THE VAN DYKE BOOK 1 « fl i I'^^m::,' K- ^^^^H" \ r-tt ■■ril^ii fe-- ^^^^^^K * " "^ *'»' , ' f » , - '^ "• r ■ : iH p*--- 'f^ ^' ^^^■i '' ^' ■c^'f'''^^^^^^^^ ^^ Mm ^ "--■" ^K^^-'' ^^ 1 " tf ,.•- -If . ^^H V: '*vV;':''A^*|^^^ ^ 1 r_. ^^m^ ^ •- 5' -^"^'i-H'^^BI -^ ««^ iK- ^m$'ii^^^^M Jl m l^^^^^Kr^'ir^^i-ti'^ ^.S^j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ft '*'l M Uf* n mmm Wm^.. ...... ;Hk^ ./ ' ' 1 ► * J ^^^.^P i * f "^ ^^^ *>> ■ »'.v;,. ^ fcuJt,^KjlJ^ Y*. tA.^*0*^*t JA ^k THE VAN DYKE BOOK SELECTED FROM THE WRITINGS OF HENRY VAN DYKE EDITED BY EDWIN MIMS, PH.D. A NEW EDITION REVISED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT ILLUSTRATED CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON vVU Copyright, 1895, 1897, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1917, 1919, 1921, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Copyright, 1906, by harper BROTHERS FFB -7 ('S/j g)CI.A605691 ^'U^ ^ I THE FOOT-PATH TO PEACE To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be contented with your possessions, but not satisfied with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cow- ardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's out-of-doors—these are little guide-posts on the foot-path to peace. CONTENTS Introduction > 4 PAGE xiii PART I— OUT OF DOORS A Boy and a Rod 3 Little Rivers 9 Camping Out i6 the guides i6 RUNNING the RAPIDS . i8 THE TENT 21 A LITTLE FISHING 24 MORNING AND EVENING . 27 The Open Fire . . . , 30 LIGHTING UP . . 30 THE CAMP-FIRE . 33 THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE > 35 THE BIG SALMON . 38 SILVERHORNS . , 46 PART II— POEMS Birds in the Morning . The Song-Sparrow vii 63 65 vm Contents PAGE The Maryland Yellow-Throat . . 67 The Whip-Poor-Will .... . . 69 An Angler's Wish in Town . 71 America • 73 Doors of Daring 74 Reliance . ' 75 How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim • 76 The Name of France • 79 Peace-Hymn of the Republic . 81 PART in— STORIES The Keeper of the Light . The First Christmas-Tree . The Hero and Tin Soldiers The King's High Way . The King's Jewel 85 106 124 128 132 PART IV— THINGS TO REMEMBER The Arrow . Four Things Love and Light Might and Right Joy and Duty 139 139 139 140 140 Contents ix PAGE Work ......... 141 The Americanism of Washington . . .142 Literature . . . . . . . .166 Education . . . . . . . .167 Simplicity 169 PART V— STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE Story of the Author's Life from a Child's Point OF View ........ 173 Chronological Table of Henry van Dyke's Life 185 List of Works of Henry van Dyke . . .186 ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of Henry van Dyke . . Fronfisptecd^'^ FACING PAGE Henry van Dyke and Grandson . . . 20^ ''The Little Friendship-Fire" .... 32/^^ Lieutenant-Commander Henry van Dyke, U. S. N. R. F s^^ ''1 AM THE Keeper of the Light" . . . 98^ The Fields around Lay Bare to the Moon . no •^'^ INTRODUCTION There are so many angles from which it is possible to view the life and achievements of Henry van Dyke, a life just now rounding into the fulness of maturity, that at first glance it would seem diffi- cult to know just what angle to emphasize in an introduction of this kind. Here is a man who has been scholar, teacher, Presbyterian minister, essay- ist, lecturer, poet, short-story writer, diplomat, and even, during the war, a naval chaplain with the rank of lieutenant-commander, and who in all these under- takings has been uniformly successful — bewilderingly so. For years a noted preacher in New York, he turned to teaching and writing, making his home in Princeton, and in an unusually short time was discovered to be a poet of power, a short-story writer of power, a lecturer of power, the last not only in his university work but abroad throughout the country. A few years ago, being sent to Holland as United States Minister by President Wilson, he made an enviable record for himself at a time when the post at The Hague was perhaps the most difficult and delicate in Europe — a small and extremely im- portant island of peace in a sea of war. Here is a story, told me by an intimate friend, who was an eye-witness. I repeat it for reasons that you will understand later. It was during the first days of the xiii xiv Introduction war, when The Hague was crowded with panic- stricken Americans trying to get home. They stormed the ministry, overwhelmed the outer offices, refused to Hsten to the arguments or the commands of clerks or secretaries. Suddenly the large folding-doors lead- ing into an inner room were flung open, and Henry van Dyke stood in the entrance. In the little silence that followed he spoke. '*Are there any Americans here ? '* There was a puzzled but unanimous '* Yes ! " '*0h! I always understood that Americans allowed women the first chance/' The panic subsided, and the crowd melted away. Again, I recall an amusing and characteristic pic- ture of Doctor van Dyke at the time when we, our- selves, were entering the war. I had gone to him for his advice as to what branch of military service I should enter. Logically, and with his accustomed directness, his first words were: '*As you are well above the draft age, and the support of a growing family, you cannot, of course, think of any very dan- gerous branch." A few weeks later I came across him in the uniform of a lieutenant-commander in the navy. With the eagerness of a boy, and with a boy's flushed cheeks, he told me that not only had he been commissioned, but had, by dint of pertinacity on his part, I imagine, been promised a post, whenever pos- sible, in one of the ships in the first line of battle. I am glad to say that the war ended before he got this post. He, himself, was also ** beyond the draft age, and the head of a family.'* So you see, after all, it is not so difficult to know which angle of Henry van Dyke's life to choose to dwell upon in this introduction — an introduction Introduction xv going out to the youth of the country. The angle is the one of personaHty, of the man behind the preacher, the teacher, the writer, and the diplomat. Now a man's personality, provided he has attained to fame, is usually a very much misunderstood thing. To those who do not know him it is all too likely to be hidden beneath his work and his achievements, so that in the mind is built up an image of perfection or imperfection, according to literary or other tastes, quite inhuman and altogether at variance with actu- ality. On the other hand, those that know the man fairly well, the average of his acquaintanceship, suffer from a different and not quite so excusable near-sightedness. There is no trait of the human mind more common than the desire to belittle what- ever of eminence one happens to be thrown into con- tact with. What obscure motives of jealousy are involved it is difficult to say. The fact remains, how- ever, and the task of a biographer is invariably seri- ously handicapped by this twofold obfuscation: on the one hand, the casual and usually untruthful tales of the chance acquaintance; on the other, the casual and usually untruthful summations of the average reader. And yet, in the latter case, this should not be so. A man is very definitely and finally what he writes, and to discover what he is from his writings is a simple task. The former is an inescapable fact. It is far better and easier to decipher the character of an author from the context of his works than from any word of acquaintance or even of intimate friend. No matter how much a man may twist or turn, pose before the mirror of his own imagination, attempt to get away from himself, he cannot do so once he sits xvi Introduction down with a pen in his hand. He may deceive him- self, but he will never deceive the acute reader. A man is not made by his works, but the works are made by the man. Milton never spoke more clearly the truth than when he said: '*And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem. . . .'* And so Henry van Dyke is just what he seems to be in the extracts from his writings contained in this volume. It is a fine thing to be, is it not? / At the basis of this personality of his, it seems to me, is simplicity, sympathy, and a certain childlike eagerness — qualities, I might add, that are at the basis of all really great men's characters. He is sim- ple because he looks at things directly and hasn't time to be anything else but simple ; he is sympathetic because all life and all men interest him and because he was born with a quick heart. If he were not pos- sessed of the two latter traits — they are interactive and almost synonymous — he might have been fairly successful in other fields of endeavor, but he would surely not have been successful as a writer. He is childlike in eagerness, because the world is full of so many new and constantly to be discovered thoughts and places and faces that the years are not long enough for him to become old in. This eagerness is what has enabled him through youth and maturity to undertake and to put through finely and with gusto all . the varied tasks that have come to him, many of them suddenly and unexpectedly. One might say, using a simile that would please him, that Introduction xvii he has the point of view of the unwearying and en- thusiastic fisherman, each pool of hfe he approaches holding for his imagination the possibility of a new and shining catch. You are aware, as I have said before, that the pre- ceding paragraph is merely a summation of those things generally admitted to be the fundamental marks of all first-class men, and yet, although the world is well aware of this, none the less again is dis- covered a blindness on the part of most of us, because we know that to have achieved a certain position of eminence a man, especially an artist, must have sim- plicity, sympathy, and a large degree of childlike eagerness. In approaching him we expect from him, no matter what our message may be, an outward show of consistent perfection that we do not expect from lesser men, and which, if it existed, would indi- cate a very decided inward weakness and an entire lack of appreciation of the value of time. Doctor van Dyke does not abide fools eagerly, and he has a very quick and definite temper in the presence of what he considers stupidity and meanness and self- seeking and pretension. As a result, and as a great many people in the world are, at times, stupid or mean or self-seeking or pretentious, certain myths have grown up about him as they have grown up about Tennyson and Stevenson and Wordsworth and all other men of note, particularly when the men of note happen to be men of letters. It has been my good fortune to know Henry van Dyke with what I think I can claim is a fair degree of intimacy. First, I sat under him as an under- graduate at Princeton, both in his lecture courses xviii Introduction and his seminars; subsequently I was, for a few- years, In the same department of teaching, and his next-door neighbor; more recently, returning from time to time from a far-distant part of the United States, I have seen him whenever I could. In other words, I have been able to look at him with the eyes of a student, a fellow worker, a neighbor, a ranchman, and lately those of a fellow writer. Now I claim that the eyes of a student, a neighbor, and a ranchman are singularly clear eyes, and that the first and the last are singularly acute and critical. It Is Impossible to fool a student In any very broad way; he has the untrained but penetrating perspective of youth. A ranchman lives In a country where he learns to disregard unessentlals. As to a writer, al- though I would claim for that vocation no particular clarity of vision where another's personality Is con- cerned. In his profession a writer meets so many peo- ple who are not what they should be, that more than most men Is he Inclined to rejoice when he meets one who Is. From many memories of Henry van Dyke, three pick themselves out In my mind as essentially char- acteristic, as memories I particularly wish to pre- serve, and, where the last two are concerned, wish to duplicate. To begin with, there Is a crowded lecture- room with the sun streaming Into It, and perhaps a hundred young men or so, naturally Inattentive, at the moment completely absorbed, and amongst them a goodly number, at least, who find themselves in the position of one young man who Is suddenly lifted up and caught up and held by the thrilling beauty of words. Reincarnation Is a difficult thing Introduction xix to accomplish ; so difficult that I should say that only a poet himself can reincarnate the poetry and per- sonality and thoughts of poets who are dead. When such a thing is accomplished, it is, at all events, an exciting matter, even to those least disposed to be- come excited. This is the particular reason why Henry van Dyke is a teacher not to be forgotten, and an outstanding critic, incidentally, of Tennyson. My second essential memory of Doctor van Dyke IS of him in his home here in Princeton, **Avalon,'' so named because he is a lover of Tennyson, and after which he has named the collected edition of his works, published this year by Scribner's. Here is what he has to say about it in the foreword to the Avalon Edition: "This edition is named after the old house where I live — ^when not on a journey, or gone a-fishing, or following up some piece of work that calls me far away. **It is a pleasant camp, this Avalon, with big, friendly trees around it, and an ancient garden be- hind it, and memories of the American Revolution built into its walls, and the gray towers of Prince- ton University just beyond the tree-tops. ..." It is, indeed, "a pleasant camp" and a fitting one, and in it is a library, a large, book-lined room, with an open fire, and good smoking- tobacco, and framed pictures, and letters, the signatures of which are ex- tremely stirring. Stevenson, I think it was, who spoke of conversation as the cream of life. It is rapidly becoming skimmed milk in America, in this age of slang, and hurry, and specialization, and so- called efficiency. Jn '^the pleasant camp" Doctor XX Introduction van Dyke speaks of, It is found in abundance, based, as all good conversation is, upon knowledge, both of books and men, flavored at times, and when neces- sary, with the wine of erudition, and, as conversation should be, always simple and humorous and pene- trating and understanding. The third essential memory has to do with what, I think, is perhaps the most fundamentally impor- tant thing in Henry van Dyke's character — in fact, I can imagine him wondering why I haven't got to it long ago — that is, his love of the land, the aspect of him as an outdoor man, more especially a fisher- man. Perhaps you are astonished that I lay so much emphasis upon this; perhaps you have never thought of the mysterious and beautiful connection of eye and hand, body and mind; perhaps you have never reflected upon the fact that man, being still in many ways an animal — and it is most excellent that he is — has, let us say, toward his own particular '*lair" a passionate love such as he bears toward few other things. City-dwellers will tell you otherwise, but don't believe them. The reason why England is unshakable is because every Englishman, no matter where he lives, has memories of a stream, or a moor, or a seacoast, or a garden, or a house, with which are shaken his dreams. Englishmen are country- dwellers even when they are born in cities; all too often Americans, unfortunately, are not. I hazard the statement that so important is this *^love of the land ''that you cannot be a good American unless you have fished and made part of yourself some American river, or have watched some Ameri- can mountain range, or have known, so that you Introduction xxi cannot forget, some American meadow, or wood, or farm. You will then realize that whatever to you may seem to be wrong with this or that, or the gov- ernment, there is none the less something essentially right with the country where you were born, or to which it has been your good fortune to be brought. Henry van Dyke, therefore, teaches not only a love of brooks and trees and pools and birds and fishing — that most thought-constructive of sports — he teaches — I am not speaking of his essays bearing directly A upon the subject — the best sort of Americanism as well, the only valid, permanent Americanism there IS ; teaches it at a time when it is most necessary that it should be taught. And, to step aside for a mo- ment, how beautifully he teaches it ! After many years I have read again ''Little Rivers,'' and again I received the same shock of delight, for here is sun- light and green shadows and warm, open places made into words. There is no writer living to-day whose works should be more studied and read by American youth than the works of Henry van Dyke. We live in a confused, troublous, questioning time. We thirst too much for short-cuts. Perhaps you are, as Henry van Dyke describes himself, ''an adventurous conser- vative*'; perhaps, on the other hand, you are a radi- cal. Both are good things to be if accompanied by common sense and a capacity for work; both are a flash in the pan if only cleverness and ignorance are their backgrounds. Remember this: first comes the man, then comes his labor, then comes his discrimi- nation, and finally comes his finished product. More than ever before is it needful for us to learn the les- xxii Introduction sons of patience, arduous toil, careful selection, honest thinking, and beauty brought about by the appliance of logic to material ; and there is no American writer who teaches these things more clearly than Henry van Dyke. Before I close I must mention my indebtedness to Professor Edwin Mims, Ph.D., Professor of English Literature at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Ten- nessee, who in 1905 collected and edited the prede- cessor of this book.* It is to his careful work that this present book, in reality, owes its form and the majority of the selections from Doctor van Dyke's writings that it contains. I have retained from the former volume, as well, a letter from Doctor van Dyke's oldest daughter, describing her childhood rec- ollections of her father. It supplements, in a way otherwise impossible to obtain, the brief sketch I have attempted in these pages of Doctor van Dyke's per- sonality. Maxwell Struthers Burt. Princeton, New Jersey, April 10, 1920. *"The Van Dyke Book." Selected from the writings of Henry van Dyke, by Edwin Mims, Ph.D., Professor of Enghsh Literature in Trinity College, Durham, N. C. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905.) PART I OUT OF DOORS A BOY AND A ROD I Strangely enough, you cannot recall the boy him- self at all distinctly. There is only the faintest image of him on the endless roll of films that has been wound through your mental camera; and in the very spots where his small figure should appear, it seems as if the pictures were always light-struck. Just a blur, and the dim outline of a new cap, or a well- beloved jacket with extra pockets, or a much-hated pair of copper-toed shoes — that is all you can see. But the people that the boy saw, the companions who helped or hindered him in his adventures, the sublime and marvellous scenes among the Catskills and the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains, in the midst of which he lived and moved and had his summer holidays — all these stand out sharp and clear, as the '*Bab Ballads*' say, "Photographically lined On the tablets of your mind.** And most vivid do these scenes and people become when the vague and irrecoverable boy who walks among them carries a rod over his shoulder, and you detect the soft bulginess of wet fish about his clothing, and perhaps the tail of a big one emerging from his pocket. Then it seems almost as if these were things that had really happened, and of which you your- self were a great part. 3 4 Out of Doors Now this was the way in which the boy came into possession of his rod. He was by nature and hered- ity one of those predestined anglers whom Izaak Walton tersely describes as ''born so." His earliest passion was fishing. His favorite passage in Holy Writ was that place where Simon Peter throws a line into the sea and pulls out a great fish at the first cast. But hitherto his passion had been indulged under difficulties — with improvised apparatus of cut poles, and flabby pieces of string, and bent pins, which always failed to hold the biggest fish; or perhaps with borrowed tackle, dangling a fat worm in vain before the noses of the staring, supercilious sunfish that poised themselves in the clear water around the Lake House dock at Lake George; or, at best, on picnic parties across the lake, marred by the humili- ating presence of nurses, and disturbed by the obsti- nate refusal of old Horace, the boatman, to believe that the boy could bait his own hook, but sometimes crowned with the delight of bringing home a whole basketful of yellow perch and goggle-eyes. Of nobler sport with game fish, like the vaulting salmon and the merry, pugnacious trout, as yet the boy had only dreamed. But he had heard that there were such fish in the streams that flowed down from the mountains around Lake George, and he was at the happy age when he could believe anything — if it was sufficiently interesting. There was one little river, and only one, within his knowledge and the reach of his short legs. It was a tiny, lively rivulet that came out of the woods about half a mile away from the hotel, and ran down A Boy and a Rod 5 eater-cornered through a sloping meadow, crossing the road under a flat bridge of boards, just beyond the root-beer shop at the lower end of the village. It seemed large enough to the boy, and he had long had his eye upon it as a fitting theatre for the begin- ning of a real angler's life. Those rapids, those falls, those deep, whirling pools with beautiful foam on them like soft, white custard, were they not such places as the trout loved to hide in ? You can see the long hotel piazza, with the gos- sipy groups of wooden chairs standing vacant in the early afternoon; for the grown-up people are dallying with the ultimate nuts and raisins of their mid-day dinner. A villainous clatter of innumerable little vegetable-dishes comes from the open windows of the pantry as the boy steals past the kitchen end of the house, with Horace's lightest bamboo pole over his shoulder, and a little brother in skirts and short white stockings tagging along behind him. When they come to the five-rail fence where the brook runs out of the field, the question is. Over or under? The lowlier method seems safer for the little brother, as well as less conspicuous for persons who desire to avoid publicity until their enterprise has achieved success. So they crawl beneath a bend in the lowest rail— only tearing one tiny three-cor- nered hole in a jacket, and making some juicy green stains on the white stockings — and emerge with sup- pressed excitement in the field of the cloth of butter- cups and daisies. What an afternoon — how endless and yet how swift ! What perilous efforts to leap across the foaming stream at its narrowest points; what es- 6 Out of Doors capes from quagmires and possible quicksands; what stealthy creeping through the grass to the edge of a likely pool, and cautious dropping of the line into an unseen depth, and patient waiting for a bite, un- til the restless little brother, prowling about below, discovers that the hook is not in the water at all, but lying on top of a dry stone; thereby proving that patience is not the only virtue, or, at least, that it does a better business when it has a small vice of impatience in partnership w^ith it ! How tired the adventurers grow as the day wears away; and as yet they have taken nothing! But their strength and courage return as if by magic when there comes a surprising twitch at the line in a shallow, unpromising rapid, and with a jerk of the pole a small, wiggling fish is whirled through the air and landed thirty feet back in the meadow. **For pity's sake, don't lose him! There he is among the roots of the blue flag.'* ^Tve got him! How cold he is — how slippery — how pretty! Just like a piece of rainbow!" ''Do you see the red spots? Did you notice how gamy he was, little brother; how he played? It is a trout, for sure; a real trout, almost as 4ong as your hand." So the two lads tramp along up the stream, chat- tering as if there were no rubric of silence in the angler's code. Presently another simple-minded troutling falls a victim to their unpremeditated art; and they begin already, being human, to wish for something larger. In the very last pool that they dare attempt — a dark hole under a steep bank, where the brook issues from the woods — the boy A Boy and a Rod 7 drags out the hoped-for prize, a splendid trout, longer than a new lead-pencil. But he feels sure that there must be another, even larger, in the same place. He swings his line out carefully over the water, and just as he is about to drop it in, the little brother, perched on the sloping brink, slips on the smooth pine-needles, and goes sliddering down into the pool up to his waist. How he weeps with dis- may, and how funnily his dress sticks to him as he crawls out ! But his grief is soon assuaged by the privilege of carrying the trout strung on an alder twig; and it is a happy, muddy, proud pair of urchins that climb over the fence out of the field of triumph at the close of the day. What does the father say, as he meets them in the road ? Is he frowning or smiling under that big brown beard ? You cannot be quite sure. But one thing is clear: he is as much elated over the capture of the real trout as anyone. He is ready to deal mildly with a little irregularity for the sake of en- couraging pluck and perseverance. He makes the boy feel that running away with his little brother to go fishing is an offence which must never be repeated, and then promises him a new fishing-rod, all his own, if he will always ask leave before he goes out to use it. The arrival of the rod, in four joints, with an extra tip, a brass reel, and the other luxuries for which a true angler would willingly exchange the necessaries of life, marked a new epoch in the boy's career. One of the first events that followed was the purchase of a pair of high rubber boots. Inserted in this armor of modern infantry, and transfigured with delight, the boy clumped through all the little rivers within 8 Out of Doors a circuit of ten miles from Caldwell, and began to learn by parental example the yet unmastered art of complete angling. But because some of the streams were deep and strong, and his legs were short and slender, and his ambition was even taller than his boots, the father would sometimes take him up pickaback, and wade along carefully through the perilous places — which are often, in this world, the very places one longs to fish in. So, in your remembrance, you can see the little rubber boots sticking out under the father's arms, and the rod projecting over his head, and the bait dangling down unsteadily into the deep holes, and the delighted boy hooking and playing and basketing his trout high in the air. LITTLE RIVERS A RIVER IS the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a Hfe, a character, a voice of its own, and is as full of good fellowship as a sugar-.maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low, and of many subjects, grave and gay. Under favorable circumstances it will even make a shift to sing, not in a fashion that can be reduced to notes and set down in black and white on a sheet of paper, but in a vague, refreshing manner, and to a wandering air that goes ''Over the hills and far away." For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river. I will admit that a very good case can be made out in favor of some other objects of natural affec- tion. Trees seem to come very close to our life. They are often rooted in our richest feelings, and our sweetest memories, like birds, build nests in their branches. I remember, the last time that I saw James Russell Lowell (only a few weeks before his musical voice was hushed), he walked out with me into the quiet garden at Elmwood to say good-by. There was a great horse-chestnut tree beside the house, towering above the gable, and covered with blossoms from base to summit — a pyramid of green supporting a thousand smaller pyramids of white. 9 10 Out of Doors The poet looked up at it with his gray, pain-furrowed face, and laid his trembling hand upon the trunk. '*I planted the nut,'' said he, '*from which this tree grew; and my father was with me and showed me how to plant it/' Yes, there is a good deal to be said in behalf of tree-worship. But when I can go where I please and do what I like best, my feet turn not to a tree, but to the bank of a river, for there the musings of soli- tude find a friendly accompaniment, and human in- tercourse is purified and sweetened by the flowing, murmuring water. It is by a river that I would choose to make love, and to revive old friendships, and to play with the children, and to confess my faults, and to escape from vain, selfish desires, and to cleanse my mind from all the false and foolish things that mar the joy and peace of living. Like David's hart, I pant for the water-brooks. There is wisdom in the advice of Seneca, who says, ** Where a spring rises, or a river flows, there should we build altars and offer sacrifices." Every river that flows is good, and has something worthy to be loved. But those that we love most are always the ones that we have known best — the stream that ran before our father's door, the current on which we ventured our first boat or cast our first fly, the brook on whose banks we first picked the twin-flower of young love. I am all for the little rivers. Let those who will, chant in heroic verse the renown of Amazon and Mississippi and Niagara, but my prose shall flow — or straggle along at such a pace as the prosaic muse may grant me to attain — in praise of Beaverkill and Neversink and Swiftwater, Little Rivers ii of Saranac and Raquette and Ausable, of Allegash and Aroostook and Moose River. I will set my affections upon rivers that are not too great for intimacy. And if by chance any of these little ones have also become famous, like the Tweed and the Thames and the Arno, I at least will praise them, because they are still at heart little rivers. The real way to know a little river is not to glance at it here or there in the course of a hasty journey, nor to become acquainted with it after it has been partly civilized and spoiled by too close contact with the works of man. You must go to its native haunts; you must see it in youth and freedom; you must ac- commodate yourself to its pace, and give yourself to its influence, and follow its meanderings whitherso- ever they may lead you. Now, of this pleasant pastime there are three prin- cipal forms. You may go as a walker, taking the riverside path, or making a way for yourself through the tangled thickets or across the open meadows. You may go as a sailor, launching your light canoe on the swift current and committing yourself for a day, or a week, or a month, to the delightful uncer- tainties of a voyage through the forest. You may go as a wader, stepping into the stream and going down with it, through rapids and shallows and deeper pools, until you come to the end of your courage and the daylight. Of these three ways I know not which is best. But in all of them the essential thing is that you must be willing and glad to be led; you must take the little river for your guide, philosopher, and friend. 12 Out of Doors And what a good guidance it gives you. How cheerfully it lures you on into the secrets of field and wood, and brings you acquainted with the birds and the flowers. The stream' can show you, better than any other teacher, how nature works her enchant- ments with color and music. Go out to the Beaverkill **In the tassel-tlme of spring," and follow its brimming waters through the budding forests, to that corner which we call the Painter's Camp. See how the banks are all enamelled with the pale hepatica, the painted trillium, and the delicate pink- veined spring beauty. A little later in the year, when the ferns are uncurling their long fronds, the troops of blue and white violets will come dancing down to the edge of the stream, and creep ventur- ously out to the very end of that long, moss-covered log in the water. Before these have vanished, the yellow crow-foot and the cinquefoil will appear, fol- lowed by the star-grass and the loose-strife and the golden St. John's-wort. Then the unseen painter be- gins to mix the royal color on his palette, and the red of the bee-balm catches your eye. If you are lucky, you may find, in midsummer, a slender fragrant spike of the purple-fringed orchis, and you cannot help finding the universal self-heal. Yellow returns in the drooping flowers of the jewel-weed, and blue repeats itself in the trembling harebells, and scarlet is glori- fied in the flaming robe of the cardinal-flower. Later still, the summer closes in a splendor of bloom, with gentians and asters and golden-rod. You never get so close to the birds as when you Little Rivers 13 are wading quietly down a little river, casting your fly deftly under the branches for the wary trout, but ever on the lookout for all the various pleasant things that nature has to bestow upon you. Here you shall come upon the cat-bird at her morning bath, and hear her sing, in a clump of pussy-willows, that low, ten- der, confidential song which she keeps for the hours of domestic intimacy. The spotted sandpiper will run along the stones before you, crying, ''Wet-feet, wet-feet!'