THE MAN WHO 
 WORKED FOR COLLISTER 
 
 MARY TRACY EARLE 
 
 BOSTON 
 COPELAND AND DAY 
 
 M DCCC XCVIII
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN preparing this little volume it is one of 
 my pleasures to be able to thank "The 
 Century," " McClure s Magazine," "The Out 
 look," " Munsey s," "The Monthly Illustrator 
 Publishing Company," " Godey s Magazine," 
 "Short Stories," " Scribner s," and "Harper s 
 Monthly," not only for the privilege of using 
 stories which they have printed, but for the 
 many other kindnesses, courtesies, and en 
 couragements which editors and publishers 
 know so well how to extend to writers. I 
 am glad, also, to explain that two of these 
 tales, " The Race of the Little Ships " and 
 " The Fig-Trees of Old Jourde," were written 
 in collaboration with my cousin, Marguerite 
 Tracy. I include them here partly because 
 they are of the South, like most of the other 
 stories, and partly because in acknowledging 
 their joint authorship I can connect my
 
 PREFACE 
 
 cousin s name with the stories which I call 
 my own, but which would never have been 
 written without her interest and criticism. 
 She may not thank me for passing the re 
 sponsibility on in this way, but it is really 
 hers. 
 
 M. T. E.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MAN WHO WORKED FOR COLLISTER i 
 
 THE MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 20 
 
 THE RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 39 
 
 THE GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 53 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 7 1 
 
 THE ALARM BELL 92 
 
 THE HILDRETHS WEDDING DAY 1 1 1 
 
 THE FIG TREES OF OLD JOURDE 126 
 
 THE CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 151 
 
 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 183 
 
 THE GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 197 
 
 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 215 
 
 THE LAW AND THE LONG BONE 238 
 
 Six BRAVE SOLDIERS 256 
 
 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING VEIL 268
 
 THE MAN WHO WORKED FOR 
 COLLISTER 
 
 T)ERHAPS the loneliest spot in all the 
 JL pine-woods was the big Collister farm. 
 Its buildings were not huddled in the centre 
 of it, where they could keep one another in 
 countenance, but each stood by itself, facing 
 the desolate stretches of gray sand and pine 
 stumps in its own way. Near each a few 
 uncut pine trees kept guard, presumably for 
 shade, but really sending their straggling 
 shadows far beyond the mark. Many a 
 Northern heart had ached from watching 
 them, they were so tall and isolate ; for, 
 having been forest-bred, they had a sad and 
 detached expression when they stood alone or 
 in groups, just like the Northern faces when 
 they met the still distances of the South. 
 
 In Collister s day he and the man who 
 worked for him were the only strangers who 
 had need to watch the pines. A land-im 
 provement company had opened up the farm, 
 but after sinking all its money in the insatiable 
 depths of sandy soil, where the Lord, who
 
 2 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 knew best, had planted pine trees, the great 
 bustling company made an assignment of its 
 stumpy fields, and somewhat later the farm 
 passed into the hands of Collister. Who 
 Collister was, and where he came from, were 
 variously related far and wide through the 
 piney woods ; for he was one of those people 
 whose lives are an odd blending of reclusion 
 and notoriety. He kept up the little store on 
 the farm ; and, though it was usually his man 
 who came up from the fields when any one 
 stood at the closed store and shouted, its 
 trade was largely augmented by the hope of 
 seeing Collister. 
 
 The sunken money of the land company 
 must have enriched the soil, for the farm 
 prospered as well as the store, yielding un- 
 precedentedly in such patches as the two 
 men chose to cultivate. In midsummer the 
 schooner-captains, in their loose red shirts, 
 came panting up two sunburned miles from 
 the bayou to chaffer with Collister or his man 
 over the price of watermelons ; and when 
 their schooners were loaded, the land breeze 
 which carried the cool green freight through 
 bayou and bay out to the long reaches of the 
 sound, where the sea wind took the burden 
 on, sent abroad not only schooner and cargo 
 and men, but countless strange reports of the 
 ways and doings of Collister. At least one
 
 TALES 3 
 
 of these bulletins never changed. Year after 
 year, when fall came, and he had added the 
 season s proceeds to his accumulating wealth, 
 when even the peanuts had been dug, and 
 the scent of their roasting spread through 
 the piney woods on the fresh air of the winter 
 evenings, making an appetizing advertisement 
 for the store, it was whispered through the 
 country, and far out on the gulf, that Collister 
 said he would marry any girl who could make 
 good bread light bread. That settled at 
 least one question : Collister came from the 
 North. The man who worked for him was 
 thought to have come from the same place ; 
 but though he did the cooking, his skill must 
 have left something to be desired, and after 
 current gossip had risked all its surmises on 
 the likelihood of Collister s finding a wife 
 under the condition imposed, it usually added 
 that if Collister married, the man who worked 
 for him would take it as a slight, and leave. 
 
 An old county road led through the big 
 farm, and along it the country people passed 
 in surprising numbers and frequency for so 
 sparsely settled a region. They took their 
 way leisurely, and if they could not afford a 
 five-cent purchase at the store gave plenty 
 of time to staring right and left behind the 
 stumps, in a cheerful determination to see 
 something worth remembrance. One day,
 
 4 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 when the store chanced to be standing open, 
 one of these passers walked up to the thresh 
 old and stood for a while looking in. The 
 room was small and dingy, lighted only by 
 the opening of the door, and crammed with 
 boxes, leaky barrels, farm produce, and side- 
 meat. One corner had been arranged with 
 calicoes and ribbons and threads ; but though 
 the inspector was a young and pretty girl in 
 the most dingy of cotton gowns, she had 
 scarcely a thought for that corner ; she was 
 staring at a man who was so hard at work 
 rearranging the boxes and barrels that he did 
 not notice her shadow at his elbow. Finally 
 he glanced up of his own accord. 
 
 " Hello," he said, coming forward ; " do 
 you want to buy something? Why didn t 
 you sing out? " 
 
 For a little while longer the girl stared at 
 him as steadily as if he had not moved. Most 
 of the people who live in the pine woods come 
 to have a ragged look, but this was the rag- 
 gedest person she had ever seen. He was 
 as ragged as a bunch of pine needles ; yet he 
 had the same clean and wholesome look, and 
 his face was pleasant. 
 
 " Are you the man that works for Col- 
 lister? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 The girl looked him up and down again 
 
 \
 
 TALES 5 
 
 with innocent curiosity. " How much does 
 he give you?" she asked. 
 
 " Nothing but my board and clothes," the 
 man answered, and smiled. He did not seem 
 to find it hard work to stand still and watch 
 her while her black eyes swiftly catalogued 
 each rag. When they reached his bare brown 
 feet she laughed. 
 
 " Then I think he had ought to dress you 
 better, an give you some shoes," she said. 
 
 " He does winters," the man answered 
 calmly. 
 
 She gave an impatient shake of her sun- 
 bonnet. " That isn t the thing just to keep 
 you all warm," she explained. "A man like 
 Mr. Collister had ought to keep you looking 
 ristocratic." 
 
 The man who worked for Collister grinned. 
 " Not very much in Collister s line," he said. 
 " We might get mixed up if I was too 
 dressy." He pulled a cracker-box forward, 
 and dusted it. " If you ain t in a hurry, 
 you d better come inside and take a seat," 
 he added. 
 
 The girl sank to the doorstep instead, 
 taking off her bonnet. Its slats folded to 
 gether as she dropped it into her lap, and she 
 gave a sigh of relief, loosening some crushed 
 tresses of hair from her forehead. She seemed 
 to be settling down for a comfortable inqui-
 
 6 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 sition. " What kind of clothes does Mr. Col- 
 lister wear? " she began. 
 
 The man drew the cracker-box up near the 
 doorway, and sat down. " Dressy," he said ; 
 " bout like mine." 
 
 The girl gave him a look which dared to 
 say, " I don t believe it." 
 
 " Honest truth," the man nodded. " Would 
 you like to have me call him up from the 
 field, and show him to you ? " 
 
 Not to assent would have seemed as if she 
 were daunted, and yet the girl had many more 
 questions to ask about Collister. " Pretty 
 soon," she said. " I suppose if you don t call 
 him, he ll be coming for you. They say he 
 works you mighty hard." 
 
 It is never pleasant to be spoken of as 
 something entirely subject to another per 
 son s will. A slow flush spread over the 
 man s face, but he answered loyally, " Col- 
 lister may be mean to some folks, but he s 
 always been mighty good to me." He smiled 
 as he looked off from stump to stump across 
 the clearing to the far rim of the forest. The 
 stumps seemed to be running after one 
 another, and gathering in groups to whisper 
 secrets. "You ve got to remember that this 
 is a God-forsaken hole for anybody to be 
 stuck in," he said ; " tain t in humanity for 
 him to keep his soul as white as natural,
 
 TALES 7 
 
 more n his skin ; but there s this to be said 
 for Collister : he s always good to me." 
 
 " I m right glad of that," the girl said. 
 She too was looking out at the loneliness, and 
 a little of it was reflected on her face. " You- 
 all must think a heap of him," she added 
 wistfully. 
 
 "You can just bet on that," he declared. 
 " I ve done him a heap of mean turns, too ; 
 but they was always done cause I didn t 
 know any better, so he don t hold me any 
 grudge." 
 
 " Wouldn t he mind if he knew you were 
 a-losing time by sitting here talking to me? " 
 she asked. 
 
 The man shook his head. " No," he an 
 swered cheerfully; " he wouldn t care not 
 for me. There isn t anybody else he would 
 favor like that, but he makes it a point to 
 accommodate me." 
 
 The girl gave her head a little turn. " Do 
 you think he would accommodate me? " she 
 asked. 
 
 He looked her over as critically as she had 
 first looked at him. " It s a dangerous busi 
 ness answering for Collister," he ventured ; 
 " but maybe if / asked him to, he would." 
 
 "Well, you are bigoty," she asserted. " I 
 can t noways see what there is betwixt you. 
 Why, they say that whilst you re working he
 
 8 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 comes out in the field, an* bosses you under 
 a umbrelly ; an " a laugh carried her words 
 along like leaves on dancing water " an 
 that he keeps a stool stropped to his back, 
 ready to set down on whenever he pleases. 
 Is it true hones truth ? " 
 
 A great mirth shook Collister s man from 
 head to foot. " Such a figure such a figure 
 as the old boy cuts ! " he gasped. " Some 
 times I ask him if he ll keep his stool strapped 
 on when he goes a-courting; and he says 
 maybe so it ll be so handy to hitch along 
 closer to the young lady." Without thinking, 
 he illustrated with the cracker-box as he 
 spoke. " And as for the umbrella, I certainly 
 ain t the one to object to that ; for, you see, 
 when the sun s right hot he holds it over 
 me." 
 
 He leaned half forward as he spoke, smil 
 ing at her. It is hard to tell exactly when 
 a new acquaintance ceases to be a stranger ; 
 but as the girl on the doorstep smiled in 
 answer she was unexpectedly aware that the 
 shrewd, kindly, furrowed face of this young 
 man who worked for Collister was something 
 which she had known for a long, long time. 
 It seemed as familiar as the scent of pine 
 needles and myrtle, or as the shafts of blue, 
 smoke-stained sunlight between the brown 
 trunks of the pine trees in the fall, or as the
 
 TALES 9 
 
 feathery outline of green pine-tops against 
 the dreamy intensity of a Southern sky ; and 
 when all this has been said of a girl who lives 
 in the " pineys " there is no necessity for say 
 ing more. She gave a little nervous laugh. 
 
 The man began talking again. " It ain t 
 such foolery as you would think, his wearing 
 the stool and carrying the umbrella," he said. 
 " This is the way he reasons it out, he says. 
 In the first place there s the sun ; that s a 
 pretty good reason. But what started it was 
 a blazing day up North, when he was hustling 
 four deals at once ; a man would need a head 
 the size of a barrel to keep that sort of thing 
 going for long, and Collister has just an ordi 
 nary head no bigger than mine. Well, the 
 upshot of it was that he had a sunstroke, 
 and was laid up a month ; and then he reck 
 oned up the day s business, and what he d 
 gained on one deal he d lost on another, so 
 that he came out even to a cent queer, 
 wasn t it? with just the experience of a 
 sunstroke to add to his stock in trade. Then 
 he bought himself an umbrella and a stool, 
 and began to take life fair and easy. Easy 
 going is my way too ; that s why we get 
 along together." 
 
 There was a jar of candy on a shelf behind 
 him and above his head, and, turning, he 
 reached up a long arm and took it down. It
 
 io COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 was translucent stick candy with red stripes 
 round it just such candy as every fortunate 
 child knew twenty years ago, and some know 
 still. In the piney woods it has not been 
 superseded as a standard of delight, and the 
 children expect to receive it gratuitously after 
 any extensive purchase. Near the coast, 
 where Creole words have spread, it is asked 
 for by a queer sweet name lagnappe (some 
 thing thrown in for good measure). The 
 man who worked for Collister handed the jar 
 across to the girl, making her free of it with 
 a gesture. 
 
 " Do you reckon Mr. Collister would want 
 me to take some?" she asked, poising her 
 slender brown hand on the edge of the jar. 
 " You know, they say that when he first come 
 hyar, an the children asked him for lagnappe, 
 he pretended not to onderstan em, and said 
 he was sorry, but he hadn t got it yet in stock. 
 Is that true?" 
 
 " Yes," the man answered ; " that s true." 
 
 " Well, did he onderstan ? " she asked. 
 
 He lifted his shoulders in a way he had 
 learned in the South. " To be sure," he 
 said. " I told him at the time that it was a 
 mean thing to do, but he said he simply 
 couldn t help himself; young ones kept run 
 ning here from miles around to get five cents 
 worth of baking-sody and ask for a stick of
 
 TALES n 
 
 candy. But take some ; he won t mind, for 
 he s always good to me." 
 
 She drew back her hand. " No," she said, 
 pouting; "I m going to come in sometime 
 when he s hyar, an see if he ll give some 
 lagnappe to me." 
 
 " I ll tell him to," the man said. 
 
 "Well, you are bigoty ! " the girl repeated. 
 
 " If I was to tell him to," the man persisted, 
 " who should I say would ask for it? " 
 
 She looked at him defiantly. " I ll do the 
 telling," she said ; " but while we re talking 
 about names, what s yours?" 
 
 " Well," he answered, " if you re not nam 
 ing any names, I don t believe I am. You 
 know considerably more about me already 
 than I do about you." 
 
 " Oh, just as you please," she said. To be 
 brought blankly against the fact that neither 
 knew the other s name caused a sense of con 
 straint between them. She picked up her 
 bonnet, and put it on as if she might be 
 about to go ; and though she did not rise, 
 she turned her face out-of-doors so that the 
 bonnet hid it from him and it was such a 
 pretty face ! 
 
 " Say, now," he began, after one of those 
 pauses in which lives sometimes sway rest 
 lessly to and fro in the balances of fate, " I 
 didn t mean to make you mad. I ll tell you 
 my name if you want to know."
 
 12 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 " I m not so anxious," she said. One of 
 her brown hands went up officiously and 
 pulled the bonnet still farther forward. " Is 
 it true," she asked, "that Mr. Collister says 
 he will marry any girl that can make good 
 light bread?" 
 
 The man formed his lips as if to whistle, 
 and then stopped. " Yes," he said, eying 
 the sunbonnet, " it s true." 
 
 She turned round and surprised him. " I 
 can make good light bread," she announced. 
 
 "You ! " he said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered sharply; " why not? 
 It ain t so great a trick." 
 
 " But " he paused, meeting the challenge 
 of her face uneasily " but did you come 
 here to say that? " 
 
 " You ve heard me say it," she retorted. 
 
 He rose and stood beside her, looking 
 neither at her, nor at the fields, nor at the 
 encircling forest, but far over and beyond 
 them all, at the first touches of rose-color on 
 the soft clouds in the west. He seemed very 
 tall as she looked up to him, and his face 
 was very grave. She had forgotten long ago 
 to notice his bare feet and tattered clothing. 
 " So that means," he said slowly, " that you 
 came here to offer to marry a man that you 
 never saw." 
 
 She did not answer for a moment, and
 
 TALES 13 
 
 when she did her voice was stubborn. " No," 
 she said ; " I came hyar to say that I know 
 how to make light bread. You needn t be 
 faultin me for his saying that he would marry 
 any girl that could." 
 
 " But you would marry him? " 
 " I allow if he was to ask me I would." 
 The man looked down squarely to meet 
 her eyes, but he found only the sunbonnet. 
 " What would you do it for," he asked, " a 
 lark?" 
 
 " A lark ! " she echoed ; " oh, yes, a lark ! " 
 He stooped toward her and put his hand 
 on her shoulder. "Look up here," he said ; 
 " I want to see if it s a lark or not." 
 
 "I jus said it was," she answered, so low 
 that he had to bend a little closer to be cer 
 tain that he heard. 
 
 " That won t do," he said firmly ; " you must 
 look up into my face." 
 
 " I won t ! " she declared. 
 He stood gazing at her downcast head. 
 There was something that shone in his eyes, 
 and his tongue was ready to say, " You must." 
 He closed his lips and straightened himself 
 again. The girl sat perfectly still, except 
 that once in a while there was a catch in her 
 breath. He kept looking off into the empty, 
 sighing reaches of pine country, which could 
 make people do strange things. " We haven t
 
 14 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 known each other very long," he said at last; 
 " but a few minutes ago I thought we knew 
 each other pretty well, and perhaps you don t 
 have any better friend than I am in this deso 
 late hole. Won t you tell me why it is that 
 you want to marry Collister?" 
 
 " For his money," the girl answered shortly. 
 
 His face darkened as if he were cursing 
 Collister s money under his breath; but she 
 did not look up, and he said nothing until he 
 could speak quietly. " Is that quite fair to 
 Collister?" he asked. "He did talk about 
 marrying any girl that could make good light 
 bread ; but I don t suppose he wanted to do 
 it unless she liked him a little, too." 
 
 " I allowed maybe I d like him a little," 
 the girl explained ; " an I was right sure that 
 he d like me." 
 
 " That s the mischief of it," the man mut 
 tered ; " I ll warrant he ll like you ! " 
 
 After hiding her face so long the girl 
 looked up, and was surprised to see him so 
 troubled. " You ve been right good to me," 
 she said gently, " an I reckon I don t mind 
 perhaps I had ought to tell you jus why 
 I come. I I don t want to be mean to 
 Mr. Collister, an if you don t think it s fair 
 I won t tell him I can make good bread ; 
 only" she met his eyes appealingly " if 
 I don t, I don t see what I m goin to do."
 
 TALES 15 
 
 "What s the matter?" he asked. "Don t 
 you have any home?" 
 
 She smiled bravely, so that it was sorrow 
 ful to see her face. " Not any more," she 
 said. " I ve always had a right good home, 
 but my paw died only las week. You an 
 Mr. Collister used to know him, an he has 
 often spoke of both of you. He was Noel 
 Seymour from up at Castauplay." 
 
 "Noel Seymour dead?" said the man. 
 All her light words pleaded with him for ten 
 derness now that he knew she had said them 
 with an aching heart. "But Seymour was a 
 creole," he added, " and you are not." 
 
 " My own mother was an American," the 
 girl answered, " an I learned my talk from 
 her before she died ; an then my stepmother 
 is American, too." She stopped just long 
 enough to try to smile again. "What do you 
 think?" she asked. " My stepmother don t 
 like me. She isn t going to let me stay at 
 home any more. Could you be as mean as 
 that? " 
 
 He put his hand on her shoulder. " You 
 poor child ! " he said ; for gossip came in 
 sometimes in return for all that radiated from 
 the farm, and he could recall a cruel story he 
 had once heard of Noel Seymour s wife. It 
 made him believe all and more than the girl 
 had told him. " Poor child ! " he said again ;
 
 16 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 " you haven t told me yet what s your first 
 name." 
 
 " Ginevra," she answered. " My own 
 mother liked it ; my stepmother says it s the 
 name of a fool. She thinks she s young an 
 han some ; but I allow she s sending me off 
 because I m a right smart the best-favored of 
 the two. She wants to get married again, 
 an thar ain t but one bacheldor up our way, 
 so she s skeered he d take first pick of me." 
 
 " My kingdom ! " said the man who worked 
 for Collister. " If there s somebody up your 
 way that you know, and that likes you, why 
 didn t you go and take your chances with 
 him?" 
 
 A hot flush rushed over the girl s face. 
 " Does you-all think I d be talkin like this 
 to a man I knowed?" she demanded. She 
 stared angrily until her lips began to quiver. 
 " An besides, I hate him ! " she cried. " He s 
 not a fittin man for such as me." 
 
 "You poor child ! " he said again. 
 
 She caught the compassion of his eyes. 
 "What had I ought to have done?" she 
 asked. " What had any girl ought to do out 
 hyar in the pineys if she was lef like me? 
 I ve hearn o places whar girls could find 
 work, an my stepmother she allowed I could 
 go to the oyster-factories in Potosi ; but whar 
 would I stay ? An then I went to the fac-
 
 TALES 17 
 
 tories onct with my paw, an the air round 
 em made me sick. You see, I was raised in 
 the pineys, an they has a different smell." 
 
 He shook his head, though kindly, at so 
 slight a reason, and the sharp pain of his dis 
 approval crossed her face. " Oh, you don t 
 know anything about it," she cried desper 
 ately; " thar ain t no man that can tell how 
 it feels for a girl that s had a father that s 
 made of her like mine did to be turned right 
 out to face a whole townful that she never 
 saw. Can t you see how, if you was skeered, 
 it would be a heap easier jus to face one 
 man? An then I d hearn no end about Mr. 
 Collister, an some of it was funny, an thar 
 wa n t none of it very bad ; so I jus made up 
 my mind to come round hyar an see for myse f 
 what like he was. You see," she went on, 
 with a lift of the head, " it was for the money, 
 but it was for the honorableness, too ; an I d 
 cross my heart an swear to you on the Bible 
 that when I come hyar I hadn t no thought 
 that anybody could think it was onder- 
 reachin Mr. Collister. I thought he d be 
 right proud, an before we got to talking I 
 never sensed that it would be a hard thing to 
 name to him ; but now " her voice trembled 
 and broke. " Oh," she cried, " I wished I d 
 never come ! " 
 
 The man looked away from her. " Don t
 
 1 8 COLLISTER S MAN 
 
 wish it," he said huskily. " Collister ought 
 to be proud if he can have you for his wife ; 
 and he would give you a good home and 
 everything your heart could ask for." 
 
 Tears sprang into her eyes, and she dropped 
 her head upon her knees to hide them. " Oh, 
 I know, I know," she sobbed ; " but I d rather 
 marry you ! " 
 
 " O-oh ! " breathed the man who worked for 
 Collister ; " I d so much rather that you did." 
 And with a laugh of pure delight he caught 
 her up into his arms. 
 
 When they left the store a red blaze of 
 sunset shone between the trunks of the pine 
 trees. The man fastened the padlock behind 
 them, and they started in a lovers silence 
 along the road. The big farm was as empty 
 and lifeless as ever, except for the lonesome 
 neighing of a horse in the barnyard and for 
 a single straight blue thread of smoke which 
 rose from one of the little houses. The girl 
 pointed at it, and smiled. 
 
 " He s having to get his own supper 
 to-night," she said ; " but I ll make it up to 
 him : I ll make his light bread jus the 
 same." 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you d better; for, what 
 ever he s been to other folks, he s always 
 been mighty good to me; an , please God, 
 he s going to be mighty good to you."
 
 TALES 19 
 
 A breath of land breeze had started in 
 the pine woods, and was going out bearing a 
 tribute of sweet odors to the sea. The disk 
 of the sun sank below the black line of the 
 earth, but the trees were still etched against 
 a crimson sky. Softly and faintly in the far 
 distance some passing Creole hailed another 
 with a long, sweet call. They reached the 
 edge of the clearing, and went on through 
 the deepening twilight of the pines. There 
 were no words in all the world quite true 
 enough to speak in that great murmurous 
 stillness that was in the woods and in their 
 hearts. At last they came to a path beyond 
 which she would not let him go, thinking it 
 better for this last time to go on alone. 
 
 " Good-night," she said lingeringly ; and he 
 held her close and kissed her, whispering 
 good-night. Then he stood and watched her 
 slender, swaying figure as it grew indistinct 
 between the trees ; and just before it vanished 
 he called out guardedly. 
 
 " Say," he summoned, " come here ! " 
 
 She went laughing back to him. " You-all 
 are bigoty," she said, " beginning to order me 
 about ! " 
 
 He took her hands, and held her from him 
 so that he could see her face. "You mustn t 
 be mad at me," he said; " but there s some 
 thing I forgot to tell you I m Collister."
 
 THE MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 IN one of the queer narrow streets back of 
 the Place d Armes old Hippolyte Dolbert 
 sat, day in and day out, painting his masks. 
 It was his busy season, for the Carnival was 
 coming soon the Carnival of the old days, 
 when all the city trooped out into the streets, 
 that high and low might frolic together and 
 do homage unstintedly to the mysterious 
 Rex. 
 
 Already the children on the warped ban 
 quettes talked of nothing but the Carnival, 
 and of the strange places from which Rex 
 had last sent messages in his progress out of 
 the East. They even left their games to 
 come peeping into Hippolyte s shop, chat 
 tering and choosing the masks they would 
 like from the many hung about the room to 
 dry. Sometimes their voices so disturbed old 
 Hippolyte that he felt like closing the door ; 
 yet he did not close it, for whenever he 
 started up, frowning ominously, the children 
 shrank back with such woe-begone little faces 
 that he would only stand a moment on the 
 threshold, fanning himself and complaining
 
 TALES 21 
 
 that never before had there been such warm 
 weather in the early part of February, and 
 that he felt more like going over the lake for 
 a breath of air than sitting all year long 
 painting masks. Dolbert was always plan 
 ning to go over the lake for a breath of air, 
 but in point of fact it was only at Carnival 
 time that he even went so far from his dark 
 little shop as to cross into the heart of the 
 city. People used to live quietly in those 
 days, and yet strange things happened some 
 times in the queer narrow streets back of the 
 Place d Armes. Dolbert looked on and saw 
 all that happened, and when it was very sad 
 and his mind was burdened with it his lips 
 smiled whimsically as he painted on his comic 
 masks. 
 
 Night had just fallen, scattering the children 
 from the street, and blotting it out except in 
 the rare circles where the lamps made their 
 feeble protest. It was long past his easy 
 hours for keeping shop, and the old man had 
 let his daughter cross the way to gossip with 
 a friend. He himself had stopped working, 
 but he still sat in a chair by his work-table, 
 and once in a while he picked up an unfin 
 ished mask, held it on his hand and talked 
 to it, for when he was alone and idle in the 
 evening stillness there were eyes long closed 
 that wakened to laugh or to weep with him
 
 22 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 behind the faces which had come to be his 
 friends. 
 
 " Good evening, Sieur Hippolyte," a voice 
 said at the door. The mask-painter rose and 
 went forward, carrying the mask still upon 
 his hand. 
 
 " Good evening," he said questioningly. 
 
 The stranger reached out, took the mask 
 from Hippolyte s hand, put it on his own, 
 and looked at it long. It was but half- 
 painted, and the change from vivid coloring 
 to ashy white gave it a grotesque look of ill 
 ness and pain. 
 
 "Does monsieur find it attractive?" the 
 old painter inquired at last in a soft voice. 
 He had grown impatient of the steady, word 
 less gaze. 
 
 " It has a strange look of suffering," the 
 stranger answered, " but can you do nothing 
 better than that?" 
 
 "This will not be sad when it is done," 
 Hippolyte hastened to assure him. " I shall 
 make it very merry. If monsieur wishes 
 something more laughing, however, some 
 thing burlesque " 
 
 The man lifted up the mask and fitted it 
 on his face. "What I want," he said from 
 behind it, " is the face of a lost soul." 
 
 Hippolyte looked into the stranger s eyes, 
 which were full of such infinite sorrow that
 
 TALES 23 
 
 they seemed vacant of all thought. " A 
 strange mask, that, for you to wear," he said 
 gently. " Why not choose something merry? 
 For, pardon me, but it would be a better dis 
 guise." 
 
 " I have not asked for a disguise," said the 
 stranger, pulling aside the mask. " I have 
 only given you an order. Can you fill it for 
 me as I wish, and keep it until the eve of 
 Carnival? " 
 
 Without realizing what he did, old Hip- 
 polyte searched the lines of the face before 
 him with the understanding of a man who 
 has studied faces all his life. " Yes," he 
 said, with a slow bend of the head, " I think 
 I can make you what you wish, and no one 
 shall see it until it is in your own hands on 
 the eve of Carnival." 
 
 " I do not care as to that," answered the 
 stranger. " You seem to misunderstand me 
 in some way, but it does not matter, for all 
 that I wish is the mask. Good evening, 
 Sieur Hippolyte ; but remember the face 
 of a lost soul." 
 
 When Sieur Hippolyte was alone again 
 he sat down, put the unfinished mask once 
 more on his hand, and nodded at it solemnly. 
 " But you do care," he said to it; and then, 
 after he had been silent for a while, he said 
 the same thing again. " But you do care,
 
 24 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 and I will be as good as my word. No one 
 shall see it until you call for it, and then 
 may the good God help you when the two 
 of you are met." 
 
 Sieur Hippolyte shrugged his shoulders, 
 and went across the street after his daughter, 
 for it was time that young girls were asleep. 
 As for him, he was ill friends with slumber, 
 and far into the night he bent over his work. 
 The whole pent-up fineness of the man 
 awoke and rejoiced in its opportunity, but as 
 his mind determined and his hands wrought 
 out the exquisite anguish of the mask his 
 face grew dim and haggard from looking 
 into the face of a lost soul. 
 
 " Sieur Hippolyte ! " It was the eve of 
 Carnival, and Sieur Hippolyte had sent his 
 daughter across the way again, or, rather, he 
 had let her go ; for she could not have stayed 
 still in the shop with him that night, when 
 the fleet of Rex was reported just below the 
 city, ready to send ashore its marvellous 
 crews on the morrow. Her merry chatter 
 drifted to her father, mingled with the fra 
 grance which spread over the high walls of 
 the gardens. But the voice that spoke his 
 name was quite distinct and apart. 
 
 " Come inside," said Sieur Hippolyte, 
 rising. " That which you have ordered is
 
 TALES 25 
 
 waiting for you, but I do not have it among 
 these other masks that know nothing but to 
 mock." 
 
 " If this is what I wish," said the stranger, 
 " they would do well to mock it but what 
 has happened? I beg your forgiveness a 
 thousand times if I have intruded my whim 
 into a house of sorrow." 
 
 He bowed his head as he spoke, for Sieur 
 Hippolyte had led him into a room where 
 candles were burning around something that 
 was covered with a white cloth. 
 
 " No," said the mask-painter, and his thin 
 brown face felt the strange tingling of a flush 
 beneath the skin. " It is I who have in 
 truded my whim. I did not think to see 
 you quite so early, and pardon the presump 
 tion of an old man, but each night since my 
 work was done I have lighted candles to say 
 a prayer." 
 
 He drew away the cloth, and they looked 
 down upon the mask. The stranger started 
 back with lips twitching and eyes on fire. 
 "Who told you," he cried, pointing with a 
 long, straight finger at the mask, "who told 
 you that I am a lost soul? " 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur," said Hippolyte, lift 
 ing the mask and holding it beside the 
 stranger s face; "if you will come with me 
 to a mirror you will see that they are very
 
 26 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 different, and if any chance resemblance has 
 crept into them it is not that I so willed it. 
 I have only tried to make you that which 
 you asked ; and may the good God punish 
 me but as the thing grew under my hands I 
 thought I was succeeding more than well." 
 
 The stranger took the mask and looked 
 into its vacant eyes. " You have succeeded," 
 he said, " and that is all I asked. It is better 
 as it is, perhaps ; for, after all, I do not wish 
 it as a disguise. But," he added, as he paid 
 old Hippolyte, " remember, if you see this 
 mask on the street to-morrow, for the love 
 of mercy and justice stop in your laughter to 
 say another prayer ! " 
 
 Sieur Hippolyte put his hand on the man s 
 shoulder. " My son," he said, " perhaps it 
 has been a sin for me to make you a mask 
 like that ; I have worked at it distrustfully, 
 and yet the fascination of it has held me. 
 But if you are planning to have it help you 
 in anything that is evil, then half of the guilt 
 will be mine, and I beg you to think much 
 this night, with that face of despair like a 
 mirror before you, and see if it is not in 
 your soul to yield up your plan. My prayers 
 may be very good, but your own sacrifice of 
 wrath or greed or whatever it is that besets 
 you will take you farther toward the gates of 
 heaven."
 
 TALES 27 
 
 The stranger gave Sieur Hippolyte a smile 
 that was very kind. " I am planning nothing 
 that is evil," he said, "and you need fear 
 nothing for having written the anguish of my 
 life even upon this mask. It may cover a 
 peaceful face when to-morrow s work is done. 
 You will have many clews to what may 
 happen to-morrow, and you are free to use 
 them as you will, yet ever afterward I shall 
 believe more in a good face if I see you 
 whispering a prayer for me, rather than 
 whispering to others what you know of the 
 mask of the lost soul." 
 
 "You forget that I may wear a mask my 
 self," answered Hippolyte; " but God knows 
 it will not be to do injury to you or any other 
 man ! That is not what I make them for." 
 
 " Nor why I wear them," answered the 
 stranger. He was silent a moment and then 
 he put out his hand. Hippolyte took it and 
 they parted with a secret yearning, each of 
 them more anxious for the morrow than 
 any of the joyful souls who counted off the 
 hours. 
 
 The next day Hippolyte wore the mask 
 which, he had held on his hand when the 
 stranger first came to him. He had finished 
 it without changing its look of suffering. An 
 odd fancy prompted him : he did not wish 
 the mask of the stranger to be the only one
 
 28 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 that told of pain. So Hippolyte, in the 
 mask of the tortured body, went seeking, 
 seeking, in and out through the crowds for 
 the mask of the lost soul. 
 
 The great day-pageant had wound slowly 
 through the city, and the merry throngs that 
 had watched it began to spread and stream 
 along the streets, laughing, joking, pelting 
 one another, marching in motley bands 
 through the houses at their will, claiming the 
 privilege of the day to make the city their 
 own. Hippolyte had grown weary of the 
 ceaseless gay confusion, and his steps were 
 trending homeward. He would rest a little 
 to be ready for the procession of the night, and 
 perhaps, too, the mask he sought was wait 
 ing for darkness before showing its strange 
 sorrow among the revellers. Not that he 
 expected to see it; he had been a fool to 
 come out fancying it would be the first thing 
 to meet him on the street. There were too 
 many people abroad for that, and though he 
 could not tell what he wanted of the mask 
 he was weighted down with the hopelessness 
 of finding it. Perhaps already it had finished 
 its work strange partial meeting of lives, 
 that he should know so much and so little 
 of this man s tragedy. 
 
 There were shouts of laughter and a puls 
 ing rush of feet behind him. He found him-
 
 TALES 
 
 29 
 
 self encircled and seized by a noisy band of 
 masks. 
 
 " Ah-ha, Brother Sorrow," they cried, " you 
 should have stayed in the house to-day ! You 
 should have stayed in just one day before 
 bringing out your Lenten face," and they 
 dragged him at a run down the street. 
 
 " Loose me ! loose me ! " he gasped, 
 wrenching at the strong young hands. He 
 did not forget that it was Carnival, but he had 
 grown too tired to acknowledge the rights of 
 laughter over pain. " I tell you I will make 
 you all into Brothers of Sorrow. Loose me ! 
 loose me ! You are dragging out my arms." 
 
 " No, Brother Sorrow, you look no worse 
 than before," they cried. " If you like not 
 aches and pains you should not wear that 
 mask. This is the day when all sombre 
 faces go to judgment. On ! faster ! faster ! 
 To the merry justice in the Place d Armes ! " 
 
 " To the merry justice ! To the merry jus 
 tice ! " The cry came ringing down another 
 street, and another troop of maskers rushed 
 headlong round a corner, breaking through 
 the ranks of Hippolyte s captors and throw 
 ing another unfortunate into their midst. 
 Hippolyte was unhanded and stood staring 
 at the sour, barefaced new-comer, who stared 
 back at him and at the circle of laughing, 
 leaping guards.
 
 30 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 " Ah, Brothers Sorrow," they shouted, 
 " now you can each see how you mar the 
 day ! Just dance a little, Brothers Sorrow, 
 dance while we make the music, and you can 
 still escape from the merry justice yonder in 
 the Place." 
 
 Hippolyte and his companion exchanged 
 a glum look of challenge and stood still. 
 They were grasped again and swept onward 
 in an ever-increasing crowd and turmoil, until 
 they reached the shadow of the old stuccoed 
 court buildings facing the Place d Armes. 
 The gay misrule had centred there for its 
 caprice, and as Hippolyte and his guards 
 approached, the voice of the merry justice 
 was already raised requesting laughter in the 
 court. 
 
 About twenty unhappy-looking people 
 were huddled at the foot of the great cask 
 which had been rolled up by the wall for the 
 throne of justice. They wore no masks, but 
 their troubled faces did not change as the 
 new captives were thrust among them, and a 
 babel of mirth answered the call of His Honor 
 on the cask. 
 
 There were tired people and sad people 
 and wicked people ; but as Hippolyte was the 
 only masked prisoner the justice motioned 
 him forward first of all. 
 
 " Brother Sorrow," he cried in a piping
 
 TALES 3 1 
 
 voice, " if you are but pretending to be 
 Brother Sorrow, if you can pull off that 
 mask and show a merry face beneath we will 
 grant you our gracious pardon for this one 
 transgression, flippantly warning you never 
 to break the law of Carnival again. We 
 wait your transfiguration, Brother Sorrow." 
 
 Hippolyte held his silence. 
 
 "You refuse?" said the justice; "then 
 here is one more chance. Amuse us, make 
 us roar with laughter by telling us what ab 
 surdity has caused your sadness, and that 
 shall set you free." 
 
 Hippolyte still said nothing. He was no 
 longer angry, he merely had a mind to see 
 this to the end ; but before the justice could 
 begin his sentence there was a fresh inpouring 
 of shouts and laughter. 
 
 " Wait ! wait ! " cried the voices. " Let 
 all lesser prisoners wait ! They will look 
 gay enough beside this Brother Sorrow ! " 
 
 " Hurry him in ! Hurry him in ! Hurry" 
 the word failed, as a thrill of silence cut its 
 way before the mask of the lost soul. He 
 walked forward eagerly toward the spangled 
 justice on the cask. 
 
 " I have wandered all day," he said, " seek 
 ing one who cared whether I were gay or sad. 
 It is more nearly joy than I have known to 
 be summoned even to this Court of Mirth."
 
 32 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 The silence spread around the tall, masked 
 figure until the justice rapped again sharply 
 with his jingling rod, crying in his shrillest 
 voice, " Laughter ! laughter ! Must I impose 
 a general fine for this respect of court? " 
 
 "Yes," said the lost soul, looking around 
 him, " laugh ! " And stillness fell again with 
 his words. " Does your Jocund Honor," he 
 went on, " grant me a hearing in the Court 
 of Mirth?" 
 
 The justice leaned forward, bowing his 
 fool s cap low. " To you," he answered, 
 " who seem a mighty man in the Land of 
 Sorrow, the Court of Mirth offers all the dis 
 tinguished consideration due to one who, as 
 a stranger, has broken laws which he could 
 not understand. Be pleased in your own way 
 to plead your case and rest assured that our 
 statutes will be construed for you as mildly 
 as they may." 
 
 " I think," answered the mask, " that even 
 in the land and day of mirth my face will soon 
 be understood, for here, under these walls, I 
 can speak well. They are not Courts of 
 Mirth that are held there within. When I 
 gave witness there you know now who I am, 
 you people who have suffered until your faces 
 are gray tragedies I shuddered at some of 
 your faces ; and you shuddered at me that 
 day when I condemned my friend, and not
 
 TALES 33 
 
 one of you laughers laughed. You thought, 
 and I thought, I had damned myself that day 
 when my testimony don t you know me 
 yet? The face below is like the face above ! 
 But I tell you I believed what I said, and I 
 hated him because I thought he had killed 
 my enemy. I believed what I said and I 
 wished we both might die, since he was worthy 
 death. But, Brothers of Mirth, that was a 
 merry day ; it is since then that I have known 
 suffering. Would you like to see my face?" 
 
 The justice bowed, and the lost soul drew 
 off his mask and looked about. Many had 
 known him in the past, but they looked more 
 than once, his face was swept so bare of 
 everything but sorrow. 
 
 " My friend is within there," he said, point 
 ing to the prison walls beyond the court, " and 
 I am a free man here outside a free man, 
 but a guiltier man than he, for the crime was 
 done for love of me. No, not by him. There 
 were two who loved me better than I loved 
 them this is what we come to when we are 
 loved better than we love." He held up the 
 mask. 
 
 The merry justice stooped and lifted the 
 mask above his head. " Higher," said the 
 lost soul; "there may be some on the out 
 skirts who do not see what it is we come to 
 when we do not love as well as we are loved."
 
 34 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 He stood gazing up into the mask. At last 
 he looked around as if awakening. " Am 
 I justified, Brothers of Mirth?" he asked. 
 " Are you lighter of heart, Brothers of 
 Sorrow? " 
 
 "But the other who did the crime?" It 
 was Hippolyte who spoke. 
 
 The lost soul looked at him. " She told me 
 as she died," he said, " and she died in my 
 arms. I had learned the sorrow of love before 
 it was too late for that. She had suffered 
 I did penance for her suffering when I kissed 
 her, with my heart crying for my friend." 
 
 " And you have not told this in the real 
 courts?" asked the merry justice. 
 
 " They will not listen to me," said the lost 
 soul. " No one heard her but me, she was 
 so quick to die. They think it is my own 
 remorse. You know better than that here, 
 in the Court of Mirth ; you know that empty 
 remorse does not make us look like that 
 lift the mask higher on your staff ! " 
 
 The merry justice lifted it as high as his 
 belled staff would reach, but the lost soul 
 sprang up beside him and caught the staff 
 from his hands. . " Come ! " he shouted. " If 
 you have pity for sorrow, the way is justice ! 
 If you love mirth, the way is justice ! Follow 
 me until we right this wrong, and then I will 
 help you laugh ! "
 
 TALES 35 
 
 He sprang from the cask, and the maskers 
 rushed forward with him, bearing with them 
 the men of sorrow. " Justice ! " they shouted. 
 " Justice before mirth ! " 
 
 "Justice!" they were shouting as they 
 reached the prison doors. " Justice ! " 
 and the lost soul knocked a long and resonant 
 knock with the jester s staff. A hush fell on 
 the street after it ; they were listening breath 
 less outside, and still more breathlessly within, 
 for justice is not over-welcome at the prison 
 door. 
 
