 
 for your own good/' The youngster, who, under the 
 kindly administrations taught by the kindergarten, has 
 missed the smarting, blistering sensations of parental 
 
FEOM HEBE A^^D THEEE 39 
 
 corporal correction, and never felt the sweet sorrow of 
 contemplated revenge, has lost a lot in life, and cannot 
 sound all the depths of human nature as can those who 
 have been under the lash. It is difficult to imagine a 
 childhood passed without hearing, ^' Don't do that," 
 ''You mustn't,'' ''If you do that again, I shall punish 
 you, ' ' and so many restrictive admonishings which seem 
 so constant and unsympathizing, then, but so salutary 
 and necessary from the standpoint of later years. 
 When you staggered around among blue, red, and yel- 
 low stars that danced before you, those times when the 
 teacher banged you over the head with that artistic, 
 full-armed swing, while the amazed and frightened 
 school sat silent, you thought, if you were not too dazed 
 to think, that she was the meanest thing you ever saw; 
 when she yanked you out from that old green-topped 
 desk, and dragged you squirming down the aisle, to 
 show you to the school as the awful example, and shook 
 you till your teeth felt loose and all the internal organs 
 of your body seemed mussed up and out of place, and 
 anyway, your heart was hitting your budding Adam's 
 apple — then you thought her the ugliest, most violent, 
 unchristian old maid — that was the most utterly with- 
 ering word in your vocabulary then — that ever lived; 
 when she unhanded you and said in that tone you just 
 hated, "Now take your seat," you felt murderous to- 
 ward her, but you had received sufficient for the pres- 
 ent, and walked foggily back and wriggled into your 
 seat, to sit there sulky, befuddled, indignant, planning 
 some dire revenge in the years to come. But the years 
 have come and gone, and as you look back at those days 
 when you must have been a veritable nuisance and pest, 
 
40 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 she comes back to you through the mist and haze, not 
 as a dragon, but as a friend ; not as one who would hurt, 
 but help. You only wonder now how she could have 
 been so patient with you, and you recall how, when at 
 last, she said goodbye to you, she kissed your forehead 
 and admonished you to grow up good. Where is she 
 now, you wonder. You would like to tell her you be- 
 lieved that her methods were the right ones, and that 
 you believe that she shook some of the eussedness out 
 of you and slapped some good in. 
 
 The impressions that come to us forcibly are the ones 
 that linger, the salient things in life, and it is yet a 
 question to be solved if it is not necessary to inaugurate 
 or retain some forceful methods of old days, when im- 
 pressions were made lasting through the medium of 
 that old schoolroom ferule or that never-to-be-forgotten 
 strap which the professor laid so tellingly over your 
 anatomy. It seems as if a child would grow tired of the 
 gentleness that so permeates the atmosphere of the kin- 
 dergarten room, and would be driven, from sheer con- 
 trariness, which is an ingredient of human nature, to 
 be wicked; or sometimes later this quality would crop 
 out and there would be let loose the pent-up instincts 
 that had been so long imprisoned. It seems as if one 
 would tire of being always led, and would want to see 
 how it would seem to be driven. Perhaps children get 
 so imbued, however, with the spirit of gentleness that 
 the baser qualities are forever smothered. Those of us who 
 ceased abruptly doing what we wanted to, at '*Stop 
 that this instant,'' or gave up some settled determina- 
 tion when it had been flogged out of us, rather cling to 
 the old-fashioned notion that force is sometimes neces- 
 
PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 41 
 
 sary to bring results. Possibly the next generation, 
 graduates of the sweet and gentle methods of the kin- 
 dergarten, may prove that we are wrong, but we still 
 assert that those things taught or untaught us by those 
 harsh instruments of persuasion were the things that 
 impressed us most. 
 
 COLORS. 
 
 Eugene Field, in one of his whimsical rhymes, says : 
 
 ^^Any color, as long as ifs red, 
 Is the color that suits me best.^^ 
 
 We are led to wonder just what is the nature of that 
 particular influence that makes any one color a favor- 
 ite over all others, and in what specific part of our 
 anatomy is located the pleasurable sensation that we 
 feel over one certain shade or tint. Is it wholly in our 
 eye, or does it strike some sensitive chord or nerve or 
 disc in our delicate and labyrinthine architecture? Are 
 we born with a fancy for some certain color, hidden 
 away somewhere in the tiny and tortuous brain cells; 
 does the enjoyment come later, from association with 
 some sentiment which has seized hold on us away back 
 in the hazy formation period of our existence; or does 
 it come to be a joy to us on account of its environment 
 at some certain time when we were especially suscepti- 
 ble to its influence? 
 