^ and bowing and teetering in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the way to the best pools. In the thick branches of the hemlocks that stretch across the stream, the tiny warblers, dressed in a hundred colors, chirp and twitter confidingly above your head; and the Maryland yellow- throat, flitting through the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, calls ** Witchery, witchery, witchery !'' That plaintive, forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, even in the noonday silence, comes from the wood-pewee, droop- ing upon the bough of some high tree, and complain- ing, like Mariana in the moated grange, '' Weary, weary, wSary !'' When the stream runs out into the old clearing, or down through the pasture, you find other and live- lier birds — the robin, with his sharp, saucy call and breathless, merry warble; the bluebird, with his notes of pure gladness, and the oriole, with his wild, flexi- ble whistle; the chewink, bustling about in the thicket, talking to his sweetheart in French, '' Cherie, cherie r^ and the song-sparrow, perched on his favor- ite limb of a young maple, close beside the water, and singing happily, through sunshine and through rain. This is the true bird of the brook, after all: 14 Out of Doors the winged spirit of cheerfulness and contentment, the patron saint of little rivers, the fisherman's friend. He seems to enter into your sport with his good wishes, and for an hour at a time, while you are trying every fly in your book, from a black gnat to a white miller, to entice the crafty old trout at the foot of the meadow-pool, the song-sparrow, close above you, will be chanting patience and encouragement. And when at last success crowns your endeavor, and the party-colored prize is glittering in your net, the bird on the bough breaks out in an ecstasy of congratula- tion: '^ Catch 'iniy catch Hm^ catch Hm ; oh, what a pretty fellow ! sweet ! '* There are other birds that seem to have a very different temper. The blue-jay sits high up in the withered pine-tree, bobbing up and down, and call- ing to his mate in a tone of affected sweetness, ^^ Sa- Itlte-her, saliXte-her y'' but when you come in sight he flies away with a harsh cry of ^^ Thief, thief , thief/'* The kingfisher, ruffling his crest in solitary pride on the end of a dead branch, darts down the stream at your approach, winding up his reel angrily as if he despised you for interrupting his fishing. And the cat-bird, that sang so charmingly while she thought herself unobserved, now tries to scare you away by screaming '' Snake y snake!'' As evening draws near, and the light beneath the trees grows yellower, and the air is full of filmy in- sects out for their last dance, the voice of the little river becomes louder and more distinct. The true poets have often noticed this apparent increase in the sound of flowing waters at nightfall. Gray, in one of his letters, speaks of ** hearing the murmur of Little Rivers 15 many waters not audible in the daytime/' Words- worth repeats the same thought almost in the same words: "A soft and lulling sound is heard Of streams inaudible by day." And Tennyson, in the valley of Cauteretz, tells of the river "Deepening his voice with deepening of the night." It is in this mystical hour that you will hear the most celestial and entrancing of all bird-notes, the songs of the thrushes — the hermit, and the wood- thrush, and the veery. Sometimes, but not often, you will see the singers. I remember once, at the close of a beautiful day's fishing on the Swiftwater, I came out, just after sunset, into a little open space in an elbow of the stream. It was still early spring, and the leaves were tiny. On the top of a small sumac, not thirty feet away from me, sat a veery. I could see the pointed spots upon his breast, the swelling of his white throat, and the sparkle of his eyes, as he poured his whole heart into a long liquid chant, the clear notes rising and falling, echoing and interlacing in endless curves of sound. Other bird- songs can be translated into words, but not this. There is no interpretation. It is music — as Sidney Lanier defines it, **Love in search of a word." CAMPING OUT THE GUIDES They are all French Canadians of unmixed blood, descendants of the men who came to New France with Champlain, three centuries ago. Ferdinand Larouche, our head guide, is a stocky little fellow, a ** sawed off'* man, not more than five feet two inches tall, but every inch of him is pure vim. He can carry a big canoe or a hundredweight of camp stuff over a mile portage without stopping to take breath. He is a capital canoe-man, with prudence enough to balance his courage, and a fair cook, with plenty of that quality which is wanting in the ordi- nary cook of commerce — good humor. Always jok- ing, whistling, singing, he brings the atmosphere of a perpetual holiday along with him. His weather- worn coat covers a heart full of music. He has two talents which make him a marked man among his comrades: he plays the fiddle to the delight of all the balls and weddings through the country-side, and he speaks English to the admiration and envy of the other guides. But, like all men of genius, he is modest about his accomplishments. **H'I not spik good h'English — h'only for camp — fishin', cookin', dhe voyage — h'all dhose t'ings.*' The aspirates puz- zle him. He can get through a slash of fallen timber more easily than a sentence full of *'this'* and ''that.'' i6 Camping Out 17 Sometimes he expresses his meaning queerly. He was telling me once about his farm, "not far off here, in dhe Riviere au Cochon, river of dhe pig, you call 'im. H'l am a widow, got five sons, t'ree of dhem are girls/' But he usually ends by falling back into French, which, he assures you, you speak to perfec- tion, "much better than the Canadians; the French of Paris, in short — M'sieu' has been in Paris?'* Such courtesy is born in the blood, and is irresistible. You cannot help returning the compliment and as- suring him that his English is remarkable, good enough for all practical purposes, better than any of the other guides can speak. And so it is. His brother Francois is a little taller, a little thin- ner, and considerably quieter than Ferdinand. He laughs loyally at his brother's jokes, and sings the response to his songs, and wields a good second pad- dle in the canoe. Jean — commonly called Johnny — Morel is a tall, strong man of fifty, with a bushy red beard that would do credit to a pirate. But when you look at him more closely, you see that he has a clear, kind blue eye and a most honest, friendly face under his slouch hat. He has travelled these woods and waters for thirty years, so that he knows the way through them by a thousand familiar signs, as well as you know the streets of the city. He is our pathfinder. The bow paddle in his canoe is held by his son Joseph, a lad not quite fifteen, but already as tall and almost as strong as a man. "He is yet of the youth," said Johnny, "and he knows not the affairs of the camp. This trip is for him the first — it is his school — but I hope he will content you. He is good, 1 8 Out of Doors M'sieu', and of the strongest for his age. I have educated already two sons in the bow of my canoe. The oldest has gone to Pennsylvanie ; he peels the bark there for the tanning of leather. The second had the misfortune of breaking his leg, so that he can no longer kneel to paddle. He has descended to the making of shoes. Joseph is my third pupil. And I have still a younger one at home waiting to come into my school." A touch of family life like that is always refresh- ing, and doubly so in the wilderness. For what is fatherhood at its best, everywhere, but the training of good men to take the teacher's place when his work is done? Some day, when Johnny's rheuma- tism has made his joints a little stiffer and his eyes have lost something of their keenness, he will be wielding the second paddle in the boat, and going out only on the short and easy trips. It will be young Joseph that steers the canoe through the dan- gerous places, and carries the heaviest load over the portages, and leads the way on the long journeys. II RUNNING THE RAPIDS We embarked our tents and blankets, our pots and pans, and bags of flour and potatoes and bacon and other delicacies, our rods and guns, and last, but not least, our axes (without which man in the woods is a helpless creature), in two birch-bark canoes, and went flying down the Saguenay. It is a wonderful place, this outlet of Lake St. Camping Out 19 John. All the floods of twenty rivers are gathered here, and break forth through a net of islands in a double stream. The southern outlet is small, and flows somewhat more quietly at first. But the north- ern outlet is a huge confluence and tumult of waters. You see the set of the tide far out in the lake, slid- ing, driving, crowding, hurrying in with smooth cur- rents and swirling eddies toward the corner of escape. By the rocky cove where the Island House peers out through the fir-trees, the current already has a per- ceptible slope. It begins to boil over hidden stones in the middle, and gurgles at projecting points of rock. A mile farther down there is an islet where the stream quickens, chafes, and breaks into a rapid. Behind the islet it drops down in three or four foam- ing steps. On the outside it makes one long, straight rush into a line of white-crested standing waves. As we approached, the steersman in the first canoe stood up to look over the course. The sea was high. Was it too high? The canoes were heavily loaded. Could they leap the waves ? There was a quick talk among the guides as we slipped along, undecided which way to turn. Then the question seemed to settle itself, as most of these woodland questions do, as if some silent force of Nature had the casting-vote. *'Let*s try it!" cried Ferdinand, ''Come on!'* In a moment we were sliding down the smooth back of the rapid, directly toward the first big wave. The rocky shore went by us like a dream; we could feel the motion of the earth whirling around with us. The crest of the billow in front curled above the bow of the canoe. ''Stop! Stop! Slowly!'* A swift stroke of the paddle checked the canoe, quivering and 20 Out of Doors prancing like a horse suddenly reined in. The wave ahead, as if surprised, sank and flattened for a second. The canoe leaped through the edge of it, swerved to one side, and ran gayly down along the fringe of the line of billows, into quieter water. Our guides began to shout, and joke each other, and praise their canoes. *'You grazed that villain rock at the corner," said Jean; ''didn't you know where it was?'' *'Yes, after I touched it," cried Ferdinand; **but you took in a bucket of water, and I suppose your m'sieu' is sitting on a piece of the river. Is it not?" This seemed to us all a very merry jest. It is one of the charms of life in the woods that it brings back ^ the high spirits of boyhood and renews the youth of the world. Plain fun, like plain food, tastes good out-of-doors. The first little rapid was only the beginning. Half a mile below we could see the river disappear be- tween two points of rock. There was a roar of con- flict, and a golden mist hanging in the air, like the smoke of battle. All along the place where the river sank from sight, dazzling heads of foam were flashing up and falling back, as if a horde of water-sprites were vainly trying to fight their way up to the lake. It was the top of a wild succession of falls and pools where no boat could live for a moment. We ran down toward it as far as the water served, and then turned off among the rocks on the left hand, to take the portage. Henry van Dyke and Grandson. Seal Harbor, Maine, 191 1. Camping Out 21 III THE TENT Men may say what they will in praise of their houses, but, for our part, we are agreed that there is nothing to be compared with a tent. It is the most venerable and aristocratic form of human habi- tation. Abraham and Sarah lived in it, and shared its hospitality with angels. It is exempt from the base tyranny of the plumber, the paper-hanger, and the gas-man. It is not immovably bound to one dull spot of earth by the chains of a cellar and a system of water-pipes. It has a noble freedom of locomo- tion. It follows the wishes of its inhabitants, and goes with them, a travelling home, as the spirit moves them to explore the wilderness. At their pleasure, new beds of wild flowers surround it, new plantations of trees overshadow it, and new avenues of shining water lead to its ever-open door. What the tent lacks in luxury it makes up in liberty: or rather let us say that liberty itself is the greatest luxury. Another thing is worth remembering — a family which lives in a tent never can have a skeleton in the closet. But it must not be supposed that every spot in the woods is suitable for a camp, or that a good tenting-ground can be chosen without knowledge and forethought. One of the requisites, indeed, is to be found everywhere in the St. John region; for all the lakes and rivers are full of clear, cool water, and the traveller does not need to search for a spring. But it is always necessary to look carefully for a bit of smooth ground on the shore, far enough above 22 Out of Doors the water to be dry, and slightly sloping, so that the head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger than an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight — when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch ; it has an aromatic smell ; but it is too stiff and humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more flexible; but the spring soon wears out of it. The balsam-fir, with its elastic branches and thick flat needles, is the best of all. A bed of these boughs a foot deep is softer than a mattress and as fragrant as a thousand Christmas-trees. Two things more are needed for the ideal camp-ground — an open situa- tion, where the breeze will drive away the flies and mosquitoes, and an abundance of dry firewood within easy reach. Yes, and a third thing must not be forgotten, for, says my lady Greygown: **I shouldn^t feel at home in camp unless I could sit in the door of the tent and look out across flowing water." All these conditions are met in our favorite camp- ing place below the first fall in the Grande Decharge. A rocky point juts out into the river and makes a fine landing for the canoes. There is a dismantled fishing-cabin a few rods back in the woods, from which we can borrow boards for a table and chairs. A group of cedars on the lower edge of the point opens just wide enough to receive and shelter our tent. At a good distance beyond ours, the guides' tent is pitched; and the big camp-fire burns between the Camping Out 23 two dwellings. A pair of white-birches lift their leafy crowns far above us, and after them we name the place. What an admirable, lovable, and comfortable tree is the white-birch, the silver queen of the forest, beautiful to look upon and full of various uses. Its wood is strong to make paddles and axe handles, and glorious to burn, blazing up at first with a flash- ing flame, and then holding the fire in its glowing heart all through the night. Its bark is the most serviceable of all the products of the wilderness. In Russia, they say, it is used in tanning, and gives its subtle, sacerdotal fragrance to Russia leather. But here, in the woods, it serves more primitive ends. It can be peeled off in a huge roll from some giant tree and fashioned into a swift canoe to carry man over the waters. It can be cut into square sheets to roof his shanty in the forest. It is the paper on which he writes his woodland despatches, and the flexible material which he bends into drinking-cups of silver lined with gold. A thin strip of it wrapped around the end of a candle and fastened in a cleft stick makes a practicable chandelier. A basket for berries, a horn to call the lovelorn moose through the autumnal woods, a canvas on which to draw the outline of great and memorable fish — all these and many other indispensable luxuries are stored up for the skilful woodsman in the birch bark. Only do not rob or mar the tree unless you really need what it has to give you. Let it stand and grow in virgin majesty, ungirdled and unscarred, while the trunk becomes a firm pillar of the forest temple, and the branches spread abroad a refuge of bright green 24 Out of Doors leaves for the birds of the air. Nature never made a more excellent piece of handiwork. IV A LITTLE FISHING The chief occupation of our idle days was fishing. Above the camp spread a noble pool more than two miles in circumference, and diversified with smooth bays and whirling eddies, sand beaches and rocky islands. The river poured into it at the head, foam- ing and raging, and swept out of it just in front of our camp in a merry, musical rapid. It was full of fish of various kinds — long-nosed pickerel, wall-eyed pike, and stupid chub. But the prince of the pool was the fighting ouananiche,* the land-locked salmon of St. John. Every morning and evening, Greygown and I would go out for ouananiche, and sometimes we caught plenty and sometimes few, but we never came back without a good catch of happiness. There were certain places where the fish liked to stay. For ex- ample, we always looked for one at the lower corner of a big rock, very close to it, where he could poise himself easily on the edge of the strong downward stream. Another likely place was a straight run of water, swift, but not too swift, with a sunken stone in the middle. The ouananiche does not like crooked, twisting water. An even current is far more com- fortable, for then he discovers just how much effort is needed to balance against it, and keeps up the * Pronounce " wan-an-i'sh." Camping Out 25 movement mechanically, as if he were half asleep. But his favorite place is under one of the floating islands of thick foam that gather in the corners below the falls. The matted flakes give a grateful shelter from the sun, I fancy, and almost all game-fish love to lie in the shade; but the chief reason why the ouananiche haunt the drifting white mass is because it is full of flies and gnats, beaten down by the spray of the cataract, and sprinkled all through the foam like plums in a cake. To this natural confection the little salmon, lurking in his corner, plays the part of Jack Horner all day long, and never wearies. *'See that foam down below there!" said Ferdi- nand, as we scrambled over the huge rocks at the foot of the falls; ''there ought to be salmon there.'* Yes, there were the sharp noses picking out the un- fortunate insects, and the broad tails waving lazily through the foam as the fish turned in the water. At this season of the year, when summer is nearly ended, and every ouananiche in the river has tasted feathers and seen a hook, it is useless to attempt to delude them with the large gaudy flies which the fishing- tackle-maker recommends. There are only two suc- cessful methods of angling now. The first of these I tried, and by casting delicately with a tiny brown trout-fly tied on a gossamer strand of gut, captured a pair of fish weighing about three pounds each. They fought against the spring of the four-ounce rod for nearly half an hour before Ferdinand could slip the net around them. But there was another and a broader tail still waving disdainfully on the outer edge of the foam. "And now," said the gallant Fer- dinand, '*the turn is to madame, that she should 26 Out of Doors prove her fortune — attend but a moment, madame, while I seek the bait/' This was the second method: a grasshopper was attached to the hook, and casting the hne well out across the pool, Ferdinand put the rod into Grey- gown's hands. She stood poised upon a pinnacle of rock, like patience on a monument, waiting for a bite. It came. There was a slow, gentle pull at the line, answered by a quick jerk of the rod, and a noble fish flashed into the air. Four pounds and a half at least ! He leaped again and again, shaking the drops from his silvery sides. He rushed up the rapids as if he had determined to return to the lake, and down again as if he had changed his plans and determined to go to the Saguenay. He sulked in the deep water and rubbed his nose against the rocks. He did his best to treat that treacherous grasshopper as the whale served Jonah. But Greygown, through all her little screams and shouts of excitement, was steady and sage. She never gave the fish an inch of slack line; and at last he lay glittering on the rocks, with the black St. Andrew's crosses clearly marked on his plump sides, and the iridescent spots gleaming on his small, shapely head. ''A beauty!" cried Ferdi- nand, as he held up the fish in triumph, **and it is madame who has the good fortune. She under- stands well to take the large fish — is it not?" Grey- gown stepped demurely down from her pinnacle, and as we drifted down the pool in the canoe, under the mellow evening sky, her conversation betrayed not a trace of the pride that a victorious fisherman would have shown. On the contrary, she insisted that angling was an affair of chance — which was consoling. Camping Out 27 though I knew it was not altogether true — and that the smaller fish were just as pleasant to catch and better to eat, after all. MORNING AND EVENING Our tent is on the border of a coppice of young trees. It is pleasant to be awakene^d by a convoca- tion of birds at sunrise, and to watch the shadows of the leaves dance out upon our translucent roof of canvas. All the birds in the bush are early, but there are so many of them that it is difficult to believe that every one can be rewarded with a worm. Here in Canada those little people of the air who appear as transient guests of spring and autumn in the Middle States, are in their summer home and breeding-place. Warblers, named for the magnolia and the myrtle, chestnut-sided, bay-breasted, blue-backed and black- throated, flutter and creep along the branches with simple lisping music. Kinglets, ruby-crowned and golden-crowned, tiny, brilliant sparks of life, twitter among the trees, breaking occasionally into clearer, sweeter songs. Companies of redpoles and cross- bills pass chirping through the thickets, busily seek- ing their food. The fearless, familiar chickadee re- peats his name merrily, while he leads his family to explore every nook and cranny of the wood. Cedar wax-wings, sociable wanderers, arrive in numerous flocks. The Canadians call them *'recollets,'' because they wear a brown crest of the same color as the hoods of the monks who came with the first settlers to New 28 Out of Doors France. They are a songless tribe, although their quick, reiterated call as they take to flight has given them the name of chatterers. The beautiful tree- sparrows and the pine-siskins are more melodious, and the slate-colored j uncos, flitting about the camp, are as garrulous as chippy-birds. All these varied notes come and go through the tangle of morning dreams. And now the noisy blue- jay is calling ^^ Thief — thief — thief!'' in the distance, and a pair of great pileated woodpeckers with crimson crests are laughing loudly in the swamp over some family joke. But listen ! what is that harsh creaking note ? It is the cry of the northern shrike, of whom tradition says that he catches little birds and fmpales them on sharp thorns. At the sound of his voice the concert closes suddenly and the singers vanish into thin air. When the long, happy day is over, just before sundown we go for a little walk along the portage and up the hill behind the camp. There are blue- berries growing abundantly among the rocks — huge clusters of them, bloomy and luscious as the grapes of Eshcol. The blueberry is Nature's compensation for the ruin of forest fires. It grows best where the woods have been burned away and the soil is too poor to raise another crop of trees. And here is a bed of moss beside a dashing rivu- let, inviting us to rest and be thankful. Hark! There is a white-throated sparrow, on a little tree across the river, whistling his sunset song **In linked sweetness long drawn out." Down in Maine they call him the Peabody-bird, because his notes sound to them like Old md?i — Camping Out 29 Peabody, peabody, peabody. In New Brunswick the Scotch settlers say that he sings Lost — lost — Kennedy, kennedy, kennedy. But here in his northern home I think we can understand him better. He is singing again and again, with a cadence that never wearies, ^^ Sweet — sweet — Canada, Canada, Canada!'' The Ca- nadians, when they came across the sea, remember- ing the nightingale of southern France, baptized this little gray minstrel with his name, and the country ballads are full of his praise. Every land has its nightingale, if we only have the heart to hear him. How distinct his voice is — how personal, how con- fidential, as if he had a m^essage for us ! There is a breath of fragrance on the cool shady air beside our little stream, that seems familiar. It is the first week of September. Can it be that the twin-flower of June is blooming again ? Yes, here is the threadlike stem lifting its two frail pink bells above the bed of shining leaves. How dear an early flower seems when it comes back again and unfolds its beauty in a St. Martin's summer ! How delicate and suggestive is the faint, magical odor ! It is like a renewal of the dreams of youth. THE OPEN FIRE LIGHTING UP Man is the animal that has made friends with the fire. All the other creatures, in their natural state, are afraid of it. They look upon it with wonder and dismay. It fascinates them, sometimes, with its glittering eyes in the night. The squirrels and the hares come pattering softly toward it through the underbrush around the new camp. The deer stands staring into the blaze of the jack while the hunter's canoe creeps through the lily-pads. But the charm that masters them is one of dread, not of love. It is the witchcraft of the serpent's lambent look. When they know what it means, when the heat of the fire touches them, or even when its smell comes clearly to their most delicate sense, they recognize it as their enemy, the Wild Huntsman whose red, hounds can follow, follow for days without wearying, growing stronger and more furious with every turn of the chase. Let but a trail of smoke drift down the wind across the forest, and all the game for miles and miles will catch the signal for fear and flight. Many of the animals have learned how to make houses for themselves. The cabane of the beaver is a wonder of neatness and comfort, much preferable to the wigwam of his Indian hunter. The muskrat knows how thick and high to build the dome of his 30 The Open Fire 31 water-side cottage, in order to protect himself against the frost of the coming winter and the floods of the following spring. The woodchuck's house has two or three doors; and the squirrel's dwelling is pro- vided with a good bed and a convenient storehouse for nuts and acorns. The sportive otters have a toboggan slide in front of their residence; and the moose in winter make a ''yard/* where they can take exercise comfortably and find shelter for sleep. But there is one thing lacking in all these various dwellings — a fireplace. Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and to live with it. The reason ? Because he alone has learned how to put it out. It is true that two of his humbler friends have been converted to fire-worship. The dog and the cat, being half-humanized, have begun to love the fire. I suppose that a cat seldom comes so near to feeling a true sense of affection as when she has finished her saucer of bread and milk, and stretched herself lux- uriously underneath the kitchen stove, while her faithful mistress washes up the dishes. As for a dog, I am sure that his admiring love for his master is never greater than when they come in together from the hunt, wet and tired, and the man gathers a pile of wood in front of the tent, touches it with a tiny magic wand, and suddenly the clear, consoling flame springs up, saying cheerfully, ''Here we are, at home in the forest; come into the warmth; rest, and eat» and sleep.'' When the weary, shivering dog sees this miracle, he knows that his master is a great man and a lord of things. After all, that is the only real open fire. Wood is 32 Out of Doors the fuel for it. Out-of-doors is the place for it. A furnace is an underground prison for a toihng slave. A stove is a cage for a tame bird. Even a broad hearthstone and a pair of glittering andirons — the best ornament of a room — must be accepted as an imitation of the real thing. The veritable open fire is built in the open, with the whole earth for a fire- place and the sky for a chimney. To start a fire in the open is by no means as easy as it looks. It is one of those simple tricks that everyone thinks he can perform until he tries it. If, perhaps, you have to do it in the rain, with a single match, it requires no little art and skill. There is plenty of wood everywhere, but not a bit to burn. The fallen trees are water-logged. The dead leaves are as damp as grief. The charred sticks that you find in an old fireplace are absolutely in- combustible. Do not trust the handful of withered twigs and branches that you gather from the spruce- trees. They seem dry, but they are little better for your purpose than so much asbestos. You make a pile of them in some apparently suitable hollow, and lay a few larger sticks on top. Then you hastily scratch your solitary match on the seat of your trou- sers and thrust it into the pile of twigs. What hap- pens? The wind whirls around in your stupid little hollow, and the blue flame of the sulphur spurts and sputters for an instant, and then goes out. Or per- haps there is a moment of stillness; the match flares up bravely; the nearest twigs catch fire, crackling and sparkling; you hurriedly lay on more sticks; but the fire deliberately dodges them, creeps to the corner of the pile where the twigs are fewest and dampest. ^'The little friendship-fire." The Open Fire 33 snaps feebly a few times, and expires in smoke. Now where are you? How far is it to the nearest match ? If you are wise, you will always build your fire be- fore you light it. Time is never saved by doing a thing badly. II THE CAMP-FIRE In the making of fires there is as much difference as in the building of houses. Everything depends upon the purpose that you have in view. There is the camp-fire, and the cooking-fire, and the smudge- fire, and the little friendship-fire — not to speak of other minor varieties. Each of these has its own proper style of architecture, and to mix them is false art and poor economy. The object of the camp-fire is to give heat, and in- cidentally light, to your tent or shanty. You can hardly build this kind of a fire unless you have a good axe and know how to chop. For the first thing that you need is a solid back-log, the thicker the better, to hold the heat and reflect it into the tent. This log must not be too dry, or it will burn out quickly. Neither must it be too damp, else it will smoulder and discourage the fire. The best wood for it is the body of a yellow birch, and, next to that, a green balsam. It should be five or six feet long, and at least two and a half feet in diameter. If you cannot find a tree thick enough, cut two or three lengths of a smaller one; lay the thickest log on the ground first, about ten or twelve feet in front of the 34 Out of Doors tent; drive two strong stakes behind it, slanting a little backward; and lay the other logs on top of the first, resting against the stakes. Now you are ready for the hand-chunks, or and- irons. These are shorter sticks of wood, eight or ten inches thick, laid at right angles to the back-log, four or five feet apart. Across these you are to build up the firewood proper. Use a dry spruce-tree, not one that has fallen, but one that is dead and still standing, if you want a lively, snapping fire. Use a hard maple or a hickory if you want a fire that will burn steadily and make few sparks. But if you like a fire to blaze up at first with a splendid flame, and then burn on with an en- during heat far into the night, a young white birch with the bark on is the tree to choose. Six or eight round sticks of this laid across the hand-chunks, with perhaps a few quarterings of a larger tree, will make a glorious fire. But before you put these on, you must be ready to light up. A few splinters of dry spruce or pine or balsam, stood endwise against the back-log, or, better still, piled up in a pyramid between the hand- chunks; a few strips of birch bark, and one good match — these are all that you want. But be sure that your match is a good one. You would better see to this before you go into the brush. Your com- fort, even your life, may depend on it. In the woods, the old-fashioned brimstone match of our grandfathers — the match with a brown head and a stout stick and a dreadful smell — is the best. But if you have only one, you would better not trust even that to light your fire directly. Use it first to The Open Fire 35 touch off a roll of birch bark which you hold in your hand. Then, when the bark is well alight, crinkling and curling, push it under the heap of kindlings, give the flame time to take a good hold, and lay your wood over it, a stick at a time, until the whole pile is blaz- ing. Now your fire is started. Your friendly little gnome with the red hair is ready to serve you through the night. He will dry your clothes if you are wet. He will cheer you up if you are despondent. He will diffuse an air of sociability through the camp, and draw the men together in a half circle for story-telling and jokes and singing. He will hold a flambeau for you while you spread your blankets on the boughs and dress for bed. He will keep you warm while you sleep — at least till about three o^clock in the morn- ing, when you dream that you are out sleighing in your pajamas, and wake up with a shiver. HI THE LITTLE FRIENDSHIP-FIRE There are times and seasons when the angler has no need of the camp-fire, or the smudge-fire, or the cooking-fire. He sleeps in a house. His breakfast and dinner are cooked for him in a kitchen. He is in no great danger from black-flies or mosquitoes. All he needs now, as he sets out to spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his noon- day rest. 36 Out of Doors This form of fire does less work than any other in the world. Yet it is far from being useless; and I, for one, should be sorry to live without it. Its only use is to make a visible centre of interest where there are two or three anglers eating their lunch together, or to supply a kind of companionship to a lone fisher- man. It is kindled and burns for no other purpose than to give you the sense of being at home and at ease. Why the fire should do this, I cannot tell, but it does. You may build your friendship-fire in almost any way that pleases you; but this is the way in which you shall build it best. You have no axe, of course, so you must look about for the driest sticks that you can find. Do not seek them close beside the stream, for there they are likely to be water-soaked; but go back into the woods a bit and gather a good armful of fuel. Then break it, if you can, into lengths of about two feet, and construct your fire in the follow- ing fashion. Lay two sticks parallel, and put between them a pile of dried grass, dead leaves, small twigs, and the paper in which your lunch was wrapped. Then lay two other sticks crosswise on top of your first pair. Strike your match and touch your kindlings. As the fire catches, lay on other pairs of sticks, each pair crosswise to the pair that is below it, until you have a pyramid of flame. This is ''a Micmac fire'' such as the Indians make in the woods. Now you can pull off your wading-boots and warm your feet at the blaze. You can toast your bread if you Hke. You can even make shift to broil one of your trout, fastened on the end of a birch twig if you The Open Fire 37 have a fancy that way. When your hunger is satis- fied, you shake out the crumbs for the birds and the squirrels, settle down for an hour's reading if you have a book in your pocket, or for a good talk if you have a comrade with you. The stream of time flows swift and smooth, by such a fire as this. The moments slip past unheeded; the sun sinks down his western arch; the shadows begin to fall across the brook; it is time to move on for the afternoon fishing. The fire has almost burned out. But do not trust it too much. Throw some sand over it, or bring a hatful of water from the brook to pour on it, until you are sure that the last glowing ember is extinguished, and nothing but the black coals and the charred ends of the sticks are left. Even the little friendship-fire must keep the law of the bush. All lights out when their purpose is fulfilled ! THE BIG SALMON Dinner at nine o'clock, before the big open hearth, with a friendly fire. Much chaffing and pleasant talk about the arrangements for to-morrow. A man to be sent off at daybreak to have two buckboards ready at the landing at seven for the drive to Ta- dousac. Then a reprehensible quantity of tobacco smoked in the book- room, and the tale of the season's angling told from the beginning with many embel- lishments and divagations. There were stories of good luck and bad; vituperations of the lumbermen for leaving tree-tops and broken branches in the stream to get caught among the rocks and ruin the fishing; accounts of the immense number of salmon that had been seen leaping in the estuary, waiting to come up the river. The interest centred in the story of a huge fish that had taken up his transient abode in the pool called La Fourche, The Colonel had pricked and lost the monster two days ago, and had seen him jump twice yesterday. The Colonel was greatly excited about it, and vowed it was the largest salmon seen in the river for ten years — '*a whale, I tell you, a regular marsouin !'' he cried, waving his hands in the air. The Doctor was pro- vokingly sceptical about the size of the fish. But both agreed that there was one thing that must be done. Chichester must try a few casts in La Fourche early in the morning. '*Yes," said the Doctor, puffing slowly at his pipe, 38 The Big Salmon 39 'Aplenty of time between daylight and breakfast — good hour for a shy old fish — we give up our rights to you — the pool is yours — see what you can do with it — may be your last chance to try your luck — '' for somehow a rumor in regard to Miss Asham's views on angling had leaked out, and Chichester's friends were inclined to make merry about it. He rose to the fly decidedly. '' I don't know about this being my last chance/' said he, **but Til take it, anyway. John, give me a call at half-past three sharp, and tell the two Louis to be ready with the canoe and the rod and the big landing-net." The little wreaths of gray mist were curling up from the river, and the fleecy western clouds were tinged with wild rose behind the wooded hills, as Chichester stepped out on the slippery rocks at the head of the pool, loosened his line, gave a couple of pulls to his reel to see that the click was all right, waved his slender rod in the air, and sent his fly out across the swift current. Once it swung around, dancing over the water, without result. The second cast carried it out a few feet further, and it curved through a wider arc, but still without result. The third cast sent it a little further still, past the edge of a big sunken rock in the current. There was a flash of silver in the amber water, a great splash on the surface, a broad tail waved in the air and vanished — an immense salmon had risen and missed the fly. Chichester reeled in his line and sat down. His pulses were hammering, and his chin was set at the angle of solid determination. "The Colonel was right,'* he said, '* that's an enormous fish, and he's mine .^" 40 Out of Doors He waited the full five minutes, according to an- cient rule,, before making the next cast. There was a tiny wren singing among the Balm-o'-Gilead trees on the opposite shore, with a voice that rose silverly above the noise of the rapids. ''Cheer up, cheer up,'' it seemed to say, ''what's the matter with you? Don't hurry, don't worry, try it again — again — again !" But the next cast was made in vain. There was no response. Chichester changed his fly. The result was the same. He tried three different flies in suc- cession without effect. Then he gave the top of the pool a rest, and fished down through the smooth water at the lower end, hooking and losing a small fish. Then he came back to the big salmon again, and fished a small Durham Ranger over him without success. A number four Critchley's Fancy produced no better result. A tiny double Silver Gray brought no response. Then he looked through his fly-box in despair, and picked out an old three-nought Prince of Orange — a huge, gaudy affair with battered feathers, which he had used two years before in flood-water on the Restigouche. At least it would astonish the salmon, for it looked like a last season's picture-hat, very much the worse for wear. It lit on the ripples with a splash, and floated down stream in a dishev- elled state till it reached the edge of the sunken rock. Bang ! The salmon rose to that incredible fly with a rush, and went tearing across the pool. The reel shrieked wildly as the line ran out. The rod quivered and bent almost double. Chichester had the butt pressed against his belt, the tip well up in the air, the reel-handle free from any possible The Big Salmon 41 touch of coat-flap or sleeve. To check that fierce rush by a hundredth part of a second meant the snap- ping of the dehcate casting-Hne, or the smashing of the pHant rod-tip. He knew, as the salmon leaped clear of the water, once, twice, three times, that he was in for the fight of his life; and he dropped the point of the rod quickly at each leap to yield to the sudden strain. The play, at first, was fast and furious. The salmon started up the stream, breasting the rapids at a lively rate, and taking out line as rapidly as the reel could run. Chichester followed along the open shore, holding his rod high with both hands, stum- bling over the big rocks, wading knee-deep across a side-channel of the river, but keeping his feet some- how, until the fish paused in the lower part of the pool called La Batture. Here there was a chance to reel in line, and the men poled the canoe up from below, to be ready for the next turn in the contest. The salmon was now sulking at the bottom, with his head down, balanced against the current, and boring steadily. He kept this up for a quarter of an hour, then made a rush up the pool, and a sidelong skittering leap on the surface. Coming back with a sudden turn, he threw a somersault in the air, close to the opposite shore, sank to the bottom and began jigging. Jig, jig, jig, from side to side, with short, heavy jerks, he worked his way back an3 forth twice the length of the pool. Chichester knew it was dan- gerous. Any one of these sharp blows might snap the leader or the hook. But he couldn't stop it. There was nothing to do but wait, with tense nerves, until the salmon got through jigging. 42 Out of Doors The change came suddenly. A notion to go down stream struck the salmon like a flash of lightning; without a moment's warning he took the line over his shoulder and darted into the rapids. ''// va des- cendre ! VitCy vite ! Le canot ! Au large ! '' shouted the two Louis; but Chichester had already stepped into his place in the middle of the canoe, and there were still forty yards of white line left on the reel, when the narrow boat dashed away in pursuit of the fish, impelled by flashing paddles and flinging the spray to right and left. There were many large rocks half hidden in the wild white water through which they were plunging, and with a long line there was danger that the fish would take a turn around one of them and break away. It was necessary to go faster than he went, in order to retrieve as much line as possible. But paddle as fast as they could the fish kept ahead. He was not towing the boat, of course; for only an ignoramus imagines that a salmon can *^tow" a boat, when the casting-line that holds him is a single strand of gut that will break under a strain of ten pounds. He was running away, and the canoe was chasing him through the roaring torrent. But he held his lead, and there were still eighty or ninety yards of line out when he rushed down the last plunge into La Fourche. The situation was this: The river here is shaped like a big Y. The salmon went down the inside edge of the left-hand fork. The canoe followed him down the outside edge of the same fork. When he came to the junction it was natural to suppose that he would follow the current down the main stem of the Y. But instead of that, when the canoe dropped The Big Salmon 43 into the comparative stillness of the pool, the line was stretched, taut and quivering, across the foot of the left-hand fork and straight up into the current of the right-hand fork. ''He's gone up the other branch," shouted Chichester, above the roar of the stream, "we must follow him! Push across the rapids! Push lively!'' So the men seized their set- ting-poles and shoved as fast as they could across the foot of the rapids, while the rushing torrent threatened at every moment to come in over the side and swamp the canoe. There was a tugging and a trembling on the line, and it led, apparently, up the North-East Branch, past Brackett's Camp. But when the canoe reached the middle of the rapids P'tit Louis uttered an exclamation, leaned over the bow, and pulled up the end of a tree-top, the butt of which was firmly wedged among the rocks. Around the slender branches, waving and quivering in the current with life-like motion, the line was looped. The lower part of it trailed away loosely down the stream into the pool. Chichester took in the situation in a flash of grieved insight. ''Well," he said, "that is positively the worst ! Good-by, Mr. Salmon. Louis, pull out that- er, er — that branch !" and he began slowly to reel in the line. But old Louis, in the stern of the canoe, had taken hold of the slack and was pulling it in hand over hand. In a second he shouted '' Arretez ! Arre- tez ! M'sieUy il n'est pas parti, il est la !'' It was a most extraordinary aflfair. The spring of the flexible branch had been enough to keep the line from breaking. The salmon, resting in the compara- tively still water of the pool, had remained at the 44 Out of Doors end of the slack, and the hook, by some fortunate chance, held firm. It took but a moment to get the line taut and the point of the rod up again. And then the battle began anew. The salmon was re- freshed by his fifteen minutes between the halves of the game. No centre in a rush-line ever played harder or faster. He exhausted the possibilities of attack and de- fence in La Fourche, and then started down the rapids again. In the little pot-hole in mid-river, called Pool a Michel, he halted; but it was only for a minute. Soon he was flying down the swift water, the canoe after him, toward the fierce, foaming channel which runs between the island and the eastern bank oppo- site the club-house. Chichester could see the Colonel and the Doctor at the landing, waving and beckon- ing to him, as he darted along with the current. In- tent upon carrying his fight through to a finish, he gave only a passing glance to what he thought was their friendly gesture of encouragement, took his right hand from the reel for a second to wave a greeting, and passed on, with determination written in every line of his chin, following the fish toward the sea. Through the clear shallows of La Pinettey and the rapids below; through the curling depths of Pool a Pierre, and the rapids below; through the long, curv- ing reach of UHirondelle, and the mad rapids below; so the battle went, and it was fight, fight, fight, and never the word ^^give up!'' At last they came to the head of tide-water and the lake-like pool beside the old quay. Here the methods of the fish changed. There was no more leaping in the air; no more The Big Salmon 45 violent jigging; no more swift rushing up or down stream; but instead, there was just an obstinate ad- herence to the deepest water in the pool, a slow and steady circling round and round in some invisible eddy below the surface. From this he could only be moved by pressure. Now was the time to test the strength of the rod and line. The fish was lifted a few feet by main force, and the line reeled in while the rod was lowered again. Then there was another lift, and another reeling in; and so the process was repeated until he was brought close to the shore in comparatively shallow water. Even yet he did not turn over on his back, or show the white fin; but it was evident that he was through fighting. Chichester and P'tit Louis stepped out on the shore, old Louis holding the canoe. P'tit Louis made his way carefully to a point of rock, with the wide- mouthed, long-handled net, and dipped it quietly down into the water, two or three feet deep. The fish was guided gently in toward the shore, and allowed to drop back with the smooth current until the net was around him. Then it was swiftly lifted; there was the gleam of an immense mass of silver in its meshes, an instant of furious struggle, the quick stroke of a short, heavy baton; and the great salmon was landed and despatched. The hook was well set in the outside of his jaw, just underneath his chin; no wonder he played so long, with his mouth shut ! Bring the spring-balance and test his weight. Forty-eight pounds, full mea- sure, the record salmon of the river— a deep thickset fish, whose gleaming silver sides and sharp teeth proved him fresh-run from the sea ! SILVERHORNS Angus McLeod was a grizzle-bearded Scotchman who had run a locomotive on the Intercolonial ever since the road was cut through the woods from New Brunswick to Quebec. Everyone who travelled often on that line knew him, and all who knew him well enough to get below his rough crust, liked him for his big heart. ''Hallo, McLeod," said Hemenway, as he came up through the darkness, ''is that you?'' "It's nane else," answered the engineer as he stepped down from his cab and shook hands warmly. "Hoo are ye, Dud, an' whaur hae ye been murderin' the innocent beasties noo? Hae ye killt yer moose yet? Ye've been chasin' him these mony years." "Not much murdering," replied Hemenway. "I had a queer trip this time — away up the Nepissiguit, with old McDonald. You know him, don't you?" "Fine do I ken Rob McDonald, an' a guid mon he is. Hoo was it that ye couldna slaughter stacks o' moose wi' him to help ye? Did ye see nane at ail?" "Plenty, and one with the biggest horns in the world ! But that's a long story, and there's no time to tell it now." "Time to burrrn, Dud, nae fear o' it! 'Twill be an hour afore the line's clear to Charlo an' they lat us oot o' this. Come awa' up into the cab, mon, an' tell us yer tale. 'Tis couthy an' warm in the cab, an' I'm wiUin' to leesten to yer bluidy ad- vaintures." 46 Silverhorns 47 So the two men clambered up into the engineer's seat. Hemenway gave McLeod his longest and strongest cigar, and filled his own briarwood pipe. The rain was now pattering gently on the roof of the cab. The engine hissed and sizzled patiently in the darkness. The fragrant smoke curled steadily from the glowing tip of the cigar; but the pipe went out half a dozen times while Hemenway was telling the story of Silverhorns. ''We went up the river to the big rock, just below Indian Falls. There we made our main camp, in- tending to hunt on Forty-two Mile Brook. There's quite a snarl of ponds and bogs at the head of it, and some burned hills over to the west, and it's very good rnoose country. ''But some other party had been there before us, and we saw nothing on the ponds, except two cow moose and a calf. Coming out the next morning we got a fine deer on the old wood road — a beautiful head. But I have plenty of deer-heads already." "Bonny creature!" said McLeod. "An' what did ye do wi' it, when ye had murdered it?" "Ate it, of course. I gave the head to Billy Boucher, the cook. He said he could get ten dollars for it. The next evening we went to one of the ponds again, and Injun Pete tried to 'call' a moose for me. But it was no good. McDonald was dis- gusted with Pete's calling; said it sounded like the bray of a wild ass of the wilderness. So the next day we gave up calling and travelled the woods over toward the burned hills. "In the afternoon McDonald found an enormous moose-track; he thought it looked like a bull's track, 48 Out of Doors though he wasn't quite positive. But then, you know, a Scotchman never Hkes to commit himself, except about theology or politics." ''Humph!'* grunted McLeod in the. darkness, showing that the stroke had counted. ''Well, we went on, following that track through the woods, for an hour or two. It was a terrible country, I tell you: tamarack swamps, and spruce thickets, and windfalls, and all kinds of misery. Presently we came out on a bare rock on the burned hillside, and there, across a ravine, we could see the animal lying down, just below the trunk of a big dead spruce that had fallen. The beast's head and neck were hidden by some bushes, but the fore- shoulder and side were in clear view, about two hun- dred and fifty yards away. McDonald seemed to be inclined to think that it was a bull and that I ought to shoot. So I shot, and knocked splinters out of the spruce log. We could see them fly. The animal got up quickly, and looked at us for a moment, shak- ing her long ears; then the huge, unmitigated cow vamoosed into the brush. McDonald remarked that it was 'a varra fortunate shot, almaist providaintial !' And so it was ; for if it had gone six inches lower, and the news had gotten out at Bathurst, it would have cost me a fine of two hundred dollars." "Ye did weel. Dud," puffed McLeod; '*varra weel indeed — for the coo!" "After that," continued Hemenway, "of course my nerve was a little shaken, and we went back to the main camp on the river, to rest over Sunday. That was all right, wasn't it, Mac?" "Aye!" replied McLeod, who was a strict member Silverhorns 49 of the Presbyterian church at Moncton. ^*That was surely a varra safe thing to do. Even a hunter, I'm thinkin', wouldna Hke to be breakin' twa command- ments in the ane day — the foorth and the saxth !" ^'Perhaps not. It's enough to break one, as you do once a fortnight when you run your train into Riviere du Loup Sunday morning. How's that, you old Calvinist?" '* Dudley, ma son," said the engineer, ^Minna airgue a point that ye canna understond. There's guid an' suffeecient reasons for the train. But ye'll ne'er be claimin' that moose-huntin' is a wark o' neecessity or maircy?" **No, no, of course not; but then, you see, barring Sundays, we felt that it was necessary to do all we could to get a moose, just for the sake of our repu- tations. Billy, the cook, was particularly strong about it. He said that an old woman in Bathurst, a kind of fortune-teller, had told him that he was going to have *la bonne chance' on this trip. He wanted to try his own mouth at 'calling.' He had never really done it before. But he had been prac- tising all winter in imitation of a tame cow moose that Johnny Moreau had, and he thought he could make the sound 'b'en bon,' So he got the birch-bark horn and gave us a sample of his skill. McDonald told me privately that it was 'nae sa bad; a deal better than Pete's feckless bellow.' We agreed to leave the Indian to keep the camp (after locking up the whiskey-flask in my bag), and take Billy with us on Monday to 'call' at Hogan's Pond. ''It's a small bit of water, about three-quarters of a mile long and four hundred yards across, and four 50 Out of Doors miles back from the river. There is no trail to it, but a blazed line runs part of the way, and for the rest you follow up the little brook that runs out of the pond. We stuck up our shelter in a hollow on the brook, half a mile below the pond, so that the smoke of our fire would not drift over the hunting- ground, and waited till five o'clock in the afternoon. Then we went up to the pond, and took our position in a clump of birch-trees on the edge of the open meadow that runs round the east shore. Just at dark Billy began to call, and it was beautiful. You know how it goes. Three short grunts, and then a long ooooo-aaaa-ooooh, winding up with another grunt ! It sounded lor^elier than a love-sick hippo- potamus on the house-top. It rolled and echoed over the hills as if it would wake the dead. *' There was a fine moon shining, nearly full, and a few clouds floating by. Billy called, and called, and called again. The air grew colder and colder; light frost on the meadow-grass; our teeth were chattering, fingers numb. ''Then we heard a bull give a short bawl, away off to the southward. Presently we could hear his horns knock against the trees, far up on the hill. McDonald whispered, 'He's comin',' and Billy gave another call. "But it was another bull that answered, back of the north end of the pond, and pretty soon we could hear him rapping along through the woods. Then everything was still. 'Call agen,' says McDonald, and Billy called again. "This time the bawl came from another bull, on top of the western hill, straight across the pond. It Silver horns 51 seemed to start up the other two bulls, and we could hear all three of them thrashing along, as fast as they could come, toward the pond. 'Call agen, a wee one,' says McDonald, trembling with joy. And Billy called a little, seducing call, with two grunts at the end. ''Well, sir, at that, a cow and a calf came rushing down through the brush not two hundred yards away from us, and the three bulls went splash into the water, one at the south end, one at the north end, and one on the west shore. 'Lord,' whispers Mc- Donald, 'it's a meenadgerie !' " "Dud," said the engineer, getting down to open the furnace door a crack, "this is mair than murder ye're comin' at; it's a buitchery — or else it's juist a pack o' lees." "I give you my word," said Hemenway, "it's all true as the catechism. But let me go on. The cow and the calf only stayed in the water a few minutes, and then ran back through the woods. But the three bulls went sloshing around in the pond as if they were looking for something. We could hear them, but we could not see any of them, for the sky had clouded up, and they kept far away from us. Billy tried another short call, but they did not come any nearer. McDonald whispered that he thought the one in the south end might be the biggest, and he might be feeding, and the two others might be young bulls, and they might be keeping away be- cause they were afraid of the big one. This seemed reasonable; and I said that I was going to crawl around the meadow to the south end. 'Keep near a tree,' says Mac; and I started. 52 Out of Doors "There was a deep trail, worn by animals, through the high grass; and in this I crept along on my hands and knees. It was very wet and muddy. My boots were full of cold water. After ten minutes I came to a little point running out into the pond, and one young birch growing on it. Under this I crawled, and rising up on my knees looked over the top of the grass and bushes. "There, in a shallow bay, standing knee-deep in the water, and rooting up the lily-stems with his long, pendulous nose, was the biggest and blackest bull moose in the world. As he pulled the roots from the mud and tossed up his dripping head I could see his horns — four and a half feet across, if they were an inch, and the palms shining like tea-trays in the moonlight. I tell you, old Silverhorns was the most beautiful monster I ever saw. "But he was too far away to shoot by that dim light, so I left my birch-tree and crawled along toward the edge of the bay. A breath of wind must have blown across me to him, for he lifted his head, sniffed, grunted, came out of the water, and began to trot slowly along the trail which led past me. I knelt on one knee and tried to take aim. A black cloud came over the moon. I couldn't see either of the sights on the gun. But when the bull came op- posite to me, about fifty yards off, I blazed away at a venture. "He reared straight up on his hind legs — it looked as if he rose fifty feet in the air — wheeled, and went walloping along the trail, around the south end of the pond. In a minute he was lost in the woods. Good-by, Silverhorns!" Silverhorns 53 ^'Ye tell it weel/* said McLeod, reaching out for a fresh cigar, ''fegs! Ah doot Sir Walter himsel' couldna impruve upon it. An, sae thot's the way ye didna murder puir Seelverhorrns ? It's a tale Tm joyfu' to be hearin'.*' ''Wait a bit," Hemenway answered. ''That's not the end, by a long shot. There's worse to follow. The next morning we returned to the pond at day- break, for McDonald thought I might have wounded the moose. We searched the bushes and the woods where he went out very carefully, looking for drops of blood on his trail." "Bluid!" groaned the engineer. "Hech, mon, wouldna that come nigh to mak' ye greet, to find the beast's red bluid splashed ower the leaves, and think o' him staggerin' on thro' the forest, drippin' the heart oot o' him wi' every step?" *'But we didn't find any blood, you old sentimen- talist. That shot in the dark was a clear miss. We followed the trail by broken bushes and footprints, for half a mile, and then came back to the pond and turned to go down through the edge of the woods to the camp. "It was just after sunrise. I was walking a few yards ahead, McDonald next, and Billy last. Sud- denly he looked around to the left, gave a low whistle and dropped to the ground, pointing northward. Away at the head of the pond, beyond the glitter of the sun on the water, the big blackness of Silver- horns' head and body was pushing through the bushes, dripping with dew. "Each of us flopped down behind the nearest shrub as if we had been playing squat-tag. Billy 54 Out of Doors had the birch-bark horn with him, and he gave a low, short call. Silverhorns heard it, turned, and came parading slowly down the western shore, now on the sand-beach, now splashing through the shal- low water. We could see every motion and hear every sound. He marched along as if he owned the earth, swinging his huge head from side to side and grunting at each step. '*You see, we were just in the edge of the woods, strung along the south end of the pond, Billy nearest the west shore, where the moose was walking, Mc- Donald next, and I last, perhaps fifteen yards farther to the east. It was a fool arrangement, but we had no time to think about it. McDonald whispered that I should wait until the moose came close to us and stopped. **So I waited. I could see him swagger along the sand and step out around the fallen logs. The nearer he came the bigger his horns looked; each palm was like an enormous silver fish-fork with twenty prongs. Then he went out of my sight for a minute as he passed around a little bay in the south- west corner, getting nearer and nearer to Billy. But I could still hear his steps distinctly — slosh, slosh, slosh — thud, thud, thud (the grunting had stopped) — closer came the sound, until it was directly behind the dense green branches of a fallen balsam-tree, not twenty feet away from Billy. Then suddenly the noise ceased. I could hear my own heart pounding at my ribs, but nothing else. And of Silverhorns not hair nor hide was visible. It looked as if he must be a Boojum, and had the power to * Softly and silently vanish away.