 The lost soul knocked again. Not a sound 
 within, not a sound outside. The Place 
 d Armes and all the streets about it were 
 empty. Only the breath of music floated fit 
 fully across the silence. Darkness gathered. 
 The night procession would soon flaunt 
 through the city s distant heart. 
 
 The lost soul struck his baton sharply 
 through the grating of a window, shattering 
 the glass, so that they heard it tinkle on the 
 floor. They raised him till his face was 
 pressed against the bars. 
 
 "We are many and strong," he said, " and 
 we a^k only for one man. You who guard 
 the door, will you bring him to us, or shall 
 we open for ourselves?" But the prison, 
 unguarded from without on that careless 
 day, seemed doubly guarded by its dumbness.
 
 36 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 The lost soul drew back, jumped down among 
 the men, seized a heavy club and rushed with 
 it against the door. The maskers found such 
 weapons as they could, and beat and battered 
 with them until every shadow of the place 
 seemed crashing into sound. " Justice ! " 
 they clamored, " justice ! " But all save one 
 of the men of sorrow shrank back, remember 
 ing their uncovered faces, and disappeared 
 among the echoes that crashed louder and 
 louder until the strong door was shivered and 
 made way for mirth. 
 
 The prisoners cowered in their cells, and 
 wondered who was sought, for there had been 
 no sound of mercy in the cries outside, and 
 they trembled though the cries had ceased. 
 Then they began to listen with sharp ears, it 
 was so still. Only a few quick footsteps in 
 the corridors ; the opening of a door ; foot 
 steps again, growing fainter, and dying in 
 their ears. Then sounds of hammering, then 
 silence deepening until they heard one 
 another stir and breathe, and until they 
 shrank at even hearing that, such strange 
 ness bound them in the night. 
 
 The Brothers of Mirth sped apart word 
 lessly along the streets, looking at no one, and 
 hastening to mingle in the greater throng ; for 
 when their mission was ended, and they heard 
 the prison door close behind them, and the
 
 TALES 37 
 
 frightened guards hammering to make it more 
 secure, a sudden horror seized them of the 
 thing that they had done. They did not care 
 to see where the lost soul vanished, leading 
 his rescued convict like a child. But the 
 masked Brother of Sorrow leaped after him. 
 
 " Brother of the Lost Soul," he cried, " can 
 I be of aid?" 
 
 " Gentle Brother of Suffering," answered 
 the stranger, " I have thrown aside that name 
 in the street yonder with the mask, and your 
 aid was given yesterday when you burned 
 candles round the white cloth. Yet, if you 
 are minded to, pray for us again there 
 are hard days to come in the swamps, and 
 paddling in the shadow of the rushes, and 
 we shall be safer for a true soul s prayer." 
 
 He stretched out his hand, and Hippolyte 
 grasped it. " Brother of the Ransomed Soul," 
 he said, " my life thanks thee for passing so 
 close to it. I shall pray, but pray also for 
 me, and fare thee well." 
 
 "Fare thee well," said the ransomed soul, 
 and hurried forward with his friend. 
 
 When Hippolyte could see him no longer 
 he followed him, and watched him lift his 
 weak friend in his arms and carry him until 
 they came to the river that is strong and 
 swift and kindly, asking no questions of the 
 fugitives who trust its strength. Then Hip-
 
 38 MASK OF THE LOST SOUL 
 
 polyte turned homeward, and as he walked 
 he spoke to something that he carried in his 
 hand. 
 
 "There will be but one of you," he said to 
 it, " for the other face will change. I am glad 
 that I found you where you fell. It would be 
 wiser, perhaps, when I reach home to put you 
 in the flames, but I will not. You are a ran 
 somed soul. Only the good God in His 
 eternities will make other faces fine as this." 
 
 He reached home and lighted candles 
 around the mask, and whispered many 
 prayers.
 
 THE RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 " For all averr d, I had killed the bird 
 That made the breeze to blow." 
 
 THERE are many houseless landings on 
 Bayou Marie. Paths lead back from 
 them with no visible object, and save for an 
 occasional boat tied to a broken post or a 
 tree-root strangers would think them long 
 abandoned. 
 
 To Rubier Pierre, as he moored his skiff 
 at one of these points, the trail which faintly 
 invited him was anything but objectless. It 
 led far back to the house of Michael Lopez. 
 Michael was the father of Hortense. 
 
 It was a brilliant day : the sun glowed on 
 the burnished Marie, in the quivering air, 
 from the shining clouds, from the infinite 
 haunting sky. 
 
 The shadow of the pines was like silence, 
 and Rubier escaped into it gladly, although 
 he had felt no discomfort in the blinding 
 tumult of light. Rubier was a Creole 
 schooner-man, with close-set eyes grown
 
 40 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 unflinching in the long bright reaches of the 
 Sound and the marsh-bordered Rigolets 
 between Pontomoc and New Orleans. 
 
 The thread of path led straight into the 
 exquisite suspense of the woods, where, feel 
 ing the expectancy, it wavered and finally 
 stood still in a sunny opening brown with 
 pine needles. Not so with Rubier : he knew 
 that it would reappear along the high ground, 
 but there were longer and shorter ways of 
 reaching Hortense ; he struck off on a still 
 dimmer trail that dropped recklessly into the 
 damp gloom of a ravine. 
 
 Above the rich, crowding water-growth, 
 above the bays and magnolias, towered the 
 austere, always remote, always dominating 
 pines. Rubier, the path, and a dilatory moss- 
 loving brook sauntered beneath, conscious 
 merely of their own transient purposes. The 
 path and Rubier did not mind finding the 
 brook under their feet at every turn, for 
 Rubier s feet were bare and the path was un 
 pretentious. Rubier swung a white gull s wing 
 in one hand, and whistled as he went. In 
 some time of affluence the brook had laid a 
 tempting chip of cypress out of harm s way 
 at the foot of a tree. Here Rubier, discover 
 ing it, reached for it without scruple as he 
 passed. It was well dried, light as a feath 
 er, and seemed to compel a knife from his
 
 TALES 41 
 
 pocket. He stuck the gull s wing into his 
 hat. Much pulling on to the crown of 
 his black head had demolished the hat cord, 
 but a hole placed conveniently at one side 
 held the wing, and left him free to carve his 
 chip. 
 
 Once Rubier stood still and listened. The 
 faintest of sounds reached him, scarcely more 
 than the breathing of the woods, but it was 
 enough to make him quite confident that 
 Hortense was at home. He threw back his 
 head, and flung into the silence the searching, 
 plaintive call that Creoles know. The echoes, 
 tossing it softly back and forth in the woods, 
 could not tone it to the sweetness of the 
 distant voice that answered. Rubier gave a 
 rapturous nod, felt of the gull s wing to be 
 sure that it had not dropped from his hat, and 
 walked on. 
 
 The woods were very fond of Michael 
 Lopez. They crowded so close to shelter 
 his low roof that had it been a broader one 
 they would have left no space for the clean- 
 swept dooryard, with its cherished crape- 
 myrtles and fig-trees. At the corner of the 
 cabin a hospitable live-oak asserted against 
 the example of the pines the right of all live- 
 oaks to stretch out strong, spreading arms 
 for earthly companionship. In its dense 
 shadow the sound that reassured Rubier had
 
 42 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 ceased. At the flickering edge of the shadow 
 waited Hortense. 
 
 " I guess yo look faw me yestahday," 
 began Rubier, coming up with one hand 
 closed round a tiny object which had lately 
 been the chip. 
 
 The never-absent Creole sunbonnet had 
 fallen backward, and Rubier saw a little curve 
 of cheek and flash of eyes. 
 
 " Noel Roget was home yestahday," she 
 said. 
 
 Rubier scowled. The Creoles mean " at my 
 house " when they say " home." 
 
 "An Annie, an Frances, an Paul, dey 
 was all heah," continued Hortense, pulling 
 up the bonnet. "Were yo was?" 
 
 " I spen my Sunday polin , me," answered 
 Rubier, with gloomy directness. " We didn 
 get in till way midnight, an soon as de tide 
 tu n we goin up Porto faw coal. Noel, is he 
 goin out dis week? " 
 
 " No. Has it tu n de style at New Orleans 
 faw men to weah feathahs on dey heads ? " 
 
 Rubier had forgotten the gull s wing ; he 
 plucked it from his hat and gave it to her. 
 
 " I guess it de style faw men w at got dey 
 han s full," he retorted, brightening. " I shot 
 dis gull off Point aux Cerfs, on de way out, 
 an tack de wings on de mas to dry. Pretty, 
 ain t he? "
 
 TALES 43 
 
 " Yas ; vv at faw yo kill him?" 
 
 Rubier was disappointed ; he had expected 
 her to be more enthusiastic over the snowy 
 thing. " Wat faw I kill him? " he repeated 
 vaguely. " I dunno. De fool t ings was 
 feedin away dere on de bar like ole hens, 
 den w en dey see us dey had to cleah out so 
 fas , an I t ink to myse f, Yo mighty wu" 
 w en yo spread yo wings out. I show yo 
 how to keep still. W en I shot, dis one 
 dropped so pretty I t ink, Hortense like dat 
 wing in her hat; an I row out faw it, see? " 
 
 " Ver pretty," said Hortense, stroking it 
 regretfully with her hand. 
 
 " I got somet ing else," Rubier ventured, 
 feeling rather excluded by her sympathy 
 with the gull s wing. He opened his hand, 
 revealing about two inches of exquisite wood- 
 carving. 
 
 "A play boat!" cried Hortense eagerly. 
 " Oh, how it is little ! " 
 
 " Bout big nough faw yo to sail nex 
 Sunday," Rubier answered, his face radiant. 
 
 Hortense laughed. " I doan b lieve Noel 
 Roget can whittle like dis, not? I mus make 
 sail faw her." 
 
 " Make it bout de size of yo hand," sug 
 gested Rubier. It had done him good to see 
 Hortense laugh. 
 
 " But yo play boat, de big one, is she
 
 44 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 ready?" Hortense asked, toying with the 
 advance guard of all her ships of hope. 
 
 "I race her nex Sunday; she s all ready 
 but de name." 
 
 " T ought yo was goin up Porto faw 
 coal," objected Hortense. " Yo doan seem 
 to care much bout gettin home faw Sun 
 day." 
 
 " Yo t ink I not goin to be home by Sun 
 day? I fix to get my coal an beat Noel 
 Roget, too. He t ink his little sloop can 
 stan mo win dan my play boat, but I guess 
 I show him, me. Yo goin to be dere? " 
 
 " Maybe," Hortense promised; " but if yo 
 ain , I ll know sure yo don care bout comin 
 faw Sunday." 
 
 There was a little pause in which the live- 
 oak whispered something to the trees that 
 could not see. 
 
 " Yo been rice hullin ," began Rubier at 
 last. " I heah yo back in de woods." 
 
 " I favvgot," cried Hortense in dismay. 
 " I ain half done, an mamma wan s it faw 
 jumbolai" 
 
 " I he p yo ," said Rubier promptly. " Be 
 an houah befo de tide tu n," and together they 
 retreated into the deeper shadow of the live- 
 oak. 
 
 No one could remember when the Creoles
 
 TALES 45 
 
 had not raced their toy boats over the clear, 
 sandy shoals of Pointe St. Jacques. Tenant 
 strangers might come and go from the Point 
 itself, but it would never occur to the racers 
 to change their ground. Every Sunday of 
 the racing season saw the Creole population 
 assembled on the beach the women in 
 holiday dress, the men ready for wading, 
 boats in hand, trousers rolled well above 
 their brown knees. 
 
 " Rubier doan seem to care bout gettin 
 in faw Sunday no mo ," Noel Roget sug 
 gested to Hortense. " If I can sail I pull 
 home faw Sunday, me. Reckon he s skeered 
 to race his boat." 
 
 " He come, yo see," replied Hortense, 
 looking across the calm, sparkling bay. 
 
 Far up Porto some white sails hovered over 
 the marsh. "Wen? " asked Noel scornfully. 
 
 " Little Peter got de boat hyah," Hortense 
 went on evasively. " He goin to run her if 
 Rubier doan get in. An I goin to run dis, 
 see? " 
 
 " Yo call dat a boat? " scoffed Noel, weigh 
 ing the mimic toy in his palm. " Run dat 
 in a coffee cup, I guess." 
 
 A soft-voiced clan of girls surrounded it 
 admiringly, plying Hortense with questions. 
 Noel gave it up to them, and went off among 
 the men.
 
 46 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 Peter Pierre, Rubier s younger brother, 
 was proudly displaying the new toy boat to 
 the other racers. In these many-branched 
 Creole families the given name of the father 
 is often used as the surname of the children, 
 to distinguish them from their numberless 
 cousins. Both surnames and given names 
 are few, and only ingenious combining and 
 the occasional adoption of English forms pre 
 vent constant repetition. The alliterative 
 monotony of Peter Pierre s name had had a 
 soothing effect on his character ; he did not 
 resemble Rubier at all, and Noel Roget 
 would be very glad to race against the new 
 toy boat under his management. 
 
 " Rubier look like he stuck, up on dat 
 ma sh," Noel remarked cheerfully. " Yo ll 
 have to fly dat Gull yo se f, Peter." 
 
 "Ah yo all ready?" called old Brisset, the 
 ship-carpenter, who always started the races. 
 
 For answer there was a shout of voices 
 resonant from the summer seas, a turmoil of 
 splashing feet in the water, and the racers 
 stood in line, holding their little ships. 
 
 " Start ! " cried old Brisset. 
 
 The tiny fleet touched water. A land 
 breeze that meant nothing to Rubier, in the 
 shelter of marsh and woods up the bayou, 
 sent the light things forward, courtesying 
 to the ripples. Their captains, from grand-
 
 TALES 47 
 
 fathers to grandsons, waded after them, stoop 
 ing excitedly to direct their course. The 
 women, young children, and a few non- 
 sporting men watched them from the beach. 
 
 " Lazare one fool, a very beeg one, prit 
 near two," sneered Aristide Le Rat, a born 
 Frenchman, who had sailed the high seas. 
 " Zey play, an zey play, an zey play all 
 week wiz zere leetl schooners in zese leetl 
 shallow bays and soun s; an zen zey mus 
 play ze same ridicule way toitjours, tonjours, 
 on Sunday. Lazare ees altogezer a flea ; e 
 jump an e jump after ees leetl boat " 
 
 " Peter doan know how to jump," said 
 Madame Arriette Dolbert, settling her rusty 
 black about her. " Look at Peter, Monsieur 
 Le Rat, he gettin head of Lazare widout no 
 jumpin at all." 
 
 " Petair ees one more large bete zan 
 Lazare," retorted Aristide; " e jus march 
 softly, softly, an do notting, but ees boat 
 ees good. Mademoiselle," he added, turn 
 ing to Hortense, " ave you card w at as 
 Rubier named him?" 
 
 " Yas," replied Hortense. " It de Gull. " 
 
 " Did he name it faw dat gull wing in yo 
 hat?" cried Madame Arriette. 
 
 Hortense colored slightly. " I doan 
 reckon so," she said. 
 
 " I wouldn like to wear a gull wing, me,"
 
 48 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 said Madame Arriette. " I have always 
 hear it was mighty bad luck to kill a gull." 
 
 " I nevah hear dat, me," said Hortense 
 stoutly. " De wings is white an pretty." 
 
 Aristide, who had been looking up the 
 bayou, turned his sharp, weazened face upon 
 her. "You ave not? Rubier cussin now 
 to ave kill zat gull." 
 
 Madame Arriette burst into shrill laughter. 
 "Ah, Monsieur Le Rat !" she cried, "w at 
 mek yo guess t ings bout peop like yo do? 
 Rubier sure is a-cussin , but he cuss a heap 
 mo to see the way little Peter run his boat. 
 Look, Monsieur Le Rat ! " 
 
 Madame Arriette was right. Even the 
 vision of Peter marching softly and doing 
 nothing would have been pleasanter to Rubier 
 than the sight of Peter roused to action. The 
 race was going badly for the " Gull." Cap 
 tain Lazare, awake to every advantage of the 
 light, shifting breeze, was distancing Peter, 
 while to windward of them Noel Roget 
 slipped quietly to the fore. Noel did not 
 jump and splash as much as Lazare, and he 
 attracted less attention until he gained the 
 lead. Peter, who had been slowly and care 
 fully trying to duplicate Lazare s manoeuvres, 
 lost his head when Noel passed, and kept 
 the poor " Gull " gibing and going about, 
 first on Lazare s, then on Noel s tack, with
 
 TALES 49 
 
 all of Lazare s sprightliness. Behind Peter 
 trailed the fleet, reduced to the position of 
 convoy, and interesting itself in minor com 
 petitions, but keeping keen eyes on the chief 
 contestants. Above and around them all 
 flashed the brilliant summer light. 
 
 Hortense on the beach was silent among 
 the chattering watchers. They caught her 
 glancing again and again from Peter and the 
 "Gull" to the schooner up Porto, and the 
 story of Rubier s folly spread. Finally Aris- 
 tide approached her. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said, with kindly tart 
 ness, " ave believe in ze old sailor for once. 
 T row me zat gull wing away out of your 
 at." 
 
 Hortense raised her hand to obey, and 
 then stopped. " Dey s anoder one," she 
 murmured disconsolately, " Rubier got it 
 nail to his mas ." 
 
 Aristide pushed out his hands, as if freeing 
 them from a man who would nail gull s wings 
 to his mast. But the wistful eyes of Hor 
 tense had touched him, and he said : 
 
 " E come all safe, Mademoiselle. De 
 win e blow not for ze man zat as kill ze 
 gull, but I can see Rubier make remarkable 
 progress wiz ze pole." 
 
 " Peter ! Peter ! " laughed the crowd. 
 "Pick her up an dry her!"
 
 50 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 Peter had gibed once too suddenly, and 
 the " Gull" lay with white wings spread upon 
 the ripples. Almost at the same moment 
 Noel passed again on the home stretch, throw 
 ing up a shower of spray. 
 
 It was Noel s race, but every one agreed 
 that had Rubier been there to sail the 
 " Gull " himself things would have gone dif 
 ferently. While the crowd lingered to gossip 
 a little longer on the beach, Rubier s sails up 
 the Porto were seen to fall. 
 
 " Reckon Rubier s got tire of polin , an 
 gone below faw a nap," Noel remarked 
 jocosely to Hortense. He felt that after his 
 victory he deserved a smile from her. 
 
 Hortense must have felt otherwise, for she 
 kept her eyes severely on the gull s wing. 
 At the moment of Peter s disaster she had 
 torn it from her hat, but, remembering the 
 one on Rubier s mast, kept it, to do with it 
 whatever he did with his. 
 
 " Dat t ing bring yo bad luck, sho ," 
 protested Noel. " Yo had ought to bury 
 it." 
 
 " I doan know bout dat," said Hortense, 
 turning away from him to look up the bayou 
 again. Round Pointe Marie, at the mouth 
 of Porto, she caught the flash of oars. 
 
 " I doan wan yo to have bad luck, Hor 
 tense," Noel persisted gently, laying his
 
 TALES 51 
 
 hand on the one which held the wing. " Le 
 me bury it." 
 
 For one moment Hortense lifted her shin 
 ing eyes to his. " I ain skeered of bad 
 luck," she answered. Noel dropped her 
 hand and left her. 
 
 There were only a few loiterers on Pointe 
 St. Jacques when Rubier grounded his row- 
 boat and sprang ashore. Even these drifted 
 apart when the account of Peter s blundering 
 had been given in detail, leaving Rubier and 
 Hortense to themselves. 
 
 " T row dat wing in de vvatah," he said 
 gloomily. " I been hyar in time to race 
 exceptin faw dat fool gull. Batiste keep 
 plaguin bout killin dat gull, an I keep 
 tellin him, Yo crazy; de clouds is full of 
 win ; we get all we wan prit soon. An 
 Batiste say if we wan win we bettah tek dat 
 gull wing off n de mas . I jus cuss Batiste 
 an tell him to go on polin till de win come; 
 an we pole an we pole till I get to studyin 
 bout it, an it look like I hadn done nothin 
 but pole since I shot dat bird. By an by I 
 got so mad a-polin dat I tell Batiste to cast 
 anchor, an we lowered sails an I t row dat 
 gull wing in de watah an staht. I c u d see de 
 blame t ing a-floatin aftah me, an I pulled fas . 
 T row away yo rs. Dey ll go to de bottom 
 aftah while an we ll be done wid em."
 
 52 RACE OF THE LITTLE SHIPS 
 
 But Hortense hesitated. " Somebody might 
 pick it up befo ," she said. " I av hear dat 
 buryin is de bes way to get rid of it." 
 
 " Come along den, le s bury it," said 
 Rubier, and taking her hand in his led the 
 way to a place where the sand was deep and 
 soft. 
 
 " I hope yo rn don come cross yo w en yo 
 staht out again," Hortense sighed, as they 
 turned to leave. 
 
 Rubier laughed and kissed her. He was 
 ready to defy and vanquish all bad luck. 
 
 That night Noel Roget walked moodily on 
 Pointe St. Jacques. Something white, like 
 an escaped toy boat, drifted toward him on 
 the water. He waded out to it. The thing 
 his hand caught was a gull s wing. He 
 dropped it, then stooped for it again, took it 
 ashore, and buried it where the sand was 
 deep and soft ; and he never knew that this 
 was Rubier s wing, or that Rubier had ground 
 his heel hours ago above the bad luck of 
 Hortense.
 
 THE GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 OVERNOR BROWN S prerogatives 
 V_JTwere numerous and peculiar. Few gov 
 ernors could have exercised them without 
 great remonstrance ; but then few governors 
 would have cared to exercise them. As a 
 usual thing, a governor, however unscrupu 
 lous, holds himself above the temptations 
 of a grocery store, and scorns ordering his 
 neighbors to deprive themselves of their old 
 clothes on his behalf. But if Governor Brown 
 had weaknesses to which other governors are 
 not prone, he was also exempt from many 
 failings common to men of power. He was 
 not given to wire-pulling or nepotism or 
 bribery, and the prerogatives he clung to 
 were freely granted him by his people. 
 
 Freely granted ? Indeed they were, freely 
 and smilingly granted, by all of the old in 
 habitants of Newton and its vicinity. But 
 there was one man who questioned them 
 a bustling Northern man who, after marrying 
 a Southern girl in the North, and bringing 
 her back to her old home, had awakened the
 
 54 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 whole county to stirring activity, making it 
 a banner county of the new South as it had 
 been of the old. This man could not under 
 stand the way in which the Governor s habits 
 were tolerated. If he had had his way, 
 but fortunately even he could not go so far as 
 that, if he had been town marshal, for 
 instance, the Governor would have been 
 arrested some day, and put into any sort of 
 custody where his various prerogatives would 
 have been but a memory and a desire. 
 
 " There is a point where patience ceases to 
 be a virtue," Mr. Adams was heard to say, 
 " and I think this town has long passed that 
 point in its treatment of that crazy old darkey 
 Brown. No wonder your negroes are inca 
 pable and trifling when you all join in encour 
 aging vagabondism and petty thieving in such 
 a way. I can t understand it. Why, even 
 my wife, one of the most sensible women I 
 know, used to take my trousers before they 
 were half worn out, and give them to the 
 Governor ! What s worse, once I caught her 
 hanging a pair over the back-garden fence, 
 where they would be handy for him to steal. 
 I ve had to put a stop altogether to his loafing 
 round our place." 
 
 " You seem to forget that your wife s father 
 used to own him," said Raynes, the express 
 agent.
 
 TALES 55 
 
 " I don t see what difference that makes," 
 Adams said. 
 
 " No, I suppose you don t; but your wife 
 does," retorted Raynes. " Here the old 
 fellow comes now," he added, " on time for 
 the four o clock train. Don t you know, 
 Adams, that more people remember Newton 
 for the Governor s prayers than they do for 
 your big shipments of beans and toma 
 toes? " 
 
 " What s that he s singing? " Adams asked 
 with a frown, ignoring the agent s question. 
 
 A noticeably tall, lank negro was coming 
 down the street. The long winter overcoat 
 he wore would have been too warm for the 
 sultry June weather, had it not been torn and 
 battered till the breeze ventilated it, and flut 
 tered its fragments like streamers, much to 
 the delight of the four yelping dogs that 
 capered around him, led by short strings. 
 These were the Governor s body-guard, and 
 he was seldom seen without them. The 
 remains of a fur cap did its best to cover his 
 gray wool, while what he would have called 
 his shoes made no pretence of covering his 
 faded-looking feet. He was singing at the 
 top of his voice, but the barking of his dogs 
 made it difficult to understand the words. 
 Perhaps he realized this, for when he saw 
 Mr. Adams in the group at the station, he
 
 56 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 gave his followers a cuff that admonished 
 them to silence. 
 
 " Miss Hallie Howard ! Miss Hallie How 
 ard ! Lives on pound cake ! Lives on 
 pound cake ! Goin to heaven ! " his stento 
 rian voice rang out. 
 
 " Good news for you, Adams," laughed 
 Montgomery Stuart, the next largest truck 
 farmer to Adams, as he drove up. " The 
 Governor must have broken quarantine and 
 been at your house again. You might as 
 well give up ; you can t keep him away from 
 Miss Hallie." 
 
 "Miss Hallie Howard ! Miss Hallie How 
 ard ! Got a bad husband ! Got a bad hus 
 band ! " the Governor kept on as he was 
 passing by the group. 
 
 " You re going to wait and pray for the 
 travelling-men, aren t you, Governor?" 
 Raynes called out. 
 
 The old man halted. 
 
 " Bishop ! Bishop ! Bishop Brown ! " he 
 announced in deep staccato. " Not Governor ! 
 Bishop ! Bishop Brown ! " He glanced around 
 to note the effect of this statement on the 
 crowd. Every one was smiling except Mr. 
 Adams, " Miss Hallie s " bad husband, who 
 looked annoyed, and affected not to see 
 the old man. Whereupon the new-made 
 bishop advanced with a series of low bows,
 
 TALES 
 
 57 
 
 and held out his hand to Mr. Adams in 
 greeting. 
 
 " Take it, and get rid of him," whispered 
 Raynes good-naturedly. 
 
 But Adams was angry, and obstinately 
 looked the other way. The old negro con 
 tinued for a few moments to offer his hand 
 with the most winsome smiles. Then he drew 
 back and pointed his finger at Adams, con 
 vulsing himself with silent laughter. The 
 crowd could not hold itself; it did not want 
 to offend the leading man of the community, 
 but it had to guffaw. Raynes and Mont 
 gomery Stuart were the only ones who kept 
 their faces straight and went on talking. 
 
 The whistle of the incoming train soon 
 made a diversion. It came sweeping along 
 as if it had forgotten to stop, then slowed up 
 suddenly and the people streamed out. A 
 stranger would have thought there was a 
 surprising number of arrivals for so small 
 a place, but the habitues of the platform 
 knew that half these people had merely 
 stepped off the train to hear the Governor 
 pray. Some travelling-man had thrown him 
 a coin already, and he had fallen on his 
 knees, lifting his long bony hands and his 
 resonant voice to heaven. 
 
 "What s he saying?" asked a man who 
 had never seen the Governor before.
 
 58 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 " Ask him when he s done," said the man 
 who had tossed the coin. 
 
 " It sounds like mighty earnest praying, 
 but I can t make out a word of it, except a 
 Lord now and then," said the new man, 
 turning to some one else. "Can anybody 
 understand him? " 
 
 " Nobody, unless it s the Lord," responded 
 the other. " But don t worry about what 
 he s saying. Hear him and watch him, won t 
 you? It s the best nickel show you ll ever 
 get, and don t you forget it when he passes 
 the hat." 
 
 The old man s face worked with excite 
 ment; his voice rose entreatingly, and fell to 
 intonations of remorse ; while his long hands 
 reached farther and farther upward, grasping 
 wildly at the air, as if he would seize the very 
 garments of Deity. 
 
 "All aboard!" shouted the conductor, 
 after the long pause, in which several truck- 
 loads of fruit had been passed into the ex 
 press car. 
 
 " Amen ! Amen ! Amen ! " cried the Gov 
 ernor, leaping to his feet. Then, with smiles 
 and genuflections, he presented his tattered 
 cap to all who had not prudently retreated. 
 
 " Now s your chance," the man who had 
 given the first money said to the new man. 
 " Ask him what he prayed about."
 
 TALES 
 
 59 
 
 " I couldn t make out quite all you said, 
 Uncle," said the questioner, dropping a dime 
 in the cap. "What were you praying for? " 
 
 " Praying to save you from the witches 
 and the devil," answered the old man glibly. 
 The gratified auditors, who had been expect 
 ing this explanation, gave a shout of laughter, 
 in which the questioner joined as he hurried 
 into the train. 
 
 As the crowd dispersed, Adams found 
 himself standing by Mr. Hallam, the old 
 Baptist minister, who had been listening in 
 quiet amusement to the Governor s prayer. 
 Adams looked at him in surprise. 
 
 " You here, Mr. Hallam? " he said. 
 
 "Yes; why not?" the old man asked, 
 comprehending perfectly the reproach which 
 Adams did not express. " It s a good thing, 
 once in a while, to see one s self as others 
 see one. I ve been told that the Governor 
 takes me for his model ; but I tell Brother 
 Parish I m sure the old fellow has more the 
 Methodist style." 
 
 Adams shook his shoulders impatiently. 
 " Well," he said, " if you ministers don t 
 mind being taken off like that, I suppose it 
 would be officious for any one to interfere in 
 your behalf." 
 
 " You ve adopted our ways and converted 
 us to yours, until there s not much difference
 
 60 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 left between us," Mr. Hallam said, with a 
 soothing laugh ; " but there s one thing that 
 marks you for a Northerner yet, Mr. Adams, 
 and that is the way you call our darkies to 
 account as if they were white men. You ll 
 learn in time that the best of them are not 
 exactly responsible ; as for the old Governor, 
 he has been crazy for years." 
 
 " You say they are not responsible, and 
 yet you trust even the crazy ones at large." 
 
 " The Governor is perfectly harmless, and 
 in a certain way we are fond of him. Can t 
 you see that as long as we have him about, 
 we are all of us kings with him for fool? We 
 don t mind if our dignity suffers a little. The 
 old fellow is healthy for us; he is shrewd 
 enough to hit all our weaknesses." 
 
 " It s very pleasant and kind to take that 
 forbearing view of him," Adams said, " but I 
 feel that the community will regret its course 
 some day. He is untrustworthy, and he s 
 likely at any time to make trouble, either by 
 unexpected violence or by pure lack of sense. 
 Mrs. Adams thinks I m hard-hearted not to 
 let him hang round our place any more since 
 we ve had the children, but I tell you I don t 
 dare to have him with them, and my mind s 
 not easy while he s at large. I suppose I 
 take him more seriously than other people 
 do, because he s so devoted to my family."
 
 TALES 6 1 
 
 " I don t think you have cause to," said 
 the minister. "Even if the Governor were 
 to grow violent though he never will he 
 would not hurt a hair on your wife s head or 
 touch the children. He would die like a doe 
 
 o 
 
 for any of your father-in-law s people. I 
 don t believe he would ever have gone crazy 
 if the family had not broken up at the old 
 gentleman s death. After Miss Hallie went 
 North, sir, he just crawled into his cabin and 
 grieved himself daft. His heart would have 
 broken if his mind had not " Mr. Hallam 
 checked himself suddenly ; he was growing 
 warm, and he remembered that he had said 
 all this before. It had done no good, to be 
 sure ; yet he felt that Adams was a kindly, 
 well-meaning man, whom it would be useless 
 to offend, since, after all, he could not be 
 expected to understand. 
 
 " It is queer, isn t it," the minister resumed, 
 "that the body stands a broken mind so 
 much better than a broken heart? A sad 
 illustration of that came to me the other day. 
 I was called to see a dying woman ; she was 
 dying of heartbreak, nothing else, and it was 
 because her husband had gone insane. He, 
 poor man, is hale and hearty, likely to live 
 out his years, but the doctors say he is hope 
 lessly mad." 
 
 "I know who you mean the Taylors,"
 
 62 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 said Adams, and their talk drifted safely 
 away from the Governor, who, in the mean 
 time, was wandering down the street, while 
 the whole town might hear that he was on 
 his way to a camp-meeting then in progress 
 in the next town south. 
 
 Just as the knot of people who had been 
 waiting for the mail to be distributed scattered 
 from the post-office Adams hurried in. Mr. 
 Hallam, in his privileged, elderly way, had 
 delayed him after it was evident that the mail 
 was open ; and now Adams was eager to be 
 getting home, for the afternoon was wearing 
 late, and there were clouds gathering. He 
 must stir his tomato-pickers to get over the 
 field as fast as possible, for fear the storm 
 would catch him with ripe tomatoes on the 
 vines. The talkative postmaster seemed to 
 have been lying in wait for him, however. 
 
 " Heard the joke on Brother Parish?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " No," said Adams brusquely. 
 
 " Well," said the postmaster, in the exas 
 perating tone of one who settles to leisurely 
 enjoyment of his own story, " well, you know 
 Brother Parish only being stationed here 
 last year don t know the Governor s ways 
 very well, and don t like him ; but he don t 
 want to show it, so he s always trying to joke 
 with him. Bless you, the old Governor
 
 TALES 63 
 
 knows the difference as well as you or me ! 
 Well, just now Brother Parish he met the old 
 Governor singing about going to the Oilman 
 camp-meeting, an he says to him, How s 
 this, Governor, going to a Methodist camp- 
 meeting? I thought you turned Baptist last 
 week. The old Governor just says, See 
 Marse Mont Stuart over there across the 
 road? An when Brother Parish said yes, 
 he says, Marse Mont Stuart got rich tendin 
 to his own business, an that s what I m 
 a-doing. Some of the boys heard it, and 
 come right up to tell. It s pretty hard to get 
 ahead of the old man, ain t it?" 
 
 "He s an old nuisance," said Adams, 
 laughing slightly, but feeling more than ever 
 that Newton was unpleasantly as well as dan 
 gerously dominated by Governor Brown. 
 
 On his way home, to add to his vexation, 
 Adams came across the Governor again. 
 How the old man could have gotten so far 
 north of town when he had lately heard his 
 voice resounding so far down the south road 
 was hard to understand. But it was useless 
 to try to explain the Governor s presence in 
 one place or another. He knew all the short 
 cuts and byways, and his long legs carried 
 him so swiftly over the ground that some 
 times his guard of dogs despaired, and sub 
 mitted to be dragged, fore-legs in air, rather
 
 64 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 than to follow him at such a steady trot. 
 People said that he brought news from the 
 neighboring villages quicker than the tele 
 graph could. 
 
 " Storm a-comin ! Storm a-comin ! Wild 
 man loose ! Wild man loose ! " was the 
 refrain he shouted as Adams passed. Adams, 
 noticing an unusual eagerness in his manner, 
 thought that the coming storm was exciting 
 him dangerously, and reined in his horse to 
 say: 
 
 "Don t come a step farther in this direc 
 tion, Governor. You know I ll have you 
 locked up if ever I catch you on my farm, 
 and I m going to be on the watch. Turn 
 back, I tell you." 
 
 Adams s horse was a good one, and Adams 
 put it to its best pace, yet they did not gain 
 very fast on the Governor, who, instead of 
 turning back, was pressing forward almost at 
 a run. 
 
 " Storm a-comin ! Storm a-comin ! " 
 Adams kept hearing ; and then more faintly, 
 " Wild man loose ! Wild man loo oose ! " 
 until at last a hill rose behind him and shut 
 out the sound. 
 
 The storm was coming fast. The whole 
 sky was overcast, but full of dazzling, diffused 
 light. Under its strange brightness the trees 
 and grass, the green crops in the fields, and
 
 TALES 65 
 
 even the brown earth seemed to shine with 
 a yellowish lustre of their own. Behind a 
 broad stretch of forest that bordered one side 
 of the road the clouds were gathering more 
 densely, and one of them which showed 
 above the treetops was the only dark thing 
 in the world. A moment after it first came 
 in sight it was moving swiftly up the sky 
 a broad, sinister bar of indigo, bordered with 
 a lashing fringe of white. 
 
 Adams leaned forward, urging his horse 
 into a run. The first gust of the wind rushed 
 past him as he sprang down at his own gate; 
 but he scarcely felt it, for there, running down 
 the road through his orchard, came his wife, 
 screaming something he could not under 
 stand. 
 
 " The children ! the children ! " he heard, 
 as he hurried to meet her. "We ve searched 
 the whole place. Come back to the Taylor 
 woods." 
 
 Adams turned his horse, and lifted his wife 
 into the wagon. 
 
 " How long ago?" he asked. 
 
 "I don t know how long. I thought 
 Mammy Jane had them, and she thought 
 they were with me. When we missed them 
 we called the men, and we all searched high 
 and low, through the orchards, everywhere. 
 The only places Mammy ever takes them to
 
 66 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 are Stuart s and the Taylor woods. I sent 
 the men cross lots to the woods, and 
 Mammy s gone to Stuart s. I thought per 
 haps they might have come this way to meet 
 you." 
 
 The wind was upon them. In the open 
 space that lay between their gate and the 
 Taylor woods the unbroken strength of the 
 gale almost lifted them from the wagon. 
 Standing up for a moment to look around 
 him, Adams saw his gang of workmen reach 
 the edge of the woods, pause a moment, 
 listening to the great roar through the trees, 
 and then, to a man, turn and run back through 
 the open toward the farm. He shouted 
 fiercely at them, but the wind took the 
 words from his mouth. 
 
 A moment more, and Adams was in the 
 lee of the woods himself. He reined in his 
 horse. In the apparent lull made by the 
 shelter it was possible to think in spite of 
 the turmoil among the branches. Husband 
 and wife looked into each other s eyes 
 despairingly. Only a miracle could guide 
 them to their children through this wild 
 storm, in which they could hardly catch the 
 sound of their own voices. Yet they must 
 search. 
 
 They jumped to the ground, but before 
 they could enter the woods a strange rum-
 
 TALES 67 
 
 bling, grinding sound rose above the roar of 
 thrashing branches and creaking tree-trunks. 
 The new sound grew louder and more dread 
 ful, until Adams and his wife clung close to 
 each other in fear, while the frightened horse 
 wheeled suddenly, leaped free from harness 
 and wagon, and plunged wildly back over the 
 road towards home. Then, not a hundred 
 feet from where the man and woman stood, 
 the solid ranks of the forest broke apart, 
 gave way before a whirling blast of dust, 
 broken branches, and uprooted trees. They 
 watched it march across the fields, dropping 
 part of its burden as it went, only to gather 
 up new victims in its terrific arms. 
 
 With blanched faces and numb hearts the 
 two watchers hastened toward the gap in the 
 forest to look down the track of the cyclone. 
 It was as if some great scythe had mown a 
 path through the woods to the open fields 
 beyond. The space was a little wider than 
 a city street, but in it scarcely the semblance 
 of a tree was left erect. Some had been 
 twisted off in the middle ; some were up 
 rooted, lying their full length on the ground, 
 and tangling the limbs that had not been 
 shorn from them with the broken branches 
 of other trees. 
 
 Down this wild road the father and 
 mother started, peering under logs, clam-
 
 68 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 bering through treetops, calling, and listening 
 with strained ears ; for the storm had lost its 
 heart, and they could hope to hear. 
 
 " Amen ! Amen ! Amen ! " The words 
 reached them faintly. " Get back, devil ! 
 Get back, devil! Amen! Amen!" until 
 the old Governor leaped out from the woods 
 into the high road of the storm. There was 
 a screaming of shrill child-voices and a yelp 
 ing of distracted dogs ; but, above it all, 
 above even the Governor s shouts and the 
 rustling of the wind, there came a fierce howl, 
 as another figure burst through the under 
 brush close in the Governor s track. 
 
 " Miss Hallie s children ! Miss Hallie s 
 children ! Got em safe, Miss Hallie ! Got 
 em safe, Miss Hallie ! Amen ! O Lord, 
 amen ! " the old man shouted, as he rushed 
 along the mad course before him, deftly 
 slipping under and past the obstructing 
 branches, and dodging from the grasp of the 
 man behind, who was plunging straight 
 through the jungle of roots and limbs, his 
 garments shredded from him, and his flesh 
 torn. 
 
 On they came, the madman always 
 within reach of the Governor, always eluded 
 by him, crawling under uplifted roots, 
 vaulting over tree-trunks, tearing aside the 
 lowered curtains of vines ; while, far in the
 
 TALES 69 
 
 rear, the Governor s dogs whined piteously 
 behind some barrier they could not scale. 
 
 " Got em safe, Miss Hallie ! Got em safe, 
 Miss Hallie ! " the Governor kept shouting ; 
 but where he had them the parents did not 
 know until the old man bounded up to 
 them, unbuttoned his long coat, dropped the 
 children in their arms, and faced his pursuer, 
 beating him off with the great shattered branch 
 of a tree. Then back they turned, the Gov 
 ernor in chase ; and when Adams looked up 
 from his babies they were vanishing far down 
 the narrow swath of the cyclone. 
 
 " I ve never gotten it out of him yet," 
 Adams often says; " he won t tell how he 
 knew that Taylor had escaped from his 
 keeper, or that my children were in the 
 woods. All he ll say is that it was Taylor s 
 woods, and he knew Taylor wouldn t want 
 any stray children there. But I know one 
 thing, and that is that I never heard any 
 prayer that lifted me so straight to heaven as 
 the Governor s did when I caught up to him. 
 He had that wild man down, and was kneel 
 ing on his breast, giving thanks to the Lord." 
 
 What did he say, Adams? " Raynes, the 
 express-agent, likes to ask. 
 
 " If you don t know what the Governor 
 says when he prays, I can t tell you," Ad 
 ams answers; " but it means enough to Miss
 
 70 GOVERNOR S PREROGATIVES 
 
 Hallie and me for us to have the old man 
 pray for us regularly once a day. Miss 
 Hallie spoke once of omitting it when we had 
 some Northern friends visiting us, but I told 
 her that to act as our chaplain was one of the 
 Governor s prerogatives."
 
 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 I. 
 
 FAR up the mountain-side a hands- 
 breadth of clearing broke into the forest. 
 In the daytime a thread of wood smoke rose 
 out of it, pale against the sky, and marked it 
 from a distance, but after sundown the place 
 was lost in the great black shadow of the 
 peak, unless one went near enough to see the 
 little cabin outlined vividly against the dark 
 ness by the firelit chinks in the thick log 
 walls and a red flare of light from its open 
 door. 
 
 One night in early spring, when the air 
 was soft from a whole day s sunshine and 
 sweet with the smell of all the things which 
 were beginning to grow in the woods, a sway 
 ing torch came out from between the trees 
 and crossed the field. A half-grown girl was 
 carrying the torch, and a slightly smaller girl 
 clung to her other hand. Within the flicker- 
 
 o 
 
 ing circle of brightness in which they moved 
 there was a core of shadow at their feet, and 
 they came stumbling through it over the un-
 
 72 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 even ground, now on the crest and now in 
 the trough of a newly-made furrow, but guid 
 ing themselves always toward the glowing 
 framework of the low black cabin. 
 