 Love of color seems as inexplicable and as arbitrary 
 as* the names that are triflingly bestowed on wizened 
 and helpless infants, with an inaptness that becomes 
 
42 FEOM HERE AND THEEE 
 
 grotesque. How often a lily is dumpy, dark and ex- 
 pansive; Violet, tall, bold and impertinent; a Daisy 
 who ought to be a peony ; a Belle who developed into a 
 wall flower; Grace who was as angular as the jackass 
 problem in geometry; a May who chilled one like an 
 Icelandic December. George Washington shaved me 
 three times a week for years; I knew an Aaron Burr 
 who was respectable, and a Daniel Webster who cleaned 
 the streets in one of our great cities; a Napoleon who 
 drew a foaming glass of beer, and passed it over to 
 Henry Yvard Beecher, who drank it. There was a 
 Grant who was timid as a speckled trout, and a Mozart 
 who did not know a bar of music from a sand bar. It 
 is unfair to fasten to a defenseless infant a name that 
 may become as embarrassing and burdensome as Chris- 
 tian's sin pack, which it may be compelled to carry for 
 eighty years. Yet it would be hardly the wise thing to 
 leave a child nameless until it could choose for itself. 
 If this should become the custom, then the musical 
 Mary, the sweet sounding Constance, the rhythmic Mar- 
 garet would speedily disappear from our vocabulary, 
 while Phyllis, Gladys, Myrtella, Evelina would reign 
 supreme in the feminine world. 
 
 Naturally one associates with a certain color, the 
 general appearance of the person who admires it. I 
 knew a man who is a devotee to pink. One immediately 
 and instinctively pictures that man as a dapper little 
 fellow, who delights in the delicate, the dainty, the gen- 
 tle. He is exquisite and dandified, isn't he? But he 
 isn't. He weighs two hundred and fifty pounds. He 
 is practical and undemonstrative, not having a senti- 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THERE 43 
 
 mental fiber in him. It seemed funny that he admired 
 pink. 
 
 So love of color is an erratic elf, sailing hither and 
 thither, touching here and there in a wayward, vagrant, 
 freakish way which scientist and philosopher have tried 
 vainly to follow. For myself I cannot remember when 
 I did not like yellow. Once, when I was a little boy in 
 school, a young teacher came to teach in the old white 
 school house, where we were striving with spasmodic 
 endeavor to crowd our budding brain cells with rudi- 
 ments of what we were told was knowledge. The first 
 time I saw her she wore a yellow waist. Eleven years 
 afterward I married her. Sometimes I have wondered, 
 since, if I liked yellow because she wore it, or loved her 
 because she wore yellow. At all events the combination 
 was sufficiently attractive to establish an important ac- 
 tion in life. Probably everyone has some association 
 with a favorite color which is called to mind when it 
 greets the eye, but investigation has failed so far to re- 
 veal to us how and why some certain tint appeals to us, 
 and becomes a reigning favorite in the color world. 
 
 Our topic naturally suggests some gorgeous grouping, 
 such as glows in a flower garden, offering a banquet of 
 beauty to the disciple at this gay shrine. Nature has 
 given us nothing in all the world that can rival the 
 tint of the flower, for it has in it the touch of the In- 
 finite, and we stand before it bewildered at its loveli- 
 ness. Little wonder that every poet wanders to the 
 fliower garden for inspiration to exalt his song, and that 
 hither the artist hastens for the richest colors with 
 which to anoint his brush. A riot of color we find in 
 it, a luxury of tint, a daintiness of perfume, the magic 
 
44 PEOM HERE AND THEEE 
 
 of which enthralls the devotee to the flower kingdom, 
 and subjugates to its gentle tyranny every lover of the 
 beautiful. 
 
 We naturally and quickly associate color with our 
 charming womankind^ which itself beautifies color as 
 much as color can adorn it, but color has only an insignifi- 
 cant part in the personal appearance of circumscribed, 
 impoverished man. His only opportunity, for two- 
 thirds of a century, to become identified with the color 
 world, has been confined to a red necktie, or a striped 
 stocking, and that, even, is debarred from social prom- 
 inence. Color is the author of some of our most po- 
 tent material pleasures. Sometimes we feel that our 
 most delightful sensation comes 
 
 ^^When the green, you know, gets back in the trees." 
 