* Silver horns 55 *' Billy and Mac were beckoning to me fiercely and pointing to the green balsam-top. I gripped my rifle and started to creep toward them. . A little twig, about as thick as the tip of a fishing-rod, cracked un- der my knee. There was a terrible crash behind the balsam, a plunging through the underbrush and a rattling among the branches, a lumbering gallop up the hill through the forest, and Silverhorns was gone into the invisible. **He had stopped behind the tree because he smelled the grease on Billy's boots. As he stood there, hesitating, Billy and Mac could see his shoul- der and his side through a gap in the branches — a dead-easy shot. But so far as I was concerned, he might as well have been in Alaska. I told you that the way we had placed ourselves was a fool arrange- ment. But McDonald would not say anything about it, except to express his conviction that it was not pre- destinated we should get that moose,'' '*Ah didna ken auld Rob had sae much theology aboot him,'* commented McLeod. ^*But noo I'm thinkin' ye went back to yer main camp, an' lat puir Seelverhorrns live oot his life?" **Not much, did we! For now we knew that he wasn't badly frightened by the adventure of the night before, and that we might get another chance at him. In the afternoon it began to rain; and it poured for forty-eight hours. We cowered in our shelter before a smoky fire, and lived on short rations of crackers and dried prunes — it was a hungry time." "But wasna there slathers o' food at the main camp ? Ony fule wad ken eneugh to gae doon to the river an' tak' a guid fill-up." 56 Out of Doors ^^ But that wasn't what we wanted. It was Silver- horns. Billy and I made McDonald stay, and Thursday afternoon, when the clouds broke away, we went back to the pond to have a last try at turn- ing our luck. **This time we took our positions with great care, among some small spruces on a point that ran out from the southern meadow. I was farthest to the west; McDonald (who had also brought his gun) was next; Billy, with the horn, was farthest away from the point where he thought the moose would come out. So Billy began to call, very beautifully. The long echoes went bellowing over the hills. The afternoon was still and the setting sun shone through a light mist, like a ball of red gold. "Fifteen minutes after sundown Silverhorns gave a loud bawl from the western ridge and came crash- ing down the hill. He cleared the bushes two or three hundred yards to our left with a leap, rushed into the pond, and came wading around the south shore toward us. The bank here was rather high, perhaps four feet above the water, and the mud be- low it was deep, so that the moose sank in to his knees. I give you my word, as he came along there was nothing visible to Mac and me except his ears and his horns. Everything else was hidden below the bank. "There were we behind our little spruce-trees. And there was Silverhorns, standing still now, right in front of us. And all that Mac and I could see were those big ears and those magnificent antlers, appearing and disappearing as he lifted and lowered his head. It was a fearful situation. And there was Silver horns 57 Billy, with his birch-bark hooter, forty yards below us — he could see the moose perfectly. '*I looked at Mac, and he looked at me. He whispered something about predestination. Then Billy lifted his horn and m.ade ready to give a little soft grunt, to see if the moose wouldn^t move along a bit, just to oblige us. But as Billy drew in his breath, one of those tiny fool flies that are always blundering around a man's face flew straight down his throat. Instead of a call he burst out with a furious, strangling fit of coughing. The moose gave a snort, and a wild leap in the water, and galloped away under the bank, the way he had come. Mac and I both fired at his vanishing ears and horns, but of course " *'A11 aboooard!" The conductor's shout rang along the platform. ''Line's clear," exclaimed McLeod, rising. ''Noo we'll be off ! Wull ye stay here wi' me, or gang awa' back to yer bed?" ''Here," answered Hemenway, not budging from his place on the bench. The bell clanged, and the powerful machine puffed out on its flaring way through the night. Faster and faster came the big explosive breaths, until they blended in a long steady roar, and the train was sweeping northw^ard at forty miles an hour. The clouds had broken; the night had grown colder; the gibbous moon gleamed over the vast and soli- tary landscape. It was a different thing to Hemen- way, riding in the cab of the locomotive, from an ordinary journey in the passenger-car or an uncon- scious ride in the sleeper. Here he was on the crest 58 Out of Doors of motion, at the fore-front of speed, and the quiver- ing engine with the long train behind it seemed Hke a living creature leaping along the track. It re- sponded to the labor of the fireman and the touch of the engineer almost as if it could think and feel. Its pace quickened without a jar; its great eye pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft of blazing yellow; the rails sang before it and trem- bled behind it; it was an obedient and joyful mon- ster, conquering distance and devouring darkness. On the wide level barrens beyond the Tete-a- Gouche River the locomotive reached its best speed, purring like a huge cat and running smoothly. Mc- Leod leaned back on his bench with a satisfied air. ''She's doin' fine, the nicht,'' said he. ''Ah'm thinkin', whiles, o* yer auld Seelverhorrns. Whaur is he noo? Awa' up on Hogan's Pond, gallantin' around i' the licht o' the mune wi' a lady moose, an' the gladness juist bubblin' in his hairt. Ye're no sorry that he's leevin' yet, are ye. Dud?'' ''Well," answered Hemenway slowly, between the puffs of his pipe, "I can't say I'm sorry that he's alive and happy, though I'm not glad that I lost him. But he did his best, the old rogue; he played a good game, and he deserved to win. Where he is now nobody can tell. He was travelling like a streak of lightning when I last saw him. By this time he may be " "What's yon?" cried McLeod, springing up. Far ahead, in the narrow apex of the converging rails, stood a black form, motionless, mysterious. McLeod grasped the whistle-cord. The black form loomed higher in the moonlight and was clearly silhouetted Copyrighted hy J . A. Lorenz Lieutenant-Commander Henry van Dyke, U. S. N. R. F. Silverhorns 59 against the horizon — a big moose standing across the track. They could see his grotesque head, his shad- owy horns, his high, sloping shoulders. The engineer pulled the cord. The whistle shrieked loud and long. The moose turned and faced the sound. The glare of the headlight fascinated, challenged, angered him. There he stood defiant, front feet planted wide apart, head lowered, gazing steadily at the unknown enemy that was rushing toward him. He was the monarch of the wilderness. There was nothing in the world that he feared, except those strange-smell- ing little beasts on two legs who crept around through the woods and shot fire out of sticks. This was surely not one of those treacherous animals, but some strange new creature that dared to shriek at him and try to drive him out of its way. He would not move. He would try his strength against this big yellow-eyed beast. ^'Losh!'' cried McLeod; ''he's gaun' to fecht us!'' and he dropped the cord, grabbed the levers, and threw the steam off and the brakes on hard. The heavy train slid groaning and jarring along the track. The moose never stirred. The fire smouldered in his small narrow eyes. His black crest was bristling. As the engine bore down upon him, not a rod away, he reared high in the air, his antlers flashing in the blaze, and struck full at the headlight with his im- mense fore feet. There was a shattering of glass, a crash, a heavy shock, and the train slid on through the darkness, lit only by the moon. Thirty or forty yards beyond, the momentum was exhausted and the engine came to a stop. Hemen- way and McLeod clambered down and ran back, 6o Out of Doors with the other trainmen and a few of the passengers. The moose was lying in the ditch beside the track, stone dead and frightfully shattered. But the great head and the vast, spreading antlers were intact. ''Seelver-horrns, sure eneugh !'' said McLeod, bend- ing over him. ^*He was crossin' frae the Nepissiguit to the Jacquet; but he didna get across. Weel, Dud, are ye glad ? Ye hae killt yer first moose !" '* Yes,'' said Hemenway, *4t's my first moose. But it's your first moose, too. And I think it's our last. Ye gods, what a fighter ! " PART II POEMS BIRDS IN THE MORNING This is the carol the Robin throws Over the edge of the valley; Listen how boldly it flows, Sally on sally: Tirra-lirraj Down the river^ Laughing water All a-quiver. Day is near. Clear, clear. Fish are breaking, Time for waking. Tup, tup, tup ! Do you hear ? All clear — Wake up ! This is the ballad the Bluebird sings, Unto his mate replying, Shaking the tune from his wings While he is flying: 63 64 Poems Surely^ surely, surely, Life is dear Even here. Blue above, You to love, Purely, purely, purely. This IS the song the Brown Thrush flings Out of his thicket of roses; Hark how it warbles and rings, Mark how it closes: Luck, luck. What luck ? Good enough for me t Pm alive, you see. Sun shining, No repining ; Never borrow Idle sorrow ; Drop it ! Cover it up ! Hold your cup! Joy will fill it, Don't spill it. Steady, be ready. Good luck ! THE SONG-SPARROW There is a bird I know so well, It seems as if he must have sung Beside my crib when I was young; Before I knew the way to spell The name of even the smallest bird, His gentle-joyful song I heard. Now see if you can tell, my dear, What bird it is that, every year, Sings ^' Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer, '' He comes in March, when winds are strong, And snow returns to hide the earth; But still he warms his heart with mirth, And waits for May. He lingers long While flowers fade; and every day Repeats his small, contented lay; As if to say, we need not fear The season^s change, if love is here With ''Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer.'' 6s 66 Poems He does not wear a Joseph's coat Of many colors, smart and gay; His suit is Quaker brown and gray, With darker patches at his throat. And yet of all the well-dressed throng Not one can sing so brave a song. It makes the pride of looks appear A vain and foolish thing, to hear His '^ Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer.'' A lofty place he does not love. But sits by choice, and well at ease, In hedges, and in little trees That stretch their slender arms above The meadow-brook; and there he sings Till all the field with pleasure rings; And so he tells in every ear. That lowly homes to heaven are near In *' Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer, '^ I like the tune, I like the words; They seem so true, so free from art. So friendly, and so full of heart, That if but one of all the birds Could be my comrade everywhere, My little brother of the air. This is the one Fd choose, my dear. Because he*d bless me, every year. With ^^ Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer. THE MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT While May bedecks the naked trees With tassels and embroideries, And many blue-eyed violets beam Along the edges of the stream, I hear a voice that seems to say, Now near at hand, now far away, ^' Witchery — witchery — witchery /" An incantation so serene, So innocent, befits the scene: There's magic in that small bird's note- See, there he flits — the Yellow- throat; A living sunbeam, tipped with wings, A spark of light that shines and sings '' Witchery — witchery — witchery / " You prophet with a pleasant name, If out of Mary-land you came, You know the way that thither goes Where Mary's lovely garden grows: Fly swiftly back to her, I pray. And try, to call her down this way, '* V/itchery — witchery — witchery !'' 67 68 Poems Tell her to leave her cockle-shells, And all her little silver bells That blossom into melody, And all her maids less fair than she. She does not need these pretty things, For everywhere she comes, she brings '' Witchery — witchery — witchery ! '* The woods are greening overhead, And flowers adorn each mossy bed; The waters babble as they run — One thing is lacking, only one: If Mary were but here to-day, I would believe your charming lay, '* Witchery — witchery — witchery /'' Along the shady road I look — Who's coming now across the brook? A woodland maid, all robed in white — The leaves dance round her with delight. The stream laughs out beneath her feet- Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete, *^ Witchery — witchery — witchery!'' THE WHIP-POOR-WILL Do you remember, father — It seems so long ago — The day we fished together Along the Pocono? At dusk I waited for you, Beside the lumber-mill, And there I heard a hidden bird That chanted, '* whip-poor-will !*' '* Whippoorwill ! whippoorwill ! ** Sad and shrill — '^whippoorwill !'' The place was all deserted; The mill-wheel hung at rest; The lonely star of evening Was quivering in the west; The veil of night was falling; The winds were folded still; And everywhere the trembling air Re-echoed * ' whip-poor-will ! ' * You seemed so long in coming, I felt so much alone; The wide, dark world was round me, And life was all unknown; The hand of sorrow touched me. And made my senses thrill With all the pain that haunts the strain Of mournful whip-poor-will. 69 70 Poems What did I know of trouble? An idle little lad; I had not learned the lessons That make men wise and sad. I dreamed of grief and parting, And something seemed to fill My heart with tears, while in my ears Resounded ' ' whip-poor-will ! ' * 'Twas but a shadowy sadness, That lightly passed away; But I have known the substance Of sorrow, since that day. For nev^ermore at twilight, Beside the silent mill, ril wait for you, in the falling dew, And hear the whip-poor-will. But if you still remember, In that fair land of light. The pains and fears that touch us Along this edge of night, I think all earthly grieving, And all our mortal ill, To you must seem like a boy's sad dream, Who hears the whip-poor-will. *' Whippoorwill ! whippoorwill ! *' A passing thrill — ^^whippoorwill !^^ AN ANGLER'S WISH IN TOWN When tulips bloom in Union Square, And timid breaths of vernal air Go wandering down the dusty town, Like children lost in Vanity Fair; When every long, unlovely row Of westward houses stands aglow, And leads the eyes toward sunset skies Beyond the hills where green trees grow; Then weary seems the street parade. And weary books, and weary trade; Tm only wishing to go a-fishing; For this the month of May was made. II I guess the pussy-willows now Are creeping out on every bough Along the brook; and robins look For early worms behind the plough. The thistle-birds have changed their dun, For yellow coats, to match the sun; And in the same array of flame The Dandelion Show's begun. The flocks of young anemones Are dancing round the budding trees: Who can help wishing to go a-fishing In days as full of joy as these? 71 72 Poems III I think the meadow-lark's clear sound Leaks upward slowly from the ground, While on the wing, the bluebirds ring Their wedding-bells to woods around. The flirting chewink calls his dear Behind the bush; and very near, Where water flows, where green grass grows, Song-sparrows gently sing, ''Good cheer/* And, best of all, through twilight's calm The hermit-thrush repeats his psalm. How much I'm wishing to go a-fishing In days so sweet with music's balm ! IV 'Tis not a proud desire of mine; I ask for nothing superfine; No heavy weight, no salmon great. To break the record, or my line: Only an idle little stream. Whose amber waters softly gleam. Where I may wade, through woodland shade. And cast the fly, and loaf, and dream: Only a trout or two, to dart From foaming pools, and try my art: No more I'm wishing — old-fashioned fishing, And just a day on Nature's heart. AMERICA I LOVE thine inland seas, Thy groves of giant trees, Thy rolling plains; Thy rivers' mighty sweep. Thy mystic canyons deep, Thy mountains wild and steep, All thy domains; Thy silver Eastern strands. Thy Golden Gate that stands Wide to the West; Thy flowery Southland fair, Thy sweet and crystal air, — O land beyond compare. Thee I love best ! March, 1906. 73 DOORS OF DARING The mountains that Inclose the vale With walls of granite, steep and high, Invite the fearless foot to scale Their stairway toward the sky. The restless, deep, dividing sea That flows and foams from shore to shore, Calls to its sunburned chivalry, ^*Push out, set sail, explore!'* The bars of life at which we fret, That seem to prison and control, Are but the doors of daring, set Ajar before the soul. Say not, ''Too poor,*' but freely give; Sigh not, ''Too weak," but boldly try; You never can begin to live Until you dare to die. 74 RELIANCE Not to the swift, the race: Not to the strong, the fight: Not to the righteous, perfect grace: Not to the wise, the light. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul. A thousand times by night The Syrian hosts have died; A thousand times the vanquished right Hath risen, glorified. The truth the wise men sought Was spoken by a child; The alabaster box was brought In trembling hands defi_led. Not from my torch, the gleam, But from the stars above: Not from my heart, life's crystal stream, But from the depths of Love. 75 HOW SPRING COMES TO SHASTA JIM I NEVER saw no ''red gods''; I dunno wot's a '*lure''; But if it's sumpin' takin', then Spring has got it sure; An' it doesn't need no Kiplin's, nor yet no London Jacks, To make up guff about it, while settin' in their shacks. It's sumpin' very simple 'at happens in the Spring, But it changes all the lookin's of every blessed thing; The buddin' woods look bigger, the mounting twice as high, But the house looks kindo smaller, though I couldn't tell ye why. It's cur'ous wot a show-down the month of April makes, Between the reely livin', an' the things that's only fakes ! Machines an' barns an' buildin's, they never give no sign; But the livin' things look lively when Spring is on the line. She doesn't come too suddin, nor she doesn't come too slow; Her gaits is some cayprishus, an' the next ye never know, — A single-foot o' sunshine, a buck o' snow er hail, — But don't be disapp'inted, for Spring ain't goin' ter fail. 76 How Spring Comes to Shasta Jim 77 She's loopin' down the hillside, — the driffs is fadin' out. She's runnin' down the river, — d'ye see them risin' trout ? She's loafin' down the canyon, — the squaw-bed's growin' blue, An' the teeny Johnny- jump-ups is jest a-peekin' thru. A thousan' miles o' pine-trees, with Douglas firs be- tween. Is waitin' for her fingers to freshen up their green; With little tips o' brightness the firs 'ill sparkle thick, An' every yaller pine-tree, a giant candlestick ! The underbrush is risin' an' spreadin' all around. Just like a mist o' greenness 'at hangs above the ground ; A million manzanitas 'ill soon be full o' pink; So saddle up, my sonny, — it's time to ride, I think ! We'll ford or swim the river, becos there ain't no bridge ; We'll foot the gulches careful, an' lope along the ridge; Vv^e'll take the trail to Nowhere, an' travel till we tire, An' camp beneath a pine-tree, an' sleep beside the fire. 78 Poems We'll see the blue-quail chickens, an' hear 'em pipin' clear; An' p'raps we'll sight a brown-bear, or else a bunch o' deer; But never a heathen goddess or god 'ill meet our eyes; For why? There isn't any ! They're just a pack o' lies ! Oh, wot's the use o' ''red gods," an' ''Pan," an' all that stuff ? The natcheral facts o' Springtime is wonderful enuff ! An' if there's Someone made 'em, I guess He under- stood. To be alive in Springtime would make a man feel good. California, 19 13. THE NAME OF FRANCE Give us a name to fill the mind With the shining thoughts that lead mankind, The glory of learning, the joy of art, — A name that tells of a splendid part In the long, long toil and the strenuous fight Of the human race to win its way From the feudal darkness into the day Of Freedom, Brotherhood, Equal Right, — A name like a star, a name of light. I give you France ! Give us a name to stir the blood With a warmer glow and a swifter flood, At the touch of a courage that knows not fear,- A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, And silver-sweet, and iron-strong. That calls three million men to their feet, Ready to march, and steady to meet The foes who threaten that name with wrong, — A name that rings like a battle-song. I give you France ! 79 8o Poems Give us a name to move the heart With the strength that noble griefs impart, A name that speaks of the blood outpoured To save mankind from the sway of the sword, — A name that calls on the world to share In the burden of sacrificial strife When the cause at stake is the world's free life And the rule of the people everywhere, — A name like a vow, a name like a prayer. I give you France! PEACE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC O Lord our God, Thy mighty hand Hath made our country free; From all her broad and happy land May praise arise to Thee. Fulfil the promise of her youth, Her liberty defend; By law and order, love and truth, America befriend ! The strength of every State increase In Union's golden chain; Her thousand cities fill with peace. Her million fields with grain. The virtues of her mingled blood In one new people blend; By unity and brotherhood, America befriend ! O suffer not her feet to stray; But guide her untaught might, That she may walk in peaceful day. And lead the world in light. Bring down the proud, lift up the poor. Unequal ways amend; By justice, nation-wide and sure, America befriend ! Si 82 Poems Thro' all the waiting land proclaim Thy gospel of good-will; And may the music of Thy name In every bosom thrill. O'er hill and vale, from sea to sea, Thy holy reign extend; By faith and hope and charity, America befriend ! PART III STORIES THE KEEPER OF THE LIGHT I When the light-house was built, many years ago, the Isle of the Wise Virgin had another name. It was called the Isle of Birds. Thousands of sea-fowl nested there. The handful of people who lived on the shore robbed the nests and slaughtered the birds, with considerable profit. It was perceived in ad- vance that the building of the light-house would in- terfere with this, and with other things. Hence it was not altogether a popular improvement. Marcel Thibault, the oldest inhabitant, was the leader of the opposition. ''That light-house!'' said he, ''what good will it be for us? We know the way in and out when it makes clear weather, by day or by night. But when the sky gets cloudy, when it makes fog, then we stay with ourselves at home. We know the way. What ? The stranger boats? The stranger boats need not to come here, if they know not the way. The more fish, the more seals, the more everything will there be left for us. Just because of the stranger boats, to build something that makes all the birds wild and spoils the hunting — that is a fool's work. The good God made no stupid light on the Isle of Birds. He saw no necessity of it. "Besides," continued Thibault, puffing slowly at his pipe, "besides — those stranger boats, sometimes they are lost, they come ashore. It is sad! But who gets the things that are saved, all sorts of things, 85 B6 Stories good to put into our houses, good to eat, good to sell, sometimes a boat that can be patched up almost like new — who gets these things, eh? Doubtless those for whom the good God intended them. But who shall get them when this light-house is built, eh? Tell me that, you Baptiste Fortin.*' Fortin represented the party of progress in the lit- tle parliament of the beach. He had come down from Quebec some years ago, bringing with him a wife and two little daughters, and a good many new notions about life. He had good luck at the cod- fishing, and built a house with windows at the side as well as in front. When his third girl, Nataline, was born, he went so far as to paint the house red, and put on a kitchen, and enclose a bit of ground for a yard. This marked him as a radical, an innovator. It was expected that he would defend the building of the light-house. And he did. ''Monsieur Thibault,'' he said, **you talk well, but you talk too late. It is of a past age, your talk. A new time comes to the North Shore. We begin to civilize ourselves. To hold back against the light would be our shame. This light-house means good: good for us, and good for all who come to this coast. It will bring more trade to us. It will bring a boat with the mail, with newspapers, perhaps once, per- haps twice a month, all through the summer. It will bring us into the great world. To lose that for the sake of a few birds would be a pity. Besides, it is impossible. The light-house is coming, certain." Fortin was right, of course. The light-house arrived. It was a very good house for that day. The keeper's dwelling had three rooms The Keeper of the Light 87 and was solidly built. The tower was thirty feet high. The lantern held a revolving light, and once every minute it was turned by clock-work, flashing a broad belt of radiance fifteen miles across the sea. All night long that big bright eye was opening and shutting. "Look!'* said Thibault, ''it winks like a one-eyed Windigo." The Department of Marine and Fisheries sent down an expert from Quebec to keep the light in order and run it for the first summer. He took For- tin as his assistant. By the end of August he re- ported to headquarters that the light was all right, and that Fortin was qualified to be appointed keeper. Before October was out the certificate of appoint- ment came back, and the expert packed his bag to go up the river. **Now look here, Fortin,'' said he, '*this is no fish- ing trip. Do you think you are up to this job?'' ''I suppose," said Fortin. ''Well now, do you remember all this business about the machinery that turns the lantern ? That's the main thing. The bearings must be kept well oiled, and the weight must never get out of order. The clock-face will tell you when it is running right. If anything gets hitched up, here's the crank to keep it going until you can straighten the machine again. It's easy enough to turn it. But you must never let it stop between dark and daylight. The regular turn once a minute — that's the mark of this light. If it shines steady it might as well be out. Yes, better! Any vessel coming along here in a dirty night and seeing a fixed light would take it for the Cape Seal and run ashore. This particular light has got to 88 Stories revolve once a minute every night from April first to December tenth, certain. Can you do it?" '* Certain/' said Fortin. ** That's the way I like to hear a man talk ! Now, youVe got oil enough to last you through till the tenth of December, when you close the light, and to run on for a month in the spring after you open again. The ice may be late in going out and per- haps the supply-boat can't get down before the mid- dle of April, or thereabouts. But she'll bring plenty of oil when she comes, so you'll be all right." ''AH right," said Fortin. "Well, I've said it all, I guess. You understand what you've got to do? Good-by and good luck. You're the keeper of the light now." ''Good luck," said Fortin, "I am going to keep it." The same day he shut up the red house on the beach and moved to the white house on the island with Marie-Anne, his wife, and the three girls, Alma, aged seventeen, Azilda, aged fifteen, and Nataline, aged thirteen. He was the captain, and Marie-Anne was the mate, and the three girls were the crew. They were all as full of happy pride as if they had come into possession of a great fortune. It was the thirty-first day of October. A snow- shower had silvered the island. The afternoon was clear and beautiful. As the sun sloped toward the rose-colored hills of the mainland the whole family stood out in front of the light-house looking up at the tower. "Regard him well, my children," said Baptiste; "God has given him to us to keep, and to keep us. Thibault says he is a Windigo. Well ! We shall see The Keeper of the Light 89 that he is a friendly Windigo. Every minute all the night he shall wink, just for kindness and good luck to all the world, till the daylight.'* II On the ninth of November, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Baptiste went into the tower to see that the clock-work was in order for the night. He set the dial on the machine, put a few drops of oil on the bearings of the cylinder, and started to wind up the weight. It rose a few inches, gave a dull click, and then stopped dead. He tugged a little harder, but it would not move. Then he tried to let it down. He pushed at the lever that set the clock-work in motion. Then it dawned fearfully upon him that something must be wrong. Trembling with anxiety, he climbed up and peered in among the wheels. The escapement wheel was cracked clean through, as if someone had struck it with the head of an axe, and one of the pallets of the spindle was stuck fast in the crack. He could knock it out easily enough, but when the crack came around again the pallet would catch and the clock would stop once more. It was a fatal injury. No matter how the injury to the clock-work was done. No matter who was to be blamed or pun- ished for it. That could wait. The question now was whether the light would fail or not. And it must be answered within a quarter of an hour. '* Marie-Anne! Alma!'' he shouted, ''all of you! To me, in the tower!'' 90 Stories He was up in the lantern when they came running in, full of curiosity, excited, asking twenty questions at once. Nataline climbed up the ladder and put her head through the trap-door. *'What is it?'' she panted. ''What has hap '' ''Go down," answered her father, "go down all at once. Wait for me. I am coming. I will explain." The explanation was not altogether lucid and scientific. There were some bad words mixed up with it. Baptiste was still hot with anger and the unsat- isfied desire to whip somebody, he did not know whom, for something, he did not know what. But angry as he was, he was still sane enough to hold his mind hard and close to the main point. The crank must be adjusted; the machine must be ready to turn before dark. While he worked he hastily made the situation clear to his listeners. That crank must be turned by hand, round and round all night, not too slow, not too fast. The dial on the machine must mark time with the clock on the wall. The light must flash once every minute until daybreak. He would do as much of the labor as he could, but the wife and the two older girls must help him. Nataline could go to bed. At this Nataline's short upper lip trembled. She rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, and began to weep silently. "What is the matter with you?" said her mother; "bad child, have you fear to sleep alone? A big girl like you !" "No," she sobbed, "I have no fear, but I want some of the fun." The Keeper of the Light 91 ''Fun!