 " Hit allus pears ter me at night s if we- 
 uns lived in er sort er cage," the younger 
 girl said as she scrambled to keep up with 
 the freer pace of her sister. "Don t hit 
 look like hit war thes plumb made outen 
 cracks ? " 
 
 " Good enough fer beastises like we-uns," 
 the older girl answered sharply, " livin 
 plumb wild up hyar on the mounting an 
 keepin a lookout all the time like critters 
 that s feard er bein run down er shot. I 
 can t see why pap ever sold out the store 
 in the Holler an traipsed up hyar." 
 
 " Projecty, projecty," the younger girl an 
 swered wisely; " thes so projecty he couldn t 
 set still an prosper that s what mammy 
 uster say." 
 
 " Well, he s cert nly boun to be spied out 
 an cotched some er these times," the older 
 girl declared. " I wisht pap had some 
 sense." 
 
 " Oh, Ducie ! " the small sister exclaimed, 
 in a protesting voice, " look like you-uns is 
 mighty cross ith pap to-night." 
 
 The older girl stuck her torch into the 
 moist earth and extinguished it, for they
 
 TALES 
 
 73 
 
 were almost at the cabin door. " I ain t 
 cross ith pappy hisse f, Rinth," she ex 
 plained ; " I m on y mad at his plumb silli 
 ness." 
 
 A dog came bounding out, welcoming 
 them with soft " woofs " of joy. The cabin 
 was silent except for the crackling of the fire, 
 and as they went inside the girls fell silent, 
 too. Rinth poured the new milk out of the 
 bucket she had been carrying, washed the 
 bucket, and hung it on a peg. Ducie put 
 the brands which had fallen at the sides of 
 the fire back into its centre, and the renewed 
 blaze flooded the small, bare room with gold. 
 Ducie s sunburned yellow hair caught a glow 
 from it, her brown cheeks took a richer col 
 oring in its light, and her blue eyes sparkled 
 back to it as she leaned a moment by the fire 
 place looking into the flames. Rinth came 
 and stood beside her she was smaller and 
 slighter, and had a way of looking at Ducie 
 while Ducie looked at other things. After 
 ward Rinth remembered just what Ducie 
 told her about them better than she ever 
 remembered what she had seen herself. 
 
 " You-uns ain t no call to set yorese f up 
 fer knowin more n pap do," she remonstrated 
 softly. 
 
 "Pshaw! I ain t er studyin bout n that 
 no more," Ducie answered. "I m thes lettin
 
 74 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 on to myse f what we-uns d do if we went 
 back ag in to live in the Holler." 
 
 The dog had stretched his paws and nose 
 to the fire and was blinking into it. Suddenly 
 he pricked up his ears. The girls had heard 
 nothing but their own voices, the fire, and 
 the murmuring of the tree-tops, but as they 
 listened closer they heard a faint " Halloo ! " 
 upon the breeze. Rinth caught her sister s 
 hand. " Hit s tlicm" she said. 
 
 " Hollerin to let theirse ves be knowed ? " 
 Ducie asked ironically. " I low hit s some 
 of the folkses from the Holler comin up an 
 speakin beforehand to let us be sure they s 
 friends." 
 
 The call sounded again and again, grow 
 ing louder with each repetition, and soon the 
 dog rushed out, barking wildly, into the 
 darkness. 
 
 " There, there, old boy," a stranger s voice 
 said pacifically, " you needn t be afraid of me 
 and I m not afraid of you that s it, good 
 old fellow." 
 
 The dog gave a few sharp friendly yelps 
 and submitted to the stranger s hand upon 
 his head. The girls stood shrinking in the 
 doorway. They could hear the tread of 
 two men. " Bounce ! " Ducie called out, 
 "Bounce!" 
 
 Bounce had the name of being a savage
 
 TALES 7S 
 
 dog, but he came waggling up between the 
 strangers with entire disregard for his reputa 
 tion. "He s all right. I ve made friends 
 with him," one of the men said. " He came 
 across us in the woods to-day and I gave him 
 part of my dinner, so he hasn t forgotten 
 us My! you two children aren t all by 
 yourselves here, are you? Where are your 
 folks?" 
 
 He had come as far as the doorway, and 
 was staring in at the meagre loneliness which 
 he had expected to find peopled by a big 
 mountain family, even though there were but 
 two heads at the door. Ducie and Rinth 
 stood huddled together like rabbits startled 
 by an unexpected sound. Mountain children 
 are all shy, but these girls had fear under* 
 neath their shyness. " Where are your 
 folks? " the stranger repeated. "We ve lost 
 ourselves up here in the woods, and we want 
 to stay all night." 
 
 Ducie s lips parted. She looked quickly 
 behind her and around her, as if the place 
 had grown unfamiliar and she was not sure 
 but there was some other opening than the 
 doorway, which was half filled by the two 
 men ; suddenly she sprang past them, pull 
 ing Rinth after her ; the men could hear the 
 swift touches of their bare feet as they flew 
 from furrow to furrow in the dark.
 
 76 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 The one who had not spoken began to 
 laugh. "You have a taking way with these 
 mountain people, Hodges," he said. 
 
 " So it seems," the other answered, walk 
 ing into the cabin. " Anyhow, we ll stay and 
 see what happens next." 
 
 At the edge of the clearing Ducie sank 
 down among the bushes, and Rinth almost 
 fell beside her. They were breathless from 
 alarm, and at first they only held each other 
 tight and listened to the beating of their 
 hearts and the mysterious movements among 
 the trees. Bounce had not followed them, 
 but whether he was staying behind as faithful 
 guardian of the house or out of interest in his 
 new acquaintances the girls could not tell. 
 It seemed evident at last that no one was 
 coming after them. " Rinth," said Ducie 
 cautiously, though Rinth was crouching close 
 against her. 
 
 " Oh, Ducie ! " Rinth whispered, " we can 
 go to pap, now cain t we? " 
 
 " I wisht we hadn t run," Ducie said. 
 "Running like that, hit look like we got 
 some sort er place to run to, an* ith Bounce 
 there so kind an friendly they could start 
 out an track us whensoever they took the 
 notion." 
 
 Both girls were trembling from head to 
 foot. " Look like hit war mean er Bounce
 
 TALES 77 
 
 not to tell us he d met up ith furreigners in 
 the woods," Rinth said with a sob. 
 
 " Hit war powerful mean," Ducie agreed. 
 " He could er let on, somehow, stiddier 
 carryin on so innercent." 
 
 " Maybe he disremembered," Rinth sug 
 gested. She did not like to have even 
 Bounce held up for judgment. 
 
 " Disremembered ! " Ducie said, and then 
 they were quiet until she rose slowly to her 
 feet. " We got ter, Rinth," she whispered. 
 
 " Got ter what?" Rinth asked. "Oh, Ducie, 
 we-uns could jes stay hyar all night an let 
 they-uns do what they wanted ter by their- 
 se ves." 
 
 " That d be a good way ter take keer of 
 pap," Ducie said. " I ain t mindin if pap 
 don t have no sense, I ain t er goin ter have 
 him cotched when I can go back an say, 
 like he allus tole us, that he s off er coon- 
 huntin , but they is powerful welcome ter 
 stay and have their suppers an sleep in the 
 loft." 
 
 Ducie was still frightened, but she stepped 
 resolutely into the open, and, with Rinth 
 holding tight and drawing back on her hand, 
 they crossed the ploughed ground again to 
 the cabin. The light flared out as before, 
 and there was silence. They stood shudder 
 ing for a long time, covered by the shadow.
 
 78 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 Then Ducie leaned out and peered round the 
 edge of the doorway. The men were tilted 
 back in the old splint-bottomed chairs, gaz 
 ing into the fire. Bounce sat between them, 
 cocking an ear now in one direction and now 
 in another, with an affectation of vigilance, 
 but he had not noticed the coming of the 
 girls. Either his head had been turned by 
 these strangers or he was growing deaf. 
 Ducie spoke to him, for he was the only one 
 of whom she was not afraid. 
 
 "Bounce ! " she ventured. 
 
 The man named Hodges looked up quickly. 
 " Don t mind us," he said ; " come in." 
 
 The children sidled into the house, and 
 little by little as the strangers talked to them 
 they lost their shyness and went about their 
 work without constraint. Ducie mixed the 
 batter for hoe-cakes and set some bacon to 
 sizzling; Rinth made coffee in a battered, 
 flame-blackened pot over the fire. The 
 strangers asked many questions while they 
 watched the progress of the meal and while 
 they were eating it; but, though it seemed to 
 them very unnatural for two girls to be all 
 alone like this in an isolate mountain-cabin, 
 they could learn little about them except 
 that their mother was dead and that they 
 lived with their father, and grew small patches 
 of cotton and corn and tobacco in the open
 
 TALES 79 
 
 space around them, and that their father was 
 fond of hunting and stayed out with his gun 
 pretty nearly night and day. Of the store, 
 and their old home in the Hollow, and their 
 discontent with their father the children did 
 not speak. 
 
 When the men had eaten their supper 
 they climbed into the loft, and they were not 
 surprised at hearing the ladder softly taken 
 away after they had stopped talking. They 
 had grown used to the mountain people, 
 and they knew that " foreigners " were never 
 trusted, no matter how kindly they might be 
 received. 
 
 In the morning they found the ladder in its 
 place. Bacon and corn-bread and coffee 
 were in progress again as they came down 
 into the room, but Ducie raised a flushed face 
 from the fire and made a motion for silence, 
 pointing to a bed in one corner where a man 
 lay sleeping heavily. She gave them their 
 breakfast and then they followed her outside. 
 Rinth and Bounce were taking care of the 
 cow at the edge of the clearing, but Ducie 
 seemed less timid than when they were with 
 her. In daylight her face was browner and 
 her hair more faded by the sun, but there 
 was something remarkably independent in 
 the poise of her head and in her bright, un 
 communicative blue eyes.
 
 8o THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 " What is you-uns doin up hyar on the 
 mounting?" she asked. 
 
 " Prospecting," answered Hodges. 
 
 " Hunting, like your father," said the other 
 f man. 
 
 "You d better bring a gun along before 
 you talk about hunting, Burnham," laughed 
 Hodges. " We re prospecting for mines." 
 
 Burnham shrugged his shoulders and slung 
 over them the bag which he had brought 
 the night before. " This is a still hunt," he 
 answered good-naturedly. 
 
 Ducie s face did not change a muscle, but 
 her eyes brightened. " If you-uns is revenue 
 officers huntin for er still," she said, leaning 
 toward them eagerly, " I ve hearn tell that 
 thar s one hid in the rocks above Blount s 
 Cove, over t other side of the mounting." 
 
 Hodges looked her keenly in the face. 
 "Thank you," he said, "we ll remember." 
 
 Ducie s eyes fell. " I hadn t ort to have 
 tole you," she faltered, and a quick blush 
 spread up over her face. 
 
 There was no still in the rocks above 
 Blount s Cove, and the lie shamed her, 
 though she had told it to protect her father. 
 She did not realize that the strangers saw 
 straight through it, knowing that the moun 
 tain people do not betray each other. 
 
 " So the old man is a moonshiner,"
 
 TALES 8 i 
 
 Hodges guessed, as they walked out of 
 hearing. " I fancied it was some such outfit 
 from the start." 
 
 " Lucky for them we re not revenue men," 
 Burnham chuckled. " But if we don t strike 
 what looks like a paying vein to-day I ll be 
 ready to give the whole thing up." 
 
 II. 
 
 When Rinth came back from her milk 
 ing Ducie was still looking at the spot in 
 the woods into which the men had vanished. 
 "Rinth," she said, "I m goin to talk to 
 pappy when he s er ploughin , an don t you 
 try to put in no word or say nothin , cause 
 hit won t do no good." 
 
 " What you goin to say to him, Ducie? " 
 Rinth asked. 
 
 Their father came shuffling out of the 
 cabin, scarcely awake and half-blinded by 
 the sun. " Hitch up the jinney, Duce," he 
 ordered, trying to open his eyes to the glit 
 tering light which brimmed to the very top 
 of the clearing and sparkled on the upper 
 edges of the forest, seeming to shine from 
 the whole dazzling surface of blue sky and 
 shimmering clouds. " Rinthy, child," he 
 added, shading his forehead and looking
 
 82 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 down at her, " fix pappy his breakfas an 
 then we ll thes wrastle into that thar cotton- 
 patch an finish plantin hit to-day. Tain t 
 allus that you-uns ll have to tromp behind a 
 plough, strewin cotton-seed, an when Hank 
 Jerdon says a thing, Rinth, you can bank on 
 hit. Yes," he muttered again, with a lurk 
 ing smile, " that s the word you can bank 
 on hit." 
 
 A half hour later he was guiding the don 
 key and plough round and round a knoll at 
 the edge of the clearing, keeping the furrow 
 at a water-level, as they always do in plough 
 ing hilly ground in the South. The girls 
 followed him, flinging cotton-seed on to the 
 freshly-turned red earth. It was a silent pro 
 cession, for the father was still tired and 
 sleepy. Ducie kept her face hidden in her 
 sunbonnet, and Rinth looked away from 
 them both as much as possible. After a 
 long time Ducie spoke. 
 
 " Pap," she said stoically, " the revenue 
 men is after you-uns. They slep in the loft 
 las night an I lied to em an sent em over 
 to Blount s Cove lookin for er still this 
 mornin ." 
 
 Hank Jerdon dropped the plough-handles, 
 and if Ducie had seen his face her own would 
 have been less troubled as she scattered out 
 the seed. "The revenue men?" he said
 
 TALES 83 
 
 slowly, while surprise, amusement, and a sort 
 of cunning pleasure followed one another 
 through his eyes. " Git erlong, you jinney ! " 
 he shouted, " git erlong ! " Taking up the 
 handles he jerked the plough back for a 
 fresh start. " You re a mighty peart child," 
 he went on over his shoulder to Ducie, " but 
 them thar officers ll be powerful dumb if 
 they don t suspicion that you-uns is so free 
 to tell bout n a still at Blount s Cove thes 
 to get em off the scent of one this side the 
 mounting." 
 
 " Oh, pap ! " Ducie cried out in alarm. Her 
 father said nothing, and she crept along after 
 him, strewing the seed to right and left with 
 hands that trembled, while her eyes saw 
 nothing but wretchedness. A burning dis 
 gust for herself and her stupid lie paled into 
 fear of what might happen from it. She 
 wished she could burst into tears and beg her 
 father to forgive her, because she had thought 
 she had more sense than he, and had not 
 wakened him to talk to the strangers ; but 
 Ducie was not of a nature to which tears 
 could come; and, though her throat ached 
 and her eyes burned, she could only walk 
 doggedly on, strewing the cotton-seed and 
 thinking such cruel things to herself that she 
 had to set her lips not to say them aloud. 
 Once she felt Rinth s hand tugging at her
 
 84 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 dress, but she shook the hand off, and then 
 she hated herself, because she knew that Rinth 
 would cry at having been pushed away. 
 
 " Pappy," she broke out, in a smothered 
 voice that startled her, for she did not know 
 that she was going to speak, " won t you thes 
 leave that thar still whar it Stan s in the cave, 
 an go back ag in inter the Holler whar we 
 was all so satisfied?" She had wanted to ask 
 it so long that to hear the words on her lips 
 was a relief, and she gathered courage from 
 them. " Oh, pappy," she cried vehemently, 
 out of the shelter of her drooping bonnet, 
 " hit ain t no good to live this er-way, thes 
 for the sake er one ole still that you-uns is so 
 shamed er that you ain t never owned up to 
 us that hit s that in the cave. What good is 
 hit doin to we-uns? Is we powerful rich an 
 proud up hyar whar we don t see nobody onct 
 a year, an when we sees em we s skeered ? 
 Why cain t we move back to the Holler, an 
 live the way other folkses do, an have good 
 times? Even little Rinthy, she gits lonesome 
 up hyar by ourse ves day an night ith nothin 
 but the trees and the wild critters prowlin 
 about an the hoot-owls to keep us peart an 
 happy." 
 
 Her father had been chuckling to himself 
 when she began, but his face turned grave as 
 he listened. " Duce," he said, " if you-uns
 
 TALES 85 
 
 has yore hearts so set on the Holler, I most 
 wish I d never set eyes on that thar cave an 
 all that s in hit ; but maybe the revenue men ll 
 hunt it out an save me the trouble of gettin 
 rid of hit. S pose you d be proud to have 
 em, sence you re so ashamed er what yore 
 pappy does up thar?" 
 
 " Oh, pappy," Rinth put in, with a tearful 
 voice, " Ducie ain t shamed er you, she s 
 thes " 
 
 " Be still, Rinth," said Ducie miserably ; 
 and they worked on without another word, 
 while the sun moved slowly across the open 
 sky, and Ducie s head swam with visions of 
 the revenue men hunting out the trail and the 
 cave. Her father would despise her after 
 this. He had always liked Rinth best, be 
 cause Rinth never opposed him, and now 
 Ducie felt that his last patience with her 
 would be gone. She wondered why he did 
 not start out and try to keep the men from 
 finding the cave, but he only ploughed on, 
 and once in a while she heard him laugh a 
 queer, dry laugh to himself. 
 
 At eleven o clock they unhitched the 
 donkey and went back to the cabin to get 
 their dinner and rest until two. The moun 
 tain people take long hours for their nooning, 
 and Hank always went to sleep after he had 
 eaten. As soon as he was stretched upon
 
 86 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 the bed Ducie patted Bounce, and they went 
 softly out of the cabin. Rinth looked up 
 wistfully, but Ducie shook her head, and the 
 smaller girl had to sit down by herself in the 
 sunshine, and wonder why Ducie was hurrying 
 off so fast into the woods. 
 
 At the place where the strangers had 
 passed out of sight a few crushed plant-stems 
 marked the direction they had taken, and 
 Bounce ran eagerly ahead, snuffing with his 
 nose to the ground, and leading the way down 
 from the spur of the ridge into a ravine 
 where ledges of slate and schist jutted out 
 through the rich greenery, and overhung a 
 little stream that was shaded by dogwoods 
 and half lost in fern. In places along this 
 stream there was much trampling, and fresh 
 tracks led back from it where bits of rock had 
 been broken out and pounded. Ducie won 
 dered at these places, but she did not stop, 
 for Bounce plunged on and on along the 
 gurgling run until Ducie s heart began to 
 come up into her throat ; she knew that this 
 stream would flow into another, whose source 
 was in her father s cave. Which way would 
 the men have taken, toward the cave or down 
 the new ravine? 
 
 Bounce went so excitedly now that she had 
 to run to keep near him. The briars tore 
 her, and she bruised her feet as she leaped
 
 TALES 87 
 
 from stone to stone. She did not smell the 
 young hickory leaves that brushed against 
 her, nor see the fresh, tempting growth of 
 sassafras; she simply strained her eyes for 
 ward as if she expected to see the men still 
 standing at the turning of the ways. Bounce 
 reached the cave stream before her, sniffed 
 the air a moment, and turned toward the 
 cave. 
 
 Ducie stood still, balanced on a stone and 
 trying to catch her breath ; a weight seemed 
 pressing her, against which her heart could 
 scarcely beat. " I set em on the track," she 
 thought; "I set em on the track er pore 
 pap s cave." In the instant s pause she heard 
 a hammer ringing out on something hard, 
 and she realized that she had been hearing 
 it more faintly as she ran. " Are they er- 
 breakin up the still?" she gasped. 
 
 Springing forward again, she ran straight 
 up the rough bed of the stream, rather than 
 fight her way through the undergrowth. 
 Bounce was barking with keen, faithless de 
 light. She heard the voice of Hodges wel 
 coming him : " Good old fellow, found us out 
 again good boy ! " 
 
 Ducie turned an angle of the stream and 
 came upon them. They were bending down 
 and washing something in a pan. The 
 entrance of the cave was only a few rods
 
 88 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 away, a black hole among the bushes, but 
 they did not seem to see it or to know. 
 
 " You you sha n t go no further ! " 
 Ducie cried, rushing past them and standing 
 breathless in the stream, the water coming 
 nearly to her knees, her arms outspread. 
 
 " Well ! " Burnham said, dropping his 
 pan upon the bank and straightening up 
 in wonder. 
 
 Hodges went near to her with a kindly 
 look. " My poor child, what do you think 
 we are doing? " he asked. 
 
 " You re revenue officers," Ducie 
 panted. 
 
 " What do these things have to do with 
 revenue officers?" he asked again. " I told 
 you the simple truth this morning : we are 
 prospecting for gold." 
 
 Ducie put her hand to her head and turned 
 to clamber up the bank. " Gold ! " she 
 murmured, " up in this hyar mounting 
 gold?" 
 
 Hodges helped her and steadied her a 
 moment. " Yes," he answered, "gold; and 
 at last we seem to have struck a paying 
 vein." 
 
 " But hit ain t yourn," a man s voice said 
 sharply, behind them. They turned and saw 
 Hank Jerdon coming out through the under 
 growth. " This land s mine, and for two
 
 TALES 89 
 
 year I been workin out the gold in that thar 
 cave." 
 
 " Pappy ! " Ducie cried, starting to run to 
 him. She stopped half way and her head 
 fell. " Oh, pappy, I been er-faultin you- 
 uns all this time when you was on y diggin 
 gold ! " 
 
 The rude keenness of the mountaineer s 
 face softened a little. He went to the child 
 and patted her clumsily on her bare tangled 
 head. 
 
 " Look here," Burnham said to him, " I ve 
 seen men washing out gold all by themselves 
 in these mountains, and they never made 
 more than a few dollars a day; don t you 
 want to sell us an interest in your land here, 
 and let us put in a little machinery?" 
 
 Jerdon looked him over cautiously. " An 
 so yore interest in revenue war in the form 
 of gold," he said, gaining time while he 
 thought. 
 
 "We ve heard about this mountain gold 
 for years," Hodges explained, " and we ve 
 known people who came down here and got 
 up big companies and failed, but we ve made 
 up our minds that there s some little money 
 in it, and if this belongs to you we d like to 
 buy you out or take a share." 
 
 Ducie caught her father s hand and clung 
 to it for all the world as if she were little
 
 90 THE MOUNTAIN GOLD 
 
 Rinth. The sunlight shifted and flickered on 
 her upturned face. " Oh, pap, an then we- 
 uns could move back to the Holler ! " she 
 pleaded. 
 
 " I ve done a heap er projectin bout n 
 that thar gold," Hank Jerdon answered, star 
 ing at the ground, " but when all s said, I was 
 on y studyin to git mo money fer you an 
 Rinthy, an hit ain t been much fun er workin 
 hit by myse f." He stopped awhile, and 
 when he looked up at the men his face was 
 twitching. The gold that he had guarded as 
 a secret hope was very hard to share. " I ll 
 have to have some reference that you-uns is 
 straight an hones ," he said, " an after that 
 I ll sell you a half pardnership in this hyar 
 vein. Yes, Ducie, an you-uns can live in the 
 Holler if you admire to, or any place else, I 
 reckon " 
 
 Ducie gave a hard, tearless sob. Her 
 father s face lighted up whimsically. " So ! 
 so ! " he said, stroking her down as if she 
 were a nervous colt. " That s all right, 
 Ducie, I got a little mad ith you-uns fer 
 thinkin you knowed more n I did when we 
 moved up hyar, an that s the reason er my 
 never lettin on bout n the gold. Hit war 
 plumb sneakin er me, honey, but I war tickled 
 mos to death whenever you-uns got to 
 worryin over that thar still what I ain t never
 
 TALES 91 
 
 had. But hit s all right, though I ve projected 
 a mighty sight whilst I war workin all alone 
 in that thar cave." 
 
 But Ducie sank down beside Bounce, who 
 had come slinking in between them. " Oh, 
 I been er faultin you-uns an pappy," she 
 moaned, hugging him tight in her remorse 
 and joy; " I kep er faultin everybody when 
 Rinth said I hadn t no call to, an you-uns 
 war thes er doin yore bes to let on to me 
 that hit war all bout n innercent diggin fer 
 gold ! "
 
 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 LEAVES drifted over the old Walden 
 house as if they were hushing it, though 
 there was very little life in it to hush. They 
 lay in red and yellow scrolls across the 
 porches, they flecked the gabled roof and 
 brimmed the mossy eave-troughs, fluttering 
 down from them like the last drops of a 
 shower which the clearing breeze wafts as 
 they fall. 
 
 Lorraine Walden had been standing on the 
 south porch and looking out until it seemed 
 as if another falling leaf would break her 
 heart. The leaves rose now and then and 
 moved from place to place in little whisper 
 ing flights, and sometimes an eddy of them 
 danced clear across the yard between the 
 straight gray tree-trunks, and out of sight 
 down the long slope toward the bluff. For 
 one last moment the west shone out in a 
 golden brightness, and then the hills shut off 
 the sun. It was the most silent of autumn 
 twilights. Lorraine could hear the rattle 
 and creak of wagons passing in the road, and
 
 TALES 93 
 
 she wished that any living soul would think 
 of her and come walking in through the 
 leaves which lay knee deep in the sunken 
 pathway to the gate. She remembered when 
 she herself had first come along that path. 
 Abby had met her at the door almost with 
 out a word, but Great-grandmother Walden, 
 lying waxen white up in her bed, had reached 
 out a thin hand to her, and had called her 
 by a name that was not hers. Perhaps it was 
 years and perhaps it was centuries ago. Old 
 Abby and Grandmother Walden were the 
 same to-day as they were then, and Lorraine 
 told herself with a shudder that they would 
 still be the same after she was dead. She 
 smiled a little at the thought of dying. " At 
 least," she told herself, " if I were to do that 
 there would be no one to keep Abby from 
 ringing the alarm bell, and that would be a 
 change." 
 
 The bell hung above her with a year s 
 growth of grape vine tangling its cord. If 
 she were to ring it now the people from the 
 road and from all the farms near by would 
 come running in to ask her what had hap 
 pened, and she would tell them that she was 
 lonely, that was all. She raised her hand 
 and softly clasped it round the cord, and laid 
 her cheek against her hand. A tremor passed 
 through the swathing of leaves and tendrils,
 
 94 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 and the great bell answered with a dim, half- 
 wakened tone. 
 
 Lorraine had not meant to ring the bell. 
 She dropped the cord and ran swiftly in 
 doors to see if her grandmother had been 
 frightened by its soft, unexpected " Ian." 
 
 The mistress and the care-taker were sleep 
 ing, and neither of them had heard. Abby s 
 white head was bowed upon her breast, and 
 her arms hung relaxed along the arms of her 
 chair. She was so deep in unconsciousness 
 that she did not notice Lorraine s entrance, 
 but Grandmother Walden wakened, and, lift 
 ing her head a little, seemed to listen while 
 her lips parted into a sympathetic smile. 
 Perhaps the note of the bell had reached her 
 without her knowledge, or perhaps she was 
 hearkening to the echo of some much more 
 distant sound, for her sleep was so light and 
 flitting that she passed constantly back and 
 forth, scarcely feeling the transition through 
 the open door of dreams. 
 
 Lorraine laid her hand on Abby s shoulder 
 and roused her to go away for her time of 
 rest. Grandmother Walden turned with un 
 usual alertness and took note of the new 
 face. 
 
 "Is that you, Sibyl? I m thankful that 
 you ve come," she said. " They ve been 
 having some very old, feeble person sitting
 
 TALES 95 
 
 here beside me, and she seemed to sleep the 
 best part of the time." 
 
 Her head sank into the pillows and her 
 own eyes closed again, but soon she opened 
 them. " Sibyl," she began in her faint remi 
 niscent voice, " I ve been thinking of the day 
 the bells rang for Roger Foxhall s wedding. 
 Do you remember? Every one called them 
 the bells of joy." 
 
 At most times Lorraine would have acqui 
 esced. Just now it was part of her discon 
 tent to lean forward and say softly, but 
 clearly, " I think, mother, that I was not yet 
 born." She had fallen into a way of answer 
 ing according to the name which was given 
 her, and even now she said " mother " from 
 habit, and then sighed bitterly, feeling that 
 every effort to escape from the past was use 
 less when she had grown into one of its 
 ghosts. Sibyl was her Great-grandmother 
 Walden s daughter, her own young grand 
 mother, dead these fifty years. More than 
 one daughter and granddaughter and even 
 great-granddaughter had lived their lives to 
 an end in caring for Grandmother Walden, 
 and still her pale existence flickered on in 
 the room that looked to the east across the 
 hills. She had been very kindly and very 
 patient patient even with the tragic length 
 of days which gave her so much mourning.
 
 96 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 But grief had all gone by. The dead lived 
 in reversed succession as her failing mind 
 turned backward to the past, and one after 
 another Lorraine bore all their names. Sibyl 
 was very quaint and sweet she liked it 
 rather best of all. She rose and began to 
 walk to and fro across the room, pausing 
 once at the bedside to repeat, " It was before 
 I was born, mother. I don t remember any 
 bells of joy." 
 
 The old woman sighed in her turn, but 
 softly. " It is my poor memory," she said. 
 " The days pass and the years pass, and it is 
 very hard to remember when things were. 
 Now that you speak of it, I recollect that you 
 were only a baby in my arms. Such a pretty 
 baby, Sibyl, the prettiest child I ever had. 
 Your father told me that you favored me." 
 
 " I think I did, mother," Lorraine answered, 
 looking at the face on the pillow and then 
 into a mirror at her own face. In the mono 
 chrome of twilight they were of the same 
 luminous pallor. She gazed at herself for a 
 while as a friend who knew the story of the 
 house might have gazed at her, and then, 
 leaning forward, she kissed the wan girl 
 whom she pitied so, and the touch of the glass 
 was like the touch of her grandmother s lips. 
 
 " It was this way," said Grandmother Wai- 
 den, in whose mind the images had grouped
 
 TALES 97 
 
 themselves at last. " I can recall now just 
 how it was. Roger Foxhall lived over on 
 the east side of the country, twenty miles 
 away, and he was a good man. Yes," she 
 went on, with a queer tone of partisanship 
 creeping into her weak voice, " there were 
 those who didn t believe it at one time, but 
 I was always satisfied that Roger Foxhall 
 walked just in the path that God had laid 
 aside for him to walk. I told my uncle so 
 when he was the most bitterly set against 
 him. You ll live to thank God, I said, 
 for having made your daughter love so 
 good a man. And Roger Foxhall knew that 
 I had spoken for him." The old voice trem 
 bled to the verge of tears at some remem 
 bered sign of gratitude, and then it sank into 
 a whisper which Lorraine could not follow 
 unless she bent her ear. Roger Foxhall it 
 was a name she had not heard before, and 
 there was a vital sound about it, but she 
 knew that somewhere now it was written on 
 a gravestone, and that knowledge was enough. 
 She began moving soundlessly about the 
 room, lighting the shaded lamp and laying 
 a single stick of wood upon the fire which 
 had sunk into a bed of coals. 
 
 Grandmother Walden s thread of story 
 broke in two. " Sibyl ! " she called, " there s 
 a strange light sprung on to the ceiling ! "
 
 98 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 " Only the lamp-light, mother," Lorraine 
 answered, as she had answered every evening 
 since she came. " And there isn t any smell 
 of smoke either, mother," she went on, " and 
 everything is safe." 
 
 Grandmother Walden stared up at the 
 ceiling with a look of unbelief. The dread 
 of fire had long ago become a fixed idea to 
 her helplessness, and all her other thoughts 
 went circling in a wandering orbit round it, 
 and were ruled by it. " It is a very strange 
 light," she said again, and still she lay star 
 ing up at it until her memories crept back like 
 kindly shadows and her story murmured on. 
 
 Lorraine turned to the window and, draw 
 ing the curtain behind her, looked out against 
 the night, which was falling solid now and 
 dark, except for the few stars that glimmered 
 above the black massing of the trees. She 
 could hear her grandmother s voice rise once 
 in a while and fall again, and sometimes her 
 ears caught words or sentences which did 
 not enter to her brain. The love of service 
 for the mere sake of serving, the tenderness 
 which had seemed to be a part of her nature 
 and had made the time pass peacefully 
 enough until this mood, now dropped away 
 from her like a garment, and her soul found 
 itself thin and naked and shivering in the 
 loneliness of night.
 
 TALES 99 
 
 She did not know how long she stood 
 there. It seemed as if the world had turned, 
 and had shown her every side of the empty 
 universe many times, before a great flake 
 of brightness sailed through the air above 
 her and disappeared among the trees. She 
 watched it idly, yet with a certain interest 
 because it was so different from the dark. 
 Another flake came following it, and then 
 another, and then a flickering burst of light 
 touched all the trees. Lorraine came to 
 herself with her hand pressed tight against 
 her heart, and ran silently out of the room, 
 down the stairs, and out-of-doors. 
 
 A pillar of flame rose from the west 
 chimney where the kitchen wing joined the 
 main body of the house, and the burning 
 soot mounted out of the flame and then set 
 tled slowly through the almost stirless air, 
 burning on like great red glow-worms on the 
 roof and in the grass. The roar of the fire 
 in the chimney surged in the girl s ears, and 
 she ran toward the bell. But with her hand 
 on the cord as it had been so short a time 
 before her own warnings to Abby stopped 
 her short before she rang. Abby had grown 
 childish and nervous, so that she would have 
 rushed to sound alarm whenever a mouse 
 ran across the floor through the silence or a 
 brand shattered in the fireplace, if Lorraine
 
 ioo THE ALARM BELL 
 
 had not been there to guard the bell. And 
 Lorraine had guarded it until the impulse 
 changed to habit, and the habit to a super 
 stition that whenever the bell rang her grand 
 mother would die for it would take no 
 more than the clashing of a bell to over- 
 weigh the even balance between life and 
 death. 
 
 She stood with her arm lifted, trembling 
 between two fears. It was only a burning 
 chimney but there was her grandmother 
 helpless in her bed, and Abby, who would 
 scarcely be of greater aid if this soft rain of 
 brightness caught the gray old shingles or 
 the drifting leaves. The flame-lit trees glowed 
 ruddier than by daylight, and now it was 
 scintillating fire which they seemed to shed. 
 Lorraine took a deep breath, tightening her 
 hold upon the rope. Once more the bell 
 murmured plaintively, and then she dropped 
 the cord. Low and metrical and solemn, 
 through the stillness she heard the hoof-beats 
 of a horse. 
 
 There was scarcely need to run down the 
 deep path to the gate when such a beacon 
 of danger was flaring from the chimney-top, 
 but Lorraine ran, calling out into the dark. 
 The galloping horse stopped within reach of 
 her hand ; a man sprang down and fastened 
 the hitching-strap around the gate-post while
 
 TALES 101 
 
 she opened the gate for him silently. He 
 came through, and the flicker of the mount 
 ing flame showed him tall and strong. 
 
 "Are you alone here?" he asked in a 
 stranger s voice. 
 
 " As far as help goes," Lorraine said, keep 
 ing abreast of his stride along the path. " My 
 grandmother is ill upstairs, and there is an 
 old housekeeper. Neither of them knows 
 about the fire, and I hope they will not have 
 to, for it would frighten them almost to 
 death." 
 
 " Show me where your well is, and bring 
 me all the quilts and blankets that you have," 
 the stranger said. " A ladder," he added, 
 when Lorraine had brought him load after 
 load of bedding and he had drenched it at 
 the well. 
 
 " Here," she answered, and led the way. 
 He ran up the ladder and spread the dripping 
 blankets out upon the roof, while Lorraine 
 climbed up and down, fetching more for him 
 until the last one had been spread. Strength 
 and life rose in her, making her feet swift and 
 her muscles tireless. When she had carried 
 all the blankets she walked over them up the 
 steep pitch of the roof with as unerring a 
 step as the stranger, and they looked together 
 to see if the timbers through which the 
 chimney passed were likely to take fire.
 
 102 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 " All right for the present," the man said, 
 and they stood still for a moment watching 
 the undiminished volume of flame roll out 
 above them. Its heat burned their faces, 
 and its light showed them to each other 
 young, resolute, of the kind that one may 
 trust. 
 
 He started down the roof, holding out an 
 arm to make a bar if she should slip. " I 
 see that you are afraid of nothing," he said. 
 
 " I am sure-footed to-night," Lorraine an 
 swered, but her hand was trembling as he 
 took it to help her over the crumbling eave- 
 trough until she was safe upon the ladder. 
 
 " We shall manage this," he said earnestly. 
 "There is very little danger now; it can just 
 burn on." 
 
 "Oh, I know!" Lorraine said. "I am 
 not at all afraid." 
 
 She hurried down on to the south porch to 
 listen for the sound of her grandmother s 
 slender stick striking upon the floor beside 
 her bed. Grandmother Walden s hands were 
 feeble, and the stick was old and light and 
 dry, for it had been tied there at the bedside 
 before Lorraine was born ; and yet the hollow, 
 silent house took up the tap, tap, tap, of her 
 summons, and carried it from room to room 
 whenever she wished for anything, or if she 
 noticed that she had been left alone. Some-
 
 TALES 103 
 
 times its message reached Lorraine when she 
 had wandered out among the trees into the 
 farthest part of the great yard. The fallen 
 leaves rustled about her as she ran swiftly 
 back, and she felt that she was spirit answer 
 ing spirit in some dumb language of the 
 dead. She had never been upon the roof 
 before. She did not know if she could have 
 heard the tapping there, and Abby s dim 
 ears might not have heard. There was no 
 sound upon the porch, but to be quite certain 
 she went up to the door. It opened into 
 silence, darkness, and an outpouring smoke 
 that made her gasp. 
 
 The stranger came up, and they went 
 inside. " It is only smoke yet," he said 
 quietly. " Thank Heaven ! I cannot see my 
 way." And yet he walked through the 
 house as if he knew its turnings, for the roar 
 of the chimney guided him. In the kitchen 
 the smoke was still more dense, but there was 
 no flame, only a reflected glow from above 
 which shone out through the stove. Lorraine 
 lighted a lamp, and they could see the smoke 
 pouring down through the cracks of the 
 wooden ceiling which shut off a loft under 
 the slant of the roof. 
 
 "Is there any way to get in there?" the 
 stranger asked, pointing up. 
 
 "None," said Lorraine. "It is a closed
 
 104 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 space." The tears were brimming in her 
 eyes from the smoke, and her face looked 
 ashen through it." 
 
 " Then I must make a way," he said. 
 " Either a defect in the flue is letting out the 
 smoke, or else the dry wood is beginning to 
 burn. Get me an axe and then bring water 
 in everything you can carry." 
 
 He brought the ladder, leaned it against 
 the wall, and took the axe. Lorraine was 
 gathering pails for water. " Ought I to ring 
 for more help ? " she asked. " I am afraid 
 it would kill my grandmother to hear the 
 bell." 
 
 He stopped half way between floor and 
 ceiling and looked down into her face, meas 
 uring what cause she had for such a fear. 
 What he saw was the overstrain and weird- 
 ness of long watching. " At least," he said, 
 " we will wait until I have cut through into 
 the loft. You and I can do a great deal to 
 put out a fire by ourselves." 
 
 She took two water-pails and ran from the 
 room. "It is not time yet," she said as she 
 drew the water swiftly. " It is not time yet 
 to ring the bell." The words had come into 
 her head from nowhere, and they sang them 
 selves over and over as she ran back and 
 forth with the full water-pails and the empty 
 ones. The axe rang out against the seasoned
 
 TALES 105 
 
 boards, making the whole house jar and vi 
 brate. It was like the clashing of cymbals, 
 and Lorraine caught her breath and listened 
 between the strokes, but there was no faint 
 echo-like tapping from upstairs. Her grand 
 mother did not always take notice of the 
 difference between night and day ; the kitchen 
 was the length of the house from her room, 
 and the sound of an axe was nothing to 
 cause alarm by daylight. Lorraine caught 
 up her burdens and ran toward the kitchen. 
 To be fighting this real danger without her 
 grandmother s knowledge was an exhilaration 
 which bore half the weight of the swinging, 
 dripping pails. 
 
 It took but a few blows to make room for 
 the man to put his head and shoulders into 
 the loft. The smoke came down around 
 them in great clouds, as if he himself were 
 upon fire. Lorraine stood looking up at 
 him, her hands locked together, waiting for 
 his command. And then by some sense 
 more subtle than hearing she was aware of 
 another motion in the house, and, turning, 
 she saw old Abby run past the doorway, her 
 white hair hanging on her shoulders, her 
 nightgown fluttering, and all her features 
 wild. Even at that distance she was running 
 with her hands outstretched, ready to ring 
 the bell.
 
 106 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 " Not yet, not yet ! " Lorraine cried, 
 rushing after her. She caught the old 
 woman by her thin, bent shoulders and held 
 her still. Abby stared at her for a moment, 
 struggled against her hands, and then burst 
 into tears. 
 
 Lorraine s clasp relaxed to gentleness. 
 " Don t be afraid," she said. " I shall ring 
 the bell if it is necessary. There is a man 
 here who knows, and we are taking every care. 
 Go back and get on something warm, but 
 don t go into grandmother s room. Listen if 
 you hear her knocking and let me know." 
 
 Abby stood a moment more, looking from 
 the girl s face to the dancing light upon the 
 trees. At last she put her hand up to wipe 
 away a few of her swift-flowing tears, and, 
 still sobbing, turned back toward the stairs. 
 Lorraine went into the kitchen with a trem 
 ulous loathing of her own strength. Poor 
 Abby was so frail a thing to conquer that she 
 herself turned weak from head to foot. 
 
 The man had come down the ladder and 
 was carrying water up. " Bring more," he 
 said to her. " You and I can manage this if we 
 work fast. There is a defect, and the heat 
 has set the boards to smoking too, but the 
 fire is passing farther up the chimney now. 
 It will soon be done." 
 
 She began to carry the heavy pails up the
 
 TALES 107 
 
 ladder, and the refrain to which she had filled 
 them came back into her ears, measuring off 
 the steps. The smoke billowed out around 
 her so that it did not seem as if they were 
 making way against it, but she did not ask 
 and the stranger did not say. She was con 
 tent to carry the water faster and faster up 
 the hard rounds of the ladder, and to hear it 
 hiss upon the hot bricks and the boards, and 
 to catch a breath now and then of the steam 
 which mingled with the smoke. Without 
 knowing it she was near to fainting, and some 
 times she could not have climbed the ladder 
 again if she had not been saying to herself, 
 " It is not time yet to ring the bell." 
 
 " That will do," the man said, coming 
 down. His face was wet and blackened, but 
 he was smiling. " We ve done it by our 
 selves," he went on, " and the danger is past, 
 and we can go into the air." 
 
 Lorraine followed him unsteadily. " Are 
 you quite sure that the danger is past? " she 
 said. 
 
 The night lay dim around them out-of- 
 doors, and yet he stepped from the porch 
 and looked up at the chimney before he 
 answered her. 
 