 That color seems so restful then, so hopeful and full of 
 promise. Maturity never quite forgets, and childhood 
 ever revels in the brilliant red chariot of circus day, as 
 the glittering pageant moves gaily down the village 
 street; but that bright and inspiring color thrills us 
 most when its ribboned bars float proudly out as the 
 breeze plays merrily with '*01d Glory.'' Nature's un- 
 rivaled tint in Heaven's high arch, or that matchless 
 blue in the depths of our great lakes or old ocean's won- 
 drous hue, fringed with its caps of white, leave us beg- 
 gared of description. Even somber black becomes a 
 charming color, when it forms a contrast with the white 
 and rounded shoulders of beautiful womanhood, but 
 with all adjectives exhausted, we stand silent in that 
 room over which is cast the glow of ripe, rich, full-fla- 
 vored yellow. The admirer of the beautiful stands 
 
FKOM HERE AND THEEE 45 
 
 dumb before the golden sunset, or, when the placid 
 waters of some inland lake reflect back that incompar- 
 able tint, whose compound only nature holds the secret. 
 When the fields have put off their pretty green gar- 
 ments and robed themselves in brown; when radiant 
 summer has yielded to dingy fall, the brightest effects 
 on the landscape are the heaps of yellow com among 
 the faded shocks, and the round, golden pumpkins 
 bringing a vision of winter prandial joys. 
 
 The flash of the scarlet tanager among the treetops 
 challenges our admiration; we love the dusky robin 
 with his auburn breast; the bunting in his gown of 
 blue; we laugh at the saucy jay with his clearly 
 marked dress, as he tosses his pert little topknot in 
 cunning coquetry; the black- winged golden oriole is a 
 very beau of birddom^ and the beautifully marked par- 
 tridge looks a little king, as he struts back and forth 
 along his throne, a forest log, and spreads his exquisite 
 plumage. Yet all these little feathered beauties, each 
 with his individual and potent charm, must bow in sub- 
 mission, as into their midst flashes the quick-winged, 
 dainty, yellow bird, with his bright yet modest gown 
 and timid air. As children we have all stood in front 
 of an overflowing store window at Christmastide, and 
 as we gazed longingly at the luxuriant display spread 
 out in tempting view, each has picked out some special 
 thing of beauty, and pointing, ^dth ardent wish for its 
 possession, has trebled: ^^I choose that.'' 
 
 So, of all the beautiful colors which Infinity has 
 spread abroad for our enjoyment, and woven into Na- 
 ture's enchanting display in every department of her 
 broad domain, I choose yellow. 
 
46 FKOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 PAVEMENT PICTURES. 
 
 My office window opens upon the main street of a lit- 
 tle city situated in the lake region of northern Michi- 
 gan, and this lazy summer afternoon I have been sit- 
 ting, watching the busy, restless life on the thorough- 
 fare below. The leaves of the Carolina poplars which 
 line the street intersecting mine, half a block away, are 
 twisting and shivering in the light breeze, casting an 
 ever-changing and dense shade upon the heated side- 
 walk. The hoarse cough of a railway locomotive, over- 
 burdened vdth its load, comes to my ear from far down 
 the track, and the pitiless sun, in wanton possession of 
 a cloudless sky, pours down upon this helpless planet a 
 scorching heat, which the intervening million of miles 
 seem powerless to temper. That soft midsummer quie- 
 tude has laid its touch on human and inanimate alike. 
 Even the rattle of the delivery wagons on the street 
 seems to partake somewhat of the general lassitude, and 
 gives forth a lazy sound. The pedestrians move in an 
 unambitious way. Even the cool, filmy garments vnth 
 which femininity has clothed itself, while adding to the 
 attractiveness of the panorama, fail to give an appear- 
 ance of coolness to the parching atmosphere. What 
 brings so many people out on this torrid day? Where 
 are they going, what planning, what thinking? How 
 many of them are contented with what they are getting 
 out of life and how many are building those fragile cas- 
 tles in the air whose construction is so pleasurable and 
 whose destruction so sure ? 
 
 Across the street just outside a grocery store, stands 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THERE 47 
 
 a girl eating cherries from a box set out as an exhibit. 
 Inside of the store the proprietor is putting up her or- 
 der. I wonder if he likes to have her eat his cherries? 
 She looks bewitching in her summer apparel, but that 
 does not, in any way, lessen the destructive effect she is 
 producing on the profits of that cherry box. She might 
 make some reparation for the loss she has occasioned 
 the grocer, by telling her friends she may chance to 
 meet that the corner grocery has delicious cherries. But 
 she will not do that. She will take her bundle when 
 it is ready and hasten away, forgetting the despoiled 
 grocer and his vanished profits, while the taste of the 
 toothsome cherries lingers with her, and she will gos- 
 sip with the first friend she meets on some topic quite 
 foreign to fruit or corner groceries. She has taken 
 her purchase now and departed, and a man has taken 
 her place at the cherry box. He ought to know better. 
 A man understands more fully than a woman what a 
 racking struggle it is to keep the balance on the right 
 side of the ledger, and how diminutive are the profits 
 for most of us in every undertaking in life. 
 