^' growled her father. ''What fun? She calls this fun !" He looked at her for a moment, as she stood there, half-defiant, half-despondent, with her red mouth quivering and her big brown eyes sparkling fire; then he burst into a hearty laugh. *'Come here, my little wild-cat,'* he said, drawing her to him and kissing her; "you are a good girl after all. I suppose you think this light is part yours, eh?" The girl nodded. ''Well! You shall have your share, fun and all. You shall make the tea for us and bring us some- thing to eat. Perhaps when Alma and 'Zilda fatigue themselves they will permit a few turns of the crank to you. Are you content? Run now and boil the kettle." It was a very long night. No matter how easily a handle turns, after a certain number of revolutions there is a stiffness about it. The stiffness is not in the handle, but in the hand that pushes it. Round and round, evenly, steadily, minute after minute, hour after hour, shoving out, drawing in, cir- cle after circle, no swerving, no stopping, no varying the motion, turn after turn — fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty- seven — what's the use of counting ? Watch the dial ; go to sleep — no ! for God's sake, no sleep ! But how hard it is to keep awake ! How heavy the arm grows, how stifHy the muscles move, how the will creaks and groans ! It is not easy for a human being to become part of a machine. Fortin himself took the longest spell at the crank, of course. He went at his work with a rigid courage. His red-hot anger had cooled down into a shape that 92 Stories was like a bar of forged steel. He meant to make that light revolve if it killed him to do it. He was the captain of a company that had run into an am- buscade. He was going to fight his way through if he had to fight alone. The wife and the two older girls followed him blindly and bravely, in the habit of sheer obedience. They did not quite understand the meaning of the task, the honor of victory, the shame of defeat. But Fortin said it must be done, and he knew best. So they took their places in turn, as he grew weary, and kept the light flashing. And Nataline — well, there is no way of describ- ing what Nataline did, except to say that she played the fife. She felt the contest just as her father did, not as deeply, perhaps, but in the same spirit. She went into the fight with darkness like a little soldier. And she played the fife. When she came up from the kitchen with the smoking pail of tea, she rapped on the door and called out to know whether the Windigo was at home to-night. She ran in and out of the place like a squirrel. She looked up a t the light and laughed. Then she ran in and reported. *'He winks,'' she said, '*old one-eye winks beautifully. K^ep him going. My turn now!" She refused to be put off" with a shorter spell than the other girls. ''No,'' she cried, ''I can do it as well as you. You think you are so much older. Well, what of that? The light is part mine; father said so. Let me turn." The Keeper of the Light 93 When the first glimmer of the little day came shivering along the eastern horizon, Nataline was at the crank. The mother and the two older girls were half-asleep. Baptiste stepped out to look at the sky. ''Come/* he cried, returning. '*We can stop now, it is growing gray in the east, almost morning.'' ''But not yet," said Nataline; "we must wait for the first red. A few more turns. Let's finish it up with a song." She shook her head and piped up the refrain of an old Canadian ballad. And to that cheerful music the first night's battle was carried through to vic- tory. The next day Fortin spent two hours in trying to repair the clock-work. It was of no use. The broken part was indispensable and could not be replaced. At noon he went over to the mainland to tell of the disaster, and perhaps to find out if any hostile hand was responsible for it. He found out nothing. Everyone denied all knowledge of the accident. Perhaps there was a flaw in the wheel; perhaps it had broken itself. That was possible. Fortin could not deny it; but the thing that hurt him most was that he got so little sympathy. Nobody seemed to care whether the light was kept burning or not. When he told them how the machine had been turned all night by hand, they were astonished. "Thunder ! " they cried, "you must have had great misery to do that." But that he proposed to go on doing it for a month longer, until December tenth, and to begin again on April first, and go on turning the light by hand for three or four weeks more until the supply- 94 Stories boat came down and brought the necessary tools to repair the machine — such an idea as this went be- yond their horizon. "But you are crazy, Baptiste/* they said; '*you can never do it; you are not capable/' ''I would be crazy/* he answered, **if I did not see what I must do. That light is my charge. In all the world there is nothing else so great as that for me and for my family — you understand? For us it is the chief thing. It is my Ten Commandments. I shall keep it." After a while he continued: **I want someone to help me with the work on the island. We must be up all the nights now. By day we must get some sleep. I want another man or a strong boy. Is there any who will come? The Government will pay. Or if not, I will pay, myself/' This appeal was of no avail until Thibault's young- est son, Marcel, a well-grown boy of sixteen, volun- teered. So the little Marcel was enlisted in the crew on the island. For thirty nights those six people — a man, and a boy, and four women (Nataline was not going to submit to any distinctions on the score of age, you may be sure) — for a full month they turned their flashing lantern by hand from dusk to day- break. The fog, the frost, the hail, the snow beleaguered their tower. Hunger and cold, sleeplessness and weariness, pain and discouragement, held rendez- vous in that dismal, cramped little room. Many a night Nataline's fife of fun played a feeble, wheezy note. But it played. And the crank went round. The Keeper of the Light 95 And every bit of glass in the lantern was as clear as polished crystal. And the big lamp was full of oil. And the great eye of the friendly giant winked with- out ceasing, through fierce storm and placid moon- light. When the tenth of December came, the light went to sleep for the winter, and the keepers took their way across the ice to the mainland. They had won the battle, not only on the island, fighting against the elements, but also at Dead Men's Point, against public opinion. The inhabitants began to under- stand that the light-house meant something— a law, an order, a principle. When the time arrived to kindle the light again in the spring, Fortin could have had anyone that he wanted to help him. But no; he chose the little Marcel again; the boy wanted to go, and he had earned the right. Besides, he and Nataline had struck up a close friendship on the island, cemented during the winter by various hunting excursions after hares and ptarmigan. Marcel was a skilful setter of snares. But Nataline was not content until she had won consent to borrow her father's rifle. They hunted in partnership. One day they had shot a fox. That is, Nataline had shot it, though Marcel had seen it first and tracked it. Now they wanted to try for a seal on the point of the island when the ice went out. It was quite essential that Marcel should go. But there was not much play in the spring session with the light on the island. It was a bitter job. December had been lamb-like compared with April. First, the southeast wind kept the ice driving in 96 Stories along the shore. Then the northwest wind came hurtling down from the Arctic wilderness like a pack of wolves. There was a snow-storm of four days and nights that made the whole world — earth and sky and sea — look like a crazy white chaos. And through it all, that weary, dogged crank must be kept turning — turning from dark to daylight. It seemed as if the supply-boat would never come. At last they saw it, one fair afternoon, April the twenty-ninth, creeping slowly down the coast. They were just getting ready for another night's work. Fortin ran out of the tower, took off his hat, and began to say his prayers. The wife and the two elder girls stood in the kitchen door, crossing them- selves, with tears in their eyes. Marcel and Nata- line were coming up from the point of the island, where they had been watching for their seal. She was singing. When she saw the boat she stopped short for a minute. *'Well,'' she said, *'they find us awake. And if they don't come faster than that we'll have another chance to show them how we make the light wink, eh?" Then she went on with her song. Ill Nataline grew up like a young birch-tree — stately and strong, good to look at. She was beautiful in her place; she fitted it exactly. Her bronzed face with an under- tinge of red; her low, black eyebrows; her clear eyes like the brown waters of a woodland stream; her dark, curly hair with little tendrils al- The Keeper of the Light 97 ways blowing loose around the pillar of her neck; her broad breast and sloping shoulders; her firm, fearless step; her voice, rich and vibrant; her straight, steady looks — but there, who can describe a thing like that? I tell you she was a girl to love out-of- doors. There was nothing that she could not do. She could cook; she could swing an axe; she could paddle a canoe; she could fish; she could shoot; and, best of all, she could run the light-house. Her father's devo- tion to it had gone into her blood. It was the centre of her life, her law of God. There was nothing about it that she did not understand and love. She lived by it and for it. There were no more accidents to the clock-work after the first one was repaired. It ran on regularly, year after year. Alma and Azilda were married and went away to live, one on the South Shore, the other at Quebec. Nataline was her father's right-hand man. As the rheumatism took hold of him and lamed his shoul- ders and wrists, more and more of the work fell upon her. She was proud of it. At last it came to pass, one day in January, that Baptiste died. The men dug through the snow be- hind the tiny chapel at Dead Men's Point, and made a grave for him, and the young priest of the mission read the funeral service over it. It went without saying that Nataline was to be the keeper of the light, at least until the supply- boat came down again in the spring and orders ar- rived from the Government in Quebec. Why not? She was a woman, it is true. But if a woman can 98 Stories do a thing as well as a man, why should she not do it ? Besides, Nataline could do this particular thing much better than any man on the Point. Everybody ap- proved of her as the heir of her father, especially young Marcel Thibault. What? Yes, of course. You could not help guessing it. He was Nataline's lover. They were to be married the next summer. They sat together in the best room, while the old mother was rocking to and fro and knitting beside the kitchen stove, and talked of what they were going to do. Their talk was mainly of the future, because they were young, and of the light, because Nataline's life belonged to it. That winter was a bad one on the North Shore, and particularly at Dead Men's Point. It was ter- ribly bad. The summer before, the fishing had been almost a dead failure. In June a wild storm had smashed all the salmon nets and swept most of them away. In 'July they could find no caplin for bait for the cod-fishing, and in August and September they could find no cod. The few bushels of potatoes that some of the inhabitants had planted rotted in the ground. The people at the Point went into the win- ter short of money and very short of food. There were some supplies at the store, pork and flour and molasses, and they could run through the year on credit and pay their debts the following summer if the fish came back. But this resource also failed them. In the last week of January the store caught fire and burned up. Nothing was saved. The only hope now was the seal-hunting in February and March and April. That at least would bring f "I am the keeper of the light.' The Keeper of the Light 99 them meat and oil enough to keep them from star- vation. But this hope failed, too. The winds blew strong from the north and west, driving the ice far out into the gulf. The chase was long and perilous. The seals were few and wild. Less than a dozen were killed in all. By the last week in March Dead Men*s Point stood face to face with famine. Then it was that old Thibault had an idea. '* There is sperm oil on the Island of Birds,** said he, '*in the light-house, plenty of it, gallons of it. It is not very good to taste, perhaps, but what of that? It will keep life in the body. The Esqui- maux drink it in the north, often. We must take the oil of the light-house to keep us from starving until the supply-boat comes down.*' '*But how shall we get it?** asked the others. "It is locked up. Nataline Fortin has the key. Will she give it?** '*Give it?** growled Thibault. "Name of a name ! of course she will give it. She must. Is not a life, the life of all of us, more than a light?'* A self-appointed committee of three, with Thi- bault at the head, waited upon Nataline without de- lay, told her their plan, and asked for the key. She thought it over silently for a few minutes, and then refused point-blank. "No,** she said, "I will not give the key. That oil is for the lamp. If you take it the lamp will not be lighted on the first of April; it will not be burning when the supply-boat comes. For me, that would be shame, disgrace, worse than death. I am the keeper of the light. You shall not have the oil.** loo Stories They argued with her, pleaded with her, tried to browbeat her. She was a rock. Her round under- jaw was set like a steel trap. Her lips straightened into a white line. Her eyebrows drew together, and her eyes grew black. **No,'* she cried, ''I tell you no, no, a thousand times no. All in this house I will share with you. But not one drop of what belongs to the light ! Never!" Later in the afternoon the priest came to see her; a thin, pale young man, bent with the hardships of his life, and with sad dreams in his sunken eyes. He talked with her very gently and kindly. *' Think well, my daughter; think seriously what you do. Is it not our first duty to save human life ? Surely that must be according to the will of God. Will you refuse to obey it?'' Nataline was trembling a little now. Her brows were unlocked. The tears stood in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She was twisting her hands together. **My father," she answered, *'I desire to do the will of God. But how shall I know it? Is it not His first command that we should serve Him faith- fully in the duty which He has given us? He gave me this light to keep. My father kept it. He is dead. If I am unfaithful what will he say to me? Besides, the supply-boat is coming soon — I have thought of this — when it comes it will bring food. But if the light is out, the boat may be lost. That would be the punishment for my sin. No, we must trust God. He will keep the people. I will keep the light." The Keeper of the Light loi The priest looked at her long and steadily. A glow came into his face. He put his hand on her shoulder. ''You shall follow your conscience," he said quietly. ''Peace be with you, Nataline.'' That evening just at dark Marcel came. She let him take her in his arms and kiss her. She felt like a little child, tired and weak. "Well,'* he whispered, "you have done bravely, sweetheart. You were right not to give the key. That would have been a shame to you. But it is all settled now. They will have the oil without your fault. To-night they are going out to the light- house to break in and take what they want. You need not know. There will be no blame *' She straightened in his arms as if an electric shock had passed through her. She sprang back, blazing with anger. "What?" she cried, "me a thief by roundabout — with my hand behind my back and my eyes shut? Never. Do you think I care only for the blame ? I tell you that is nothing. My light shall not be robbed, never, never!" She came close to him and took him by the shoul- ders. Their eyes were on a level. He was a strong man, but she was the stronger then. "Marcel Thibault," she said, "do you love me?" " My faith," he gasped, " I do. You know I do." "Then listen," she continued; "this is what you are going to do. You are going down to the shore at once to make ready the big canoe. I am going to get food enough to last us for the month. It will be a hard pinch, but it will do. Then we are going out to the island to-night, in less than an hour. Day I02 Stories after to-morrow is the first of April. Then we shall light the lantern, and it shall burn every night until the boat comes down. You hear? Now go: and be quick: and bring your gun.*' IV They pushed oflf in the black darkness, among the fragments of ice that lay along the shore. They crossed the strait in silence, and hid their canoe among the rocks on the island. They carried their stuff up to the house and locked it in the kitchen. Then they unlocked the tower, and went in, Marcel with his shot-gun, and Nataline with her father's old rifle. They fastened the door again, and bolted it, and sat down in the dark to wait. Presently they heard the grating of the prow of the barge on the stones below, the steps of men stum- bling up the steep path, and voices mingled in con- fused talk. The glimmer of a couple of lanterns went bobbing in and out among the rocks and bushes. There was a little crowd of eight or ten men, and they came on carelessly, chattering and laughing. Three of them carried axes, and three others a heavy log of wood which they had picked up on their way. ''The log is better than the axes," said one; **take it in your hands this way, two of you on one side, another on the opposite side in the middle. Then swing it back and forward and let it go. The door will come down, I tell you, like a sheet of paper. But wait till I give the word, then swing hard. One —two '' The Keeper of the Light 103 "Stop!" cried Nataline, throwing open the Httle window. ''If you dare to touch that door, I shoot." She thrust out the barrel of the rifle, and Marcel's shot-gun appeared beside it. The old rifle was not loaded, but who knew that? Besides, both barrels of the shot-gun were full. There was amazement in the crowd outside the tower, and consternation, and then anger. The gang muttered, cursed, threatened, looked at the guns, and went off to their boat. ''It is murder that you will do," one of them called out; ''you are a murderess, you Mademoiselle Fortin! you cause the people to die of hunger!" "Not I," she answered; "that is as the good God pleases. No matter. The light shall burn." The next day they put the light in order, and the following night they kindled it. They still feared another attack from the mainland, and thought it needful that one of them should be on guard all the time, though the machine itself was working beau- tifully and needed little watching. Nataline took the night duty; it was her own choice; she loved the charge of the lamp. Marcel was on duty through the day. They were together for three or four hours in the morning and in the evening. It was not a desperate vigil like that affair with the broken clock-work eight years before. There was no weary turning of the crank. There was just enough work to do about the house and the tower to keep them busy. The weather was fair. The worst thing was the short supply of food. But though they were hungry, they were not starving. And Nataline still played the fife. She jested, she I04 Stories sang, she told long falr>^ stories while they sat in the kitchen. Marcel admitted that it was not at all a bad arrangement. On the afternoon of the twenty-seventh of April the clouds came down from the north, not a long furious tempest, but a brief, sharp storm, with con- siderable wind and a whirling, blinding fall of April snow. It was a bad night for boats at sea, confusing, bewildering, a night when the light-house had to do its best. Nataline was in the tower all night, tend- ing the lamp, watching the clock-work. Once it seemed to her that the lantern was so covered with snow that light could not shine through. She got her long brush and scraped the snow away. It was cold work, but she gloried in it. The bright eye of the tower, winking, winking steadily through the storm, seemed to be the sign of her power in the world. It was hers. She kept it shining. When morning came the wind was still blowing fitfully offshore, but the snow had almost ceased. Nataline stopped the clock-work, and was just climb- ing up into the lantern to put out the lamp, when Marcel's voice hailed her. ''Come down, Nataline, come down quick. Make haste!" She turned and hurried out, not knowing what was to come; perhaps a message of trouble from the mainland, perhaps a new assault on the light-house. As she came out of the tower, her brown eyes heavy from the night-watch, her dark face pale from the cold, she saw Marcel standing on the rocky knoll beside the house and pointing shoreward. She ran up beside him and looked. There, in the The Keeper of the Light 105 deep water between the island and the point, lay the supply-boat, rocking quietly on the waves. It flashed upon her in a moment what it meant — the end of her fight, relief for the village, victory ! And the light that had guided the little ship safe through the stormy night into the harbor was hers. She turned and looked up at the lamp, still burn- ing. ''I kept you!'* she cried. Then she turned to Marcel; the color rose quickly in her cheeks, the light sparkled in her eyes; she smiled, and held out both her hands, whispering, ''Now you shall keep me !'' There was a fine wedding on the last day of April, and from that time the island took its new name — the Isle of the Wise Virgin. THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE I The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 724. A Httle company of pilgrims, less than a score of men, were travelling slowly northward through the wide forests that rolled over the hills of central Germany. At the head of the band marched Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany. A great preacher; a won- derful scholar; but, more than all, a daring traveller, a venturesome pilgrim, a priest of romance. He had left his home and his fair estate in Wes- sex; he would not stay in the rich monastery of Nutescelle, even though they had chosen him as the abbot; he had refused a bishopric at the court of King Karl. Nothing would content him but to go out into the wild woods and preach to the heathen. Through the forests of Hesse and Thuringia, and along the borders of Saxony, he had wandered for years, with a handful of companions, sleeping under the trees, crossing mountains and marshes, now here, now there, never satisfied with ease and comfort, always in love with hardship and danger. What a man he was ! Fair and slight, but straight as a spear and strong as an oaken staff. His face was still young; the smooth skin was bronzed by wind and sun. His gray eyes, clear and kind, flashed like fire when he spoke of his adventures, and of the 106 The First Christmas-Tree 107 evil deeds of the false priests with whom he con- tended. He was now clad in a tunic of fur, with his long black robe girt high above his waist, so that it might not hinder his stride. His hunter's boots were crusted with snow. Drops of ice sparkled like jewels along the thongs that bound his legs. There were no other ornaments of his dress except the bishop's cross hanging on his breast, and the silver clasp that fastened his cloak about his neck. He carried a strong, tall staff in his hand, fashioned at the top into the form of a cross. Close beside him, keeping step like a familiar com- rade, was young Prince Gregor. Long marches through the wilderness had stretched his legs and broadened his back, and made a man of him in stature as well as in spirit. His jacket and cap were of wolf- skin, and on his shoulder he carried an axe, with broad, shining blade. He was a mighty woodsman now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him as he hewed his way through the trunk of a pine-tree. Behind these leaders followed a pair of teamsters, guiding a rude sledge, loaded with food and the equipage of the camp, and drawn by two big, shaggy horses, blowing thick clouds of steam from their frosty nostrils. Tiny icicles hung from the hairs on their lips. Their flanks were smoking. They sank above the fetlocks at every step in the soft snow. Last of all came the rear guard, armed with bows and javelins. It was no child's play, in those days, to cross Europe afoot. The weird woodland, sombre and illimitable, cov- ered hill and vale, table-land and mountain-peak. io8 Stories There were wide moors where the wolves hunted in packs as if the devil drove them, and tangled thickets where the lynx and the boar made their lairs. Fierce bears lurked among the rocky passes, and had not yet learned to fear the face of man. The gloomy recesses of the forest gave shelter to inhabitants who were still more cruel and dangerous than beasts of prey — outlaws and sturdy robbers and mad were- wolves and bands of wandering pillagers. The travellers were surrounded by an ocean of trees, so vast, so full of endless billows, that it seemed to be pressing on every side to overwhelm them. Gnarled oaks, w^ith branches twisted and knotted as if in rage, rose in groves like tidal waves. Smooth forests of beech-trees, round and gray, swept over the knolls and slopes of land in a mighty ground- swell. But most of all, the multitude of pines and firs, innumerable and monotonous, with straight, stark trunks, and branches woven together in an unbroken flood of darkest green, crowded through the valleys and over the hills, rising on the highest ridges into ragged crests, like the foaming edge of breakers. Through this sea of shadows ran a narrow stream of shining whiteness — an ancient Roman road, cov- ered with snow. It was as if some great ship had ploughed through the green ocean long ago, and left behind it a thick, smooth wake of foam. Along this open track the travellers held their way — heavily, for the drifts were deep; warily, for the hard winter had driven many packs of wolves down from the moors. The steps of the pilgrims were noiseless; but the sledges creaked over the dry snow, and the panting The First Christmas-Tree 109 of the horses throbbed through the still air. The pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness fol- lowed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting for this sign to swoop down upon the world. ** Father,'* said Gregor to the leader, "surely this day's march is done. It is time to rest, and eat, and sleep. If we press onward now, we cannot see our steps." Winfried laughed. ''Nay, my son Gregor," said he, "I am not minded to spare thy legs or mine, until we come farther on our way, and do what must be done this night. Draw thy belt tighter, my son, and hew me out this tree that is fallen across the road, for our camp-ground is not here." The youth obeyed; two of the foresters sprang to help him; and while the soft fir- wood yielded to the stroke of the axes, and the snow flew from the bend- ing branches, Winfried turned and spoke to his fol- lowers in a cheerful voice, that refreshed them like wine. ''Courage, brothers, and forward yet a little ! The moon will light us presently, and the path is plain. Well know I that the journey is weary; and my own heart wearies also for the home in England, where those I love are keeping feast this Christmas-eve. But we have work to do before we feast to-night. For this is the Yule-tide, and the heathen people of the forest are gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to worship their god, Thor. Strange things will be seen there, and deeds which make the soul black. But we are sent to lighten their darkness; and we no Stories will teach our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us such as the woodland has never known. Forward, then, and stiffen up the feeble knees!** A murmur of assent came from the men. Even the horses seemed to take fresh heart. They flat- tened their backs to draw the heavy loads, and blew the frost from their nostrils as they pushed ahead. The night grew broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness was opened secretly somewhere in the sky. Higher and higher swelled the clear moon- flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest into the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but they were receding, and the sound soon died away. The stars sparkled merrily through the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like silver; little breaths of dreaming wind wandered across the pointed fir-tops, as the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following their clew of light through a labyrinth of darkness. After a while the road began to open out a little. There were spaces of meadow-land, fringed with alders, behind which a boisterous river ran clashing through spears of ice. Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket, traversed it, and climbing to the left, emerged sud- denly upon a glade, round and level except at the northern side, where a hillock was crowned with a huge oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant with contorted arms, beckoning to the host of lesser trees. '^Here,*' cried Winfried, as his eyes flashed and his hand lifted his heavy staff, '*here is the Thunder-oak ; and here the cross of Christ shall break the hammer of the false god Thor.'* L The fields around lay bare to the moon. The First Christmas-Tree iii II Withered leaves still clung to the branches of the oak: torn and faded banners of the departed sum- mer. The bright crimson of autumn had long since disappeared, bleached away by the storms and the cold. But to-night these tattered remnants of glory were red again: ancient blood-stains against the dark- blue sky. For an immense fire had been kindled in front of the tree. Tongues of ruddy flame, fountains of ruby sparks, ascended through the spreading limbs and flung a fierce illumination upward and around. The pale, pure moonlight that bathed the surround- ing forests was quenched and eclipsed here. Not a beam of it sifted through the branches of the oak. It stood like a pillar of cloud between the still light of heaven and the crackling, flashing fire of earth. But the fire itself was invisible to Winfried and his companions. A great throng of people were gath- ered around it in a half-circle, their backs to the open glade, their faces toward the oak. Seen against that glowing background, it was but the silhouette of a crowd, vague, black, formless, mysterious. The travellers paused for a moment at the edge of the thicket, and took counsel together. '*It is the assembly of the tribe,*' said one of the foresters, '*the great night of the council. I heard of it three days ago, as we passed through one of the villages. All who swear by the old gods have been summoned. They will sacrifice a steed to the god of war, and drink blood, and eat horse-flesh to make them strong. It will be at the peril of our lives if 112 Stories we approach them. At least we must hide the cross, if we would escape death." ''Hide me no cross," cried Winfried, lifting his staff, ''for I have come to show it, and to make these blind folk see its power. There is more to be done here to-night than the slaying of a steed, and a greater evil to be stayed than the shameful eating of meat sacrificed to idols. I have seen it in a dream. Here the cross must stand and be our rede." At his command the sledge was left in the border of the wood, with two of the men to guard it, and the rest of the company moved forward across the open ground. They approached unnoticed, for all the multitude were looking intently toward the fire at the foot of the oak. Then Winfried's voice rang out, *'Hail, ye sons of the forest ! A stranger claims the warmth of your fire in the winter night." Swiftly, and as with a single motion, a thousand eyes were bent upon the speaker. The semicircle opened silently in the middle; Winfried entered with his followers; it closed again behind them. Then, as they looked round the curving ranks, they saw that the hue of the assemblage was not black, but white — dazzling, radiant, solemn. White, the robes of the women clustered together at the points of the wide crescent; white, the glittering byrnies of the warriors standing in close ranks; white, the fur mantles of the aged men who held the cen- tral place in the circle; white, with the shimmer of silver ornaments and the purity of lamb's-wool, the raiment of a little group of children who stood close by the fire; white, with awe and fear, the faces of all The First Christmas-Tree 113 who looked at them; and over all the flickering, dancing radiance of the flames played and glimmered like a faint, vanishing tinge of blood on snow. The only figure untouched by the glow was the old priest, Hunrad, with his long, spectral robe, flow- ing hair and beard, and dead-pale face, who stood with his back to the fire and advanced slowly to meet the strangers. ''Who are you? Whence come you, and what seek you here?" ''Your kinsman am I, of the German brotherhood,*' answered Winfried, "and from England, beyond the sea, have I come to bring you a greeting from that land, and a message from the All-Father, whose ser- vant I am." "Welcome, then," said Hunrad, "welcome, kins- man, and be silent; for what passes here is too high to wait, and must be done before the moon crosses the middle heaven, unless, indeed, thou hast some sign or token from the gods. Canst thou work miracles?" The question came sharply, as if a sudden gleam of hope had flashed through the tangle of the old priest's mind. But Winfried's voice sank lower and a cloud of disappointment passed over his face as he replied: "Nay, miracles have I never wrought, though I have heard of many; but the All-Father has given no power to my hands save such as belongs to common man." "Stand still, then, thou common man," said Hun- rad scornfully, "and behold what the gods have called us hither to do. This night is the death-night of the sun-god, Baldur the Beautiful, beloved of gods 114 Stories and men. This night is the hour of darkness and the power of winter, of sacrifice and mighty fear. This night the great Thor, the god of thunder and war, to whom this oak is sacred, is grieved for the death of Baldur, and angry with this people because they have forsaken his worship. Long is it since an offering has been laid upon his altar, long since the roots of his holy tree have been fed with blood. Therefore its leaves have withered before the time, and its boughs are heavy with death. Therefore the Slavs and the Wends have beaten us in battle. Therefore the harvests have failed, and the wolf- hordes have ravaged the folds, and the strength has departed from the bow, and the wood of the spear has broken, and the wild boar has slain the hunts- man. Therefore the plague has fallen on our dwell- ings, and the dead are more than the living in all our villages. Answer me, ye people, are not these things true?" A hoarse sound of approval ran through the circle. A chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like the shrill wind in the pine-trees above the rumbling thunder of a waterfall, rose and fell in rude cadences. O Thor, the Thunderer, Mighty and merciless, Spare us from smiting ! Heave not thy hammer, Angry, against us; Plague not thy people. Take from our treasure Richest of ransom. Silver we send thee, Jewels and javelins, The First Christmas-Tree 115 Goodliest garments, All our possessions, Priceless, we proffer. Sheep will we slaughter. Steeds will we sacrifice; Bright blood shall bathe thee, O tree of Thunder, Life-floods shall lave thee. Strong wood of wonder. Mighty, have mercy, Smite us no more, Spare us and save us, Spare us, Thor! Thor! With two great shouts the song ended, and a still- ness followed so intense that the crackling of the fire was heard distinctly. The old priest stood silent for a moment. His shaggy brows swept down over his eyes like ashes quenching flame. Then he lifted his face and spoke. '*None of these things will please the god. More costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more precious the crimson dew that shall send new life into this holy tree of blood. Thor claims your dear- est and your noblest gift." Hunrad moved nearer to the group of children who stood watching the fire and the swarms of spark- serpents darting upward. They had heeded none of the priest's words, and did not notice now that he approached them, so eager were they to see which fiery snake would go highest among the oak branches. Foremost among them, and most intent on the pretty game, was a boy like a sunbeam, slender and quick, with blithe brown eyes and laughing lips. The priest's hand was laid upon his shoulder. The boy turned and looked up in his face. ii6 Stories ''Here/' said the old man, with his voice vibrating as when a thick rope is strained by a ship swinging from her moorings, ''here is the chosen one, the eldest son of the chief, the darling of the people. Hearken, Bernhard, wilt thou go to Valhalla, where the heroes dwell with the gods, to bear a message to Thor?" The boy answered, swift and clear: "Yes, priest, I will go if my father bids me. Is it far away? Shall I run quickly? Must I take my bow and arrows for the wolves?" The boy's father, the chieftain Gundhar, standing among his bearded warriors, drew his breath deep, and leaned so heavily on the handle of his spear that the wood cracked. And his wife, Irma, bending forward from the ranks of women, pushed the golden hair from her forehead with one hand. The other dragged at the silver chain about her neck until the rough links pierced her flesh, and the red drops fell unheeded on her breast. A sigh passed through the crowd, like the murmur of the forest before the storm breaks. Yet no one spoke save Hunrad: "Yes, my prince, both bow and spear shalt thou have, for the way is long, and thou art a brave hunts- man. But in darkness thou must journey for a lit- tle space, and with eyes blindfolded. Fearest thou ?'' "Naught fear I,'' said the boy, "neither darkness, nor the great bear, nor the were-wolf. For I am Gundhar 's son, and the defender of my folk.'