 " Quite sure," he said, coming back, " and 
 now I shall put things to rights a little for 
 you before I go away."
 
 io8 THE ALARM BELL 
 
 " Oh, no," she said, " I can have all that 
 done in the morning. Do you have far to 
 go?" 
 
 " Twenty miles," the stranger said. 
 
 Lorraine s heart gave an unexpected throb. 
 " What is your name? " she asked. 
 
 " Roger Foxhall," he said ; " and if this is 
 the old Walden place, as I suppose, we must 
 be distant cousins. My grandfather used to 
 tell me of the Waldens when I was a boy. 
 It seems his father married one of them 
 against her father s will, and there was a 
 breach between them after that. And then 
 of course I have heard of the old Mrs. 
 Walden who has lived so long." 
 
 " She is upstairs telling of how the joy bells 
 rang for your great-grandfather s wedding," 
 Lorraine broke in with a trembling voice. 
 " Oh, it is all so strange. It was she who 
 took his part." 
 
 Roger Foxhall smiled gravely. " I thank 
 her then," he said. 
 
 Lorraine held out her hand to him. " And 
 I thank you. I cannot ever tell you how much 
 I thank you, not only for the help about the 
 fire " she paused, wishing she could tell 
 him how the past had seemed to hold her 
 with its suffocating hands before he came. 
 But the sight of her face and the few 
 words she had said were enough to make him
 
 TALES 109 
 
 partly understand. A great pity rose in him 
 as he thought of leaving her alone there in 
 the dark with the old, old days. 
 
 "Do not thank me," he said; "let me 
 come again." 
 
 " Oh, come ! " Lorraine said, " for my friends 
 have all forgotten I am here." 
 
 " I will not forget," he answered, " but 
 until I come, good-by." 
 
 She lingered until the sound of his gallop 
 ing horse had faded into the beating of her 
 heart. Then she went upstairs. 
 
 Old Abby was crouching with her face 
 buried on her bed. Lorraine stooped to kiss 
 her. " The fire is all out and I am going in 
 to grandmother," she said. " Has grand 
 mother called you?" 
 
 Abby lifted her white head slowly. " Not 
 as I have heard," she said ; but Lorraine had 
 gone. 
 
 Grandmother Walden was lying waxen 
 white upon her bed, and she looked up and 
 called Lorraine by a name that was not hers. 
 
 " Sibyl," she said, " I ve been thinking of 
 the day the bells rang for Roger Foxhall s 
 wedding. Do you remember? Every one 
 called them the bells of joy." 
 
 " I remember, mother," the girl said 
 simply, and stole back down the stairs. 
 Everything had passed without her grand-
 
 no THE ALARM BELL 
 
 mother s knowledge, and she was still among 
 the memories, needing no other care. The 
 darkness fell like a curtain behind Lorraine 
 as she closed the door on all the past. 
 
 " Roger Foxhall," she murmured as she 
 looked up at the stars which glimmered above 
 the black massing of the trees. Her hand 
 stole up and found the bell-rope swaying 
 softly, but the bell hung silent above her, 
 wreathed in tangled vine, and she wondered 
 if she had been guarding it through all the 
 years to be a bell of joy. 
 
 A tremor passed through the swathing of 
 leaves and tendrils, and the great bell 
 answered with a sweet, half-wakened tone.
 
 THE HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 A GIRL came from the bayou along a 
 little trail which passed through the 
 marsh, on bits of silvery cypress-drift, and 
 through the woods where brown pine-needles 
 carpeted it, up to the Hildreth garden. The 
 crape-myrtles stood stiff as sentinels beside 
 the gate, but the walk led up between its 
 borders in confident welcome to a blank 
 open space, all gray and powdery, as if it 
 had never seen the sunlight or felt moisture. 
 The girl stood breathless, gazing at it. The 
 last of the spring roses scattered their petals 
 lavishly around the beds, and added their 
 fragrance to the sweetness of the Cape jas 
 mine and the tiny fluffy balls of the acacias, 
 but the Hildreth house was gone. The 
 hollyhocks and the high shrubs seemed to be 
 lifting themselves on tiptoe to look down at 
 the scar where it had been. The breeze 
 sighed a little through the great live-oak 
 which had spent years in spreading wide and 
 generous to shade the whole south gallery, 
 and the mocking-birds flitted in and out of its 
 branches with that swift spreading of their
 
 ii2 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 wings for flight which makes the white bars 
 in them always a revelation. After she had 
 seen these things with widening eyes, the 
 girl s hand went up to her throat, and she 
 gave a little sob. 
 
 "Is everything to change?" she asked 
 half brokenly. Something in her mood stood 
 between her and natural surprise. She felt 
 as if she had been prepared to find the 
 place like this, but the tears rose in her eyes 
 as she looked, for each familiar beauty of it 
 was something bereaved. She opened the 
 gate and walked between the rose bushes 
 toward the spot where the house had been, 
 but when she reached it she turned away. 
 She threaded all the bowery paths, and each 
 seemed to hold something which she must 
 turn away from, too ; but when she stood by 
 the acacia tree she put out her hand and 
 touched it timidly. Soon, as it did not forbid 
 her, she lifted her hand, drew down a branch, 
 and picked just one of the tiny yellow tufts 
 which breathe all the sweetness of the sweet 
 est days of love, held it against her cheek 
 for a moment, and then, with trembling 
 fingers, hid it in the dark braids of her hair. 
 
 A faint " yo-heave-o," like that of sailors 
 hauling up an anchor, was wafted through 
 the garden, and the girl raised her face 
 and looked about her desolately. Far down
 
 TALES 113 
 
 Live-oak lane, between the rounded trees, 
 she saw the Hildreth house. It seemed to 
 have picked up its doorsteps and started 
 out across the village ; there was an excited 
 gleam in its windows, and the sunlight, fall 
 ing more freely on its roof than it had ever 
 done in the garden, gave it the look of some 
 tenderly shielded old person that has stolen 
 bareheaded away from loving children, who 
 do not remember that age has its restlessness. 
 
 The girl could notice now that a way had 
 been cleared for the house to travel back 
 ward out of the garden, leaving the flowers 
 courteously, as if they were a royal presence ; 
 and she followed in its path through the 
 opened panel of fence and on into the lane, 
 where the blue shimmer of the Gulf ended 
 the vistas of light on either side of the house. 
 She walked eagerly, and her face had dim 
 pled into smiles, yet even as she smiled 
 she put her hand up to her hair, and the 
 depths of her eyes still kept their sorrow. 
 " I don t see how Mrs. Hildreth could leave 
 her flowers," she said once, with a sigh. 
 
 A band of Creole workmen were prying 
 the house along on its clumsy rollers, and 
 shouting and singing resonantly at each slow 
 forward lurch. Their voices had the sweet 
 ness of a summer land and knowledge of the 
 sea, and they worked at leisure and grace-
 
 ii4 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 fully, their red or blue shirts shining out 
 against the greenery which still clung to the 
 Hildreth house, for it had not laid aside its 
 vines, but was carrying their roots daintily 
 clear of the ground in baskets, just as another 
 dear old fugitive might lift her skirts. 
 
 A woman with rosy cheeks and smooth 
 brown hair was sitting by the window, and as 
 the girl approached she reached down to 
 help her take the long step from the road to 
 door-sill. " Connie Bainbridge," she said, 
 " I don t know of any one I would rather 
 have come walking in like this to act as 
 bridemaid on my wedding-day," and she 
 drew her visitor into a room that was start- 
 lingly unchanged except for the glory of 
 flowers with which the garden had said 
 good-by. It was hard to remember that in 
 the garden they had not been missed at all. 
 
 The girl sank into a chair and looked about 
 her wearily. A long string of gull s eggs, 
 creamy and softly flecked, hung near her on 
 the wall. She took hold of them as she so 
 often had before, and passed them through 
 her fingers like a rosary. " Your wedding- 
 day?" she said. 
 
 "Anniversary, of course, I mean," Mrs. 
 Hildreth answered, looking out through a 
 window that gave a glimpse of the beckon 
 ing sea. She smiled musingly as she looked.
 
 TALES 115 
 
 There was always something of generous con 
 tent about her, as if life grew sweeter and 
 broader with the afternoon sun ; and Connie 
 Bainbridge remembered that when the house 
 had stood in its garden she herself had never 
 lifted the gate-latch and walked in between 
 the roses without leaving every care behind. 
 But now her heart had learned a different 
 way. She took down the great rosary so 
 that she might bend her head over it. 
 "What is happening?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Hildreth looked at her, noticing the 
 tone. " You see, we always celebrate each 
 wedding-day," she said. "When we come to 
 the rounded numbers, we invite people, and 
 do as they expect us to ; but on the other 
 years, that most people forget, we do justwhat 
 we please Robbie and I. Robbie has just 
 gone over to the village, but he ll soon be 
 home. This is our twenty-ninth wedding-day, 
 and we re moving to the sea. You know, 
 when we were first married we wanted a 
 building site on the beach, and we couldn t 
 afford it. Now we can, and so we re cele 
 brating." She paused, looking curiously at 
 Connie s face, which was turned away from 
 her. When she went on there was a soft 
 laugh in her voice. "We couldn t move 
 without our house, of course ; it s too much a 
 part of us and, anyway, when we die our
 
 n6 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 shell may feel more at home if it s left on the 
 beach." 
 
 The girl tried to join in Mrs. Hildreth s 
 laugh, but when she parted her lips, a low, 
 passionate sob came through them. She fell 
 on her knees and bowed her head in Mrs. 
 Hildreth s lap. Her words came in a gasp. 
 "This was to have been my wedding-day," 
 she said. 
 
 Mrs. Hildreth put her arms about her, 
 murmuring, " My child ! " 
 
 " Yes," the girl answered, in a hard, dry 
 voice. "We decided to have no one but 
 mamma and papa with us, and then to 
 announce it and take you all by surprise 
 now we shall surprise you in another way, for 
 it will never be at all." She was trembling, 
 and she caught Mrs. Hildreth s dress in her 
 hands. " It was my fault, of course," she 
 finished ; "at least you will all think it was my 
 fault." 
 
 The joy of her long, happy years shone 
 before Mrs. Hildreth s eyes until they blurred. 
 She lifted the girl s face between her hands. 
 "Connie Bainbridge," she said gently, "you 
 and Jack Houghton are not commonplace, 
 foolish children who quarrel for no cause. 
 Tell me all about your trouble, from begin 
 ning to end." 
 
 " I couldn t bear explaining it to mamma,"
 
 TALES 117 
 
 Connie Bainbridge said, " and I meant to say 
 nothing to any one, but when you spoke like 
 that of your wedding-day " her voice broke 
 into the tone of one whose heart yields itself 
 to sympathy or love. " Ah, I can tell every 
 thing to you," she cried, " for no one else on 
 earth would know so well what I have thrown 
 away." 
 
 Along the street which led from the centre 
 of the village to the old Hildreth place the 
 great trees interlaced their restful shadows, 
 letting only the smallest flecks of sunlight sift 
 between them in the perfect silence of the 
 idle summer afternoon. It was strange that 
 the very shadows did not stir and change a 
 little when a sharp thudding of hoofs and the 
 swing of a horse broke through the air, and 
 a young man came riding at a gallop beneath 
 the trees. He held his head high, and his 
 lips were compressed in a way that had noth 
 ing to do with the swift, easy motion of the 
 horse, and there was a frown above his eyes, 
 which were looking straight ahead with a sort 
 of bitter challenge in them for all they saw 
 or did not see. He drew rein abruptly at the 
 Hildreth gate. The crape-myrtles were wait 
 ing for him as usual, and the sweet odors of 
 the garden spread out to summon him, but 
 the straight path led to vacancy. 
 
 He gazed for a few moments at the deso-
 
 ii8 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 late square of gray sand, with the sympa 
 thetic flowers elbowing one another around it. 
 His thought told him very simply what had 
 happened to the house, but his heart felt 
 only the symbolism of the place. He 
 dropped moodily to the ground, tied his 
 horse, and went in through the gate. From 
 the back of the garden he looked down 
 Live-oak lane and saw the house, while the 
 shouts of the workmen came to him like a 
 faint farewell upon the breeze. They inter 
 ested him very little. He went to the open 
 space of sand and lashed at it morosely with 
 his riding-whip. " Is nobody in the world 
 satisfied?" he wondered, lifting a savage 
 whirl of dust into the air. 
 
 " They ll be uprooting the roses next and 
 carrying them after the house," he went on, 
 turning his whip against a tall bush which he 
 loved, and sending a shower of pink petals 
 to the ground. He tramped across them 
 ruthlessly, bowed his head under an arbor 
 of honeysuckle, and whistled a note or two 
 as he walked along the paths. " I ll be glad 
 when the whole thing is torn up," he de 
 clared ; " it would be useless to try coming 
 back here any more." He started to whistle 
 again, but broke off. " Perhaps," he mut 
 tered harshly, " you think you can stand 
 seeing the Hildreths, when the garden is too
 
 TALES 119 
 
 much for you ! " He stood quite still, and 
 set his face against the inroads of a change 
 which left nothing in his life untouched. 
 The knowledge of all that had gone from 
 him seemed to rise like a tide about him, 
 until his physical balance was unsteadied by 
 it, and he leaned against a tree and shut his 
 eyes. In that moment of relaxation his 
 senses were no longer guarded by anger, and 
 he felt the soft, perfumed air stealing over 
 him in a caress. There were many sweet 
 odors in it, but one of them was more like a 
 personal message than the others. He 
 smiled faintly, and opened his eyes. It was 
 the little acacia tree he was leaning against. 
 He reached up for one of the yellow balls, 
 and as he felt it between his fingers a memory 
 of joy came into his face. The little thing 
 was like love itself, it was so laden with 
 sweetness. He kissed it more than once, 
 and then, putting it in his pocket with a 
 tender deference, he turned back along the 
 path, and followed where the house was lead 
 ing toward the sunlit vista of the Gulf. 
 
 Robbie Hildreth had returned from the 
 village and was working among the Creoles, 
 but he hurried forward as the young fellow 
 came up. Hildreth was an elderly man 
 whom time and the sun had touched so often 
 and so lovingly that they had blended all the
 
 120 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 colors of his hair and face into a tone of silver 
 gray, out of which his blue eyes glanced 
 humorously as he shook the young fellow s 
 hand. " Betty and I are having a wedding 
 march, for the twenty-ninth time," he said 
 " and Betty is guarding all her treasures in 
 the house. We re going to have a wedding 
 supper when we get to the beach, and you 
 must stay." 
 
 " I d forgotten that this was your wedding- 
 day," the young man said. 
 
 "Why, whose else should it be?" asked 
 Hildreth, laughing. "Yours?" 
 
 The young fellow looked at him a moment. 
 He knew that behind Robbie Hildreth s merry 
 eyes there was one of the gentlest, truest 
 souls. He drew him a little farther from the 
 workmen. " It was to have been my wed 
 ding-day," he said. 
 
 Many people who knew that the Hildreth 
 house was moving went out of their way to 
 see the place where it had stood. Among 
 them was the young minister who was taking 
 his first charge in the village. Robbie Hil 
 dreth and he had met at the post-office, and 
 Hildreth had told him that the moving was a 
 celebration, so he started presently to call on 
 Mrs. Hildreth, and to wish her constant joy 
 and as many returns of the day in the future 
 as there had been in the past. " That would
 
 TALES 121 
 
 take them far beyond their golden wedding," 
 he thought, and, with a sudden realization 
 of the faithfulness of a love which had lasted 
 so long and would last so much longer if 
 Heaven spared them, he turned his steps to 
 pass the garden where they had lived to 
 gether for so many years. 
 
 Even young ministers feel a rise and fall 
 of the divine spirit within them, and as this 
 young man stood by the Hildreth gate and 
 looked at the loneliness that was left when 
 all the flowers clustered about an empty spot 
 of sand, a fresh understanding of the sacred- 
 ness of kindly living came to him and filled 
 him with inspired humility. There seemed 
 so many warm, sweet, simple truths to tell 
 the world, although he felt himself almost 
 too young and far too wisdomless to speak. 
 " Twenty-nine years," he thought, " of one 
 of the most actual tests of grace and I 
 have not even reached the point where they 
 began. I love no one woman better than 
 another, perhaps I should thank God for 
 it, and I ve never even performed a mar 
 riage ceremony in my life." 
 
 He looked about him from the site of the 
 house to all the things which the Hildreths 
 had been cherishing so long. " I don t see 
 how they can bear to leave their flowers," he 
 said, with a little sigh ; " but then, as long as
 
 122 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 they take their love with them, more flowers 
 will grow." It seemed to the young minister 
 just then that grace might be less varying if 
 he felt more of individual love ; but soon he 
 turned from the gate and walked round out 
 side the garden and down into Live-oak 
 lane, following the house. He was still a 
 very young man, and pretty little speeches 
 went from him sometimes, and so as he 
 walked he kept repeating, " I wish you con 
 stant joy, and as many returns of the day in 
 the future as there have been in the past." 
 
 He neared the house and noticed how 
 daintily it had raised its vines to move, and 
 he was wondering if it would be just the 
 thing for him to tell Mrs. Hildreth how much 
 it looked like her when she came to church 
 on wet or dusty mornings ; but before he 
 could decide he saw that Mr. Hildreth was 
 standing several rods nearer to him than 
 to the house, and talking very earnestly, with 
 his hand on tall Jack Houghton s shoulder. 
 The minister paused, for they looked as if 
 they were speaking in confidence, and he 
 wished neither to go forward and interrupt 
 them nor to retreat. Just as he paused, Mrs. 
 Hildreth stepped down from the house, fol 
 lowed by Connie Bainbridge. The minister 
 felt that it was awkward to be standing there 
 in indecision, and he blushed. No one saw
 
 TALES 123 
 
 him, however, for Mrs. Hildreth and Connie 
 Bainbridge both stopped with a startled look 
 at sight of the two men who were talking 
 together. There were traces of tears about 
 Mrs. Hildreth s eyes, and Connie s face was 
 white. They stood still for a moment, and 
 then Connie shrank back toward the door, 
 but Mrs. Hildreth took her hand. The girl s 
 expression changed and lighted. She went 
 forward swiftly and touched young Houghton 
 on the arm. The minister turned away when 
 Houghton, taken by surprise, and bending to 
 her, spoke her name. 
 
 Mrs. Hildreth and Robbie moved away 
 from them and toward the minister, who 
 stepped to meet them, smiling and fumbling 
 with his thoughts, for the words he meant to 
 say were gone. It happened that he did not 
 need them, for Mrs. Hildreth turned back 
 and took the other young people in the house. 
 Robbie Hildreth s smile was merrier than 
 ever in his eyes. " Do you know the marriage 
 service?" he asked. 
 
 "Why why, of course," stammered the 
 minister, "but I ve never" 
 
 " Then it s time you began," said Robbie 
 Hildreth, and he felt that the minister was 
 trembling as he took him by the arm and 
 drew him toward the door. " It s not a 
 dangerous thing, you know," he added, reas-
 
 124 HILDRETHS WEDDING-DAY 
 
 suringly. " I can testify after twenty-nine 
 years." 
 
 The young minister flushed warmly, but 
 his arm grew steadier. " You have shown 
 what a beautiful thing it can be," he said. 
 And yet he hesitated in the doorway, for 
 Mrs. Hildreth was at the window telling the 
 men outside that they might let the house 
 stand still a little while ; so the two young 
 people were standing alone together hand 
 in hand. He could see their faces, and he 
 felt very sure that it would be an intrusion 
 if he went forward to speak to them. But 
 Robbie Hildreth was behind him pushing 
 him gently, and Mrs. Hildreth had turned 
 from the window. A great stillness fell like 
 invocation, and, gathering his courage, he 
 went toward them, and his heart stirred 
 nervously as he rehearsed the marriage 
 service in his mind. 
 
 Afterward, while the house was moving 
 leisurely along its way, the minister stepped 
 down from it, and wandered back to the 
 deserted garden. He stopped a second time 
 beside the gate. The roses that spring had 
 forgotten mingled their sweetness with the 
 rich, dreamy fragrance of the Cape jasmines 
 and the fluffy yellow acacias the flowers 
 of love. The big live-oak which had shel 
 tered so much happiness seemed still reach-
 
 TALES 125 
 
 ing out to cover the blank space where the 
 dust drifted. 
 
 " I wished them constant joy," he mur 
 mured, and the color mounted softly to his 
 cheek, for they had wished him something, 
 too. Their joyous faces rose against the 
 isolation where he stood. A few small, 
 common blossoms looked up in his eyes. 
 There are many names for them. They are 
 often spoken of in jest, yet there are men 
 who count them flowers of triumph others, 
 flowers of unrest. 
 
 " Bachelor s-buttons," he whispered, smil 
 ing at them ; " the flowers of loneliness 
 but I should not be saying that," and he 
 knelt quickly then to gather one, and as he 
 knelt he breathed a little penitential prayer. 
 
 " In hoc signo vinces" he added when he 
 rose. He glanced apprehensively out toward 
 the road, and, slipping the flower into his 
 buttonhole, walked slowly home.
 
 THE FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 WINDING inland, Bayou Marie opens a 
 sunlit vista between dark live-oaks and 
 pine-trees. It passes the deserted Old House 
 Point and Tiblier s gloomy place, where brown 
 nets are always in sight, stretched on the long 
 pier to dry in the sunshine. 
 
 It passes Antoine Manuel s quaint old 
 house and his tiny shipyard. Manuel s green 
 knoll commands the curving stream in all 
 directions, and among his boats at anchor 
 drift the fallen blooms of pink azaleas. They 
 begin to grow just beyond the orange grove 
 of Antoine fils, so called to distinguish him 
 from his father, the shipbuilder. The young 
 man s wife is Madame Antoine fils, and his 
 mother is simply Madame Antoine ; for farther 
 up the bayou Madame Manuel, the grand 
 mother, lives in widowed solitude. 
 
 Past all these warm-hearted, simple-minded 
 Creole folk the Marie lures on, through warm, 
 bright silence and the spicy scent of myrtle 
 and bay-trees in the woods. Too shallow for 
 schooner traffic, and too narrow, sometimes, 
 even for a skiff to turn in, it ripples between
 
 TALES 
 
 127 
 
 dun marshes or flowery, vine-draped banks 
 where the air is sweet with grape-blossom and 
 the golden bells of jasmine. 
 
 Green trout dart through clear, shimmering 
 reaches from one pool of shadow to another, 
 and sometimes the call of a bird breaks 
 through a quiet that is more full of gladness 
 and life than the atmosphere of deeper chan 
 nelled, more frequented streams. 
 
 There, in the bright sunlight and the utter 
 loneliness, the fishermen who paddle up the 
 bayou in their pirogues, casting for green 
 trout, know of a rude shanty, built Creole 
 fashion, with the beaten earth for a floor, and 
 a low-pitched roof running out beyond the 
 walls to shelter a gallery in front. With its 
 ever-fresh whitewash and paint it looks new 
 still, but it stands in the shadow of gnarled, 
 wide-spreading fig-trees that tell a story of the 
 many years since old Jourde came to build 
 and to plant in seclusion, beyond even old 
 Madame Manuel s place. 
 
 He is well liked, this Jourde, although he 
 is no talker, and prefers spending his days 
 alone at his little hermitage, rather than 
 among his neighbors ; and the Creoles, who 
 have no taste for prying, leave him to himself, 
 content with their own simple conclusions. 
 
 " De ole Jourde ees a good man, bud e 
 ees not sociab ," Manuel will explain, as he
 
 128 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE" 
 
 fills the pipe of good-fellowship, " e ees not 
 sociab ." 
 
 One summer day when the shadows had 
 stolen half across the narrow Marie it had 
 been a very good day for fish a white- 
 faced stranger left his pirogue at Jourde s little 
 landing and walked quickly up the path that 
 old Jourde had worn to his house under the 
 fig-trees. The stranger knocked at the open 
 door ; waited, and knocked again ; looked in, 
 and then came away with a groan to seat him 
 self on a weather-worn bench beneath one of 
 the trees. He held one hand in the other, and 
 turned a pain-drawn face to watch for some 
 moving figure on the merry, deserted bayou. 
 
 It was Jourde s favorite fig-tree under which 
 his visitor sat waiting a fantastic old tree 
 which had been blown over once in a storm, 
 so that its trunk stretched horizontally above 
 the ground, supported by part of its roots and 
 part of its branches. Good Jourde, who loved 
 an experiment almost better than a tree, had 
 heaped earth upon the tips of these branches, 
 so that they had taken root and grown, giving 
 the old tree three or four new trunks, on 
 which it flourished like a banyan, though half 
 of its original roots still stretched upward, dry 
 and useless, while its branches sought the sun 
 light at every angle impossible to the nature 
 of fig-trees.
 
 TALES 129 
 
 At last a boat came in sight on the bayou. 
 Old Jourde was returning. 
 
 Little as Jourde went abroad, he was known 
 at sight anywhere on Bayou Marie, Pontomoc 
 Bay, or Bayou Porto, up which he went once 
 a week to the village of Pontomoc after his 
 mail. Old Jourde neither paddled like the 
 men in pirogues, nor rowed like the ordinary 
 men in skiffs. Wherever he went, he stood 
 half upright, facing the bow of his short, broad 
 boat, that seemed to be modelled after Jourde 
 himself, and, with his two oars held securely 
 in the tholes, pushed on them instead of pull 
 ing, surveying his way carefully in advance. 
 Jourde had made a mistake early in life 
 since then he had preferred to see his way. 
 
 The stranger s heart sank at sight of the 
 person that walked up from the landing. A 
 quaint, squat figure was old Jourde, like a 
 sturdy toadstool under his great broad hat. 
 His bare feet paddled firmly along the hard 
 path as if they had no thought or longing for 
 shoes ; his faded trousers were turned up 
 over well-bronzed shins ; and outside of the 
 trousers hung his red flannel shirt, in the 
 free, cool fashion of the poorer Creoles on 
 the coast. 
 
 But when Jourde came nearer, looking with 
 surprise at his visitor, there was something 
 reassuring in his pudgy, sunburned face,
 
 130 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 though, from under his lightly pencilled 
 brows, his eyes looked strangely, half wan- 
 deringly. They had seen that early mistake. 
 
 " Dr. Jourde?" 
 
 The barefooted man bowed and lifted his 
 hat with a politeness somewhat less graceful 
 and more ornate than the ordinary courtliness 
 to be found among the primitive fishermen. 
 
 " My name ees Jourde," he said. If he 
 had been speaking to a Creole, his measured 
 accents would have been in perfect French. 
 As it was, his English was the most correct 
 at his command. His neighbors spoke to him 
 in their easy Creole patois, almost as provincial 
 as their English ; but although for comfort 
 and economy he conformed to the common 
 costume, there was a clinging punctiliousness 
 about him that showed in his avoidance of 
 the common speech. 
 
 "But you are a doctor?" continued the 
 stranger, on whose face Jourde s eye had at 
 once read physical suffering. " At least the 
 women in the house down below here told 
 me you understood medicine and had instru 
 ments, and I want you " 
 
 " Did zey not tell, also, zat my knife and 
 my medicine zey are all for ze dumb animals ? " 
 Jourde interrupted gravely. 
 
 "What do I care for that, man?" the 
 stranger retorted nervously. " Look here,
 
 TALFS 131 
 
 it s only a little tiling. I ve caught this fish 
 hook in my thumb and I can t get it out. 
 You can do it well enough ; it don t require 
 any skill if you have a sharp knife, but it 
 hurts unbearably; I can t paddle back to the 
 village with it, and the men in the houses 
 below here are all off shrimping. I could 
 do it myself if it was my left thumb " The 
 man spoke almost savagely, for Jourde s face 
 was still impassive. " I tell you, no skill is 
 needed." 
 
 Jourde smiled oddly. " Eet geeves me 
 much pain to see you so suffering," he said. 
 " Then attend. I cannot undertake your 
 oper-acion, but I weell fasten your boat 
 behin that of me, and weell take you to ze 
 village" 
 
 " Do you think I ll stand this while you 
 tow me three miles? Where s your knife? 
 You ve dilly-dallied enough; I can hack it 
 out with my left hand." 
 
 Jourde stood silent a moment; then he 
 said, " Eet ees not so easy a work, zis acking 
 out; but as you say, eet ees a small sing. 
 Sit zere one moment, I weel get my eenstru- 
 ment and rhemove ze "ook." 
 
 The reluctant practitioner opened the only 
 closed door in his cabin, and went into a little 
 room, shelved from floor to ceiling, and 
 crowded with books, magazines, pamphlets,
 
 132 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 and jars of many sorts and sizes. There was 
 one window, and by it a table, on which stood 
 a simple apparatus, suggestive of chemistry, 
 and a highly-finished wooden case. Jourde 
 walked straight to the case and opened it. 
 There was a little nick in the cover. He drew 
 back, steadying himself by the table. His 
 eyes saw something that did not belong to the 
 little cabin on the Marie. It is an operating- 
 table in a city hospital. The room is small 
 and old-fashioned ; the students crowd each 
 other eagerly, watching Jourde s skilful hands. 
 The struggling of the patient makes it almost 
 impossible to work, and the moment is crit 
 ical. The assistant has already demurred at 
 using more chloroform, but Jourde orders it. 
 In an instant the assistant tells him it is too 
 much. He drops his instruments ; the assist 
 ant removes the chloroform mask. They 
 lower the head of the table, and fight desper 
 ately with every help to resuscitation. Some 
 student picks up an instrument and nervously 
 hacks, hacks, hacks, upon the case. The 
 assistant glances from the patient s sunken, 
 pulseless temple to Jourde, fiercely applying 
 his restoratives. The faces of the crowding 
 students are tense. Jourde looks up, meeting 
 the assistant s eyes. They both stand erect. 
 Some one whispers : 
 " My God ! "
 
 TALES 133 
 
 Jourde hears his own calm words. " This 
 possibility is always to be faced. In a case 
 like this, when he has to choose between evils, 
 the operator is " 
 
 A regardless voice murmurs, " Between 
 devil and deep sea," but the set faces of the 
 other students do not relax. Jourde has a 
 few more words for them. They disperse 
 quietly. 
 
 " I can t stand this. I tell you, if you re 
 afraid give me the knife." The stranger was 
 at the laboratory door. 
 
 " Een one meenute, monsieur," Jourde 
 answered, starting slightly. " I am wiz you 
 immediately. But you mus pr-repare; much 
 pain ees possib ." 
 
 " Not much more than I have already, I 
 reckon," the stranger replied. But Jourde 
 shook his head as he selected one of the 
 glistening knives. Through all these years, 
 while his old associates had been wondering 
 about him, missing him, and finally forget 
 ting him, Jourde had been guarding his in 
 struments from the approach of rust and 
 tarnish. They were ready for any sick or 
 injured brute, but a human patient he had 
 never touched. 
 
 Jourde s lips showed white in the ruddy 
 sunburn of his face as he came into the glow 
 ing outer world ; but the wounded hand was
 
 134 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 grasped firmly and there was no trembling 
 of the sharp knife as it began its work. The 
 stranger watched him disdainfully at first, 
 with an assumption of bearing the operation 
 carelessly. But as pain grew into keen tor 
 ture and the surgeon s face became intent 
 and eager over his task, the patient saw that 
 his contempt had been unjust ; and it took 
 all the remembrance of it to close his lips and 
 hold his arm unshrinking. At last, in an 
 excruciating moment, he gave his hand a 
 jerk, only to feel the pitiless clasp tighten 
 on it. 
 
 " I don t believe I can stand it, doctor," he 
 protested. " Don t you have something here 
 that would stop the pain? " 
 
 Jourde smiled slightly over his knife. 
 
 " I ve got to have something ! " the man 
 insisted sharply. 
 
 " Patience ! " cried Jourde. " Ze dumb 
 beast show more reason. Pardon, I do know 
 ze pain, but it will soon be done." 
 
 A few moments later Jourde was carefully 
 bandaging the thumb. Now that the suffer 
 ing and the strain were ended, each man felt 
 that he owed the other some amends. Jourde s 
 mind was on some Scuppernong wine in 
 the cabin ; he went after it presently. The 
 stranger fell to praising the great fig-trees 
 that shadowed them.
 
 TALES 
 
 135 
 
 " They thrive so finely here, I should think 
 you would plant an orchard," he suggested. 
 
 Old Jourde shrugged his square shoulders. 
 
 " Eet as been tried," he said. 
 
 " Isn t there any market? " 
 
 " Ze canning factory, yes." 
 
 " Then why don t you plant them? " 
 
 " Monsieur," said Jourde, " zere are some 
 str-range sings. One ees about ze feeg-trees." 
 
 " I don t understand," said the stranger. 
 
 " No, I do not understand eet myself, but 
 people notice eet. Ze feeg-tree grow bes 
 well near w ere somebody live. And w y? 
 I do not know. Ze Creole people say zay 
 mus feel ze breas of zeir master each morn 
 ing, but zat ees not true, eet cannot 
 be." 
 
 " Must feel their master s breath ! " echoed 
 the stranger. " What difference can that 
 make, if they receive the same care some 
 where else? " 
 
 " Oh, eet is only supersteecion. Eet can 
 not be true. I am Creole, too, but I know 
 zat cannot be true; eet is too unreasonabl . 
 Yet zay do grow bes near ze ouse ; zere 
 mus be ozer cause." 
 
 " I should say so," agreed the more fervent 
 sceptic, rising to take his leave. " Can t 
 grow without feeling their master s breath ! 
 Why don t you ask how it would be if the
 
 136 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 trees had a bad master wouldn t his breath 
 wither them? " 
 
 " Yes, I have t ought of zat. I know not 
 w at ze supersteecion ees." 
 
 The two men shook hands and parted. 
 
 Jourde did not know, but he had often 
 thought about it, and it comforted him that 
 his trees had always flourished. 
 
 Jourde was absorbed in the little laboratory 
 where he spent almost all his time of late, 
 when Antoine fits dropped in. It was not 
 often that his neighbors dropped in on 
 Jourde, so that a call generally meant the 
 indisposition of neighboring live-stock, or 
 some important village news. But Antoine 
 fits had a sorrowful tale to tell. 
 
 "A very pleasant day, Monsieur Antoine," 
 said Jourde, with his studied courtesy. 
 
 " Eet is a little warm," replied Antoine, 
 wiping his bronzed forehead, " a little warm 
 on de bayou. I have been to my gran moder, 
 below here, and I say to myself, I say, we 
 will go on to see Monsieur Jourde an see 
 w at he think about Tiblier." 
 
 " Let me give you a little refreshment," said 
 Jourde, already on his way to the cupboard. 
 " A glass of my good Scuppernong; it has 
 been ripening since 79. There is no better 
 made on all the coast. But what is it about 
 Tiblier?"
 
 TALES 
 
 137 
 
 " You have not hear de news bout Tiblier, 
 Francois Tiblier, dat is near dead down at de 
 Point?" 
 
 " Near dead ! " exclaimed Jourde, stopping 
 with his wine near the middle of the room. 
 " But I saw him only when was it? Not 
 long ago. What is the matter? " 
 
 " Fever fitvre typhoide, de Docteur 
 Weellis say. He come from de village every 
 day to see Francois. He give Madame Fran- 
 gois ver little hope." 
 
 Old Jourde filled two wine-glasses in 
 silence ; then, presenting one to Antoine : 
 "Your good health, monsieur, and the re 
 covery of our friend Tiblier ! " 
 
 " And your prosperity, Monsieur Jourde," 
 added Antoine. " Ah, monsieur, dis wine is 
 excellen ." 
 
 Jourde acknowledged the praise absent- 
 mindedly. 
 
 " How long has the fever been running?" 
 he questioned abruptly. 
 
 Antoine lowered his glass. " Pret near 
 on t ree week now, I reckon. It come on 
 him soon after he come from shrimp-fishin . 
 It is not so healt y where he live, down at de 
 Point ; I tole my fader dat it is not healt y 
 at de Tiblier place, but he say de Tiblier 
 family has been well as any of us. He t ink 
 dat Docteur Weellis ain t givin Francois de 
 right treatmen ."
 
 138 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 " Hey? " cried Jourde eagerly. " How is 
 Dr. Willis treating him?" 
 
 " Well, if it is like w at dey all say, I doan 
 t ink, me, dat de docteur is treatin Francois 
 at all. He says to Madame Frangois, he 
 say, Give him nosing to eat; at least, dat 
 is all I can hear dat he do for him ; an my 
 fader, he say dat Docteur Weellis is starving 
 Frangois to deat dat w at he say. De 
 docteur say dat de fever, w en it doan get 
 no nourishmen , goin wear itself out, but 
 my fader has seen Frangois, he wen to 
 see him las evenin , and w at he say is 
 dat de fever is nourishin itself on Frangois, 
 an it is Frangois dat will wear out de firs . 
 Oh, it is hard not to mek mistek in dose 
 fever ! " 
 
 It was hard not to make mistakes. But 
 the thought of young Tiblier, overcome by 
 exposure and scantier fare than that usual to 
 Creole frugality, pitted against the relentless 
 malarial fever, Jourde could have shaken 
 Willis with one vigorous, plump arm. He 
 had great forbearance with youth, had 
 Jourde, but not with youth that clung to 
 theories which he himself had abandoned 
 twenty years ago. He knew Frangois a 
 brave lad ; it was a pity that the inexperi 
 enced, fogyish Willis must learn at his 
 expense. Ah, well, it was a great pity;
 
 TALES 139 
 
 Frangois had a little family to leave. Jourde 
 roused himself. Too true a physician at 
 heart openly to criticise a confrere, he still 
 dared give Antoine little hope. 
 
 " I am sure that Dr. Willis will do every 
 thing he can," he said earnestly. " He is 
 conscientious, there is no doubt ; he will do 
 the best he knows." 
 
 " Yes, he say dat himself," replied Antoine 
 doubtfully, as he rose to take his leave, " an 
 me, too, I t ink dat he means well. But it 
 is little matter w at you mean if you are mak 
 ing mistek. Madame Frangois, she is sure 
 dat de docteur is right; she is satisfy, dat is 
 one good t ing. But I wish, me, dat we had 
 some oder docteur at Pontomoc." 
 
 Jourde accompanied Antoine fils to the 
 landing, where they lingered a little to dis 
 cuss the best treatment for certain ailing 
 poultry, and kindred items ; for Jourde s 
 neighbors had learned to depend on his 
 advice and surgical skill. But when the flash 
 of Antoine s noiseless paddle had disap 
 peared down the bayou, Jourde hastened 
 back to his little laboratory and buried 
 himself in his books. 
 
 He did a great deal of thinking as the 
 days went on, and read his medical journals 
 more closely than ever. They were the only 
 links he allowed himself with the profession
 
 140 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 he loved. Through them he followed all the 
 discoveries, all the new lines of treatment 
 that he could never test, espousing this 
 theory, condemning that, with all the pas 
 sionate vehemence in which a disabled vet 
 eran, watching the battle, exults or fumes at 
 the movements of those in command. 
 
 The news of Frangois grew more discourag 
 ing to all his friends, and it did not surprise 
 Jourde to learn, about ten days later, that 
 young Tiblier had succumbed. 
 
 " He should have had nourishment," mur 
 mured Jourde, in the laboratory on his return 
 from Francois s funeral. " A diet of milk, 
 sponging. He could have been saved, yes, 
 he could have been saved." 
 
 Old Jourde s changed habits began to make 
 their impression. The rich sunburn faded 
 from his good, chubby face, and he almost 
 forgot his garden, with its grape-vines and its 
 fig-trees. True, he still sat out on the old 
 bench to smoke his twilight pipe, but his 
 mind was back with his old comrades in the 
 old New Orleans haunts. 
 
 It was while he was sitting there one even 
 ing, letting his pipe die out in his hand, that 
 Antoine fils came running up to him in 
 breathless haste. 
 
 " You mus come," he panted, forgetting 
 even to bear his head. " My moder is ver
 
 TALES 141 
 
 sick. I come here, for dere is no time to go 
 for de docteur. Come ! " 
 
 Jourde sprang to his feet. " What is it? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Oh, I doan know," cried Antoine, wring 
 ing his hands. " My fader is wid her, an 
 they sen me here. She is ver sick de 
 chill, Adele, my wife, say ; she try to make 
 her warm. Her hands are all blue, an her 
 face look oh, her face it look like dead! 
 Come, monsieur, come quick ! " 
 
 But Jourde had sat down again. Antoine 
 did not notice that his voice was dry and 
 hoarse. 
 
 " Go for your doctor," he heard Jourde 
 say. " Go at once, you may not be too late. 
 I I cannot come. I am out of practice." 
 
 " You will not come," gasped Antoine, 
 scarcely comprehending what Jourde said. 
 " Not come O mon Dieu! " 
 
 "Go!" cried Jourde fiercely. "Hurry, 
 man, do you hear ! The tide will be with 
 you to the village. You will be in time." 
 
 " Me an my fader doan like de way he 
 tek care of Frangois," Antoine objected, still 
 hesitating. " We t ink " 
 
 " Go ! " shouted Jourde, stamping his foot. 
 " Be quick, if you don t want to be late ! 
 Go ! " and Antoine, overawed, obeyed. 
 
 " He ll be cramming ice down her throat !
 
 142 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 I know him," thought Jourde bitterly, when 
 Antoine was gone. " Crushed ice, the idiot, 
 with the chill already on ! Bathing her in 
 alcohol " he shuddered. " Thank Heaven, 
 he ll probably be too late. Poor Antoine, he 
 takes it very hard poor boy!" Jourde 
 jumped up and went into his laboratory. 
 
 Did he forget that he was " out of prac 
 tice " ? Then why did he repeat, " It would 
 be murder another murder; this is duty 
 a duty from God himself," as if he felt the 
 need of reassurance, all the way to Madame 
 Manuel s bedside? For Jourde s pipe lay 
 forgotten on the bench under the fig-tree that 
 night, pearled with the heavy summer dew. 
 Jourde was at Manuel s, fighting with hot 
 drinks and stimulants against a congestive 
 chill. When Antoine fils returned with Dr. 
 Willis, Jourde had been before him two good 
 hours. 
 
 A new sign appeared in the village, bear 
 ing the legend, " Hippolyte Jourde, M.D., 
 Physician and Surgeon." It caused a great 
 stir among the townspeople, coming as it did 
 a few days after the news of Madame Man 
 uel s recovery. This cure was considered 
 little less than miraculous by a community 
 accustomed to seeing disease baffle such med 
 ical skill as could afford to bury itself so
 
 TALES 143 
 
 far from the centres of science. From the 
 day that he opened his office, Dr. Jourde s 
 hands were full. 
 
 And Jourde was happy. The curious ex 
 pression of self-distrust had vanished from 
 his eyes, and in its stead there shone a burn 
 ing eagerness, as if he would make up in a 
 day all that he had lost during his self-im 
 posed exile. His dress, too, was transformed, 
 and the only garment which this trim doctor 
 inherited from " old Jourde " was the broad- 
 brimmed hat. 
 