 The man just passing on the opposite side is a saloon 
 keeper. He has been successful in life, as the world 
 measures success, from the financial standpoint. To all 
 outward appearances he is contented and happy. Per- 
 haps inwardly he is, too. It does seem, though, as if 
 the nightmares would kick out of life all the pleasure 
 he might accumulate. I wonder if the saloon keeper 
 believes in anything beyond this existence. It would 
 be mighty interesting to know, but maybe he would 
 consider that a personal matter, and none of my busi- 
 ness. A little while ago a poor wretch became drunk 
 
48 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 in a saloon, and growing boisterous, the proprietor, 
 fearing his place might not be considered respectable, 
 called upon an officer to arrest the offender and take 
 him to jail. The next morning the culprit was taken 
 up into the police court and ordered to pay a fine for 
 his indiscretion, or go back to jail. This seems like an 
 inconsistency of life, or government. Of course the sa- 
 loon keeper has been licensed to make men drunk, but 
 then we are called upon to pay for police protection and 
 for the trial and conviction of men who are made crim- 
 inals by this institution. Queer condition of affairs. I 
 wonder how infinite wisdom would regulate this busi- 
 ness. 
 
 That man just being driven by, looking so wan and 
 deathlike, can only live a little while. He is stricken 
 with a fatal malady. No one can possibly know the 
 thoughts of one in his position. To meet death sudden- 
 ly, or face it for a brief time only seems less terrible, 
 but to sit and wait, watching its slow approach, its 
 daunting presence following one as the eyes of a por- 
 trait on the wall, that must be an appalling situation. 
 Of what is that poor fellow thinking? Does he see a 
 ray of sunshine as he looks into the uncertainty before 
 him, or are the hours heavy with forebodings of that 
 which is coming so surely and so soon? Does he look 
 with dread at that closed door, presently to be opened 
 to him, solving the great mystery, or from every form 
 of nature does he gleam a hope of immortality? To us 
 who are breathing every day the hope of more tomor- 
 rows, these thoughts come but vaguely. On the edge 
 of the grave what are they? Life, as we know it, even 
 with its trials, its struggles, its anguish, is after all a 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 49 
 
 beautiful thing. The shadows could not appear were 
 there no sunshine, and while every mortal feels that life 
 is far from satisfying, yet we shrink from leaving it. 
 All the promises of brighter, more glorious things be- 
 yond it, do not wean us from it and we struggle piti- 
 fully to stay. We may theorize as to the future, but 
 that is futile. We can only bide our time. 
 
 A man and a cow have just appeared in the picture. 
 They seem to be at variance over something. Perhaps 
 as to which way they should go, or the speed at which 
 they should travel. They are at each end of a rope, but 
 the controlling spirit is the brute, as is often true in life. 
 Just now the pair passed my window, and the man was 
 telling the cow in unseemly language, between jerks, 
 what he was going to do to her, but he did not do it, for 
 at that moment he was interrupted, and he struck the 
 road with the noise of a hod of brick falling from a 
 skyscraper. The cow heard him and stopped to see 
 what had happened. A look of pity came over her as 
 she saw the dazed condition of the dusty, bedraggled 
 bit of humanity, but when she saw he was still holding 
 his end of the rope, the fire lit up her eye again. She 
 lowered her horns, whisked her tail viciously, like a 
 witch's broom sweeping cobwebs, and made a sudden 
 and effectual movement. The man went into the air, 
 and hastily descended with force enough to dent the 
 pavement. Why don't the fool let go. That last ascen- 
 sion has satisfied his ambition, and with the whole rope 
 to herself, amid the jeering shouts from crowds gath- 
 ered along the sidewalk, she is careering down the 
 street, her heels cutting fancy figures in the atmosphere, 
 like the broken arms of a windmill in a hurricane. The 
 
50 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 sequel to this performance will come when the man 
 meets the cow again, but that is another story. 
 