* Then the priest led the child in his raiment of lamb's-wool to a broad stone in front of the fire. He gave him his little bow tipped with silver, and his The First Christmas-Tree 117 spear with shining head of steel. He bound the child's eyes with a white cloth, and bade him kneel beside the stone with his face to the east. Uncon- sciously the wide arc of spectators drew inward toward the centre. Winfried moved noiselessly until he stood close behind the priest. The old man stooped to lift a black hammer of stone from the ground — the sacred hammer of the god Thor. Summoning all the strength of his with- ered arms, he swung it high in the air. It poised for an instant above the child's fair head— then turned to fall. One keen cry shrilled out from where the women stood: '*Me! take me! not Bernhard!" The flight of the mother toward her child was swift as the falcon's swoop. But swifter still was the hand of the deliverer. Winfried's heavy staff thrust mightily against the hammer's handle as it fell. Sideways it glanced from the old man's grasp, and the black stone, strik- ing on the altar's edge, split in twain. A shout of awe and joy rolled along the living circle. The branches of the oak shivered. The flames leaped higher. As the shout died away the people saw the lady Irma, with her arms clasped round her child, and above them, on the altar-stone, Winfried, his face shining like the face of an angel. III A swift mountain-flood rolling down Its channel; a huge rock tumbling from the hill-side and falling in mid-stream: the baffled waters broken and confused, ii8 Stories pausing in their flow, dash high against the rock, foaming and murmuring, with divided impulse, un- certain whether to turn to the right or the left. Even so Winfried's bold deed fell into the midst of the thoughts and passions of the council. They were at a standstill. Anger and wonder, reverence and joy and confusion surged through the crowd. They knew not which way to move: to resent the in- trusion of the stranger as an insult to their gods, or to welcome him as the rescuer of their prince. The old priest crouched by the altar, silent. Con- flicting counsels troubled the air. Let the sacrifice go forward; the gods must be appeased. Nay, the boy must not die; bring the chieftain's best horse and slay it in his stead; it will be enough; the holy tree loves the blood of horses. Not so, there is a better counsel yet; seize the stranger whom the gods have led hither as a victim and make his life pay the for- feit of his daring. The withered leaves on the oak rustled and whis- pered overhead. The fire flared and sank again. The angry voices clashed against each other and fell like opposing waves. Then the chieftain Gundhar struck the earth with his spear and gave his de- cision. **A11 have spoken, but none are agreed. There is no voice of the council. Keep silence now, and let the stranger speak. His words shall give us judgment, whether he is to live or to die." Winfried lifted himself high upon the altar, drew a roll of parchment from his bosom, and began to read. *'A letter from the great Bishop of Rome, who sits The First Christmas-Tree 119 on a golden throne, to the people of the forest, Hes- sians and Thuringians, Franks and Saxons." A murmur of awe ran through the crowd. Winfried went on to read the letter, translating it into the speech of the people. '*We have sent unto you our Brother Boniface, and appointed him your bishop, that he may teach you the only true faith, and baptize you, and lead you back from the ways of error to the path of salva- tion. Hearken to him in all things like a father. Bow your hearts to his teaching. He comes not for earthly gain, but for the gain of your souls. Depart from evil works. Worship not the false gods, for they are devils. Offer no more bloody sacrifices, nor eat the flesh of horses, but do as our Brother Boni- face commands you. Build a house for him that he may dwell among you, and a church where you may offer your prayers to the only living God, the Al- mighty King of Heaven.'' It was a splendid message: proud, strong, peaceful, loving. The dignity of the words imposed mightily upon the hearts of the people. They were quieted as men who have listened to a lofty strain of music- ''Tell us, then,'' said Gundhar, ''what is the word that thou bringest to us from the Almighty ? What is thy counsel for the tribes of the woodland on this night of sacrifice?" "This is the word, and this is the counsel," an- swered Winfried. "Not a drop of blood shall fall to-night, save that which pity has drawn from the breast of your princess, in love for her child. Not a Hfe shall be blotted out in the darkness to-night; but the great shadow of the tree which hides you from I20 Stories the light of heaven shall be swept away. For this is the birthnight of the white Christ, son of the All- Father, and Saviour of mankind. Since He has come to earth the bloody sacrifice must cease. The dark Thor, on whom you vainly call, is dead. His power in the world is broken. Will you serve a helpless god? See, my brothers, you call this tree his oak. Does he dwell here? Does he protect it?" A troubled voice of assent rose from the throng. The people stirred uneasily. Women covered their eyes. Hunrad lifted his head and muttered hoarsely, '*Thor! take vengeance! Thor!'' Winfried beckoned to Gregor. ** Bring the axes, thine and one for me. Now, young woodsman, show thy craft ! The king-tree of the forest must fall, and swiftly, or all is lost !" The two men took their places facing each other, one on each side of the oak. Their cloaks were flung aside, their heads bare. Carefully they felt the ground with their feet, seeking a firm grip of the earth. Firmly they grasped the axe-helves and swung the shining blades. ' * Tree-god ! ' ' cried Winf ri^ , ' * art thou angry ? Thus we smite thee !'' *^ Tree-god !'' answered Gregor, **art thou mighty? Thus we fight thee!'' Clang ! clang ! the alternate strokes beat time upon the hard, ringing wood. The axe-heads glittered in their rhythmic flight, like fierce eagles circling about their quarry. The broad flakes of wood flew from the deepening gashes in the lides of the oak. The huge trunk quiv- The First Christmas-Tree 121 ered. There was a shuddering in the branches. Then the great wonder of Winfried's Hfe came to pass. Out of the stillness of the winter night a mighty rushing noise sounded overhead. Was it the ancient gods on their white battle- steeds, with their black hounds of wrath and their arrows of lightning, sweeping through the air to destroy their foes? A strong, whirling wind passed over the tree- tops. It gripped the oak by its branches and tore it from the roots. Backward it fell, like a ruined tower, groaning and crashing as it split asunder in four great pieces. Winfried let his axe drop, and bowed his head for a moment in the presence of almighty power. Then he turned to the people: '^Here is the tim- ber,'' he cried, ''already felled and split for your new building. On this spot shall rise a chapel to the true God and his servant St. Peter. *'And here,'' said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top pointing toward the stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, ''here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the chieftain's hall. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, with laughter and songs and rites of love. The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is com- ing when there shall not be a home in all Germany 122 Stories where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in the birthnight of Christ/' So they took the little fir from its place, and car- ried it in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on the sledge. The horses tossed their heads and drew their load bravely, as if the new bur- den had made it lighter. When they came to the house of Gundhar, he bade them throw open the doors of the hall and set the tree in the midst of it. They kindled lights among the branches until it seemed to be tangled full of fire-flies. The children encircled it, wonder- ing, and the sweet odor of the balsam filled the house. Then Winfried stood beside the chair of Gundhar, on the dais at the end of the hall, and told the story of Bethlehem; of the babe in the manger, of the shepherds on the hills, of the host of angels and their midnight song. All the people listened, charmed into stillness. But the boy Bernhard, on Irma's knee, folded in her soft arms, grew restless as the story lengthened, and began to prattle softly at his mother's ear. ''Mother,*' whispered the child, ''why did you cry out so loud when the priest was going to send me to Valhalla?" "Oh, hush, my child," answered the mother, and pressed him closer to her side. "Mother," whispered the boy again, laying his finger on the stains upon her breast, "see, your dress is red ! What are these stains ? Did someone hurt you?" The mother closed his mouth with a kiss. "Dear, be still, and listen !" The First Christmas-Tree 123 The boy obeyed. His eyes were heavy with sleep. But he heard the last words of Winfried as he spoke of the angelic messengers, flying over the hills of Judea and singing as they flew. The child won- dered and dreamed and listened. Suddenly his face grew bright. He put his lips close to Irma's cheek again. '*0h, mother!'' he whispered very low, ''do not speak. Do you hear them? Those angels have come back again. They are singing now behind the tree." And some say that it was true; but some say that it was the pilgrims whom the child heard, singing their Christmas carol. THE HERO AND TIN SOLDIERS On December twenty-fifth, 1918, that little white house in the park was certainly the happiest dwell- ing in Calvinton. It was simply running over with Christmas. You see, there had come to it a most wonderful present, a surprise full of tears and laughter. Cap- tain Walter Mayne reached home on Christmas Eve. For a while they had thought that he would never come back at all. News had been received that he was grievously wounded in France — shot to pieces, in effect, leading his men near Chateau-Thierr3\ His life hung on the ragged edge of those wounds. But his wife Katharine always believed that he would pull through. So he did. But he was lacking a leg, his right arm was knocked out of commission for the present, and various other souvenirs de la grande guerre were inscribed upon his body. Then word arrived that he was coming on a trans- port, with other wounded, to be patched up in a hospital on Staten Island. So his wife Katharine smiled her way through innumerable entanglements of red tape and went to nurse him. Then she set her steady hand to pull all the wires necessary to get him discharged and sent home. Christmas was in her heart and she would not be denied. So it came to pass that the one-legged Hero was in his own house on the happy day, and joy was bubbling all around him. When the old Pastor entered, late in the after- 124 The Hero and Tin Soldiers 125 noon, the Christmas-tree was twinkling with lights, the children swarming and buzzing all over the place, so that he was dazed for a moment. There were Walter's mother and his aunt and his sisters-in-law, boys and girls of various sizes, and a jubilant and entrancing baby. The Pastor took it all in, and was glad of it, but his mind was on the Hero. Katharine, who always understood everything, whispered softly: ^* Walter is waiting to see you. Doctor. He is in his study, just across the hall." Waiting ? Well, what can a man whose right leg has been cut off above the knee, and who has not yet been able to get an artificial one — what can he do but wait? The room was rather dimly lighted; brilliance is not good for the eyes of the wounded. Walter was in a long chair in the corner; his face was bronzed, drawn and lined a little by suffering; but steady and cheerful as ever, with the eager look which had made his students listen to him when he talked to them about English literature. ''My dear Walter,'' said the Pastor, '*my dear boy, we are so glad to have you home with us again. We are very proud of you. You are our Hero." ''Thank you," said Walter, "it is mighty good to be home again. But there is no hero business about it. I only did what all the other Americans who went over there did — fought my — excuse me, my best, against the beastly Germans." "But your leg," said the Pastor impulsively, "it is gone. Aren't you angry about that?" Walter was silent for a moment. Then he an- swered. 126 Stories ''No, I don't think angry is the right word. You remember that story about Nathan Hale in the Revolution — 'I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country/ Well, Tm glad that I had two legs to give for my country, and particularly glad that she only needed one of them/' "Tell me a bit about the fighting,'* said the Pas- tor, ''I want to know what it was like — the hero- touch — you understand?" ''Not for me," said Walter, "and certainly not now. Later on I can tell you something, perhaps. But this is Christmas Day. And war? Well, Doc- tor, believe me, war is a horrible thing, full of grime and pain, madness, agony, hell — a thing that ought not to be. I have fought alongside of the other fel- lows to put an end to it, and now " The door swung open, and Sammy, the eldest son of the house, pranced in. "Look, Daddy," he cried, "see what Aunt Emily has sent me for Christmas — a big box of tin sol- diers!" Mayne smiled as the little boy carefully laid the box on his knee; but there was a shadow of pain in his eyes, and he closed them for a few seconds, as if his mind were going back, somewhere, far away. Then he spoke, tenderly, but with a grave voice. "That's fine, sonny — all those tin soldiers. But don't you think they ought to belong to me? You have lots of other toys, you know. Would you give the soldiers to me?" The child looked up at him, puzzled for a moment; then a flash of comprehension passed over his face, and he nodded valiantly. The Hero and Tin Soldiers 127 '*Sure, Father/' he said, "You're the Captain. Keep the soldiers. I'll play with the other toys," and he skipped out of the room. Mayne's look followed him with love. Then he turned to the old Pastor and a strange expression came into his face, half whimsical and half grim. ''Doctor," he said, ''will you do me a favor? Poke up that fire till it blazes. That's right. Now lay this box in the hottest part of the flames. That's right. It will soon be gone." The elder man did what was asked, with an air of slight bewilderment, as one humors the fancies of an invalid. He wondered whether Mayne's fever had quite left him. He watched the fire bulging the lid and catching round the edges of the box. Then he heard Mayne's voice behind him, speaking very quietly. *'If ever I find my little boy playing with tin sol- diers, I shall spank him well. No, that wouldn't be quite fair, would it? But I shall tell him why he must not do it, and / shall make him understand that it's an impossible thing,'' Then the old Pastor comprehended. There was no touch of fever. The one-legged Hero had come home from the wars completely well and sound in mind. So the two men sat together in love by the Christmas fire, and saw the tin soldiers melt away. THE KING'S HIGH WAY In the last remnant of Belgium, a corner yet un- conquered by the German horde, I saw a tall young man walking among the dunes, between the sodden lowland and the tumbling sea. The hills where he trod were of sand heaped high by the western winds; and the growth over them was wire-grass and thistles, bayberry and golden broom and stunted pine, with many humble wild flowers — things of no use, yet beautiful. The sky above was gray; thje northern sea was gray; the southern fields were hazy gray over green; the smoke of shells bursting in the air was gray. Gray was the skeleton of the ruined city in the dis- tance; gray were the shattered spires and walls of a dozen hamlets on the horizon; gray, the eyes of the young man who walked in faded blue uniform, in the remnant of Belgium. But there was an in- domitable light in his eyes, by which I knew that he was a King. *'Sir,'' I said, '*I am sure that you are his Majesty, the King of Belgium.'* He bowed, and a pleasant smile relaxed his tired face. "Pardon, monsieur,'' he answered, ''but you make the usual mistake in my title. If I were only 'the King of Belgium,' you see, I should have but a poor kingdom now — only this narrow strip of earth, per- haps four hundred square miles of debris, just a 128 The King^s High Way 129 ^pou stOy' a place to stand, enough to fight on, and if need be to die in.'* His hand swept around the half-circle of dull land- scape visible southward from the top of the loftiest dune, the Hooge Blikker. It was a land of slow- winding streams and straight canals and flat fields, with here and there a clump of woods or a slight rise of ground, but for the most part level and monotonous, a checker-board landscape — stretching away until the eyes rested on the low hills beyond Ypres. Now all the placid charm of Flemish fertility was gone from the land — it was scarred and marred and pitted. The shells and mines had torn holes in it; the trenches and barbed-wire entanglements spread over it like a network of scars and welts; the trees were smashed into kindling-wood; the farmhouses were heaps of charred bricks ; the shattered villages were like mouths full of broken teeth. As the King looked round at all this, his face darkened and the slight droop of his shoulders grew more marked. *^But, no,'' he said, turning to me again, ^^that is not my kingdom. My real title, monsieur, is King of the Belgians. It was for their honor, for their lib- erty, that I was willing to lose my land and risk my crown. While they live and hold true, I stand fast." Then ran swiftly through me the thought of how the little Belgian army had fought, how the Belgian people had suffered, rather than surrender the inde- pendence of their country to the barbarians. The German cannonade was roaring along the Yser a few miles away; the air trembled with the overload of sound; but between the peals of thunder I could hear the brave song of the skylark climbing his silver 130 Stories stairway of music, undismayed, hopeful, unconquer- able. I remembered how the word of this quiet man beside whom I stood had been the inspiration and encouragement of his people through the fierce con- flict, the long agony: ^' I have faith in our destiny; a nation which defends itself does not perish; God will be with us in that just cause.'' '*Sir,'' I said, **you have a glorious kingdom which shall never be taken away. But as for your land, the fates have been against you. How will you ever get back to it? The Germans are strong as iron and they bar the way. Will you make a peace with them and take what they have so often offered you ?*' ''Never," he answered calmly; "that is not the way home, it is the way to dishonor. When God brings me back, my army and my Queen are going with me to liberate our people. There is only one way that leads there — the King's high way. Look, monsieur^ you can see the beginning of it down there. I hope you wish me well on that road, for I shall never take another.'' So he bade me good afternoon very courteously and walked away among the dunes to his little cot- tage at La Panne. Looking down through the light haze of evening I saw a strip of the straight white road leading east- ward across the level land. At the beginning of it there was a broken bridge; in places it seemed torn up by shells; it . disappeared in the violet dusk. But as I looked a vision came. The bridge is restored, the road mended and built up, and on that highway rides the King in his faded uniform with the Queen in white beside him. At The King^s High Way 131 their approach ruined villages rejoice aloud and ancient towns break forth into singing. In Bruges the royal comrades stand beside the gi- gantic monument in the centre of the Great Market, and above the shouting of the multitude the music of the old belfry floats unheard. Ghent and Antwerp have put on their glad raiment, and in their crooked streets and crowded squares joy flows like a river singing as it goes. Into Brussels I see this man and woman ride through a welcome that rises around them like the voice of many waters — the welcome of those who have waited and suffered, the welcome of those to whom liberty and honor were more dear than life. In the Grande PlacCy the antique, carven, gabled houses are gay with fluttering banners; the people delivered from the cruel invader sing lustily the Marseillaise and the old songs of Belgium. In the midst, Albert and Elizabeth sit quietly upon their horses. They have come home. Not by the low road of cowardly surrender; not by the crooked road of compromise and falsehood; not by the soft road of ease and self-indulgence; but by the straight road of faith and courage and self-sacrifice— the King's High Way. THE KING^S JEWEL There was an outcry at the door of the king's great hall, and suddenly a confusion arose. The guards ran thither swiftly, and the people were crowded together, pushing and thrusting as if to withhold some intruder. Out of the tumult came a strong voice shouting, '*I will come in! I must see the false king!'' But other voices cried, *'Not so — you are mad — you shall not come in thus!" Then the king said, '*Let him come in as he will !" So the confusion fell apart, and the hall was very still, and a man in battered armor stumbled through the silence and stood in front of the throne. He was breathing hard, for he was weary and angry and afraid, and the sobbing of his breath shook him from head to foot. But his anger was stronger than his weariness and his fear, so he lifted his eyes hardily and looked the king in the face. It was like the face of a mountain, very calm and very high, but not unkind. When the man saw it clearly he knew that he was looking at the true king; but his anger was not quenched, and he stood stiff, with drawn brows, until the king said, ^' Speak!" For answer the man drew from his breast a golden chain, at the end of which was a jewel set with a great blue stone. He looked at it for a moment with scorn, as one who had a grievance. Then he threw it down on the steps of the throne, and turned on his heel to go. 132 The King^s Jewel 133 ''Stay/' said the king. ''Whose is this jewel?'* "I thought it to be yours," said the man. "Where did you get it?'* asked the king. "From an old servant of yours/' answered the man. "He gave it to me when I was but a lad, and told me it came from the king — it was the blue stone of the Truth, perfect and priceless. Therefore I must keep it as the apple of mine eye, and bring it back to the king perfect and unbroken." "And you have done this?" said the king. "Yes and no," answered the man. "Divide your answer," said the king. "First, the yes.^' The man delayed a moment before he spoke. Then his words came slow and firm as if they were measured and weighed in his mind. "All that man could do, O king, have I done to keep this jewel of the Truth. Against open foes and secret robbers I have defended it, with faithful watching and hard fighting. Through storm and peril, through darkness and sorrow, through the temptation of pleasure and the bewilderment of riches, I have never parted from it. Gold could not buy it; passion could not force it; nor man nor woman could wile or win it away. Glad or sorry, well or wounded, at home or in exile, I have given my life to keep the jewel. This is the meaning of the yes.^* "It is right," said the king. "And now the no.^^ The man answered quickly and with heat. "The no also is right, O king! But not by my fault. The jewel is not untarnished, not perfect. It never was. There is a flaw in the stone. I saw it first when I entered the light of your palace-gate. 134 Stories Look, it IS marred and imperfect, a thing of little value. It is not the crystal of Truth. I have been deceived. You have claimed my life for a fool's errand, a thing of naught; no jewel, but a bauble. Take it. It is yours.'* The king looked not at the gold chain and the blue stone, but at the face of the man. He looked quietly and kindly and steadily into the eyes full of pain and wounded loyalty, until they fell before his look Then he spoke gently. '*Will you give me my jewel?'' The man lifted his eyes in wonder. '*It is there," he cried, ''at your feet!" '*I spoke not of that," said the king, *'but of your life, yourself." **My life," said the man faltering, '*what is that? Is it not ended?" "It is begun," said the king. ''Your life — your- self, what of that?" *'I had not thought of that," said the man, "only of the jewel, not of myself, my life." "Think of it now," said the king, "and think clearly. Have you not learned courage and hardi- ness ? Have not your labours brought you strength ; your perils, wisdom; your wounds, patience? Has not your task broken chains for you, and lifted you out of sloth and above fear? Do you say that the stone that has done this for you is false, a thing of naught?" "Is this true?" said the man, trembling and sink- ing on his knee. "It is true," answered the king, "as God lives, it is true. Come, stand at my right hand. My jewels The King's Jewel 135 that I seek are not dead, but alive. But the stone which led you here — look! has it a flaw?" He stooped and lifted the jewel. The light of his face fell upon it. And in the blue depths of the sapphire the man saw a star. PART IV THINGS TO REMEMBER THE ARROW Life is an arrow — therefore you must know What mark to aim at, how to use the bow — Then draw it to the head, and let it go ! FOUR THINGS Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true: To think without confusion clearly; To love his fellow-men sincerely; To act from honest motives purely; To trust in God and Heaven securely. LOVE AND LIGHT There are many kinds of love, as many kinds of light, And every kind of love makes a glory in the night. There is love that stirs the heart, and love that gives it rest. But the love that leads life upward is the noblest and the best. 139 MIGHT AND RIGHT If Might makes Right, Hfe were a wild-beasts' cage; If Right makes Might, this were the golden age; But now, until we win the long campaign, Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign. JOY AND DUTY **JOY is a Duty'* — so with golden lore The Hebrew rabbis taught in days of yore, And happy human hearts heard in their speech Almost the highest wisdom man can reach. But one bright peak still rises far above, And there the Master stands whose name is Love, Saying to those whom weary tasks employ: ^*Life is divine when Duty is a Joy.'' 140 WORK Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom. In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, **This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; Of all who live, I am the one by whom This work can best be done in the right way." Then shall I see it not too great, nor small, To suit my spirit and to prove my powers; Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours, And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall At eventide, to play and love and rest. Because I know for me my work is best. 141 THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at one time new, have never at any time been strictly true. The character of Washington, emerging splendid from the dust and tumult of those great conflicts in which he played the leading part, has passed succes- sively into three media of obscuration, from each of which his figure, like the sun shining through vapors, has received some disguise of shape and color. First came the mist of mythology, in which we discerned the new St. George, serene, impeccable, moving through an orchard of ever-blooming cherry-trees, gracefully vanquishing dragons with a touch, and shedding fragrance and radiance around him. Out of that mythological mist we groped our way, to find ourselves beneath the rolling clouds of oratory, above which the head of the hero was pinnacled in remote grandeur, like a sphinx poised upon a volcanic peak, isolated and mysterious. That altitudinous figure still dominates the cloudy landscapes of the after- dinner orator; but the frigid, academic mind has turned away from it, and looking through the fog of criticism has descried another Washington, not really an American, not amazingly a hero, but a very decent English country gentleman, honorable, courageous, good, shrewd, slow, and above all immensely lucky. 