 Stories of his former achievements began 
 to be known, and many guesses were made 
 at the mystery of his long retirement, but as 
 they never came from any one who knew, 
 they bore little truth and less authenticity. 
 
 Toward the end of August, the principal 
 hotel-keeper of Pontomoc set a large force of 
 men at work to strengthen the breakwater in 
 anticipation of the annual storm. The heat 
 was intense, and the work lagged until a 
 rising tide frightened the men and they fell 
 to for the best that was in them. The hotel 
 stood quite on the Gulf, and was protected 
 from wash of the tide only by its breakwater. 
 
 It came to be a dangerous occupation, this 
 strengthening the breakwater; for the first 
 row of loosened piles gave and crunched 
 against the second with every wave. It had
 
 144 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 been the intention of the hotel manager to 
 drive an outer row of posts, but this was 
 scarcely begun when the men were forced to 
 give up and hastily lash the rest together with 
 chains. It was in this task that Emil Georget 
 almost lost his life. Between the waves, he 
 had been working among the others with 
 ropes and chains and spars, but there came 
 one wave for which Emil was not prepared. 
 The rest of the men sprang away ; he stood, 
 suddenly caught by the arm, between the 
 straining piles. It was only for a moment; 
 the wave fell back and left him freed, 
 stretched out on the beach as he had fallen, 
 but his arm was a hopeless mass. 
 
 There was an immediate summons for Dr. 
 Jourde, but he was out, and Dr. Willis was 
 taken down to the sufferer at once. 
 
 " I have no instruments for this," he said, 
 when he saw the condition of Georget s arm. 
 " We will have to wait for Dr. Jourde, but I 
 can make him comfortable until then." 
 
 Emil had been laid on the side gallery of 
 the hotel, and young Willis was bending over 
 him as Jourde came up carrying his instru 
 ments. 
 
 " He suffered so that I ve just given him 
 morphine," Willis explained nervously. 
 
 " You eenjected eet?" 
 
 " In the arm."
 
 TALES 145 
 
 Jourde s eyes nailed the younger man. 
 
 " Ze eenjured arm? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " Of course, where it was need " 
 Something in Jourde s face closed the sen 
 tence. 
 
 Emil s voice rose entreatingly. Jourde 
 went over to him and made a careful exam 
 ination, in spite of the sufferer s protests that 
 he wanted to be put out of his misery. 
 
 " E promise e will help me," Emil groaned, 
 seeking out Willis with his eyes, " but de 
 t ings e do doan do no good oh, I can 
 stan dis, me, I can , I can ." 
 
 <( Be brave, man," Jourde cried perempto 
 rily, in French. " Have courage. Nothing 
 can help you unless you first help yourself. 
 Make up your mind to go through this with 
 out anything. You see that the things don t 
 help you. Come, man, be brave ! " 
 
 There was something magnetic in this 
 quaint, plump doctor when he roused him 
 self. Emil said: "Monsieur know bes ." 
 
 But Jourde felt like a craven. He knew 
 that " the things," if properly applied, \vould 
 bring relief; and he made his simple prepa 
 rations in the haste of a man who doubts him 
 self. Willis helped him with angry deftness. 
 To his eyes, this old surgeon was a brute. 
 
 As they bound the unresisting patient to 
 the improvised operating-table, Jourde felt
 
 146 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE" 
 
 that he could now do his part without flinch 
 ing, but at the last moment he could not 
 restrain a glance into Emil s face. 
 
 " We will use ze anaeszetic," he said qui 
 etly, and the operation was delayed while he 
 arranged the appliances. 
 
 Through all the strained apprehension of 
 the next fifteen minutes the old doctor felt an 
 exultant thrill to see that his hands had not 
 forgotten their craft 
 
 The operation went well. It was pauseless 
 work, and when it was done young Willis 
 drew a long breath. He raised his eyes to 
 find the older man still watching. It was 
 not till Emil s eyelids trembled open for a 
 moment that Jourde answered Willis s glance 
 with inexpressible relief and joy. Then his 
 face changed. Something beyond Willis 
 held his eyes, and the younger man can never 
 forget the look. He hurried to Jourde, and, 
 putting a firm arm around him, drew him into 
 a chair. 
 
 " Eet eet s netting," Jourde said, in the 
 monotonous tones of one who wrestles with 
 unconsciousness. 
 
 " Eet weell pass," he murmured, 
 weakly pushing away the restoratives that 
 Willis pressed upon him. "I tell you," 
 Jourde s thought was impatient, but his voice 
 flatted in spite of him, " let me be."
 
 TALES 
 
 Willis "let him be." There was room for 
 much pity in this young practitioner s heart, 
 much appreciation of a pain that he saw and 
 did not ask to understand. It was with no 
 feeling of rebuff that he turned to devote his 
 attention to Georget, who was coming to 
 himself in queer waste places, and felt grate 
 ful for a clasping hand. 
 
 In that moment Jourde s impatient aver 
 sion for Willis gave way to a conviction that 
 the blundering, undeveloped young fellow 
 had possibilities of growth, and was made of 
 hardier stuff than he himself. 
 
 The unceasing vigilance with which Jourde 
 watched over Emil s convalescence caused no 
 little dissatisfaction among his other patients, 
 who found themselves suddenly turned over 
 to young Willis s tender mercies. But when 
 Emil s case had been discharged, they were 
 more impressed to hear that Dr. Jourde s sign 
 had disappeared. 
 
 The evening that he dismissed Emil, 
 Jourde, in frock coat and patent leathers, 
 entered his little hermitage on Bayou Marie. 
 Ten minutes later, in scarlet shirt and bare 
 footed, he emerged, pruning-shears in hand. 
 
 The August storm had worked havoc 
 with his fig-trees, and Jourde went among 
 them contritely, trimming off broken twigs, 
 and bandaging with long strips of sail-cloth
 
 148 FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE 
 
 the limbs that had been shattered by the 
 wind. 
 
 It was here that Willis generally found him, 
 for the younger man fell into a habit of com 
 ing to confer with Jourde, and the old bench 
 under the trees was the scene of many ani 
 mated discussions, and many discourses in 
 Jourde s quaint English. 
 
 " Always at those trees," laughed Willis, 
 coming up the little path from the landing 
 one afternoon. 
 
 Jourde, perched in the croft of a stumpy 
 tree, answered not a word until Willis stood 
 just beneath him ; then he said : 
 
 " Weell you support zees leem one minute, 
 eefyou please, docteur" 
 
 "Got to come off, has it?" said Willis, 
 reaching up and bracing a strong hand against 
 the limb. 
 
 He was often called upon to assist at some 
 such piece of surgery, and while Jourde 
 worked Willis would consult with him in 
 regard to special patients in the neighbor 
 hood. He did this now, talking above the 
 muffled squealing of old Jourde s fine-tooth 
 saw, while Jourde nodded or frowned over his 
 sawing as he listened. The tree dismembered 
 of that limb, he allowed his little round figure 
 to drop limply to earth, and repaired with 
 Willis to his well-loved bench.
 
 TALES 149 
 
 " Zey are eemproving," said Jourde, look 
 ing fondly at the trees. 
 
 "They begin to feel your breath again," 
 replied Willis, smiling. He had come to 
 take an indulgent interest in Jourde s fig-trees. 
 
 "Ah, you know eet, zen ! " cried the old 
 man; adding hastily, "eet ees a super- 
 steecion, zat ees all. Eet ees not true, it 
 cannot be. Eet is too unreasonaable." 
 
 " I suppose it would be hard to prove," 
 Willis admitted, " but I can t help liking it." 
 
 " As for proove, zere ees plenty of zat. 
 Plenty of cases zat might be considered 
 proove. For one, you never see ze feeg-tree 
 leeving at a deserted ouse. Oh, zere ees 
 much proove, but eet ees too unreasonaable ! 
 Zere mus be some ozer cause." 
 
 Willis would have continued the argument, 
 but old Jourde turned the conversation to the 
 subject on which Willis had come to confer, 
 and the young physician soon forgot the fig- 
 trees and the quaint superstition that clung 
 to them. 
 
 It was sunset when Willis untied his pirogue 
 and turned his face down the shimmering 
 Marie, in its golden evening mist. 
 
 " Ah, well," sighed Jourde, as he watched 
 the rise and fall of the glistening paddle, " at 
 least I have courage to be surgeon to my 
 trees. There is other life besides the human.
 
 ISO FIG-TREES OF OLD JOURDE" 
 
 Why should I seek responsibilities that are 
 too great? " 
 
 He turned back along the darkening path. 
 
 As his eyes fell on his gray-limbed, shadowy 
 patients, his good face cleared. 
 
 " It is strange," he murmured, plucking a 
 last year s leaf from the many-trunked pa 
 triarch. "It is very strange they were 
 withering without me." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " It is not true it cannot be ; but it is"
 
 THE CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 PONTOMOC BAY was a grimy map of 
 log-strewn sand-bars. At the mouth of 
 Bayou Porto a schooner was laid up on the 
 bare, muddy bottom of the lesser channel. 
 A slender thread of smoke rose from her 
 deck, where men were starting a charcoal 
 furnace in the lee of the cargo. The north 
 wind, that had driven the water out to deep 
 sea, rattled uselessly in her rigging. 
 
 Up the shrunken main channel a boy and 
 girl were idling in a skiff. The marshes on 
 their uncovered roots made high walls about 
 them, topped with the drift of a storm-tide, 
 or crushed by stranded logs. The girl was 
 paddling softly at the command of the boy, 
 who sat in the bow, holding his gun ready 
 for a shot. They were creeping up on a mud 
 hen that was feeding along the exposed 
 shoals at the base of the marsh. Suddenly 
 the shy-looking brown bird spread its strong 
 wings and, with a derisive scream, wavered 
 swiftly upward into flight. 
 
 The boy fired, but his shot fell short and 
 he shook his fist after the lessening fleck over
 
 152 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 the marsh. " I wouldn t mind losing you, you 
 imp," he cried, " if you didn t taunt me with 
 it. But I ll hurt you yet." 
 
 " Don t try any more, Bert," pleaded the 
 girl. " You ll never hit one, and we ve 
 wasted too much time already. I have lots 
 to do at the store to-day if I don t finish 
 posting my books father will be so angry, 
 and if you don t start the men to work on 
 these logs before he gets back " she gave 
 a strong sweep with her oar as she spoke. 
 
 The boy, who had just taken the empty 
 shells from his gun, let it clatter down 
 unloaded beside him, and turning caught her 
 hands. " You ve cared long enough whether 
 father was angry," he declared. " Ever 
 since you were born you ve done nothing 
 but care, and since I was born I ve done 
 nothing but care, and since mother first saw 
 father she has done nothing but care, and it s 
 time it all stopped. You re eighteen years 
 old. Did you ever have a minute of fun in 
 your life? If you did it was before I was 
 born. I ve never seen any. There s not a 
 nigger in Pontomoc that has worked like us 
 or skimped like us. Where does the money 
 go that the new mill makes? Where does the 
 money go that the store makes ? Where does 
 the charcoal money go? You ask anybody 
 in Pontomoc if Robert Norton is a poor man."
 
 TALES 153 
 
 The girl drew her hands from the grasp 
 that crushed them against the oar, and laid 
 them imploringly upon her brother s. 
 
 " Bert," she said, " remember how mother 
 keeps saying that there s something none of 
 us understand, remember how it hurts her 
 when we are impatient" 
 
 " Oh, Elizabeth," the boy cried, " don t 
 talk to me about mother; I ve given up for 
 her sake and given up for her sake and given 
 up for her sake, until he thinks there is 
 nothing I cannot be made to do. Remem 
 bering that he was decently thoughtful once 
 when he was making love to her may make 
 it easier for her to stand him, but I tell you 
 I ve never seen him any way but the way he 
 is now, and when he capped everything by 
 putting you down in that hole of a store to 
 keep books, just to spy on poor Stewart, I 
 made up my mind not to turn my hand over 
 again to please him." 
 
 The girl looked up along the desolate, 
 uplifted marshes to the dazzling blue of the 
 sky. "I don t mind any more," she said. 
 
 Mr. Stewart has been very kind." 
 
 "That s not the question," said Bert 
 doggedly. They were silent a moment, and 
 over the marsh there settled down to them 
 the tinkle of a cow-bell from the hidden 
 shore. Bert touched his sister s arm and
 
 154 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 pointed ahead to a black dot bobbing up 
 and then disappearing from the surface of 
 the water. "Do you see that duck?" he 
 whispered. " Now, just try if you can paddle 
 softly for once and give me a fair shot." 
 
 Elizabeth glanced forward and was just 
 dipping her paddle, when they heard the 
 strenuous thud of approaching oars and the 
 black dot disappeared for good. 
 
 "Darn the luck!" growled Bert; "the 
 fool might have known somebody would be 
 hunting when there s such a low tide." 
 
 Elizabeth bent nervously to her paddling. 
 " That sounds like father," she said. 
 
 "But you know very well it isn t," retorted 
 the boy. " If he had started from the head 
 of the bayou before daybreak he couldn t be 
 here yet." 
 
 As if in answer, a skiff leaped toward 
 them round a curve in the marsh. The tall, 
 gray boatman scarcely looked to the right 
 or to the left, but, reaching his long, insati 
 able oars tensely after the water, threw his 
 gnarled body forward and back, forward and 
 back, forward and back. 
 
 The boy and girl sat cowed and waiting. 
 The oarsman almost passed them by, then 
 he stopped mid-stroke and fought against 
 the boiling water. "Are you crazy?" he 
 shouted, "are you blind?" He stretched
 
 TALES 155 
 
 out his hand toward the floating logs in the 
 channel, the logs that were scattered over 
 the shoals and through the marsh. " Don t 
 you see that all I own or hope to own is 
 afloat or stuck in this cursed water and 
 sand? Don t you care whether you have 
 bread to-morrow or your mother starves? 
 Must you shoot the last cent I have into the 
 air, and waste time that is worth dollars? 
 Come ! " He clenched one hard hand round 
 his son s arm and drew the boy on to the 
 seat beside him. " Go ! " and he gave the 
 girl s boat a mighty push up stream. 
 
 Elizabeth bent forward with eyes aflame. 
 " Remember," she cried ; "Bert, remember ! " 
 But Bert looked at the oar on which he was 
 throwing his weight, and she met her father s 
 tortured, impatient gaze. Then the marsh 
 hid them, and she was alone. 
 
 As she rowed onward, it was as if she 
 had suddenly wakened to the actual havoc 
 of the storm. The drifting logs in some 
 places almost filled the channel ; the tide 
 had lifted one unbroken boom sidewise, half 
 upon the marsh ; when she came out in 
 sight of the high banks of the bayou, she 
 saw that the water had been above them too, 
 scattering its freight along them. A few 
 red-shirted men, routed out by her father s 
 early summons, were already rafting together
 
 156 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 the floating logs, and there was something 
 of Norton s forced haste in the way they 
 pounded the iron " dogs " into the wood 
 with flashing axes, waded hip deep in the 
 numbing water, or leaped dripping from log 
 to log with the clanking chains. It was hard 
 work, but necessary, and familiar enough to 
 Elizabeth ; yet she resented more keenly than 
 ever the needless stress with which every 
 thing was pushed under the direction of her 
 father. What gave him the power to bend 
 every one to his purpose? What had turned 
 that indomitable will on this long, fierce 
 hunt for money? Her counsel to Bert had 
 taken the last of her forbearance, and Bert s 
 words repeated themselves to her, burdened 
 with all the mysterious, uncalled-for hardship 
 of their lives: "Ask anybody in Pontomoc 
 if Robert Norton is a poor man." 
 
 At the landing where Elizabeth left her 
 boat, another force of men were working, 
 aided by half the loafers of the village. The 
 heavy flat boat which ran as a ferry across 
 the bayou had been grounded far inshore, 
 and the crowd was prying and dragging to 
 get it back within reach of some ordinary 
 tide. Elizabeth saw with misery that they 
 redoubled their efforts as she came up. Mr. 
 Stewart, at the store, was the only man in 
 Pontomoc who went his quiet way unstartled
 
 TALES 157 
 
 by the approach of Robert Norton or his 
 children. 
 
 Stewart was at work in the deserted store, 
 weighing out and wrapping up pounds and 
 half-pounds and quarter-pounds of various 
 groceries, ready for the petty custom of the 
 workmen when the evening rush should 
 come. As Elizabeth entered, he came 
 around the counter to shake hands with her. 
 
 "And how are you this morning?" he 
 asked, as he always did, " and how is Mrs. 
 Norton?" 
 
 " As usual," Elizabeth answered, scarcely 
 touching his hand. His gentle, staid courtesy 
 had come to be a refuge to her at ordinary 
 times, but when overwrought by thought of 
 her father she could not bear it. Stewart 
 had been crushed under Norton s feet more 
 cruelly than the rest of Pontomoc. 
 
 "Has the storm done much damage?" he 
 went on easily. " I haven t been out to see, 
 but I notice that everybody else has gone 
 down to the bayou to find out what is going 
 on. Do you know, Miss Elizabeth, when I 
 was a boy nobody would have thought of 
 going to the bayou after a storm. It was all a 
 rush for the front beach to see how many 
 bath-houses were gone ; but now the ques 
 tion is if the logs have broken loose" 
 
 " They have broken loose," said Elizabeth
 
 158 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 very slowly, " and I wish they could never 
 be rafted together again." 
 
 Stewart did not heed her. Since they had 
 been thrown upon each other s mercy in the 
 little store, he had been studying her, and 
 he knew that sometimes her moods of revolt 
 were soothed if he just talked on and on. 
 
 " I am an old-fashioned man," he said, 
 going to the door and looking down the 
 shady, silent street. " Business had no at 
 tractions for me until necessity picked me up 
 and threw me into it, as one might say ; but 
 even I can see what a wonderful thing your 
 father is doing for poor old Pontomoc. Why, 
 look here ! " He went back behind the 
 counter, unlocked the till, picked up a hand 
 ful of pennies and jingled them in the air. 
 " Do you know that it is only since your 
 father has owned the store that we have had 
 pennies here? How could we sell things at 
 small profit when we were content to make 
 change within five cents? " 
 
 Elizabeth laughed dryly. " Be careful 
 that you don t lose one of those pennies," 
 she suggested ; " if you do you ll have to 
 cheat somebody out of one to make up for 
 it, and you ll not like that." 
 
 Stewart let the dingy things slide into the 
 till and walked hastily to where Elizabeth 
 had perched herself at the high, box-like
 
 TALES 159 
 
 desk. She looked dully at his fine, thin, re 
 monstrating face. 
 
 " Don t you know," he begged, " that it 
 will be much pleasanter if you do not talk 
 like that? " 
 
 The girl dropped her chin in her hand and 
 turned away from him. She had a strong 
 face, like her father s. " If you fancy," she 
 said, in a low voice, " that it is pleasanter in 
 one way than another, you must think 
 strangely of me." 
 
 " Of you?" 
 
 " Do you think every kind, thoughtful 
 thing you have done for me has not cut me 
 like a knife? Do you think it is pleasant 
 for me even to look in the face of the man 
 my father has wronged?" 
 
 " You re mistaken," cried Stewart, with a 
 flush of pain. " Your father did what any 
 Northern man would have done. I showed 
 my incapacity, and he followed up his busi 
 ness rights." 
 
 He caught a glimpse of the hot color rush 
 ing to her averted face, and then she buried 
 her forehead on her arms. 
 
 " Oh, you are cruel to the North," she 
 said, in a muffled voice. " Everybody knows 
 how he followed up his business rights. 
 This store is yours. I don t care what tricks 
 of law or business say it s not."
 
 160 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 "Nothing belongs to the incapable," Stew 
 art answered. 
 
 "You are not incapable. Do you think 
 if you were, father would have you here? 
 You are only honest." 
 
 Stewart gave one apprehensive glance out 
 at the empty street, then laid his hand on the 
 girl s bowed shoulder. " Oh, you poor 
 child," he said, " I am not honest. I am 
 breaking trust every day." 
 
 Elizabeth looked up full of incredulous 
 questioning. Her eyes met his and brimmed 
 slowly with unwonted tears. 
 
 " Don t pity me," he said gently, taking 
 away his hand. " I never meant to pain you 
 with it, but now I wish I could show you how 
 knowing and loving you have made up for 
 everything. Don t pity me." 
 
 Elizabeth leaned toward him with a face in 
 which all the depths of love and sorrow were 
 stirred. 
 
 Outside came a rattle of hoofs. " Stewart ! " 
 shouted Norton s voice. 
 
 The girl opened her ledger. " God pity 
 us both," she said. 
 
 " Get on to this horse," said Norton, as 
 Stewart hastened to the door, " and ride out 
 the old country road and send me every one 
 of my men that is chopping in the woods. 
 Have them come here for spades and shovels,
 
 TALES 161 
 
 and then report at the mill. Those that don t 
 get there by noon will be turned off. I ve 
 got to cut a deeper channel to the mill. 
 At this tide no logs can get in, and we ve got 
 to saw night and day till our big order is off, 
 if we have to carry the logs by hand. Don t 
 spare yourself or the horse. Be back at ten 
 o clock I ve work for you to-day." 
 
 " And the store? " asked Stewart, his white 
 hand on the pommel. 
 
 Norton s eyes cursed him. " I ll see to 
 that," he said. 
 
 For the first time in their connection 
 Stewart quailed, and, thinking only of Eliza 
 beth, jumped into the saddle. As he galloped 
 away the girl came out at her father s call. 
 
 " You ll have charge here to-day," said 
 Norton. " Work at the books and don t let 
 customers cheat you. I need your boat, so 
 you ll stay until you are called for." 
 
 " Very well," said Elizabeth. 
 
 Norton strode away towards the bayou as 
 if he were pursued. Elizabeth watched him, 
 regardless of whether he looked back or not. 
 Her sad new joy gave her a deeper under 
 standing of what her mother had borne, and 
 of the constant illumined patience in which 
 she had lived. Her father s forward-stretch 
 ing figure pressed out of sight beneath the 
 live-oaks, but the passionate strain of his face
 
 162 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 and voice haunted the girl. If, in other years, 
 all of that force had been given to love, it was 
 not strange that the answering love had 
 endured, bearing all things, believing all things, 
 hoping all things. Elizabeth had been very 
 tender of her mother s faithfulness. She had 
 set her face to lines of patience, to save her 
 mother from pain. She had laughed when 
 anger choked her, to tide her mother over the 
 endless harrying of their days. How she had 
 pitied her mother ! But she had never trusted 
 with her. Now, with a feeling that her grasp 
 of life had broadened, she found herself 
 believing in her father because he once had 
 loved. Yet his face had never been so ruth 
 lessly hard before. 
 
 Sleep-loving Bayou Porto and tranquil old 
 Pontomoc knew no rest from the spur of 
 Norton s presence. Now in his skiff, now 
 tearing from the village to the mill on horse 
 back, he seemed to be in all places, and even 
 when he left a group of men they felt no les 
 sening of tension, but expected each instant 
 the sting of his voice behind them. The 
 bayou was alive with shouts of workmen and 
 the ringing of their tools. At the mill the 
 force which Stewart had raised scattered in 
 eagerly and fell to work. By eleven o clock 
 all of the gang except its foreman were 
 digging in the trench. Stewart was there in
 
 TALES 163 
 
 temporary command, but shovelling away like 
 the rest. He noticed that the men kept glanc 
 ing up a little apprehensively in the direction 
 from which the foreman should be cominer. 
 
 o 
 
 " Tears like Tom Largeon is a-takin of his 
 time," one fellow kept repeating nervously. 
 " Tears like he might a-knowed the old man 
 wouldn t stand no triflin to-day." 
 
 "What do you think is keeping him?" 
 Stewart asked. " I saw his boy, and he said 
 Largeon was at home and he would tell him." 
 
 One of the quiet Creoles turned his keen, 
 close-set eyes on Stewart. " An you didn 
 ear im ride off de wrong way t rough de 
 woods on dat lil pony of him, a-hollerin ? " 
 
 " Was that he?" asked Stewart. 
 
 " Yas," answered the Creole, " all de boy 
 in de woods dey know Largeon w en e call." 
 
 " Did you hear him? What do you make 
 of it?" Stewart asked his next neighbor, 
 the anxious man. " He couldn t have been 
 drunk." 
 
 " Well, I hain t seen him right hollerin 
 drunk for twenty year, but I low he could 
 ha been drunk if he d a-wanted tuh," the 
 anxious man returned. " But hit looks like 
 Tom Largeon has been a-workin for the ole 
 man too long to be a-gettin drunk w en he 
 knows in reason that the logs is loose, even 
 if he did git mad at the ole man s faultin him
 
 1 64 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 yesterday; an I disremember ever a-seeing 
 the ole man so nigh clean foolish over the 
 logs as he is this mornin . Gee " the man s 
 mouth shut like a spring. 
 
 "No talking! You re all losing time!" 
 fell Norton s voice from the bank. " Where s 
 Largeon? Didn t you see him, Stewart?" 
 
 " I left word for him, and you can depend 
 on Largeon," Stewart answered ; " he ll be 
 here." 
 
 Norton ground his teeth together in a con 
 quering physical effort for calmness. Then 
 he beckoned to Stewart. " You are not used 
 to managing men," he said, in a checked 
 voice, " and you don t know how to get the 
 best work out of them as I do, or even Lar 
 geon ; but you must keep them from playing 
 off altogether, and losing their time in talk, 
 until Largeon comes. He is taking advan 
 tage of my situation to play off himself, but 
 he ll learn better. Keep them all thinking 
 that I ll be here the next minute," and then, 
 with a feW" directions about the work itself, 
 Norton was off again, taking the boat and 
 leaving his horse hitched to a tree. 
 
 The mastery of will over the wrath of a 
 strong nature is sometimes more terrible to 
 see than an outbreak of passion, and Nor 
 ton s quiet, combined with the strange look 
 of torture in his eyes, sent Stewart back to
 
 TALES 165 
 
 the men with a new, besetting fear for Eliza 
 beth. There was something wrong that her 
 father himself recognized, in his body, soul, 
 or mind. He was struggling against some 
 thing within himself. 
 
 Outside of the bayou, off a sandy point 
 that jutted into the bay, Bert had charge of 
 one of the gangs of logging men. Norton s 
 house stood on another point, across a little 
 inlet, but Norton had not taken time to go 
 home, although since the night before, when 
 the storm caught him at an upper logging 
 camp, he had worked ceaselessly without rest 
 or food. His wife had spent the morning at 
 the window with a field-glass, watching the 
 bay and bayou. For her they were not 
 merely the setting, but were sentient actors 
 in the fate-driven tragedy of her husband s 
 life. She saw him come and go ; once she 
 saw Bert appeal to him, trying, she supposed, 
 to suggest some different plan of work ; fail 
 ing, the boy went on sullenly, unlike the other 
 men. Father and son were both in the cold, 
 steel-gray, sparkling water, when Bert sud 
 denly threw his axe into the boat and turned 
 half staggering toward the beach. She could 
 see Norton shout at him and Bert keep on 
 without noticing. When he reached the 
 sand, he dropped down where the men were 
 dragging with their grappling hooks at the
 
 1 66 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 stranded logs. Norton followed, picked the 
 boy up, carried him back to the boat, and 
 rowed with him toward the house. She 
 knew what had happened. Bert had taken a 
 chill. 
 
 She met them at the door without a word, 
 and to Bert s half-faint perception she had 
 never looked so tall, pale, large-eyed, and 
 executive. There was something cruel to 
 him in the swift deftness of her touch as she 
 helped his father get him into bed. The 
 boy wondered dizzily if two of the glis 
 tening, compassionless, unceasing saws at the 
 awful mill would not chafe him and ply him 
 with hot drinks and plasters in just as sympa 
 thetic a way. He could have cried for a 
 little mothering, the sweet, tender ways that 
 had been his comfort always. But once, 
 when he threw them both aside impatiently 
 and tottered to his feet and almost fell, she 
 cried out to his father, " Robert ! Robert ! " 
 in the soft, piercing mother-cry that makes 
 the heart stand still. When Norton laid him 
 back on his bed she threw herself beside the 
 boy, kissing his cold hands and bluish, sunken 
 cheeks, and telling him to lie still, as if he 
 felt that he could ever move again. He 
 smiled at her feebly and was content. When 
 she raised her head Norton had gone. 
 
 Throwing a final covering over Bert, she
 
 TALES 167 
 
 ran out and overtook her husband half-way 
 to the boat. 
 
 " You re not leaving him? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes," said Norton, without slackening 
 speed. 
 
 "To get the doctor?" she asked, linking 
 her arm into his and hastening beside him, one 
 hand clutched tight in the folds of her dress. 
 
 " No," answered Norton, trying roughly to 
 shake himself free. " Bert will be all right 
 in two or three hours ; it s simply a chill 
 from the cold water. He takes it like a 
 baby ; I ve worked through plenty like it. 
 Don t drag on me. I must get back." 
 
 Mary Norton dropped his arm and stepped 
 in front of him. The patience that had 
 lasted almost twenty years was burned from 
 her eyes like a film ; they shone on him clear 
 and wide with wrath. " What are you getting 
 back to?" she asked. 
 
 "Work," said Norton grimly, and then 
 her new face caught him and puzzled him. 
 "Why, Mary," he began, in a gentler voice. 
 
 "What are you working for?" she de 
 manded. "My comfort? Look at me!" 
 She swept her arms apart over her faded 
 calico dress and thin, worn figure. Then she 
 pointed to the house. "His comfort? Oh, 
 he has a happy life, a care-free, boyish life 
 to bless his father for ! Do you remember
 
 1 68 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 how you lived when you were a boy, what 
 freedom you had, and opportunities? Do 
 you remember the schools you had and the 
 friends you had? And Elizabeth does it 
 cost you this effort to keep her where she is, 
 the jest and the scorn of the town? Robert 
 Norton, I have kept my peace too long, and 
 now you shall tell me what it means." 
 
 As Norton listened to her a slow anguish 
 rose and conquered the driven look on his 
 face. All the tension of his muscles relaxed. 
 He put his hand to his head in a motion of 
 utter weariness and spoke to her in a broken 
 voice. 
 
 " Man*," he said, and that was all. 
 
 " I am waiting," she answered. For a 
 moment they looked each other in the eyes, 
 his pitiful with appeal, hers unrelenting. 
 
 Suddenly she stretched out her arms to 
 him. " Tell me what it is, Robert," she 
 pleaded. " Since we were married you have 
 been keeping something from me. I felt it 
 in the first kiss you gave me when you came 
 home to marry me. Haven t you seen how 
 I have waited and trusted you ? Haven t I 
 been faithful enough to deserve trust too? 
 Oh, Robert, it would be easier for you to 
 bear it if I were helping you ! I know it s 
 nothing wrong. I don t care whether it is 
 anything wrong, only tell me, tell me ! "
 
 TALES 169 
 
 Norton lifted up his hand to check her. 
 " I m so tired, Mary," he said simply, "and 
 I ve so much to do to-day. I don t know 
 what you mean by my having a secret. 
 When have I ever thought of anything but 
 you and the children? What could I work 
 for except to make you happy? I thought 
 you always knew that I meant everything for 
 the best. You all do work hard, dear, but 
 don t I too? By and by we ll get into easier 
 times and take things easier, if I could only 
 put aside enough to make you safe in a rainy 
 day. I I don t know you, Mary, when you 
 reproach me like this. You take all the 
 nerve for work out of me, but I must go on." 
 
 In her appeal Mary had gone close to her 
 husband, but he seemed too physically weary 
 to touch her. Now she clung to him a 
 moment entrcatingly. " You will go and get 
 the doctor, just for my sake, won t you?" 
 she begged ; "and then come back to me and 
 rest. You are so worn, and the work will go 
 on without you." 
 
 Norton gathered himself into his old tense 
 ness, and freed himself from her impatiently. 
 " The doctor ! " he cried. " Didn t I tell you 
 that Bert doesn t need a doctor? Don t you 
 know that we can t afford unnecessary ex 
 pense? And I must work, or all that we own 
 will go to ruin. Don t tempt me !
 
 i;o CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 The hunted look had come back to him 
 intensified. His wife turned from it and 
 groped her way toward the house, blinded by 
 her tears. Suddenly Norton followed her 
 and caught her close. 
 
 " Don t you see how hard you make it for 
 me ? " he asked, with passion. " Don t you 
 love me? Don t you trust me any more?" 
 
 She let her head fall against his breast and 
 lifted to him a face which was brilliant with 
 supreme renunciation. Hope, and the hope 
 of hope, were dead, but faith abided. " I trust 
 you, I love you," she whispered. " Kiss me 
 and go." And Norton kissed her wildly, 
 snatching the time like a thief. 
 
 The force at the mill had worked in the 
 ditch until there were but a few yards of 
 bar dividing them from the low water in 
 the channel. The wind had held north all 
 the morning, although it had grown light, but 
 now it seemed to be veering, and Stewart 
 urged the men to increased effort, for he 
 knew that if it reached the east or south it 
 would help the buffeted tide back into the 
 shallow inland waters. Their work would 
 seem lost if they had to leave it unfinished to 
 be taken up in some other time of stress. 
 Unfortunately the men were now so far out 
 from the bank that by straightening they 
 commanded a long stretch of the bayou with
 
 TALES 171 
 
 no Norton in sight. They were tired, and 
 even the certainty that they would be called 
 the more severely to account when he came 
 did not weigh much against the godsend of 
 his long absence, and they fell into a jogging 
 gait that was maddening to Stewart. 
 
 "It s mighty queer what s tuck em," said 
 Tilman, the easy-going man who had the 
 most unbounded time for anxiety; " if Lar- 
 geon was here, hit wouldn t look so strange 
 fer the ole man to stay away ; an if the ole 
 man was here we wouldn t have no incline- 
 ation to be a-studyin bout Largeon ; but 
 with em both gone, hit pears like we re 
 kind o lost. Don t you sense hit that-a-way, 
 Mr. Stewart? I declare I d like to know 
 what s run off with Largeon." He raised to 
 his tiptoes in one more survey down the 
 bayou for Norton, and up the bank where 
 the road ran alongside and Largeon s 
 mounted figure would be visible from far. 
 " Gee whittakers, boys, they re both a-com- 
 in ," he shouted. " I bet you my doag the 
 ole man gets in ahead." 
 
 As if each saw the other, the new-comers 
 strained for their goal ; the men fell to work 
 in earnest, but stretched up again and again 
 for a swift glance at the race ; Tilman alone 
 dropped his shovel and watched unremit 
 tingly, reporting to the rest. Norton, who
 
 172 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 knew the channel too well to glance over his 
 shoulder, did not see him, and Largeon, 
 throwing himself forward over his little mus 
 tang, rode for all he was worth until the 
 lumber drying in the millyard halted him 
 abruptly. With a cracked scream he drove 
 the spurs into his pony and tried to leap the 
 pile of boards. Every man dropped his tools 
 at the sound. Stewart started to run up 
 the bank, but half a dozen men caught him 
 back. 
 
 " Don t touch him," shouted Tilman ; " he s 
 ravin drunk. Let him an the beast fight hit 
 out alone." 
 
 " We must get him off and away," urged 
 Stewart, struggling to free himself. " Norton 
 will land in a minute. Let me go." 
 
 But the men held on to him. " Largeon s 
 mighty slow to mad, but when he s madded 
 or drunk you d just better clear the track," 
 Tilman remonstrated, craning his neck to 
 watch without losing his grip on Stewart s 
 arm. " Lord, but he s a-waxin hit to the 
 pore beast ! Boys, some of you had ought 
 to stop him. He s off n her and a-takin a 
 piece o scantlin to her." 
 
 Stewart flung himself free, but was snatched 
 back by half the men. The other half ran up 
 the bank, roused at last by the shrill outcries 
 of the mustang under Largeon s awful blows.
 
 TALES 173 
 
 Ahead of them, like a resistless bolt from the 
 bayou, rushed Norton. 
 
 " Stop that ! " he shouted. " Stop that ! 
 Let that horse go ! " 
 
 " That s my beast, damn you," whooped 
 Largeon, " and I m a free man to-day, I m a 
 free man ! " 
 
 They faced each other across the leaping, 
 bleeding horse, and all the laborers drew 
 back. Norton s face was gray with furious 
 command : Largeon s whole mighty frame 
 shook with the rebellion that flared in his 
 opened face. 
 
 " Let her go ! " thundered Norton. 
 
 With a yell Largeon loosed the pony, and 
 as she darted from between them, he raised 
 his bloody timber and swung it fair at 
 Norton s head. 
 
 " I m a free man," he shrieked, and as 
 Norton fell he raised the club again, but it 
 dropped to his side and he ran into the 
 woods. " I ve done it again," he cried 
 madly, " I ve done it again ! " 
 
 " After him ! After him ! " shouted Stewart, 
 and a dozen men dashed off into the woods. 
 The rest crowded round Norton s prostrate 
 figure, while Stewart knelt beside it with a 
 face almost as ghastly as its own. 
 
 " Stand aside," ordered the young man 
 sharply. " Seymour, take the horse I had
 
 174 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 and get the doctor, but don t speak a word 
 to anybody else in the village. Understand?" 
 
 " Stop ! " said a husky voice behind them 
 all, and the men, turning, jumped as one to 
 grapple Largeon. " Leave me alone," he 
 ordered ; " I ve come to stay. Seymour, you 
 get that old French doctor that s just opened 
 his shop by the post-office. Don t bother 
 with the young man he s a fool ; get the 
 old one." 
 
 " Get one of them, and quick," Stewart 
 said, and Seymour galloped off. Largeon 
 pressed in close to Norton. 
 
 " No, he s not quite dead," said Stewart 
 fiercely, " but don t begin to breathe too easy. 
 I doubt if all the doctors in the world can 
 keep you from hanging don t touch him ! " 
 
 But Largeon had his hand on Norton s 
 heart. As he took it away he leaned toward 
 the fallen face. " Old man," he said in a 
 strange, tender voice, "I m afeard there ain t 
 much chance for you this time. You had 
 ought to have knowed me better." Then, as 
 if the long wound on Norton s head had a 
 fascination for him, he made as if to touch 
 it, but recoiled and flung himself on the 
 ground beside the death-like figure, his own 
 rugged form convulsed. 
 
 Stewart gave a bitter sound like a laugh 
 and touched Largeon with his foot. " Keep
 
 TALES 175 
 
 guard of him, boys," he said. " I don t know 
 what s brought him back, but he s likely to 
 make a new break in some direction. Keep 
 guard of him." 
 
 " E will not go," said one of the older 
 Creoles. " E ave somesing on de mind. I ave 
 often t ought, me, dat Largeon ave somesing 
 on de mind, or e couldn stan so much from 
 de ole man." 
 
 Largeon lifted himself squarely. " Yo re 
 right," he said ; " I have had somethin on my 
 mind. When Bob Norton first came down 
 here a-prospectin I guided him in the piney 
 woods and I helped him raft his first pen 
 o logs over to Potosi ; an one day I got 
 tearin drunk, cause the water was cold, an I 
 batted him over the head with a pole until I 
 thought he was dead, an that turned me 
 sober. When he got well he wouldn t say 
 anything about it. He kept me on a-workin 
 for him, but he ain t never been the same man 
 since. That s what I ve had on my mind." 
 His face quivered, but he stared defiantly at 
 Stewart. "An" if you think," he added, "that 
 I m gallows-skeered, yo re way off. I can t 
 be hung too quick to suit me after I ve seed 
 that the right thing s done by Bob Norton." 
 
 The men stood silent in a ring about 
 Norton, Largeon, and Stewart. The clear 
 winter sun beat down on the stacks of odor-
 
 1 76 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 cms lumber, and the shadows of the pine-trees 
 flickered over them. The woods pressed 
 close to the bayou around the stirless mill. 
 
 "And nobody knew of this but you two?" 
 Stewart asked at last. 
 
 " Yes," said Largeon, " the little old French 
 doctor knowed, but I reckon he was used to 
 keepin secrets, an he never told. Nobody 
 knowed he was a doctor then, they say he d 
 made some sort of a oath not to doctor, an 
 he s only just broke it, but his cabin was 
 the only one near, so I took Bob there. The 
 little Frenchman wouldn t touch him, but he 
 told me what to do, so I brought Bob round, 
 an that s why I know he s the man to have 
 now." 
 
 " He s cured some mighty bad cases since 
 he begun to doctor there in town," one of the 
 men ventured, in a subdued voice ; and then 
 silence laid a hand upon them, while they 
 listened for the sound of hoofs. Stewart s 
 thoughts escaped from the man at his feet 
 into an agony of pity for Elizabeth. 
 
 At last they caught the swinging rush of a 
 horse. Largeon started up from the crouch 
 ing guard he had kept by Norton, and every 
 one turned to see the short, chubby French 
 doctor clinging desperately to the saddle. 
 The eager men ran out to meet him. He 
 clambered down and hurried to Norton with
 
 TALES 
 
 177 
 
 a heated face that grew very pale as he knelt 
 by the wounded man, examining him briefly. 
 Stewart and Largeon waited as near him as 
 they dared. He turned to Largeon, laying a 
 hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " I weel do w at I can," he said gravely; 
 " a-ah, ow I was a br-rute you know ze 
 time ! " Then he told Stewart that Norton 
 must be taken home as quickly as possible. 
 
 " Some one should go ahead to prepare 
 Mrs. Norton," Stewart said anxiously, " and 
 some one must go to the village to tell his 
 daughter." 
 
 " Write a word to the girl one of the boys 
 can take it to her an then take her home," 
 said Largeon decisively. " You go yourself 
 to Mis Norton, an tell Bert if you meet up 
 with him on the bayou. Doc here ll lookout 
 for the old man. I ll carry him down to the 
 boat when it s fixed, an then some o the 
 boys can take me along to the lockup. I ll 
 go easy now the old doc is on hand." 
 
 Stewart had torn a leaf from his note-book 
 and was writing on it. " Yes," he said 
 abstractedly, his mind full of its own pain, 
 " I reckon that s as good as we can do all 
 round. Here, Narcisse, take this to Miss 
 Elizabeth, and then shut the store for her and 
 bring her home. And, Narcisse, I can trust 
 you tell her a good deal of how things are,
 
 i;8 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 but don t frighten her do your best. Doc 
 tor, I ll start at once." 
 
 He was hurrying toward the landing when 
 some one caught his arm. " For God s sake," 
 cried Largeon hoarsely, " don t go without 
 saying that you ll keep sending the boys over 
 to tell me how he s comin on. I ll carry him, 
 dead like he is, down to the boat, an I ll never 
 see him again. If he dies I ll hang, if he gets 
 well I ll skip the country. In God s name 
 tell em both, if I go, that I ll never blacken 
 their daylight again." 
 
 " Largeon," said Stewart, with impulsive 
 pity and then the anguish of the rough 
 man dumbed him. No possibility of the 
 future could reach back and change the past, 
 and what comfort could Stewart give out of 
 his quiet, self-controlled life? He passed his 
 hand gently over Largeon s. " I ll tell them," 
 he said, " and I ll keep you posted. Good- 
 by." 
 