 A colored woman is just passing. Of course she is 
 occupying some menial position somewhere. One won- 
 ders why this distinctive color of skin was given to any- 
 one in this world. Perhaps it was given for the sake 
 of variety. It is an exceedingly expensive variety, 
 though, for those who possess it. If, as has been some- 
 times asserted, it is a punishment, some one must have 
 gone badly wrong away back in the formation period 
 to entail such a distinctive mark on a whole race. How 
 can any quality that infinite wisdom bestows upon a 
 people atone for this burden? There can be no resti- 
 tution for it in this world, anyway. People of this race 
 may be given the five or ten talents so picturesquely 
 described in biblical history ; they may double them in 
 accordance with divine instruction; they may possess 
 all the qualities which win a way for people who have 
 been given a chance in the world, but no power has 
 yet been able to give to this race the one thing craved 
 by every living being — position and opportunity in the 
 world. It is one of the great life problems in this coun- 
 try, this race problem, and injustice predominates to a 
 degree that is unreasonable and iniquitous, when brains 
 and character count nothing against the color of a skin. 
 We are told by some philosopher, which one I do not 
 know, for philosophy has become such a tangled thing 
 that we get mixed in our philosophy — that life has its 
 compensations. I would like to hear someone enumer- 
 ate the compensations for being black. They must come 
 with the solving of those other mysteries, beyond our 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 51 
 
 earthly ken, and if they do come in that unknowable 
 hereafter, they must be very great. 
 
 The man just passing with the rolling gait and sun- 
 burned face has been a sailor. The tan seems fairly to 
 be blown and burned into the skin of the men who have 
 spent their lives on the water. The experience of the 
 man across the way has not been gained on canal boats 
 nor the craft of the great lakes, but on vessels tossed 
 on the restless bosom of the ocean, and he has touched 
 at the ports of the Orient. He bears on his hand and 
 arm the inevitable insignia of sailor life, the blue tat- 
 too. How enticingly Mark Twain would weave together 
 the experiences of this man; how picturesquely John 
 Stoddard would have painted the harbors where he has 
 anchored; how Riley would have touched us could he 
 put his life in poetry; or Howell's clever pen have 
 sketched his character did that brilliant author seek for 
 his people on the sea. The experiences of this sailor 
 would be a broad education for many a man, but to 
 him it was only a means of livelihood. We sometimes 
 think we could offer valuable suggestions to the Creator 
 regarding the running of this universe, but after all, 
 things are pretty well leveled and arranged. With our 
 diverse dispositions, ambitions and desires there is a 
 nearer approach to contentment than we could know, 
 were we all looking in the same direction. What a 
 hurly-burly we would be in if everybody was headed 
 for the same goal. There would be more broken hearts, 
 to say nothing of broken heads, if our tastes, ambitions, 
 desires were all alike, for ambition and selfish desires 
 do not partake of generosity, and we battle for what 
 we want, little caring if someone else wants it, too. So 
 
52 PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 it is fortunate that our desires are varied, and that 
 their fulfillment means, for some pleasure, to others 
 work and study, and to others^ still, utility only. 
 
 There is a very neat little exhibition of child discipline 
 being carried out on the opposite side of the street. That 
 is, it appears neat to me. There is no more willing, not 
 to say censorious, judge as to the best methods of bring- 
 ing up children than the person who has no children 
 to bring up. This is quite a common trait in humanity, 
 this knowledge as to the way to bring up other people's 
 children, and from personal experience having no chil- 
 dren of my own, I see the full force of it. I have many 
 times found myself watching and disapproving of the 
 methods of my friends in disciplining their children, 
 realizing how much better I could do it myself. So I 
 am watching this little episode yonder, but give the 
 method being adopted there my approval. The child 
 in this picture I should judge to be about three years 
 of age, and it is behaving in a most unseemly manner. 
 It is going along crying in a loud and angry tone of 
 voice. The mother is about ten feet ahead of the child, 
 but is paying no more attention to it than if it did not 
 belong to her at all. She is walking so erectly that 
 a plummet would hang true along her spinal column, 
 and displays a most impressive dignity. The child has 
 thrown itself down on the sidewalk, now, and is yelling 
 like a demon, but the mother does not turn her head 
 the sixteenth of an inch, and there is a little more vigor 
 in the stiffness of her back. The situation seems to 
 have dawned on the child, for the uncivilized howls are 
 fading into a half -terrified wail, and now it has picked 
 itself up and trotted after its mother. Just before they 
 
FROM HERE AXD THERE 53 
 
 turned the corner at the end of the block, the . child 
 slipped its little hand into the waiting one of its mother, 
 and they are looking into each other's faces with con- 
 fidence and happiness restored. That is what I call dis- 
 cipline. 
 