142 The Americanism of Washington 143 Now here are two of the things often said about Washington which need, if I mistake not, to be un- said: first, that he was a soHtary and inexphcable phenomenon of greatness; and second, that he was not an American. SoHtude, indeed, is the last quality that an intelli- gent student of his career would ascribe to him. Dignified and reserved he was, undoubtedly; and as this manner was natural to him, he won more true friends by using it than if he had disguised himself in a forced familiarity and worn his heart upon his sleeve. But from first to last he was a man who did his work in the bonds of companionship, who trusted his comrades in the great enterprise even though they were not his intimates, and who neither sought nor occupied a lonely eminence of unshared glory. He was not of the jealous race of those who "Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne"; nor of the temper of George III, who chose his min- isters for their vacuous compliancy. Washington was surrounded by men of similar though not of equal strength — Franklin, Hamilton, Knox, Greene, the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison. He stands in his- tory not as a lonely pinnacle like Mount Shasta, ele- vated above the plain **By drastic lift of pent volcanic fires"; but as the central summit of a mountain range, with all his noble fellowship of kindred peaks about him, enhancing his unquestioned supremacy by their glori- ous neighborhood and their great support. Among these men whose union in purpose and 144 Things to Remember action made the strength and stability of the re- public, Washington was first, not only in the large- ness of his nature, the loftiness of his desires, and the vigor of his will, but also in that representative qual- ity which makes a man able to stand as the true hero of a great people. He had an instinctive power to divine, amid the confusions of rival interests and the cries of factional strife, the new aims and hopes, the vital needs and aspirations, which were the common inspiration of the people's cause and the creative forces of the American nation. The power to un- derstand this, the faith to believe in it, and the un- selfish courage to live for it, was the central factor of Washington's life, the heart and fountain of his splen- did Americanism. It was denied during his lifetime, for a little while, by those who envied his greatness, resented his lead- ership, and sought to shake him from his lofty place. But he stood serene and imperturbable, while that denial, like many another blast of evil-scented wind, passed into nothingness, even before the disappear- ance of the party strife out of whose fermentation it had arisen. By the unanimous judgment of his countrymen for two generations after his death he was hailed as Pater PatricB ; and the age which con- ferred that title was too ingenuous to suppose that the father could be of a different race from his own offspring. But the modern doubt is more subtle, more curi- ous, more refined in its methods. It does not spring, as the old denial did, from a partisan hatred, which would seek to discredit Washington by an accusation of undue partiality for England, and thus to break The Americanism of Washington 145 his hold upon the love of the people. It arises, rather, like a creeping exhalation, from a modern theory of what true Americanism really is: a theory which goes back, indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. Johnson's somewhat crudely expressed opinion that ''the Americans were a race whom no other mortals could wish to resemble*'; but which, in its later form, takes counsel with those British connoisseurs who demand of their typical American not depravity of morals but deprivation of manners, not vice of heart but vulgarity of speech, not badness but bumptious- ness, and at least enough of eccentricity to make him amusing to cultivated people. Not a few of our native professors and critics are inclined to accept some features of this view, perhaps in mere reaction from the unamusing character of their own existence. They are not quite ready to subscribe to Mr. Kipling's statement that the real American is ** Unkempt, disreputable, vast," but they are willing to admit that It will not do for him to be prudent, orderly, dignified. He must have a touch of picturesque rudeness, a red shirt in his mental as well as his sartorial outfit. The poetry that expresses him must recognize no metrical rules. The art that depicts him must use the primitive colors and lay them on thick. I remember reading somewhere that Tennyson had an idea that Longfellow, when he met him, would put his feet upon the table. And it is precisely be- cause Longfellow kept his feet in their proper place, in society as well as in verse, that some critics, now- 146 Things to Remember adays, would have us believe that he was not a truly American poet. Traces of this curious theory of Americanism in its application to Washington may now be found in many places. You shall hear historians describe him as a transplanted English commoner, a second edi- tion of John Hampden. You shall read, in a famous poem, of Lincoln as *'New birth of our new soil, the j^r^^ American." That Lincoln was one of the greatest Americans, glorious in the largeness of his heart, the vigor of his manhood, the heroism of his soul, none can doubt. But to affirm that he was the first American is to disown and disinherit Washington and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. Lincoln himself would have been the man to extinguish such an impoverishing claim with huge and hearty laughter. He knew that Grant and Sherman and Seward and Farragut and the men who stood with him were Americans, just as Washington knew that the Boston maltster, and the Pennsylvania printer, and the Rhode Island anchor- smith, and the New Jersey preacher, and the New York lawyer, and the men who stood with him were Americans. He knew it, I say: and by what divination? By a test more searching than any mere peculiarity of manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone able to divide the gold of essential character from the alloy of superficial characteristics; by a standard which disregarded alike Franklin's fur cap and Putnam's old felt hatj Morgan's leather leggings and Wither- spoon's black silk gown and John Adams's lace ruffles, The Americanism of Washington 147 to recognize and approve, beneath these various garbs, the vital sign of America woven into the very- souls of the men who belonged to her by a spiritual birthright. For what is true Americanism, and where does it reside? Not on the tongue, nor in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms, refined or rude, which mottle the surface of human life. The log cabin has no monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable fixture of the stately pillared mansion. Its home is not on the frontier nor in the populous city, not among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured groves of Academe. Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects but one language, follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a thou- sand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal w^hich is its life. True Americanism is this: To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given by God. To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is unjust. To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that government must rest upon the con- sent of the governed, and that the people should choose their own rulers. To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law and order, and that the end of freedom is fair play for all. To believe not in a forced equality of conditions and estates, but in a true equalization of burdens, privileges, and opportunities. ^ To believe that the selfish interests of persons, 148 Things to Remember classes, and sections must be subordinated to the welfare of the commonwealth. To believe that union is as much a human neces- sity as liberty is a divine gift. To believe, not that all people are good, but that the way to make them better is to trust the whole people. To believe that a free state should offer an asylum to the oppressed, and an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations. To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a state a man should be willing to give his whole service, in property, in labor, and in life. That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a creed heated white hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape on the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it whitherso- ever it may lead them. And it was the subordina- tion of the personal self to that ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence and glory to Washing- ton and the men who stood with him. This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and luminous, from the conflicts and confusions of the Revolution. The men who were able to surrender themselves and all their interests to the pure and loyal service of their ideal were the men who made good, the victors crowned with glory and honor. The men who would not make that surrender, who sought selfish ends, who were controlled by personal ambition and the love of gain, who were willing to stoop to crooked means to advance their own for- tunes, were the failures, the lost leaders, and, in some cases, the men whose names are embalmed in their The Americanism of Washington 149 own infamy. The ultimate secret of greatness is neither physical nor intellectual, but moral. It is the capacity to lose self in the service of something greater. It is the faith to recognize, the will to obey, and the strength to follow, a star. Washington, no doubt, was pre-eminent among his contemporaries in natural endowments. Less bril- liant in his mental gifts than some, less eloquent and accomplished than others, he had a rare balance of large powers which justified Loweirs phrase of **an imperial man.** His athletic vigor and skill, his steadiness of nerve restraining an intensity of pas- sion, his undaunted courage which refused no neces- sary risks, and his prudence which took no unneces- sary ones, the quiet sureness with which he grasped large ideas and the pressing energy with which he executed small details, the breadth of his intelligence, the depth of his convictions, his power to apply great thoughts and principles to every-day affairs, and his singular superiority to current prejudices and illu- sions — these were gifts in combination which would have made him distinguished in any company, in any age. But what was it that won and kept a free field for the exercise of these gifts ? What was it that secured for them a long, unbroken opportunity of develop- ment in the activities of leadership, until they reached the summit of their perfection ? It was a moral quality. It was the evident magnanimity of the man, which assured the people that he was no self- seeker who would betray their interests for his own glory or rob them for his own gain. It was the su- preme magnanimity of the man, which made the 150 lltings to Remember best spirits of the time trust him implicitly, in war and peace, as one who would never forget his duty or his integrity in the sense of his own greatness. From the first, Washington appears not as a man aiming at prominence or power, but rather as one under obligation to serve a cause. Necessity was laid upon^him, and he met it willingly. After Washing- ton's marvellous escape from death in his first cam- paign for the defence of the colonies, the Reverend Samuel Davies, fourth president of Princeton Col- lege, spoke of him in a sermon as '*that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I can but hope Provi- dence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country," It was a prophetic voice, and Washington was not disobedi- ent to the message. Chosen to command the Army of the Revolution in 1775, he confessed to his wife his deep reluctance to surrender the joys of home, acknowledged publicly his feeling that he was not equal to the great trust committed to him, and then, accepting it as thrown upon him *^by a kind of des- tiny,'* he gave himself body and soul to its fulfil- ment, refusing all pay beyond the mere discharge of his expenses, of which he kept a strict account, and asking no other reward than the success of the cause which he served. ''Ah, but he was a rich man," cries the carping critic; *'he could afford to do it." How many rich men to-day avail themselves of their opportunity to indulge in this kind of extravagance, toiling tremen- dously without a salary, neglecting their own estate for the public benefit, seeing their property dimin- ished without complaint, and coming into serious The Americanism of Washington 151 financial embarrassment, even within sight of bank- ruptcy, as Washington did, merely for the gratifica- tion of a desire to serve the people ? This is indeed a very singular and noble form of luxury. But the wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for its existence nor detracts from its glory. It is the fruit of a manhood superior alike to riches and to poverty, willing to risk all, and to use all, for the common good. Was it in any sense a misfortune for the people of America, even the poorest among them, that there was a man able to advance sixty-four thousand dol- lars out of his own purse, with no other security but his own faith in their cause, to pay his daily expenses while he was leading their armies? This unsecured loan was one of the very things, I doubt not, that helped to inspire general confidence. Even so the prophet Jeremiah purchased a field in Anathoth, in the days when Judah was captive unto Babylon, paying down the money, seventeen shekels of silver, as a token of his faith that the land would some day be delivered from the enemy and restored to peace- ful and orderly habitation. Washington's substantial pledge of property to the cause of liberty was repaid by a grateful country at the close of the war. But not a dollar of payment for the tremendous toil of body and mind, not a dol- lar for work ^'overtime,'' for indirect damages to his estate, for commissions on the benefits which he secured for the general enterprise, for the use of his name or the value of his counsel, would he receive. A few years later, when his large sagacity perceived that the development of internal commerce was one 152 Things to Remember of the first needs of the new country, at a time when he held no public office, he became president of a company for the extension of navigation on the rivers James and Potomac. The Legislature of Virginia proposed to give him a hundred and fifty shares of stock. Washington refused this, or any other kind of pay, saying that he could serve the people better in the enterprise if he were known to have no selfish interest in it. He was not the kind of a man to reconcile himself to a gratuity (which is the Latin- ized word for a ''tip*' offered to a person not in liv- ery), and if the modern methods of ''coming in on the ground-floor'* and "taking a rake-off'* had been explained and suggested to him, I suspect that he would have described them in language more notable for its force than for its elegance. It is true, of course, that the fortune which he so willingly imperilled and impaired recouped itself again after peace was established, and his industry and wisdom made him once more a rich man for those days. But what injustice was there in that? It is both natural and right that men who have risked their all to secure for the country at large what they could have secured for themselves by other means, should share in the general prosperity atten- dant upon the. success of their efforts and sacrifices for the common good. I am sick of the shallow judgment that ranks the worth of a man by his poverty or by his wealth at death. Many a selfish speculator dies poor. Many an unselfish patriot dies prosperous. It is not the possesion of the dollar that cankers the soul, it is the worship of it. The true test of a man is this: Has The Americanism of Washington 153 he labored for his own interest, or for the general welfare ? Has he earned his money fairly or unfairly ? Does he use it greedily or generously? What does it mean to him, a personal advantage over his fellow- men, or a personal opportunity of serving them ? There are a hundred other points in Washington's career in which the same supremacy of character, magnanimity focussed on service to an ideal, is re- vealed in conduct. I see it in the wisdom with which he, a son of the South, chose most of his generals from the North, that he might secure immediate effi- ciency and unity in the army. I see it in the gener- osity with which he praised the achievements of his associates, disregarding jealous rivalries, and ever willing to share the credit of victory as he was to bear the burden of defeat. I see it in the patience with which he suffered his fame to be imperilled for the moment by reverses and retreats, if only he might the more surely guard the frail hope of ultimate vic- tory for his country. I see it in the quiet dignity with which he faced the Conway Cabal, not anxious to defend his own reputation and secure his own power, but nobly resolute to save the army from being crippled and the cause of liberty from being wrecked. I see it in the splendid self-forgetfulness which cleansed his mind of all temptation to take personal revenge upon those who had sought to in- jure him in that base intrigue. I read it in his letter of consolation and encouragement to the wretched Gates after the defeat at Camden. I hear the pro- longed re-echoing music of it in his letter to General Knox in 1798, in regard to military appointments, declaring his wish to ''avoid feuds with those who are 154 Things to Remember embarked in the same general enterprise with my- self." Listen to the same spirit as it speaks in his cir- cular address to the governors of the different States, urging them to ''forget their local prejudices and policies; to make those mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the community." Watch how it guides him unerringly through the critical period of American history which lies between the success of the Revolution and the establishment of the nation, enabling him to avoid the pitfalls of sectional and partisan strife, and to use his great influence with the people in leading them out of the confusion of a weak confederacy into the strength of an indissoluble union of sovereign States. See how he once more sets aside his personal pref- erences for a quiet country life, and risks his already secure popularity, together with his reputation for consistency, by obeying the voice which calls him to be a candidate for the Presidency. See how he chooses for the cabinet and for the Supreme Court, not an exclusive group of personal friends, but men who can be trusted to serve the great cause of Union with fidelity and power — Jefferson, Randolph, Ham- ilton, Knox, John Jay, Wilson, Gushing, Rutledge. See how patiently and indomitably he gives himself to the toil of office, deriving from his exalted station no gain ''beyond the lusire which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting hu- man felicity." See how he retires, at last, to the longed-for joys of private life, confessing that his The Americanism of Washington 155 career has not been without errors of judgment, be- seeching the Almighty that they may bring no harm to his country, and asking no other reward for his labors than to partake, *'in the midst of my fellow- citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart." Oh, sweet and stately words, revealing, through their calm reserve, the inmost secret of a life that did not flare with transient enthusiasm but glowed with unquenchable devotion to a cause! **The ever favorite object of -my heart" — how quietly, how sim- ply he discloses the source and origin of a sublime con- secration, a lifelong heroism ! Thus speaks the vic- tor in calm retrospect of the long battle. But if you would know the depth and the intensity of the divine fire that burned within his breast you must go back to the dark and icy days of Valley Forge, and hear him cry in passion unrestrained: **If I know my own mind, I could, offer myself a living sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute to the people's ease. I would be a living offering to the savage fury and die by inches to save the people." ^^The ever favorite object of my heart /'^ I strike this note again and again, insisting upon it, harping upon it; for it is the key-note of the music. It is the capacity to find such an object in the success of the people's cause, to follow it unselfishly, to serve it loyally, that distinguishes the men who stood with Washington and who deserve to share his fame. I read the annals of the Revolution, and I find every- where this secret and searching test dividing the strong from the weak, the noble from the base, the 156 Things to Remember heirs of glory from the captives of oblivion and the inheritors of shame. It was the unwillingness to sink and forget self in the service of something greater that made the failures and wrecks of those tempestu- ous times, through which the single-hearted and the devoted pressed on to victory and honor. Turn back to the battle of Saratoga. There were two Americans on that field who suffered under a great personal disappointment: Philip Schuyler, who was unjustly supplanted in command of the army by General Gates; and Benedict Arnold, who was de- prived by envy of his due share in the glory of win- ning the battle. Schuyler forgot his own injury in loyalty to the cause, offered to serve Gates in any capacity, and went straight on to the end of his noble life giving all that he had to his country. But in Arnold's heart the favorite object was not his coun- try, but his own ambition, and the wound which his pride received at Saratoga rankled and festered and spread its poison through his whole nature, until he went forth from the camp, *^a leper white as snow." What was it that made Charles Lee, as fearless a man as ever lived, play the part of a coward in order to hide his treason at the battle of Monmouth? It was the inward eating corruption of that selfish van- ity which caused him to desire the defeat of an army whose command he had wished but failed to attain. He had offered his sword to America for his own glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew the offering, and died, as he had lived, to himself. What was it that tarnished the fame of Gates and Wilkinson and Burr and Conway? What made their lives, and those of men like them, futile and The Americanism of Washington 157 inefficient compared with other men whose natural gifts were less? It was the taint of dominant sel- fishness that ran through their careers, now hiding itself, now breaking out in some act of malignity or treachery. Of the common interest they were reck- less, provided they might advance their own. Dis- appointed, in that '*ever favorite object of their hearts,'' they did not hesitate to imperil the cause in whose service they were enlisted. Turn to other cases, in which a charitable judg- ment will impute no positive betrayal of trusts, but a defect of vision to recognize the claim of the higher ideal. • Tory or Revolutionist a man might be, ac- cording to his temperament and conviction; but where a man begins with protests against tyranny and ends with subservience to it, we look for the cause. What was it that separated Joseph Gallo- way from Francis Hopkinson? It was Galloway's opinion that, while the struggle for independence might be justifiable, it could not be successful, and the temptation of a larger immediate reward under the British crown than could ever be given by the American Congress in which he had once served. What was it that divided the Rev. Jacob Duche from the Rev. John Witherspoon? It was Duche's fear that the cause for which he had prayed so elo- quently in the first Continental Congress was doomed after the capture of Philadelphia, and his unwilling- ness to go down with that cause instead of enjoying the comfortable fruits of his native wit and eloquence in an easy London chaplaincy. What was it that cut William Franklin off from his professedly prudent and worldly-wise old father, Benjamin ? It was the 158 Things to Remember luxurious and benumbing charm of the royal gov- ernorship of New Jersey. **Professedly prudent'' is the phrase that I have chosen to apply to Benjamin Franklin. For the one thing that is clear, as we turn to look at him and the other men who stood with Washington, is that, whatever their philosophical professions may have been, they were not controlled by prudence. They were really imprudent, and at heart willing to take all risks of poverty and death in a struggle whose cause was just though its issue was dubious. If it be rashness to commit honor and life and property to a great adventure for the general good, then these men were rash to the verge of recklessness. They refused no peril, they withheld no sacrifice, in the following of their ideal. I hear John Dickinson saying: '*It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. We have counted the cost of this contest, and we find nothing so dreadful as vol- untary slavery.'' I see Samuel Adams, impover- ished, living upon a pittance, hardly able to provide a decent coat for his back, rejecting with scorn the offer of a profitable office, wealth, a title even, to win him from his allegiance to the cause of America. I see Robert Morris, the wealthy merchant, opening his purse and pledging his credit to support the Rev- olution, and later devoting all his fortune and his energy to restore and establish the financial honor of the Republic, with the memorable words, ''The United States may command all that I have, except my integrity." I hear the proud John Adams say- ing to his wife, **I have accepted a seat in the House The Americanism of Washington 159 of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our chil- dren*'; and I hear her reply, with the tears running down her face, ''Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined/* I see Benjamin Franklin, in the Con- gress of 1776, already past his seventieth year, pros- perous, famous, by far the most celebrated man in America, accepting without demur the difficult and dangerous mission to France, and whispering to his old friend. Dr. Rush, ''I am old and good for noth- ing, but as the store-keepers say of their remnants of cloth, *I am but a fag-end, and you may have me for what you please.'*' Here is a man who will illustrate and prove, per- haps better than any other of those who stood with Washington, the point at which I am aiming. There was none of the glamour of romance about old Ben Franklin. He was shrewd, canny, humorous. The chivalric Southerners disliked his philosophy, and the solemn New-Englanders mistrusted his jokes. He made no extravagant claims for his own motives, and some of his ways were not distinctly ideal. He was full of prudential proverbs, and claimed to be a fol- lower of the theory of enlightened self-interest. But there was not a faculty of his wise old head which he did not put at the service of his country, nor was there a pulse of his slow and steady heart which did not beat loyal to the cause of freedom. He forfeited profitable office and sure preferment under the crown, for hard work, uncertain pay, and certain peril in behalf of the colonies. He followed the inexorable logic, step by step, which led him from i6o Things to Remember the natural rights of his countrymen to their liberty, from their liberty to their independence. He endured with a grim humor the revilings of those whom he called ** malevolent critics and bug-writers." He broke with his old and dear associates in England, writing to one of them, "You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I am Yours, B. Franklin." He never flinched or faltered at any sacrifice of personal ease or interest to the demands of his coun- try. His patient, skilful, laborious efforts in France did as much for the final victory of the American cause as any soldier's sword. He yielded his own opinions in regard to the method of making the treaty of peace with England, and thereby imperilled for a time his own prestige. He served as president of Pennsylvania three times, devoting all his salary to public benefactions. His influence in the Consti- tutional Convention was steadfast on the side of union and harmony, though in many things he dif- fered from the prevailing party. His voice was among those who hailed Washington as the only pos- sible candidate for the Presidency. His last public act was a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery. At his death the government had not yet settled his accounts in its service, and his country was left apparently his debtor; which, in a sense still larger and deeper, she must remain as long as liberty endures and union triumphs in the Republic. Is not this, after all, the root of the whole matter? Is not this the thing that is vitally and essentially The Americanism of Washington i6i true of all those great men, clustering about Wash- ington, whose fame we honor and revere with his? They all left the community, the commonwealth, the race, in debt to them. This was their purpose and the ever favorite object of their hearts. They were deliberate and joyful creditors. Renouncing the maxim of worldly wisdom which bids men *'get all you can and keep all you get," they resolved rather to give all they had to advance the common cause, to use every benefit conferred upon them in the ser- vice of the general welfare, to bestow upon the world more than they received from it, and to leave a fair and unblotted account of business done with life which should show a clear balance in their favor. Thus, in brief outline, and in words which seem poor and inadequate, I have ventured to interpret anew the story of Washington and the men who stood with him: not as a stirring ballad of battle and danger, in which the knights ride valiantly, and are renowned for their mighty strokes at the enemy in arms; not as a philosophic epic, in which the develop- ment of a great national idea is displayed, and the struggle of opposing policies is traced to its conclu- sion; but as a drama of the eternal conflict in the soul of man between self-interest in its Protean forms, and loyalty to the right, service to a cause, allegiance to an ideal. Those great actors who played in it have passed away, but the same drama still holds the stage. The drop-curtain falls between the acts; the scenery shifts; the music alters; but the crisis and its issues are unchanged, and the parts which you and I play 1 62 Things to Remember are assigned to us by our own choice of "the ever favorite object of our hearts/' Men tell us that the age of Ideals is past, and that we are now come to the age of expediency, of polite indifference to moral standards, of careful attention to the bearing of different policies upon our own per- sonal interests. Men tell us that the rights of man are a poetic fiction, that democracy has nothing in it to command our allegiance unless it promotes our individual comfort and prosperity, and that the whole duty of a citizen is to vote with his party and get an office for himself, or for some one who will look after him. Men tell us that to succeed means to get money, because with that all other good things can be secured. Men tell us that the one thing to do is to promote and protect the particular trade, or industry, or corporation in which we have a share: the laws of trade will work out that survival of the fittest which is the only real righteousness, and if we survive that will prove that we are fit. Men tell us that all beyond this is fantasy, dreaming, Sunday- school politics: there is nothing worth living for ex- cept to get on in the world ; and nothing at all worth dying for, since the age of ideals is past. It is past indeed for those who proclaim, or whisper, or in their hearts believe, or in their lives obey, this black gospel. And what is to follow? An age of cruel and bitter jealousies between sections and classes; of hatred and strife between the Haves and the Have-nots; of futile contests between parties which have kept their names and confused their principles, so that no man may distinguish them except as the Ins and Outs. An age of greedy privi- The Americanism of Washington 163 lege and sullen poverty, of blatant luxury and curi- ous envy, of rising palaces and vanishing homes, of stupid frivolity and idiotic publicomania ; in which four hundred gilded fribbles give monkey-dinners and Louis XV revels, while four million ungilded gossips gape at them and read about them in the newspapers. An age when princes of finance buy protection from the representatives of a fierce democracy; when guar- dians of the savings which insure the lives of the poor, use them as a surplus to pay for the extrava- gances of the rich; and when men who have climbed above their fellows on golden ladders, tremble at the crack of the blackmailer's whip and come down at the call of an obscene newspaper. An age when the python of poHtical corruption casts its ** rings'' about the neck of proud cities and sovereign States, and throttles honesty to silence and liberty to death. It is such an age, dark, confused, shameful, that the sceptic and the scorner must face, when they turn their backs upon those ancient shrines where the flames of faith and integrity and devotion are flicker- ing like the deserted altar-fires of a forsaken wor- ship. But not for us who claim our heritage in blood and spirit from Washington and the men who stood with him, — not for us of other tribes and kindred who "Have found a fatherland upon this shore," and learned the meaning of manhood beneath the shelter of liberty, — not for us, nor for our country, that dark apostasy, that dismal outlook ! We see the palladium of the American ideal — goddess of the just eye, the unpolluted heart, the equal hand — 164 Things to Remember standing as the image of Athene stood above the upper streams of Simois: "It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight Round Troy — but while this stood Troy could not fall." We see the heroes of the present conflict, the men whose allegiance is not to sections but to the whole people, the fearless champions of fair play. We hear from the chair of Washington a brave and honest voice which cries that our industrial problems must be solved not in the interest of capital, nor of labor, but of the whole people. We JDelieve that the liber- ties which the heroes of old won with blood and sac- rifice are ours to keep with labor and service. "All that our fathers wrought With true prophetic thought, Must be defended." No privilege that encroaches upon those liberties is to be endured. No lawless disorder that imperils them is to be sanctioned. No class that disregards or invades them is to be tolerated. There is a life that is worth living now, as it was worth living in the former days, and that is the honest life, the useful life, the unselfish life, cleansed by devotion to an ideal. There is a battle that is worth fighting now, as it was worth fighting then, and that is the battle for justice and equaHty. To make our city and our State free in fact as well as in name; to break the rings that strangle real liberty, end to keep them broken; to cleanse, so far as in our The Americanism of Washington 165 power lies, the fountains of our national life from political, commercial, and social corruption; to teach our sons and daughters, by precept and example, the honor of serving such a country as America — that is work worthy of the finest manhood and womanhood. The well born are those who are born to do that work. The well bred are those who are bred to be proud of that work. The well educated are those who see deepest into the meaning and the necessity of that work. Nor shall their labor be for naught, nor the reward of their sacrifice fail them. For high in the firmament of human destiny are set the stars of faith in mankind, and unselfish courage, and loy- alty to the ideal ; and while they shine, the American- ism of Washington and the men who stood with him shall never, never die. LITERATURE The public is content with the standard of sala- bility. The prigs are content with the standard of preciosity. The people need and deserve a better standard. It should be a point of honor with men of letters to maintain it by word and deed. Literature has its permanent marks. It is a con- nected growth, and its life-history is unbroken. Masterpieces have never been produced by men who have had no masters. Reverence for good work is the foundation of literary character. The refusal to praise bad work, or to imitate it, is an author's per- sonal chastity. Good work is the most honorable and lasting thing in the world. Four elements enter into good work in literature: An original impulse — not necessarily a new idea, but a new sense of the value of an idea. A first-hand study of the subject and the material. A patient, joyful, unsparing labor for the perfec- tion of form. A human aim — to cheer, console, purify, or en- noble the life of the people. Without this aim litera- ture has never sent an arrow close to the mark. It is only by good work that men of letters can justify their right to a place in the world. The father of Thomas Carlyle was a stone-mason, whose walls stood true and needed no rebuilding. Carlyle's prayer was: **Let me write my books as he built his houses.