 " Good-by," said Largeon, and went back 
 to stay by Norton until the doctor had 
 finished making such a bed as he could of 
 coats and pine-straw in one of the boats. 
 Just as it was finished a party of men from 
 the village came up excitedly, and one of 
 them touched the watcher s arm. 
 
 " I arrest you on charge of assault with 
 intent to kill," said the new-comer.
 
 TALES 
 
 179 
 
 " All right," said Largeon, " but just stand 
 back a minute." And as if he alone had the 
 right, he lifted Norton s limp body and 
 carried it solemnly to the boat. The men 
 \vho were to go with the doctor took their 
 places, and Largeon pushed them off into 
 the returning tide. Then he felt the consta 
 ble s hand on his arm again. With his 
 needless escort surrounding him, he walked 
 back toward the village, the unemployed 
 workmen trailing behind. 
 
 While Stewart was tying his boat at Nor 
 ton s pier, Mrs. Norton came out of the house 
 and down the path as if she expected him. 
 Her face had the calm of one who has seen 
 the end of things. " Tell me out here what 
 it is," she said ; " Bert is very sick and has 
 just begun to doze." 
 
 Stewart told her as mercifully as he could. 
 "I know," she said softly; "come in and 
 help me get ready for him, but be very still." 
 
 Stewart followed her in a sort of awe, and 
 they made what changes were necessary in 
 Norton s room. Then the boat came. Nor 
 ton was carried to his bed, and the house 
 stood in death-like pause while the doctor 
 began his work. Norton s skull was seriously 
 fractured, and splinters of bone would have 
 to be removed. It was just where Largeon s 
 blow had fallen twenty years before. The
 
 1 8o CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 skull had thickened in healing so as to leave 
 a pressure on the brain. Seeing this, the old 
 hermit surgeon, who had scarcely looked at 
 Norton save the once when he had stood 
 apart directing the awkward bandaging of that 
 first wound, now felt himself side by side 
 with Largeon, accountable to all who had suf 
 fered from the awful stress of twenty years. 
 
 Elizabeth s white face appeared in the 
 doorway, frightened yet strong. Her mother 
 sent her up to watch with Bert, who was toss 
 ing from one feverish nap to another, waking 
 just long enough to feel injured and call his 
 mother if he found himself alone. When 
 Elizabeth entered he was lying quietly, with 
 bright roving eyes that fastened upon her 
 without surprise. Finally he spoke. 
 
 "Wasn t it a pity?" he said reminiscently ; 
 " I d sure of had that duck if father hadn t 
 come." 
 
 " Yes, it was a pity," the girl answered 
 sadly, and slipping from her chair she laid 
 her face beside Bert s on the pillow. He 
 reached over and patted her caressingly. 
 
 "What s the matter with my sis?" he 
 asked. "All used up about father again? 
 Don t mind so much ; we always have mother 
 anyway." 
 
 Elizabeth trembled from head to foot. 
 Her mother had told her not to let Bert
 
 TALES 181 
 
 know. Bert s hand rested upon her like 
 Stewart s. She closed her eyes. At last 
 she felt his touch softly slipping away. She 
 sat up, and finding that he had dropped 
 asleep, she stole downstairs. 
 
 There was very little to learn. The doctor 
 worked with the dexterity of one who knew 
 his skill and loved it. Mrs. Norton and 
 Stewart stood by, alertly watchful. The 
 lapping of the ripples on the shore came 
 through the open window like the heart 
 beats of one who listens. Elizabeth went in 
 and took the place that was hers by her 
 mother s side. 
 
 At last the doctor laid by his instruments 
 and motioned to Stewart to follow him. 
 They went outside together and their voices 
 murmured earnestly; then Stewart came 
 back, leaving the doctor with his head sunk 
 on his breast. The two women had been 
 standing at the bedside, hand gripped in 
 hand, but as Stewart entered, Mrs. Norton 
 swayed a little and sank on to a chair. He 
 went to her with a look that was stranger 
 than joy. 
 
 " The doctor tells you to hope," he said, 
 " and not for life only." He paused and 
 looked across to Elizabeth. She stared back 
 almost in terror, but Mary Norton quivered 
 to her feet.
 
 1 82 CAPTOR OF OLD PONTOMOC 
 
 "Do you mean?" she tried to say, but 
 there was only a motion of her lips. Her 
 eyes besought him. 
 
 Stewart steadied himself with his hand on 
 a chair. "Has has he changed in any 
 way since you first knew him?" he began 
 falteringly; but, like one who meets the 
 returning dead, she swept him aside and 
 knelt beside her husband. 
 
 The bay rippled on and the shadows 
 lengthened. There was a tremor over Nor 
 ton s face and he sighed. Once his eyelids 
 fluttered, but life did not look out to say 
 whether it was the soul of youth or manhood 
 that was struggling back. Once he moved 
 his hand slightly, seeking something. She 
 took it in hers as if she feared to frighten it. 
 
 At last, slowly, wonderingly, his eyes 
 opened, and across the gulf of years her 
 lover smiled.
 
 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 THE great mountains peered over one an 
 other s shoulders and watched Georgia 
 Blount at her play. Bald Top, Crab s Claw, 
 and Old Surly stood nearest ; sometimes they 
 seemed so near that Georgia could talk to 
 them, and when a low-hanging cloud shut 
 them out of sight, or the blue autumn haze 
 veiled them softly and held them aloof from 
 her, she felt as other children feel when their 
 friends turn away or refuse to tell what the 
 thoughts are in their eyes. 
 
 A gnarled tree grew at the foot of the bluff 
 which lifted the big dome of Copper Head 
 above the mountain side, and between the 
 roots of this tree Georgia had her playhouse. 
 Day in and day out no one ever came in sight 
 of it except the mountains, but Georgia was 
 never lonely. In the mornings she had to 
 take all her dolls out of their beds of moss 
 and dress them in fresh gowns of summer or 
 autumn leaves or in stiff, fringy costumes of 
 pine needles. She was very much in earnest 
 about her dolls, and yet she sometimes 
 clapped her hands and laughed when they
 
 1 84 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 were dressed and leaning in a long row against 
 one of the roots, they made such an elfin com 
 pany. Some of them had nuts for heads and 
 some of them had acorns. Some of them had 
 been made out of the dry, rounded receptacles 
 of a composite flower from which the florets 
 had fallen and the winged seeds flown away, 
 leaving only a circle of bracts for a collar and 
 a brittle stem with two branches from which 
 the flower ends had been nipped off for arms. 
 These were the most fragile of Georgia s chil 
 dren, and it took a skilful hand to make their 
 toilets without snapping their necks or their 
 bodies or their limbs. Georgia could do it, 
 for she loved them and she had been dress 
 ing them ever since she was big enough to 
 wander off by herself up the mountain side 
 and through the forest which separated the 
 home clearing from the rugged boulder- 
 strewn slope below the playhouse tree and 
 the rock walls of the dome. 
 
 Georgia was much bigger now than when 
 she had begun to fashion dolls for herself with 
 chubby, awkward fingers ; she was so much 
 bigger indeed that she was fourteen years old 
 and might have thought that she was grow 
 ing up if there had been any one to suggest it 
 to her ; but she had seen no other children 
 growing up, and the mountains did not tell 
 her, for they themselves had taken so long to
 
 TALES 1 85 
 
 grow that it never occurred to them that she 
 would not continue to be a little girl for 
 centuries and centuries to come. She had 
 work to do at home now, and that was an 
 interruption, yet every day, before or after 
 work, she managed to slip off toward the 
 forest path. 
 
 Among her dolls there was one made of 
 corncob, and far larger than the others, and 
 this one Georgia dressed as a man. He was a 
 very wicked-looking doll, having deep-black 
 eyes and nose and mouth, which she had 
 burned into his head with a hot iron nail, 
 and it was because he was so different from 
 the rest that she had named him " the fur- 
 eigner," after the way of Southern mountain 
 people in speaking of any stranger who comes 
 among them. "The fureigner" lived in a 
 corner all by himself at the back of the tree, 
 and Georgia always knew that when he came 
 out among the others there was mischief 
 brewing. Sometimes she walked slowly from 
 the tree, gathering leaves and grasses as she 
 went, and then as soon as she could slip 
 away from herself hurried stealthily back, 
 pulled the foreigner out of his corner, 
 dropped him among the other dolls, and ran 
 to her leaf-gathering again, so that she might 
 be surprised when she finally returned and 
 found how he had been ramping up and down
 
 1 86 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 among her mountain people. " Oh, happy 
 kingdom," she always cried, when she caught 
 sight of him, " he have come agin ; and oh, 
 how he do have been a-layin waste the 
 land ! " 
 
 One day, as she stood with her hands held 
 up in horror at a row of mountain people who 
 had fallen prostrate round the savage for 
 eigner, a real stranger came out from the 
 thick forest and stood at the edge of the nat 
 ural opening around the playhouse tree. He 
 saw her at once, barefooted, red-cheeked, with 
 her figured bandana knotted at her throat; 
 and he could hear her speak, but she who 
 should have been as quick-eared as a rabbit, 
 being just as shy, was too intent to notice the 
 stirring of his feet in the sparse dry autumn 
 grass. 
 
 " Folkses ! folkses ! " she cried out, " we s 
 obleeged ter run him off the mounting. He s 
 a fureigner, an he ain t got no right hyar. 
 We s obleeged ter run him off the mounting." 
 
 The man who listened drew a little closer, 
 trying not to make a noise. He knew that 
 he himself was a " fureigner," and he wanted 
 to hear whatever the girl might say, but he 
 laughed right out when he saw that she 
 was pointing at the corncob doll. Georgia 
 jumped, gave a single glance over her 
 shoulder, and ran. It was one thing to plan
 
 TALES 187 
 
 raids on an intruder whom she had dropped 
 into the playhouse behind her own back, but 
 this this was another thing. 
 
 Only a little way from the tree there was 
 a crevice in the bluff which rose behind it. 
 Georgia knew that it wound for a long dis 
 tance between a detached rock and the main 
 bluff, and she slipped into it with such a sense 
 of protection that she stopped a moment to 
 wonder if she had been cowardly to leave her 
 mountain people to two foreigners, and to 
 listen if anything was going on. What she 
 heard was the stranger talking. 
 
 " Now if I were you," he said, " I should 
 just go back where I came from and not 
 disturb a respectable community like this." 
 Georgia peeped round the edge of 
 the rock. He had picked her foreigner up 
 and was smiling into his evil eyes. " So 
 you won t tell me where you come from?" 
 he said. " Oh, well, then, I don t like to, 
 but I ll have to build a prison and put you 
 into it ! " He took his hat off and put it 
 over the corncob foreigner. "If I see you 
 trying to walk off with that calaboose while 
 I m building the jail," he went on threat 
 eningly, " I ll just inform you that your 
 name is Dennis, young man, from that time 
 on." 
 
 The sun, which had been an impartial wit-
 
 1 88 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 ness of this arrest, beat down amiably upon the 
 little mountain people with their queer natural 
 faces, upon the calaboose, and upon a close- 
 cropped black head bent to the building of 
 a jail from jagged bits of stone. And it fell 
 on Georgia s eager face and figure, for bit 
 by bit she had come quite outside of the 
 shadowed crevice so that she might miss 
 nothing that this strange man did and said. 
 But he did not look her way he was too 
 busy building up the jail. 
 
 " Most disgraceful thing I ever heard of," 
 he declared, nodding toward the captive 
 under the hat. "You call yourself a for 
 eigner doll, do you? Don t you know that 
 where the foreigners come from the dolls have 
 long curly hair, and eyes that open and shut, 
 and red mouths, and pink cheeks, and arms and 
 legs that bend just as well as mine do, and 
 they wear fine stockings and shoes, and some 
 of them walk about and say, mam-ma, 
 pa-pa, and their clothes " 
 
 Georgia s breath was coming fast, her lips 
 were parted, and her eyes shone. The young 
 man who was building the jail happened to 
 look up from his work and saw her. " It s 
 so," he said with a little nod. " Did you 
 ever see any like that?" 
 
 " No," said Georgia, shaking her head. A 
 shadow passed over the neighboring moun-
 
 TALES 189 
 
 tains. They had missed all such marvels, 
 too. 
 
 "I have," said the young man, "in the 
 toy-shop windows, but I suppose you have 
 never seen the toy-shops?" 
 
 " No," said Georgia again. She came up 
 to where he was building. " And I never 
 seed a man playin with dolls afore, either," 
 she added. " Doesn t you-uns have no work 
 to do?" 
 
 The man had taken off a box and a bundle 
 of queer-looking sticks which had been slung 
 over his shoulder. Now he left the jail and 
 began unfastening the box. " Perhaps you ll 
 think my work a good deal the same as doll- 
 play," he said. He took two or three boards 
 with pictures on them from the box and 
 leaned them up against the tree. 
 
 " Oh-h ! " breathed Georgia. 
 
 " Those are the dolls I make," he said. 
 
 " But that s the livin face of Jackson Bar 
 ker," she cried, pointing to one of them. 
 " Do you-uns claim ter ha made hit look 
 like that?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered. 
 
 " I wisht you d tell me how." 
 
 The artist smiled. "It s just by trying 
 a good deal as it is with you in making 
 dolls," he explained. 
 
 She went up close and looked at the board
 
 190 
 
 with its bit of canvas tacked on it. Then she 
 turned a puzzled face toward him. " But this 
 hyar s flat" she said, " an yet it looks like 
 hit was standin out. I couldn t do that I 
 couldn t noways make a doll out n a flat 
 piece o wood." 
 
 "Would you like to see me do it?" he 
 asked. 
 
 She nodded silently. 
 
 " Then we ll begin with the foreigner," he 
 said. " I suppose there s no danger in letting 
 him out now that you re here to guard him 
 while I paint." He lifted the hat gingerly 
 with his finger and thumb, and he and Geor 
 gia both laughed as they saw the helpless 
 way in which the corncob doll glared up into 
 the sunlight. Georgia set him up against the 
 tree in the severely upright position which 
 his construction demanded, and then stood 
 by the stranger s elbow, watching. His 
 bunch of brushes, the shining tubes from 
 which he squeezed dabs of color on to his pal 
 ette, the jointed easel which he put together 
 and set up so quickly, and the camp-stool on 
 which he seated himself, were all fascinating 
 accessories to the making of dolls, either flat 
 or round, and she forgot to be afraid. The 
 artist glanced at the corn-shuck clothing of 
 the foreigner and matched it with a mixture 
 of paint which he blended back and forth
 
 TALES 191 
 
 with a brush, while he asked Georgia ques 
 tions about the mountain people. When he 
 began to paint she drew closer and closer 
 until she was leaning at his very elbow. 
 Suddenly she caught her breath. 
 
 " Happy kingdom," she murmured, " you 
 begun it flat an now you ve made him look 
 ter be a-standin out, an I was keepin watch 
 an yet I didn t see you when you did hit ! " 
 
 He turned round to laugh at her, but when 
 he saw that her face was not only surprised 
 but frightened he did not laugh. " I ll paint 
 another, and paint it slower," he said, "and 
 then perhaps you ll see," and, stooping, he 
 picked up the gayest of her dolls. It was 
 dressed in dark-red oak leaves slashed with 
 sumac, and its head was a hickory nut on 
 which she had traced features with the faint 
 red juice of a berry. 
 
 " I ll try to keep a pearter watch," she said 
 gravely, as the young man touched the oak- 
 leaf dress upon the canvas. In spite of his 
 promise he was tempted to work so fast that 
 for a second time she would miss " seeing 
 him do it," but he was afraid that she would 
 run away, and so he began explaining to her 
 how the form began to stand out when he 
 put in the shadows. She partly understood 
 him, and when he finished the doll and began 
 painting a background of rough brown bark
 
 192 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 and shadow behind it she scarcely drew her 
 breath. 
 
 " Oh, I seed you ! I seed you this time ! " 
 she cried at the end, " an I allow I could do 
 hit too." 
 
 " Do you know what I want to do next? " 
 he asked without looking up. " I want to 
 make a picture of you." 
 
 "An put me over where you d look at me 
 an I couldn t see the picter begin to stand 
 out?" she objected. 
 
 "You may come round once in a while 
 and look," the young man promised. This 
 seemed to be the keenest person he had 
 found yet in the mountains, where most of the 
 people in their own obscure way are shrewd. 
 
 She stood a moment pondering. "I ll do 
 hit," she said, " if you-uns ll keep talkin to 
 me bout n them-ar dolls like you was 
 talkin to the fureigner. You know I ain t 
 never seed a real doll. Mammy had one 
 when she was little, cause she lived in the 
 settlement, but my aunt what lives in Crook- 
 neck Cove smashed hits head on a stone, 
 a-playin with hit, so I ain t never seed a 
 doll." 
 
 Her face was very wistful too wistful for 
 the picture that the artist wanted. " Did I tell 
 you about the kind that have eyes that open 
 and shut?" he asked as he chose a brush.
 
 TALES 
 
 193 
 
 Georgia looked at him eagerly. " I wisht 
 you d tell hit over ter me," she said. 
 
 " All right," said the stranger, " I ll tell you 
 about every doll I ever saw" and he began 
 to work. Georgia could not watch the picture 
 of her own face as it stood swiftly out from 
 the fresh canvas on the easel, but her eyes 
 grew each moment softer and brighter, and 
 more bewildering to paint, as they saw another 
 picture all in words unfold against the back 
 ground of the forest. The shadows length 
 ened on the mountains, giving them the look 
 of listening, too, for they had seen no dolls 
 but Georgia s in all their years. Georgia was 
 used to marking the hours by the mountains, 
 as if they were great dials which had been 
 placed in sight so that her mother would not 
 need to scold her for coming home too late, 
 and yet she did not notice how the purple 
 twilight spread from the ravines and rose from 
 slope to slope. The lower spur of Crab s 
 Claw sank beneath it, and that meant that it 
 was time for putting all her dolls to bed, but 
 she was turning the coverlet of a real doll s 
 bed, far in the North. The whole of Crab s 
 Claw sank beneath the golden level of the sun 
 beams, and she should have started home, 
 but she was where a myriad glistening lights 
 were making all the marvellous world as 
 white as day, and groups of people lingered
 
 194 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 by great windows full of toys. The sunset 
 lingered on old Bald Top in the east, just as 
 a patient comrade lingers, and calls again. 
 
 The young man got up from his stool and 
 stuck his brushes through his palette just as 
 Bald Top faded into shadow and only Old 
 Surly lifted its frowning head into the whole 
 glory of the west. He had put the last touch 
 on his picture, and he walked away and looked 
 at it with a contented sigh. Georgia sprang 
 to her feet and went around to see. She 
 was a little numb from sitting still so long. 
 " Happy kingdom, but hit s jus like lookin 
 inter the spring er the water-bucket ! " she cried 
 nervously. " I m right much better favored 
 than the fureigner," she added, glancing down 
 where he had been dropped and forgotten at 
 the side of the tree. It seemed unreal to 
 come back into her little home-made world 
 after all that she had seen. Even her moun 
 tain people as they stared up with their inno 
 cent faces made her heart begin to ache. 
 The sun was out of sight, and the stranger 
 was packing up his box. " Is you-uns goin , 
 too? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he said, " I m going up North 
 where the dolls are ! I wish I didn t have to 
 
 go." 
 
 " But you ve only painted one of the 
 mounting people," she pleaded, pointing
 
 TALES 195 
 
 down to them. It did not seem quite 
 possible that after one such golden day there 
 should be a to-morrow when she would have 
 nothing but her silent mountains and her tiny, 
 silent dolls. 
 
 The stranger looked at the dolls as they lay 
 patiently waiting for their portraits in a row 
 along the root. " And I haven t finished the 
 jail, either," he laughed. " I shall have to 
 leave all that to you. Good-by." He held 
 out his hand. 
 
 Georgia took it mutely. The twilight hush 
 had risen so that it filled the clearing round 
 the playhouse tree. It seemed so pitiful to 
 leave her standing all alone in it that a sudden 
 regret came into the stranger s face. " I m 
 awfully sorry to go," he said. 
 
 A little sob choked Georgia. "Sorry?" 
 she cried, " when you re goin to see them 
 dolls?" 
 
 The stranger put his other hand over the 
 hand of hers he held. " You dear little child," 
 he said, " don t you know that I m going to 
 send one of those dolls to you?" 
 
 " Oh ! " breathed Georgia. The stranger 
 was tramping off into the woods, but the 
 twilight was no longer lonely now. She 
 stood with clasped hands watching until the 
 trees and dimness shut him out of sight. 
 
 The sunset colors lingered, but the moon
 
 196 A LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAID 
 
 rose over Bald Top, and, knowing that even 
 the happiest little girl in all the mountains 
 must not stay out after the light has left the 
 west, it silvered the shadowy path in front of 
 her and led her home.
 
 THE GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 MRS. ANDERSON HAROLD sat in 
 her doorway flinging handfuls of corn 
 to a crowding, elbowing flock of chickens. 
 She was slight and bent, and once in a while, 
 as she raised her eyes to the far spread of 
 wild green hills, her face had a dazed expres 
 sion which the people who knew her had seen 
 in it for years. She seemed to be regarding 
 the world with sad, uninterested surprise. 
 
 When, with the nice precision of a sower, 
 the last handful of corn had been strewn 
 upon the ground, she leaned forward, making 
 a motion of eagerness which contrasted oddly 
 with her immobile features. " Now, State o 
 Johnsing," she called to a small boy who was 
 running in and out among the chickens, 
 " whilst they s busy with the cawn, you-uns 
 hist up that-er coop an let out the Plymmy- 
 rocks." 
 
 A Plymouth-rock hen and a rooster, 
 cramped by a long imprisonment, stepped 
 forth gingerly from their shelter, cackled, 
 crowed, and fell to picking corn, while the 
 flock edged round and eyed them suspi-
 
 198 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 ciously. The small boy took a stick and 
 made a foray among the chickens with no 
 intent whatever but that of exercise. His 
 mother watched him, smiling wanly. Then 
 she turned her head and spoke to some one 
 indoors. 
 
 " Come out hyar, Sadie Ophine," she called ; 
 " come out hyar an see the Plymmy-rocks." 
 
 Sadie Ophine came to the door. She was 
 young and rosy and defiant. " Pears like I 
 don t keer much bout n the Plymmy-rocks, 
 maw," she protested. " I ve nussed them 
 other fowls so faithful whilst you-uns was gone 
 that hit pears like fowls has come to be jus 
 simple fowls to me, stidder Black Spanish an 
 Brammies an scrub stock an Plymmy-rocks. 
 Didn t you-uns bring back nothin more on- 
 common from Union than a pair o fowls?" 
 
 Mrs. Harold glanced uneasily at her 
 daughter. Sadie had come to an age when 
 happier-looking mothers than Mrs. Harold 
 sometimes stand a little in awe of their 
 daughters, seeing in their unworn strength 
 and beauty and decisiveness a certain right 
 and power which it is not easy to deny. The 
 old woman s eyes pleaded. " I lowed you d 
 be mighty proud o them Plymmy-rocks," she 
 said. " Why, they costed two dollars an a 
 half ! " 
 
 " I should ha liked to ha viewed the
 
 TALES 199 
 
 money," said Sadie Ophine, unrelenting; 
 " that would ha been a most oncommon 
 sight." 
 
 Mrs. Harold brightened weakly. " Didn t 
 the Great State o Johnsing show you his 
 savings bank?" she asked. 
 
 "The Great which?" demanded Sadie 
 Ophine. " Little Andy showed me his sav 
 ings bank an shook his thirteen pennies out 
 an showed em to me first thing; but how 
 did you-uns jus name little Andy?" 
 
 Mrs. Harold smiled. Little Andy seemed 
 to be the one thing in the world that was 
 worth smiling about. " Hit s so thin more 
 he s brung back ; hit s a new name. You see, 
 over there in Union the boss o the berry- 
 field went around axin us all our names, an 
 whar we come from, an when he axed me 
 little Andy peartened up like a little Banty 
 rooster a-crowin , an afore I could say that we 
 come from Johnsing County little Andy up 
 an allowed, We-uns lives in the Great State o 
 Johnsing, jus the way his pore pappy uster 
 larn him. The men all shouted, an they got 
 ter namin little Andy the Great State o 
 Johnsing ontil I got wonted to hit myself." 
 
 Sadie Ophine shrugged her shoulders. 
 " Pears like they mus all ha been powerful 
 dumb to call such a undergrowed little feller 
 by such a overgrowed name," she declared.
 
 200 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 The youthful contempt of her face changed 
 to sternness. " Ain t you truly made no 
 money, maw," she asked, " ceptin them thir 
 teen cents in little Andy s bank?" 
 
 " He made em all by his little self," said 
 Mrs. Harold, " an the men all lowed to him 
 that he had ought to have a savings bank to 
 keep em in, an he wanted hit so bad that 
 peared like hit would be mighty <?;/kind not 
 to git it fur him, an then the Plymmy-rocks 
 costed two dollars an a half, cause they se 
 got a right smart string o forebears, an livin s 
 mighty high thar in Union. Hit did look 
 some days like I was a-makin a pile o 
 money pullin strawberries, an I declare hit 
 pears mos like somebody had stole hit, fur I 
 cain t see as I ve brung back a cent ceptin 
 the Plymmy-rocks an them airnin s in the 
 Great State o Johnsing s savings bank." 
 
 Once in a while Sadie Ophine was sorry for 
 her mother. Good-hearted young people are 
 sometimes touched to indulgence by the folly 
 of the old. She walked inside so that she 
 would not have to meet her mother s faded 
 eyes. " The neighbors has all been a-sendin 
 over to see if you was home, maw," she said. 
 " Pears like they has all growed mighty fond 
 of the things you borried to go with. The 
 Kimmels wants a sight of their wagon, an 
 the Rendlemans low hit s time to plough the
 
 TALES 201 
 
 cawn, an they talk like they couldn t noways 
 plough hit with anything freskier than the ole 
 nag they loaned you, an the Reeses seems to 
 be skeered less n you-uns might travel roun so 
 long that you d wear out their wagon-kivver ; 
 an I ll tell you what s the matter of the last one 
 of em they ve got the idee that if their 
 plunderment is lef hyar over-night the 
 sheriff 11 think hit belongs to we-uns an 11 
 come an levy on hit fur debt jus s if the 
 sheriff an everybody else in Johnsing County 
 didn t know that all the property we ever had 
 or ever is goin to have on airth is fowls." 
 Back in the darkness of the cabin she shivered 
 with disgust. "If angels has wings anything 
 like chickens," she muttered, " I d a heap 
 ruther go whar the feathers ud git singed 
 off." 
 
 "Yore pore pappy liked em, Sadie 
 Ophine," said Mrs. Harold. 
 
 " Eph Wilkinson s beginnin to take a fancy 
 to em, too," said Sadie Ophine pointedly. 
 
 Mrs. Harold rose in quivering haste. 
 "Sadie Ophine," she whispered, "you-uns 
 don t think, does you, that he s a-goin to try 
 to levy on us fur the store debt?" 
 
 "Yes, maw, he lows he s got ter be paid," 
 Sadie Ophine answered, " an I lowed to him 
 that you-uns would bring plenty o money 
 back with you from Union, an stidder that "
 
 202 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 the girl s fresh voice sharpened. "Oh! maw," 
 she cried, " hyar you come home with nothin 
 in the worT but little Andy s thirteen cents 
 an a pair o hongry ole Plymmy-rocks jus ter 
 eat mo cawn." 
 
 The Great State of Johnsing, who had been 
 absorbed in trying to rouse a warlike spirit in 
 the chicken hearts around him, now sauntered 
 toward the cabin with his thumbs in his 
 " galluses " and his head on one side. It was 
 a good-sized head, but the rest of him was 
 exceedingly " undergrowed," and did not look 
 more than three feet high. His trousers had 
 been cut very straight and loose, and, going 
 down to his ankles, trailed a little behind his 
 heels, for they had been made with his 
 mother s unfailing prophecy that the Great 
 State was on the point of a rapid growth. 
 The Great State did not know, however, that 
 rapid growth was desirable, for he felt already 
 grown, and since he had become a capitalist 
 he fully realized that he was the head of the 
 house the only adviser and protector of 
 two large but inexperienced women who, as 
 he had often heard his mother declare, being 
 women, " didn t have no faculty noways." 
 
 Neither Mrs. Harold nor Sadie Ophine 
 noticed the small shadow of the Great State 
 as he came softly into the doorway and stood 
 listening to what they said. His mother was
 
 TALES 203 
 
 undoing the little bundles of bedquilts and 
 clothing which she had brought back with 
 her, and putting the articles where they 
 belonged. Sadie was frying bacon for din 
 ner, but they were deep in the long-post 
 poned and unsolvable problem of the debt 
 to Eph Wilkinson. 
 
 The eyes of the Great State grew larger 
 and larger as he listened, and he ran his 
 hand anxiously into his pocket to make sure 
 that he had not lost his bank. Its sharp 
 iron corners were pressing painfully against 
 his leg, but he did not feel quite safe about 
 it until he had touched it with his hand. 
 
 " Tears like we-uns owes some money to 
 Eph Wilkinson," he mused, " an maw an 
 Sadie s skeered he ll do so thin to us if hit 
 ain t paid. Queer they don t speak to me 
 bout n hit. Reckon I d better go over an 
 see what can be did." 
 
 The Great State knew Eph Wilkinson 
 well. It was a long way to the store, but 
 he had often been there with Sadie, for his 
 mother would not go with her, but insisted 
 that she should not go alone. His mother 
 and Sadie seemed to have a prejudice against 
 Wilkinson, and perhaps that was the reason 
 they could not arrange matters with him, 
 but the Great State felt that he knew him as 
 man knows man, and set him down in his
 
 204 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 heart as a good fellow. The record was all 
 written out in candy stains. The Great 
 State smacked his lips as he slipped off 
 along the hot, dusty road. His mother had 
 given him a bent pinhook, with permission to 
 go fishing down the branch, and fortunately 
 the branch was out of sight from home. 
 His legs were certainly short, but, pendulum- 
 like, they moved all the faster on that account, 
 and so it was not more than an hour before 
 he reached the store. 
 
 The store stood all by itself and lonesome 
 on the country road, and there were neither 
 customers nor loungers in sight when the 
 Great State went in. " Howdy," he said, 
 putting his thumbs into his galluses and 
 looking up at Eph Wilkinson, who was 
 lounging on the counter. 
 
 " Howdy," said Eph Wilkinson, putting 
 his thumbs into his galluses and looking 
 down at the Great State. He had such a 
 good face on the whole that a stranger 
 would probably have trusted that record in 
 the Great State s archives. 
 
 " Nice day," said the Great State, taking 
 off the hat which his mother had bought for 
 him in Union and mopping his moist red 
 forehead with his sleeve. 
 
 Eph Wilkinson noted the new hat with 
 interest. " Well, little Andy," he said, " you
 
 TALES 205 
 
 an yore maw appear to have been prosperin 
 where you have been." 
 
 "Where I been," said little Andy, "they 
 calls me the Great State o Johnsing." 
 
 Eph Wilkinson began to shout with 
 laughter, and jumping off the counter 
 picked little Andy up between his two hands. 
 " Great shakes ! " he cried ; " what do the 
 Great State o Johnsing want o me?" 
 
 The Great State struggled a little as 
 even great States are sometimes obliged to 
 until he was out of the clutches of the 
 foreign power and firmly upon his own feet, 
 where he could enter upon dignified negotia 
 tions. " I jus drapped in," he said, "to see 
 what you allow to do if my maw don t pay 
 her debt." 
 
 Wilkinson stooped and laid a hand on the 
 Great State s shoulder. He noticed that the 
 little fellow was very dusty and tired-looking 
 for so great a State. " Did you come clear 
 over hyar on yore own account to see bout n 
 that debt? " he asked. 
 
 The Great State nodded. 
 
 " Well, sonny," Wilkinson said slowly, 
 " I d like mighty well to favor you, for I 
 reckon when you re bout n three feet higher 
 there won t be no more debts, but the fact of 
 hit is, I was so wore out waitin for them 
 ole hens of your maw s to lay enough eggs
 
 206 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 to cover the debt that I tole the sheriff to go 
 over thar this evenin an levy on the ole hens 
 theirse ves. Hyar, put a stick o candy in 
 yore mouth, Andy; them ole hens didn t do 
 much for yore maw noway, ceptin to eat 
 cawn." 
 
 The Great State took the candy and his 
 lips stopped quivering. " An ain t there 
 nothin I can do bout n hit," he asked, " now 
 you-uns has done levied ? " 
 
 Wilkinson took another stick of candy 
 from the jar and held it out. " No, State o 
 Johnsing," he said, " I don t see that thar s a 
 blessed thing that you can do. The sheriff ll 
 be there bout n sundown to catch the hens, 
 an to-morrer he ll auction em off to pay the 
 debt. He went over an served the attachment 
 on em an counted em while yore maw was 
 gone. There ain t nothin can be did, less n 
 she s got some friend to buy em back." 
 
 Wilkinson went on eagerly explaining the 
 legality of the process to the Great State, but 
 the Great State did not seem to comprehend. 
 With a sticky, striped piece of candy in each 
 swinging hand he was marching out of the 
 store. At the door he paused and turned a 
 sticky, striped little face to say, " Thanky, 
 good evenin ," and he was gone. 
 
 Wilkinson went to the door and looked 
 after him. When the long trousers and the
 
 TALES 207 
 
 galluses and the wisely-poised head were out 
 of sight, he bowed his own head into his 
 hands. " Wisht I hadn t posted the sale o 
 them ole hens," he groaned, and his voice 
 had something of mental suffering in it be 
 yond the words and more than mere kind- 
 heartedness could explain. 
 
 As for the Great State there was not a 
 scrap of either stick of candy left to betray 
 him when he went home to his mother, and 
 even the stripes on his rueful face escaped 
 notice, for the sheriff and a posse had arrived 
 and were waiting for the hens to settle enough 
 to be captured in their various roosting- 
 places. Mrs. Harold sat in the doorway 
 crying, and the Great State went up to her. 
 He was weary to his very thumbs, but he 
 put them manfully in his galluses to comfort 
 her. " Don t you-uns worry, maw, I ll fix 
 em," he promised, and then from sheer ex 
 haustion he leaned over into her lap and fell 
 asleep. She put her hand on to his round, 
 nestling head. It was far more of a comfort 
 than his words had been, and all through that 
 evening, after the last protesting chicken had 
 been carried away, and after Sadie Ophine 
 had grown weary of wondering what was 
 going to happen next and had gone away to 
 bed, Mrs. Harold sat crying more and more 
 softly in the darkness, for the mother-love
 
 that was at the bottom of her sorrow rose 
 through it, giving her a foolish mother-feeling 
 of protection in her child. 
 
 A sound of footsteps came through the 
 night stillness. She lifted her head sharply. 
 " Who s there? " she asked. 
 
 A man walked up to her. " Don t you 
 know me," he asked, " after all these years, 
 Sadie Ophine?" 
 
 " I disremember hearin yore speech," she 
 said stiffly, " an Sadie Ophine s in the house 
 sleepin . I m Mis An erson HarolV 
 
 He stood close beside her. " Sadie Oph 
 ine," he said, " I ain t never called you Mis 
 An erson Harol in my heart." 
 
 A thrill of bitterness came into her voice. 
 " Oh, yore heart ! " she said ; " an how is hit 
 gettin erlong these-hyar days? " 
 
 "You d orter know," he said; "I ain t 
 never claimed hit back from you." 
 
 She slipped the Great State gently down 
 until his head rested on the doorstep. Then 
 she rose. " Eph Wilkinson," she said, " if I 
 was dead an buried an you tromped across 
 my grave I would be lyin if I said I didn t 
 know. I knowed you onct for love an I 
 knows you now for hate. Turn yore steps 
 back whar you come from an leave me an 
 mine alone." 
 
 He did not stir. " Sadie Ophine," he said,
 
 TALES 209 
 
 " there was a night onct in Owl Holler when 
 we promised each other on the knees of our 
 hearts never to speak a word o love to any 
 other soul or let another soul speak love to us. 
 I d like you to tell me, Sadie Ophine, which 
 one of us has broke that solemn word." 
 
 She stretched out her hand. " As God s 
 lookin , Eph Wilkinson," she said fiercely, 
 " I never broke my word to you until you 
 gave it back. What kind of love do you call 
 it to be suspicioning me because I pleased to 
 daince one daince with An erson Harol ? 
 What kin o love was hit that throwed my 
 promise in my face an tromped off down 
 the Holler jus becase you seed An erson 
 a-whisperin in my ear? I ain t forgot yit 
 the sound yore feet made a-rustlin through 
 the leaves an settin the loose stones to 
 rollin down the slopes. An every step you 
 took the love I had fur you turned black, an 
 I reckon my heart broke then, case thar 
 was more hate in hit than hit could hold. 
 I never keered what happened after that. 
 An erson he married me becase he took a 
 fancy ter ; an he was a good man ter me, a 
 good, stiddy man, but I didn t keer. Maybe 
 you think I keered for Sadie Ophine, but I 
 didn t, not as I had ought. She was allus too 
 much like the poor fool girl I uster be. I 
 know I never keered fur fowls, though I
 
 210 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 tended em faithful case An erson he was 
 so proud of em, an somehow I knowed that 
 I had ought to do the things he liked. But 
 I didn t keer fur An erson I cain t recollec 
 keerin fur anythin ontil little Andy come." 
 Her voice changed. " Hit s queer," she said, 
 " how I allus liked little Andy. He was 
 jus like his pappy, but that didn t make no 
 difference except that maybe I liked him 
 better fur hit, hit made me so shore he was 
 goin ter be stiddy an kind. An then some 
 how, after An erson died, I got to likin the 
 fowls too. The fowls an little Andy, hit 
 was allus right mterestm ter see em ter- 
 gether, one was bout n as high as t other an 
 they was all mighty lively to set an watch. 
 I couldn t never do much fur em noways, fur 
 women don t have no faculty lef after goin 
 through such a spell of not keerin , but I 
 liked em mighty well." She laughed bitterly. 
 " That s the way hit s been, Eph Wilkinson," 
 she said. "An" you can jedge if I don t 
 hate you a good deal deeper than any fool of 
 a girl ever had the heart to love. You ve 
 took the fowls, an I don t know what you re 
 here fur now onless you re studyin how ter 
 git little Andy too." 
 
 Wilkinson did not answer at once. A whip- 
 poor-will bridged over the silence, calling 
 loudly and persistently, as if determined to
 
 TALES 211 
 
 assert its verdict over any case which human 
 souls might have to try. On the doorstep 
 little Andy turned and murmured as weary 
 children will, and once he spoke out quite 
 distinctly, saying, " Thirteen cents ! " Be 
 hind the cabin the moon was rising, and its 
 light stole up softly in the east. 
 
 " Sadie Ophine," Wilkinson said at last, 
 " that poor fool that throwed yore promise 
 back to you growed up to be a man the 
 night that you an An erson was married. I 
 allowed you keered for him, but I knowed 
 that I had brung hit on myse f, an so I 
 growed to be a man. I didn t forgive you, I 
 cain t say that I ever forgive you, ontil this 
 very night, when they brung them squawkin 
 fowls o yourn up to the store, each one 
 a-hollerin as if hits throat would break. I d 
 been thinkin all day bout n you-uns an the 
 children, specially little Andy, an somehow, 
 when the fowls come, the distress of em kep 
 a-raspin against the old grudge I was a- 
 holdin ontil all to onct the grudge wa n t thar, 
 an I found myse f trompin over hyar as if the 
 haints was follerin me. An they was, Sadie 
 Ophine ; them old days in Owl Holler was 
 every one of em a haint that tracked after 
 me an kep a-whisperin things to me in the 
 dark." He went close to her and laid his 
 hand on her shoulder. She did not move
 
 212 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 away. " Cain t you forgive me," he begged, 
 " an let me make up to you fur all these 
 years? My heart has a heap more love fur 
 you than hit had in Owl Holler, becase hit s 
 grovved ; hit s a man s heart now, stiddy an 
 true, true an ready to trust you to the very 
 gate o death." 
 
 The woman stood silent, quivering under 
 his touch. The first moonbeam crossed the 
 cabin roof and reached her face. Wilkinson s 
 hand fell from her thin shoulder. " My 
 God," he said, " how the years has wore you 
 out!" 
 
 She looked up into the light. "Yes, look 
 at me," she said. " You done a pretty piece 
 o work, ain t you ! Now jus make a finish 
 of hit. Thar s little Andy layin thar on the 
 doorstep, an if you climb up in the trees an 
 feel along the limbs you ll maybe find a 
 Banty er a little scrub pullet that the sheriff 
 an his drove o men has missed. They 
 looked pretty faithful an they kep their little 
 tally in a book, but they ve maybe missed 
 seein one, so you d better climb up, Eph, 
 an sarch." 
 
 He tried to put his hand on her shoulder 
 again, but she pushed it away. " On the 
 knees o my heart, Sadie Ophine," he whis 
 pered, " I love you more than I ever, knowed 
 a man could love, an I swear to you that I
 
 TALES 213 
 
 never knowed how you been a-workin an 
 a-sufferin an a-growin old." 
 
 She flashed a wild look at him out of eyes 
 no longer dim. " Climb up for yore Banties, 
 Eph ! " she cried. " I ain t so old yit but 
 what hit ud do me proud to see you takin 
 the fowls from off my trees with one hand 
 an makin love to me with t other. Thar 
 may be a few Banties on the fur branches, 
 so roust yourse f an climb." 
 
 Turning from him, she stooped to gather 
 the Great State in her arms, but Wilkinson 
 pulled her back. " Don t you know them 
 fowls is yours again," he asked, " whether 
 you want me or not?" 
 
 She let the Great State settle down again 
 upon the step. " Eph Wilkinson," she said, 
 straightening herself to face him, " does you- 
 uns think the girl you knowed could ever 
 grow so old an pore as to be a-takin gifts 
 from you ? " 
 
 The Great State had half wakened and the 
 burden on his mind found speech again. 
 " I ll buy em back fur you, maw," he mur 
 mured ; " I worked mighty hard to git hit, 
 but I got thirteen cents." 
 
 Wilkinson knelt eagerly beside the boy. 
 " State o Johnsing," he said, " wake up ! 
 Does you want to buy them fowls back for 
 yore maw? "
 
 214 GREAT STATE OF JOHNSING 
 
 The Great State raised his head slowly, 
 blinking about him in the shadow of the 
 cabin. "Toby shore I does," he said; "I 
 kin pay you thirteen cents." 
 
 "Then they se yourn ! " cried Wilkinson. 
 He rose and faced the woman who stood 
 trembling in the whiteness of the moon. 
 " Now that they se gone from betwixt us, 
 Sadie Ophine," he pleaded, " cain t you take 
 me back?" 
 