 There goes a man along the street pushing a wheel- 
 barrow full of horseshoes. He must be seeking good 
 luck by wholesale. What strange things our supersti- 
 tions are, anyway. Yet there are few of us who do not 
 have some little one tucked away somewhere within our 
 anatomy. We look with some apprehension at an act 
 perpetrated on Friday; the silver rim of a new moon 
 looks more attractive if it appears first on our star- 
 board quarter ; our spinal nerve grows chilly if we find 
 ourselves seated with thirteen at table, while we actual- 
 ly like the feel of a rabbit's foot in our pocket. Fool- 
 ish fancies, of course, and yet they sometimes influence 
 action. Horseshoes seem like commonplace things to 
 base a superstition on; they are too easy to procure. 
 Surely there would be less of misfortune in the world 
 did horseshoes really bring good luck. How many 
 Black Beautj^ histories are concealed in that barrow of 
 old shoes, I wonder. Probably there is not one romance 
 in the whole collection. It is not likely that one of those 
 worn shoes has ever passed under the wire on the swift- 
 ly pattering foot of a gamey racer, while the grand- 
 stand thundered with plaudits; probably not one has 
 ever pressed the sawdust ring with its attendant pomp 
 and glitter; not one adorned the foot of a charger 
 where the battle surged and thundered, nor a hoof that 
 was proudly lifted before the multitude as the wearer 
 pranced and pirouetted^ bearing on his back some famed 
 
54 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 general or admiral or civilian. More likely is it that 
 those now worthless shoes have plodded along in the 
 freshly turned furrow; or been worn thin by a cab 
 horse trotting along the busy thoroughfare; or per- 
 chance they may have belonged to the feet of some ple- 
 beian nag, attempting patrician airs as he drew the 
 Goddess of Liberty car at some rural celebration, while 
 the country band blared forth its strains of agony ; yet 
 others of these old shoes may have clung loosely to the 
 foot of a worn out veteran as he hobbled wearily along 
 on that last journey that ends at the knacker's yard. 
 
 THE SHIRT WAIST. 
 
 When a certain convention of women^s clubs de- 
 clared that the shirt waist was an improper habiliment 
 for any delegate in that august assembly, it promul- 
 gated a heartless, prosaic unenlightened doctrine. From 
 whatever standpoint it is regarded, it was an unreason- 
 able discrimination, whether considered hygienically, ar- 
 tistically, or from a viewpoint of comfort, beauty, util- 
 ity or economy. 
 
 In just what era the shirt waist made its appearance 
 as a bit of feminine adornment, no one seems to know. 
 While biblical pictorial history gives no evidence that 
 it was in vogue at so early a day, yet the serene com- 
 fort that it appears to bring to its wearer would seem 
 to place it in the Garden of Eden period. Such a the- 
 ory must be speedily abandoned, however, as no painter 
 nor sculptor, upon whom we are compelled to rely for 
 our ideas of very early personages, ever, in wildest 
 
FEOM HERE AND THERE 55 
 
 flights of imagination, gave us an Eve clothed in a shirt 
 waist. So, it made its advent later, and must be re- 
 garded as a link in the evolutionary movement in dress. 
 The fashion plates extant in the days following the 
 creation must have been lost in the flood, but we fancy 
 the garments of that hazy period were scant, ill-fltting 
 and gawkey — perhaps fashioned from animal skins, or 
 woven from plant life. It is only when history has 
 ushered us into the presence of the Greek and Roman 
 that we begin to grow interested in clothes, and every 
 now and then, even in this advanced day, some fair 
 maiden emerges in a pretty gown akin to the graceful, 
 flowing garments that must have added much of attrac- 
 tiveness and beauty to those splendid avenues, both of 
 Athens and of Rome. Charming as must have been the 
 feminine dress of that day, there are many modern 
 modes that are decoyingly bewitching, so that it is only 
 to man need come the lons^ing^ for a return to the nattv 
 tunic or the graceful toga. For lo, these many years 
 masculine ambition has been sadly embarrassed in 
 dress; and the opportunity for the exercise of creative 
 genius has been distressingly small. Length of coat or 
 breadth of trousers gives little chance for diversity, or 
 the display of imagination, so styles, as applied to 
 men^s garments are pathetic in paucity. In only one 
 particular do pantaloons remain changeless and unal- 
 terable — they always bag at the knee. The man who 
 possesses the cleverness to invent a pair of bagless pants 
 can laugh to scorn the paltry fortunes acquired through 
 the medium of Beaman's Pepsin Gum, Peruna, or Ly- 
 dia Pinkham's Compound. The burden of giving any 
 gaiety or radiancy to man's attire seems to have fallen 
 