*' i66 EDUCATION The amount of money to be expended by a democ- racy in public education is to be measured by the standard of intelligent manhood which it sets for its citizens. The standard, I say, for, after all, in these matters it is the silent ideal in the hearts of the people which moulds character and guides action. What is your ideal of a right American ? The answer to that question will determine whether you think we ought to do more or less for popular education. For my part, I reckon that, as the enlightenment and discipline of manhood is the best safeguard of a democracy, so it ought to be the object of our chief care and our largest expenditure. If our naval and military expenses ever surpass or even equal our educational expenses, we shall be on the wrong track. If we ever put the fortress and the fleet above, or even on a level with, the schoolhouse and the university, our sense of perspective will be out of focus. If we ever spend more to inspire awe and fear in other peoples than to cultivate intelligence and character in our own, we shall be on the road to the worst kind of bankruptcy — a bankruptcy of men. We want the common school more generously sup- ported and more intelligently directed, so that the power to read and think shall become the property of all, and so that the principles of morality, which must be based on religion, shall be taught to every American child. We want the door between the common school and the university wide open, so that 167 1 68 Things to Remember the path which leads upward from the little red schoolhouse to the highest temple of learning shall be free, and the path that leads downward from aca- demic halls to the lowliest dwelling and workshop of instruction shall be honorable. We want a com- munity of interest and a co-operation of forces between the public-school teacher and the college fac- ulty. We want academic freedom, so that the in- stitutions of learning may be free from all suspicion of secret control by the money-bag or the machine. We want democratic universities, where a man is honored only for what he is and what he knows. We want American education, so that every citizen shall not only believe in democracy, but know what it means, what it costs, and what it is worth. SIMPLICITY Simplicity, in truth, depends but little on external things. It can live in broadcloth or homespun; it can eat white bread or black. It is not outward, but inward. A certain openness of mind to learn the daily lessons of the school of Hf e ; a certain willingness of heart to give and to receive that extra service, that gift beyond the strict measure of debt, which makes friendship possible; a certain clearness of spirit to perceive the best in things and people, to love it without fear and to cleave to it without mis- trust; a peaceable sureness of affection and taste: a gentle straightforwardness of action; a kind sincerity of speech — these are the marks of the simple life. It cometh not with observation, for it is within you. I have seen it in a hut. I have seen it in a palace. And wherever it is found it is the best prize of the school of life, the badge of a scholar well-beloved of the Master. 169 PART V STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE STORY OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE FROM A CHILD'S POINT OF VIEW My father was born in German town, Pennsyl- vania, on November lo, 1852; but when he was very young the family moved to Brooklyn, and it was there that most of his boyhood was spent. From the first his relationship with his father was a particularly beautiful one, for besides the natural trust and reverence, there grew up the closest kind of a friendship. It was as comrades that they went off for their day's holiday, escaping from the city and its flag pavements and brownstone fronts and getting out into the fresh country air, to walk through the woods and watch the leaves turn red and gold and brown and drop to the ground, or to skate in the winter, or to listen for the song of the first re- turning bluebird in the spring. It was under the wise and tender guidance of his father that the boy's instinctive love of nature grew and developed. The stages of this growth are seen in the chapter entitled "A Boy and a Rod." Boys went to college earlier in those days than they do now, and my father, who had prepared at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, was ready to enter Princeton at the age of sixteen. Before he went to college he had tried his hand at writing a little. During his college course he became deeply interested in it, and took the Clio Hall prizes for essays and speeches, besides writing along other lines. Thus his enthusiasm for literature was increasing all 173 174 Story of the Author^ s Life the time, and from the first the idea of writing was uppermost in his mind. He was Junior orator in 1872, and at graduation in 1873 his classmates elected him for a class-day speaker. He also received honors from the faculty in belles-lettres and the English Salutatory in recognition of his general scholarship, besides the class of 1859 Prize in English Literature. Through all his course he was a leading man in the classroom, gymnasium, and all class and college affairs. After teaching for a year in Brooklyn he entered Princeton Theological Seminary, and graduated in 1877. He spent the following year studying at the University of Berlin and in travel, and after being ordained in 1879 he was called to the United Con- gregational Church at Newport, R. I. In 188 1 he married my mother, and a few years later was called to the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, where he gave seventeen years of the hardest and most untiring labor to a work which did not end with his own congregation or the city itself, but touched thousands of people all over the country. But these years of his life were only a step aside to give a help- ing hand to two churches which were fast running down, and through it all he felt that his real work was literature, and it was in that field that his best work could be done, though the rush of city life at that time gave him very little chance to do it. So we were city children, but the woods were our inheritance and fishing became our favorite sport. Our earliest recollections of my father are in con- nection with fishing or camping expeditions. For when work pressed too heavily and his health showed From a Child^s Point of View 175 signs of too much wear and tear, he would take a few days in the spring and spend them catching the first trout of the season out of the Swiftwater, a little river in the Alleghany Mountains in Pennsylvania. When he was away we always thought that he had *'gone fishing/' and our earliest ambition was to go with him. Somehow, the fact that I was a girl never seemed to make any difference in my castles in the air, and all of us, boys and girls alike, grew up with the idea that to be like father was the highest possible attainment. As soon as we were able to read we read his stories of camping that came out in the magazines. The article on ** Ampersand'' was the first and appeared in Harper's Magazine in 1885. But we were too young then, of course, to appreciate them, and I am afraid we preferred the story of ''The Little Girl in the Weir' and ''Tommy Lizard and Frankie Frog," and other wonderful tales that he invented and told us between supper and bedtime. Every Sunday we sat all in a row up in the sec- ond pew in the big church and heard him preach. Then in the afternoon, or on stormy Sundays, we put the chairs in the nursery in rows and one of us would preach while the others were congregation or choir. This was the nearest we ever came to appre- ciating the sermons that were all the time being made down in the study just below us. During this time he published "The Reality of Religion," "The Story of the Psalms," "God and Little Children, ' and "The Poetry of Tennyson," besides many maga- zine articles. The sermons we liked best, though, were the Christmas sermons, which were always 176 Story of the Author's Life stories, and which were afterward pubHshed. Among them were ''The Other Wise Man/' ''The Lost Word," and "The First Christmas Tree." When we saw his books coming out we wore fired with the ambition to pubHsh books too, so we had a "Book Company" which he encouraged by his patronage. We wrote stories, laboriously printed them with pen and ink, illustrated them in water- colors, and bound them in cardboard and colored paper. We soon had quite a library, with contri- butions from all the family, and in all this my father was our wisest friend and critic. So the making of books was a reality to us, and we were interested not only in the writing, but in the illustrations and binding. I remember one after- noon my father had gone out in a hurry, leaving his study in great disorder. I was always more fond of the study than of any room in the house, probably because entrance was forbidden most of the time when he w^as working; so taking advantage of his absence, I slid in and found the floor covered with photographs and prints and piles of books. It looked like a veritable workshop, and the disorder delighted my heart; so I spent the afternoon there, and finally persuaded myself that there would be nothing wrong in taking one small photograph of the Madonna and Child, which I especially Hked, if I put it back soon. I remember what a time I had returning it to its place the next day, and then with what interest, many months later, I saw the picture reproduced on one of the pages of the "Christ Child in Art" which came out in 1894. I really felt that I had had a part in the making of that book. From a ChiWs Point of View 177 Of the making of rhymes, too, there was no end. Sometimes at the dinner-table my father would sit perfectly quiet for ten minutes, apparently wrapped in thought, while we chattered and discussed the doings of the morning or planned for the afternoon; and then if we stopped for a moment and looked at him we would see a smile dawning on his face, and a new-made nonsense rhyme was recited much to our delight. We often tried to persuade him to write a book for children, but although he seemed to have plenty of time to make it up, he was always too busy to write it down. The best times of all, though, were the summer months, when we left the hot, dusty city and went down to the little white cottage on the south shore of Long Island. Here he first taught us the gentle art of fishing, and how well I remember the mornings he spent showing us how to catch the minnows for bait in a mosquito-net (for catching the bait was always part of the game) , and then how he stood with us for hours on the high drawbridge across the chan- nel, showing us the easy little twitch of the wrist that hooks the fish, and how to take him off the hook and save the bait. They were only young bluefish, or little ''snappers,'' as we called them, and seldom more than eight inches long, but we were as proud as though they were salmon. Real trout we had never caught, though we had often jumped up from the supper-table and run to meet him when he came in after dark with his basket full of wet, shiny, speckled ones. Then how exciting it was to weigh the biggest one and hear about the still bigger one that got away. That was always a good reason for 178 Story of the Author^ s Life going back the next day, and sometimes, if we had been very good, he would take one or two of us up under the bridge, and up the narrow, winding stream, till we came to where the branches interlaced over- head and the boat would go no farther. There he left us at the little rustic bridge and waded up the stream above, while we sat breathless to hear his halloo, which meant he was coming back, and to find out what luck he had had in those mysterious mazes above the bridge. Those were the happiest days of our summer, and> as my father says, it was the stream which made them so. But these were only day's trips, and I longed for real camping out. Every fall my father went hun- dreds of miles away up to Canada where there were real bears and wolves in the woods and where you travelled for days without seeing a house or a per- son. I had often heard him tell his experiences much as they are now recorded in ** Camping Out*' in this book. Especially did we become interested in the French guides, whose letters to him I read eagerly, though slowly, for they were written in French. Finally, to my earnest entreaties, there came a sort of half promise that I might go some time when I was bigger and stronger, but it seemed so indefinite that I quite despaired, and great was my surprise and joy one day when my father asked me if I would like to go camping that very day. The tent and the great heavy blankets and rubber sheets were taken out of their canvas wrapping where they were lying waiting for the fall and Canada. My father put on his corduroys and homespun and his old weather- From a Child^s Point of View 179 stained gray felt hat, with the flies stuck all around the band, and I donned my oldest sailor suit, and with a few pots and pans, a small supply of provisions which the family helped us get together, and our two fishing-rods, we were ready for the start. We took the long trip (about a mile) in an old flat-bottomed row-boat, and my mother and little brothers came with us to see us settled. Our camping-ground was in a pine grove near a small inlet to the salt-water bay on which our cottage faced, so that, although the stream was blocked with weeds and stumps, the easiest way to get there was by water. We reached the place about four in the afternoon, moored the boat, and carried the tent and provisions up a little hill to the place my father had chosen. It seemed miles and miles from home, and very wild. We had nothing for supper, and I remember wondering whether my father would shoot some wild animal or whether we would catch some fish. The latter course was chosen, much to my disappointment, and after the tent was pitched, the provisions unpacked, and my mother and brothers had left us all alone, we started out with rods and tackle to catch our supper. Fortunately, the fish were biting well, and with my rising appetite they came more and more frequently, until we had a basketful. Then we had to stop by the stream to prepare them for the pan, so it was almost dark when we threaded our way back through the deep forest of pines to the little white tent. But we soon built the fire and made things look more cheerful. How good the fish looked as they sizzled away over the glowing fire, and they tasted even bet- ter, eaten right out of the same pan they were cooked i8o Story of the Author'' s Life in. That was one of the best suppers I ever recall eating, and surely half the pleasure came from the comradeship of a father who shared and sympathized with my thoughts and entered into my fun with the spirits of a boy. It was an experience which I shall never forget, and which, like most of the delightful ''first'' things I have done, I shall always associate with my father. For he was our guide in everything; and besides the fishing trips, there were long Sunday afternoon walks through the woods and a growing acquaintance with the songs of the birds and with the wild flowers. He made us listen for the first notes of the bluebird in spring and to the ''Sweet — sweet — sweet — very merry cheer" of the song sparrows that sang in the lilac hedge around our cottage. It was there that he wrote "The Song Sparrow" and a good many of the poems that came out later in a book called "The Builders, and Other Poems." But my first realiza- tion that my father was a poet came when my two brothers and myself were brought down here to Princeton in 1896 to hear him read the ode at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Princeton College. How proud we felt to be the only children in that grave assembly of gowned and hooded scholars, and how fine it was to see our own father standing there on the platform and reciting the ode for his Alma Mater, the college we had cheered for and whose colors we had worn through defeat or victory every spring and fall. To be sure we were interested in Harvard too, because he had often been elected preacher to the university there, and in Yale, be- cause he had been Lyman Beecher Lecturer there, From a ChilcTs Point of View i8i and in other colleges where he had received academic honors; but we were ever loyal to Princeton, where he and our grandfather and our great-grandfather had been students. Our Dutch ancestry was brought to our minds the year he was President of the Holland Society, and our Presbyterianism emphasized when he became Moderator of the General Assembly of that church and brought home a fine white ivory gavel which some Alaskan mission church had sent to him and which he now keeps on one of the library bookcases. Thus in all his work, as well as in his fishing, we have followed him, and he takes us into his plans and tells us as much as we can understand of what he is doing. In 1900 he was called to be the first occupant of the Murray chair of English Literature in Princeton University, and we now have, what we have always wanted, a home in the country. Here, though he has left the strain and rush of city life, he seems busier than ever, for he still preaches every Sunday, usually at university and college chapels, and his calendar is always filled with lecture engagements all over the country. Preacher, poet, lecturer — his pro- fessions are many, though his aim is one, to lift the ' world up and make it a better, happier one than he found it. But with all this work there is a shelf in the library at Avalon on which the line of books is steadily in- creasing. That is the shelf where my father's books, each one of which he has especially bound and gives to my mother, are kept. Two of the latest additions to this shelf are the books of short stories, ''The Rul- ing Passion'' and ''The Blue Flower," and I think 1 82 Story of the Author^ s Life we have been more interested in the making of these two than in any others. For we have seen the stories grow and have known many of the characters that he has so faithfully drawn. The scenes of some are laid in places that we are very familiar with and many of the incidents have taken place before our eyes. My father keeps a small black leather note- book, one that would fit in a jacket pocket. When a story comes to him he jots down a word or two — a phrase, or something that suggests what is in his mind and would call up the same train of thought — then puts the note-book away till he has had time to think the story out in full, or, more often, until he has time to write it down. Sometimes it is only a catchword, sometimes half a page, but he always seems to have two or three stories ahead of him wait- ing to be written. About three summers ago there were so many stories on his waiting-list that my father knew they would give him no peace of mind until written down in black and white. We were spending that summer on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, and our little cottage was in the midst of all the merry-mak- ing, near the ocean, and facing a field where all sizes of boys played base-ball every afternoon. It was not at all an atmosphere for writing, so my father, on one of his walks of discovery to the middle of the island, found an old deserted farm-house standing back from the road on a little rise of ground. There were apple-trees around it and a grape-vine straggling over the trellised porch, and from the window of what once was probably the sitting-room there was a tiny glimpse of the blue sea far away in the dis- From a Child^s Point of View 183 tance. No discordant sounds reached this quiet spot, and here my father spent a good part of the summer writing a great many of the stories in ''The Blue Flower/' He would go out to his farm-house study every morning, returning in body, though not in spirit, to lunch, and then go out again to work for the rest of the afternoon. As soon as a story was finished, we would gather, after supper, around the lamp and he would read it to us. What a delight it was to recognize some of our old friends or familiar places, or to make the acquaintance of new and even better ones ! We were sorry when the stories were all finished and the book had gone to the publisher. My father's latest book is ''Music, and Other Poems/' and most of these were written here in his study at Avalon, though some he wrote down in Augusta, Ga., where he spent part of last winter. The ''Ode to Music" he was almost two years in writing, taking up, of course, other things in the mean time. Several days ago the following came to my father from James Whitcomb Riley: " Music ! yea, and the airs you play — Out of the faintest Far-away And the sweetest, too; and the dearest here, With its quavering voice but its bravest cheer — The prayer that aches to be all expressed — The kiss of love at its tenderest. Music — music with glad heart-throbs Within it; and music with tears and sobs Shaking it, as the startled soul Is shaken at shriek of the fife and roll Of the drums; — then as suddenly lulled again By the whisper and lisp of the summer rain. Mist of melodies, fragrance fine — The bird-song flicked from the eglantine 184 Story of the Aiithor^s Life With the dews where the springing bramble throws A rarer drench on its ripest rose, And the winged song soars up and sinks To a dove's dim coo by the river brinks, Where the ripple's voice still laughs along Its glittering path of light and song. Music, O poet, and all your own By right of capture, and that alone — For in it we hear the harmony Born of the earth and the air and the sea, And over and under it, and all through. We catch the chime of the Anthem, too." But in Spite of his many duties he still finds time to fish, and since we have lived here he has taken me on a real camping trip in Canada and taught me to catch real salmon, as well as showing me the scenes of a good many of his stories in ^^The Ruling Passion.*' So now I know what real fisherman's luck is, for though *'we sometimes caught plenty and sometimes few, we never came back without a good catch of happiness,** and my father has taught me the real meaning of the last stanza of **The Angler's Reveille": **Then come, my friend, forget your foes and leave your fears behind, And wander out to try your luck with cheerful, quiet mind; For be your fortune great or small, you'll take what God may give. And through the day your heart shall say, 'Tis luck enough to live,'* Brooke van Dyke. Avalon, Princeton, N. J., January 21, 1905. HENRY VAN DYKE Born: Germantown, Pa., November lo, 1852; son of Reverend Henry Jackson and Henrietta (Ash- mead) van Dyke. Graduated Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 1869; A.B., Princeton, 1873; A.M., 1876; graduated Princeton Theological Seminary, 1877; University of Berlin, 1877-79; (D.D., Princeton, 1884; Harvard, 1894; Yale, 1896; LL.D., Union, 1898; Washington and Jefferson, 1902; Wesleyan, 1903; Pennsylvania, 1906; Geneva, Switzerland, 1909. D.C.L., University of Oxford, England, 1917). Mar- ried : Ellen Reid, of Baltimore, December 13, 1881. Ordained Presbyterian Ministry, 1879. Pastor United Congregational Church, Newport, R. I., 1879-82; Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 1 883-1 900, 1902, 191 1 ; Professor English Literature, Princeton, 1900-13; U. S. Minister to the Netherlands and Lux- embourg, 1913-17 (resigned); American lecturer at University of Paris, 1908-9. Moderator General Assembly Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., 1902-3. President Holland Society, 1900-01; National Insti- tute Arts and Letters, 1909-10; Member American Academy of Arts and Letters ; Honorable Fellow Royal Society of Literature, 1910. Membre de la Societe des Gens de Lettres. Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur. 185 AUTHOR '*The Reality of Religion,'* 1884. ''The Story of the Psalms/' 1887. '*The National Sin of Literary Piracy," 1888. ''The Poetry of Tennyson," 1889. "Sermons to Young Men," 1893. "The Christ Child in Art," 1894. "Little Rivers," 1895. "The Other Wise Man," 1896. "The Gospel for an Age of Doubt," 1896. "The First Christmas Tree," 1897. "The Builders, and Other Poems," 1897. "Ships and Havens," 1897. "The Lost Word," 1898. "The Gospel for a World of Sin," 1899. "Fisherman's Luck," 1899. "The ToIHng of Felix, and Other Poems," 1900. "The Poetry of the Psalms," 1900. "The Friendly Year," 1900. "The RuHng Passion," 1901. "The Blue Flower," 1902. "The Open Door," 1903. "Music, and Other Poems," 1904. "The School of Life," 1905. "Essays in Application," 1905. "The Spirit of Christmas," 1905. "The Americanism of Washington," 1906. "Days Off," 1907. "The House of Rimmon," 1908. *Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land," 1908. 186 Story of the Author^ s Life 187 ''Le Genie de TAmerique'' (Paris), 1909. *'The White Bees, and Other Poems,'' 1909. '* Collected Poems," 191 1. '*The Sad Shepherd," 1911. '*The Mansion," 1911. '*The Unknown Quantity," 1912. ''The Lost Boy," 1914. **The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems," 1914. '* Fighting for Peace," 1917. ''The Red Flower," 1917. ''Golden Stars," 1919. "Studies in Tennyson," 1920. EDITOR "The Gateway Series of English Texts." "Select Poems of Tennyson." "Little Masterpieces of English Poetry" (6 vols.) Avalon Edition of "Collected Works," 1920. THE SCRIBNER SERIES of SCHOOL READING A Uniform supplementary reading series, specially edited for use in elemen- tary schools and carefully graded in accordance with results obtained from actual tests in the class room. The main purpose of this series is to introduce into the class room the best literature, particularly the Writings of those contemporary •American authors who naturally appeal to young pe6ple, and to bring this ex- cellent literature within the reach of all schools by offering the books at a very tnoderate price. The volumes are profusely illustrated, and handsomely and durably bound. Fanciful Tales. By Frank R. Stockton. Edited by Julia E. Langworthy. Illustrated. Hans Brinker, By Mary Mapes Dodge. Illustrated. A Child's Garden of Verses. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Illustrated. Some Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. By Howard Pyle. Illustrated by the author. America First. By Frances Nimmo Greene. Illustrated. The Hoosier School Boy. By Edward Eggleston. Illus- trated. Krag and Johnny Bear* Being the Personal Histories of Krag, Randy, Johnny Bear, and Chink. By Ernest Thompson Seton. Illustrated. Lobo, Rag, and Vixen. Selections from "Wild Animals I Have Known.'* By Ernest Thompson Seton. With 4 full-page and many other illustrations from drawings by the Author. Hero Tales Told in School. By James Baldwin. Illustrated. The Page Story Book. Selections for School Reading by Thomas Nelson Pace. Edited by Frank E. Spalding and Gather- INE T. Bryce. The van Dyke Book. Selections for School Reading. By Henry VAN Dyke. Edited by Professor Edwin Mims. A new edition, revised, with an introduction by Maxwell Struthers Burt. Illustrated. The Howells Story Book. By William Dean Howells. Selected and arranged by Mary E. Burt. Illustrated by Miss Howells. The Eugene Field Book. Verses, Stories, and Letters for School Reading. By Eugene Field. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Mary L. Ca^le. With an Introduction by George W. Cable. Illustrated. The Lanier Book. Selections for School Reading. By Sidney Lanier. Edited and arranged by Mary E. Burt, m co-oper- ation with Mrs. Lanier, Illustrated. The Cable Story Book. Selections for School Reading. By George W. Cable. Edited by Mary E. Burt and Lucy L. Cable. Illustrated. The Roosevelt Book. ScJectioas from the wviiic\gs of Theo*^ do re Roosevelt, with an introduction by Robert Bridges. Illustrated. Things Will Take a Turn. By Beatrice Harraden. Illus- trated. Around the World in the Sloop Spray. By Captain Joshua Slocum. Illustrated. Twelve Naval Captains. With portraits. By Molly Elliott Seawell. Poems of American Patriotism. Chosen by Brander Mat- thews. Children's Stories of American Literature, 1660-1860. By Henrietta Christian Wright. Children's Stories of American Literature, 1 860-1896. By Henrietta Christian Wright. Children's Stories in American History. By Henrietta Chris- tian Wright. Children's Stories in American Progress. By Henrietta Chris- tian Wright. Herakles, the Hero of Thebes, and Other Heroes of the Myth. By Mary E. Burt and Zenaide Ragezin. Illustrated. Odysseus: The Hero of Ithaca. By Mary E. Burt. Illustrated. The Boy General. By Mrs. George A. Custer and Mary E. Burt. Illustrated. Don Quixote De La Mancha. By Miguel de Cervantes. From the translations of Duffield and Shelton. By Mary E. Burt and Lucy Leffingwell Cable. ii \ •''H ■■'t "^ilifiiili^ *: '; '. -'i, :.'■ :i*fr Sii^iSAi^^'fe^iiS'' I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS iliiiiilii 018 604 178 1 L'^l