 Her hands went up to her face. " Oh, 
 Eph," she sobbed, " I ve growed too draggled 
 out an old ! " 
 
 " Has you looked at me, Sadie Ophine?" 
 
 She lifted her face and looked at him. 
 Even in the moonlight he was wrinkled, gray, 
 and old. The tears ran down her hollow 
 cheeks. " May the Lord-a mighty forgive 
 me," she whispered, and he took her in his 
 arms. 
 
 But the Great State of Johnsing had 
 wriggled his iron bank out of his pocket. 
 " Leave my maw alone, the money s in thar," 
 he said, thrusting it into Wilkinson s hand. 
 " I aimed hit over in Union pullin strawber 
 ries, and if hit don t quite make things square 
 I reckon I kin pay the balance by nex year. 
 You has to shake the pennies out." 
 
 They came slowly, but they came, and 
 Wilkinson gave him back the bank.
 
 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 IT was evening, and the family had just 
 finished prayers. There was no one left 
 of the family in these years except the Squire 
 kneeling by the big Bible and Aunt Clemen 
 tine bowing her turbaned head over a chair 
 near the shadowy doorway. The lamp on 
 the table beside the Squire was flaring a little, 
 and as Aunt Clementine scrambled to her 
 feet she saw it, and trotted across to turn it 
 down. 
 
 " When I gits ole," she said abruptly, 
 while the Squire was rising, " I wants you to 
 come in sometimes to little Clementine s, 
 where I ll be sittin in de chimbley corner ; an 
 I wants you, please, sir, to kneel right down 
 an pray me dat same prayer. Dere isn t no 
 minister, white or cullud, dat can pray any 
 such a prayer as dat. I se had it on my min 
 to ax you evah since I first corned hyar an 
 you prayed it, jes like you prayed it evah 
 since." 
 
 The Squire took his glasses off and pol 
 ished them. When they were finished he 
 rubbed his handkerchief across the high
 
 2I6AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 dome of his head. It had never occurred to 
 him before that he prayed in just the same 
 words every night. " Why, certainly, Aunt 
 Clementine, certainly," he assented in a 
 puzzled tone. It was passing through his 
 mind that he might just as well read a prayer 
 from a book, and that was a custom which he 
 had been brought up to abhor. Then his 
 eyes cleared. The great changelessness of 
 our human needs rose before him, justifying 
 the grand and changeless phraseology of his 
 appeal. He did not go far enough to ques 
 tion if it justified the book as well; he was 
 telling himself: " It is not repetition, it is in 
 spiration, always the same inspiration, if I 
 did not feel it I should be given other words." 
 He reached behind him, tucking his handker 
 chief into the pocket of his long-tailed coat, 
 and smiling benignantly at Aunt Clementine. 
 " So you expect to live with that niece who 
 has just come North, do you, when you are 
 er unable to work any longer ? " he said. 
 He could not have brought himself to say, 
 " when you are old," for Aunt Clementine 
 was already unmistakably old, although her 
 vigor promised to last a long time, he hoped. 
 The Squire depended on Aunt Clementine, 
 and had gradually accustomed himself to all 
 her ways until they seemed the only ways in 
 which a household could find comfort. He
 
 TALES 217 
 
 tried not to show how much it troubled him 
 to look forward to the time of her outworn 
 strength, and he would gladly have arranged 
 to have her cared for in the house, but Aunt 
 Clementine had other cherished plans. 
 
 She stood across from him with her gnarled 
 hands resting on the table and a look of 
 unusual softness wrinkling the parchment of 
 her face. Even the crusty indrawing of her 
 chin was gone. The Squire had known her 
 a good many years, but it was new to him to 
 see her bespeaking prayers for herself instead 
 of admonishing others. 
 
 "Yes, sir, thank you, sir," she answered, 
 bobbing him a curtesy which stopped half 
 way to grace because a rheumatic joint 
 debarred it; "yes, sir, I ve allus calculated 
 on spendin my las days with little Clemen 
 tine. You see, de way I allus studied it out, 
 bringing up chillun is jes like keepin an 
 insurance policy dey pays you back in de 
 end ; an so when I los all of my own I was 
 powahful glad to have my sister give me one 
 o hern. She was allus such a great, fine, 
 vig rous child dat it was a rale enjoyment to 
 try to git enough for her to eat an to watch 
 her bustin through her clo es, an whenever 
 she settled down kin o weighty on my min 
 or my strength I jes tole myse f, Doan you 
 shirk out n you bes endeavors for dat chile,
 
 2i 8 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 an when you re old it ll be tuhn about an 
 she ll be wukkin for you. " The old woman s 
 eyes wandered past the Squire, and her Arab 
 face softened into still more unwonted gen 
 tleness. " You ain t seed my little Clemen 
 tine yit," she said; " such a great, stroppin , 
 fine woman as she has growed to be. An 
 she allus says the same thing as I does. 
 Tuhn about is fair play, aunty, she says. 
 You ve wukked for me, an when you se ole 
 I se sho ly goin to wuk for you. You ain t 
 nevah lived in de Souf, Squire, an you doan 
 know how ole niggers takes deir ease. An 
 I ll do de same when I gits ole. I ll jes live 
 with little Clementine an sit by her chimbley, 
 with nufifin in de worl to do but move de 
 ihons back an fo th to keep em hot so st 
 little Clementine won t lose no time, an 
 between movin em I se jes as likely as not 
 to doze off in de chair my, my, but some 
 times when I gits tired I gits to studyin about 
 it, an I straitches out my feet, an I can jes 
 feel de crinklin of de heat about my knees ! 
 I tell you, Squire, I se plumb glad I had de 
 sense to put my earnin s into a chile, stid of 
 any sort of insurance dat doan begin to pay 
 you back till aftah you is daid." 
 
 The Squire s eyes wandered about the room 
 seeking all the faces which death and life had 
 taken from him. " You are right, Aunt Clem-
 
 TALES 219 
 
 entine," he said wistfully; "the best of all 
 insurance is some younger person s love. 
 Good night," he added, lifting the lamp as a 
 signal ; and the old woman said good night. 
 
 The next morning when he came down to 
 breakfast the Squire found Aunt Clementine 
 wearing a white handkerchief tied beneath her 
 turban and around her forehead. He knew 
 that handkerchief well. Sometimes it meant 
 that its wearer had head-ache, and sometimes 
 it was a badge declaring increased rheumatic 
 trouble or general misery, but it always sig 
 nified that Aunt Clementine was approach 
 able and open to kindly offices. " Head-ache, 
 Aunt Clementine?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Aunt Clementine, and as 
 she turned toward him he saw that her eyes 
 had a glaze of pain. " I se got head-ache an 
 bones-ache an feet-ache, an a sort er triflin 
 feelin bout de chest. I seems to be a- 
 peterin out all roun ." The corners of her 
 mouth sank, as if her world felt heavy on her 
 shoulders. " De batter-cakes feels it," she 
 added hopelessly ; " dey isn t noways up to 
 de mahk, but you mus escuse em, please, 
 sir, dis mawnin , Squire." 
 
 "You re mistaken about them they re 
 fine," said the Squire, eyeing them cordially; 
 " don t you suppose I know the color of a 
 good cake? But I ll tell you what s the
 
 220 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 trouble with you, Aunt Clementine : you re 
 feeling the hot weather; and I m going to 
 hire the washing done out of the house for a 
 while and let you pick up strength." 
 
 Aunt Clementine set down the plate of 
 batter-cakes with a sharp motion. " Does 
 you think I se gittin too ole? " she demanded, 
 with a tremor in her voice. Her cramped 
 fingers locked themselves together before her, 
 and she stared down at the Squire with a 
 fierce beseeching in her eyes. " I grumbles 
 an scolds an goes a-pokin bout my wuk 
 jes like I se sick sometimes," she went on 
 eagerly, "jes because I se a ole fool dat was 
 made too much of an spiled in de raisin 
 nevah had to nose right into de pan with de 
 oddah little pickaninnies, like a little drove 
 o shoats no, sir ; dey thought I was smaht, 
 an dey made of me, an I got uster bein 
 muched an noticed, so dat I keeps a-wantin 
 it now dat I is growed. But I ain t ole yit, 
 Squire, an , what s mo , I ain t de sort to hang 
 triflin roun in nobody s kitchen aftah my 
 wukkin days is past. No, sir; I se jes goin 
 to lay by an take my ease like yaller corn 
 dat s cut an stacked in de field fore it s hauled 
 away an shucked an measured out for jedg- 
 ment," - her voice quivered again, "but, 
 Squire, I se strong yit; de time for layin by 
 ain t come."
 
 TALES 221 
 
 " Of course it hasn t," said the Squire, but 
 tering his batter-cake restively, " but that s 
 no reason why you should overwork before 
 hand, when the weather s hot and the neigh 
 bors children out of school and running in 
 and out making you trouble all the time. 
 Do you know of anybody you could get who 
 would do the washing something like as well 
 as you do? " 
 
 The Squire prided himself as being a man 
 whose every word was upon honor, and he 
 also prided himself upon being able to man 
 age Aunt Clementine, although no one out 
 side of the house could ever have understood 
 how he reconciled these two prides or what 
 became of his conscience his dutiful, un 
 swerving conscience when he compli 
 mented the old woman so broadly. For to 
 the eyes of the world her work would have 
 shown undoubtable evidence of failing skil- 
 fulness and failing sight. But outsiders had 
 not frequented the house in the ten years 
 since Aunt Clementine had entered it, and 
 they could not be expected to know how the 
 Squire had found out and adjusted his mind 
 to the necessary conditions of peace so grad 
 ually that he was never conscious of having 
 become an arch flatterer and perverter of the 
 truth. 
 
 Aunt Clementine chuckled softly some-
 
 222 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 where within herself and forgot the sore 
 question of age. " Little Clementine, she s 
 a heap better washer an ihoner dan I is," 
 she answered graciously, " an she ll be 
 mighty proud to git de wuk." 
 
 " Capital ! " said the Squire. " I wonder I 
 didn t think of it myself. Tell me just where 
 she lives, and I ll take the buggy and drive 
 right over to her with the laundry-bag now." 
 
 " No use puttin you se f out," said the old 
 woman. " I se goin ovah dere dis evenin 
 anyhow. De bag ain t much size, an I 
 wants to tell her jes how you wants you 
 shirt-fronts starched." 
 
 " Better tell her about it and have her call 
 round for the bag, then," the Squire advised ; 
 and he left the table with the genial feeling 
 of having put his household into ways of 
 ease. 
 
 And it seemed at first as if he had, for 
 Aunt Clementine went about her work sing 
 ing like a bird, some very strange bird, 
 and toward evening the signal of distress was 
 missing from her forehead and the gray dis 
 coloration which with a negro answers for 
 pallor had left her face. But considerably 
 later, when she came back from her visit to 
 little Clementine, she looked worn again, and 
 the Squire reproached himself for not hav 
 ing insisted on delivering the laundry-bag in
 
 TALES 223 
 
 person. " There seems to be no way of 
 helping a woman," he mused discontentedly 
 as he watched her hobbling off to her room. 
 " I ve noticed it again and again through my 
 life that a woman will always find some way 
 of turning your help into an added burden. 
 I wonder why it is." 
 
 Aunt Clementine could have told him that 
 she was acquainted with a woman who knew 
 how to take assistance, but he did not speak 
 to her about it, and as the long weeks of 
 summer filed slowly out from the realms of 
 heat, bringing neither youth nor health to 
 her, in spite of her lessened cares, he began 
 to wonder if it might be that she was a great 
 deal older than she had ever given him to 
 understand. Sometimes he tried to keep 
 his mind from being so occupied with the 
 thought of Aunt Clementine and her suffer 
 ings, telling himself that if she did not 
 minister to his material comfort he would 
 probably be thinking less about her, but at 
 other times he realized with a sense of desola 
 tion that he was growing almost as old as 
 she, and that if she were to die his daily life 
 would become altogether strange. 
 
 One afternoon, reflecting on all these 
 things, he was driving back from a day s 
 absence outside the village. His road lay 
 through a little negro settlement which he
 
 224 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 had not been near for years, and he looked 
 about him with humanitarian interest in its 
 progress since the first freedmen had built 
 their cabins in this most southerly shadow of 
 the great wing of the North. The only per 
 son whom he saw drew him back from 
 general to individual speculation. It was 
 Aunt Clementine standing outside a hovel, 
 and washing with a furious energy which 
 made the friction of the clothes across the 
 board into a sort of tune. He drove straight 
 toward her. The sound of the wheels did 
 not seem to reach her ears, but as he drew 
 near she turned, without looking up, and 
 went into the house. The form of some one 
 sitting by the doorway disappeared, and as 
 she came out again she glanced his way and 
 he spoke to her. 
 
 " Aunt Clementine," he said sternly, " what 
 does this mean? " 
 
 " Dis is little Clementine s house," the old 
 woman explained, coming out into the road. 
 As she stood beside him he could see through 
 a veneer of pride and defiance into a broken 
 look which was new to her face. His heart 
 sank while it relented. He felt that she was 
 hiding some trouble from him, and he waited 
 for the clue. " I was feelin so smaht," she 
 went on, gathering assurance from his 
 changed expression, " dat I corned ovah
 
 TALES 225 
 
 hyah right soon dis evenin , an I foun dat 
 it was tuhn about sho nough, an po little 
 Clementine was a-feelin too po ly to wuk. 
 Feelin smaht like I did, I couldn t sit by an 
 see her give ovah you washin to somebody 
 that would have spiled you shirts an 
 starched em stiff as pasteboa d, so I jes 
 tuhned about an did it myse f, an I doan 
 feel no wuss for it. I reckon I se picked up 
 a right smaht of strength." 
 
 The Squire shook his head. "You ve not 
 been doing right, Aunt Clementine," he 
 answered. " Do you think this is acting fair 
 to me when I m trying to make you strong 
 and well again? " 
 
 " I se done the best I knowed," said Aunt 
 Clementine, her face taking on a dogged look 
 which, together with its lines of sorrow and 
 of weariness, made it look as old and uncon 
 querable as toil itself. Through what seemed 
 a long and hopeless space of time she met 
 and resisted the kind solicitude of his gaze, 
 and then her defiance fell before it piteously. 
 " You ve had chillun, Squire," she said, with 
 a catch in her voice, " an mebbe you knows 
 how it is to feel De chile is my chile/ an 
 not to git fur nough beyond it to see de 
 oddah people in de worl . I was studyin 
 mo about de money for little Clementine 
 dan about you shirts, an I reckon"
 
 226 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 " Get in here and ride back home at once," 
 the Squire interrupted brusquely, " and let 
 the shirts" he would have liked to say " go 
 hang," but, realizing that it would sound 
 unseemly, and that in any case they could 
 not do it without the help of Aunt Clemen 
 tine, he substituted, " take care of them 
 selves." 
 
 The system of " turn about " seemed to 
 have some kind of a hitch in its working, for 
 Aunt Clementine was undoubtedly very 
 " po ly " after that day, and yet she insisted 
 that her niece was far too ill to be sent for to 
 help her, or, later on, to take care of her when 
 she had taken to her bed. The Squire 
 wandered about the house disconsolately, 
 going up again and again to ask her how 
 she was, and avoiding the kitchen, where he 
 had installed a young and sprightly-motioned 
 black girl, whose swiftness enabled her to 
 make more mistakes in a single day than the 
 Squire had ever dreamed of. Sometimes he 
 had a glimpse of a colored man slinking out 
 of the house, and this he learned to be little 
 Clementine s husband come to exchange 
 reports as to the condition of the two 
 invalids. The new girl in the kitchen told 
 him so with a giggle, and when he asked her 
 how little Clementine was getting on she 
 giggled again and said that she thought that
 
 TALES 227 
 
 little Clementine was pretty low " actin so, 
 leastways," she added. 
 
 For a long time that night the Squire 
 could not sleep. A suspicion of his own 
 was confirmed by the new girl s opinion, and 
 the picture of Aunt Clementine sitting by 
 her niece s fireside, floated in many and hope 
 less variations before his mind. There could 
 be no question now but that Aunt Clemen 
 tine was approaching the " laying-off time," 
 but little Clementine did not seem to be 
 preparing any warm nook for her by the 
 chimney-side. 
 
 "An ungrateful and idle generation," he 
 muttered, staring into the darkness with the 
 wide-eyed, impatient wakefulness of a child. 
 He turned again wearily. " There must be 
 some way to get asleep," he thought. 
 " Mother used to tell me to count sheep 
 jumping over a fence, but I like a stone wall 
 best. One, two, three, four, five" He 
 held his face toward the rugged, moss- 
 chinked wall which he had summoned before 
 him, and smiled as he noticed how each 
 sheep s tail and hind feet twinkled in the 
 sun. 
 
 In primitive neighborhoods there is a 
 summons which always sounds mournful or 
 portentous when it comes through the dark 
 ness, and the last of the Squire s sheep was
 
 228 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 just losing itself in a pasture-land of dreams 
 when he started up in alarm. Some one at 
 his front gate was shouting " Hello-o-o ! " in 
 a loud, quavering voice. 
 
 Now the Squire, in days when the country 
 was wilder, had often been called in the 
 middle of the night to dispense off-hand 
 justice to disturbers of the peace, but in 
 these later times, when he and the region 
 about him had been growing more grave and 
 dignified, it was an unheard-of matter to be 
 roused like this, and it must mean personal 
 ill tidings or else some public mishap of 
 great importance. All this passed through 
 his mind with the one step between the bed 
 and the window; but, while he was fumbling 
 with a rebellious window-bolt, another voice, 
 full and rich and reverberant, added itself to 
 the distressful calling out-of-doors. 
 
 "Squiah Poole ! Squiah Poole ! " it swelled 
 up through the black shadows of the yard 
 where the starlight did not penetrate, and 
 something in its musical whole-heartedness 
 relieved the tension which the Squire had felt 
 to be absurd, although he could not free it 
 from about his thoughts. The bolt yielded, 
 and he threw open the window and looked 
 out. 
 
 "Who s there and what s the matter? " he 
 asked.
 
 TALES 229 
 
 "It s jes me Isaiah Oldfield," answered 
 the voice of excitement, dropping to a more 
 conversational pitch; "jes me an my wife 
 come roun to ax you to light you lamp as 
 quick as you can an write us out some little 
 papahs of divo cement. Me an her is boun 
 to quit, an we wants de papahs for it jes as 
 quick as you can write." 
 
 " See here," said the Squire, " I can t write 
 you any such papers, and it s nothing to wake 
 a man up at night for in any case." 
 
 " Dat s jes what I done tole him," said the 
 richer voice. " I done says to him, Zaiah, 
 says I, de ole Squiah ain t got nobody to 
 quar l with like we-all has, an he ll jes about 
 be takin his soun es sleep. I says to him, 
 He s a right ole man, de ole Squiah is, 
 an he d a heap ruther be rousted up by 
 daylight an tend to his divo cements in de 
 mawnin . " 
 
 A chill night breeze was blowing through 
 the Squire s scant garments, and the floor 
 near the window was cold. He was uncom 
 fortable enough to resent consideration on 
 account of age. " I wish you to under 
 stand," he said, "that night or morning is 
 not the question. A justice of the peace 
 does not have the power of granting divorces. 
 All that you can do, whichever of you is 
 dissatisfied, is to wait and get a lawyer, and
 
 230 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 bring your case before the next session of 
 the court." 
 
 The Squire had begun to pull down the 
 window, but the man s voice stopped him. 
 " Wait a minute," it besought ; " do, please, 
 sah, wait a minute, Squiah, an study dat 
 cision of you n ovah agin ! Sho ly, sho ly 
 you ain t a-goin to sen me back to wuk an 
 wuk faw dat big idolatrous woman dat is so 
 powahful idolatrous she axes me to he p her 
 if she wants to shoo a fly ! It s a mighty long 
 time till court sets, faw I done axed about it, 
 an long befo den I wants to git a woman 
 what ll cook my suppahs faw me an my 
 dinnahs an my breakfas , an I tell you, 
 Squiah, I done got one all selected dat ll do 
 it, too. You knows her. She s jes as black 
 as dese shadders, an when you onct see her 
 wuk you believe it to be de jumpin of a 
 flea. I tell you, Squiah " 
 
 " Don t you tell me anything of the sort ! " 
 cried the old son of the Puritans, bringing his 
 fist down upon the window-ledge. " Take 
 shame to yourself, Isaiah Oldfield, whoever 
 you are, to be harboring such admiration for 
 any other woman than your lawful wife ! And 
 you dare not only to think such thoughts, but 
 to speak them aloud for the world to hear, 
 and in the presence of the woman you have 
 promised to love and to cherish " The
 
 TALES 231 
 
 Squire halted, awkwardly uncertain if he was 
 speaking the exact truth, or if there might 
 be some other formula for marriage vows 
 among these negro waifs who kept drifting 
 across the border from the South. The let 
 ter of the truth never stood between the 
 Squire and its spirit, yet he was happiest 
 when the spirit was embodied in the letter. 
 A gurgling, care-free laugh from the injured 
 wife rilled in the gap. 
 
 " Doan you worry you old haid tryin to 
 make him see shame, Squiah," she coun 
 selled; "it ain t no sorter use, an I done 
 give it up long time ago. He doan mean 
 no harm, Squiah, noways, on y he ain t got 
 no eddication or fambly ; I doan see how 
 I evah fawgot myse f so fur s to take up with 
 him in de fust place, an I tell you what, 
 Squiah, you needn t be backward on my 
 account, faw I ll jes weah you image in my 
 heaht if you ll on y light up you lamp an 
 write out dem little papahs." 
 
 The Squire gave a sound of disgust that 
 was almost a groan. The sense of humor 
 which would have solaced him by daylight 
 seemed to pertain in some degree to his 
 clothing of the day, and his mind felt bare 
 and irritable without it. " Go away," he 
 cried out; " I tell you I have nothing to do 
 with your little papers of divorcement ! "
 
 232 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 "I call it a mighty po , no- count Squiah," 
 the man broke out, " what can t prepare 
 some simple little papahs when a gentle 
 man and his wife has quarrelled an de two 
 applications is of de same min ! " The 
 Squire let his window run down with a bang, 
 but as he remained beside it he could hear 
 Isaiah Oldfield s disapproval lift itself from 
 scorn to vituperation and rush along its way, 
 leaving a sparkling trail of adjectives be 
 hind. 
 
 A window above the Squire s flew up, and 
 Aunt Clementine spoke from it in accents 
 like edged weapons, so strong and clear and 
 sharp that the Squire marvelled, having 
 thought her very ill that night. " Isaiah 
 Oldneld ! " was all she said. 
 
 Isaiah s voice fell into a sort of brisk meek 
 ness. "Yes, ma am," he answered; "isn t 
 you sick no mo ? " 
 
 The Squire pricked up his ears. "Well ! " 
 he thought, " what next? " 
 
 The next was law and order. " You dis 
 graceful, triflin nigger ! " said Aunt Clemen 
 tine ; " you an you wife ain t goin to have 
 no papah of divo cement, not hyah nor no- 
 wheah else. You se bofe goin to shut you 
 blattin moufes an tuhn about faw home, an 
 you se bofe of you goin to wuk decent an 
 stiddy, like quality, an min you business
 
 TALES 233 
 
 an keep you hon able name. Does you 
 onderstand? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am," said Isaiah Oldfield; "but 
 little Clementine she won t wuk. I done 
 begged an imploreded her to stir me up a little 
 corn-pone faw suppah, an she jes laid back 
 in de rockin -chair you give her, an allowed 
 dat maybe if I was hongry I wouldn t mind 
 stirrin up some faw bofe of us, or maybe 
 you-all d be feelin nough bettah to come 
 ovah an would feel like stirrin one up." 
 
 The woman down in the shadows had been 
 chuckling softly beneath his speech. " Law, 
 yes, aunty ! " she said, taking up the tale ; 
 " an I never saw nothin git so ridic lously 
 mad as Zaiah did when you didn t come. I 
 done tole him, Tain t no use cuttin no 
 didoes like dat, Zaiah ; you had ought to 
 know dat aunty is gittin tolable ole, an 
 aftah her day s wuk is done, even when she 
 ain t sick, she isn t allus honin to make no 
 sociable calls. I tole him you d been gittin 
 kind o rheumaticky way long back, an de 
 ole Squiah wukked you pretty hahd " 
 
 " Hesh you big moufe," said Aunt Clem 
 entine. " Doesn t you have any depohtment 
 at all to come hyah hollerin fambly affairs 
 out in de streets by night? Jes hesh you 
 two moufes an tuhn about faw home." Her 
 voice was so tense that its very decisiveness
 
 234 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 suggested that it was near the point of break 
 ing. The Squire noticed it, but he could 
 not see how she leaned out to them through 
 the darkness. " For de Lawd s sake ! " she 
 went on, in a hoarse whisper which she 
 hoped he could not hear ; " has you forgot 
 ten you promise to me, little Clementine?" 
 
 " Law, no, aunty ! " little Clementine 
 answered cheerfully. " You has wukked 
 faw me, an I is goin to wuk faw you. I 
 doan nevah fawgit dat, aunty, an I tries 
 not to weah myse f out befo de time. Look 
 like Zaiah can t git dat much of gratitude 
 through his low-down haid, but doan you 
 worry you se f, aunty, little Clementine she 
 won t fawgit." 
 
 "You d bettah not," Aunt Clementine 
 retorted with tremulous gruffness. " You d 
 bettah jes hesh you moufe, an tuhn about 
 for home. I se comin ovah dere soon as I 
 gits out to tell you a little of de trufe about 
 you se ves, an I ll bring along dat new green 
 dress o mine to see if dere isn t bout enough 
 of it to cut you out a basque. I cain t use 
 all de dresses I got, noways, an I was plum 
 mortified at de way you appeahed de las 
 Sunday I was to chu ch you is certainly 
 de mos triflin , no- count" There was a 
 slight pause. No one knew that the old 
 woman s strength was leaving her, and that
 
 TALES 235 
 
 she was sinking slowly down upon her knees, 
 for her voice had seemed shaken with anger 
 rather than with weakness. Her bent hands 
 clutched the window-ledge, and a soft cry 
 escaped from her " Little Clementine ! " 
 
 The Squire threw open his window and 
 leaned out to look at hers. It was empty, 
 and seemed like a dim black shadow on the 
 wall. Down below he could see the indistinct 
 silhouettes of little Clementine and Isaiah. 
 Something in that cry had frightened them, 
 and they were standing hand in hand. The 
 Squire turned hastily to dress himself. There 
 was a moment more of silence, except that 
 the wind kept whispering under the eaves, 
 and then, out of the darkness, Aunt Clemen 
 tine s voice went on. She had gathered her 
 will for its control, but it was slow and 
 sorrow-laden. " If you won t come up hyah 
 to me I mus talk out for dem dat hears to 
 hear," she began, "for, seein you has come 
 hyah so unseemly, I se goin to speak anodder 
 wud to you befo you goes, an it may be de 
 las wud betwixt you an me. You has given 
 me you faithful promise to take keer of me 
 when I is old, little Clementine, an I wants 
 to ax you when you thinks dat time ll come? 
 I been so proud of you, little Clementine, I 
 ain t nevah let a livin soul speak hahm of 
 you in dese old eahs. An de way I has
 
 236 AUNT CLEMENTINE S OLD DAYS 
 
 loved you why, nights when I sits alone I 
 sits studyin about you, an right now, when 
 I been layin hyah sick without de chance to 
 look into you face, I laughs right out in my 
 mis ry like a fool, cause you great, stroppin , 
 silly laugh keeps a-soundin in de stillness of 
 my heaht ! I was so proud of you dat I done 
 tole every soul I knowed how you was goin 
 to take keer of me ; an , even when I kep 
 havin to send back money to you, it nevah 
 come into my haid dat it was because you 
 was triflin an no- count " at the words 
 which cut her heart most deeply her voice 
 broke and ceased. 
 
 The Squire stood shivering beside his 
 window before he spoke. Then he called down 
 rather gently, and told little Clementine to 
 come into the house. He met her at the 
 door with a light, and went with her up the 
 stairs. The lively young black girl was 
 sleeping undisturbed on her pallet in the 
 corner. Aunt Clementine lay on the floor 
 by the window, shaking with long-drawn, 
 inarticulate gasps. " Little Clementine has 
 come to put you to bed and to take care of 
 you," the Squire began, but then he paused. 
 
 Great tears were running down the younger 
 woman s face. She stooped and lifted her 
 aunt in the strong arms which had refused so 
 many burdens. " I allus tole you aunty,"
 
 TALES 237 
 
 she said brokenly, " dat I was goin to take 
 keer of you when you was ole." 
 
 " Hush," the Squire said ; " you are too 
 late ! Aunt Clementine s old days have come 
 and gone."
 
 THE LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 THERE used to be an annual barbecue 
 in Angel s Grove at North Pass, and 
 if it has been discontinued something must 
 have happened to Wiley Sides. 
 
 A great many people would have liked to 
 have something happen to Wiley, for in the 
 old days the long forest roads about the 
 Pass would scarcely have known themselves 
 without his shrieking whoop and the firing 
 of his pistol as he took his gyratory home 
 ward course. His voice had a peculiar 
 quality and went straight to the nerves of 
 the lonely women in the isolated roadside 
 houses, and made them more deadly afraid 
 of Wiley Sides than of any other young ruffian 
 who ranged the country. 
 
 Wiley was an outlaw by right and by 
 mode of life, the only reason that he was not 
 an outlaw in fact being that he was so much 
 more the law than the law itself ever dared 
 to be that if they had not learned to live in 
 tolerance together it would have been the 
 law and not Wiley that went out. Yet Wiley 
 was not more wholly bad than any other
 
 TALES 239 
 
 healthy young animal, and when he was a 
 friend to you he was a friend with any weapon 
 that came to hand. 
 
 It was a habit of Wiley s to pass many a 
 happy night lying at the side of the road in a 
 comfortable state of complete or semi-uncon 
 sciousness, with only the trustful spirit within 
 him and the weird shadows which the moon 
 threw over him to protect him from the chill 
 air and the dew. But one night, being over 
 come probably by weariness, he made a 
 hasty selection of the very middle of the 
 road as a lodging-place, and as he lay there 
 resting peacefully, and neither hearing nor 
 fearing anything, there came a rattle of 
 wheels and a beating of hoofs, a fusillade of 
 pistol-shots, and a chorus of such demoniac 
 howling as only Wiley himself could have 
 excelled, and Wiley was abruptly disturbed 
 by the crushing of horses hoofs followed by 
 wagon-wheels across him. Hoof-beats, rat 
 tling of wheels, shouting and shooting rushed 
 on into silence, and Wiley was alone again. 
 
 " The boys," he muttered, as pain roused 
 him to a really clear and vivid understanding 
 " boys wanted me to stay an ride 
 with em an I wisht I had. Lordy, 
 Lord-a mighty, but I wisht I had ! " He 
 tried to turn and ease himself, but burst into 
 uproarious swearing and sank back. He
 
 240 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 hushed to listen for a sound along the road, 
 and as there was none threw all his torture 
 into long and awful yells. But fate had 
 overtaken him in the very loneliest hollow in 
 the road. The rank miasma of the night 
 breathed over him ; a hoot-owl tried to reas 
 sure him from a distant tree ; and that was 
 all. The moon, hearing even more disturb 
 ance than was usual, came peering above the 
 treetops, smiled on the writhing misery at 
 the bottom of the road, passed by to the 
 other side, and sank again behind the trees. 
 There were more hours in that night than in 
 all of Wiley s previous life. 
 
 Toward morning, when every form of oath 
 had lost its freshness for him, his objurgation 
 mixed itself with entreaty; but the stars 
 blinked down unmoved by threat or prayer, 
 and finally shrank away altogether, as a band 
 of gray clearness broadened up the sky. In 
 an interval of silence Wiley caught a jiggling 
 creakaty-creak of approaching wheels. 
 
 " Help ! Help ! O Lord-a mighty, help ! " 
 he yelled. 
 
 " Git up, Pomp, git along dah ! " a voice 
 exhorted in answer, and the sound of a stick 
 belaboring thinly covered bones came to 
 Wiley s ear like music. " Cain t yo see dis- 
 yeah road too slim to tuhn in? What yo 
 standin still faw like dat? Git long dah,
 
 TALES 241 
 
 yo ole fool boss ! I se sprized at yo dumb 
 ness dat ain t no unsanctioned sinnah 
 swearin , dat somebody wrastlin wid de 
 powah o Gawd ! Git up ! Git up ! Has I 
 raised yo a Christian to see yo skeered of a 
 pusson at prayer? " 
 
 Slowly Pomp s thin Roman nose came into 
 Wiley s range of vision, stretching above him 
 disapprovingly, and then a grizzled negro 
 head came between them. " Is dat yo , Mr. 
 Wiley, sah?" a compassionate voice asked. 
 " Why, Mr. Wiley, sah, yo is bad hu t, an 
 I spec yo bettah let ole Darby take yo 
 home ! " 
 
 "You re a mighty white nig" Wiley 
 began, but his voice oozed away from him in 
 weakness. "Lift me keerful," he choked, 
 "er some of the pieces ll come apart." 
 
 There must really have been something of 
 the power of God lingering along that for 
 saken roadway, for little lame old Darby 
 hoisted Wiley s gigantic frame into his wagon, 
 the spidery wheels of the wagon stood up 
 under the unusual weight, and Pomp s antique 
 skeleton managed to convey the whole load 
 home. More than this, Darby, with the help 
 of the village doctor, took tenderest care of 
 Wiley, who had neither kith nor kin to claim 
 him, and performed such miracles of surgery 
 and nursing that in the course of time Wiley
 
 242 
 
 was abroad again, apparently none the worse 
 for having had a startling percentage of his 
 bones cracked and broken and pushed out 
 of place by the energy of passing friendship. 
 Wiley s reappearance in public was at the 
 annual barbecue which the negroes held on 
 the fourth of August, in Angel s Grove. It 
 should have been on the first of August, as it 
 celebrated the freeing of slaves in Jamaica, 
 but the date had been moved forward to the 
 fourth to satisfy the negro love of conformity 
 by emulating the Fourth of July. White 
 people had not been planned for originally 
 in this festival, but they came out of curiosity, 
 and the poor whites, relishing the barbaric 
 smoky abundance of the barbecued meats, 
 soon poured in and made the holiday their 
 own. The negroes, nothing loath, came to 
 be more caterers than feasters, for West 
 Indian Emancipation was lost sight of in 
 financial success. So it was into a mixed 
 gathering of tawdry whites and gorgeous 
 blacks that Wiley sauntered nonchalantly, his 
 torn hat making a halo for his long, broad 
 face, a sleepy look in his dull blue eyes. He 
 had been missed, but few people knew where 
 he had vanished, for he often wandered away 
 from the Pass for weeks, and when he was 
 gone there was always a feeling that it would 
 be unwise to search for him. His coming was
 
 TALES 243 
 
 soon enough for questions, and, little as his 
 absence was regretted, he was sure to be 
 hailed with warmth. 
 
 "Wiley Sides is back! Hullo, Wiley! 
 What run off with you, Wiley?" his old 
 companions shouted, rallying round him. 
 "Been off visiting your friends? Just in 
 time for sport ! What you been up to so 
 long?" 
 
 " Been visitin ," said Wiley, " an gettin 
 glued together. Woke up one night an 
 found I d broke in a lot o pieces, an now I m 
 a-lookin for the fellers what broke me." 
 
 There was a slight recession of the crowd, 
 and expressions of interest as to who could 
 have been so careless and unfortunate. 
 
 " I know, an that s enough," Wiley 
 answered sententiously. " I don t lay out to 
 trifle with em jus to-day. My arms ain t 
 limber enough jus yet." 
 
 He stretched out the great, brawny mem 
 bers, and the crowd gathered closer to 
 examine their disabled condition with a 
 pleasant sense of freedom. " Stiff," explained 
 Wiley. " Bones hitched together too firm in 
 j inin . Doc says there ll be a heap o day 
 light burned before they get plumb lively." 
 
 "Ain t you got no use of em, Wiley?" 
 somebody asked, trying not too gently to flex 
 one. First that which had been touched
 
 244 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 and then the other swung out in huge circles 
 to the right, left, above, below. " No use 
 of em at all ! " roared Wiley, mowing the 
 people down about him. "Stiffened in the 
 j ints ! No use of em at all ! No use of 
 em at all ! " He swung them round his 
 head like battle-axes in the cleared space 
 about him, and burst guffawing through the 
 crowd. 
 
 " Gimme some meat! " he shouted as he 
 reached the plank tables where the negroes 
 were carving. 
 
 They served him speedily, and negroes 
 and white people gathered in admiring won 
 der while he appeased his convalescent hun 
 ger by lowering great dripping slices into 
 his mouth, first from the ox, then from the 
 sheep, then from the pig, and then again 
 from the ox. It began to seem as if the rest 
 of the world must hurry, or postpone its 
 appetite until another year. Even the ice 
 cream stands, the fruit-stalls, and the "Fly 
 ing Dutchman " lost something of their 
 patronage as it was murmured about that 
 Wiley was trying to eat the ox. 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Wiley, sah," said old 
 Darby, the head of the barbecue, hobbling 
 boldly up and touching Wiley on the arm, 
 " excuse me, but we s expectin a delega 
 tion from Alto, sah, an we d like a little
 
 TALES 245 
 
 lef if dey should happen to be hongry. 
 So I spec , Mr. Wiley, sah, dat it bout 
 time yo lef de meat, sah, an begun, sah, 
 on de bone." 
 
 "Bones?" shouted Wiley, in the appre 
 ciative tone of one who had come to respect 
 them, "bones? Bones is just what I need. 
 If I d been eatin more of em I wouldn t ha 
 broke so fine. Here, you nigger, cut me out 
 the bigges bone in the ox an I m hongry 
 enough to crunch it." 
 
 " Dis-yeah bone de longes , sah," said the 
 grinning carver ; " does you feel like tacklin 
 de longes bone?" 
 
 Wiley sized up its possibilities. It looked 
 sufficient to improve the tone of his whole 
 anatomy. " Cut her out," he roared, mak 
 ing a windmill again of his arms and fanning 
 the carver with their rotation. " Le s see 
 how quick you can cut her out; an leave 
 plenty o meat on her, understand?" 
 
 Poor old Darby felt a lingering responsi 
 bility for Wiley. Wiley was no inconsider 
 able weight for a small, deprecating person 
 to carry about either mentally or physically, 
 and Darby teetered from his long leg to his 
 short one in distress. He knew that Wiley 
 would have no money left for other things 
 if he bought so much meat. He was sure 
 he ought to interfere, and yet, although his
 
 246 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 protege seemed in a gentle and yielding hu 
 mor, he did not like to count too far upon a 
 debt of gratitude. " Mr. Wiley, sah," he 
 finally whispered, " isn yo skeered faw yo 
 health, sah, if yo eats so much? Dem-ayah 
 bones of yo own hasn growed so powahful 
 firm faw yo to ax em to tote round mos a 
 whole ox beside yo se f, an den yo pockets, 
 Mr. Wiley, sah, dey isn so very exuberant 
 in money, sah." 
 
 Wiley brushed the old man aside as he 
 might have brushed a fly for which he 
 chanced to have a kindly regard. " What I 
 needs jes now," he explained to his mentor, 
 " is a little solid eatin ; reckon I understand 
 gettin the mos for my money ; " and draw 
 ing on the exchequer of his pockets to the full 
 extent of his credit he laid the result upon 
 the table and remarked that he was ready 
 for the bone. It was handed to him, and he 
 set out upon a round of the other attractions, 
 gnawing it when he was not shaking it above 
 the heads of the people and inducing them 
 to treat him to everything else there was for 
 sale. Merely to see the bone at rest gave 
 no idea of its persuasive eloquence in motion 
 or of the generous impulses it could inspire. 
 Wiley s tall form towered above the under 
 growth of people, and his big voice domi 
 nated the grove, shouting genially, " Le s
 
 TALES 247 
 
 have some ice-cream ! Le s have some 
 peaches ! Le s have a pie ! " while in the dis 
 tance old Darby snickered with appreciation, 
 recognizing the immense secondary purchas 
 ing power of the bone. 
 
 Like all things sublunary, however, Wiley s 
 appetite had its boundaries, and as he slowly 
 approached them a voice from the " Flying 
 Dutchman " attracted him, calling out, " This 
 way, ladies and gentlemen ! Here s the place 
 to get your money back ! Five cents a ride, 
 ladies and gentlemen ! Right this way ! " 
 
 Rotary motion produced in any way had 
 always been attractive to Wiley. " Well," he 
 said, " I m not hongry no more, so what I 
 shorely want is to get my money back," and 
 he bestrode a tiny horse, much to the agita 
 tion of a small boy who was riding its com 
 panion and seemed likely to be pushed off by 
 Wiley s breath. 
 
 " Five cents, sir," said the manager, "five 
 cents." 
 
 " All right," said Wiley, battering one of 
 the horse s fragile legs with the bone, " you 
 can pay me when I get off, on y don t keep 
 me waitin for my ride. Here we go ! " 
 
 The whacking of the bone was a signal, 
 and away they went, not once but many 
 times, for Wiley saw no reason to get off 
 when the others did. He declared that he
 
 248 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 had spent more than five cents, and he might 
 as well make a good job and get it all back 
 at once. He didn t mind how long it took. 
 Relay after relay of children and young 
 people filled the other seats, but Wiley sat 
 calmy on his pigmy steed, his legs dragging 
 and his big face shining serenely on the 
 breathless babies and giggling lovers who 
 made up the circle. 
 
 In the middle of his tenth round some one 
 came running past with the cry, " Constable s 
 arrested old Darby ! Constable s come on 
 the ground and arrested old Darby ! " 
 
 Wiley straightened himself in consterna 
 tion. " Stop ! " he shouted to the owner of 
 the Dutchman, and very willingly the Dutch 
 man stopped to let him off. 
 
 " Rested old Darby ! " he muttered, as he 
 strode across the grove. " I reckon somebody 
 else will break in pieces if they don t let him 
 loose," and the crowd which had gathered 
 before him concluded that it had gathered in 
 the wrong place when it saw the approaching 
 bone. 
 
 " Drop him ! " said Wiley, and the con 
 stable, who was playfully swinging old Darby 
 to and fro by the waistband, felt something 
 strike first under one arm, then under the 
 other, and Darby dodged out of his hands 
 as a chestnut pops out of the fire. Wiley
 
 TALES 249 
 
 reached out and patted his shoulder as he 
 stood bobbing his head in gratitude. " You 
 needn t be skeered of the constable," he 
 said, "I ain t." 
 
 The constable gathered himself and 
 glowered. When Wiley interfered in a 
 question it became very intricate. " Put 
 down your weepon, sir!" he cried at last; 
 " how do you dast to try to stop the exe 
 cution of the law?" 
 
 Wiley offered a short inverted prayer 
 against the law, loudly and distinctly that 
 all might hear. There was a moment in 
 which the leaves rustled overhead. " What 
 you tryin to stop this yere Darbecue for?" 
 Wiley added. 
 