56 FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 
 
 on the half-concealed vest, and gallant and frequent 
 have been the endeavors to make this raiment popular 
 and attractive, but at each attempt the festive, brilliant 
 waistcoat has faded from the landscape, and toppled 
 into oblivion. From our present standpoint the possi- 
 bility of man ever being able to add anything to the 
 brightness or beauty of things, seems so trivial as to 
 be hardly worth mentioning. Once, driven to audacity 
 by sheer desperation, man made a valiant dash into the 
 shirt waist realm, but his repulse was both prompt and 
 disconcerting. He was persona non grata in all public 
 places. The garment was too closely akin to shirt 
 sleeves and every man knows when and where they are 
 permissible — time^ after nightfall; place, his back yard. 
 Things were different, once. In other more felicitous 
 days men had a share in the beautiful things of life, and 
 added a little to the picturesqueness of their surround- 
 ings. Then they were attired in beauteous colored coats, 
 with rich trimmings, and adorned with shining buttons. 
 Then they had those silk and satin knee breeches, with 
 a wealth of color to choose from, and bright toned 
 stockings, gaily bedecked vests from beneath which 
 peeped the elegantly ruffled shirt front. That was an 
 age when there must have been some satisfaction in 
 having clothes. Then man was doing his share toward 
 brightening the picture, but now he is only a foil to the 
 brilliancy of the gay and tasteful dress of lovely wom- 
 anhood. Each nation seems, at some time, to have some 
 particular style of garment, which was originally its 
 own, though afterward it may have gained, in a cer- 
 tain degree, a cosmopolitan character. In the general 
 distribution of apparel, however, the shirt waist seems 
 
FEOM HERE AND THERE 57 
 
 to have been awarded to America, and to have remained 
 true to its habitat. It is as distinctly an American in- 
 stitution as Bunker Hill Monument, the Irish police- 
 man or the unlettered millionaire. The shirt waist is 
 a most familiar friend, a domestic ally, an ever-pleasing 
 vision. In chambre it commands the kitchen; in lawn, 
 through the torrid summer, in flannel throughout the 
 chilly winter, it brightens and adorns the avenue; in 
 silk and satin, in fancy forms, it enriches the reception 
 room. Collectively it presents a picture of kaliedo- 
 scopic brilliancy. Whether appearing in the tantaliz- 
 ing opaque or the bewitching peek-a-boo it must ever 
 claim a loyal host of ardent and approving devotees. 
 
 In the ever-changing customs of feminine dress arises 
 the ever-recurring discussion as to what constitutes 
 beauty of form. Is it more comely when confined with- 
 in the somewhat prescribed limits of the tight-fitting 
 corset, or when left in free and unrestricted ugliness. 
 This will doubtless always be a mooted question, and 
 this is not the proper court for its adjustment. At all 
 events, garments have been a part of the great move- 
 ment of evolution, in form, at least, if not always in 
 beauty. We cannot afford to despise dress, nor its value 
 in enhancing our appearance, for we owe it to those 
 with whom we are associated, as well as to ourselves, to 
 look as well as we can. The facial formation of most of 
 us is not so artistic that we can afford to scorn any em- 
 bellishment of surroundings. The dowdy woman is an 
 offense, a misfit, a clown. It is not an evidence of su- 
 periority, independence nor good sense to despise be- 
 coming clothes. Neatness is an attractive quality which 
 reaches perfection in the well-selected, sprucely fitting 
 
5S FEOM HEEE AJfD THEEE 
 
 shirt waist. Even though aa autocratic women's con- 
 vention stamped it ''disapproved," the masculine por- 
 tion of this nation, at least, applauds the shirt waist, 
 and would joyously embrace its wearer. 
 
 BACILLI. 
 
 Science has been tremendously busy these last few 
 years, and we are reaping the benefit. What did our 
 fathers and mothers know of microbes and of bacilli? 
 What more do we know than that they seem to be an 
 omnipresent^ omnivorous and omnipotent quantity, and 
 at the same time infinitesimal ? Our ancestors had colds 
 just as we do, but how little they understood that the 
 cause of the discomfort was a little bug syndicate hold- 
 ing a session in the front chamber of their intellectual 
 temple. A cold is a doubly disagreeable thing when one 
 views it from this standpoint. Uninvited guests are 
 never very acceptable, but when they come with such 
 explicitly hostile intent, one naturally grows blood- 
 thirsty towards them. 
 
 Every disease which seizes upon poor humanity, in 
 these days of advanced thought and research, seems to 
 be resultant from attacks of these squirming, malignant 
 atoms. Illness has never been a thing much sought af- 
 ter nor regarded as desirable; but before science in- 
 serted its probe into the mysteries of sickness it was 
 considered in a measure proper. Now it does not pos- 
 sess even respectability. 
 