 A very angry man stepped out from be 
 hind the constable. There was a look about 
 him that seldom confronted Wiley Sides. 
 " These-yere niggers is a gettin too sassy," 
 he cried, " an you d ought to be ashamed to 
 be a-takin up for em ! It s time this barbe 
 cue was broke up. They run it on white 
 men s money, sellin stuff to white men, an 
 they won t let a white man sell a durned 
 thing on the grounds." 
 
 " Did yo want so bad to sell along of nig 
 gers, sah? " asked Darby from the shelter of 
 Wiley s power. 
 
 " The old fellow s right," declared a pros-
 
 250 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 perous-looking white man. "You re lower 
 ing yourself, William Tait, to want to sell on 
 their grounds and then to get old Darby ar 
 rested out of spite. What if he doesn t have 
 a license to sell? The village has never made 
 a point of it before, and this is pure spite. 
 You re lowering yourself this way." 
 
 " Cain t lowah hisse f," gurgled a negro 
 woman s voice. 
 
 " I didn t want to sell nothin ," the angry 
 man retorted, " but old Darby don t have 
 any license to sell, an this sort of thing s got 
 to be stopped runnin things on white 
 folks money an despisin white folks law." 
 
 Again Wiley offered the terse inverted 
 prayer. All the people in the grove were 
 struggling forward to get a sight of him as 
 he stood with his long bone uplifted, waiting 
 for the next word from the constable or 
 William Tait. There was jostling and mur 
 muring and a well-resisted effort to put the 
 women and the children to the outskirts of 
 the crowd ; but the few well-dressed people 
 were already sifting out from the rest, as 
 there seemed no chance of compromise, 
 although the feeling was strongly against 
 the enforcement of the law. 
 
 " If you re going to arrest him why don t 
 you do it?" a sneering voice called out. 
 
 The constable s eyes narrowed with rage.
 
 TALES 251 
 
 " Boys," he shouted, looking around him 
 from the shadow of the half-gnawed femur, 
 " are you goin to stand still and see the law 
 over-rid by a cussed fool with a bone? Old 
 Darby has refused William Tait permission 
 to raise his tintype tent on these grounds ! 
 Come along an back me up ! He s sellin 
 without a license within the town limits ! 
 Come along an back me up whilst I seize 
 him an take him before the squire ! " 
 
 "Why didn t you rest him last year?" 
 taunted another voice. 
 
 The negroes had been keeping a prudent 
 silence, rolling their eyes in suspense, but 
 they took up this query, feeling themselves 
 growing in favor. " Yah ! " they chuckled 
 at the constable ; " why didn yo res him 
 las yeah? What make yo fo git so long?" 
 
 It was unwise for them to exult so soon, 
 and many a wavering white man went into 
 the balance with William Tait. There was a 
 trampling forward and a more distinct rang 
 ing into sides, while the ejected women clam 
 bered on to the unguarded tables, dragging 
 their babies after them that no one might 
 miss the fun. But still the bone swayed 
 silently, and concerted action beneath it still 
 hung fire. 
 
 The constable made a dart to one side of 
 Wiley, but Darby hopped to the other side,
 
 252 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 and he found himself barred out by the bone. 
 He wheeled in the opposite direction ; Darby, 
 with the spryness of youth in his unequal 
 legs, jumped around Wiley again as if play 
 ing tag, and the bone swung over and 
 dropped once more in the constable s path. 
 There was a burst of laughter. The con 
 stable wheeled ; Darby jumped. The con 
 stable jumped ; Darby dodged. They were 
 like parts of a mechanical toy regulated by 
 the swinging bone. Wiley himself began 
 to grin, and the negroes jumped mockingly 
 to and fro. 
 
 The constable made a sudden movement. 
 " Stand aside ! " he shouted, pulling a revolver 
 from his pocket ; but before he could aim it 
 it went whizzing into the tree-tops, shooting 
 recklessly at the agitated leaves. There was 
 a scuttling apart to make room for it as it 
 fell, and a negro picked it from the ground, 
 and there was a bubbling up of broken negro 
 merriment. 
 
 " Oh, you can laugh ! " screamed William 
 Tait, and, leaping, he tore a branch from a 
 tree and rushed in with it against Wiley. 
 " Seize him ! Seize him ! " he shouted. 
 " He s defyin the law ! Knock the bone 
 out of his hand ; he s drawed it on the law ! 
 Seize him ! Seize him ! Crack his bone 
 for him ! Knock out "
 
 TALES 253 
 
 The bone came crashing through the at 
 tacking branch. " No, you don t ! " shouted 
 Wiley, stretching Tait upon the ground. 
 " I ve had a lot o bones cracked for me, 
 but you don t crack this ! Get out ! Get 
 out ! Get out o this grove ! March ! 
 March ! You re disturbin the peace ! The 
 peace cain t be disturbed ! Get out ! Get 
 out ! March ! " 
 
 His great, loosened voice shook the very 
 trees, but the men were roused at last, and 
 cracking orT branches they beset him on 
 every side. The negroes armed themselves 
 and closed in behind him. There was shout 
 ing and howling and snapping of twigs and 
 crashing of blows, but above all other sounds 
 rose Wiley s yell, and above all other weap 
 ons swung the bone, laying man after man 
 upon the earth where Wiley had so often 
 rested well. 
 
 " Arrest a pore old darkey for nothin 1 , 
 will you? Break up this Darbecue, will you? 
 Get up off the ground an march ! March ! 
 March ! Don t slip out to the sides ! March ! 
 March ! Hay-foot ! straw-foot ! Break up 
 the Darbecue, will you? March!" 
 
 He drove them before him, weaving about 
 from right to left to warn the stragglers in, 
 while the negroes trailed behind him echoing 
 his shouts, and women and children of all
 
 254 LAW AND THE LONG BONE 
 
 colors ran hither and thither screaming as 
 they brought up the rear. Resistance broke 
 into rout, swept forward by the bone, and 
 the whole mass surged forward to the gates. 
 
 The negroes began shouting gleefully, 
 " We ve tuhned em out ! We ve tuhned em 
 out ! " and they dashed ahead to shut the 
 gates as the bone flourished over the empty 
 road. 
 
 " Not much you don t ! " Wiley shouted. 
 " I m not done yet ! Get out yoreselves ! 
 Get out yoreselves ! I m not sidin with 
 niggers ! Get out every one of you but 
 Darby ! He s the on y white man I know ; 
 me an him ll run this Darbecue ! Get out ! 
 Get out ! March ! Hay-foot ! straw-foot ! 
 Watch the nigger recruits ! Me an Darby ll 
 run this Darbecue ! Good-by ! " and he 
 slammed the gates behind the last crest 
 fallen negro that ducked under the waving 
 bone. 
 
 " But, Mr. Wiley, sah ! " stammered old 
 Darby as Wiley rested the head of the bone 
 on the ground and leaned upon it, roaring 
 with delight, " you an me ll have it powah- 
 ful peaceable an ordahly heah, sah, but you 
 an me an de ladies cain t possibly disinte 
 grate all de ice-cream in the freezahs, sah, not 
 mentionin de meat dat yo didn eat, sah, 
 an I m skeered de ladies doesn have dey
 
 TALES 255 
 
 pocket-books in dey pockets, sah, an it 
 seem like we goin to have a little mo peace 
 dan we need an not quite nough profit, 
 Mr. Wiley, sah, widout de men." 
 
 Wiley stopped laughing and looked about 
 him blankly. " Well, I never studied about 
 that," he admitted, and opening the gates 
 he climbed on to one of the gate-posts and 
 addressed the citizens once more. 
 
 " Any of you that feels whiter than you 
 did," he shouted, " an that wants to come 
 back, an to mind his own business, an not 
 to mind other folks s, an to pay for what he 
 eats, an not to disturb the peace from now 
 on to everlastin , is annually welcome to 
 this yere Darbecue in Angel s Grove." 
 
 The multitude straggled smilingly back 
 until only the two defenders of the law were 
 left outside the gates, and the barbecue 
 ended in peaceful prosperity under the 
 shadow and protection of the bone.
 
 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 OSCAR DILLOW had fainted on the 
 battlefield without a wound, and as 
 a consequence the wounds came afterward 
 when he was laid up with nervous fever, 
 while the other men lay around him on the 
 hay and passed the time in thrusting at his 
 pride. Sometimes it seemed as if he had 
 none, and then they prodded deeper, hoping 
 they might reach it somewhere out of sight. 
 One day a little fellow named Parmlee struck 
 it, and the prostrate giant staggered to his 
 feet. 
 
 It was a burning day. The sunlight came 
 through chinks and knot-holes, and fell in 
 shafts of torture on the wounded men. 
 Horseflies, the only original properties left 
 in Ferguson s barn, pervaded it officiously. 
 Outside, on the hill beyond Ferguson s fields, 
 the shells were screaming. Dillow had 
 dropped into one of those fitful dozes into 
 which his over-wrought nerves relaxed be 
 tween the outbursts on the hill when little 
 Parmlee came and stood beside him. Parmlee 
 had been to the kitchen tent of the Sanitary
 
 TALES 257 
 
 Commission, and had brought back enough 
 oyster stew for each man in the barn, and 
 each man had had his share excepting 
 Dillow. Now Parmlee was waiting beside 
 him, with a dipperful of it in his hand, but 
 a contemptuous smile upon his face. 
 
 " Six oysters for a coward," he thought 
 as he shifted his lame leg discontentedly and 
 waited. 
 
 It seemed to him against all the laws of 
 war. He himself had had a deep flesh- 
 wound just above the knee, and Dillow had 
 turned gray in the face at the sight of it and 
 had fallen over him, nearly shattering all his 
 bones and holding him in torment. And 
 here was Dillow, still lying almost as gray 
 and inert as he had lain upon the field. 
 Parmlee thanked all his stars for not having 
 been obliged to lie underneath the big fellow 
 all this time ; and yet his injured leg almost 
 refused to carry oysters to Dillow, although 
 it was ready enough in lending itself to the 
 other men who were on their backs. They 
 were brave soldiers. It aggravated the 
 limp to have to wait upon a coward. 
 
 As Dillow kept on dozing, the one thing 
 the little attendant wanted to do was to spill 
 the stew into his face and wake him ; but 
 some impulse caused him to look across to 
 the next bundle of hay and meet a pair of
 
 258 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 hungry eyes that were gazing up from it. 
 Beneath the eyes there yawned a grinning, 
 hungry mouth, and a humorous hungry 
 finger pointed into it. Eyes, mouth, and 
 finger all belonged to a man who had fought 
 well. He had had one dipperful of oysters, 
 but yearned for more. Little Parmlee hesi 
 tated a moment, thought of the instructions 
 given him at the tent, and then, grinning in 
 answer, tiptoed round the gigantic sleeper 
 and fed an oyster into the open mouth, which 
 closed upon it as tightly and far more ecstati 
 cally than the shell in which it had once 
 lived. 
 
 Parmlee had only meant to rob the coward 
 of one oyster, but as soon as that was gone, 
 and he glanced about again, he saw four 
 other gaping mouths quite near at hand. 
 He went from one to another like a parent 
 bird, and as he dropped the longed-for morsel 
 into each it closed upon it with an expres 
 sion of great bliss. There was but one 
 oyster in the plate now, and it looked so 
 lonely and so tempting as it circled through 
 the broth that before he really knew he had 
 swallowed it himself. Then he winked 
 silently at the five brave soldiers, and they 
 winked at him. 
 
 The broth might possibly have gone 
 spoonful by spoonful after the oysters if
 
 TALES 259 
 
 Dillow had not wakened and seen the dipper. 
 His listless eyes found interest. 
 
 " Hello, Parmlee," he said, lifting himself 
 a little, and sniffing expectantly, " are you 
 bringing me some oyster stew? " 
 
 " Yes," said Parmlee, and he held the 
 dipper for the giant s big, unsteady hands. 
 He did not notice what young hands they 
 were. Parmlee was only eighteen, and too 
 young himself to notice such things, or to 
 make allowances, and he never guessed that 
 Dillow was as young as he; but then, no 
 one had ever made allowances for Dillow. 
 It is not customary to make allowances for 
 giants. 
 
 Dillow took the dish and searched it with 
 his eyes, and finally looked up as one does 
 who hears some news too sad to credit. 
 
 "Oyster stew without any oysters?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " They give the oysters to wounded men," 
 said the smaller boy in a grim voice. "They 
 think you re too much like an oyster 
 a ready just as active an fiery as an oyster, 
 an the same strength an muscle to your 
 size." 
 
 He laughed, and the five men near by 
 joined with him like a chorus, and then 
 licked their lips, where a pleasant little 
 memory still lingered.
 
 260 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 Oscar Dillovv looked from one to another 
 of them, and understood. A spasmodic 
 jerking took possession of his hands, so that 
 he could not lift the spoon. Parmlee held 
 the dipper up impatiently, and he swallowed 
 the broth at a single gulp, and gave the tin 
 so sudden a push that it flew out of Parmlee s 
 hands. The little fellow looked after it in 
 surprise, while Dillow struggled to a sitting 
 posture and glared at the men. 
 
 "Oh, you you you!" he began, 
 groping wildly after invective and self-justifi 
 cation and prophecy, but the whole wreck 
 that he had made of his manhood, and the 
 whole insult to it, rose in him, struggling 
 together and strangling him, until his voice 
 broke out into a cry, and he fell back upon 
 his bed and snatched the sheet over his face 
 to hide it. 
 
 The men looked from one to another, and 
 laughed aloud. They felt a little sheepish, 
 but they were more certain than ever that 
 the oysters had been well placed. 
 
 " What he needs now is his shell to crawl 
 into," one said. 
 
 " Don t worry," came another humorous 
 growl. " He ll just drop into the water up 
 Salt river and grow himself another shell." 
 
 " Plenty o shells right here, ready an 
 callin for him," chuckled still another voice,
 
 TALES 261 
 
 as a spitting, screaming missile went over the 
 barn. 
 
 Parmlee stooped and lifted the sheet for a 
 final peep at the coward who lay shuddering 
 from the sound of the shell as the live flesh 
 shudders from the knife. 
 
 " Hush, boys," he said, replacing the sheet, 
 and turning to hobble cheerily out as he had 
 come. " He s about to get a little rest. 
 Sh-h-h-h-h ! Oysters is so active that they 
 need a little relaxation now an then." 
 
 As Dillow lay there, trying to shut his ears 
 to the comments that passed above him, the 
 horror of the battle on the hill seemed 
 suddenly a trifling thing compared to the 
 horror of his life. He threw back the sheet 
 and sat up. The man who had eaten the 
 first oyster rose to his elbow, too, and looked 
 at the big boy who had had nothing left but 
 broth. 
 
 " Gettin hungry again?" he asked. 
 
 " No," said Dillow, passing his hand across 
 his dizzy head. " I m gettin up to wait 
 until you re well enough for me to lick." 
 
 He rose to his feet and staggered against 
 the wall, white and quivering. There was a 
 small window over one of the mangers, and 
 he looked out on fields full of confusion, 
 where the army had swept forward to battle, 
 leaving last week s wounded in Ferguson s
 
 262 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 barn like a drift-mark on the beach. But 
 now, from under the cloud on the hill, a 
 wave of men in blue were falling back and 
 breaking like water round a rock wherever a 
 pursuing shell exploded in their midst. 
 Here and there an officer galloped about, 
 beating back the men and being overborne, 
 and in the nearer fields the ambulances and 
 army wagons tore back and forth like a dis 
 tracted flock, sometimes colliding with one 
 another, sometimes passing over a trampled 
 swath of fallen men. Dillow clenched his 
 hands and looked on with his lips shut tight. 
 The men behind him on the hay questioned 
 him eagerly, but he did not hear. At last 
 he turned to them. 
 
 " Boys," he said, and there was a sob in 
 his throat that gave weight to the fever- 
 thinned voice, " boys, I m going to lick you, 
 but while I wait for you to get strong enough 
 I m goin out there." 
 
 They stared at him. 
 
 " What ll you do there? " questioned three 
 voices at once. " You d be mighty useful as 
 a breastwork, if they was fortifyin , but if 
 they re rampagin back here through the 
 field " 
 
 " I ll fight," said Dillow. " The boys 
 are falling back. They re needing fighting 
 men."
 
 TALES 263 
 
 " An the oyster riz in his might, an sez 
 he, I ll fight, I ll fight ! " sang the first 
 brave soldier, but the coward made no retort. 
 
 He crept to the place where clothes were 
 hanging in the place of vanished harnesses, 
 and, propping himself against a stall, began 
 to dress. His head swam, his heart fluttered, 
 his hands shook the garments, and the men 
 looked on with interest and unbelief, throw 
 ing in suggestions and offering their own 
 wardrobes, not being fighting men. When 
 he was half dressed Dillow sat down on his 
 pile of hay, too spent to finish. A warning 
 " Sh-h-h-h ! " passed from lip to lip, followed 
 by a laugh, for they all thought that he was 
 giving up ; but one of the five explained in 
 his defence : 
 
 " You don t understand, you fellows. He s 
 ready and waitin . He s goin to fight on the 
 half shell! " 
 
 A light pattering of spent bullets came 
 down on the roof, and silence fell with them. 
 It was as if the little rattle had been a death 
 summons to each man. Finally they looked 
 at one another. 
 
 "We had ought to be moved," some one 
 said soberly. " Wonder where Parmlee s 
 gone to. He had ought to tell somebody to 
 move us." 
 
 " H m," said other voices, " Parmlee s too
 
 264 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 busy movin fellows at the front ain t no 
 body to look out for us." 
 
 Dillow sat on his pile of hay, and clinched 
 his hands between his knees. The din and 
 turmoil grew about them as the firing came 
 in hot and close across the fields. The 
 angry crackling of musketry was shaken by 
 long, deep-mouthed baying from the guns, 
 and shells screamed oftener about them. 
 
 " My God ! " said one. 
 
 Dillow looked up slowly and wonderingly 
 at their terrified faces. It made very little 
 difference to him to be waiting for death 
 here, or to be waiting for it at the front, in 
 action ; there was nothing in him to take fire 
 and carry him beyond the thought of danger. 
 Knowing that these men had that which he 
 lacked, it seemed even more pitiful to see 
 them all afraid. He felt that if he had gone 
 out he might have prevented it, that out of 
 the sheer strength of his pity he might have 
 led the forces aside so that the firing should 
 not fall so close to the wounded in the barn. 
 He could see his own ghost dash out through 
 the shot and the shell and bid the command 
 ers beat their forces to one side, and he 
 followed the apparition with a breathless rev 
 erence until he remembered that he himself 
 was still sitting with clinched hands upon the 
 hay.
 
 TALES 265 
 
 He jumped to his feet with an oath and 
 started toward the door, and fell. A bomb 
 had struck the barn. Its explosion rent the 
 air and filled it with dust and shivered wood. 
 For a moment Dillow thought that he him 
 self and all the rest were dead. Then he 
 found that he could rise and look about. 
 One side of the barn was gone, and the hay 
 and dry wood were bursting out in fire. The 
 stronger men were running and creeping and 
 writhing from their beds, but there were some 
 too weak to move, and some pinned down by 
 timbers, and these cried hoarsely after those 
 who could escape. Overhead the flames had 
 sprung into the loft ; the stalls about the men 
 were travelled by little tongues of fire that 
 brought the rats running and squealing out 
 of harm. 
 
 Dillow bent and gathered up one of the 
 helpless men, and took him out, passing the 
 laboring, groaning ones who helped them 
 selves. Then he ran back into the fire for 
 the next. His knees rocked and his breath 
 was thick with smoke. The cinders fell 
 crackling over him ; the loft sagged lower and 
 lower toward his head. " Five ! " he kept 
 insisting to himself. "There are five who 
 can t move; " and he lifted another piteous 
 form and dragged it out into the grass. 
 
 It seemed to take him years to go and
 
 266 SIX BRAVE SOLDIERS 
 
 come ; the flames ate swiftly through the 
 parched barn timbers, and the roar was like 
 the thunder of cannon in his ears. Three 
 times again he stumbled back into the thick 
 of it; three times he came out staggering, his 
 great weak body bending double, his gaunt, 
 blackened, and bleeding arms wrapped about 
 a nerveless form, the clothes burned off his 
 back, the hair burned on his head, the blood 
 making red furrows down his black, distorted 
 face. A falling beam had struck him, but he 
 did not know. 
 
 " Five," he was breathing in his short, thick 
 breaths, "five fightin men." 
 
 He started once more, and his seared flesh 
 burned the hand that held him back. 
 
 "Lemme go ! " he cried, turning fiercely on 
 the surgeon who was holding him. " I got 
 to get em they re fightin men ! " 
 
 "You ve got em, you idiot!" screamed 
 the surgeon, holding fast. "You ve got em 
 all but the big coward, and the devil himself 
 couldn t pull him out of there." 
 
 Little Parmlee came hobbling up among 
 the witnesses. " That s him ! That s him ! " 
 he cried, but Dillow wrenched himself free. 
 He had been crouching double, as if he still 
 carried a weight, but now his eyes fell on the 
 five brave soldiers lying smoke-stunned on the 
 grass, and he knew that his task was done.
 
 TALES 267 
 
 " All but the coward, he muttered 
 in a voice that came like the wind through 
 yellow corn. 
 
 A ripple of life straightened him. He 
 stood up sheer and black against the tower 
 of flame that rose into the heavens, flinging 
 out its long bright banners to the sun. The 
 exultation flickered out, he swayed a moment, 
 and then little Parmlee and the surgeon 
 caught him in their arms and laid him down. 
 
 The surgeon looked up at the expectant 
 faces. 
 
 " He s gone," he said simply. " That was 
 a brave soldier." 
 
 The men who had hats uncovered their 
 heads in silence. Far off the regiment was 
 surging like a wave against the hill. The 
 tide had turned.
 
 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 THE main street of Pontomoc lay quiet 
 and shadowy beneath its live-oaks. The 
 blinds of the houses were closed, and even 
 the dogs on the doorsteps drowsed away the 
 sultry afternoon. Between the trees, where 
 the patches of sunlight fell, the moisture from 
 a morning shower still shimmered in the air, 
 and little swarms of gnats and mosquitoes 
 hovered in the brightness. It was one of 
 those rainy summers when the southeast 
 winds bring showers from the Gulf and mos 
 quitoes from the marshes all in the same 
 breath, and the mercury in the thermometers 
 is too languid to creep down from the top 
 of the tube at night, knowing well that the 
 sun will call it back again in the morning. 
 
 No one had come into the little village 
 store for hours, and George Dabney, the 
 clerk, had tilted back against the counter 
 and was dozing under a cloud of tobacco 
 smoke, rousing himself once in a while to 
 relight his cigar and to wish that he could 
 keep it going better while he slept. 
 
 " George ! " a woman s voice called from
 
 TALES 269 
 
 the street. " Come out here at once, 
 George ! " 
 
 He sprang to his feet, laid his cigar down 
 on the counter, and went blinking to the 
 door. A carriage stood in front, and a well- 
 dressed middle-aged woman was leaning out 
 of it, fanning the mosquitoes from around 
 her face. Her old horse had dropped his 
 head and stood patient and dejected, only 
 giving a great shiver now and then, and 
 switching his thin old tail. 
 
 " Something I can do for you-all, Mrs. 
 Grayson?" George asked, getting hold of 
 his clerkly smile, for in Pontomoc it is not 
 the custom for ladies to come inside the 
 store on any small errand. George Dabney 
 takes what they want out to their carriages, 
 and they examine it over the wheels. 
 
 " I thought you were asleep or dead," 
 she answered sharply. " I should have 
 gotten out in a minute to see what was the 
 matter. I ve just been down to the express 
 office after Miss Juanita s wedding-veil, and 
 I find it has missed the train, so I want you 
 to bring me out the finest and best one in 
 the store." 
 
 George s face fell under a deprecating 
 gloom. " I m mighty sorry, but I don t 
 have a wedding-veil in stock," he said. 
 
 " But you must have one, George," Mrs.
 
 2;o MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 Grayson insisted, as if proper firmness might 
 create so slight a tissue as a veil. " The 
 Creoles, you know," she added, in a more 
 conciliatory tone, " they ll not be married 
 without one, and so you have to keep a 
 supply on their account." 
 
 " That s just the trouble," the clerk ex 
 plained. " I never saw such a summer for 
 Creoles to get married. There s been a 
 regular run on the store for veils, and the 
 last one was taken yesterday. Mr. Willie de 
 Ferriere sent for it from out on the Point." 
 
 " Mr. Willie sent for your last wedding- 
 veil?" Mrs. Grayson repeated incredulously. 
 It seemed to her that George was giving a 
 lame excuse for not having any, and she was 
 still half inclined to require him to bring one 
 out at once. 
 
 George smiled again, and fanned away the 
 mosquitoes with an airier grace. " I guess 
 you ve forgotten that he s down with two 
 broken ribs and a collar-bone from that run 
 away last week," he said. " I thought he 
 was out of his mind at first, but old Ann said 
 the veil was to keep the mosquitoes off his 
 face and hands. You know how these mosqui 
 toes are so little that they go right through 
 ordinary bars, and he s too weak to fight. I 
 reckon you ll have to send over to Potosi for 
 a veil."
 
 TALES 271 
 
 " But didn t I tell you that the wedding is 
 to-night?" Mrs. Grayson cried ; "and Miss 
 Juanita has taken the Creole notion in her 
 head, and she declares she ll not be married 
 without a veil." She gathered up the reins 
 and gave them a jerk as a hint to the horse 
 that it was time to go. Then she gave 
 another jerk to advise him that she was not 
 quite ready after all. " Was it one of your 
 best veils Mr. Willie bought? " she asked. 
 
 " The finest one we ever had in the store, 
 Mrs. Grayson," George declared. 
 
 " H m," she said thoughtfully, " I ll see 
 about it," and giving a third jerk to the reins 
 she drove away. George stood and looked after 
 her until he saw her turning down the road to 
 the Point. Then he went back into the store, 
 and when he picked up his cigar to relight it 
 his lips had yielded to an unofficial smile. 
 
 Willie de Ferriere was lying very restless 
 and very miserable beneath the wedding- 
 veil. The mosquitoes did not get under it, 
 but neither did the breeze. In point of fact 
 there was no breeze, but Mr. Willie did not 
 know that, and he laid the whole sultriness to 
 the veil. He was tired and sick and lonely. 
 On the whole it was a relief to him when old 
 Ann put her head in at the door to say that 
 Mrs. Grayson had called and wished to speak 
 to him.
 
 272 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 " Bring her in, Ann," he said at once. 
 " Wait a minute ! See if my veil is 
 straight." 
 
 " Law, yes, Mr. Willie," old Ann gurgled, 
 " yo veil puhfectly straight, an yo do suh- 
 tainly look chahmin in it, honey ! I de 
 clare if yo po maw could see yo she d 
 wish mo n evah dat yo been a girl." 
 
 Mr. Willie only grunted. He was six feet 
 two inches tall, and as he lay stretched out in 
 bed, and looked down toward the place where 
 his toes lifted up the coverlet, it seemed to 
 him that he could measure off a good seven 
 or eight feet of length, and he pictured him 
 self stalking up the church aisle as a very 
 majestic bride. 
 
 " Go along, Ann, and show the madam 
 in," he said. " I wonder what she wants to 
 get out of me, now I m down?" 
 
 " Oh, law, honey ! " said Ann, who had 
 nursed Mr. Willie in his babyhood, " don t 
 yo want me to stay hyar so if I see her get- 
 tin de bes of yo I kin jes shoo her out like 
 a ole hen out n a garden bed " 
 
 " Ann," Mrs. Grayson s voice called down 
 the long straight hall from the parlor door, 
 " have you forgotten that I said I was in a 
 hurry? Perhaps you ll not mind finishing 
 your talk with Mr. Willie after I have done 
 my errand?"
 
 TALES 273 
 
 Her voice carried straight to Mr. Willie s 
 ear. " Go along, Ann ; I m not afraid of her if 
 I am on my back," he said. " Anyhow, I can 
 ring for you if she gets too much for me." 
 
 Ann returned a moment to the bed to see 
 if the bell was within reach. " Now, Mr. 
 Willie, don t you take no risks," she whis 
 pered. " It jes come in my haid what she s 
 aftah. She want to git de loan of yo po 
 maw s guitar so s t Miss Juanita kin sing to it 
 befoah her beaux. Miss Juanita s a good 
 nough girl, Mr. Willie, but dat ain t no 
 scuse faw givin her yo maw s guitar. Yo 
 goin to have a wife of yo own some day, 
 Mr. Willie " A rustle of skirts was heard 
 along the hall, and Mr. Willie looked from 
 Ann to the door in a way that ordered her 
 out against her will. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Willie," Mrs. 
 Grayson said, " but I haven t a moment to 
 lose, and Ann seems to be growing more 
 loquacious every year. May I come in?" 
 
 " Delighted to have you, Mrs. Grayson," 
 the young man answered, in a voice which 
 might have been heartier if two broken ribs 
 had not impeded it. 
 
 Mrs. Grayson marched straight up to the 
 bed, her eyes measuring and testing the 
 length, quality, and condition of the wed 
 ding-veil. " It s too bad, Mr. Willie," she
 
 274 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 said. " You can t think how sorry I was to 
 hear of your accident, and I should have 
 come over at once if it hadn t been for Jua- 
 nita s wedding on my hands. There s going 
 to be no one there but the family, or of 
 course you would have been invited ; but 
 Juanita says if there isn t anything else she 
 will have a wedding-veil, and it hasn t come, 
 and the wedding is to-night. I should be 
 there this minute, there are so many things 
 to do." 
 
 " But who what who s Juanita going 
 to marry?" Mr. Willie cried. He had been 
 too much surprised even to ask at first, but 
 now a warlike look was coming up through 
 his astonishment. " The last time I saw her," 
 he went on coolly, " she said she intended 
 to hold out and do as she pleased, if she had 
 to fight for twenty years." 
 
 " Mr. Willie," Mrs. Grayson retorted, tight 
 ening her lips a little, " you have known 
 Juanita ever since she was a baby, and I 
 should think you d have noticed that she 
 never does anything to please anybody but 
 herself. I implored her to wait three months 
 and let Mr. Keener come back from Mexico 
 for the wedding " 
 
 "So it s Keener," Mr. Willie broke in; 
 " old enough to be her grandfather. I call 
 that a shame."
 
 TALES 275 
 
 " But she wouldn t hear of it," Mrs. Gray- 
 son was going on. " It had to be this 
 very week, no matter if it killed me to get 
 ready, and now the veil hasn t come, and 
 there s none to be bought in the village, and 
 that brings me straight to my errand. I m 
 obliged to buy, borrow, or beg away your 
 veil." 
 
 Mr. Willie cle Ferriere, old playfellow and 
 life-long friend of Juanita Grayson, looked 
 contemplatively at his far-away toes for a 
 moment, and then turned a questioning gaze 
 on Mrs. Grayson. " Which way will you 
 try first buying, borrowing, or begging?" 
 he inquired. 
 
 Mrs. Grayson opened her mouth. " Willie 
 de Ferriere ! " she gasped. 
 
 He continued to look up at her defiantly 
 until a deep flush rose in her cheeks and 
 passed up to the roots of her heavy dark 
 hair. She came a little nearer, examining 
 the way in which the veil was fastened to the 
 pillow above Mr. Willie s head. It had been 
 his fancy to have some old pearl pins of his 
 mother s used for the purpose, and the effect 
 was very bridal. " I don t know why you 
 should speak to me like that," she said. 
 " Of course it s unusual to ask to borrow a 
 wedding-veil, but then it is still more unusual 
 for a young man to appropriate the last one
 
 2 ;6 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 from the store, and you are certainly such 
 an old friend of the family that you ll not 
 object to my taking it." She lifted up the 
 mosquito-bar which hung around the bed and 
 Mr. Willie and the veil, and began unfasten 
 ing the clasp of one of the pins. A slight 
 smile came upon her set lips without seem 
 ing to relax them. " I m sorry I have to be 
 in such a hurry," she went on, " but when I 
 am gone you can decide at your leisure 
 whether I have bought, borrowed, or begged 
 it." 
 
 Mr. Willie s hand was on the bell. " Wait 
 a moment," he said. " If I ring for Ann 
 she will come in and defend me, and it might 
 not be pleasant, but I ll tell you what I ll do. 
 If Juanita is willing to leave me to be eaten 
 up alive while she is getting married under 
 my veil I ll let her have it, but I want her 
 own word for it. If you will go home and 
 send her over here to get the veil herself" 
 
 " But it s too late," Mrs. Grayson protested, 
 her fingers still trembling on the pin. " It 
 all has to be over in time for them to start 
 for Mexico on the half-past ten train." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw!" said Mr. Willie; "it s 
 only a quarter to five, and you can hold off 
 the ceremony until nine o clock. Besides, if 
 Juanita is going to get married and go off to 
 Mexico I ll not have any other chance to say
 
 TALES 277 
 
 good-by ; and Juanita and I are very old 
 friends, you know. But do just as you 
 please. I shall not give up my wedding- 
 veil into any hands but hers." 
 
 Mrs. Grayson hesitated. There was silence 
 for a moment, and then old Ann s voice spoke 
 at the door although there had been no foot 
 steps in the hall. " Didn t I heah yo ring 
 faw me, Mr. Willie? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I didn t ring, Ann," Mr. Willie an 
 swered, " but I was thinking of it. I d like 
 you to open the gate for Mrs. Grayson. She 
 is starting home." 
 
 " All right, Mr. Willie," Ann said. And 
 this time they could distinctly hear her 
 shuffling footsteps in the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Grayson turned to go. " I shall re 
 member your kindness, Mr. Willie," she said 
 at the door, " but I shall send Juanita over 
 for the veil." 
 
 " That is, if Juanita will come," Mr. Willie 
 muttered when he was alone; " and I hope 
 she ll come. I don t believe she wants to 
 marry and go away from Pontomoc without 
 bidding me good-by. Poor little girl ! " he 
 mused ; " she s been driven to the wall at 
 last, and I ve been laid up here and didn t 
 know. I wish" His thoughts hastened 
 on, keeping the heat from oppressing him. 
 His eyes closed and he smiled. Then the
 
 278 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 faint dream of a breeze stole into the room 
 and stirred the wedding-veil against his face. 
 He was very weak from his accident, and 
 for some reason its touch was unspeakably 
 pathetic to him, and he thought of how Jua- 
 nita would feel when she put it on and it 
 stirred against her face like that. " I don t 
 see how she dares do it," he thought on. 
 " If I were a girl and realized that in a few 
 hours I should pledge away my whole life to 
 come, and if it were only for the sake of 
 peace " He looked through the mist of 
 the veil at the blue waters of Pontomoc bay 
 glinting outside in the returning breeze, and 
 winding away into a hidden land of promise 
 like a life still free. 
 
 The shadows lengthened across the vista 
 from his window, and the little waves upon 
 the bay danced up into a golden light and 
 caught it on their crests. Then the breeze 
 died, and there was not the slightest sound in 
 all the world. The time seemed very long. 
 Mr. Willie felt tired again and restless, and 
 he would have given almost anything he 
 owned if it would have brought him strength 
 to rise upon his elbow and look around the 
 window-casing down the road. He began to 
 think that Juanita had refused to come. Jua- 
 nita could be inexorably firm when she 
 thought it worth while to assert herself, but
 
 TALES 279 
 
 he felt a little hurt that even if she did not 
 want his veil she had not taken it as an 
 excuse to call on him and say good-by. 
 " She might have known I would understand," 
 he thought; "but then, I suppose she has 
 her hands full getting ready for to-night." 
 Even old Ann seemed to have forgotten him. 
 It was very strange that she did not come to 
 see if he wished to have his pillows turned, 
 or to bring him something cool to drink. It 
 was not like her to wait until he rang the 
 bell. " After a little the coast train will be 
 coming in, and Keener will be on it," he 
 thought, " and then my last chance will be 
 gone." 
 
 The little gold-topped waves had sunk into 
 glittering pink and azure reaches, over which 
 the sun hung low. Somewhere out of sight 
 a schooner, knowing herself becalmed, threw 
 out her anchor and let her sails come rattling 
 down. Mr. Willie put his hand upon the 
 bell, and then, remembering that he needed 
 nothing, did not ring, but called in a very 
 low voice, " Ann ! " 
 
 There was no answer, and in the silence he 
 could hear the coast train throbbing far be 
 yond the bay. Then it came rumbling across 
 the trestle, with a shriek for the drawbridge, 
 and another shriek for the village lying inland 
 from the Point, and Mr. Willie knew that in
 
 280 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 two hours Juanita Grayson would be married 
 to a man she did not love. The moments 
 passed aimlessly above him while he won 
 dered why it was that he could know so many 
 things to-day that he had never dreamed in 
 all the days before. A red haze filled the 
 distant west, and the sun sank slowly through 
 it to some mystery beyond. Mr. Willie 
 watched until it seemed too much like watch 
 ing the death of some one very dear. He 
 closed his eyes and the warm tears came up 
 beneath the lids, and his hand wound itself 
 in the soft tissue of the veil. 
 
 There was a creak of wheels along the 
 shell drive from the gate. Mr. Willie s eyes 
 flew open and his hand shook the bell. 
 " Ann ! " he called ; " somebody s coming, 
 Ann." 
 
 Ann ran in, looking excited. " De young 
 lady s aftah yo veil, suah nough," she an 
 nounced ; " but I ll stay right handy, so s t if 
 you want me " 
 
 " You go to the kitchen," Mr. Willie said, 
 ungratefully; " but show Miss Juanita in first, 
 please." 
 
 Old Ann shook her head. " Miss Juanita s 
 a good nough girl," she grumbled, " but 
 dat ain t no scuse " Her voice died away 
 along the hall, and the flutter of Juanita s 
 coming took its place. She entered and
 
 TALES 281 
 
 walked swiftly up to him with a bright defi 
 ance in her eyes. 
 
 " It s all done with," she said. " So you 
 may keep your veil." 
 
 Mr. Willie tried to smile. " Are you married 
 so early, Juanita? " he asked. 
 
 " Married? " she said, standing very white 
 and proud before him. " No, I m not married. 
 Mr. Keener did not come." 
 
 " And hasn t he sent you any word?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; a letter on the coast train ! He 
 did not telegraph because he wished to go 
 into more detail. You know that this was 
 the very last day possible for him to start to 
 Mexico to take the place that s offered him, 
 and he had to go to the city to finish his prep 
 arations ; but there was more to be done than 
 he thought, and he didn t get through. Oh, 
 Willie, I m so glad ! " 
 
 " But I don t understand," began Mr. Willie. 
 
 " Of course you don t," the girl broke in 
 with a sharp voice. " You re not such a good 
 business man as he is, and you don t under 
 stand how necessary it is to get all tlirough. 
 Neither do I understand, nor even mamma. 
 I left her talking it over and trying to. I I 
 told her I must come and explain why I didn t 
 want the veil. Willie," her voice was 
 almost a sob, " I shall have to hear her talk 
 about it all my life."
 
 282 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 Mr. Willie clinched his hands. " I must 
 get the straight of this," he said. " Does the 
 fellow want to break off the marriage, or only 
 to postpone it?" 
 
 " Ho ! " she cried, " break it off? You 
 don t know him, Willie. He s in love with 
 me, don t you understand? All that he wants 
 is a little time to arrange business, and then 
 when everything is in running order he will 
 come. He expects to find me waiting for 
 him, like a package left until called for; but 
 that is his mistake. Do you blame me, 
 Willie? I ll not marry him when he comes 
 back. I gave up to mamma only on con 
 dition of its being over and done with, and 
 because he was going far away. I knew he 
 would never reproach me and make me un 
 happy as she does ; it seems to have been so 
 much trouble to her to bring me into the world 
 and take care of me, and she always forgets 
 that I did not ask to come. It seemed to me 
 that I should be almost content just to be 
 loved without trying to love him, because he 
 would not always be telling me that I ought 
 to persuade some other person to take care 
 of me, but now " She dropped on her 
 knees beside the bed and buried her face in 
 her hands. " Oh, Willie, Willie," she sobbed, 
 " I shall not let any one know that I care, 
 excepting you ! You are always so good to 
 me, Willie, and I had to come away from
 
 TALES 283 
 
 mamma just now or I should have done some 
 thing, I don t know what, and I was so glad 
 there was an excuse to get away." 
 
 Mr. Willie let his hand rest upon her 
 quivering shoulder as tenderly as the sunset 
 color lingered on her hair. " Juanita, do you 
 mind if I tell you something?" he asked. 
 
 She lifted a wild, bright face to him. 
 " Mind ?" she answered, with a halting breath ; 
 " you may tell me anything you please. Did I 
 say that I cared ? I don t care about anything 
 in the world now. They have had the chance 
 I gave them, and I am happy to be free." 
 
 The ring in her voice seemed to put him far 
 away from her. His hand trembled a little on 
 her shoulder and withdrew. " I wish I could 
 have kept all this from happening," he said. 
 
 " What could you have done? " she asked. 
 
 The color of the west had fallen on her 
 cheeks and in her eyes. He gazed at her, 
 and his voice was only a whisper through the 
 hush. "Perhaps I could have taught you 
 how to love me, dear," he said. 
 
 She gave a little laugh. " And after that? " 
 she asked. 
 
 "After that? " he repeated, wondering, for 
 the brightness deepened on her face instead 
 of fading with the clouds. 
 
 " Because," she said softly, " you taught 
 me that a long time ago, Willie. That was 
 what made me so happy to be free."
 
 284 MR. WILLIE S WEDDING-VEIL 
 
 He stretched out his hand to her, and she 
 clasped it close in hers. The twilight was so 
 still that they could hear the soft incoming of 
 the tide. 
 
 There came a sound of shuffling footsteps 
 in the hall. " De young lady s hoss is gittin 
 tol able skittish count of all dese skeeters, 
 Mr. Willie, suh," a voice said at the door. 
 , " All right, Ann ; I m coming," Juanita 
 called. She bent above Mr. Willie for a 
 moment, and went out past old Ann, who 
 eyed her sharply, looking for the veil. A 
 moment later the old horse plodded off along 
 the drive, and Mr. Willie could hear the 
 measured thud of his hoofs long after they 
 had passed the gate and old Ann had shut it 
 with a clang. 
 
 The old woman came back presently, and 
 she looked at Mr. Willie with affection as she 
 turned his pillows for him and rearranged his 
 veil. 
 
 " Yo mighty right not to let go of it," she 
 said. " Miss Juanita s a good nough girl, 
 but dat ain t no scuse faw givin her yo 
 weddin -veil. Yo goin to want a wife of yo 
 own some day, Mr. Willie, an dat veil ll 
 come in mighty handy to save her from 
 gittin one, if yo keeps it nice." 
 
 And Mr. Willie smiled and said, " Ann, 
 that is very true."
 
 Date Due 
 
 CAT. NO. 24 161
 
 A 000542319 9