 The human body then has become the abiding place 
 of all styles and species of bugs — serviceable, kind, dis- 
 
PEOM HEEE AND THEEE 59 
 
 reputable, and malevolent. We eat them, drink them, 
 breathe them, absorb them; indeed, we seem to be able 
 to do everything but expel them. Horrid thought ! We 
 shrink from the feeling that after we are dead, the 
 crawling things of earth feed on our insensate flesh; 
 but to know that we go about daily, gorged with bacilli, 
 which we are liable to impart to anyone with whom we 
 may come in contact — ^that is positively abhorrent. 
 
 The most pitiless proposition laid down by the med- 
 ical fraternity, however, is that there are bacilli in 
 kisses. If researches of this character are allowed to 
 continue, cold, harsh, remorseless science will rob life 
 of all that makes it sweet, joyous, and harmonious. 
 Women — some women, not all — have confidentially 
 averred that a kiss is much more palatable from mus- 
 taehed lips; and now science unpityingly replies that 
 the mustache is the bacilli's paradise, that within it 
 they caper, flourish, and expand. 
 
 Scientific investigation would apparently go to any 
 length, even robbing courtship of all its beatitude. 
 Think of a proposal, with all of its attending ecstacies 
 forbidden, because in the rapturous embrace and meet- 
 ing of the lips, there might be an exchange of bacilli. 
 This bogey will never gain any substantial footing in 
 this world. He demands too great a sacrifice. The 
 moonlight ride, the evening stroll, the secluded dell, the 
 swinging hammock, the shady porch, the gliding skiff, 
 with their absolutely necessary condiments, all ruth- 
 lessly forbidden by these insatiate bacilli. It can never 
 be. 
 
 All this expert knowledge of microbes and microbe 
 life must be an interesting study to the scientist, for it 
 
60 PEOM HERE AND THERE 
 
 is a wonderful discovery. To be able to go microbe 
 hunting and be successful; to follow these Infinitesimal 
 creatures to their lair ; to bottle them, to classify them ; 
 to find the correct bacillicide, requires research that is 
 appalling. Yet one sometimes wonders if this knowl- 
 edge is not for the scientific world alone ; if it were not 
 just as well, were it less bruited and less disseminated. 
 Only science can grapple with the affair, anyway ; only 
 scientific investigation can master it. The layman is ut- 
 terly powerless before this novel discovery and his self- 
 respect would be greater, were he ignorant of it. 
 
 With all the increase of knowledge along these lines 
 disease and death go on; some forms increasing; new 
 methods seming ever less effective than the simple ones 
 of our forefathers.. After all, are we so much farther 
 advanced than those who established the foundations 
 upon which we have built? We live faster, to be sure, 
 but that may be due to the more rapid movement of 
 our bacilli. 
 
 During all the years preceding this discovery of 
 germ life, before bacteriology itself was born, where 
 were these innumerable microbes? Have they come 
 with our so-called progress, and is the possession of ba- 
 cilli an evidence of culture and advanced civilization? 
 Of course if it is, we must accept it, and be willing to 
 sacrifice ourselves to the extent of being peripatetic ba- 
 cilli tenements. Yet it must be confessed that the 
 thought is somwhat humiliating. There is something 
 strange in the fact, v/hich must be acknowledged, that 
 what we term a higher civilization, a greater culture, 
 and advanced citizenship, brings shorter lives, more 
 diseases, debilitated bodies, and a greater amount of 
 
FEOM HEEE AND THEEE 61 
 
 physical suffering. We are in no way qualified to un- 
 dergo the hardships of our fathers. True, the life they 
 led looks to us unendurable; so dull, narrow, and un- 
 eventful. They surpassed us in one thing, though — they 
 didn't have bacilli, or if they did, they were not de- 
 meaned by the knowledge of them. 
 
 Bacteriology has recently discovered a new species of 
 bacillus. It is a gas generator. Once this little malign- 
 ant creature gets burrowed in its victim's anatomy a 
 gas is formed, and the afflicted party degenerates into 
 an inflated gas bag, although he be not a politician. 
 When the victim is punctured, the gas escapes and 
 bums with a blue flame. Had Nero known of this ba- 
 cillic phenomenon, he might have inoculated all the 
 Christians in Rome, then pricked them in numerous 
 places, and given his friends even a more spectacular 
 and refined entertainment than that with which he ac- 
 tuUy regaled them. 
 
 Doubtless scientific investigation has much in store 
 for us still ; but let us hope that subsequent revelations 
 will be less unkind than those that unveiled the lively 
 bacillus. 
 
 The End. 
 
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